Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
Researchers conclude that the virus was circulating undetected in France in February
Findings highlight the difficulties governments face in tracing the source of coronavirus outbreaks
Researchers in France have carried out genetic analysis and found that the dominant types of the viral strains in the country did not come from China or Italy. Photo: AP
The coronavirus outbreak in France was not caused by cases imported from China, but from a locally circulating strain of unknown origin, according to a new study by French scientists at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.
Genetic analysis showed that the dominant types of the viral strains in France belonged to a clade – or group with a common ancestor – that did not come from China or Italy, the earliest hotspot in Europe.
“The French outbreak has been mainly seeded by one or several variants of this clade … we can infer that the virus was silently circulating in France in February,” said researchers led by Dr Sylvie van der Werf and Etienne Simon-Loriere in a non-peer reviewed paper released on bioRxiv.org last week.
The Covid-19 pandemic has infected more than 128,000 people in France and caused more than 23,000 deaths.
France detected the virus in late January, before any other country in Europe. A few patients with a travel history that included China’s Hubei province were sampled on January 24 and tested positive.
The Covid-19 pandemic has infected more than 128,000 people in France and caused more than 23,000 deaths. Photo: AFP
The French government took quick and decisive measures to trace contacts of the infected people and shut down the chance of further infection.
However, these strains were not found in patients tested after the initial imported cases, suggesting “the quarantine imposed on the initial Covid-19 cases in France appears to have prevented local transmission”, the researchers said.
The Pasteur institute collected samples from more than 90 other patients across France and found the strains all came from one genetic line. Strains following this unique path of evolution had so far only been detected in Europe and the Americas.
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The earliest sample in the French clade was collected on February 19 from a patient who had no history of travel and no known contact with returned travellers.
Several patients had recently travelled to other European countries, the United Arab Emirates, Madagascar and Egypt but there was no direct evidence that they contracted the disease in these destinations.
To the researchers’ surprise, some of the later strains collected were genetically older – or closer to the ancestral root – than the first sample in this clade.
Spanish official cries reading names of health workers killed by coronavirus
A possible explanation, according to the authors, was that local transmission had been occurring in France for some time without being detected by health authorities.
The French government may have missed detecting the transmission. According to the researchers, a large proportion of those patients might have had mild symptoms or none at all.
The researchers also found that three sequences later sampled in Algeria were closely related to those in France, suggesting that travellers from France might have introduced the virus to the African country and caused an outbreak.
China says US politicians are lying as Trump calls for Covid-19 damages
29 Apr 2020
Benjamin Neuman, professor and chair of biological sciences with the Texas A&M University-Texarkana, said the French strains might have come from Belgium, where some sequences most closely related to the original strain from China were clustered.
“Since the earliest European strains of [the coronavirus] Sars-CoV-2 seem to be associated with Belgium, the idea that the virus spread from Belgium to both Italy and France at around the same time seems plausible, as this paper contends,” he said.
France is the latest in a growing number of countries and areas where no direct link between China and local outbreaks could be established.
The dominant strains in Russia and Australia, for instance, came from Europe and the United States, respectively, according to some studies.
These findings have drawn fire from some politicians who have tried to deflect domestic anger over their handling of the crisis by blaming China.
Is this the next big hotspot for the ‘little flu’?
28 Apr 2020
“So now the Fake News @nytimes is tracing the CoronaVirus origins back to Europe, NOT China. This is a first!” he tweeted on April 11, referring to a story about the studies in the The New York Times’ science section.
The findings also highlight the difficulties governments face in tracing the source of coronavirus outbreaks.
Less-developed countries may never know where their strains came from due to inadequate testing and sequencing capability.
India, for example, has released the genetic sequence of fewer than 40 samples to the public so far, a small number considering its huge population.
Most of the strains sampled in 35 early cases came from clades that could be traced to Italy and Iran, with only a few from China, according to a recent study. But researchers were not able to track further because of the lack of data.
A scientist on the study, Dr Mukesh Thakur, of the Zoological Survey of India, said it was too early to rule out China as the source of outbreaks in India because the number of samples at hand was limited.
A 20-year-old student studying medicine in Wuhan, for instance, might have come in contact with many people on the way home before she was tested positive on January 30.
Thakur said local media reported that the Indian government quarantined 3,500 people possibly linked to three positive cases imported from Wuhan.
“God knows how many of them tested positive in the subsequent stages,” Thakur said in an email response to the Post’s queries on Tuesday.
Some prominent scientists, including Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, said the virus might have been spreading quietly in humans for years, or even decades, without causing a detectable outbreak.
