continuously updated blog about China & India
You will be living in their world, very soon
Beware the Waking Dragon
A train attendant poses next to a high-speed train during its trial operation along the Shangqiu-Hefei-Hangzhou High-speed Railway at Zhegao Railway Station in Chaohu City, east China’s Anhui Province, May 27, 2020. The Hefei-Huzhou section of the Shangqiu-Hefei-Hangzhou High-speed Railway entered a trial operation phase on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)
Source: Xinhua
Image copyright AFPMillions of people across Bangladesh and eastern India are taking stock of the devastation left by Cyclone Amphan.
A massive clean-up operation has begun after the storm left 84 dead and flattened homes, uprooted trees and left cities without power.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived in West Bengal state to conduct an aerial survey.
Authorities in both countries had evacuated millions of people before the storm struck.
Covid-19 and social-distancing measures made mass evacuations more difficult, with shelters unable to be used to full capacity.
Officials also said people were afraid and reluctant to move to shelters for fear of contracting the virus.
The cyclone arrived with winds gusting up to 185km/h (115mph) and waves as high as 15ft.
Image copyright REUTERS
Image copyright AFPThree districts in India’s West Bengal – South and North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore – were very badly hit.
In Bangladesh, there are reports of tens of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed and many villages submerged by storm surges in low-lying coastal areas like Khulna and Satkhira.
The affected areas include the Sunderbans, mangroves spread over an area of more than 10,000 square kilometres that spans both India and Bangladesh – the swampy islands are home to more than four million of the world’s poorest people.
Image copyright MUKTIThose in the Sunderbans say it is too early to estimate casualties in the area, which is now cut-off from the mainland by the storm.
“There are houses which have collapsed and people could be trapped in them but we don’t know yet,” Debabrat Halder, who runs an NGO in one of the villages, told the BBC.
He recalls cyclone Bulbul in November 2019, which was followed by a huge incidence of fever, diarrhoea and flu, and is afraid that that the same may happen again.
And worse, he adds, is that the flooding from contaminated sea water, has likely destroyed the soil.
“Nothing will grow in this soil,” he says, adding that it will likely take years to convert it into fertile land again.
Image copyright MUKTI
Image copyright MUKTIKolkata, the capital of West Bengal, and one of India’s biggest cities has been devastated. Its roads are flooded and the city was without power for more than 14 hours.
The state’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, said the devastation in Kolkata was “a bigger disaster than Covid-19”.
But assessment of the damage is being hampered by blocked roads and flooding in all these areas.
Source: The BBC
Staff members pose for a group photo to celebrate the timely finding of the return capsule of the trial version of China’s new-generation manned spaceship that successfully returned to the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, May 8, 2020. The return capsule successfully returned to the Dongfeng landing site at 1:49 p.m. (Beijing Time) Friday, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). (Photo by Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua)
by Xinhua writers Quan Xiaoshu, Yu Fei and Li Guoli
JIUQUAN, May 8 (Xinhua) — The return capsule of the trial version of China’s new-generation manned spaceship successfully returned to the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at 1:49 p.m. (Beijing Time) Friday, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
The test was a complete success, the agency said.
Following the instructions from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center, the experimental spaceship applied the brake and entered the return orbit at 12:21 p.m., and its return capsule separated with its service capsule at 1:33 p.m.
After it re-entered the atmosphere and reached the designated altitude, the two deceleration parachutes and three main parachutes on the return capsule opened, slowing the flight speed of the spacecraft to the driving speed of an urban vehicle. Before touching down, its six airbags were deployed and inflated to help it land softly, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
At 1:49 p.m., the return capsule landed safely. The search team found it in a timely manner and confirmed that the capsule structure was intact.
China launched the trial version of the new spaceship without a crew by the Long March-5B carrier rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China’s island province of Hainan on Tuesday.
The experimental spaceship flew in orbit for two days and 19 hours, during which it carried out a series of space science and technology experiments, including space 3D printing, said CMSA.
