Archive for ‘Friday’

27/04/2020

South Korean officials call for caution amid reports that North Korean leader Kim is ill

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean officials are calling for caution amid reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be ill or is being isolated because of coronavirus concerns, emphasising that they have detected no unusual movements in North Korea.

At a closed door forum on Sunday, South Korea’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul, who oversees engagement with the North, said the government has the intelligence capabilities to say with confidence that there was no indications of anything unusual.

Rumours and speculation over the North Korean leader’s health began after he made no public appearance at a key state holiday on April 15, and has since remained out of sight.

South Korea media last week reported that Kim may have undergone cardiovascular surgery or was in isolation to avoid exposure to the new coronavirus.

Unification minister Kim cast doubt on the report of surgery, arguing that the hospital mentioned did not have the capabilities for such an operation.

Still, Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the foreign and unification committee in South Korea’s National Assembly, told a gathering of experts on Monday that Kim Jong Un’s absence from the public eye suggests “he has not been working as normally”.

“There has not been any report showing he’s making policy decisions as usual since April 11, which leads us to assume that he is either sick or being isolated because of coronavirus concerns,” Yoon said.

North Korea has said it has no confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, but some international experts have cast doubts on that claim.

On Monday, North Korean state media once again showed no new photos of Kim nor reported on his whereabouts.

However, they did carry reports that he had sent a message of gratitude to workers building a tourist resort in Wonsan, an area where some South Korean media reports have said Kim may be staying.

“Our government position is firm,” Moon Chung-in, the top foreign policy adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said in comments to news outlets in the United States.

“Kim Jong Un is alive and well. He has been staying in the Wonsan area since April 13. No suspicious movements have so far been detected.”

Satellite images from last week showed a special train possibly belonging to Kim at Wonsan, lending weight to those reports, according to 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project.

Though the group said it was probably the North Korean leader’s personal train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.

A spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry said on Monday she had nothing to confirm when asked about reports that Kim was in Wonsan.

Last week China dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.

Reuters was unable to immediately determine what the trip by the Chinese team signalled in terms of Kim’s health.

On Friday a South Korean source told Reuters their intelligence was that Kim Jong Un was alive and would likely make an appearance soon.

Experts have cautioned that Kim has disappeared from state media coverage before, and that gathering accurate information in North Korea is notoriously difficult.

North Korea’s state media last reported on Kim’s whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11.

Kim, believed to be 36, vanished from state media for more than a month in 2014 and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.

Source: Reuters

26/04/2020

China’s rolling stock manufacturer donates medical equipment to Germany

GERMANY-BERLIN-CRRC-MEDICAL EQUIPMENT-DONATION

Photo taken with a mobile phone on April 24, 2020 shows a handover ceremony of medical equipment donated by China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) Zhuzhou Locomotive Co. Ltd. in Berlin, Germany. China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), the world’s largest rolling stock manufacturer by production volume, donated a shipment of medical equipment to Germany via the German Red Cross on Friday to help the country fight the coronavirus. Responding to the call from the German government and the Chinese Embassy in Germany, and in accordance with an arrangement between CRRC and CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co. Ltd. (CRRC ZELC), the company donated 1,000 protective suits, 20,000 FFP2 masks and 80,000 surgical masks. (CRRC ZELC/Handout via Xinhua)

BERLIN, April 24 (Xinhua) — China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), the world’s largest rolling stock manufacturer by production volume, donated a shipment of medical equipment to Germany via the German Red Cross on Friday to help the country fight the coronavirus.

Responding to the call from the German government and the Chinese Embassy in Germany, and in accordance with an arrangement between CRRC and CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co. Ltd. (CRRC ZELC), the company donated 1,000 protective suits, 20,000 FFP2 masks and 80,000 surgical masks.

CRRC ZELC said that the donated materials will be distributed to medical staff and volunteers who are fighting the pandemic on the frontlines.

Cheng Jian, general manager of CRRC ZELC Verkehrstechnik GmbH, said that the only way to overcome the crisis is to unite strengths and meet the challenges together.

“We wish to undertake our social responsibility as part of the community. We firmly believe that with joint efforts of the international community, Germany will quickly overcome the crisis, and production and life will return to normal soon,” Cheng said.

According to Jens Quade, president of the Mueggelspree regional branch of the German Red Cross, the risk of new coronavirus infections could be reduced through the generous donation from CRRC ZELC.

“The donated material will be distributed to the Berlin Red Cross, Berlin hospitals and/or medical institutions. We will do our best to provide the necessary assistance to the people who are most in need,” Quade said.