The virus had thus adapted well to the human body. Some genes regulating its binding to host cells were similar, or even identical, to those found in some other highly infectious human viruses, such as HIV and Ebola.
According to some estimates, the ancestor of Sars-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19, might have left bats between 50 and 70 years ago. A recent study by a team of geneticists in Oxford University estimated the first outbreak of the current pandemic could have occurred as early as September last year.
They found that the dominant strains circulating in China and Asia were genetically younger than some popular strains in the United States.
Concerns are rising that China is repeating its mistake of a decade ago by pursuing short-term debt-fuelled economic growth at the cost of long-term sustainability
Local governments are stepping up spending on infrastructure projects in a bid to offset the slowdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdowns
Construction of high-speed railways, motorways and airports is an old tactic that Beijing dusted off after the pandemic led to a 6.8 per cent economic contraction in the first quarter. Photo: Xinhua
China’s huge stockpile of local government debt, one of the biggest “grey rhino” risks threatening the Chinese economy’s future, is set to rise steeply as local authorities rush to increase capital spending to help offset the damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
As Beijing discusses increasing the central government budget deficit and monetary policy easing to spur economic growth, many local governments see the situation as a golden opportunity to realise their investment ambitions, fanning concerns that China is repeating its mistake of a decade ago by pursuing short-term debt-fuelled economic growth at the cost of long-term sustainability.
In one of the latest investment drives, the southeastern province of Fujian announced on Sunday that it had signed contracts for 391 new projects with a combined investment value of 783.6 billion yuan (US$110.6 billion). Projects undertaken by central government-owned companies, which received significant lending support in the first quarter, accounted for more than half of the promised investment in Fujian, some 92 projects worth 424.5 billion yuan.
The landlocked eastern province of Anhui is also planning 2,583 new projects this year at a cost of 450 billion yuan, a third of which have been created in the last two weeks.
Construction begins for major sea crossing to link Shenzhen and Zhongshan in Greater Bay Area
In addition to work on existing construction projects, costing around 850 billion yuan, the province has also prepared a list of 3,300 reserve projects with a total investment value of 5.4 trillion yuan (US$762 billion) which could theoretically be started at any point in the future, pending government approval and funding support.
“The most powerful and effective way to offset the economic slowdown is to increase the size of investments,” Wang Qikang, an official with the Anhui economic planning office said on Friday. “[We] must quicken the pace of construction, working day and night to win back the lost time [from the coronavirus lockdowns].”
Construction of high-speed railways, motorways and airports is an old tactic that Beijing dusted off after the pandemic led to a 6.8 per cent economic contraction in the first quarter.
Infrastructure construction has already been hit hard amid the lockdowns, plunging 19.7 per cent in the first three months of the year compared to a year earlier.
Many [local governments] are still striving to achieve a high growth rate without the guidance of a national [gross domestic product] target – Liu Xuezhi
“The investment stimulus mindset has hardly been eradicated at the local level,” said Liu Xuezhi, a senior researcher with the Bank of Communications in Shanghai. “In particular, many [local governments] are still striving to achieve a high growth rate without the guidance of a national [gross domestic product] target.”
Before the start of the coronavirus outbreak, Beijing was thought to be targeting a
of around 6 per cent this year after achieving 6.1 per cent in 2019, although many local governments appear to be setting their own annual targets still using the original expected goal as a guide.
However, that target was never made public because the meeting of the
scheduled for early March, where the growth target would normally have been released, was postponed due to the virus.
The government announced on Wednesday that the NPC will be held from May 22, when a new, likely lower, growth target could be announced.
China’s first-quarter GDP shrinks for the first time since 1976 as coronavirus cripples economy
International rating agency Moody’s warned that greater infrastructure spending would result in higher debt for regional and local governments, increasing their financial risks amid a sharp slowdown in tax revenues.
“Such investments are less likely to be a main support measure [chosen by Beijing] now given the government’s focus on avoiding a rapid increase in leverage and asset price inflation,” Moody’s analysts Michael Taylor and Lilian Li said on Tuesday.
At the end of March, local government debt stood at 22.8 trillion yuan (US$3.2 trillion), according to the Ministry of Finance. But implicit liabilities, which are hidden in local financing vehicles, state firms and public-private partnership projects, are believed to be much larger, with some estimates pointing towards an additional debt of over 30 trillion yuan.
Chinese central bank governor Yi Gang, along with other officials, have already warned against excessive economic stimulus, saying it would add risks to China’s financial system.
A key risk is that local governments are front-loading China’s long-term investment plan, especially in the railway sector, with more than 357 railway projects proposed by local governments.