It also tested key technologies including the heat shielding and control during its re-entry into the atmosphere, as well as multi-parachute recovery and partial reuse, CMSA said.
The new-generation manned spaceship is an advanced space transport vehicle adapted to multiple tasks. It can be used not only in low-Earth orbit missions to support the construction of China’s space station but also for deep-space exploration, such as manned lunar exploration, CMSA said.
INNOVATIVE DESIGN
Developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) under the CASC, the test spaceship is nearly 9 meters tall and about 4.5 meters at its widest point. It weighs more than 20 tonnes.
Different from the three-capsule structure of Shenzhou spaceships currently in use, the new spacecraft comprises a return capsule, which is the command center and the living place for astronauts, and a service capsule, which provides power and energy, according to the CAST.
In Shenzhou spaceships, astronauts have to go back and forth between two smaller capsules for life and work. The return capsule of the new ship has a larger sealed space. In the future, it can be partitioned to set up a work area, entertainment area, dining area and bathroom, so as to provide a more comfortable living environment for astronauts.
The capsule can also be equipped with large screens for entertainment and display instruments connected with wearable devices so that astronauts can enjoy colorful space travel and be kept informed of the ship’s conditions.
The new design can also shorten the spaceship development cycle and cut the development costs, which will show a significant advantage in the future with space exploration activities more and more frequent, said Yang Qing, a designer of the experimental spaceship with the CAST.
Researchers have integrated the power supply, propulsion, fuel resources and other subsystems all into the service capsule, so that the same return capsule can be paired with different service capsules to meet variant needs of multiple tasks, including the space station operation and subsequent manned space missions.
The return capsule is designed to be reusable. Star sensors, computers and other high-value equipment have been moved from the service capsule to the return capsule so that they can be recycled after returning to Earth.
The return capsule is wrapped in two items of “clothing.” The inner layer is made of new metal materials and acts as a “wall” around the “driving cab.” The outer layer is made of a new type of light heat-resistant material, which can withstand ablation of thousands of degrees Celsius in the process of re-entry and return, according to Guo Bin, a member of the development team of the experimental spaceship with the CAST.
The new heat-resistant materials, adopted for the first time, are lighter than the traditional materials by 30 percent but have a greater heat-shielding capacity. They are also replaceable to improve the reusable rate of the capsule, Guo said.
The return capsule also uses a non-toxic propulsion system, consisting of 12 monopropellant-powered engines with the largest thrust in the world, which are applied for the first time in China to make the capsule safer and reusable, Guo said.
NEW DREAM SHIP
China started its manned space program in 1992 and has so far witnessed 11 astronauts enter space and return safely.
However, when the country eyes on the moon and the deeper space, Shenzhou spaceships and Tianzhou cargo spacecraft are no longer enough to meet its greater dreams.
Engineers started to create the new test spaceship from January 2017 and completed it in just three years after making many technological breakthroughs.
It can transport both people and goods, greatly expanding the capability and application of China’s manned spacecraft, Yang said.
It can be called a “space bus” as it is able to send six to seven astronauts at a time into low-Earth orbit. It can also be converted into a “space truck” according to new mission requirements, delivering a large number of supplies to the space station or bringing back space engineers’ test samples to Earth, Yang said.
The reliability, safety, comfort, economy and intelligence of the new spaceship have been greatly improved.
When in orbit, the ship’s “brain” — the guidance, navigation and control systems — can control the flight independently without relying on instructions from the ground. Through the combination of high-performance computers and sensors, the ship can fulfill emergency orbit entry, orbit raising and lift control autonomously, enabling it to cope with various emergencies quickly and calmly.
If a “health problem” occurs, the new spaceship can make a diagnosis itself through its intelligent system to locate the lesion and remove it temporarily or permanently. It will then share the work of the malfunctioning part by optimizing and recombining the functions of other parts, which can greatly simplify the ground control and support work.
