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.
The plight of these workers, many of whom have been walking for days without adequate food and water, has caused widespread anger in the country.
Train and bus services were shut during the lockdown and even though some have been restarted for migrants, many say they cannot afford the fare and are unsure if they will be accommodated on them due to social distancing norms.
Several have died in making the journey, including 16 migrants who were run over by a train while they were sleeping on the railway tracks.
Media caption Coronavirus: Heartbreaking scenes as India lockdown sparks mass migration
Ms Sitharaman also announced that workers would be able to use ration cards – usually only valid at village level – anywhere in the country regardless of where it was issued.
The ration cards usually entitle holders to subsidised food.
She added that the move towards portable cards would benefit nearly 670 million people and will be completed by March next year.
The government will also provide affordable housing for migrant labour by converting existing vacant government funded housing complexes, among other things.
The announcements on Thursday – the second tranche of a series of economic stimulus measures – were aimed at migrant workers, street hawkers, small traders and small farmers.
The full details of the economic package, which is equivalent to 10% of India’s gross domestic product, will be known in some days as the government is announcing a different tranche every day.
Ms Sitharaman’s announcements also included details of “special credit” to be provided to five million street hawkers who have been forced to cease working over the last month and a half.
To help farmers, the government also announced an emergency $4bn “working capital funding” which would benefit some 30 million small farmers to meet crop requirements in May and June
In March, India said it would provide around 1.7 trillion rupees in direct cash transfers and food security measures, mainly for the poor.
However, Mr Modi’s administration had been accused in some quarters of not having done enough.
Pou Chen makes footwear for the likes of Nike and Adidas, but says it has suffered from a lack of orders as global value chains strain under the impact from the virus
Chinese workers moved to Vietnam to help set-up new factories as the company expand its production, but have now become expendable
With the likes of Nike and Adidas closing retail stores around the world to comply with social distancing requirements, analysts also said orders plummeted 50 per cent in the second quarter, although the company declined to comment on the media reports. Photo: Bloomberg
A group of 150 Chinese workers believe the world’s largest maker of trainers used the coronavirus as an excuse to fire them, having helped Taiwanese firm Pou Chen successfully expand its production into Vietnam for more than a decade.
Pou Chen, which makes footwear for the likes of Nike and Adidas, informed the group in late April that they would no longer be needed as they were unable to return to
from their hometowns in China due to the coronavirus lockdowns.
“We believe we contributed greatly to the firm’s relocation process, copying the production line management experience and successful model of China’s factories to Vietnamese factories,” said Dave Zhang, who started working for Pou Chen in Vietnam in 2003.
“Now, when the factories over there have matured, and there is a higher automation level in production, our value has faded in the management’s eyes and we got laid off, in the name of the automation level.”
Rush hour chaos returns to Vietnam’s streets as coronavirus lockdown lifted
The group claims the firm began to fire Chinese employees several years ago, with the total number dropping from over 1,000 at its peak to around 400 last year.
“We 150 employees were the first batch of Chinese employees to be laid off this year. We are all pessimistic and expect more will be cut,” added Zhang.
In its email on April 27, Pou Chen said it was forced to terminate the contracts of the Chinese employees across five of its factories due to an unprecedented decline in orders and financial losses.
The Chinese employees, many of whom have been working for the shoemaker for decades, said the compensation offered was unfair and below the levels required by labour law in both Vietnam and China.
In a further statement to the South China Morning Post, Pou Chen stood by the move as the coronavirus pandemic had reduced demand for footwear products and so required an “adjustment of manpower.”
“[The dismissals were] in accordance with the relevant labour laws of the country of employment … and employee labour contracts,” added the statement from Pou Chen, which employs around 350,000 people worldwide.
Company data showed Pou Chen’s first quarter revenues tumbled 22.4 per cent year-on-year to NT$59.46 billion (US$1.99 billion), the weakest in six years.
With the likes of Nike and Adidas closing retail stores around the world to comply with social distancing requirements, analysts also said orders plummeted 50 per cent in the second quarter, although the company declined to comment on the media reports.