Shandong province, for example, is preparing to build four new railway lines, including the Shandong portion of a second high-speed railway between Beijing to Shanghai.
“There is still a chance for infrastructure investment growth to hit 10 per cent if the government releases 2 trillion yuan (US$282 billion) in funding through local special purpose bonds and special treasury bonds,” said Haitong Securities’ chief economist Jiang Chao on Monday.
However, a local government debt monitoring report issued on Tuesday by the National Institution of Finance and Development warned that China’s local government fiscal situation is worsening rapidly as expenses surge and revenues drop.
“All levels of local governments in China will face huge debt repayment pressure in five years,” warned Yin Jianfeng, deputy director of the Beijing-based think-tank.
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) has bought cameras to take temperatures of workers during the coronavirus pandemic from a firm the United States blacklisted over allegations it helped China detain and monitor the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
China’s Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co Ltd (002236.SZ) shipped 1,500 cameras to Amazon this month in a deal valued close to $10 million, one of the people said. At least 500 systems from Dahua – the blacklisted firm – are for Amazon’s use in the United States, another person said.
The Amazon procurement, which has not been previously reported, is legal because the rules control U.S. government contract awards and exports to blacklisted firms, but they do not stop sales to the private sector.
However, the United States “considers that transactions of any nature with listed entities carry a ‘red flag’ and recommends that U.S. companies proceed with caution,” according to the Bureau of Industry and Security’s website. Dahua has disputed the designation.
The deal comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned of a shortage of temperature-reading devices and said it wouldn’t halt certain pandemic uses of thermal cameras that lack the agency’s regulatory approval. Top U.S.-based maker FLIR Systems Inc (FLIR.O) has faced an up to weeks-long order backlog, forcing it to prioritize products for hospitals and other critical facilities.
Amazon declined to confirm its purchase from Dahua, but said its hardware complied with national, state and local law, and its temperature checks were to “support the health and safety of our employees, who continue to provide a critical service in our communities.”
The company added it was implementing thermal imagers from “multiple” manufacturers, which it declined to name. These vendors include Infrared Cameras Inc, which Reuters previously reported, and FLIR, according to employees at Amazon-owned Whole Foods who saw the deployment. FLIR declined to comment on its customers.
Dahua, one of the biggest surveillance camera manufacturers globally, said it does not discuss customer engagements and it adheres to applicable laws. Dahua is committed “to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19” through technology that detects “abnormal elevated skin temperature — with high accuracy,” it said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Commerce, which maintains the blacklist, declined comment. The FDA said it would use discretion when enforcing regulations during the public health crisis as long as thermal systems lacking compliance posed no “undue risk” and secondary evaluations confirmed fevers.
Dahua’s thermal cameras have been used in hospitals, airports, train stations, government offices and factories during the pandemic. International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) placed an order for 100 units, and the automaker Chrysler placed an order for 10, one of the sources said. In addition to selling thermal technology, Dahua makes white-label security cameras resold under dozens of other brands such as Honeywell, according to research and reporting firm IPVM.
Honeywell said some but not all its cameras are manufactured by Dahua, and it holds products to its cybersecurity and compliance standards. IBM and Chrysler’s parent Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) did not comment.
The Trump Administration added Dahua and seven other tech firms last year to the blacklist for acting against U.S. foreign policy interests, saying they were “implicated” in “China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.”
More than one million people have been sent to camps in the Xinjiang region as part of China’s campaign to root out terrorism, the United Nations has estimated.
Dahua has said the U.S. decision lacked “any factual basis.” Beijing has denied mistreatment of minorities in Xinjiang and urged the United States to remove the companies from the list.
A provision of U.S. law, which is scheduled to take effect in August, will also bar the federal government from starting or renewing contracts with a company using “any equipment, system, or service” from firms including Dahua “as a substantial or essential component of any system.”
Amazon’s cloud unit is a major contractor with the U.S. intelligence community, and it has been battling Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) for an up to $10 billion deal with the Pentagon.
Top industry associations have asked Congress for a year-long delay because they say the law would reduce supplies to the government dramatically, and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that policies clarifying the implementation of the law were forthcoming.
FACE DETECTION & PRIVACY
The coronavirus has infected staff from dozens of Amazon warehouses, ignited small protests over allegedly unsafe conditions and prompted unions to demand site closures. Temperature checks help Amazon stay operational, and the cameras – a faster, socially distant alternative to forehead thermometers – can speed up lines to enter its buildings. Amazon said the type of temperature reader it uses varies by building.