In addition to the non-toxic monopropellant-powered engines, the new spacecraft adopts a series of advanced technologies, including the distributed integrated electronic system, solar cells with high conversion efficiency and multi-terminal human-computer interaction system, which improve its overall performance by leaps and bounds.
The engineers also installed a data acquisition system in the test spaceship, which will help provide scientific reference for the development and optimization of the follow-on versions of the new spaceship.
“The new and old spaceships will compliment each other. Just as trucks, buses and vans are all available on the road, there should be more transport means between space and Earth, and the new ship will enrich the selections,” Yang said.
Source: Xinhua
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESThe richest man in China opened his own Twitter account last month, in the middle of the Covid-19 outbreak. So far, every one of his posts has been devoted to his unrivalled campaign to deliver medical supplies to almost every country around the world.
“One world, one fight!” Jack Ma enthused in one of his first messages. “Together, we can do this!” he cheered in another.
The billionaire entrepreneur is the driving force behind a widespread operation to ship medical supplies to more than 150 countries so far, sending face masks and ventilators to many places that have been elbowed out of the global brawl over life-saving equipment.
But Ma’s critics and even some of his supporters aren’t sure what he’s getting himself into. Has this bold venture into global philanthropy unveiled him as the friendly face of China’s Communist Party? Or is he an independent player who is being used by the Party for propaganda purposes? He appears to be following China’s diplomatic rules, particularly when choosing which countries should benefit from his donations, but his growing clout might put him in the crosshairs of the jealous leaders at the top of China’s political pyramid.
Other tech billionaires have pledged more money to fight the effects of the virus – Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is giving $1bn (£0.8bn) to the cause. Candid, a US-based philanthropy watchdog that tracks private charitable donations, puts Alibaba 12th on a list of private Covid-19 donors. But that list doesn’t include shipments of vital supplies, which some countries might consider to be more important than money at this stage in the global outbreak.
How Alibaba compares to the top five. No one else other than the effervescent Ma is capable of dispatching supplies directly to those who need them. Starting in March, the Jack Ma foundation and the related Alibaba foundation began airlifting supplies to Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and even to politically sensitive areas including Iran, Israel, Russia and the US.
Ma has also donated millions to coronavirus vaccine research and a handbook of medical expertise from doctors in his native Zhejiang province has been translated from Chinese into 16 languages. But it’s the medical shipments that have been making headlines, setting Ma apart.
“He has the ability and the money and the lifting power to get a Chinese supply plane out of Hangzhou to land in Addis Ababa, or wherever it needs to go,” explains Ma’s biographer, Duncan Clark. “This is logistics; this is what his company, his people and his province are all about.”
Jack Ma is famous for being the charismatic English teacher who went on to create China’s biggest technology company. Alibaba is now known as the “Amazon of the East”. Ma started the company inside his tiny apartment in the Chinese coastal city of Hangzhou, in the centre of China’s factory belt, back in 1999. Alibaba has since grown to become one of the dominant players in the world’s second largest economy, with key stakes in China’s online, banking and entertainment worlds. Ma himself is worth more than $40bn.
Officially, he stepped down as Alibaba’s chairman in 2018. He said he was going to focus on philanthropy. But Ma retained a permanent seat on Alibaba’s board. Coupled with his wealth and fame, he remains one of the most powerful men in China.
It appears that Ma’s donations are following Party guidelines: there is no evidence that any of the Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundation donations have gone to countries that have formal ties with Taiwan, China’s neighbour and diplomatic rival. Ma announced on Twitter that he was donating to 22 countries in Latin America. States that side with Taiwan but who have also called for medical supplies – from Honduras to Haiti – are among the few dozen countries that do not appear to be on the list of 150 countries. The foundations repeatedly refused to provide a detailed list of countries that have received donations, explaining that “at this moment in time, we are not sharing this level of detail”.
