Archive for ‘relationship’

31/05/2020

Spotlight: Washington faces blast at home, abroad for “terminating” ties with WHO

BEIJING, May 31 (Xinhua) — The U.S. government has been slammed at home and abroad after announcing on Friday “terminating” its relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO).

U.S. health experts and lawmakers have expressed concern over the decision announced by President Donald Trump amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association, described Trump’s move as a “senseless” action with “significant, harmful repercussions.”

“COVID-19 affects us all and does not respect borders; defeating it requires the entire world working together,” Harris was quoted by CNN as saying, urging Trump to reverse the course.

Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law and director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, described the move as “foolish and arrogant” in his Twitter account.

“Trump’s action is an enormous disruption and distraction during an unprecedented health crisis,” said Gostin, also the director of the WHO collaborating center on national and global health law. “The President has made us less safe.”

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said that “the United States cannot eliminate this virus on its own and to withdraw from the World Health Organization — the world’s leading public health body — is nothing short of reckless,” according to a CNN report.

Even within the Republican party, some Republicans also expressed their disagreement. Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander reportedly said he disagreed with Trump’s decision, because, without U.S. funding, clinical trials to develop a COVID-19 vaccine might be hampered.

In addition, the European Union (EU) has urged the United States to reconsider its termination of ties with the WHO, warning that Trump’s move would erode global efforts to curb the spread of the virus.

“The WHO needs to continue being able to lead the international response to pandemics, current and future. For this, the participation and support of all is required and very much needed. In the face of this global threat, now is the time for enhanced cooperation and common solutions. Actions that weaken international results must be avoided,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said in the statement on Saturday.

“In this context, we urge the U.S. to reconsider its announced decision,” the statement said.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn tweeted that Trump’s move was “a disappointing backlash for International Health.”

“The EU must take a leading role and engage more financially,” Spahn said, noting that this would be one of Germany’s priorities when it becomes the bloc’s rotating presidency on July 1.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said earlier that Britain “has no plans to stop funding the WHO, which has an important role to play in leading the global health response.”

“Coronavirus is a global challenge and it is essential that countries work together to tackle this shared threat,” the spokesperson was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

Irish Minister for Health Simon Harris on Friday described Trump’s move as an “awful decision.”

“A global pandemic requires the world working together … We should unite in our fight against it (COVID-19) & not fight each other,” Harris tweeted.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told TASS news agency that Washington “dealt a blow” to the international framework for cooperation in healthcare at the moment when the world needed to join forces.

Source: Xinhua

15/05/2020

Trump says doesn’t want to talk to Xi, could even cut China ties

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump signaled a further deterioration of his relationship with China over the coronavirus outbreak, saying he has no interest in speaking to President Xi Jinping right now and going so far as to suggest he could even cut ties with the world’s second largest economy.

In an interview with Fox Business Network broadcast on Thursday, Trump said he was very disappointed with China’s failure to contain the disease and that the pandemic had cast a pall over his January trade deal with Beijing, which he has previously hailed as a major achievement.

“They should have never let this happen,” Trump said. “So I make a great trade deal and now I say this doesn’t feel the same to me. The ink was barely dry and the plague came over. And it doesn’t feel the same to me.”

Trump’s pique extended to Xi, with whom the U.S. president has said repeatedly he has a good relationship.

“But I just – right now I don’t want to speak to him,” Trump said in the interview, which was taped on Wednesday.

Trump was asked about a Republican senator’s suggestion that U.S. visas be denied to Chinese students applying to study in fields related to national security, such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

“There are many things we could do. We could do things. We could cut off the whole relationship,” he replied.

“Now, if you did, what would happen? You’d save $500 billion,” Trump said, referring to estimated U.S. annual imports from China, which he often refers to as lost money.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing on Friday that maintaining a steady bilateral relationship served the interests of both peoples and would be beneficial for world peace and stability.

“Both China and the U.S. should now be cooperating more on fighting the virus together, to cure patients and resume economic production, but this requires the U.S. to want to work with us on this,” Zhao said.

Trump’s remarks drew ridicule from Hu Xijin, editor in chief of China’s influential Global Times tabloid, who referred to the president’s much-criticized comments last month about how COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, might be treated.