To see if someone has a fever, Dahua’s camera compares a person’s radiation to a separate infrared calibration device. It uses face detection technology to track subjects walking by and make sure it is looking for heat in the right place.
An additional recording device keeps snapshots of faces the camera has spotted and their temperatures, according to a demonstration of the technology in San Francisco. Optional facial recognition software can fetch images of the same subject across time to determine, for instance, who a virus patient may have been near in a line for temperature checks.
Amazon said it is not using facial recognition on any of its thermal cameras. Civil liberties groups have warned the software could strip people of privacy and lead to arbitrary apprehensions if relied on by police. U.S. authorities have also worried that equipment makers like Dahua could hide a technical “back door” to Chinese government agents seeking intelligence.
In response to questions about the thermal systems, Amazon said in a statement, “None of this equipment has network connectivity, and no personal identifiable information will be visible, collected, or stored.”
Dahua made the decision to market its technology in the United States before the FDA issued the guidance on thermal cameras in the pandemic. Its supply is attracting many U.S. customers not deterred by the blacklist, according to Evan Steiner, who sells surveillance equipment from a range of manufacturers in California through his firm EnterActive Networks LLC.
“You’re seeing a lot of companies doing everything that they possibly can preemptively to prepare for their workforce coming back,” he said.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) discounts on the iPhone 11 in China and the release of a new low-price SE model have put the company in a better position than rivals to weather a coronavirus-related plunge in global smartphone demand.
While China, which accounts for roughly 15% of Apple’s revenue, appears to be a rare bright spot, investors will be keen to get a picture of global demand when the Cupertino, California-headquartered company reports second-quarter results on Thursday.
The iPhone maker has shut retail stores in the United States and Europe following the COVID-19 outbreak, and China is the only major market where it has been able to reopen all shops.
Consumer spending is expected to be muted as the pandemic has crippled economies and Apple, the world’s second-most valuable tech company, is better armed with the launch of its new price-conscious iPhone model, analysts said.
“Apple is better positioned than most to experience a rapid recovery in a post COVID world,” Evercore analyst Amit Daryanani said in a research note. “We see demand as pushed out, not canceled.”
He added that the launch of the $399 iPhone SE suggested that Apple’s supply chain was getting back on its feet after weeks of shutdown earlier this year.
Analysts expect Apple to report a 6% drop in revenue and an 11% fall in net income in its fiscal second quarter, according to Refinitiv data.
On the other hand, Chinese brands such as Oppo and Vivo who have steadily moved to offer high-end models to challenge iPhones, stand to lose marketshare as bargain hunters choose Apple.
Earlier this month, several online retailers in China slashed prices of the iPhone 11 by as much as 18% – a tactic Apple has used in the past to boost demand. And while initial social media reaction to the new iPhone SE was muted, analysts said they were seeing a pick up in demand.
The cheaper iPhone SE could tempt iPhone owners to opt for a newer device, something they might have otherwise delayed in a weak economy, said Nicole Peng, who tracks the smartphone sector at research firm Canalys.
“People want to avoid uncertainty in a downturn,” she said. “Having a brand like Apple that can showcase quality and make people less worried about breakdowns or after-sales service can bring in buyers.”
CHEAP IS GOOD
Early data suggests that the Chinese smartphone market is recovering rapidly in the aftermath of the virus, and Apple has emerged relatively unscathed.
Sales of iPhones in China jumped 21% last month from a year earlier and more than three fold from February, government data showed, meaning March-quarter sales in the country were likely to have slipped just 1%.
To be sure, a recovery in Chinese demand won’t offset sales lost in the United States and Europe. And the company is yet to launch a smartphone enabled with 5G wireless technology like those offered by Asian rivals, a disadvantage for Apple so far.
But those same expensive 5G models may not sell well in the current climate of frugality, analysts said.
“If there are no massive subsidies (in China), I doubt there will be many smartphone users who will be eager to upgrade to 5G,” said Linda Sui, who tracks the smartphone sector at research firm Strategy Analytics.
Sui expects iPhone shipments in 2020 to be down 2 percentage points at the most, versus double digit declines at Chinese firms.
Apple also has revenue from its services business to fall back on. It has leveraged its large iPhone customer base to boost services revenue from music, apps, gaming and video.
“Apple’s Services segment should remain resilient in today’s work-from-home environment, thereby demonstrating the durability of Apple’s model,” Cowen analyst Krish Sankar said.
