Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China announced on Sunday two new confirmed cases of coronavirus and four new asymptomatic cases, including one person without symptoms of COVID-19 on a chartered flight from Germany.
The two confirmed cases in Shandong province on Saturday compared with four cases the day before, data from the country’s health authority showed.
The National Health Commission (NHC) confirmed three new asymptomatic cases on Saturday.
On Sunday, the Chinese city of Tianjin confirmed one asymptomatic person, a passenger arriving from Frankfurt on a chartered Lufthansa flight, LH342, to Tianjin. This case was discovered between midnight and 6 a.m. local time on Sunday, the city’s daily statements show.
These charter flights are part of an accelerated entry procedure offered by Beijing as China and Germany seek to reignite their economies after months of lockdown. The flight to Tianjin carried about 200 passengers, mostly German business executives.
Lufthansa has another charter flight scheduled for Shanghai on Wednesday.
A 34-year-old German engineer tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving in Tianjin but he does not have any symptoms, the Tianjin government said on its official social media platform Weibo.
The asymptomatic patient has been transferred to a local hospital to be placed under medical observation, the Tianjin government said, adding that the whole process was a “closed loop”, meaning posing no great risk to the Chinese public.
US President Donald Trump has described the coronavirus pandemic as the “worst attack” ever on the United States, pointing the finger at China.
Mr Trump said the outbreak had hit the US harder than the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War Two, or the 9/11 attacks two decades ago.
His administration is weighing punitive actions against China over its early handling of the global emergency.
Beijing says the US wants to distract from its own response to the pandemic.
Since emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, the coronavirus is confirmed to have infected 1.2 million Americans, killing more than 73,000.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday, Mr Trump said: “We went through the worst attack we’ve ever had on our country, this is worst attack we’ve ever had.
“This is worse than Pearl Harbor, this is worse than the World Trade Center. There’s never been an attack like this.
“And it should have never happened. Could’ve been stopped at the source. Could’ve been stopped in China. It should’ve been stopped right at the source. And it wasn’t.”
Media caption Life for asylum seekers in lockdown on the US-Mexico border
Asked later by a reporter if he saw the pandemic as an actual act of war, Mr Trump indicated the outbreak was America’s foe, rather than China.
“I view the invisible enemy [coronavirus] as a war,” he said. “I don’t like how it got here, because it could have been stopped, but no, I view the invisible enemy like a war.”
Media caption US shopping centres re-open: ‘This is the best day ever’
Who else in Trump’s team is criticising China?
The deepening rift between Washington and Beijing was further underscored on Wednesday as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo renewed his rhetoric against China, accusing it of covering up the outbreak.
He stuck by his so far unsubstantiated charge that there is “enormous evidence” the coronavirus hatched in a Chinese laboratory, even while acknowledging there is still uncertainty about its origins.
“Those statements are both true,” America’s top diplomat told the BBC. “We don’t have certainty and there is significant evidence that it came from a lab.”
One of the most trusted US public health experts has said the best evidence indicates the virus was not made in a lab.
Dr Anthony Fauci, a member of Mr Trump’s coronavirus task force, said on Monday the illness appeared to have “evolved in nature and then jumped species”.
Why is the US blaming China?
President Trump faces a tough re-election campaign in November, but the once humming US economy – which had been his main selling point – is currently in a coronavirus-induced coma.
As Mr Trump found his management of the crisis under scrutiny, he began labelling the outbreak “the China virus”, but dropped that term last month days before speaking by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Both Mr Trump and his likely Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, appear to be fastening on to China’s unpopularity as an election issue, with each accusing the other of being a patsy for America’s primary economic competitor.
As the coronavirus began spreading in the US back in January, Mr Trump signed phase one of a trade deal with China that called a truce in their tariff war. The US president’s hopes of sealing a more comprehensive phase two deal are now in limbo because of the pandemic.
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A northeastern Chinese city of 10 million people struggling with currently the country’s biggest coronavirus cluster shut dine-in services on Saturday, as the rest of China eases restrictions designed to hamper the spread of the disease.
Harbin, the provincial capital of Heilongjiang and its biggest city, said it temporarily suspended dine-in services for all eateries, reported the official CCTV citing an emergency epidemic prevention notice.