“This president once suggested COVID-19 patients inject disinfectants,” Hu said on Twitter. “Remember this and you won’t be surprised when he said he could cut off the whole relationship with China.”

CONCERNED, REVIEWING OPTIONS

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox Business Network China needed to provide a lot more information about the coronavirus and Trump was reviewing his options.

“The president is concerned. He’s reviewing all his options. Obviously, we’re very concerned about the impact of this virus on the economy, on American jobs, the health of the American public and the president is going to do everything to protect the economy and protect American workers,” Mnuchin said.

“It’s a difficult and complex matter and the president has made very clear, he wants more information. They didn’t let us in, they didn’t let us understand what was going on.”

Trump and his Republican backers have accused Beijing of failing to alert the world to the severity and scope of the coronavirus outbreak and of withholding data about the earliest cases. The pandemic has sparked a sharp global recession and threatened Trump’s November re-election chances.

The United States has been hardest hit by the pandemic, according to official data.

China insists it has been transparent, and, amid increasingly bitter exchanges, both sides have questioned the future of the trade deal.

Opponents of Trump have said that while China has much to answer for over the outbreak, he appears to be seeking to deflect attention from criticism over his response to the crisis.

Scott Kennedy of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank called Trump’s remarks “dangerous bravado.”

“Avoiding communication is not an effective strategy for solving a crisis that requires global cooperation. And cutting off the economic relationship would badly damage the American economy,” he said.

Michael Pillsbury, a China analyst who has worked as an outside adviser to Trump, told Reuters he believed the president was concerned that China not only wanted to re-negotiate the Phase 1 deal, but also had not been meeting goals in purchasing from United States.

He said that according to figures cited by the China Daily, China’s purchases of U.S. products in the first four months of this year were 3% less than during the same period last year.

“It’s not good news for reducing the trade deficit or helping our economy recover from the coronavirus crisis,” he said.

China took some additional steps towards the Phase 1 goals on Thursday, buying U.S. soybean oil for the first time in nearly two years and issued customs notices allowing imports of U.S. barley and blueberries.

An executive from Chinese state agriculture trading house COFCO said China was set to speed up purchases of U.S. farm goods to implement the Phase 1 deal.

While U.S. intelligence agencies have said the coronavirus does not appear manmade or genetically modified, Trump said in his interview that China should have stopped it at its source.

“Whether it came from the lab or came from the bats, it all came from China, and they should have stopped it,” he said.

“It got out of control.”

Source: Reuters

09/05/2020

Delayed South China Sea talks expose China’s complex relationship with neighbours during pandemic

  • Nations may need help from China during virus outbreaks but remain wary of Beijing as adversary in disputed waters
  • Analysts say code of conduct negotiations are too sensitive and important for virtual meetings and may be delayed until coronavirus crisis is resolved
On April 18, the US Navy Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (front) and Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry transit the South China Sea. The presence of both Chinese and American navy ships in the area in recent weeks worries Southeast Asian nations. Photo: US Navy
On April 18, the US Navy Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (front) and Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry transit the South China Sea. The presence of both Chinese and American navy ships in the area in recent weeks worries Southeast Asian nations. Photo: US Navy
Negotiations between China and its Southeast Asian neighbours for a South China Sea
code of conduct have been postponed as the nations involved put their efforts into containing the Covid-19 pandemic, creating uncertainty about whether the two sides can work together amid rising tensions in the contested territory.
Southeast Asian nations are increasingly caught in a dilemma whether to maintain relations with Beijing during the pandemic while also fearing that tensions over the disputed waters are spiralling out of control. Both Chinese and United States navies are sending vessels to the area more frequently.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi expressed concern over recent activities in the South China Sea, noting that they might potentially escalate tensions at a time when global collective effort to fight Covid-19 was essential.