However, the donations that have been delivered have certainly generated a lot of goodwill. With the exception of problematic deliveries to Cuba and Eritrea, all of the foundations’ shipments dispatched from China appear to have been gratefully received. That success is giving Ma even more positive attention than usual. China’s state media has been mentioning Ma almost as often as the country’s autocratic leader, Xi Jinping.
Source: Alizila
In contrast, Jack Ma’s shipments have only boosted his reputation.
“It’s fair to say that Ma’s donation was universally celebrated across Africa,” says Eric Olander, managing editor of the China Africa Project website and podcast. Ma pledged to visit all countries in Africa and has been a frequent visitor since his retirement.
“What happens to the materials once they land in a country is up to the host government, so any complaints about how Nigeria’s materials were distributed are indeed a domestic Nigerian issue,” Olander adds. “But with respect to the donation itself, the Rwandan leader, Paul Kagame, called it a “shot in the arm” and pretty much everyone saw it for what it was which was: delivering badly-needed materials to a region of the world that nobody else is either willing or capable of helping at that scale.”
But is Ma risking a backlash from Beijing? Xi Jinping isn’t known as someone who likes to share the spotlight and his government has certainly targeted famous faces before. In recent years, the country’s top actress, a celebrated news anchor and several other billionaire entrepreneurs have all “disappeared” for long periods. Some, including the news anchor, end up serving prison sentences. Others re-emerge from detention, chastened and pledging their allegiance to the Party.
“There’s a rumour that [Jack Ma] stepped down in 2018 from being the chairman of the Alibaba Group because he was seen as a homegrown entrepreneur whose popularity would eclipse that of the Communist Party,” explains Ashley Feng, research associate at the Centre for New American Security in Washington DC. Indeed, Ma surprised many when he suddenly announced his retirement in 2018. He has denied persistent rumours that Beijing forced him out of his position.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESDuncan Clark, Ma’s biographer, is also aware of reports that Ma was nudged away from Alibaba following a key incident in January 2017. The Chinese billionaire met with then-President-elect Donald Trump in Trump Tower, ostensibly to discuss Sino-US trade. The Chinese president didn’t meet with Trump until months later.
“There was a lot of speculation of time that Jack Ma had moved too fast,” Clark says. “So, I think there’s lessons learned from both sides on the need to try to coordinate.”
“Jack Ma represents a sort of entrepreneurial soft power,” Clark adds. “That also creates challenges though, because the government is quite jealous or nervous of non-Party actors taking that kind of role.”
Technically, Ma isn’t a Communist outsider: China’s wealthiest capitalist has actually been a member of the Communist Party since the 1980s, when he was a university student.
But Ma’s always had a tricky relationship with the Party, famously saying that Alibaba’s attitude towards the Party was to “be in love with it but not to marry it”.
Even if Ma and the foundations connected to him are making decisions without Beijing’s advance blessing, the Chinese government has certainly done what it can to capitalise on Ma’s generosity. Chinese ambassadors are frequently on hand at airport ceremonies to receive the medical supplies shipped over by Ma, from Sierra Leone to Cambodia.
China has also used Ma’s largesse in its critiques of the United States. “The State Department said Taiwan is a true friend as it donated 2 million masks,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry tweeted in early April. “Wonder if @StateDept has any comment on Jack Ma’s donation of 1 million masks and 500k testing kits as well as Chinese companies’ and provinces’ assistance?”
Perhaps Ma can rise above what’s happened to so many others who ran afoul of the Party. China might just need a popular global Chinese figure so much that Ma has done what no one else can: make himself indispensable.
“Here’s the one key takeaway from all that happened with Jack Ma and Africa: he said he would do something and it got done,” explains Eric Olander. “That is an incredibly powerful optic in a place where foreigners often come, make big promises and often fail to deliver. So, the huge Covid-19 donation that he did fit within that pattern. He said he would do it and mere weeks later, those masks were in the hands of healthcare workers.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESDuncan Clark argues that Ma already had a seat at China’s high table because of Alibaba’s economic heft. However, his first-name familiarity with world leaders makes him even more valuable to Beijing as China tries to repair its battered image.