Last month, the company was also mulling pay cuts and furloughs that would affect 3,000 employees in Taiwan and officials based in its overseas factories, according to the Taipei Times.
Andy Zeng, who had worked for the firm since 1995, said the group were “very upset” when they received the news last month as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic began to reverberate around the world, disrupting global value chains.
“Most of us joined Pou Chen in the 1990s when we were in our late teens or early 20s, when the Taiwan-invested company started investing and setting up factories in mainland China. Now more than two decades have passed,” he said.
Zeng was among the first generation of skilled workers in China as Pou Chen developed rapidly, enjoying the benefits of cheap labour, although the workers themselves were rewarded with regular pay rises.
The company needed a group of skilled Chinese workers to go to its new factories in Vietnam. I said yes because I thought it was a good opportunity to see the outside world – Andy Zeng
“I worked at the Dongguan branch of Pou Chen for 11 years from 1995.” Zeng added “In the 1990s and early 2000s, the company expanded rapidly in Dongguan with a growing number of large orders, and every worker had to work hard around the clock. I remember I earned 300 yuan (US$42) a month in 1995, and my monthly salary rose to 1,000 yuan (US$141) in 1998.”
Zeng’s salary eventually rose to over 3,000 yuan in 2005 as China’s economy boomed, leading Pou Chen to seek alternative production sites in Vietnam and Indonesia where labour and land were even cheaper. However, in the early 2000s, the new locations lacked skilled shoe manufacturing workers like Zeng.
“The company needed a group of skilled Chinese workers to go to its new factories in Vietnam. I said yes because I thought it was a good opportunity to see the outside world and the offer of US$700 per month was not bad.” Zeng said.
“We actively cooperated with their plans. Over the past decade, we have been away from our families and hometowns, and followed the company’s strategy to work hard in Vietnam.
With no deaths and cases limited to the hundreds, Vietnam’s Covid-19 response appears to be working
“In 2005, the company sent me to its newly-built factory in Vietnam. This year was my 14th year in Dong Nai in Vietnam. I have witnessed the company’s production capacity in Vietnam become larger and larger. When I arrived, there were only a few production lines, and now there are at least dozens of them, employing more than 10,000 workers in each factory.”
According to a report in the Taipei Times on April 14, citing both Reuters and Bloomberg, Pou Chen was ordered to temporarily shut down one of its units in Vietnam over coronavirus concerns, according to Vietnamese state media.
The company was forced to suspend production for two days after failing to meet local rules on social distancing, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.
“We Chinese employees actually were pathfinders for the company’s relocation from China to Vietnam,” said Zhang, who was in charge of a 1,700-worker factory producing 1.7 million shoe soles per month.
What our Chinese employees have done in Vietnam for more than a decade can be said to be very simple but very difficult – Dave Zhang
“We were sent to resolve any ‘bottlenecks’ in the production lines that were slowing down the rest of the plant, because during the launch of every new production line, Vietnamese workers would strike and get into disputes. As far as I know, there were over a thousand Chinese employees managing various aspects of the production lines in the company’s Vietnamese factories.
“In fact, what our Chinese employees have done in Vietnam for more than a decade can be said to be very simple but very difficult. That is to teach Vietnamese workers our experience of working on a production line, improve the productivity of the Vietnamese workers, and help the factories become localised.”
Overall, Pou Chen says it produces more than 300 million pairs of shoes per year, accounting for around 20 per cent of the combined wholesale value of the global branded athletic and casual footwear market.
“Because of cultural shock and great pressure to expedite orders, Vietnamese workers were not used to the management style of Taiwan factories,” Zhang added.
“Many of our Chinese employees were beaten by Vietnamese workers [due to cultural differences about work]. During anti-China protests in Vietnam, we were still under great pressure to keep the local production lines operating.”
