Category Archives: China

China locks down city of 9 million and reports 4,000 cases as Omicron tests zero-Covid strategy

Posted on by

City of Shenyang has barred residents from leaving without a 48-hour negative test result and put all housing compounds under ‘closed management’

China has locked down an industrial city of 9 million people overnight and reported more than 4,000 virus cases, as the nation’s “zero-Covid” strategy is confronted by an Omicron wave.

Health authorities reported 4,770 new infections across the country on Tuesday, the bulk in the north-eastern province of Jilin, as the city of Shenyang in neighbouring Liaoning province was ordered to lock down late Monday.

Continue reading...

China Eastern Airlines crash: families await grim news as rescuers sift through wreckage

Posted on by

State media report no survivors after a Boeing 737-800 flight crashed into mountainous terrain with 132 on board

About an hour into its journey from Kunming to Gaungzhou, flight MU5735 fell out of the air. After cruising at an altitude of 29,100ft, it suddenly dropped to about 7,000ft where it briefly ascended before diving again and crashing into remote bamboo forest in the mountains near Wuzhou. The fall appears to have taken around two minutes, according to flight tracking data.

“The plane did not smoke during the fall,” a witness told the Beijing Youth Daily. “The fire started after it fell into the mountain, followed by a lot of smoke.”

Continue reading...

Chinese plane with 132 people onboard crashes in Guangxi province

Posted on by

State media reports that China Eastern 737 went down near city of Wuzhou, sparking mountainside fire

A passenger plane carrying 132 people has crashed in southern China, with no survivors announced so far, Chinese authorities have reported.

The China Eastern Airlines plane departed Kunming at 1pm, on route to Guangzhou. At about 2.20pm, according to data from Flightradar24, the plane, a Boeing 737, plummeted more than 20,000 feet in just over a minute. It then seems to have regained altitude momentarily, before dropping rapidly again. The plane crashed near the city of Wuzhou in Teng County, Guangxi province.

Continue reading...

China has fully militarized three islands in South China Sea, US admiral says

Posted on by

John C Aquilino says Beijing is flexing its military muscle by arming isles with fighter jets, anti-ship systems and other military facilities

China has fully militarized at least three of several islands it built in the disputed South China Sea, arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment and fighter jets in an increasingly aggressive move that threatens all nations operating nearby, a top US military commander said Sunday.

US Indo-Pacific commander Admiral John C Aquilino said the hostile actions were in stark contrast to the Chinese president Xi Jinping’s past assurances that Beijing would not transform the artificial islands in contested waters into military bases. The efforts were part of China’s flexing its military muscle, he said.

Continue reading...

Chinese article urging country to cut ties with Putin gets 1m views

Posted on by

Essay on US site republished in China before being censored, reflecting balancing act between Russia and west

When an essay from a prominent Shanghai scholar suggested China needed to cut ties with Vladimir Putin as soon as possible over the Ukraine war, the online reaction was swift.

Despite being published late on a Friday evening in the Carter Center’s US-China Perception Monitor, Hu Wei’s essay soon gained a million views in and outside China, and was republished into Chinese blogs, non-official media sites and social media accounts.

Continue reading...

UK considering ban on NHS procurement of Chinese goods made in Xinjiang

Posted on by

Tory MPs want ministers to follow health bill amendment banning goods from regions with ‘risk of genocide’

Ministers are looking “sympathetically” at plans to stop the government buying health goods made in China’s Xinjiang province when the health and social care bill returns to the Commons later this month. The move would be a first sign that the government is willing to toughen its approach to authoritarian regimes in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

In an interview at the weekend, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, said the west still needed to apply pressure on the Chinese government not to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Continue reading...

With 37 million in lockdown and Covid plans under fire, Chinese ask: what comes next?

Posted on by

Elderly residents are wary of the jab even as Omicron spreads, and critics say zero-Covid policy is not sustainable

When nearby neighbourhoods went into lockdown, Liu Li started stocking up. The 42-year-old Chinese magazine worker bought vegetables, fruit, medicine and other supplies, adding to stores of basics she had maintained since the pandemic began. Last Sunday a resident in the community where Liu lives with her mother, in Changchun city, Jilin, tested positive. Everyone was ordered inside.

The fresh lockdown has, so far, been OK. “I live a normal life,” she says. “I work when there are tasks for me. If there aren’t any, I talk to my mother, watch TV, or play with my cat.”

Continue reading...

China reports first coronavirus deaths in over a year amid omicron surge

Posted on by

Two deaths reported on Saturday, the first since January 2021, as China continues to pursue ‘zero-Covid’ strategy

China’s national health authorities reported two Coronavirus deaths on Saturday, the first recorded rise in the death toll since January last year, as the country battles an omicron-driven surge.

The deaths, both in north-eastern Jilin province, bring the country’s coronavirus death toll to 4,638.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 23 of the invasion

Posted on by

Food supply fears as Biden plans to warn Chinese president against providing military support for Russia

Russia’s bombardment in the east of Ukraine continued on Friday. In the streets of Mariupol, where 350,000 civilians have been stranded with little food or water, Russia’s armed forces were “tightening the noose” around the city, a spokesperson for the Russian defence ministry said. In the eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s state emergency service said a multistorey teaching building had been shelled on Friday morning, killing one person, wounding 11 and trapping one other in the rubble.

Russian missiles struck an aircraft repair plant in Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, 50 miles from the border with Poland and a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Ukrainians. Blasts were heard at about 6am on Friday, preceded by the sound of air raid sirens, and a mushroom-shaped plume of smoke could be seen rising in the sky.

Continue reading...

China’s decisive turning point: will it side with Russia and divide the world?