“He has demonstrated the ability, with multiple IPOs under his belt, and multiple friendships overseas, to win friends and influence people. He’s the Dale Carnegie of China and that certainly, we’ve seen that that’s irritated some in the Chinese government but now it’s almost an all hands on deck situation,” Clark says.
There’s no doubt that China’s wider reputation is benefiting from the charitable work of Ma and other wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs. Andrew Grabois from Candid, the philanthropic watchdog that’s been measuring global donations in relation to Covid-19, says that the private donations coming from China are impossible to ignore.
“They’re taking a leadership role, the kind of thing that used to be done by the United States,” he says. “The most obvious past example is the response to Ebola, the Ebola outbreak in 2014. The US sent in doctors and everything to West Africa to help contain that virus before it left West Africa.”
Chinese donors are taking on that role with this virus.
“They are projecting soft power beyond their borders, going into areas, providing aid, monetary aid and expertise,” Grabois adds.
So, it’s not the right time for Beijing to stand in Jack Ma’s way.
“You know, this is a major crisis for the world right now,” Duncan Clark concludes. “But obviously, it’s also a crisis for China’s relationship with the rest of the world. So they need anybody who can help dampen down some of these those pressures.”
Source: The BBC
BEIJING (Reuters) – As the world grapples with the escalating coronavirus pandemic, China reopened the city of Wuhan on Wednesday, allowing its 11 million residents to leave for the first time in over two months, a milestone in its effort to combat the outbreak.
But while the operation to contain Wuhan’s coronavirus outbreak has been hailed as a success by China and many international health experts, it didn’t come easy.
Using virus , official reports and over a dozen interviews with officials, residents and scientists in Wuhan, Reuters has compiled a comprehensive account of how the military-style quarantine of the city unfolded.
Wuhan health authorities reported the first case of what turned out to be the new coronavirus in December, and the first known death linked to the virus in early January.
City officials insisted the situation was under control for the first two weeks of January, downplaying the possibility of human-to-human transmission as they focused on a seafood and wildlife market where the outbreak was believed to have started.
But troubling signs were emerging.
Hospital respiratory wards began reaching capacity by around Jan 12, and some people were being turned away, a half dozen Wuhan residents told Reuters.
But at least up to Jan. 16, Wuhan’s government said that no new cases of the disease had occurred for about two weeks, and the city continued as normal. Diners packed restaurants, shoppers flocked to commercial districts, and travellers headed to train stations and airports for their Lunar New Year holidays.
Minimal measures were put in place to take the temperatures of residents in public places, or encourage them to wear protective masks, residents said.
“We ordinary people did not know that we needed to take protective measures,” said Wang Wenjun, whose uncle died of the coronavirus on Jan 31.
But that changed after Jan 18, when a team of scientists sent by the central government in Beijing arrived in Wuhan.
Leading the group was 83-year-old Zhong Nanshan, an epidemiologist credited with raising the alarm in China about the spread of another coronavirus, SARS, in 2003. Over two days, the team investigated the source and scale of Wuhan’s outbreak, inspecting the seafood and wildlife market and other sites.
As the scientists toured Wuhan, their mood darkened as the scale of the crisis became clear, said a source familiar with the trip.
A day before the scientists arrived, four new cases were confirmed in Wuhan, none of which had apparent links to the market.
That cast doubt over local authorities’ previous assertions that there was no substantial evidence of human-to-human transmission, which would have required them to impose drastic containment measures on the city.
The scientists’ visit was the third by an expert group since the end of December as suspicion in Beijing grew that the virus was transmissible and local officials had concealed the challenges they faced containing the disease, according to an academic on the Jan 18 trip and a scientist who visited on Jan 2. Another trip took place on Jan 8.