Catering services operating in the city, such as barbecue eateries and those selling skewers, shabu shabu, and stew, shall suspend dine-in meals until further notice and in accordance with changes in the epidemic situation, the notice said.
While mainland China reported only one case on Saturday and crowds returned to some of its most famous tourist attractions for the 5-day May holiday, the northern province of Heilongjiang is hunkering down to prevent further clusters from forming.
Of the 140 local transmissions in mainland China, over half have been reported as from Heilongjiang, according to a Reuters tally.
Heilongjiang province borders Russia and has become the frontline in the fight against a resurgence of the coronavirus epidemic, with many new infections from citizens entering from Russia.
The province has already banned entry to residential zones by non-locals and vehicles registered elsewhere. It had also ordered isolation for those arriving from outside China or key epidemic areas.
On the back of the outbreak, deputy secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Wang Wentao said at a Friday meeting “we deeply blame ourselves”, according to local media.
“We had an inadequate understanding of epidemic prevention and control,” said Wang, adding that the failure to carry out testing in a timely manner contributed to the clusters.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The Chinese city of Wuhan recently lifted its strict quarantine measures
The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus originated last year, has raised its official Covid-19 death toll by 50%, adding 1,290 fatalities.
Wuhan officials attributed the new figure to updated reporting and deaths outside hospitals. China has insisted there was no cover-up.
It has been accused of downplaying the severity of its virus outbreak.
Wuhan’s 11 million residents spent months in strict lockdown conditions, which have only recently been eased.
The latest official figures bring the death toll in the city in China’s central Hubei province to 3,869, increasing the national total to more than 4,600.
China has confirmed nearly 84,000 coronavirus infections, the seventh-highest globally, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
What’s China’s explanation for the rise in deaths?
In a statement released on Friday, officials in Wuhan said the revised figures were the result of new data received from multiple sources, including records kept by funeral homes and prisons.
Deaths linked to the virus outside hospitals, such as people who died at home, had not previously been recorded.
Media caption Learn how Wuhan dealt with the lockdown
The “statistical verification” followed efforts by authorities to “ensure that information on the city’s Covid-19 epidemic is open, transparent and the data [is] accurate”, the statement said.
It added that health systems were initially overwhelmed and cases were “mistakenly reported” – in some instances counted more than once and in others missed entirely.
A shortage of testing capacity in the early stages meant that many infected patients were not accounted for, it said.
A spokesman for China’s National Health Commission, Mi Feng, said the new death count came from a “comprehensive review” of epidemic data.
In its daily news conference, the foreign ministry said accusations of a cover-up, which have been made most stridently on the world stage by US President Donald Trump, were unsubstantiated. “We’ll never allow any concealment,” a spokesman said.
Why are there concerns over China’s figures?
Friday’s revised figures come amid growing international concern that deaths in China have been under-reported. Questions have also been raised about Beijing’s handling of the epidemic, particularly in its early stages.
In December 2019, Chinese authorities launched an investigation into a mysterious viral pneumonia after cases began circulating in Wuhan.
China reported the cases to the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN’s global health agency, on 31 December.
But WHO experts were only allowed to visit China and investigate the outbreak on 10 February, by which time the country had more than 40,000 cases.
The mayor of Wuhan has previously admitted there was a lack of action between the start of January – when about 100 cases had been confirmed – and 23 January, when city-wide restrictions were enacted.
Around that time, a doctor who tried to warn his colleagues about an outbreak of a Sars-like virus was silenced by the authorities. Dr Li Wenliang later died from Covid-19.
Wuhan’s death toll increase of almost exactly 50% has left some analysts wondering if this is all a bit too neat.
For months questions have been asked about the veracity of China’s official coronavirus statistics.
The inference has been that some Chinese officials may have deliberately under-reported deaths and infections to give the impression that cities and towns were successfully managing the emergency.
If that was the case, Chinese officials were not to know just how bad this crisis would get in other countries, making its own figures now seem implausibly small.
The authorities in Wuhan, where the first cluster of this disease was reported, said there had been no deliberate misrepresentation of data, rather that a stabilisation in the emergency had allowed them time to revisit the reported cases and to add any previously missed.
That the new death toll was released at the same time as a press conference announcing a total collapse in China’s economic growth figures has led some to wonder whether this was a deliberate attempt to bury one or other of these stories.
