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.
Researchers conclude that the virus was circulating undetected in France in February
Findings highlight the difficulties governments face in tracing the source of coronavirus outbreaks
Researchers in France have carried out genetic analysis and found that the dominant types of the viral strains in the country did not come from China or Italy. Photo: AP
The coronavirus outbreak in France was not caused by cases imported from China, but from a locally circulating strain of unknown origin, according to a new study by French scientists at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.
Genetic analysis showed that the dominant types of the viral strains in France belonged to a clade – or group with a common ancestor – that did not come from China or Italy, the earliest hotspot in Europe.
“The French outbreak has been mainly seeded by one or several variants of this clade … we can infer that the virus was silently circulating in France in February,” said researchers led by Dr Sylvie van der Werf and Etienne Simon-Loriere in a non-peer reviewed paper released on bioRxiv.org last week.
The Covid-19 pandemic has infected more than 128,000 people in France and caused more than 23,000 deaths.
France detected the virus in late January, before any other country in Europe. A few patients with a travel history that included China’s Hubei province were sampled on January 24 and tested positive.
The Covid-19 pandemic has infected more than 128,000 people in France and caused more than 23,000 deaths. Photo: AFP
The French government took quick and decisive measures to trace contacts of the infected people and shut down the chance of further infection.
However, these strains were not found in patients tested after the initial imported cases, suggesting “the quarantine imposed on the initial Covid-19 cases in France appears to have prevented local transmission”, the researchers said.
The Pasteur institute collected samples from more than 90 other patients across France and found the strains all came from one genetic line. Strains following this unique path of evolution had so far only been detected in Europe and the Americas.
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The earliest sample in the French clade was collected on February 19 from a patient who had no history of travel and no known contact with returned travellers.
Several patients had recently travelled to other European countries, the United Arab Emirates, Madagascar and Egypt but there was no direct evidence that they contracted the disease in these destinations.
To the researchers’ surprise, some of the later strains collected were genetically older – or closer to the ancestral root – than the first sample in this clade.
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A possible explanation, according to the authors, was that local transmission had been occurring in France for some time without being detected by health authorities.
The French government may have missed detecting the transmission. According to the researchers, a large proportion of those patients might have had mild symptoms or none at all.
The researchers also found that three sequences later sampled in Algeria were closely related to those in France, suggesting that travellers from France might have introduced the virus to the African country and caused an outbreak.
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Benjamin Neuman, professor and chair of biological sciences with the Texas A&M University-Texarkana, said the French strains might have come from Belgium, where some sequences most closely related to the original strain from China were clustered.
“Since the earliest European strains of [the coronavirus] Sars-CoV-2 seem to be associated with Belgium, the idea that the virus spread from Belgium to both Italy and France at around the same time seems plausible, as this paper contends,” he said.
France is the latest in a growing number of countries and areas where no direct link between China and local outbreaks could be established.
The dominant strains in Russia and Australia, for instance, came from Europe and the United States, respectively, according to some studies.
These findings have drawn fire from some politicians who have tried to deflect domestic anger over their handling of the crisis by blaming China.
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“So now the Fake News @nytimes is tracing the CoronaVirus origins back to Europe, NOT China. This is a first!” he tweeted on April 11, referring to a story about the studies in the The New York Times’ science section.
The findings also highlight the difficulties governments face in tracing the source of coronavirus outbreaks.
Less-developed countries may never know where their strains came from due to inadequate testing and sequencing capability.
India, for example, has released the genetic sequence of fewer than 40 samples to the public so far, a small number considering its huge population.
Most of the strains sampled in 35 early cases came from clades that could be traced to Italy and Iran, with only a few from China, according to a recent study. But researchers were not able to track further because of the lack of data.
A scientist on the study, Dr Mukesh Thakur, of the Zoological Survey of India, said it was too early to rule out China as the source of outbreaks in India because the number of samples at hand was limited.
A 20-year-old student studying medicine in Wuhan, for instance, might have come in contact with many people on the way home before she was tested positive on January 30.
Thakur said local media reported that the Indian government quarantined 3,500 people possibly linked to three positive cases imported from Wuhan.
“God knows how many of them tested positive in the subsequent stages,” Thakur said in an email response to the Post’s queries on Tuesday.
Some prominent scientists, including Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, said the virus might have been spreading quietly in humans for years, or even decades, without causing a detectable outbreak.
The virus had thus adapted well to the human body. Some genes regulating its binding to host cells were similar, or even identical, to those found in some other highly infectious human viruses, such as HIV and Ebola.
According to some estimates, the ancestor of Sars-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19, might have left bats between 50 and 70 years ago. A recent study by a team of geneticists in Oxford University estimated the first outbreak of the current pandemic could have occurred as early as September last year.