Beijing’s Chaoyang district remains the last high-risk area in China, with virus preventive measures continuing to impact on travel and shopping plans
China faces the dilemma of preventing a re-emerge of the pandemic, while also pushing to get its economy back to normal
China’s continued pandemic prevention measures, coupled with still hesitant consumer demand, will inevitably lead to persistent limitations on the nation’s economic recovery, analysts said. Photo: Bloomberg
After nearly three months of being quarantined by herself in Beijing, Mary Zhao was looking forward to the upcoming long weekend at the start of May to be able to finally reunite with her parents.
But Zhao was forced to abandon her plan for the Labour Day holidays as Beijing’s upmarket Chaoyang district, where she lives, remains the only high-risk zone for coronavirus in the entire country.
If she travelled the five hours by car, or two hours via bullet train, to the neighbouring Hebei province, she would first have to undergo a 14-day quarantine before seeing her parents. Her parents would also have the same two week quarantine to look forward to once they returned home if they came to visit their daughter in Beijing.
These strict controls to prevent a re-emergence of the coronavirus outbreak are making a return to normal life impossible for many, and mean the final economic and social cost
from China’s draconian preventive measures could be much larger than expected.
Wuhan declares ‘victory’ as central Chinese city’s last Covid-19 patients leave hospital
It underscores the dilemma facing China’s leaders on how to balance the need to
and to avoid a fresh outbreak. On the surface, China may be able to declare victory as even Wuhan, the city where the virus was first detected, announced that the last Covid-19 patient had left hospital on Sunday. But fears of a renewed outbreak have kept the country’s cinemas and most schools closed, with travel between provinces discouraged.
China’s national borders also remain largely closed, with flights being cut to a minimum, and a mandatory 14-day quarantine for every arrival. In the number of places where new cases have been reported, quarantine requirements have been tightened, including Harbin and a few other cities near the border with Russia.
Chaoyang, the home to one of Beijing’s main business districts and most foreign embassies, changed its risk rating to high from low in the middle of April after three new cases were reported, dealing a fresh blow to the district’s
and forcing many of the 3.5 million residents to cancel their travel plans.
On the outskirts of Beijing, near Beijing Capital International Airport, returning migrant workers to Picun village were ordered to stop at entrance and could only be escorted inside by their landlord, with many villages and residential compounds remaining closed to outsiders.
In the high-end shopping district of Guomao, some shops also remain closed as there are few potential customers, while over in the popular Sanlitun area, metal barriers restrict access and temperature checkpoints are still required.
The landmark Apple Store in the popular Taikoo shopping centre is open, but with limited customers allowed inside, there are long queues outside. Customers are required to scan a QR code to check their movements over the last few days before entering.
Coronavirus: More schools reopen in China for students preparing for university entrance exams
“Why do I have to spend 20 minutes just to get into the Apple Store? The sun has almost melted me down,” one visitor complained to the security guards at the front of the shop.
China’s continued pandemic prevention measures, coupled with still hesitant consumer demand, will inevitably lead to persistent limitations on the nation’s economic recovery, analysts said.
Ernai Cui, an economist at research firm Gavekal Dragonomics, said on Monday that China’s cautious approach to lifting restrictions “points to a weak second quarter for consumer services”, adding additional pressure to the economic recovery.Mao Zhenhua, a researcher at the China Institute of Economics at Renmin University, said China’s preventive measures will inevitably be a drag on production, employment and exports.
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.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s smog-prone northern province of Hebei met its air quality targets by a big margin over the winter after concerted efforts to tackle emissions, a local official said on Sunday, without mentioning coronavirus-related factory shutdowns.
Average PM2.5 concentrations over the October-March period dropped 15% from a year earlier to 61 micrograms per cubic metre, while sulphur dioxide also fell by a third, said He Litao, vice-head of the provincial environmental bureau.
Most experts have attributed the significant decline in air pollution throughout China in the first quarter to the coronavirus outbreak and tough containment measures, which saw cities and entire provinces locked down and sharply reduced traffic and industrial activity throughout the country.
With millions staying at home, concentrations of lung-damaging PM2.5 particles fell by nearly 15% in more than 300 Chinese cities in the first three months of 2020.
Shanghai saw emissions fall by nearly 20% in the first quarter, while in Wuhan, where the pandemic originated, monthly averages dropped more than a third compared to last year.
However, He of the Hebei environmental bureau attributed the local decline in pollution to the “conscientious implementation” of government decisions even in the face of unfavourable weather conditions.
According to a winter action plan published last year, 10 cities in Hebei were expected to cut lung-damaging small particles known as PM2.5 by 1%-6% compared to the previous year.
Despite the decline, average PM2.5 was still much higher than China’s official standard of 35 micrograms, and the recommended World Health Organization level of 10 micrograms.
