Category Archives: China

Shanghai further tightens Covid restrictions after weeks of strict lockdown

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China vows to eradicate virus, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, amid frustration among residents

Authorities in Shanghai have further tightened restrictions on the movement of residents in some districts and warned its 25 million inhabitants that strict measures would continue until Covid-19 was eradicated, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

After three weeks of stringent lockdown that has fuelled discontent in China’s largest metropolis, some districts were told that restrictions would be tightened even when they met the criteria for people to be allowed to leave their homes.

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China is exerting ‘enormous pressure’ on Pacific island nations, Scott Morrison says

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Morrison dodges questions on whether Australia knew of Solomon Islands-China pact amid ministers’ conflicting accounts

Scott Morrison says China is exerting “enormous pressure” on Pacific island countries, as the Australian prime minister fends off questions about whether his government was caught off-guard by the security deal with Solomon Islands.

Morrison said it was not “just as easy as picking up the phone or sending a foreign minister”, after Labor characterised the signing of the deal as the biggest Australian foreign policy failure in the Pacific since the second world war.

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New Zealand faces global pressure over move to let resident be extradited to China

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MPs from around the world tell Jacinda Ardern that case of murder suspect Kyung Yup Kim could set ‘dangerous precedent’

New Zealand is under international pressure to stop the extradition of a resident to China, after a landmark supreme court decision allowed the government to send a man accused of murder to Shanghai to face trial.

The decision was a reversal of previous court rulings, which blocked extradition on the grounds that Kyung Yup Kim, the accused, would be at high risk of torture or an unfair trial.

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Tibet builds makeshift Covid hospitals amid China’s latest outbreak

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The move in Tibet, which has reported one Covid case since 2020, comes as 16 million people remain in lockdown in Shanghai

Authorities in Tibet are building massive Covid isolation and care facilities in anticipation of further outbreaks in China even though the remote territory has reported only one case during the pandemic.

Temporary hospitals – a key feature of China’s Covid response – with at least 1,000 beds each are being built in Lhasa and Shigatse by the Chinese firm Jiangsu Qi’an Construction Group. The firm said it had been tasked with building the hospitals in late March and given “less than half a month” to complete them. More than 400 personnel are working across three shifts to get the job done.

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Australia rejects claim its security forces in Solomon Islands were told not to protect Chinese-built buildings

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Former PM alleged Australian personnel twice failed to prevent the burning of Honiara’s Chinatown

Australia has refuted claims that Australian security forces deployed to Solomon Islands’ capital Honiara to quell last November’s riots were instructed not to protect Chinese-built infrastructure.

The claim was made by former Solomon Islands prime minister, Danny Philip, who is now the chair of the current government’s, foreign policy advisory subcommittee.

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Sharma labels Deves’s comments on trans people ‘reprehensible’ – as it happened

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Dave Sharma condemns comments of Warringah candidate Katherine Deves; Labor MP Terri Butler’s electorate office hit by car; nation records at least 50 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Q: But senator, I do want to take you up on that. This was the debate we were having in the dying days of the parliament, and all the national security experts and veterans in the field say it was unhelpful and that the ALP was anything other than supporting Australia’s policy, so why are you continuing this line of attack?

Simon Birmingham:

The Labor party have created the points of difference in the way they expressed themselves and the language they used. When last in office, let our investment in our defence forces whittle away to the lowest share of the economy. We brought it back to 2% of the GDP, and having that credible investment is what has enabled us to strike new defence pacts and partnerships with countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, making us a credible partner for defence and strategic investment in areas of artificial intelligence, in missile equipment and investment, and the nuclear-powered submarines.

I think we have seen a Labor party, who when China were making decisions to apply trade sanctions and tariffs against Australia, Labor seemed to want us to reach a compromise with China rather than to stand up for Australia.

Anthony Albanese spoke at the National Press Club not that long ago – he suggested we should negotiate or settle some of the points with the Labor party – sorry, with China. Well, ultimately, we have to stand up for Australian interests.