Posted on by

Analysis: the world faces the possibility of a dramatic shift in the geopolitical balance of power as Beijing mulls support for Russia over the Ukraine war

Joe Biden is due to make a phone call to Xi Jinping on Friday at a potential tipping point in China’s role in the world as it decides how far to go in backing Russia’s war on Ukraine.

While China has abstained on United Nations security council resolutions on the invasion, it has sided with Moscow rhetorically, echoing Russian talking points blaming Nato, and recycling conspiracy theories, and the Biden administration believes it has already decided to bail Russia out economically.

Continue reading...

China property shares soar on Beijing stimulus, despite continued debt crisis

Posted on by

Plans to shore up real estate and tech sectors welcomed by investors, but downgrade of third-biggest developer Sunac shows problems persist

Chinese property shares have soared for a second day thanks to a decision by Beijing’s leadership to throw the country’s struggling real estate sector a lifeline amid growing pressures at home and abroad.

Despite a downgrade for China’s third-biggest property developer Sunac on Thursday, stocks in the sector lifted again in Hong Kong and the mainland thanks to an announcement by vice premier Liu He, China’s economic tsar, on Wednesday that the government needed to reduce risks in the industry.

Continue reading...

Prosecutors accuse China of campaign to spy on and harass dissidents in US

Posted on by

Prosecutors have launched a series of criminal cases including one involving an alleged attempt to smear a congressional candidate

US prosecutors have accused Chinese government agents of trying to spy on and intimidate dissidents living in the United States, including a congressional candidate, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in New York.

The US justice department convened a Washington news conference to detail the accusations in a series of criminal cases.

Continue reading...

‘An abomination’: Morrison signals sanctions against China if it helps arm Russia

Posted on by

PM says Australia ‘will move in lockstep’ with allies on sanctioning the country’s largest trading partner

Scott Morrison has left the door open to introducing sanctions against China, Australia’s largest trading partner, if Chinese president Xi Jinping’s regime were to provide military equipment to Russia.

The prime minister said his government would move in lockstep with its allies and partners in response to what he called Beijing’s “chilling silence” on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said any move by China to arm Russia would be “an abomination”.

Continue reading...

US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time since 2018

Posted on by

Fed raises rates by a quarter percentage point from near zero as central bank struggles with inflation, the war in Ukraine and Covid

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates for the first time since 2018, as the central bank struggles with soaring US inflation, the impact of the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus crisis.

The Fed raised rates by a quarter percentage point from near zero, in what is expected to be the first in a series of raises in the coming months.

Continue reading...

Rising US isolationism means Australia must become more resilient and autonomous, thinktank warns

Posted on by

United States Studies Centre finds Americans are not convinced the Indo-Pacific should be a priority region for the Biden administration

Voters in the US are not convinced the Indo-Pacific should be a priority region for the Biden administration, and isolationist sentiment in the country continues to rise, according to a new analysis by the United States Studies Centre.

The new USSC State of the United States report, to be launched in Canberra at an event on Wednesday with the defence minister, Peter Dutton, Labor frontbenchers Penny Wong and Brendan O’Connor, and US congressman Joe Courtney, finds support for the US alliance with Canberra remains strong.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Oil price falls below $100 amid Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks

Posted on by

Drop in price comes as Covid-19 infections rise in China, which could hit demand for energy supplies

Global oil prices have fallen back below $100 (£77) a barrel amid ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine and concerns over the rapid growth in Covid infections in China.

The price of a barrel of oil slid to $99 on energy markets on Tuesday, before rising back to just above $100 in early afternoon trading. It comes amid a decline from a 14-year high of close to $130 reached earlier this month after Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine.

Continue reading...

Ukraine-Russia war latest: More than 3m have now fled Ukraine, says UN, as Czech, Polish and Slovenian leaders arrive for Zelenskiy meeting – live

Posted on by

The UN says it expects the number of Ukrainian refugees to reach at least four million, while Poland’s PM announced he and his counterparts from the Czech Republic and Slovenia are now in Kyiv

More explosions have been heard in Kyiv on Tuesday morning as Russian bombardment continues.

An apartment bulding was reportedly hit and set on fire, according to the state emergency service. The fire was put out and one person has been hospitalised.

Continue reading...

China Covid cases hit two-year high with millions in lockdown as outbreak spreads

Posted on by

Nearly 90% of new infections in Jilin province, while tens of millions of people across the country remain confined to their homes

China has posted a steep jump in daily Covid-19 infections with new cases more than doubling from a day earlier to a two-year high as a virus outbreak expanded rapidly in the north-east.

A total of 3,507 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms were reported on Monday across more than a dozen provinces and municipalities, the National Health Commission said, up from 1,337 a day earlier.

Continue reading...

China has already decided to send economic aid to Russia in Ukraine conflict, US officials fear

Posted on by

Jake Sullivan’s Rome meeting with Chinese counterpart left US officials pessimistic about steering Beijing away from backing Moscow

China has already decided to provide Russia with economic and financial support during its war on Ukraine and is contemplating sending military supplies such as armed drones, US officials fear.

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, laid out the US case against Russia’s invasion in an “intense” seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, pointing out that Moscow had feigned interest in diplomacy while preparing for invasion, and also that the Russian military was clearly showing signs of frailty.

Continue reading...

US urged China not to supply arms to Russia at ‘intense’ Rome meeting

Posted on by

China had denounced reports that Moscow asked for military equipment as ‘malicious disinformation’

The United States has held “intense” high-level talks with China in an effort to try to dissuade Beijing from supplying arms to Russia, at a meeting in Rome which the White House sees as critically important not just for the war in Ukraine but also for the future of the global balance of power.

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, met his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, for all-day talks in the Italian capital on Monday amid reports that Russia has asked China for weapons to bolster its faltering invasion of Ukraine.

Continue reading...