But trade with partner countries might not be as badly affected as with countries elsewhere in the world, observers say
China’s trade with belt and road countries rose by 3.2 per cent in the January-March period, but second-quarter results will depend on how well they manage to contain the pathogen, academic says
China’s investment in foreign infrastructure as part of its Belt and Road Initiative has been curtailed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: Xinhua
The coronavirus pandemic is set to cause a slump in Chinese investment in its signature
and a dip in trade with partner countries that could take a year to overcome, analysts say.
But the impact of the health crisis on China’s economic relations with nations involved in the ambitious infrastructure development programme might not be as great as on those that are not.
China’s total foreign trade in the first quarter of 2020 fell by 6.4 per cent year on year, according to official figures from Beijing.
Trade with the United States, Europe and Japan all dropped in the period, by 18.3, 10.4 and 8.1 per cent, respectively, the commerce ministry said.
By comparison, China’s trade with belt and road countries increased by 3.2 per cent in the first quarter, although the growth figure was lower than the 10.8 per cent reported for the whole of 2019.
China’s trade with 56 belt and road countries – located across Africa, Asia, Europe and South America – accounts for about 30 per cent of its total annual volume, according to the commerce ministry.
Despite the first-quarter growth, Tong Jiadong, a professor of international trade at Nankai University in Tianjin, said he expected China’s trade with belt and road countries to fall by between 2 and 5 per cent this year.
His predictions are less gloomy than the 13 to 32 per cent contraction in global trade forecast for this year by the World Trade Organisation.
“A drop in [China’s total] first-quarter trade was inevitable but it slowly started to recover as it resumed production, especially with Southeast Asian, Eastern European and Arab countries,” Tong said.
“The second quarter will really depend on how the epidemic is contained in belt and road countries.”
Nick Marro, Hong Kong-based head of global trade at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said he expected China’s total overseas direct investment to fall by about 30 per cent this year, which would be bad news for the belt and road plan.
“This will derive from a combination of growing domestic stress in China, enhanced regulatory scrutiny over Chinese investment in major international markets, and weakened global economic prospects that will naturally depress investment demand,” he said.
The development of the Chinese built and operated special economic zone in the Cambodian town of Sihanoukville is reported to have slowed, while infrastructure projects in Bangladesh, including the Payra coal-fired power plant, have been put on hold.
The development of the Chinese built and operated special economic zone in the Cambodian town of Sihanoukville is reported to have slowed. Photo: AFP
Marro said the reduction of capital and labour from China might complicate other projects for key belt and road partner, like Pakistan, which is home to infrastructure projects worth tens of billions of US dollars, and funded and built in large part by China.
“Pakistan looks concerning, particularly in terms of how we’ve assessed its sovereign and currency risk,” Marro said.
“Public debt is high compared to other emerging markets, while the coronavirus will push the budget deficit to expand to 10 per cent of GDP [gross domestic product] this year.”
Last week, Pakistan asked China for a 10-year extension to the repayment period on US$30 billion worth of loans used to fund the development of infrastructure projects, according to a report by local newspaper Dawn.
China’s overseas investment has been falling steadily from its peak in 2016, mostly as a result of Beijing’s curbs on capital outflows.
Last year, the direct investment by Chinese companies and organisations other than banks in belt and road countries fell 3.8 per cent from 2018 to US$15 billion, with most of the money going to South and Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Pakistan.
Tong said the pandemic had made Chinese investors nervous about putting their money in countries where disease control measures were becoming increasingly stringent, but added that the pause in activity would give all parties time to regroup.
“Investment in the second quarter will decline and allow time for the questions to be answered,” he said.
“Past experience along the belt and road has taught many lessons to both China and its partners, and forced them to think calmly about their own interests. The epidemic provides both parties with a good time for this.”
Dr Frans-Paul van der Putten, a senior research fellow at Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands, said China’s post-pandemic strategy for the belt and road in Europe
might include a shift away from investing in high-profile infrastructure projects like ports and airports.
Investors might instead cooperate with transport and logistics providers rather than invest directly, he said.
“Even though in the coming years the amount of money China loans and invests abroad may be lower than in the peak years around 2015-16, I expect it to maintain the belt and road plan as its overall strategic framework for its foreign economic relations,” he said.
BENGALURU (Reuters) – The Indian economy is likely to suffer its worst quarter since the mid-1990s, hit by the ongoing lockdown imposed to stem the spread of coronavirus, according to a Reuters poll, which predicted a mild and gradual recovery.
Over 2.6 million people tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 have been infected by the coronavirus worldwide and more than 180,000 have died. Business and household lockdowns have disrupted supply chains globally, bringing growth to a halt.