Source: Xinhua

25/04/2020

Southwest China city to offer e-vouchers to boost consumption

KUNMING, April 25 (Xinhua) — Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province announced Friday it will issue e-vouchers worth 100 million yuan (about 14.12 million U.S. dollars) to promote consumption.

According to the Kunming Municipal Bureau of Commerce, the e-vouchers can be used for consumption in tourism, catering, and sports. The city will also issue special e-vouchers to groups of needy people.

The e-vouchers will be issued through an app online from April 28 to 30. Citizens can use the e-vouchers from May 1 to 31.

Industries in the city including tourism, catering and sports were seriously affected by the COVID-19 epidemic in the last few months.

Source: Xinhua

20/04/2020

China’s “new third board” helps SMEs raise fund amid epidemic

BEIJING, April 19 (Xinhua) — China’s National Equities Exchange and Quotations, also known as the “new third board,” saw transactions exceed 26.4 billion yuan (3.67 billion U.S. dollars) so far this year.

From April 13 to 17, turnover on the board reached 1.8 billion yuan. As of Friday, the board had 8,718 listed firms.

Saidian, operator of Bestdo.com, a Chinese online sport service provider, recorded the highest weekly transaction on the board, raising 127 million yuan.

The exchange was launched in early 2013 to supplement the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges to serve small- and medium-sized enterprises.

It is seen as an easier financing channel for small businesses, with low costs and simple listing procedures.

Source: Xinhua

19/04/2020

Chinese medical team returns after aid mission in Pakistan

URUMQI, April 18 (Xinhua) — A medical team of eight experts who aided Pakistan’s fight against COVID-19 returned Friday night to Urumqi, capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

The team, consisting of experts in various fields including respiratory, critical care and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), arrived in Pakistan on March 28 and visited cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.

The Chinese experts communicated with the Pakistani federal government, national and local health authorities, hospitals and medical schools, as well as the Red Crescent.

The team members shared their experience through several video conferences and offered practical, specific suggestions to their Pakistani peers concerning the diagnosis, clinical treatment and epidemiologic study of COVID-19, and the application of TCM, hospital infection control and the construction of temporary hospitals.

The team also assisted with improving Pakistan’s guidelines on diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 to help build an efficient epidemic prevention and control system in Pakistan and enhance its screening and testing capabilities.

Meanwhile, the experts carried out epidemic prevention guidance and popular science education for the Chinese embassy in Pakistan, Chinese enterprises, overseas Chinese and Chinese students in the country.

Source: Xinhua

19/04/2020

Asian countries more receptive to China’s coronavirus ‘face mask diplomacy’

  • Faced with a backlash from the West over its handling of the early stages of the pandemic, Beijing has been quietly gaining ground in Asia
  • Teams of experts and donations of medical supplies have been largely welcomed by China’s neighbours
Despite facing some criticism from the West, China’s Asian neighbours have welcomed its medical expertise and vital supplies. Photo: Xinhua
Despite facing some criticism from the West, China’s Asian neighbours have welcomed its medical expertise and vital supplies. Photo: Xinhua
While China’s campaign to mend its international image in the wake of its handling of the coronavirus health crisis has been met with scepticism and even a backlash from the US and its Western allies, Beijing has been quietly gaining ground in Asia.
Teams of experts have been sent to Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Pakistan and soon to Malaysia, to share their knowledge from the pandemic’s ground zero in central China.
Beijing has also donated or facilitated shipments of medical masks and ventilators to countries in need. And despite some of the equipment failing to meet Western quality standards, or being downright defective, the supplies have been largely welcomed in Asian countries.
China has also held a series of online “special meetings” with its Asian neighbours, most recently on Tuesday when Premier Li Keqiang discussed his country’s experiences in combating the disease and rebooting a stalled economy with the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Japan and South Korea.
Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang speaks to Asean Plus Three leaders during a virtual summit on Tuesday. Photo: AP
Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang speaks to Asean Plus Three leaders during a virtual summit on Tuesday. Photo: AP
Many Western politicians have publicly questioned Beijing’s role and its subsequent handling of the crisis but Asian leaders – including Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – have been reluctant to blame the Chinese government, while also facing criticism at home for not closing their borders with China soon enough to prevent the spread of the virus.

An official from one Asian country said attention had shifted from the early stages of the outbreak – when disgruntled voices among the public were at their loudest – as people watched the virus continue its deadly spread through their homes and across the world.

