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.
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Plunges in official and private sector purchasing managers’ indices amid the coronavirus outbreak prompted sharp revisions of economic forecasts
Analysts expect China to enact additional fiscal and monetary stimulus but stop short of massive support enacted after the global financial crisis in 2008
Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, the once unthinkable scenario in which China’s economy posts a zero growth rate or even an absolute contraction compared to the previous quarter is now seen as a real possibility. Photo: AP
The odds are rising that China will report a sharp deceleration in growth – or even a contraction in the first quarter as a result of the impact of the coronavirus epidemic.
The outbreak has paralysed the country’s manufacturing and service sectors, putting Beijing in the difficult position of either forgoing its economic growth goal for 2020 or returning to its old playbook of massive debt-fuelled economic stimulus to support growth.
The larger-than-expected deterioration in the official and private sector purchasing managers’ indices for both the manufacturing and services sectors to all-time lows in February – the first available economic indicators showing the extent of the economic damage done by the epidemic – has prompted economists to slash their Chinese growth forecasts.
Several are even expecting the once unthinkable scenario in which China’s economy posts a zero growth rate or even an absolute contraction compared to the previous quarter, even though the weakness is likely to be only short-lived.
A contraction in first quarter growth would be the first since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
A report published by the East Asian Institute at the National University Singapore noted that China could report a contraction of 6.3 per cent in the first quarter from the first quarter of 2019, while the growth rate for 2020 is set to fall well short of the 5.6 per cent needed by Beijing to meet its economic goal.
If China still wants to achieve an average 5.6 per cent growth for 2020, it would have to engineer a growth rate of as high as 12.7 per cent in the second half of the year, according to the report by Bert Hofman, Sarah Tong and Li Yao.
“The question is whether this is feasible and whether the consequences in terms of increased debt and potentially less productive investment are worth the price,” according to the report.
What is gross domestic product (GDP)?
China’s headline year-over-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate has hovering in a narrow range between 6 per cent and 7 per cent for 18 consecutive quarters until the end of 2019, but a sharp dip in the otherwise steady growth trajectory in the world’s second largest economy would send fresh warning signs about the risks of relying excessively on China as a production base and consumption market, particularly for large multinationals from Hyundai to Apple.
An official recognition of an economic contraction, even a brief one, would break a long tradition of China reporting consistent growth to prove the Communist Party’s ability to manage the economy and to rally the whole country to achieve one historical milestone after another.
insisted last week that China would realise the vision of building up a “comprehensively well-off” society by 2020, an inheritance from China’s former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and a major gauge of progress to realise Xi’s grand “Chinese dream” by the middle of the century.
One key but loosely defined parameter for achieving a “comprehensively well-off” society is that the size of the economy at the end of this year will be double that of 2010.
To achieve that, economists calculate that China must achieve a 5.6 per cent growth this year, although Beijing has been vague about the specific target, although this now seems out of reach barring massive stimulus or a redefinition of the goal.
Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics, said his group has cut its forecast for the year-on-year growth rate to 2.3 per cent for the first quarter and 4.8 per cent for 2020 overall, adding that it would be next to impossible for China to make up the lost ground during the reminder of the year given the impact of the coronavirus
on the rest of the world, particularly South Korea, Japan and Italy, who are all major trading partners.
It will be extremely difficult, to say the least, to meet the annual growth targets for 2020 set previously. It would require massive, unreasonable amounts of stimulus, if it is at all possible, given the headwinds Louis Kuijs
“It will be extremely difficult, to say the least, to meet the annual growth targets for 2020 set previously. It would require massive, unreasonable amounts of stimulus, if it is at all possible, given the headwinds,” Kuijs said.
Instead, it would “make much more sense” for the Chinese leadership to play down the need to literally meet the previously set economic target,” he added.
Beijing’s social and economic development targets for this year have not yet been made public, even though Xi has pledged that the government would still achieve them despite the challenge posed by the virus outbreak.
The full-year targets covering growth, employment and inflation are usually released at the National People’s Congress, the ceremonial gathering of China’s legislature in early March, but this key annual event has been postponed due to the threat of the coronavirus, which has infected over 80,000 people and killed more than 2,900 in the country as of Tuesday.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics is due to publish first quarter GDP growth data in mid-April, with combined industrial production, retail sales and fixed-asset investment data for January and February due next week.
They will offer a clearer picture of how much the coronavirus epidemic has damaged China’s growth in the first two months of this quarter, although the damage it has caused in China and the rest of the world is hard to measure because the epidemic is still evolving.
Production among manufacturing companies across China, except in the virus epicentre of Wuhan, Hubei province, have been gradually returned to normal, with firms that have close ties to local governments and access to financial resources resuming production faster than the much larger number of small businesses.
Chinese diaspora fights coronavirus discrimination in the US
The latest data from China’s industry ministry showed that only 32.8 per cent of
had restarted production as of the middle of last week, an increase of just 3.2 percentage points from three days earlier. But even among the larger enterprises the government is trying to help, many are not running at full capacity due to disrupted logistics that have impeded the delivery of raw materials to factories and finished products to customers.
A shortage of workers due to travel barriers erected to stem the spread of the virus, or local regulations that prevent factories from resuming full operations until they have implemented sufficient health safeguards, are also hampering efforts.
Foxconn, which assembles most of Apple’s iPhones in China, said normal production is not expected to resume until the end of March.
China, though, has limited its economic aide policies to “targeted” fiscal and monetary moves, avoiding the massive stimulus it undertook in 2008 in response to the global financial crisis that led to the negative side-effects of high debt and unproductive investments.
[China] will be cautious about the scale of any intervention. The size of the stimulus will likely depend on how quickly economic activity recovers on its own Andy Rothman
Andy Rothman, a San Francisco-based strategist for investment fund Matthews Asia and a long-time watcher of the Chinese economy, said China will report a sharp fall in economic activity in the first quarter and that it “is prepared to implement a stimulus”.