During the Jan 18 visit, the team made several discoveries that had been previously undisclosed to the public by local officials.
Over a dozen healthcare workers had been infected, efforts to track close contacts with other confirmed cases had dwindled, and hospitals had not conducted a single test before Jan. 16, Zhong and other experts on the team announced a few days after their trip to Wuhan.
On Jan 19, the group of about a half dozen scientists returned to Beijing, where they reported their findings to the National Health Commission, which formulates China’s health policy.
The experts recommended that Wuhan be put under quarantine and that hospital capacity be rapidly expanded, according to two sources who were briefed on the discussions. Zhong himself had suggested the lockdown measures, they said. Zhong and the commission did not respond to requests for comment.
One of the sources said the proposal was initially rejected by Wuhan government officials because they feared the economic impact, but they were overruled by the central authorities.
On the evening of Jan 20, the central government set up a taskforce in Wuhan to spearhead the fight against the epidemic.
The lockdown of Wuhan had been put in motion.
Ye Qing, deputy chief of the statistics bureau in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, said it was only when Zhong announced his findings that he began to realize the seriousness of this epidemic.
Wuhan officials, he said, reacted far too late. “If the government had sent out a notice, if they had asked everyone to wear masks, to do temperature checks, maybe a lot fewer people would have died.”
He added: “It’s a painful lesson with blood and tears.”
Later tracing of virus patients showed that people confirmed to have the virus travelled from Wuhan to at least 25 provinces, municipalities and administrative regions across China before the lockdown plan went into action.
The Wuhan government and the National Health Commission in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment.
The ripple effects of events in Beijing were soon felt in Wuhan.
On Jan 22, senior officials in Wuhan received a written government notice telling them not to leave the city, or report their whereabouts if they had, according to two local government sources.
The directive offered no further details, but at about 8 p.m. that night, some officials received notice by telephone that the city would be shut off the next morning, the sources said.
The lockdown was publicly announced at 2 a.m., sending thousands of Wuhan residents scrambling to find a way out.
But access into and out of the city was quickly closed off, with public transportation shut down and the use of private cars banned. Residents were soon after restricted to their homes.
Having seized control of the crisis, Beijing also removed a number of key officials from Wuhan and Hubei province.
Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang, who kept his job, made a frank admission in an interview with state media a few days later that party-reporting mechanisms had stifled early action.
“Information should have been released more quickly,” he said. The process had been slowed by officials in Wuhan being “obliged to seek permission” before fully disclosing information to the public, he said.
Almost two months after the lockdown was imposed, China has started allowing residents to leave the city, as well as permitting domestic flights and inter-city trains. Wuhan has reported just one new case in the past week, and around 93% of all cases have recovered, according to official data.
As other countries consider Wuhan-style quarantines, those numbers have come under increased scrutiny, however. U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that China’s numbers were “on the light side,” drawing the ire of Beijing.
China has also only just begun reporting data on asymptomatic cases – those in which carriers can transmit the disease without feeling symptoms – in the past week. That followed a public backlash on social media in China that the key numbers had been omitted from the official tally, raising concerns that such cases could lead to a second wave of infections.
Xue Lan, a professor at Tsinghua University who is a member of a government coronavirus task force, said precautions put in place for the lockdown – like social distancing – would likely become a part of life in the future in China.
“From now on our social lives will enter a new normal,” Xue said.
Source: Reuters
Chui Sai On (C), chief executive of China’s Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), Raimundo Arrais do Rosario (L), secretary for Transport and Public Works of Macao, and Ho Cheong Kei, chairman of the board of Macao Light Rapid Transit (LRT), attend the opening ceremony of the Macao LRT in south China’s Macao, Dec. 10, 2019. The Macao LRT was officially put into operation Tuesday. (Xinhua/Cheong Kam Ka)
Source: Xinhua
continuously updated blog about China & India
continuously updated blog about China & India
continuously updated blog about China & India
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 
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
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