Archive for ‘to work’

02/05/2020

China plans to send Uygur Muslims from Xinjiang re-education camps to work in other parts of country

  • Inmates who have undergone compulsory re-education programme to be moved to other parts of China under job placement scheme delayed by Covid-19 outbreak
  • Critics have said the camps are a move to eradicate cultural and religious identity but Beijing has defended them as way of boosting job opportunities and combating Islamic radicalisation
Illustration by Perry Tse
Illustration by Perry Tse

The Chinese government has resumed a job placement scheme for tens of thousands of Uygur Muslims who have completed compulsory programmes at the “re-education” camps in the far-western region of Xinjiang, sources said.

The plan, which includes a quota for the numbers provinces must take, was finalised last year but disrupted by the outbreak of Covid-19.

The delay threatens to undermine the Chinese government’s efforts to justify its use of internment camps in Xinjiang.

Critics have said these camps were part of the measures designed to eradicate the ethnic and cultural identity of Uygurs and other Muslim minorities and that participants had no choice but to undertake the re-education programme.

Beijing has repeatedly dismissed these criticisms and said the camps are to give Uygurs the training they need to find better jobs and stay away from the influence of radical fundamentalism.
First Xinjiang, now Tibet passes rules to promote ‘ethnic unity’
17 Feb 2020

Now with the disease under control, the Chinese government has resumed the job placement deal for other provinces to absorb Xinjiang labourers, sources said.

Despite the devastating impact of the disease on its economy and job markets, the Chinese authorities are determined to go ahead with the plan, which they believe would

“demonstrate the success of Xinjiang’s re-education centres policy”

, a source said.

“Excellent graduates were to be taken on as labourers by various inland governments, in particular, 19 provinces and municipalities,” said the source. It is unclear what constitutes “excellent graduates”.

Some sources earlier said that the programme may be scaled back in light of the new economic reality and uncertainties.

But a Beijing-based source said the overall targets would remain unchanged.

“The unemployment problem in Xinjiang must be resolved at all costs, despite the outbreak,” the source said.

The South China Morning Post has learned that at least 19 provinces and cities have been given quotas to hire Muslim minorities, mostly Uygurs, who have “graduated” from re-education camps.

As early as February, when the daily number of infections started to come down outside Hubei province, China already begun to send Uygur workers to their new jobs.

A photo taken in February showed thousands of young Uygurs, all wearing face masks and with huge red silk flowers pinned to their chests, being dispatched to work in factories outside their hometowns.

By the end of February, Xinjiang alone has created jobs for more than 60,000 Uygur graduates from the camps. A few thousand were also sent to work in other provinces.

Many have been employed in factories making toys and clothes.

Xinjiang’s new rules against domestic violence expand China’s ‘extremism’ front to the home

7 Apr 2020

Sources told the Post that the southern city of Shenzhen – China’s hi-tech manufacturing centre – was given a target last year to eventually resettle 50,000 Uygurs. The city is allowed to do this in several batches, with 15,000 to 20,000 planned for the first stage.

Shaoguan, a less developed Guangdong city where a deadly toy factory brawl between Uygurs and Han Chinese broke out in 2009, was also asked to take on another 30,000 to 50,000 Uygur workers.
In Fujian province, a government source also said they had been told to hire “tens of thousands of Xinjiang workers”.
“I heard the first batch of several thousands would arrive soon. We have already received official directives asking us to handle their settlement with care,” said the source.

He said the preparation work includes providing halal food to the workers as well as putting in place stronger security measures to “minimise the risks of mass incidents”. It is not known whether they will be given access to prayer rooms.

There are no official statistics of how many Uygurs will be resettled to other provinces and the matter is rarely reported by the mainland media.

But in March, Anhui Daily, the province’s official newspaper, reported that it had received 1,560 “organised labourers from Xinjiang”.

The Uygur workers on average could earn between 1,200 yuan (US$170) to 4,000 yuan (US$565) a month, with accommodation and meals provided by the local authorities, according to Chinese media reports.

However, they are not allowed to leave their dormitories without permission.

The UN has estimated that up to a million Muslims were being held in the camps. Photo: AP
The UN has estimated that up to a million Muslims were being held in the camps. Photo: AP
Xinjiang’s per capita disposable income in 2018 was 1,791 yuan a month, according to state news agency Xinhua. But the salary level outside the region’s biggest cities such as Urumqi may be much lower.
The official unemployment rate for the region is between 3 and 4 per cent, but the statistics do not include those living in remote rural areas.
Mindful of the potential risks of the resettlement, Beijing has taken painstaking efforts to carefully manage everything – from recruitment to setting contract terms to managing the workers’ day-to-day lives.
Local officials will go to each Uygur workers’ home to personally take them to prearranged flights and trains. On arrival, they will be immediately picked up and sent to their assigned factories.
US bill would bar goods from Xinjiang, classifying them the product of forced labour by Uygurs
12 Mar 2020

Such arrangements are not unique to Uygurs and local governments have made similar arrangements for ethnic Han workers in other parts of China.