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Australia’s coal export boom forecast to end abruptly amid big drop in demand from China

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Study finds Chinese consumption will fall within two to three years as Australian coalmining communities warned to reduce dependence on industry

Australia’s coal export boom will come to an abrupt end because of an “imminent and substantial” drop in purchases by China, and local coal mining communities should brace for the change, the lead author of a new study says.

The peer-reviewed paper, published on Thursday in the journal Joule, forecasts China’s thermal coal imports will contract at least a quarter from 2019 levels of 210m tonnes by 2025, mostly as improved transport links will give local suppliers an edge.

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Taiwan news channel accidentally airs false report of Chinese invasion

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CTS apologises for panic caused by broadcast of mocked-up captions it says it created for security drills

A Taiwanese news channel has broadcast by mistake a fictional news alert that said Chinese armed forces had launched an invasion, firing missiles at cities and ports surrounding the capital, Taipei.

Several news captions declaring a violent attack by China’s People’s Liberation Army had been mocked up for forthcoming security drills, but were broadcast accidentally to Taiwanese viewers at 7am on Wednesday.

Additional reporting by Chi Hui Lin and Xiaoqian Zhu

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Scott Morrison fends off claim Solomon Islands-China pact is worst foreign policy failure since 1945

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Prime minister defends Canberra’s ‘calibrated’ approach to Honiara and tries to turn criticism back on Labor

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has fended off accusations that he is responsible for “the worst Australian foreign policy failure” in the Pacific since the end of the second world war after the Solomon Islands struck a new security pact with China.

Labor has seized on the new agreement as evidence that Australia has been asleep at the wheel while China has cemented its influence in the region, with leader Anthony Albanese saying more should have been done to prevent it from going ahead.

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Solomon Islands-China pact is worst policy failure in Pacific since 1945, Labor says

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Penny Wong accuses Coalition of mishandling situation, raising concerns of a potential Chinese military presence in South Pacific

Labor has lashed the Coalition in the wake of the newly signed security agreement between China and Solomon Islands, branding it “the worst Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific” in decades.

The Coalition government sounded the alarm over the deal, arguing the pact has been negotiated in secret and could “undermine stability in our region”. The foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, and the minister for the Pacific, Zed Seselja, said they were “deeply disappointed” by the deal, and would “seek further clarity on the terms of the agreement, and its consequences for the Pacific region”.

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Shanghai records first official Covid deaths since lockdown imposed

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Three fatalities were one woman aged 89 and two 91-year-olds, highlighting concerns about low vaccination rates among elderly

Three Covid-19 fatalities have been reported in Shanghai, the first to be officially counted since the beginning of the city’s lockdown.

The three people reported on Monday included two women aged 89 and 91, and a 91-year-old man, who also had underlying health conditions, and were reportedly unvaccinated. Shanghai municipal authorities said the three were admitted to hospital and became critically ill. They died on Sunday “after all efforts were made to rescue them”.

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China tightens controls as Shanghai reports record Covid cases

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Japan urges local government to address business concerns as ongoing restrictions hit commerce

Shanghai reported a record number of symptomatic Covid-19 cases on Saturday and other areas across China tightened controls as the country kept up its “dynamic clearance” approach that aims to stamp out the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The Zhengzhou airport economic zone, a central Chinese manufacturing area that includes Apple supplier Foxconn, announced a 14-day lockdown on Friday “to be adjusted according to the epidemic situation”.

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Will China’s zero-Covid policy bring the world’s factory grinding to a halt?

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Huawei executive warns of ‘massive losses’ in tech sector as tensions rise over strict lockdowns

A top Huawei executive has broken ranks to warn that China’s stringent zero-Covid policy may trigger “massive losses” for the tech industry, putting the country’s economy as well as the global supply chain at greater risk.