“But [China] will be cautious about the scale of any intervention. The size of the stimulus
will likely depend on how quickly economic activity recovers on its own,” Rothman said.
China’s ruling Communist Party has never reported a contraction in economic growth since the country started the reform and opening up movement in 1978.
Even in 1990, when China was hit by Western sanctions following the crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy movement, the country still reported an annual growth of 3.8 per cent.
The larger-than-expected fiscal and monetary policy stimulus will help make meeting the targets for 2020 less challengingLiu Li-Gang
In the history of quarterly GDP growth rates – China started to report such data in 1994 going back to 1992 – the lowest growth rate on record of 6.0 per cent was in the third and fourth quarters of 2019.
The most recent year that China admitted to an economic contraction was 1976, the final year of the Culture Revolution and the year when chairman Mao Zedong died.
Liu Li-Gang, the chief China economist for Citigroup Global Markets Asia in Hong Kong, said Beijing has the policy reserves to keep economic growth on track, including increasing the fiscal deficit and loosening monetary policy.
“The lower GDP growth [in the first quarter] means that larger fiscal and monetary policy easing will be needed,” Liu said. “The larger-than-expected fiscal and monetary policy stimulus will help make meeting the targets for 2020 less challenging.”
Ophthalmologist Mei Zhongming, 57, said to have been infected after working long hours treating patients
He is the third doctor from the hospital to die from Covid-19
Mei Zhongming died at the age of 57 after contracting the virus while he was working at the Wuhan Central Hospital. Photo: Weibo
An ophthalmologist who worked with whistle-blower doctor Li Wenliang on the coronavirus front line in Wuhan has also died from Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Mei Zhongming, 57, contracted the virus while he was working at the Wuhan Central Hospital and died on Tuesday.
His 34-year-old colleague Li – who was silenced by police for sounding the alarm about the new virus strain – also died from the pneumonia-like illness last month, prompting an outpouring of grief and anger in China.
Mei is the third doctor from the hospital to die from Covid-19. Two days ago, Jiang Xueqing, head of thyroid and breast surgery, also died from the disease at the age of 55.
The hospital expressed condolences to Mei’s family and praised his 30 years of service in a brief announcement on social network WeChat.
Public mourning in China after death of coronavirus whistle-blower doctor Li Wenliang
According to the official numbers, 13 doctors and nurses have died from Covid-19 and more than 3,000 have been infected in China since the epidemic began in the central city of Wuhan in December. Hospitals in Wuhan and across the province of Hubei have been swamped with tens of thousands of patients, and health care workers treating them have also had to cope with a shortage of protective gear and medical supplies.
Part of the Wuhan Central Hospital is located just 2km (1.2 miles) from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market – the place the first coronavirus patients were linked to.
The hospital started treating patients who had been in close contact with the market in the middle of December, the director of its emergency department Ai Fen told China News Weekly last month.
Doctors reported the cases to management but no action was taken to protect medical staff at first, and they were warned not to talk publicly about the respiratory illness, the report said.
The Chinese medical workers on the front line of the coronavirus fight in Wuhan
posted a message to a closed group of medical school classmates on WeChat on December 30, warning them about an outbreak of a mysterious viral pneumonia at his hospital.
Two days later, Wuhan police announced that eight people had been punished for “spreading rumours”. It was later reported that they were all medical staff and one of them was Li.
The young doctor fell ill on January 10, later saying that he was probably infected by an 82-year-old glaucoma patient. “The patient did not have a fever, and I didn’t wear extra protection while taking care of her,” Li wrote in his blog. “I was careless.”
Li died from the illness on February 7, sparking widespread grief and fury over Beijing’s crackdown on “online rumours”, and calls for freedom of speech.
According to emergency department director Ai, staff on the front line at Wuhan Central Hospital began wearing N95 respirator masks and other protective gear in January as the number of virus cases jumped – but before authorities confirmed the virus was being transmitted between humans on January 20.
Despite the precautions, the first medical worker at the hospital was confirmed with the virus on January 10. More than 30 others from the emergency department alone have tested positive for Covid-19 since then, Ai told China News Weekly. The department has a staff of 200.
Jiang Xueqing, 55, head of thyroid and breast surgery at the hospital, died on Sunday. Photo: Weibo
The hospital did not give details of how Mei contracted the virus. But a report from the Wuhan Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference on February 18 said he had been infected after working long hours on the coronavirus front line.
Similarly, little information was released about Jiang’s death on Sunday. His colleague Li Hai told official newspaper People’s Daily that Jiang had been exhausted after working “non-stop” treating coronavirus patients.
Wuhan, China scrambles to handle massive amount of medical waste during the epidemic
Ian Lipkin, John Snow professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said the risks faced by health care workers were high, even with protective gear, as they had a very intimate relationship with their patients.
“In addition, those individuals who are working in hospital settings may be immunosuppressed because, frankly, they’re exhausted … the viral load that they receive may be larger,” Lipkin said in a briefing last month after visiting China at the invitation of the government.
The coronavirus has claimed the lives of several young medical workers. Among the youngest was 29-year-old respiratory and critical care doctor Peng Yinhua, who worked at the Jiangxia district People’s No 1 Hospital in Wuhan and died last month from the disease. Peng had planned to get married over the Lunar New Year holiday but postponed his wedding to help treat coronavirus patients.
Another 29-year-old, gastroenterologist Xia Sisi, also died last month after she became infected while working at the Union Jiangbei Hospital in Wuhan.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Authorities are also asking overseas Chinese to reconsider travel plans
Travellers from countries with severe coronavirus outbreaks who arrive in some parts of China will have to undergo a 14-day quarantine, state media say.
Travellers from the virus hotspots of South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy arriving in the capital will have to be isolated, a Beijing official has said.
Shanghai and Guangdong announced similar restrictions earlier.
Authorities are worried the virus might be imported back into the country.
Although most virus deaths have been in China, Monday saw nine times more new infections outside China than in.
Shanghai said it would require new arrivals from countries with “relatively serious virus conditions” to be isolated, without naming the countries.