They found that the dominant strains circulating in China and Asia were genetically younger than some popular strains in the United States.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China announced on Wednesday that its parliament will open a key annual session on May 22, signalling that Beijing sees the country returning to normal after being reduced to a near-standstill for months by the COVID-19 epidemic.
During the gathering of the National People’s Congress in the capital, delegates will ratify major legislation, and the government will unveil economic targets, set defence spending projections and make personnel changes. The ruling Communist Party also typically announces signature policy initiatives.
The session was initially scheduled to start on March 5 but was postponed due to COVID-19, which has infected nearly 83,000 people and killed more than 4,600 on the mainland after emerging late last year in the central city of Wuhan.
As the epidemic has subsided, economic and social life gradually returned to normal, making it possible for the congress to convene, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the standing committee of the NPC, the legislature’s top decision-making body, as saying.
The committee also appointed Huang Runqiu as the new minister for ecology and environment, a post vacated when predecessor Li Ganjie became deputy Communist Party chief for Shandong province earlier this month, Xinhua reported.
Tang Yijun was also named as the new justice minister to replace Fu Zhenghua, who has reached the retirement age of 65 for ministers.
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body to parliament, has proposed starting its annual session a day before the parliamentary session opens.
Analysts expect China to roll out additional fiscal stimulus in order to cushion the blow from COVID-19, which has developed in to a worldwide pandemic that some fear will trigger a severe global recession.
China’s economy contracted for the first time on record during the January-March period, when the government imposed severe travel and transport restriction to curb the spread of the epidemic.
Parliament is also expected to discuss the anti-government protests in Hong Kong, amid growing speculation that Beijing take steps to strengthen its grip on the city.
It is unclear how long parliament and its advisory body will meet for this time, and people familiar with the matter have told Reuters that this year’s annual sessions could be the shortest in decades due to COVID-19 concerns. Usually more than 5,000 delegates descend on Beijing from all over China for at least 10 days.
Beijing city plans to ease quarantine rules as early as Thursday, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters, ahead of the key political meetings.
People arriving in the capital from other parts of China will no long have to be quarantined for two weeks unless they come from high-risk areas such as Heilongjiang in the north and some parts of Guangdong in the southeast, the sources said.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China will cut its subsidies on new energy vehicles (NEV) by 10% this year, and will expand government purchases of NEVs, the finance ministry said on Thursday.
China will in principle cut such subsidies by 20% in 2021 and 30% in 2022, the finance ministry said in a statement. However, it will not cut subsidies on qualified new energy commercial vehicles earmarked for public purposes this year.
Under the plan, China would extend subsidies for NEV purchases to 2022, rather than ending them this year, and extend their purchase tax exemption for two years.
China will slightly lift the requirements for the driving range and power efficiency of cars qualified for the subsidies, the statement said, adding authorities will support the sales of cars with swappable batteries, a technology that has been pursued by Chinese electric vehicle makers Nio Inc (NIO.N) and BAIC BluePark (600733.SS).
Only passenger cars cheaper than 300,000 yuan (34,330.23 pounds) will be offered subsidies, it said. The price is higher than starting price of Tesla Inc’s (TSLA.O) China-made Model 3 sedans.
China also said authorities will give priority to purchase new energy vehicles for government use but did not give further details.
The new policy is effective from April 23. NEVs include battery-powered electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.
China has set an aggressive goal for NEVs to account for a fifth of auto sales by 2025 compared with the current 5%, as it seeks to reduce pollution and cultivate homegrown champions.
Sales of NEVs, however, contracted for a ninth month in a row in March and were down over 50% from a year earlier, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
China’s economy shrank for the first time in decades in the first quarter of the year, as the virus forced factories and businesses to close.
The world’s second biggest economy contracted 6.8% according to official data released on Friday.
The financial toll the coronavirus is having on the Chinese economy will be a huge concern to other countries.
China is an economic powerhouse as a major consumer and producer of goods and services.
This is the first time China has seen its economy shrink in the first three months of the year since it started recording quarterly figures in 1992.
“The GDP contraction in January-March will translate into permanent income losses, reflected in bankruptcies across small companies and job losses,” said Yue Su at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Last year, China saw healthy economic growth of 6.4% in the first quarter, a period when it was locked in a trade war with the US.
In the last two decades, China has seen average economic growth of around 9% a year, although experts have regularly questioned the accuracy of its economic data.
Its economy had ground to a halt during the first three months of the year as it introduced large-scale shutdowns and quarantines to prevent the virus spread in late January.
As a result, economists had expected bleak figures, but the official data comes in slightly worse than expected.