City at centre of outbreak finally able to declare itself clear of disease after months in lockdown and thousands of deaths
Risk of infection remains, however, with some patients testing positive for coronavirus that causes disease without showing symptoms
Ferries and other public transport services resumed in Wuhan last week. Photo: Xinhua
The city of Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, no longer has any Covid-19 patients in hospital after the last 12 were discharged on Sunday.
Their release ended a four-month nightmare for the city, where the disease was first detected in December. The number of patients being treated for Covid-19, the disease caused by a new coronavirus, peaked on February 18 at 38,020 – nearly 10,000 of whom were in severe or critical condition.
“With the joint efforts of Wuhan and the national medical aid given to Hubei province, all cases of Covid-19 in Wuhan were cleared as of April 26,” Mi Feng, a spokesman for the National Health Commission said on Sunday afternoon.
The announcement came only one day after the city discharged the last patient who had been in a severe condition. That patient also was the last severe case in Hubei province.
The last patient discharged from Wuhan Chest Hospital, a 77-year-old man surnamed Ding, twice tested negative for Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, and was released at noon on Sunday.
“I missed my family so much!” Ding told Changjing Daily.
Another unidentified patient exclaimed as he left the hospital: “The air outside is so fresh! The weather is so good today!”
Wuhan faced a long journey to bring its patient count down to zero.
The city of 11 million, the capital of Hubei province and a transport hub for central China, was put under a strict lockdown on January 23 that barred anyone from entering or exiting the city without official approval for 76 days until it was officially lifted on April 8.
Coronavirus: Wuhan, Los Angeles officials discuss getting back to work after lockdown
22 Apr 2020
Residents were ordered to stay in their apartments as the city stopped public transport and banned private cars from city streets. As the epidemic worsened, more than 42,000 medical staff from across the country were sent to the city and to Hubei province to help ease the burden on the local health care system.
Wuhan was the hardest hit city in China, accounting for 50,333 of the 82,827 locally transmitted Covid-19 cases recorded in China. More than 4,600 died in the country from the disease.
On March 13, the city reported for the first time that there were no new suspected cases of the infection, and five days later there were no confirmed cases.
The number of discharged patients bottomed out at 39.1 per cent at the end of February, gradually climbing to 92.2 per cent by last Thursday.
“Having the patients in the hospital cleared on April 26 marks a major achievement for the city’s Covid-19 treatment,” the Wuhan Health Commission said in a statement.
However, having no severe cases in hospital does not mean all the discharged patients will require no further treatment as they may still need further care.
“Clearing all the severe cases marks a decisive victory for the battle to safeguard Wuhan,” health minister Ma Xiaowei told state broadcaster China Central Television on Saturday.
“Some patients who have other conditions are being treated in specialised hospitals. It has been properly arranged.”
Coronavirus: Chinese writer hit by nationalist backlash over diary about Wuhan lockdown
18 Apr 2020
Ten patients aged between 42 and 85 who have been declared coronavirus-free are still in intensive care at the city’s Tongji Hospital where they are being treated for kidney problems and other complications arising from Covid-19. Some still need ventilators to help them breathe.
These 10 patients are under 24-hour care, with 190 nurses on four-hour rotations. There are other patients in a similar condition in two other hospitals in Wuhan, according to the Hubei Broadcasting and Television Network.
However, the discharge of the last batch of Covid-19 patients does not mean that the risk of infection is gone.
The city reported 20 new cases of people testing positive for Sars-CoV-2, the official name for the coronavirus that causes the disease, but who do not yet show symptoms.
There are 535 such carriers under medical observation. Past data shows some of these asymptomatic carriers will develop symptoms, and so will be counted as Covid-19 patients under China’s diagnosis and treatment plan.
China’s coronavirus infection curve has flattened out with about 694 imported cases of Covid-19 on top of about 800 locally transmitted ones now under treatment.
The national health commission spokesman warned that people still need to be on high alert as the virus is continuing to spread around the globe, with no sign yet of a slowdown.
“[We] must not drop our guard and loosen up. [We] must discover cases in time and deal with them quickly,” Mi said, citing the continued pressure from cases imported by people returning from overseas.