Authorities are also asking overseas Chinese to reconsider travel plans.
“For the sake of your family’s health and safety, please strengthen your precautions, carefully decide on your travel plans and minimise mobility,” officials in one southern Chinese province said.
China reported 125 new virus cases on Tuesday – the lowest number of new daily infections in six weeks. There were also 31 more deaths – all in Hubei province, where the virus emerged.
In other developments:
Finance ministers from the G7 countries have said they are “ready to take action”, including fiscal measures to aid the response to the virus and support the global economy
The Pope, who had cancelled a Lent retreat for the first time in his papacy because he was suffering from a cold, has tested negative for the virus, Italian media report
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has put the country into a “state of war” and ordered all government departments to shift to a 24-hour emergency system
Jailed British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is in good health, Iran’s judiciary has said. She was assessed after her husband said she was showing symptoms of Covid-19
Media caption Julie, who lives in Singapore, was diagnosed with coronavirus and then put into isolation
How are different countries affected?
There are now almost 90,000 cases worldwide in about 70 countries, although the vast majority – just under 90% – remain in China, and most of those are in Hubei province where the virus originated late last year.
Of the nearly 8,800 cases outside China, 81% are in four countries – Iran, South Korea, Italy and Japan.
One of the countries worst affected outside China – Italy – said on Monday that the death toll there had risen by 18 to 52. There are 1,835 confirmed cases, most of them in the Lombardy and Veneto areas of the north. Nearly 150 people are said to have recovered.
However, the country is seeing a slowdown in new cases. On Monday, the authorities said there were 258 new cases of the virus – a 16% increase on the previous day – after new cases spiked by 50% on Sunday.
On Tuesday, Iran said the latest death toll from the virus was 77 – although the real figure is believed to be much higher. More than 2,300 people are said to be infected, including senior political figures. The head of Iran’s emergency medical services, Pirhossein Kolivand, was one of them, the Ilna news agency reported on Tuesday.
Some 23 MPs are also reported to have tested positive for the virus, and an official close to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reported on Monday to have died of the disease.
Health officials in the US state of Washington said on Monday that four more people had died, bringing the total there to six. They are the only deaths in the US so far. Local officials say they are buying a hotel to convert it into an isolation hospital.
On Tuesday, Ukraine confirmed its first case of coronavirus, while Portugal, Iceland, Jordan, Tunisia, Armenia, Latvia, Senegal, Morocco and Andorra confirmed their first cases on Monday.
How deadly is Covid-19?
The WHO says the virus appears to particularly affect those over 60, and people already ill.
In the first large analysis of more than 44,000 cases from China, the death rate was 10 times higher in the very elderly compared to the middle-aged.
Most patients have only mild symptoms and the death rate appears to be between 2% and 5%, the WHO said.
By comparison, seasonal flu has an average mortality rate of about 0.1%, but is highly infectious – with up to 400,000 people dying from it each year.
Other strains of coronavirus, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), have much higher death rates than Covid-19.
The enterprise collaboration industry in China is forecast to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12.4 per cent over five years to reach US$7 billion by 2024
Tencent has been accused of using its market dominance with WeChat to stifle competition. Photo: Reuters
Tencent’s super app WeChat, with a user base of 1.2 billion people, has blocked links from a ByteDance remote work tool as Chinese tech giants fight for dominance in the burgeoning enterprise collaboration market.
The latest move adds another ByteDance app to WeChat’s blacklist, which already includes Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and its sister platform Xigua Video, amid ongoing accusations that Tencent uses its market dominance to stifle competition.
Feishu, the Chinese version of ByteDance’s productivity tool Lark, said Saturday that users could not open any of its links on WeChat, nor could they share name cards to invite colleagues.
Feishu said WeChat did not provide advance notice of the ban, adding that the move has “significantly affected work efficiency and user experience” at a time when many companies in China have moved their office operations online to limit the spread of coronavirus infections.
Instead, Lark users need to copy the link and open it in a browser instead of opening it directly via WeChat.
Tencent launches new social apps as flagships WeChat and QQ show their age
13 Dec 2019
A WeChat representative declined to comment other than to cite the company’s regulations on external links. The rules, introduced in October 2019, said the platform will punish websites or apps that send links to “mislead or entice users to download or redirect to an external app”. Punishment includes blocking their domain name from opening in WeChat.
Xie Xin, a ByteDance vice president overseeing Feishu, said the app does not support sign-ups using a WeChat account nor does it enable the sharing of documents or messages on the Tencent app.
In addition to blocking the ByteDance app, WeChat also suspended two tech-focused media websites, 36Kr and ITHome, from publishing posts on the platform after they reported the Lark case over the weekend. The relevant articles have also been removed from WeChat.
The WeChat representative said it did not force media to delete their articles. Rather, the media in question have violated WeChat’s rules on multiple occasions.
The enterprise collaboration industry in China, which has received a huge boost from the health crisis, is forecast to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12.4 per cent over five years to reach nearly 49 billion yuan (US$7 billion) by 2024, according to the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute.
Feishu is a small but fast-emerging player in the sector, jumping 40 places from late January to become the 15th most downloaded business iOS app on Monday. However, it still lags far behind Alibaba’s DingTalk and Tencent’s WeChat Work and Tencent Meeting, which ranked as the top three among business iOS apps in China as of Monday, according to App Annie.
Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.Tencent has also blocked apps from other Chinese tech giants. Links from Taobao, Alibaba’s online marketplace, and Haokan, a short video app from Baidu, cannot be accessed on WeChat. In contrast, Tencent allows the sharing of links from JD.com and PDD pages, online marketplaces in which it owns a financial stake.
“Having more than 1 billion users, [WeChat] has a monopolistic position in the market,” said Wang Sixin, a professor at the Communication University of China who specialises in media policy and rules. “Under these circumstances, Tencent has to have legitimate reasons to block other apps, otherwise it’s taking advantage of its dominance to force out smaller rivals.”