Then again, it could also be a complete coincidence.
China has been pushing back against US suggestions that the coronavirus came from a laboratory studying infectious diseases in Wuhan, the BBC’s Barbara Plett Usher in Washington DC reports.
US President Donald Trump and some of his officials have been flirting with the outlier theory in the midst of a propaganda war with China over the origin and handling of the pandemic, our correspondent says.
Mr Trump this week halted funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing it of making deadly mistakes and overly trusting China.
“Do you really believe those numbers in this vast country called China, and that they have a certain number of cases and a certain number of deaths; does anybody really believe that?” Mr Trump said at the White House on Wednesday.
On Thursday, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “We’ll have to ask the hard questions about how [coronavirus] came about and how it couldn’t have been stopped earlier.”
But China has also been praised for its handling of the crisis and the unprecedented restrictions that it instituted to slow the spread of the virus.
SUIFENHE, China (Reuters) – China’s northeastern border with Russia has become a frontline in the fight against a resurgence of the coronavirus epidemic as new daily cases rose to the highest in nearly six weeks – with more than 90% involving people coming from abroad.
Having largely stamped out domestic transmission of the disease, China has been slowly easing curbs on movement as it tries to get its economy back on track, but there are fears that a rise in imported cases could spark a second wave of COVID-19.
A total of 108 new coronavirus cases were reported in mainland China on Sunday, up from 99 a day earlier, marking the highest daily tally since March 5.
Imported cases accounted for a record 98. Half involved Chinese nationals returning from Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District, home to the city of Vladivostok, who re-entered China through border crossings in Heilongjiang province.
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“Our little town here, we thought it was the safest place,” said a resident of the border city of Suifenhe, who only gave his surname as Zhu.
“Some Chinese citizens – they want to come back, but it’s not very sensible, what are you doing coming here for?”
The border is closed, except to Chinese nationals, and the land route through the city had become one of few options available for people trying to return home after Russia stopped flights to China except for those evacuating people.
Streets in Suifenhe were virtually empty on Sunday evening due to restrictions of movement and gatherings announced last week, when authorities took preventative measures similar to those imposed in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the pandemic ripping round the world first emerged late last year.
The total number of confirmed cases in mainland China now stands at 82,160 as of Sunday, and at the peak of the first wave of the epidemic on Feb 12 there were over 15,000 new cases.
Though the number of daily infections across China has dropped sharply from that peak, China has seen the daily toll creep higher after hitting a trough on March 12 because of the rise in imported cases.
Chinese cities near the Russian frontier are tightening border controls and imposing stricter quarantines in response.
Suifenhe and Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang, are now mandating 28 days of quarantine as well as nucleic acid and antibody tests for all arrivals from abroad.
In Shanghai, authorities found that 60 people who arrived on Aeroflot flight SU208 from Moscow on April 10 have the coronavirus, Zheng Jin, a spokeswoman for the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, told a press conference on Monday.
Residents in Suifenhe said a lot of people had left the city fearing contagion, but others put their trust in authorities’ containment measures.
“I don’t need to worry,” Zhao Wei, another Suifenhe resident, told Reuters. “If there’s a local transmission, I would, but there’s not a single one. They’re all from the border, but they’ve all been sent to quarantine.”
The patients were all returning Chinese citizens who had flown from Moscow to Vladivostok, a Russian city around 100 miles south.
All the new patients were taken to hospital, with two in a serious condition.
In addition, another 86 people in Suifenhe – who came via the same route – were classed as “asymptomatic” but positive for the virus, which China counts separately.
What has Suifenhe done?
The border was closed to people on Tuesday, the local government said, although cargo can continue. Russia closed its border with China in February.
People in the city have been told to stay at home, although the lockdown isn’t as severe as Hubei province experienced. One person per house can shop for essentials every three days.
At the same time, the new hospital – in an existing building – is due to open this weekend, intended for patients with mild symptoms.
“Of course I’m very scared,” one woman who runs a bakery shop told the BBC.
“We don’t leave the house now. Many people already left the city. But we can’t do that, because we have a shop need to take care of.”