Speaking on Wednesday, she called on all parties to respect international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“While negotiation of the code of conduct is being postponed due to Covid-19, Indonesia calls on all relevant parties to exercise self-restraint and to refrain from undertaking action that may erode mutual trust and potentially escalate tension in the region,” she said.
Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. Photo: AP
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. Photo: AP
Calls for a binding code of conduct surfaced in 1995 when China occupied Mischief Reef
, a maritime feature claimed by the Philippines. China did not agree to start talks until 1999, and subsequent negotiations led to a non-binding Declaration on Conduct in 2002.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and China agreed in 2018 on a draft code laying the foundations for conduct in the disputed waters. At that time, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said China hoped to complete the negotiation by the end of 2021, a move he said could show China and Asean could jointly maintain regional peace.
Named and claimed: is Beijing spoiling for a new fight in the South China Sea?
27 Apr 2020

But tensions over the South China Sea have not calmed and, in fact, have surged in recent months with both Beijing and Washington seen to be using the Covid-19 pandemic to create a stronger presence there.

This year, the US has conducted four freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea and China has scrambled air and sea patrols to expel US vessels.

The confrontation between Beijing and Southeast Asian nations has also intensified. Last month, a Vietnamese fishing boat sank after a collision with a Chinese coastguard vessel near the Paracel Islands, known in China as the Xisha Islands, and in Vietnam as the Hoang Sa Islands.
On Saturday, the 35th escort fleet of the Chinese navy also conducted drills in the Spratly Islands chain – known as Nansha Islands in China – after completing an operation in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia. Analysts said the drill aimed to boost far-sea training for combat ships and boost protection against piracy for Chinese merchant ships.

Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, based at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the code of conduct talks had been delayed because of the pandemic, but Beijing was consolidating its position in the South China Sea amid the outbreak.

“So it’s doing what it can now to consolidate and further enhance its position before talks restart, and by then these moves will raise Beijing’s leverage in the negotiations with its Asean counterparts,” he said.

“The current situation gives it a window of opportunity amid this interlude on the talks, to further advance its physical hold in the South China Sea, especially while Asean parties have their hands full on the pandemic”.

Asean nations have turned their attention to coping with coronavirus outbreaks in their own countries. On April 14, a live video conference for the special Asean Plus Three Summit on the coronavirus pandemic was held in Hanoi. Photo: AFP
Asean nations have turned their attention to coping with coronavirus outbreaks in their own countries. On April 14, a live video conference for the special Asean Plus Three Summit on the coronavirus pandemic was held in Hanoi. Photo: AFP
Kang Lin, a researcher with Hainan University, said progress for the code of conduct would still go ahead, but it might be affected as face-to-face meetings between officials were disrupted.
“The negotiations involves multiple departments, such as diplomacy, maritime affairs, fisheries and even oil and gas-related departments,” he said, adding that those discussions might go online and might not be as effective.
“It is not easy to predict to what extent it will affect next year's goals. If the pandemic cannot be eliminated in the first half of next year, it may be longer than the three-year period we had previously scheduled,” he said.
Richard Heydarian, an academic and former Philippine government adviser, said video-conference meetings would be inadequate for negotiations about the future of the South China Sea.
“The problem with the negotiation of the code is that these are very sensitive, difficult negotiations. I don't think you can really do it just online, these are things that are done in the corridors of power,” he said. “It’s close to impossible to have that right now with the suspension of all international meetings in the Asean.”

Heydarian said Southeast Asian nations hoped to get help from China to contain the pandemic, but were showing unease about Beijing.

“I think there is a lot of resentment building against China,” he said. “There is also a lot of desperation to get assistance from China and, at the same time, complete helplessness with the fact that it is very hard to conduct any important extended international meeting on the level of Asean and beyond under current circumstances.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said on Thursday that China would push forward negotiations on the code of conduct, and hoped the code would be useful for peace and stability over the South China Sea.

Source: SCMP

29/04/2020

Spotlight: China leads global green development with concrete actions

BEIJING, April 28 (Xinhua) — China has achieved much progress in environmental protection and taken the lead in green development in recent years.

The efforts have exemplified Chinese President Xi Jinping’s proposal of “working together for a green and better future for all” made a year ago in his speech at the opening ceremony of the International Horticultural Exhibition 2019 Beijing.