The April 17-22 Reuters poll predicted the economy expanded at an annual pace of 3.0% last quarter but will shrink 5.2% in the three months ending in June, far weaker than expectations in a poll published last month for 4.0% and 2.0% growth, respectively.
The predicted contraction would be the first – under any gross domestic product calculation, which has changed a few times – since the mid-1990s, when official reporting for quarterly data began.
“The extended lockdown until early May adds further downside risk to our view of a 5% year-on-year GDP fall in the current quarter, the worst in the last few decades,” said Prakash Sakpal, Asia economist at ING.
“We don’t consider economic stimulus as strong enough to position the economy for a speedy recovery once the pandemic ends,” he said.
(Graphic: Reuters poll graphic on coronavirus impact on the Indian economy IMAGE link: here)
The Indian government announced a spending package of 1.7 trillion rupees in March to cushion the economy from the initial lockdown, which has been extended until May 3.
In an emergency meeting last week, the Reserve Bank of India cut its deposit rate again, after reducing it on March 27 and lowering the main policy rate by 75 basis points. It also announced another round of targeted long-term repo operations to ease liquidity.
But even with those measures, 40% of economists, or 13 of 32 – who provided quarterly figures – predicted an outright recession this year. Only one had expected a recession last month.
In the worst case, a smaller sample of respondents predicted, the economy would contract 9.3% in the current quarter. That compares with 0.5% growth in the previous poll’s worst-case forecast in late March, underscoring how rapidly the outlook has deteriorated.
The latest poll’s consensus view still shows the economy recovering again slowly in the July-September quarter, growing 0.8%, then 4.2% in October-December and 6.0% in the final quarter of the fiscal year, in early 2021.
But that compares with considerably more optimistic near-term forecasts of 3.3%, 5.0% and 5.6%, respectively, in the previous poll.
“A rebound in economic activity following the disruption is expected, but the low starting point of growth implies a gradual recovery,” said Upasana Chachra, chief India economist at Morgan Stanley.
“Indeed, before disruptions related to COVID-19, growth was slowing, with domestic issues of risk aversion in financial sector … (and) those concerns will likely stay after the COVID-19 disruptions have passed unless the policy response is much larger than expected,” she said.
The unemployment rate has tripled to 23.8% since the lockdown started on March 25, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a Mumbai-based research firm.
The Indian economy was now forecast to expand 1.5% in the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2021 – the weakest since 1991 and significantly lower than 3.6% predicted in late March. It probably grew 4.6% in the fiscal year that just ended.
Under a worst-case scenario, the median showed the economy shrinking 1.0% this fiscal year. That would be the first officially reported economic contraction for a 12-month period since GDP was reported to have contracted for calendar year 1979.
“Unless fiscal policy is also loosened aggressively alongside monetary policy, there is a big risk the drastic economic slowdown currently underway morphs into an annual contraction in output and that the recovery is hampered,” said Shilan Shah, senior India economist at Capital Economics.
All 37 economists who answered a separate question unanimously said the RBI would follow up with more easing, including lowering the repo and reverse repo rates and expanding the new long-term loans programme.
The RBI was expected to cut its repo rate by another 40 basis points to 4.00% by the end of this quarter. Already lowered twice over the past month by a cumulative 115 basis points, the reverse repo rate was forecast to be trimmed by another 25 points by end-June to 3.50%.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Delhi’sair quality has improved remarkably during the shutdown
When India shut down last month and suspended all transport to contain the spread of coronavirus, the skies over its polluted cities quickly turned an azure blue, and the air, unusually fresh.
As air pollution plummeted to levels unseen in living memory, people shared pictures of spotless skies and even Himalayan peaks from cities where the view had been obscured by fog for decades.
On one social messaging group, a resident of the capital, Delhi, which regularly records some of the foulest air in the world, celebrated the city’s “alpine weather“. Politician and author Shashi Tharoor wrote that the “blissful sight of blue skies and the joy of breathing clean air provides just the contrast to illustrate what we are doing to ourselves the rest of the time”.
Media caption India coronavirus lockdown cleans up Ganges river
Less than six months ago, Delhi was gasping for breath. Authorities said air quality had reached “unbearable levels”. Schools were shut, flights were diverted, and people were asked to wear masks, avoid polluted areas and keep doors and windows closed.
Delhi and 13 other Indian cities feature on a list of the world’s 20 most polluted. It is estimated that more than a million Indians die every year because of air pollution-related diseases. Industrial smoke, vehicular emissions, burning of trash and crop residue, and construction and road dust are the major contributors.