“Now everybody just wants to get past the quarantine,” he said. “China has been very helpful to us. It’s also closer to us so it’s easier to get shipments from them. The [medical] supplies keep coming, which is what we need right now.”

The official said also that while the teams of experts sent by Beijing were mainly there to observe and offer advice, the gesture was still appreciated.

Another Asian official said the tardy response by Western governments in handling the outbreak had given China an advantage, despite its initial lack of transparency over the outbreak.

“The West is not doing a better job on this,” he said, adding that his government had taken cues from Beijing on the use of propaganda in shaping public opinion and boosting patriotic sentiment in a time of crisis.

“Because it happened in China first, it has given us time to observe what works in China and adopt [these measures] for our country,” the official said.

Experts in the region said that Beijing’s intensifying campaign of “mask diplomacy” to reverse the damage to its reputation had met with less resistance in Asia.

Why China’s ‘mask diplomacy’ is raising concern in the West

29 Mar 2020

“Over the past two months or so, China, after getting the Covid-19 outbreak under control, has been using a very concerted effort to reshape the narrative, to pre-empt the narrative that China is liable for this global pandemic, that China has to compensate other countries,” said Richard Heydarian, a Manila-based academic and former policy adviser to the Philippine government.

“It doesn’t help that the US is in lockdown with its domestic crisis and that we have someone like President Trump who is more interested in playing the blame game rather than acting like a global leader,” he said.

Shahriman Lockman, a senior analyst with the foreign policy and security studies programme at Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies, said that as the US had withdrawn into its own affairs as it struggled to contain the pandemic, China had found Southeast Asia a fertile ground for cultivating an image of itself as a provider.

China’s first-quarter GDP shrinks for the first time since 1976 as coronavirus cripples economy
Beijing’s highly publicised delegations tasking medical equipment and supplies had burnished that reputation, he said, adding that the Chinese government had also “quite successfully shaped general Southeast Asian perceptions of its handling of the pandemic, despite growing evidence that it could have acted more swiftly at the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan”.
“Its capacity and will to build hospitals from scratch and put hundreds of millions of people on lockdown are being compared to the more indecisive and chaotic responses seen in the West, especially in Britain and the United States,” he said.
Coronavirus droplets may travel further than personal distancing guidelines
16 Apr 2020

Lockman said Southeast Asian countries had also been careful to avoid getting caught in the middle of the deteriorating relationship between Beijing and Washington as the two powers pointed fingers at each other over the origins of the new coronavirus.

“The squabble between China and the United States about the pandemic is precisely what Asean governments would go to great lengths to avoid because it is seen as an expression of Sino-US rivalry,” he said.

“Furthermore, the immense Chinese market is seen as providing an irreplaceable route towards Southeast Asia’s post-pandemic economic recovery.”

Aaron Connelly, a research fellow in Southeast Asian political change and foreign policy with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore, said Asian countries’ dependence on China had made them slow to blame China for the pandemic.

“Anecdotally, it seems to me that most Southeast Asian political and business elites have given Beijing a pass on the initial cover-up of Covid-19, and high marks for the domestic lockdown that followed,” he said.

“This may be motivated reasoning, because these elites are so dependent on Chinese trade and investment, and see little benefit in criticising China.”

China and Vietnam ‘likely to clash again’ as they build maritime militias

12 Apr 2020
The cooperation with its neighbours as they grapple with the coronavirus had not slowed China’s military and research activities in the disputed areas of the South China Sea – a point of contention that would continue to cloud relations in the region, experts said.
Earlier this month an encounter in the South China Sea with a Chinese coastguard vessel led to the sinking of a fishing boat from Vietnam, which this year assumed chairmanship of Asean.
And in a move that could spark fresh regional concerns, shipping data on Thursday showed a controversial Chinese government survey ship, the Haiyang Dizhi 8, had moved closer to Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone.
The survey ship was embroiled in a months-long stand-off last year with Vietnamese vessels within Hanoi’s exclusive economic zone and was spotted again on Tuesday 158km (98 miles) off the Vietnamese coast.
Source: SCMP
18/04/2020

China supports G20 action plan to help poorest countries: MOF

BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) — China supports the action plan issued by the Group of 20 (G20) to deal with the impact of COVID-19 and will contribute to the G20 efforts to fight the pandemic through its own policy actions, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said Friday.

G20 finance ministers and central bank governors agreed Wednesday to suspend debt service payments for the world’s poorest countries from May 1 until the end of the year.

China will implement more proactive fiscal policies with higher quality and efficiency, appropriately increase the fiscal deficit ratio, issue special government bonds, increase the scale of special bonds for local governments, and further cut taxes and fees, the MOF said.