In April 2019, a Chinese lawyer sued Tencent under the country’s anti-monopoly law, charging that the company’s actions infringed on his rights as a user. In December, the intellectual property court in Beijing heard the case, with Tencent representatives arguing that WeChat did not prevent users from sharing links and using the app on other platforms, Southern Metropolis Daily reported. The court has not yet reached a verdict.
Besides enterprise collaboration, Tencent and ByteDance are coming up against each other in other markets. Last week Tencent began testing a short video function for WeChat, a sector dominated by TikTok and Douyin, while ByteDance plans to
Image copyright EPAImage caption Lee Man-hee is the founder of the Shincheonji Church
The head of the religious sect that has been at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak in South Korea has apologised to the nation for the disease’s spread.
Lee Man-hee, the leader of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, got on his knees and bowed at a news conference.
About 60% of the country’s more than 4,000 confirmed cases are sect members.
On Monday, South Korea – the biggest hotspot outside China – reported 476 new cases, bringing the total number to 4,212. It has recorded 26 deaths.
Prosecutors have been asked to investigate Mr Lee on possible charges of gross negligence.
“Although it was not intentional, many people have been infected,” said the 88-year-old leader. “We put our utmost efforts, but were unable to prevent it all.”
Media caption Empty shelves as coronavirus ‘panic-buying’ hits Australia
Of the confirmed cases, 3,081 are from the southern city of Daegu and 73% of these cases have been linked to the Shincheonji Church near there.
In the capital Seoul, the mayor urged the city’s 10 million residents to work from home and to avoid crowded places.
But church spokesman Kim Shin-chang told the BBC they had provided a list of members, students, and buildings to authorities.
“We were worried about releasing this information because of the safety of our members,” Mr Kim said.
Media caption ‘We’re often persecuted’: Spokesman for virus-hit S Korean church defends secrecy
Mr Lee claims he is the second coming of Jesus Christ and identifies as “the promised pastor” mentioned in the Bible who will take 144,000 people to heaven with him.
The Shincheonji Church is labelled as a cult within South Korea and also in the Christian community, which results in the group often being discriminated against, persecuted or criticised, Mr Kim told the BBC.
What’s the global situation?
The number of people killed worldwide by the coronavirus has exceeded 3,000, as China reported 42 more deaths. More than 90% of the total deaths are in Hubei, the Chinese province where the virus emerged late last year.
But there have also been deaths in 10 other countries, including more than 50 in Iran and more than 30 in Italy.
Worldwide, there have been almost 90,000 confirmed cases, with the numbers outside China now growing faster than inside China.
In other developments:
In the UK, where there are 36 confirmed cases, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called a meeting of the emergency Cobra committee on Monday
Indonesia – one of the world’s most populous countries – has announced its first confirmed cases of coronavirus, a 64-year-old woman and her 31-year-old daughter, currently being treated at a Jakarta hospital
Iceland and Andorra also reported their first confirmed cases on Monday
Share prices in Asia and in Europe rose after central banks pledged to intervene to help protect markets from the impact of the coronavirus. Concerns about the outbreak last week wiped more than $5tn (£3.9tn) from global stocks
US sportswear giant Nike has closed its European headquarters in Hilversum city in the Netherlands after an employee tested positive for the virus
In the European hotspot of Italy, the number of infections doubled in 48 hours, the head of the country’s civil protection body said on Sunday.
There have been at least 34 deaths and 1,694 confirmed cases. Amazon said two of its employees in Italy have the virus and are under quarantine.
Countries including Qatar, Ecuador, Luxembourg and Ireland all confirmed their first cases over the weekend. On Monday, Ecuador reported five new cases of the disease, bringing the total number of infected patients in the country to six.
The US state of New York has also confirmed its first case. The patient is a woman in her 30s who contracted the virus during a recent trip to Iran. Two people have died in the US, both in the state of Washington.
A spokesman from China’s National Health Commission said the next stop would be to “focus on the risks brought by the resumption of work”.
China’s economy has taken a hit – with factory activity falling at a record rate.
On Monday, a man was sentenced to death by a Chinese court for fatally stabbing two officials at a virus checkpoint, news agency AFP reported.
Ma Jianguo, 23, refused to co-operate with officials – though it is not clear what he was told to do – and stabbed two checkpoint officials.
What has the WHO said?
On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the virus appears to particularly affect those over 60, and people already ill.
It urged countries to stock up on ventilators, saying “oxygen therapy is a major treatment intervention for patients with severe Covid-19”.
In the first large analysis of more than 44,000 cases from China, the death rate was 10 times higher in the very elderly compared to the middle-aged.
But most patients have only mild symptoms and the death rate appears to be between 2% and 5%, the WHO said.
By comparison, the seasonal flu has an average mortality rate of about 0.1%, but is highly infectious – with up to 400,000 people dying from it each year.
Other strains of coronavirus, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), have much higher death rates than Covid-19.
Materials can bought cheaply online and combined to filter out germs, while people exchange tips in online chat groups
Urgent demand has forced individuals and hospitals alike to get to work to meet the shortfall
A worker in northern China makes a face mask as companies strive to match demand – but some people are buying similar materials to assemble at home. Photo: Xinhua
Living in the scenic Puer city in southwestern China’s Yunnan province, 30-year-old Zhang Jianing had thought the coronavirus outbreak in Hubei was far away and irrelevant, until cases were confirmed in her province and then her city at the end of January.
Heeding the warnings to protect herself, Zhang rushed out to buy masks, only to find them all snapped up. When she plucked up the courage to go out to buy groceries, she realised she needed to have a mask on to be allowed to enter shops.
After doing some research online, Zhang made a mask herself: two layers of cotton on the outside, with a sheet of plastic food wrap inside.
“The mask fit my face well and protected me from droplets,” Zhang said. “There was just one thing: it was too difficult to breathe through.”
Experts devise do-it-yourself face masks to help people battle coronavirus
When a nation of 1.4 billion people was suddenly alerted and in many cases ordered to wear masks not only in public indoor places but also in the open air, the huge demand quickly exhausted supply.