As urban Indians gazed at the skies and breathed clean air inside their homes, researchers hunkered down to track data on how the grinding lockdown – now extended to 3 May – was impacting air pollution across the country.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Lucknow is another city on the top 20 world’s most polluted list
“This was an unprecedented opportunity for us to take a close look at how air pollution levels have responded to an extraordinary development,” Sarath Guttikunda, who heads Urban Emissions, an independent research group that provides air quality forecasts, told me.
Dr Guttikunda and his team of researchers looked at the data spewed out by the 100-odd air quality monitoring stations all over India. They decided to concentrate on the capital Delhi and its suburbs – a massive sprawl called the National Capital region, where more than 20 million people live. Last winter, air pollution here had reached more than 20 times the World Health Organization’s safe limit.
Image copyright HINDUSTAN TIMESImage caption The financial capital Mumbai also seems very different
The deadliest particle in Delhi’s foul air is the tiny but deadly PM 2.5, which increases the likelihood of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. They primarily come from combustion – fires, automobiles and power plants.
Urban Emissions found the levels of PM 2.5 in Delhi during the lockdown plummeted to 20 micrograms per cubic metre with a 20-day average of 35.
To put this into context, between 2017 and 2019, the monthly average of PM 2.5 in the capital was up to four times higher. (The national standard is set at 40, and the WHO has an annual average guideline of just 10 micrograms per cubic metre.)
“If 35 is the average lowest available PM2.5 with limited local emissions, it means that at least 70% of the pollution is locally generated,” Mr Guttikunda told me.
Media caption India coronavirus lockdown cleans up Ganges river
His study also found a marked dip in PM 10, caused mainly by road and construction dust, and nitrogen dioxide, which comes mainly from vehicular emissions, and nearly 90% of vehicles are off the road.
“The current crisis has shown us that clear skies and breathable air can be achieved very fast if concrete action is taken to reduce burning of fossil fuels,” says Sunil Dahiya, of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which has also been tracking air pollution levels during the lockdown.
But will this prompt change? After all, urban Indians’ and the media’s panic and outrage during the deadly winter pollution every year soon gets lost in the fog of summer heat and concerns over monsoon rains and droughts.
“We don’t yet have a democratic demand for clean air,” Arunabha Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a leading climate think tank, told me. Orders to clean up the air have almost always come from the courts, responding to pleas by NGOs.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Pollution in Delhi peaks during winter
However, Dr Ghosh still hopes that “the experience of blue skies and fresh air could be a trigger to create a democratic demand for clean air in India”.
Crises often trigger life changing reforms. A fatal four-day “pea-souper” that engulfed London in 1952 and killed thousands provoked the passing of the Clean Air Act to reduce the use of smoky fuels.
China tried to clean up its air several times before hosting marquee international events – like the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the World Expo in Shanghai and the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010 – before sliding back to grey, smoky skies.
But many believe the 2014 Apec meeting in Beijing, when China hosted 21 heads of Asia-Pacific economies, was a turning point. The rare blue skies over Beijing spawned the phrase ‘Apec blue‘. In a rush to clean its air, China introduced a set of far-reaching measures. Over the next four years, this resulted in a 32% drop in average pollution across major Chinese cities.
So could a lockdown to prevent the spread of a pandemic, which has imperilled the health and livelihoods of millions, trigger similar policy changes to clean up India’s air?
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption The movement for clean air has been sporadic and mainly pushed by NGOs
Could it move to a shift in reducing traffic on the road by asking people to work from home in shifts now that millions have experienced clean air for the first time in years? (Facing energy shortages after the loss of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Japan unleashed a Cool Biz campaign to cut down air conditioning in workplaces and reduce carbon emissions by asking office workers to shed their suits.)
Or can India use some of the money from an inevitable stimulus to help kick-start the economy go towards helping green industries? Renewables, experts say, creates more jobs than coal: India has already created nearly 100,000 jobs in solar and wind energy firms.
Can the country use the windfall revenues accruing from the steep decline in oil prices – most of India’s oil is imported – to provide rebates to polluting factories to set up much-needed emission control equipment?
“We have to learn lessons to deploy the economic recovery from the pandemic. We need growth, jobs and sustainable development,” says Dr Ghosh. Cleaning up the air could be the key. For too long, India – and Indians – have ignored their right to breathe easy.
What’s more, if China can reduce air pollution by 32% in four-and-a-half years, why can’t India pledge to reduce pollution by 80% in 80 cities by 2027, which is our 80th anniversary of Independence? asks Dr Ghosh.
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