Among other key figures released in Friday’s report:
Factory output was down 1.1% for March as China slowly starts manufacturing again.
Retail sales plummeted 15.8% last month as many of shoppers stayed at home.
Unemployment hit 5.9% in March, slightly better than February’s all-time high of 6.2%.
Analysis: A 6% expansion wiped out
Robin Brant, BBC News, Shanghai
The huge decline shows the profound impact that the virus outbreak, and the government’s draconian reaction to it, had on the world’s second largest economy. It wipes out the 6% expansion in China’s economy recorded in the last set of figures at the end of last year.
Beijing has signalled a significant economic stimulus is on the way as it tries to stabilise its economy and recover. Earlier this week the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, the People’s Daily, reported it would “expand domestic demand”.
But the slowdown in the rest of the global economy presents a significant problem as exports still play a major role in China’s economy. If it comes this will not be a quick recovery.
On Thursday the International Monetary Fund forecast China’s economy would avoid a recession but grow by just 1.2% this year. Job figures released recently showed the official government unemployment figure had risen sharply, with the number working in companies linked to export trade falling the most.
China has unveiled a range of financial support measures to cushion the impact of the slowdown, but not on the same scale as other major economies.
“We don’t expect large stimulus, given that that remains unpopular in Beijing. Instead, we think policymakers will accept low growth this year, given the prospects for a better 2021,” said Louis Kuijs, an analyst with Oxford Economics.
Since March, China has slowly started letting factories resume production and letting businesses reopen, but this is a gradual process to return to pre-lockdown levels.
Media caption Why does China’s economy matter to you?
China relies heavily on its factories and manufacturing plants for economic growth, and has been dubbed “the world’s factory”.
Stock markets in the region showed mixed reaction to the Chinese economic data, with China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite index up 0.9%.
Most of the relief fund earmarked to subsidise employees’ wages in affected industries
Lam and ministers slash their salaries following controversy over chief executive’s pay
Many businesses have been forced to close because of the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Winson Wong
More than 1 million Hong Kong workers will have part of their wages paid for by the government under a HK$137.5 billion package of measures to help businesses and residents struggling during the Covid-19 crisis, while the city’s leader and her ministers have vowed to take a pay cut, the Post has learned.
Revealing the massive relief fund on Wednesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said HK$80 billion would go towards the wage scheme, targeting coronavirus-hit industries over six months with individual payments capped at 50 per cent of salaries, up to HK$9,000 a month. The employers receiving the lifeline must pledge not to lay off workers, she added.
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Lam said the package, together with other recent pledges of financial relief, would cost a total of HK$287.5 billion, causing the budget deficit to surge from HK$139.1 billion this financial year to HK$276.6 billion, which is equivalent to 9.5 per cent of gross domestic product.
The relief deal is equivalent in size to 4.6 per cent of the city’s GDP.
Meanwhile, Lam’s monthly salary will fall to HK$390,000 after rising to HK$434,000 last July.
Lam and her 16 ministers had voluntarily agreed to a 10 per cent pay reduction for a year, the chief executive told the press conference.
The HK$137.5 billion deal – which was given the green light by her Executive Council earlier in the day – aims to safeguard employment and ease the woes of businesses, with the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the city reaching 960 on Wednesday.
A source said: “The scheme is aimed at coping with the economic hardship brought by the pandemic in the next six months. More than 1 million employees from various sectors, on top of those directly affected by the government’s social-distancing measures, will benefit.”
Staff affected by the latest social-distancing rules – including businesses forced to close – will benefit from the wage scheme, along with employees in sectors such as tourism and construction, two other sources said.
Some businesses set to benefit would be those related to education, such as tutorial centres, school bus operators and PE coaches contracted from outside, according to one.
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“The government is drawing reference from the British government’s recent practice of paying 80 per cent of salaries of employees in affected industries, although the percentage and cap are lower in Hong Kong,” one source said.
In an unprecedented step announced last month, the UK government said the state would pay grants covering up to 80 per cent of salaries if companies kept workers on the payroll rather than laying them off.
In Singapore, the government has offered to pay 75 per cent of workers’ April wages, capped at S$4,600 (HK$25,000) per person.
The Japanese government on Tuesday approved its largest-ever economic relief package, which includes grants of up to 2 million yen (US$18,350), for small and medium-sized businesses whose revenues had more than halved.
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With the Hong Kong government sitting on reserves of more than HK$1.1 trillion, the Professional Commons think tank said the authorities should spend HK$200 billion on businesses and workers, including handing HK$7,500 a month over six months to sacked staff and covering 80 per cent of salaries up to a monthly maximum of HK$25,000 for workers at struggling firms and the self-employed.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 