Image copyright SOVFOTOImage caption This picture from 2005 showed the extent of Russian timber exports passing through Suifenhe railway station
Meanwhile, a member of staff at a restaurant in the city said it was normally their high season, with around 1,000 customers a day.
Instead, they were told to close earlier this week, with “no idea” when they can open again.
But the staff member was not critical of the government. He said the lockdown made him feel “secure” – and that he was “very confident” the government would look after the situation.
What is the situation in the rest of China?
China’s recorded rate of Covid-19 infections has slowed dramatically in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, people were allowed to leave Wuhan – where the outbreak emerged – for the first time in 11 weeks if they were deemed virus-free.
There were 221 inbound and outbound flights, with more than 7,000 people leaving and 4,500 arriving. More than half a million used public transport, state media reported.
But although people from Wuhan can leave, they still face restrictions in other cities. In Beijing, for example, they will be tested upon arrival, according to local media.
Even if they pass, they will then be quarantined for 14 days – and tested again – before being released.
In Wuhan, the epicentre of China’s outbreak, all traffic lights in urban areas were turned red at 10:00, ceasing traffic for three minutes.
China’s government said the event was a chance to pay respects to “martyrs”, a reference to the 14 medical workers who died battling the virus.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption China came to a standstill during the three-minute silence at 10:00 local time
They include Li Wenliang, a doctor in Wuhan who died of Covid-19 after being reprimanded by the authorities for attempting to warn others about the disease.
“I feel a lot of sorrow about our colleagues and patients who died,” a Chinese nurse who treated coronavirus patients told AFP news agency. “I hope they can rest well in heaven.”
Wearing white flowers pinned to their chest, Chinese President Xi Jinping and other government officials paid silent tribute in Beijing.
Saturday’s commemorations coincide with the annual Qingming festival, when millions of Chinese families pay respects to their ancestors.
China first informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about cases of pneumonia with unknown causes on 31 December last year.
By 18 January, the confirmed number of cases had risen to around 60 – but experts estimated the real figure was closer to 1,700.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption China’s government said the commemoration was held to pay respects to “martyrs”
Just two days later, as millions of people prepared to travel for the lunar new year, the number of cases more than tripled to more than 200 and the virus was detected in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
From that point, the virus began to spread rapidly in Asia and then Europe, eventually reaching every corner of the globe.
Media caption The BBC met people in Beijing heading out after the lockdown
In the past few weeks, China has started to ease travel and social-distancing restrictions, believing it has brought the health emergency under control.
Last weekend, Wuhan partially re-opened after more than two months of isolation.
On Saturday, China reported 19 new confirmed cases of coronavirus, down from 31 a day earlier. China’s health commission said 18 of those cases involved travellers arriving from abroad.
As it battles to control cases coming from abroad, China temporarily banned all foreign visitors, even if they have visas or residence permits.
What is the latest worldwide?
As the coronavirus crisis in China abates, the rest of the world remains firmly in the grip of the disease.
The deaths increased by 1,480 in 24 hours, the highest daily death toll since the pandemic began, AFP news agency reported, citing Johns Hopkins University’s case tracker.
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the pandemic has bought the global economy to a standstill, causing a recession “way worse than the global financial crisis” of 2008
The United Nations appealed to governments around the world not to use the pandemic as an excuse to stifle dissent
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Most Chinese people don’t actually consume dogs and cats and never plan to
Shenzhen has become the first Chinese city to ban the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat.
It comes after the coronavirus outbreak was linked to wildlife meat, prompting Chinese authorities to ban the trade and consumption of wild animals.
Shenzhen went a step further, extending the ban to dogs and cats. The new law will come into force on 1 May.
Thirty million dogs a year are killed across Asia for meat, says Humane Society International (HSI).
However, the practice of eating dog meat in China is not that common – the majority of Chinese people have never done so and say don’t want to.
“Dogs and cats as pets have established a much closer relationship with humans than all other animals, and banning the consumption of dogs and cats and other pets is a common practice in developed countries and in Hong Kong and Taiwan,” the Shenzhen city government said, according to a Reuters report.
“This ban also responds to the demand and spirit of human civilization.”
Animal advocacy organisation HSI praised the move.
“This really could be a watershed moment in efforts to end this brutal trade that kills an estimated 10 million dogs and 4 million cats in China every year,” said Dr Peter Li, China policy specialist for HSI.