Mask production capacity in China was 22 million a day – insufficient for the country’s population. There were hopes that the supply of masks would pick up after a Lunar New Year holiday that was extended to help prevent further spread of infection, but things did not look promising after factories reopened. By Monday, despite mask manufacturers making 10 per cent more than in early February, masks remained a rare commodity.
Making DIY masks became the top trending topic on Chinese online shopping site Taobao for several days. Materials became much sought-after, from nose bars to the non-woven fabric used in disposable surgical masks to filter out viral droplets. An online shop based in Fujian, southeast China, said it had sold more than 5,500 packages of DIY mask materials that can make 50 to 200 surgical masks apiece.
Surgical masks ‘protect more from germs on fingers than viruses in the air’
16 Feb 2020
Zhang spent 200 yuan (US$29) on materials online, from which she made 60 surgical masks when they arrived last week. She is a qipao designer and has a sewing machine at home. The outer layer was a blue waterproof non-woven fabric, over a layer of melt-blown fabric that can filter out most germs and droplets. The inner layer was made with a face flannel.
Hongkongers make reusable fabric masks as Covid-19 epidemic leads to shortages and sky-high prices
“I sent some to my parents and relatives,” Zhang said. “I am not sure how protective they are, but the good thing is our city hasn’t had any new cases for a long time.”
DIY mask production is being taken very seriously, spawning online chat groups to discuss reliability of materials and disinfection methods as people try to make theirs as safe and professional as possible.
Alex Zhang, an office worker in Shanghai, donated her N95 masks to Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, when hospitals in the city appealed to the public for protective gear amid an acute shortage – but soon found herself short of masks herself.
Shanghai companies begin production of first reusable face masks
25 Feb 2020
The Shanghai government allowed households to buy a certain number of surgical masks, but it was not enough for her family. Taking apart an N95 mask to see what it was made of, she felt assembling the layers of fabric required no special technique, and decided to do it herself.
Zhang spent 45 yuan on two square metres of melt-blown fabric to stop viruses, and sandwiched it with two layers of nonwoven fabric and an air pad. She sewed the layers together and put them in an electric oven at 70 degrees Celsius (158 Fahrenheit) for a minute, for disinfection. The finished mask is attached using a plastic band.
“Each mask cost about 3 yuan [43 US cents] and was almost like an N95 filter,” Zhang said. “I didn’t find it difficult. I am quite satisfied with my masks and feel very safe to wear them in crowded places.”
How to properly remove and discard face masks to reduce the risk of infection
She later bought nursing pads, which are already disinfected, to replace the layer closest to the face.
DIY masks have also been used where large amounts of protective gear are needed. Garment manufacturer Shenzhou International, in the coastal Zhejiang province, assigned 100 staff to make masks with melt-blown non-woven fabric to meet the needs of its factory workforce of nearly 15,000, who needed two masks each per day, according to a report by Ningbo Daily.
Hospitals short of masks have mobilised nurses to make their own using a non-woven fabric used to wrap disinfected medical products. At least three hospitals, in Xian in central China and in Jinhua, Zhejiang, have tried making masks for medical staff not serving on the front line, according to media reports.
DIY handmade face masks in Hong Kong
The World Health Organisation has said that wearing masks alone is not sufficient protection against the coronavirus, and should be combined with precautions including hand-washing with soap or an alcohol-based hand rub.
However, facing a shortage that will not end any time soon, health authorities have changed from saying people should discard masks every four hours to advising recycling them when possible.
A guideline issued by the National Health Commission said healthy people could wear masks repeatedly and for a longer time.
Chinese driver wears 12 face masks amid coronavirus outbreak
“Masks for repeat use can be hung in clean, dry and airy places or put in a clean paper bag,” its guidelines said. “The masks must be placed separately to avoid contact with other masks.”
Making masks with layers of cotton bandage is acceptable, because they can stay dry when breathed on, but plastic wrap is not recommended, because it blocks the ability to breathe entirely, according to Cai Haodong, an infectious diseases specialist at Beijing’s Ditan Hospital.
Coronavirus: Thais urged to make their own masks, sanitisers due to shortage
7 Feb 2020
Cai said her hospital did not have surgical masks, nor N95s, during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2003, and hospital staff made masks for use by front-line medics, disinfecting them with boiling water and drying them in the sun.
“The key is to keep the mask dry,” Cai said. “Self-made masks offer some degree of protection and it is better to wear them than nothing.”
Cooperation on ‘soft’ issues like public health can provide an ‘opportunity for improvement’ in the nations’ broader relationship, international affairs expert says
Foreign ministers agree to do all they can to ensure Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned visits to east Asian neighbours go ahead later this year
South Korea on Thursday reported 505 new coronavirus cases, its largest increase yet. Photo: AP
has created a fresh challenge to Beijing’s delicate relationship with its northeast Asian neighbours, but experts say the unprecedented public health crisis could draw them closer, at least for now.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi held separate conversations with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts on Wednesday as Beijing scrambles to deal with the growing risk of imported infections from the two countries.
In a sign of the “strong momentum at the leadership level on both sides”, Wang and Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi agreed to ensure Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Japan later this year goes ahead as planned, despite mounting fears the virus outbreak will become a pandemic.
China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that Yang Jiechi, Wang’s predecessor and Xi’s top aide on foreign affairs, would visit Japan on Friday. His trip is expected to pave the way for Xi’s high stakes visit in the spring, observers said.
But Benoit Hardy-Chartrand, an international affairs expert at Temple University in Tokyo, said that if the outbreak did not subside in the next few weeks, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government would come under intense pressure to delay the visit.
“Despite reassuring official pronouncements, no one would be surprised if the visit was postponed to a later date,” he said. “With an already declining approval rate, the Abe administration would be hard-pressed to go ahead with the summit.”
During her phone call with Wang, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha urged China to refrain from carrying out what she described as “excessive” restrictions and forcible quarantine measures against visitors from her country, the Yonhap news agency reported.