In the keynote speech, Xi proposed a five-point initiative on promoting green development, namely pursuing harmony between man and nature, pursuing the prosperity based on green development, fostering a passion for nature-caring lifestyle, pursuing a scientific spirit in ecological governance, and joining hands to tackle environmental challenges.

China’s hard work on environment protection has paid off.

The ecological environment has improved significantly. People are enjoying more days of blue sky, cleaner water, and fertile land.

China has achieved the goal of zero growth of desertified land by 2030 set by the United Nations ahead of time. Besides, forest stock volume increased by 4.56 billion cubic meters compared with that of 2005.

Carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP in 2018 fell by 45.8 percent compared with that of 2005, exceeding the target set for the year.

After more than 30 years of hard work, the seventh largest desert in China, the Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, once known as the “sea of death” difficult for birds to fly across, has turned into a green valley.

In January 2020, in a letter in reply to the student representatives of the Global Alliance of Universities on Climate, the Chinese president mentioned his thoughts about ecological civilization in his youth.

“Over four decades ago, I lived and worked for many years in a small village on the Loess Plateau in western China. Back then, the ecology and environment there was seriously damaged due to over-development and the local people were trapped in poverty as a result,” Xi wrote.

“This experience taught me that man and nature are a community of life and that the damage done to nature will ultimately hurt mankind,” said Xi.

China’s progress and achievements are recognized worldwide.

The ecological civilization and green development advocated by China are actually an endeavor to find a way to balance economic development and environmental protection, said John Cobb, Jr., the founding president of the Institute for Postmodern Development of China and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Noting that the endeavor is a remarkable exploration, he expressed his hope that it will succeed.

China is on the right path in dealing with global climate change and achieving sustainable development, said Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum.

In addition to making efforts at home, China has also rolled out a series of measures to support the global combat against climate change.

In September 2015, ahead of the Paris climate change conference, Xi pledged a 20-billion-yuan (3-billion-U.S. dollars) China South-South Climate Cooperation Fund, which was dedicated to help other developing countries combat climate change.

China has also been fulfilling the obligations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, and achieved the goal of its intended nationally determined contributions submitted to the secretariat of the Climate Change Convention as scheduled.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his appreciation for China’s important contributions to addressing the climate change and building a green “Belt and Road,” and said he expects China to continue to play a leading role in addressing the climate change and other issues.

“Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,” a concept put forward by Xi in 2005 when he visited Yucun Village in southeast China’s Zhejiang Province as the party chief of the province, has become the motto of the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

In March 2020, when Xi returned to Yucun, he said that economic development should not be achieved at the expense of the ecological environment. To protect the ecological environment is to develop the productive forces, he said.

The history of civilizations shows that the rise or fall of a civilization is closely tied to its relationship with nature, Xi said at the International Horticultural Exhibition last year.

Only by joining hands can the humankind advance a global ecological civilization and march towards the bright future of building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Source: Xinhua

05/09/2019

What Chinese women wear: debate reveals battle between freedom and tradition

  • When Kazakh actress Reyizha Alimjan arrived in Shanghai last month wearing jeans and a camisole it reignited a long-running debate over who gets a say on how Chinese women should dress
  • Fashion choices that would be regarded as unremarkable in Europe or North America are often seen as outrageous in the world’s most populous nation
Kazakh actress Reyizha Alimjan’s fashion choices sparked a social media storm in China last month. Photo: Weibo
Kazakh actress Reyizha Alimjan’s fashion choices sparked a social media storm in China last month. Photo: Weibo

When Li Xiang broke up with her boyfriend over a selfie she posted on social media, it was not just about a woman letting a man know he wasn’t entitled to tell her how to dress in public, but a matter of personal freedom, social norms and cultural tradition.

A few weeks ago, the 24-year-old media worker from Shanghai shared a photo on WeChat that showed her posing at her bedroom door in a camisole and mini shorts. Her boyfriend said it made him very “uncomfortable”, and they quarrelled.

“‘Look how scantily clad you are, and [if] that is not enough, you shared it online,’ he said,” Li recalled.

“I got mad when he said, ‘You should go and ask other men if they’d like their girlfriends to dress like that’, as if he should decide what I wear – as if I were his appendage,” she said, referring to the archaic notion that a woman is secondary to a man in their relationship.