After screening them for Covid-19, local governments have arranged for workers to be sent to their workplaces in batches. They are checked again on arrival, before being sent to work.

China is accelerating such placement deals on a massive scale to offset the impact of the economic slowdown after the outbreak.

Sources told the South China Morning Post that the job placement deal was first finalised by governments in Xinjiang and other provinces last year.

The aim is to guarantee jobs for Uygur Muslim who have “completed vocational training” at the re-education camps and meet poverty alleviation deals in the region, one of the poorest parts of China.

The training they receive in the camps includes vocational training for various job types such as factory work, mechanical maintenance and hotel room servicing. They also have to study Mandarin, Chinese law, core party values and patriotic education.

Xinjiang’s massive internment camps have drawn widespread international condemnation.

The United Nations has estimated that up to 1 million Uygur and other Muslim minority citizens are being arbitrarily detained in the camps, which Beijing insists are necessary to combat terrorism and Islamic radicalisation.

Late last year, Xinjiang’s officials announced that all the inmates of these so-called vocational training centres had “graduated” and taken up employment.

Before this labour placement scheme was introduced, it was extremely difficult for Uygurs to find jobs or live and work in inland regions.

The 2009 brawl at the factory in Shaoguan was one of the factors that triggered a deadly riot in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, that left 192 people dead and more than 1,000 wounded.

Muslim ethnic minorities, Uygurs in particular, have been subjected to blatant discrimination in China and the situation worsened after the 2009 clashes.

Earlier this month, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute released a report saying more than 80,000 Uygurs had been moved from Xinjiang to work in factories in nine Chinese regions and provinces.

It identified a total of 27 factories that supplied 83 brands, including household names such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Siemens, Sony, Huawei, Samsung, Nike, Abercrombie and Fitch, Uniqlo, Adidas and Lacoste.

‘Psychological torture’: Uygurs abroad face mental health crisis over plight of relatives who remain in Xinjiang

11 Mar 2020

The security think tank concluded that the Chinese government had transferred Uygur workers “under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour” between 2017 and 2019, sometimes drawing labourers directly from re-education camps.

The report also said the work programme represents a “new phase in China’s social re-engineering campaign targeting minority citizens”.

Workers were typically sent to live in segregated dormitories, underwent organised Mandarin lessons and ideological training outside working hours and were subject to constant surveillance, the researcher found.

They were also forbidden from taking part in religious observances, according to the report that is based on open-source documents, satellite pictures, academic research and on-the-ground reporting.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian criticised the report saying it had “no factual basis”.

Source: SCMP

02/05/2020

Xi Focus: Xi endorses workers driving China’s new growth

People work at a construction site of a utility tunnel in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province, April 30, 2020. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

BEIJING, May 1 (Xinhua) — China is getting the world’s largest workforce back to work as the nationwide battle against COVID-19 has secured major strategic achievements.

The unprecedented fight has nurtured new trends in the workplace. For example, more attention is being paid to public health and e-commerce to boost consumption and emerging sectors brought by new applications based on the country’s rapid new infrastructure development of 5G networks and data centers.

In this aerial photo taken on April 29, 2020, representatives of frontline health workers fighting COVID-19 attend a bell-ringing ceremony at the Yellow Crane Tower, or Huanghelou, a landmark in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

ANGELS OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Ye Man, head nurse of gastrointestinal department of Hubei General Hospital East District, one of the five remaining COVID-19 designated hospitals in Wuhan, is taking her first weeklong vacation since January.

The 34-year-old mother of two started to take a week off on Monday, one day after her hospital cleared all remaining confirmed COVID-19 patients. The  nine ICU wards in her hospital had been kept occupied over the past several months.

Friday marked International Workers’ Day, and the start of China’s five-day public holiday. Ye said she planned to visit urban parks with her family during the holiday.

At her busiest point, she and her colleagues took care of a ward filled with 40 COVID-19 patients.

“It was a really tough time,” she recalled. She had to wear a protective gown and a mask for nine hours a day and be separated from her family to avoid possible cross-infections.

Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province and once hard hit by COVID-19, cleared all confirmed cases in hospitals on April 26. Over 42,000 medical workers mobilized nationwide to aid Hubei have contributed to achieving a decisive outcome in the fight to defend Hubei and Wuhan.

In an inspection tour to Wuhan on March 10, President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, lauded medical workers as “the most beautiful angels” and “messengers of light and hope.”

To reward brave and dedicated medics, major tourist sites in Hubei are offering free entry to medical staff over the following two years.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about development of the black fungus industry in Jinmi Village of Xiaoling Township in Zhashui County, Shangluo City, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, April 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

LIVESTREAMING ANCHORS

“We have a new batch of supplies today. Those who did not get the goods should hurry to buy now,” said Li Xuying, a livestreaming anchorwoman selling agaric mushrooms in Zhashui, a small county deep in the Qinling Mountains in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

Li has been prepared for a boom of online shopping in the holiday, because online buyers rushed to her livestreaming website to place orders, after Xi inspected the county and chatted with her in the village of Jinmi during a recent tour to Shaanxi.