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on Thursday reported 505 new coronavirus cases – its largest increase yet and the first time any country has confirmed more daily cases than China. The outbreak has now spread to more than 30 countries and killed more than 2,800 people.
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In the cities of Qingdao and Weihai in east China’s Shandong province – both of which are home to large South Korean and Japanese communities – local authorities have begun to quarantine arrivals from the two countries, while similar measures targeting South Koreans in particular have been introduced in Shenyang and Nanjing.
This is the first time China, where the coronavirus originated and which earlier criticised other nations for overreacting to the outbreak, has introduced country-specific measures in the name of disease control.
The move sparked fierce criticism in South Korea, with more than 750,000 people signing an online petition calling for a ban on Chinese visitors.
The foreign ministry in Seoul said that about 40 nations and regions had imposed some sort of restrictions on South Korean visitors.
Both South Korea and Japan – which were among the first to offer support and aid to China when the epidemic took hold – have imposed only partial restrictions on Chinese travellers, mostly those from Hubei, the province at the centre of the contagion.
Wang again thanked South Korea for its support and defended China’s control measures, saying they were necessary to reduce the cross-border movement of people and restrict the spread of the disease, China’s foreign ministry said.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Photo: EPA-EFE
Yonhap said both Wang and Kang also agreed that Xi’s proposed trip to South Korea in the first half of the year would proceed as planned.
Chinese experts said the coronavirus had deepened distrust and antagonism towards China in both countries, with many South Koreans and Japanese blaming China for the spread of the disease.
Li Wen, an expert from the China Institute of International Studies, said the coronavirus crisis had seen the rise of the “China threat” in South Korea, with its government under enormous pressure to get tough on its giant neighbour.
According to Yonhap, Kang urged South Korean diplomats in China earlier this month to help minimise any negative impact the epidemic might have had on relations between the two countries.
Hardy-Chartrand said relations between China and South Korea remained tense because of Seoul’s deployment of the American-madeTHAAD missile defence system, which in turn led to Beijing introducing unofficial sanctions that caused resentment among South Koreans.
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But the latest spat over the control measures was unlikely to be a major obstacle to regional relations, he said.
“Overall, cooperation on so-called soft issues like public health, as we are witnessing at the moment, can provide an opportunity for further improvement in the broader relationship, at least in the short term,” he said.
China-Japan relations might also benefit from closer cooperation on disease control given uncertainty in the region over the US-China trade war, the North Korean denuclearisation impasse, the United States’ commitment to its allies, and the coronavirus outbreak, he said.
“I am less sanguine about the mid- to long-term prospects for Sino-Japanese relations, given that the sources of the tensions that we saw from 2010 to 2017, namely the East China Sea territorial dispute and other historical issues, remain wholly unresolved,” he said.
According to a Pew study in December, 85 per cent of Japanese have an unfavourable view of China, the highest among 34 countries surveyed, while 63 per cent of South Koreans see China negatively.
Purchasing managers’ indexes for both manufacturing and service sectors drop to all-time lows
Steep falls raise questions over extent of damage epidemic has caused to China’s economy and how long it will take the country to recover
Many Chinese factories have faced a labour shortage as migrants have been unable to return to work because of the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: AFP
The damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak to China’s US$14 trillion economy could be much worse than Beijing hoped, as official measures for the country’s factory and service activity indicated on Saturday, threatening President Xi Jinping’s vision for 2020 and underscoring his urgent appeal to get production back to normal.
Monthly economic indicators for February sank to all-time lows as the coronavirus halted China’s manufacturing machine and froze activity in the service sector – from retailing to recycling – painting a bleak picture of the world’s second-biggest economy and challenging Beijing’s repeated assurance that the impact would be manageable and short-lived.
Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus – was first reported in Wuhan in December. Since then it has spread to more than 50 countries and more than 85,000 people have been infected. The outbreak has disrupted travel and cargo shipments, and caused stock markets to slump.
China’s official February purchasing managers’ indexes (PMI) for both manufacturing and services, released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday, confirmed fears that China’s economy was in bad shape and fanned speculation that it may even contract in the first quarter.
Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Capital in Hong Kong, said in a note that Beijing might report negative growth for “the first time since the Cultural Revolution”.
The manufacturing PMI, which measures factory activity, dropped to 35.7 in February – below the previous all-time low of 38.8 set in November 2008 during the global financial crisis – from 50 in January when the impact of the epidemic was not apparent.
A reading below 50 indicates a contraction in activity.
The February PMI figures confirmed fears that China’s economy was in bad shape. Photo: AFP
All of the sub-indexes of the PMI pointed to the difficult situation facing Chinese factories. Output plummeted, new orders vanished, exports and imports stopped, and logistics were badly disrupted. Input prices, which reflects the costs factories must pay, was the only sub-index that remained above 50.
The non-manufacturing PMI – a gauge of sentiment in the services and construction sectors – also dropped, to 29.6 from 54.1 in January. This was also the lowest on record, beating the previous low of 49.7 in November 2011, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, which produces the index with the National Bureau of Statistics.
The declines in the February reflect the difficulties businesses are having in bringing production back online due to shortages of labour as well as difficulties receiving supplies or shipping goods to market because of transport restrictions enacted to contain the spread of the virus.
An extended slump would put upwards pressure on unemployment, especially among small, private sector service firms. Beijing, which worries that rising joblessness could cause social unrest, has called on local governments to remove unnecessary restrictions to get businesses back to work.
The employment sub-index in the manufacturing PMI fell to 31.8 in February.
“It is not because factories have stopped hiring migrant workers, it is because the flow of migrant workers to factories has been blocked,” said Hua Changchun, an analyst at brokerage Guotai Junan Securities. “There’s no point talking about resuming production if workers can’t return to their jobs.”
Zhang Qiqun, a researcher with the Development Research Centre of State Council, said in a statement that the major economic indicators for this quarter would see “obvious drops” and China must “be prepared”.