What clothes Chinese women should or should not wear has been the subject of intense online debate in recent weeks. Photo: EPA
What clothes Chinese women should or should not wear has been the subject of intense online debate in recent weeks. Photo: EPA

Their argument was not unusual in China, especially over the past month when the online world became embroiled in a war of words about women’s freedom to dress as they please.

The controversy erupted when an article defending Reyizha Alimjan – the Kazakh actress criticised for showing too much flesh when she arrived at an airport in Shanghai in late July wearing jeans and a camisole – appeared on a WeChat movie review account called Staff of the 3rd Hall on August 12.

Reyizha Alimjan was criticised for her outfit on Chinese social media. Photo: Weibo
Reyizha Alimjan was criticised for her outfit on Chinese social media. Photo: Weibo

While that perspective was supported by many women online, others disagreed and said that society was open and tolerant but that people had the right to disagree.

By coincidence, a poll about women wearing camisoles in public was launched on August 10 by a WeChat account called Cicada Creativity. About 70 per cent of the nearly 14,000 respondents said they did not dare to do so.

More than 40 per cent avoided doing so for reasons such as thinking they were “not thin enough”, but a quarter said they said no because either their boyfriends disapproved or would not allow it, or they feared they would be harassed.

Chinese women spurn Victoria’s Secret for home-grown lingerie brands

Joy Lin, a feminist from Shanghai, said the debate was so fierce because it was not just about dress.

“It’s more about people’s judgment about one’s character and morals behind what she wears,” Lin said. “If you wear revealing clothes, they would say you are asking for harassment. If you show a little skin, you are frigid. And if you are casual, they call you ‘dama’ [Chinese slang, often derogatory, for middle-aged and elderly women].”

Some women say they are often judged by the clothes they wear. Photo: AP
Some women say they are often judged by the clothes they wear. Photo: AP

In her experience, Lin said that if she appeared on the streets of Shanghai – the most cosmopolitan city in China – without a bra, there would be judgmental looks from passers-by before she had walked 10 metres (33 feet).

In contrast, she did just that in Paris in July, and, “no one stared at me or came near me at all”.

“Usually, when it comes to comments about what we wear, they’re not about whether the dress matches the hairstyle or things like that, but about our bodies, whether we’re slim or not and stuff like that,” she said. “Some [comments] can be very malicious and insulting.”

#MeToo rally accuses Hong Kong police of sexual violence against protesters

While shaming women for their clothing choices has been an issue for many years, it reached peak public awareness in China after the #MeToo movement took off in the US.

The social media campaign went viral in 2017 when dozens of women accused American film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assaults over a period of nearly 30 years.

The #MeToo movement took off in the US in 2017 after dozens of women accused film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. Photo: Shutterstock
The #MeToo movement took off in the US in 2017 after dozens of women accused film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. Photo: Shutterstock

Lu Peng, a researcher from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the online debate helped encapsulate conflicts between a growing desire for freedom, gender norms and generations of tradition.

“There will hardly be a consensus on such a question about whether women have the freedom to dress,” he said. “But if this discussion can make people realise that men, not just women, also face restrictions in dressing, then it’s bringing progress.”

The simplest example was to dress for the occasion, which applies to both sexes.

“We have never been free in dressing. We’re only free within a certain extent … About what to wear in public, I don’t think we should emphasise freedom only and ignore the local culture and society,” Lu said.

Keeping a low profile has long been part of the Chinese philosophy. Photo: Xinhua
Keeping a low profile has long been part of the Chinese philosophy. Photo: Xinhua

In China, there is no law banning states of dress or undress in public, nor do the Han people, who make up most of the population, have religious beliefs that restrict their mode of dress. But keeping a low profile and avoiding unwanted attention has long been part of the Chinese philosophy.

“My father will also ask me not to be ‘overexposed’, because he believes it’s increasing the risk of being harassed,” Li, the Shanghai media worker, said.

“They think they mean well, but I just want to be myself. I’m not breaking any law. I want to make my own contribution in changing this culture,” she said.

Source: SCMP

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