“The next step will be to implement the requirements of the central government and continue to guard against imported cases and a rebound of domestic transmitted cases.”
BEIJING (Reuters) – China will cut its subsidies on new energy vehicles (NEV) by 10% this year, and will expand government purchases of NEVs, the finance ministry said on Thursday.
China will in principle cut such subsidies by 20% in 2021 and 30% in 2022, the finance ministry said in a statement. However, it will not cut subsidies on qualified new energy commercial vehicles earmarked for public purposes this year.
Under the plan, China would extend subsidies for NEV purchases to 2022, rather than ending them this year, and extend their purchase tax exemption for two years.
China will slightly lift the requirements for the driving range and power efficiency of cars qualified for the subsidies, the statement said, adding authorities will support the sales of cars with swappable batteries, a technology that has been pursued by Chinese electric vehicle makers Nio Inc (NIO.N) and BAIC BluePark (600733.SS).
Only passenger cars cheaper than 300,000 yuan (34,330.23 pounds) will be offered subsidies, it said. The price is higher than starting price of Tesla Inc’s (TSLA.O) China-made Model 3 sedans.
China also said authorities will give priority to purchase new energy vehicles for government use but did not give further details.
The new policy is effective from April 23. NEVs include battery-powered electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.
China has set an aggressive goal for NEVs to account for a fifth of auto sales by 2025 compared with the current 5%, as it seeks to reduce pollution and cultivate homegrown champions.
Sales of NEVs, however, contracted for a ninth month in a row in March and were down over 50% from a year earlier, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
SEOUL (Reuters) – The foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan held a video conference on Friday to discuss cooperation on the coronavirus pandemic amid growing concern over the number of infected people arriving in their countries from overseas.
Though the epidemic erupted in China in December, and South Korea at one stage had the second-most infections, both subsequently succeeded in stifling domestic transmission of the virus. [L4N2BC3SC]
The number of cases in Japan has been far smaller, but Tokyo has the extra worry of whether to press ahead with hosting the Olympics this summer.
Japan was given expressions of support for hosting the Olympics during the video-conference call between the minister, according to South Korea’s foreign ministry.
The government remains committed to holding Games as planned in July, despite expectations that some 600,000 spectators and athletes would descend on Tokyo.
Japan has had 963 domestically transmitted cases and 33 deaths, according to public broadcaster NHK. That does not include more than 700 cases and seven deaths from a cruise ship moored near Tokyo last month.
TWO-WEEK QUARANTINE
During their call, the ministers shared information on the outbreaks in their countries.
“I think the three countries need to work together to contain the spread of the coronavirus and minimise any resulting reduction on exchanges and cooperation between the peoples, as well as its economic and social impact,” South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said at the outset of the call.
South Korea’s government said on Tuesday it will conduct a coronavirus check on all travellers from Europe and impose a two-week mandatory quarantine, starting Sunday, for those who intend staying long term.
“This is the toughest step we could take without banning entries from Europe, where the virus is spreading at an unexpected speed,” Yoon Tae-ho, director-general for public health policy at the health ministry, told a briefing.
“We’re also closely monitoring developments in the United States where the rate of the transmission has been increasing over the last few days.”
The move came a day after tighter border checks took effect for all people arriving from overseas.
South Korea has established special entry procedures for visitors from hard-hit countries like China, Italy and Iran, requiring them to sign up by a smartphone application to track whether they have any symptoms such as fever.
Despite strong diplomatic and economic ties between the three North Asian neighbours, historic grievances dog their relations. And reduced flights, stronger border controls, and quarantine requirements introduced in response to the epidemic have proved irksome.
Earlier this month, Seoul suspended visas and visa waivers for Japan in a tit-for-tat move following Tokyo’s own travel restrictions on Koreans, triggering fears that their defences against the virus could spark a fresh feud.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 87 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the total national infections to 8,652.