“I used to sell goods worth about 50,000 yuan (7,070 U.S. dollars) on average after a six-hour livestreaming session. Now the sales are 10 times that,” she said.

Li was one of the 10 sales staff sent by the local agricultural e-commerce firm to Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao’s headquarters for livestreaming training. She said livestreaming is effective in bridging buyers and farmers, through which viewers can watch planting and harvesting online.

With the number of netizens in China reaching 904 million in March, e-commerce has been one of the popular means of promoting the sale of farm produce and helping farmers shake off poverty. Despite the impact of COVID-19, the country is determined to eradicate absolute poverty by the end of this year.

Workers work at the construction site of a 5G base station at Chongqing Hi-tech Zone in Chongqing, southwest China, April 15, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Quanchao)

HI-TECH WORKERS IN “NEW INFRASTRUCTURE” BUILDING

As an elasticity calculation engineer of Alibaba Cloud, Zhao Kun and his colleagues always stay on alert for high data flow, for example, brought by the anticipated online shopping spike during the holiday.

“The profession, which may sound obscure, is actually closely connected to everyone’s life, as cloud computing is the infrastructure supporting high-tech applications of artificial intelligence and blockchain,” said Zhao.

The Chinese leadership has underscored expediting “new infrastructure” development to boost industrial and consumption upgrading and catalyze new growth drivers.

Seizing the opportunities of industrial digitization and digital industrialization, China needs to expedite the construction of “new infrastructure” projects such as 5G networks and data centers, and deploy strategic emerging sectors and industries of the future including the digital economy, life health services and new materials, President Xi has said.

During the epidemic, Zhao and his colleagues expanded more than 100,000 cloud servers to ensure the stable operation of “cloud classrooms” and “cloud offices” for millions of people working and studying from home.

In the “new infrastructure” building, people like Zhao contribute to constructing the virtual infrastructure of an ecosystem, which enables e-commerce, e-payment, online teaching and the digital transformation of manufacturing and supply chain management.

In early April, China released a plan on promoting the transformation of enterprises toward digitalization and intelligence by further expanding the application of cloud and data technologies, to nurture new business models of the digital economy.

Source: Xinhua

29/04/2020

China’s biggest banks post profit growth amid pandemic, but margins shrink

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s biggest listed banks posted higher profits in the first quarter despite the wider impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy, though margins shrank.

The world’s largest commercial lender Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC)  (601398.SS)(1398.HK) on Tuesday reported a 3.04% rise in first quarter net profit compared to a year earlier, while Bank of Communications Co Ltd (BoCom) (601328.SS)(3328.HK) reported a 1.8% rise.

Meanwhile at Agricultural Bank of China Ltd (AgBank) (1288.HK)(601288.SS) and China Construction Bank Ltd (CCB) (601939.SS)(0939.HK), first quarter net profit rose 4.79% and 5% respectively from the same period last year.

Following suit, Bank of China Ltd (BOC) (601988.SS) (3988.HK) posted on Wednesday a 3.17% rise in first-quarter net profit.

The growth came despite China’s economy posting the first quarterly contraction since at least 1992 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The government restricted people from travelling and going back to work to contain the spread of the virus, reducing revenue for companies and income for residents.

China’s largest banks are historically more resilient than their smaller kin, as they lend more to state-backed enterprises and have larger capital reserves.

However, despite this firmer base, net interest margins shrank at four of the five lenders, as loan prime rate reform and looser monetary policy weighed, said analysts.

AgBank did not report its net interest margin, the difference between what banks pay on deposits and earn on loans.

SOURED DEBT

ICBC, AgBank and CCB bucked the trend of the wider banking sector by posting steady non-performing loan (NPL) ratios.

The banking sector’s NPL ratio climbed in the first quarter to 2.04%, the banking and insurance regulator said, the highest level since the global financial crisis.

The rise came despite Chinese regulators moving to give banks leeway, allowing them to postpone some loan repayments until the end of June, as credit card and mortgage defaults surged.

About one-third of Chinese bank loans are to sectors including transport and retail that are significantly stressed by the pandemic, according to S&P Global.

“You can see generally from banks’ results that some lenders have reported falling asset quality, the NPL ratios have risen quite a lot,” said Richard Cao, an analyst at Guotai Junan International on Monday.

The largest banks are best placed to absorb such losses with a better ability to get financing and withstand a substantial volume of bad loans, S&P said in a research note in April.

Source: Reuters

26/04/2020

Wuhan declared free of Covid-19 as last patients leave hospital after months-long struggle against coronavirus

  • 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
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.”

Source: SCMP

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