“If Shanghai cannot resume production by May, all of the tech and industrial players who have supply chains in the area will come to a complete halt, especially the automotive industry,” Richard Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei’s consumer and auto division said in a WeChat post. “That will pose severe consequences and massive losses for the whole industry.”

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Shanghai residents forced from homes clash with police over Covid policy

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Scuffles follow complaints of food shortages and over-zealous officials forcing people into quarantine

Videos posted on social media have showed residents of Shanghai scuffling with hazmat-suited police who were ordering them to surrender their homes to Covid-19 patients, providing a rare glimpse into rising discontent in the megacity over China’s inflexible virus response.

Shanghai, a city of 25 million and China’s economic engine room, has become the heart of the country’s biggest outbreak since the peak of the first virus wave in Wuhan over two years ago, rattling the country’s adherence to a strict zero-Covid policy.

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Shanghai TV channel postpones Covid spin show after backlash

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Residents express dismay online about tribute to city’s handling of outbreak after extended lockdown

A state-owned TV station in Shanghai has postponed a show that highlights the positive sides of the city’s response to an Omicron outbreak after an online backlash.

Shanghai Dragon Television, the city’s main TV channel that also broadcasts via satellite to Chinese-speaking audiences globally, announced the decision on social media late on Tuesday night, hours after it was criticised online. Dragon TV said it welcomed “valuable feedback to our work”.

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US military leader warns Chinese security deal with Solomon Islands sounds ‘too good to be true’

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General David Berger raises concerns about Chinese influence while Australia’s Pacific minister asks Solomon Islands ‘to consider not signing agreement’

A senior US military general has warned during a visit to Australia that China’s offer to deepen security ties with Solomon Islands will come with strings attached, suggesting the Pacific island country may come to regret the planned deal.

“My parents told me if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” the commandant of the United States Marine Corps, general David Berger, said on Wednesday.

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New Zealand allows resident to be extradited to China in landmark ruling

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Decision in case of murder suspect Kyung Yup Kim concludes government can trust Chinese assurances extradited defendants will not face torture

New Zealand’s courts have ruled the government can extradite to China a man suspected of murder – a landmark ruling that, if it proceeds, will be the first time the country has sent a resident to face trial in China.

The courts had previously blocked the extradition of Kyung Yup Kim, a man accused of killing a young woman in Shanghai, citing the risk of torture and not receiving a fair trial.

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iPhone maker Pegatron halts Shanghai production due to Covid lockdown

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Operations stopped in Chinese cities of Shanghai and Kunshan as global supply chains feel pinch of Beijing's zero-Covid measures

Key iPhone maker Pegatron has halted operations at two subsidiaries in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Kunshan, as global supply chains feel the pinch of Beijing’s strict zero-Covid measures.

The business hub of Shanghai has become the heart of China’s biggest Covid-19 outbreak since the virus surfaced more than two years ago.

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Gay references removed from Fantastic Beasts 3 for Chinese release

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Big-budget fantasy sequel has had six seconds cut, as Warner Bros releases statement to say ‘the spirit of the film remains intact’

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore has been edited for release in China to ensure any gay references have been removed.

The fantasy sequel, which has an estimated budget of $200m, contains allusions to a romantic history between the characters of Dumbledore and Grindelwald, played by Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen respectively. Six seconds of dialogue, including the lines “Because I was in love with you” and “The summer Gellert and I fell in love”, were taken out for the Chinese release on 8 April.

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US tells some consulate staff to leave Shanghai as Covid outbreak worsens

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State department cites risk of children and parents being separated as EU warns zero-Covid strategy eroding investor confidence

The US has said it has asked all its non-essential staff and their family members at the Shanghai consulate to leave, in Washington’s latest response to the financial hub’s handling of the worsening Covid outbreak.

The state department ordered the departure “due to the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak” there, according to a spokesperson from its Beijing embassy. “It is best for our employees and their families to be reduced in number and our operations to be scaled down as we deal with the changing circumstances on the ground,” the person said on Tuesday.

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