The employment sub-index in the manufacturing PMI fell to 31.8 in February. Photo: AFP
How quickly China can dig itself out of the coronavirus hole is a matter of debate.
According to the PMI survey, about 90 per cent of medium and large-sized manufacturers are expected to resume production in March, meaning about 10 per cent will still be closed four weeks from now.
As for small firms, the industry ministry said this week that two-thirds would still be closed at the end of February.
China’s production difficulties have resulted in economic problems for nations around the world that rely on supply chains that begin or pass through the country. The global spread of the coronavirus will only exacerbate the problem.
Barclays and Nomura forecast China’s first-quarter growth at 2 per cent, while Capital Economics said it would contract in year-on-year terms.
“The sharp drop in China’s manufacturing PMI in February reinforces our view that the normalisation in economic activity will be delayed,” said Xing Zhaopeng, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group.
“There’s scant chance for a V-shaped rebound – the authorities are using targeted aids more than stimulus to stabilise the economy and that will lead to a gradual bounce.”
The National Bureau of Statistics tried to put a brave face on the data, saying there would be a substantial improvement in March.
“The resumption of work is ramping up and market confidence is steadily recovering,” said Zhao Qinghe, a senior statistician at the NBS.
“Although the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic has caused a larger impact on production and operations of Chinese enterprises … currently the epidemic has come under initial containment, and the negative impact on production is gradually weakening.”
Around 200 Shincheonji Church of Jesus members continued to meet in the Chinese city amid rumours of virus, but ‘no one took [claims] seriously’ at first
Around half the Covid-19 cases in South Korea have been linked to members of the religious group
The Shincheonji church in Daegu has been linked to a cluster of infections. Photo: Yonhap via AP
Members of the Christian sect linked to a cluster of coronavirus cases in South Korea held meetings in Wuhan until December, only stopping when they realised that their community had been hit by Covid-19, the previously unknown disease caused by the virus.
The South China Morning Post has learned that the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the epidemic, has around 200 members, most of whom are currently under quarantine outside the city.
“Rumours about a virus began to circulate in November but no one took them seriously,” said one member, a 28-year-old kindergarten teacher.
“I was in Wuhan in December when our church suspended all gatherings as soon as we learned about [the coronavirus],” said the woman, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
She said the group was continuing to share sermons and teachings online, but most members had returned home at the start of the Lunar New Year holiday in late January.
The 250,000-member Shincheonji Church of Jesus is regarded by mainstream Christian groups as a secretive and unorthodox sect. Its founder, Lee Man-hee, has claimed that he is the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Around half the Covid-19 infections in South Korea have been linked to a branch of the church in Daegu.
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According to the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 977 confirmed cases as of Tuesday – the second highest number outside China – and 11 deaths.
Of the 84 new cases reported on Tuesday, over half were recorded in Daegu city.
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A member of the church from Daegu reportedly visited China in January, and health officials in South Korea are investigating whether a cluster of infections in Cheongdo city is linked to a three-day funeral ceremony held at a local hospital.
Chinese sources said that the Shincheonji church has about 20,000 members in China – most of whom live in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Changchun and Shenyang.
One Christian pastor in Hubei province, who declined to be named, said that Shincheonji church members were hard-working and some continued to proselytise even during the outbreak.
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The Wuhan kindergarten teacher said she was confident that the recent mass outbreaks in South Korea were not linked to Shincheonji church members from the city.
“I don’t think the virus came from us because none of our brothers and sisters in Wuhan have been infected. I don’t know about members in other places but at least we are clean. None of us have reported sick,” she said.
“There are so many Chinese travelling to South Korea, it’s quite unfair to pin [the disease] on us.”
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She sidestepped questions on whether church members had travelled from Wuhan to South Korea after the outbreak.
The teacher said that in 2018 the Wuhan group’s “holy temple” in Hankou district had been raided by police “who branded us a cult”, but members continued to worship in small groups.
“We are aware of all the negative reporting out there after the outbreak in South Korea, but we do not want to defend ourselves in public because that will create trouble with the government,” she said. “We just want to get through the crisis first.”
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Bill Zhang, a 33-year-old Shanghai resident and a former missionary with Shincheonji, said the group’s secretive nature made it hard for the authorities to effectively crackdown on its activities.
He said the Shanghai branch held its main meetings on Wednesdays and Saturdays, attracting 300 to 400 people at a time.
“The Shincheonji church in Shanghai has been raided many times and police spoke to church leaders regularly.
“But the church members simply continued their meetings in smaller groups of eight-to-10 people and regrouped when the surveillance was relaxed.”
Zhang continued: “Shincheonji holds that it is the only real church that upholds the biblical truth and all other churches – mainstream or cults – are evil.”
Health official Debbie Birx appointed as ‘coronavirus response coordinator’ under Vice-President Mike Pence
Facing outbreak threat a month ago, US president said ‘we have it totally under control’. This week, under fire, he changed course
US Vice-President Mike Pence (right) speaks alongside US President Donald Trump during a press conference about the coronavirus at the White House on Wednesday. Photo: dpa
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Adam Cancryn, Quint Forgey and Dan Diamond on politico.com on February 27, 2020.
In the end, US President Donald Trump got a coronavirus tsar – without having to call it a tsar.
Vice-President Mike Pence, whom Trump appointed on Wednesday to lead his coronavirus response, announced a global health official as the “White House coronavirus response coordinator” – installing a tsar-like figure under him to guide the administration’s response to the outbreak after a protracted public dance around how to display the power of the federal bureaucracy to the American people.
The move marked the administration’s latest attempt to show it is in control of the spreading global threat after weeks of fumbled messaging, rising market jitters and mounting backlash from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
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The two-day journey of upgrading the federal government’s public response highlighted a sharp contrast between Trump’s political instincts to play down the virus risk in an election year and calls from health officials and lawmakers to show the government in command of a deadly and frightening threat.
The new role will put Ambassador Debbie Birx, who has served since 2014 as the US government’s leader for combating HIV/Aids globally, at the centre of what now appears to be three leaders of the government response.