However, at the same time as this ruling, China approved the use of bear bile to treat coronavirus patients.
Bear bile – a digestive fluid drained from living captive bears – has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine.
The active ingredient, ursodeoxycholic acid, is used to dissolve gallstones and treat liver disease. But there is no proof that it is effective against the coronavirus and the process is painful and distressing for the animals
Brian Daly, a spokesman for the Animals Asia Foundation, told AFP: “We shouldn’t be relying on wildlife products like bear bile as the solution to combat a deadly virus that appears to have originated from wildlife.”
In February, Chinese authorities banned the trade and consumption of wild animals.
The move came after it emerged that a market in Wuhan selling wild animals and wildlife meat could have been the starting point for the outbreak of the new coronavirus, providing the means for the virus to travel from animals to humans.
News of this led the Chinese government to crack down strongly on the trade and on the markets that sold such products.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption File photo of a wet market in China
There are now close to one million confirmed cases of the virus worldwide, and more than 47,000 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.
In China alone, there are 81,589 confirmed cases and 3,318 deaths, said the National Health Commission.
Scientists and researchers are still no closer to finding out what the source of the virus is and how it could have spread to humans.
As well as earning three times the industry average, successful candidates are promised 165 days’ leave
Social media posts linked to story attract more than 60 million views
Authorities in Shenzhen are offering three times the national average salary to attract more teachers. Photo: Weibo
A recruitment advertisement offering schoolteachers in southern China the chance to earn up to 280,000 yuan (US$39,500) a year – more than three times the industry average – has sparked a massive response on social media.
Published by the Longhua district education bureau in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, the advert said it was looking for 400 high, middle and primary schoolteachers. As well as an annual salary of between 260,000 yuan and 280,000 yuan, depending on qualifications, the very best candidates would receive a bonus of between 30,000 and 80,000 yuan, it said.
New recruits would also be entitled to 165 days’ leave per year, though the advert – published on Tuesday on WeChat, China’s most popular messaging platform – did not make clear if that included weekends.
The Longhua district education bureau says it is looking for 400 new teachers. Photo: Weibo
The hashtag “Shenzhen middle schoolteachers are being recruited for almost 300,000 yuan a year” racked up almost 60 million views on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.
While some people praised the authority for trying to attract the best possible candidates – it said itself that hundreds of teachers currently working in the district were graduates of China’s top universities, including Peking and Beijing Normal – others said that even with a sky-high salary most young professionals would find it hard to get by in Shenzhen.
“Do you know how expensive houses are in Shenzhen?” one person wrote on Weibo. “You need to wait several years after graduation before buying a house, unless you already have money.”
“Even if your starting salary is 200,000 yuan or 300,000 yuan, you’ll still need to wait 10 years before you’ve saved up enough to buy a house,” said another.
The advert said the new teachers will be get 165 days’ leave per year. Photo: Xinhua
The education bureau has not released any additional information about the recruitment campaign and calls to its offices on Friday went unanswered.
However, it said in a recent Q&A on its website that teachers’ salaries were in line with those of civil servants in the district, and had been steadily rising under a reform of the pay system.
Longhua is not the first district in Shenzhen to offer attractive salary packages, however. In May, 21st Century Business Herald reported that authorities in Yantian district had recruited 20 teachers from Beijing with the offer of between 290,000 yuan and 330,000 yuan a year.
According to central government figures released in May, teachers in China’s public schools earned an average of 92,383 yuan last year.
While Shenzhen has grown from a once sleepy fishing village to a vast metropolis, and is now slated to become a model city for China, its education facilities have failed to keep pace with other areas of development. It also faces competition from more established centres, like Beijing and Shanghai.
Despite having a population of about 15 million, the city has just 344 primary schools. By comparison, the provincial capital Guangzhou, which has a similar population, has 961 primary schools and about 17,000 more primary schoolteachers.
According to official figures, of the nearly 80,000 students who applied for places at public secondary schools in Shenzhen last year, just 35,000 were accepted. That left the parents of the remainder having no option but to pay for places at private schools in the city or, in some cases, send their children overseas to study.
The problem is set to get worse as Shenzhen’s preschool system is already straining under the pressure of the city’s high birth rate.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 