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.
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean officials are calling for caution amid reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be ill or is being isolated because of coronavirus concerns, emphasising that they have detected no unusual movements in North Korea.
At a closed door forum on Sunday, South Korea’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul, who oversees engagement with the North, said the government has the intelligence capabilities to say with confidence that there was no indications of anything unusual.
Rumours and speculation over the North Korean leader’s health began after he made no public appearance at a key state holiday on April 15, and has since remained out of sight.
South Korea media last week reported that Kim may have undergone cardiovascular surgery or was in isolation to avoid exposure to the new coronavirus.
Unification minister Kim cast doubt on the report of surgery, arguing that the hospital mentioned did not have the capabilities for such an operation.
Still, Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the foreign and unification committee in South Korea’s National Assembly, told a gathering of experts on Monday that Kim Jong Un’s absence from the public eye suggests “he has not been working as normally”.
“There has not been any report showing he’s making policy decisions as usual since April 11, which leads us to assume that he is either sick or being isolated because of coronavirus concerns,” Yoon said.
North Korea has said it has no confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, but some international experts have cast doubts on that claim.
On Monday, North Korean state media once again showed no new photos of Kim nor reported on his whereabouts.
However, they did carry reports that he had sent a message of gratitude to workers building a tourist resort in Wonsan, an area where some South Korean media reports have said Kim may be staying.
“Our government position is firm,” Moon Chung-in, the top foreign policy adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said in comments to news outlets in the United States.
“Kim Jong Un is alive and well. He has been staying in the Wonsan area since April 13. No suspicious movements have so far been detected.”
Satellite images from last week showed a special train possibly belonging to Kim at Wonsan, lending weight to those reports, according to 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project.
Though the group said it was probably the North Korean leader’s personal train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.
A spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry said on Monday she had nothing to confirm when asked about reports that Kim was in Wonsan.
Last week China dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.
Reuters was unable to immediately determine what the trip by the Chinese team signalled in terms of Kim’s health.
On Friday a South Korean source told Reuters their intelligence was that Kim Jong Un was alive and would likely make an appearance soon.
Experts have cautioned that Kim has disappeared from state media coverage before, and that gathering accurate information in North Korea is notoriously difficult.
North Korea’s state media last reported on Kim’s whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11.
Kim, believed to be 36, vanished from state media for more than a month in 2014 and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.
China’s economy shrank for the first time in decades in the first quarter of the year, as the virus forced factories and businesses to close.
The world’s second biggest economy contracted 6.8% according to official data released on Friday.
The financial toll the coronavirus is having on the Chinese economy will be a huge concern to other countries.
China is an economic powerhouse as a major consumer and producer of goods and services.
This is the first time China has seen its economy shrink in the first three months of the year since it started recording quarterly figures in 1992.
“The GDP contraction in January-March will translate into permanent income losses, reflected in bankruptcies across small companies and job losses,” said Yue Su at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Last year, China saw healthy economic growth of 6.4% in the first quarter, a period when it was locked in a trade war with the US.
In the last two decades, China has seen average economic growth of around 9% a year, although experts have regularly questioned the accuracy of its economic data.
Its economy had ground to a halt during the first three months of the year as it introduced large-scale shutdowns and quarantines to prevent the virus spread in late January.
As a result, economists had expected bleak figures, but the official data comes in slightly worse than expected.
Among other key figures released in Friday’s report:
Factory output was down 1.1% for March as China slowly starts manufacturing again.
Retail sales plummeted 15.8% last month as many of shoppers stayed at home.
Unemployment hit 5.9% in March, slightly better than February’s all-time high of 6.2%.
Analysis: A 6% expansion wiped out
Robin Brant, BBC News, Shanghai
The huge decline shows the profound impact that the virus outbreak, and the government’s draconian reaction to it, had on the world’s second largest economy. It wipes out the 6% expansion in China’s economy recorded in the last set of figures at the end of last year.
Beijing has signalled a significant economic stimulus is on the way as it tries to stabilise its economy and recover. Earlier this week the official mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, the People’s Daily, reported it would “expand domestic demand”.
But the slowdown in the rest of the global economy presents a significant problem as exports still play a major role in China’s economy. If it comes this will not be a quick recovery.
On Thursday the International Monetary Fund forecast China’s economy would avoid a recession but grow by just 1.2% this year. Job figures released recently showed the official government unemployment figure had risen sharply, with the number working in companies linked to export trade falling the most.
China has unveiled a range of financial support measures to cushion the impact of the slowdown, but not on the same scale as other major economies.
“We don’t expect large stimulus, given that that remains unpopular in Beijing. Instead, we think policymakers will accept low growth this year, given the prospects for a better 2021,” said Louis Kuijs, an analyst with Oxford Economics.
Since March, China has slowly started letting factories resume production and letting businesses reopen, but this is a gradual process to return to pre-lockdown levels.
Media caption Why does China’s economy matter to you?
China relies heavily on its factories and manufacturing plants for economic growth, and has been dubbed “the world’s factory”.
Stock markets in the region showed mixed reaction to the Chinese economic data, with China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite index up 0.9%.
Image copyright EPA
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 
South Korean officials call for caution amid reports that North Korean leader Kim is ill
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean officials are calling for caution amid reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be ill or is being isolated because of coronavirus concerns, emphasising that they have detected no unusual movements in North Korea.
At a closed door forum on Sunday, South Korea’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul, who oversees engagement with the North, said the government has the intelligence capabilities to say with confidence that there was no indications of anything unusual.
Rumours and speculation over the North Korean leader’s health began after he made no public appearance at a key state holiday on April 15, and has since remained out of sight.
South Korea media last week reported that Kim may have undergone cardiovascular surgery or was in isolation to avoid exposure to the new coronavirus.
Unification minister Kim cast doubt on the report of surgery, arguing that the hospital mentioned did not have the capabilities for such an operation.
Still, Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the foreign and unification committee in South Korea’s National Assembly, told a gathering of experts on Monday that Kim Jong Un’s absence from the public eye suggests “he has not been working as normally”.
“There has not been any report showing he’s making policy decisions as usual since April 11, which leads us to assume that he is either sick or being isolated because of coronavirus concerns,” Yoon said.
North Korea has said it has no confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, but some international experts have cast doubts on that claim.
On Monday, North Korean state media once again showed no new photos of Kim nor reported on his whereabouts.
However, they did carry reports that he had sent a message of gratitude to workers building a tourist resort in Wonsan, an area where some South Korean media reports have said Kim may be staying.
“Our government position is firm,” Moon Chung-in, the top foreign policy adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said in comments to news outlets in the United States.
“Kim Jong Un is alive and well. He has been staying in the Wonsan area since April 13. No suspicious movements have so far been detected.”
Satellite images from last week showed a special train possibly belonging to Kim at Wonsan, lending weight to those reports, according to 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project.
Though the group said it was probably the North Korean leader’s personal train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.
A spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry said on Monday she had nothing to confirm when asked about reports that Kim was in Wonsan.
Last week China dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.
Reuters was unable to immediately determine what the trip by the Chinese team signalled in terms of Kim’s health.
On Friday a South Korean source told Reuters their intelligence was that Kim Jong Un was alive and would likely make an appearance soon.
Experts have cautioned that Kim has disappeared from state media coverage before, and that gathering accurate information in North Korea is notoriously difficult.
North Korea’s state media last reported on Kim’s whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11.
Kim, believed to be 36, vanished from state media for more than a month in 2014 and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.
Source: Reuters
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