Trump revealed in a news conference on Wednesday evening that Pence would head up the administration’s management of the coronavirus, overseeing a task force nominally led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Birx will report to Pence but serve on the task force that Azar chairs.
Over three decades of public health experience, Birx “has been utilising the best science to change the course of the HIV pandemic and bring the pandemic under control”, the White House said in a statement, adding that she “will bring her infectious disease, immunologic, vaccine research and inter-agency coordinating capacity to this position”.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Pence said “we are ready for anything” to fight coronavirus.
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“I promise you, this president, this administration, is going to work with leaders in both parties. We’ll work with leaders across this nation, at the state and local level. And this president will always put the health and safety of America first.”
Birx’s appointment marked the latest swerve by the White House in assigning responsibility to tackle the burgeoning public health crisis.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Trump said “we have it totally under control” and maintained “it’s going to be just fine”. The virus has since exploded globally from China to nearly 50 countries, with more worries emerging inside the US.
A week after Trump’s Davos comments, the White House announced a task force to handle the widening outbreak. A month later, Trump was forced to vastly upgrade the response when his bold predictions proved to be wrong.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (left) speaks as US Vice-President Mike Pence listens during a coronavirus task force meeting in Washington on Thursday. Photo: Reuters
Appointing a “coordinator” allowed Trump to fulfil an increasingly urgent call from lawmakers to put a trusted public health official at the centre of the White House response as a tsar.
Some administration officials had opposed appointing a tsar – a move President Barack Obama used in 2014 during the Ebola threat – because it could be perceived as an admission of failure up to this point, while others have been criticising Azar for months for his work on the president’s health initiatives far beyond coronavirus.
On Wednesday, Azar told lawmakers “I serve as the lead” on coronavirus efforts, and he denied a POLITICO report stating that the White House was weighing whether to appoint a tsar to coordinate its response to the spreading epidemic.
The leadership change – putting Pence in charge – was a shock to Azar and his team, four people familiar with the matter said, coming soon after the health secretary returned from his full day of congressional testimony.
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Azar had reason to be confident: Trump had reassured him earlier in the day that he was doing a good job atop the task force and would not be replaced. And technically, he was not, even though he has lost ultimate authority over the federal response.
Azar insisted at Trump’s Wednesday news conference, however, that he would remain the chair of the White House task force, indicating Pence would play a supervisory role. That was before Thursday morning’s coronavirus “coordinator” announcement, which Trump hinted at the prior night.
At a congressional hearing on Thursday, Azar downplayed the significance of Pence’s appointment, calling it a “a lot of continuity” of the administration’s response to date.
“What the vice-president will do is actually a function very similar to what acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has been doing very ably for me,” he told the House Ways and Means Committee, describing the role largely as ensuring alignment across the government and coordinating decision-making outside the health care arena.
“The vice-president’s involvement and leadership across the whole of government brings just the weight of the office of the vice-president to that task.”
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Azar later insisted that he was consulted and involved in the decision to put Pence in charge, telling lawmakers that he was supportive as soon as the suggestion was made. “I said, quote, that’s genius,” he said.
Azar also told reporters after the hearing that he was “involved” in the decision Wednesday to name Birx.
“She’s a terrific leader. And she will do wonderful work helping us with just the internal processes,” he said. As for Pence’s new role, Azar said “the vice-president helps me, in terms of heft within the executive agency” but maintained that he’s still leading the inter-agency task force work among a slew of other responsibilities as the nation’s health chief.
The compromise position allows the White House to respond to frustration inside and outside the administration while allowing Azar to save face. Trump remains pleased with his health secretary and had reassured him as recently as Wednesday that he was happy with his work on the coronavirus, people close to the White House said.
The White House is battling bipartisan criticism from members of Congress sceptical of the administration’s response and emergency funding request, which some lawmakers have slammed as insufficient to counter the growing threat.
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The administration’s disjointed messaging about the severity of the threat earlier this week frustrated even Republicans on Capitol Hill, especially after White House National Economic Director Larry Kudlow declared the containment effort as nearly “airtight” at nearly the same time CDC officials were warning of its “inevitable” spread.
An exasperated Senator John Kennedy aired his concerns directly to Trump on Tuesday, after the Louisiana Republican struggled to extract basic answers about the disease from acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf.
“We had one story from the classified briefing, we had another story from one Cabinet secretary, then we had another story from another Cabinet secretary,” said Kennedy, who on Thursday praised the decision to elevate Pence. “[Trump] said, I hear what you’re saying, I’m gonna get this straight.”
The announcement of Birx’s latest role within the administration came hours after news broke in California of the first potential case of coronavirus spreading within the US.
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks during an April 2014 swearing-in ceremony for Debbie Birx (left) as ambassador-at-large and coordinator of US government activities to combat HIV/Aids. Photo: AFP
It also follows intense scrutiny of Pence’s record as governor of Indiana overseeing a massive HIV outbreak in the state that public health experts deemed preventable – an episode that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised directly with the vice-president on Thursday morning.
“I expressed to him the concern that I had of his being in this position,” she said during her weekly press conference.
Birx brings bipartisan credibility to the job, having won widespread praise from Democrats in the run-up to her 2014 confirmation as head of the Obama administration’s global HIV/Aids office.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrat Ben Cardin in 2014 called her “one of the most well-qualified nominees that has ever come before the US Senate for confirmation,” ahead of a unanimous vote to install her in the job.
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Congressman Eliot Engel, now the top Democrat on the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee, similarly lauded her as a “dedicated force in efforts to eliminate the global scourge of HIV/Aids”.
Yet despite her Obama-era appointment, Birx is a Republican and could be characterised as a conservative, one person who knows her said.
This person added that she’d be “good on camera” and has already worked closely with several of the administration’s current top public health officials – including Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield, with whom she served as an Army doctor.
Most notably, this person said, she aided Redfield’s candidacy to become CDC chief in 2018, serving as a reference and advocating for him within the administration.
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