As of Thursday, there were 79 cases involving infected people who had recently arrived in the country, up from 44 on Sunday. Most of them were South Koreans, 27 came from Europe, 16 from China, and 12 from other Asian countries, according to the KCDC.
The daily tally for new infections has been trending downward over the past week, despite a slight uptick on Thursday as small-scale outbreaks continued to emerge across the country. South Korea’s death toll rose to 101, from 94.
South Korea’s election commission said on Friday it will disinfect all polling stations and carry out checks on voters when they show up to cast their ballots in the April 15 parliamentary election.
Image copyright EPA
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 
Coronavirus: Chinese workers in Vietnam cry foul after being fired by Taiwanese firm making shoes for Nike, Adidas
A group of 150 Chinese workers believe the world’s largest maker of trainers used the coronavirus as an excuse to fire them, having helped Taiwanese firm Pou Chen successfully expand its production into Vietnam for more than a decade.
Pou Chen, which makes footwear for the likes of Nike and Adidas, informed the group in late April that they would no longer be needed as they were unable to return to
from their hometowns in China due to the coronavirus lockdowns.
“We 150 employees were the first batch of Chinese employees to be laid off this year. We are all pessimistic and expect more will be cut,” added Zhang.
In its email on April 27, Pou Chen said it was forced to terminate the contracts of the Chinese employees across five of its factories due to an unprecedented decline in orders and financial losses.
The Chinese employees, many of whom have been working for the shoemaker for decades, said the compensation offered was unfair and below the levels required by labour law in both Vietnam and China.
“[The dismissals were] in accordance with the relevant labour laws of the country of employment … and employee labour contracts,” added the statement from Pou Chen, which employs around 350,000 people worldwide.
Company data showed Pou Chen’s first quarter revenues tumbled 22.4 per cent year-on-year to NT$59.46 billion (US$1.99 billion), the weakest in six years.
With the likes of Nike and Adidas closing retail stores around the world to comply with social distancing requirements, analysts also said orders plummeted 50 per cent in the second quarter, although the company declined to comment on the media reports.
Andy Zeng, who had worked for the firm since 1995, said the group were “very upset” when they received the news last month as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic began to reverberate around the world, disrupting global value chains.
“Most of us joined Pou Chen in the 1990s when we were in our late teens or early 20s, when the Taiwan-invested company started investing and setting up factories in mainland China. Now more than two decades have passed,” he said.
Zeng was among the first generation of skilled workers in China as Pou Chen developed rapidly, enjoying the benefits of cheap labour, although the workers themselves were rewarded with regular pay rises.
The company needed a group of skilled Chinese workers to go to its new factories in Vietnam. I said yes because I thought it was a good opportunity to see the outside world – Andy Zeng
What our Chinese employees have done in Vietnam for more than a decade can be said to be very simple but very difficult – Dave Zhang
Posted in 50 per cent, accordance, Adidas, adjustment of manpower, around the world, automation level, below the levels, Bloomberg, boomed, bottlenecks, Chaos, cheaper, China, China’s economy, Chinese employees, Chinese workers, closing, comment, Company, compensation, comply, contributed, cooperated, coronavirus, coronavirus lockdowns, Covid-19 response, cry foul, cultural shock, deaths, decade, decline, declined, dismissals, disputes, Dong Nai, Dongguan, employee labour contracts,, expand, expendable, factories, families, financial losses, fired, footwear, furloughs, higher, hometowns, impact, Indonesia, Labour law, lack of orders, land, Mainland China, making, management experience, management style, media reports, Nike, opportunity, orders, pay cuts, pessimistic, plans, plummeted, Pou Chen, production, production line, relocation process, requirements, retail stores, returns, Reuters, Rush hour, second quarter, set up, shoe manufacturing, shoes, skilled, Social distancing, south china morning post, strain under, streets, strike, Taipei Times, Taiwan, Taiwan-invested, Taiwanese firm, Uncategorized, unfair, unprecedented, Vietnam, Vietnamese, Virus, workers, world’s largest maker of trainers | Leave a Comment »