In the process, China will strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination with G20 members and jointly support the implementation of the G20 action plan, the MOF said.

China will carry out specific work through bilateral consultations at the request of relevant poor borrowers in accordance with the G20 consensus, the MOF said.

To achieve better results of the action plan, China calls on multilateral creditors and commercial creditors to take appropriate actions as soon as possible to jointly help the poorest countries tide over their difficulties, the MOF said.

China has been providing support to the international community through other bilateral and multilateral channels, including donating 20 million U.S. dollars to the World Health Organization and earmarking 10 million U.S. dollars in its Poverty Reduction and Regional Cooperation Fund under the Asian Development Bank to support outbreak control programs in the region.

Source: Xinhua

18/04/2020

Coronavirus: China outbreak city Wuhan raises death toll by 50%

Medical staff from Jilin Province (in red) hug nurses from Wuhan after the Covid-19 lockdown was lifted, 8 April 2020Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image 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.

The virus has had a huge impact on the Chinese economy, which shrank for the first time in decades in the first quarter of the year.

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.

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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.


Analysis box by Stephen McDonell, China correspondent

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.

French President Emmanuel Macron has also questioned China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, saying it was “naive” to suggest the country had dealt better with the crisis, adding things “happened that we don’t know about”.

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.

WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has hailed China for the “speed with which [it] detected the outbreak” and its “commitment to transparency”.

Source: The BBC

18/04/2020

China mandates coronavirus tests for key public workers leaving Wuhan

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China ordered on Saturday that anyone in Wuhan working in certain service-related jobs must take a coronavirus test if they want to leave the city.

The order comes after the central city, where the coronavirus emerged late last year, lifted a 70-day lockdown that all but ended the epidemic there.

People in Wuhan work in nursing, education, security and other sectors with high exposure to the public must take a nucleic acid test before leaving, the National Health Commission said in an order.

The government of Hubei province, of which Wuhan is capital, will pay for the tests, the commission said.

Since the city relaxed its lockdown restrictions people who arrived in there before Chinese New Year, when the virus was peaking in China, are allowed to go back to their homes.

People working in other sectors aiming to leave Wuhan are encouraged to take voluntary tests before going.

Within seven days of arrival at their destinations, people who can present test results showing they do not carry the virus, as well as a clean bill of health on a health app, can go back to work.

Everyone else will have to spend 14 days in quarantine before returning to work.

Authorities have worked with the China’s tech giants to devise a colour-based health code system, retrieved via mobile app, that uses geolocation data and self-reported information to indicate one’s health status.

Wuhan will speed up its efforts to investigate asymptomatic coronavirus cases and confirm the presence of antibodies in people, which might suggest immunity, the commission said.

Wuhan, which accounts for 60% of infections in China and 84% of the death toll as of Saturday, has been testing inhabitants aggressively throughout the virus’ breakout and many companies had already been asking workers from the city to undergo tests before resuming work.

Wuhan revised up its death toll from the coronavirus by 1,290 on Friday, taking the city’s toll to 3,869, because of incorrect reporting, delays and omissions, especially in the chaotic early stages of the outbreak, authorities said.

China national death toll is 4,632 from 82,719 cases.

Source: Reuters

17/04/2020

China’s Chang’e-4 probe resumes work for 17th lunar day

BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) — The lander and rover of the Chang’e-4 probe have resumed work for the 17th lunar day on the far side of the moon after “sleeping” during the extremely cold night.

The lander woke up at 1:24 p.m. Friday (Beijing time), and the rover awoke at 8:57 p.m. Thursday. Both are in normal working order, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration.

The Chang’e-4 probe, launched on Dec. 8, 2018, made the first-ever soft landing on the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3, 2019.

A lunar day equals 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is the same length. The Chang’e-4 probe, switching to dormant mode during the lunar night due to the lack of solar power, has survived about 470 Earth days on the moon.

The rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, has worked much longer than its three-month design life, becoming the longest-working lunar rover on the moon.

Carrying scientific instruments such as panoramic camera, lunar penetrating radar, infrared imaging spectrometer and neutral atom detector, the rover will continue to move northwest to conduct scientific detection.

The scientific tasks of the Chang’e-4 mission include conducting low-frequency radio astronomical observation, surveying the terrain and landforms, detecting the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure and measuring neutron radiation and neutral atoms.

The Chang’e-4 mission embodies China’s hope to combine wisdom in space exploration with four payloads developed by the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia.

Source: Xinhua

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