The territory imports 90% of its food and supply fears come as it battles its worst outbreak of the pandemic
Hong Kong authorities said supplies of vegetables and chilled poultry to the global financial hub may be temporarily disrupted after some mainland goods vehicle drivers preliminarily tested positive for Covid-19.
Hong Kong imports 90% of its food, with the mainland its most important source, especially for fresh food.
Continue reading...It is not clear if China is in talks with drugmaker to procure treatment, the first oral pill cleared in country
China’s medical products regulator has conditionally approved Pfizer’s Covid-19 drug Paxlovid, making it the first oral pill specifically developed to treat the disease cleared in the country.
The National Medical Products Administration said Paxlovid had been approved to treat adults who have mild to moderate Covid-19 and who are at high risk of progressing to a severe condition. Further study on the drug needed to be conducted and submitted to the authority, it said.
Continue reading...As the US downsized its Pacific presence, China stepped into the vacuum; a rare visit from the secretary of state won’t convince Fiji to turn on its ally
The US secretary of state’s lightning visit to Fiji may be sudden, but not surprising. That Antony Blinken is the first US secretary of state to visit Fiji in 37 years reflects just how much has changed geopolitically.
It is also an indication of Fiji’s influential role in this part of the world, being a strong, if not the strongest, Pacific ally of China, the arch-rival of the US in the Pacific.
Continue reading...Sweden scraps almost all of its few restrictions and stops most testing; Spain’s King Felipe tests positive after displaying mild symptoms
Sajid Javid, the UK health secretary, has pledged to recruit 15,000 new health workers by the end of March to tackle the pandemic treatment backlog.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said the NHS planned “to recruit 10,000 more nurses from overseas and 5,000 more healthcare support workers by the end of March” to improve capacity.
“Remove your mask,” a man demands, as I walk through the crowd. When I say I would like to keep it on, he immediately asks if I’m from mainstream media. I reply that I am and he says “don’t twist the truth just because you’re on the government dollars”. He is not the only one demanding I remove the mask.
Continue reading...Appearance of traditional dress denounced as further attempt by China to appropriate Korean culture
China and South Korea have become embroiled in a cultural appropriation row after a woman appeared at the opening ceremony of the Beijing winter Olympics wearing traditional Korean dress.
The Chinese embassy in Seoul defended the decision to include a participant wearing hanbok, describing her as a representative of the country’s dozens of ethnic groups.
Continue reading...A hashtag relating to the death of man employed at video platform Bilibili has been viewed hundreds of millions of times but company denies claims he was overworked
Claims that another Chinese tech worker has died after excessive overtime has reignited debate over the industry’s “996 culture”. The company denied that it overworked the employee, but said it would pay more attention to the health of its employees.
The 25-year-old reportedly died in hospital soon after he was taken to hospital from his home on Saturday afternoon. The video platform Bilibili, where the man was employed as a content auditor, said company representatives went to the hospital to assist and then notified his family.
Continue reading...L’Equipe reporter Marc Ventouillac, who spoke to Peng this week, says it is ‘impossible to say’ if the Chinese tennis star is safe
One of the journalists who conducted the first sit-down interview with Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai said that the carefully controlled conversation did not answer questions about whether she can speak her mind or move freely.
A Chinese Olympic official was in the room and translated the conversation with Peng, who disappeared from public view for weeks last year after she made public allegations that a former top-ranked Communist party official pressured her into having sex.
Continue reading...Residents furious as protesters opposed to Covid-19 restrictions paralyse Ottawa; more than 17 million Vietnamese students due to return to school
Sajid Javid, the UK health secretary, has said he believes the NHS waiting list is going to grow even more due to 8-9 million people who have stayed away during the pandemic.
Speaking on Sky News, he urged those who have stayed away to “please come forward”.
‘Dystopian’ reversal of 1999 cult film’s ending showed police winning out
The Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video has restored the original ending to the film Fight Club after it amended the Chinese edition to tell viewers police had “rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals”, prompting a widespread backlash.
The wholesale reversal of the anti-capitalist, anarchist denouement to the 1999 hit film, which stars Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter, made international headlines last month.
Continue reading...Tennis star gave an interview to French sports daily L’Équipe on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, accompanied by a Chinese official
Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has given her first interview to an independent media organisation since she alleged on Weibo that a senior Chinese official had coerced her into sex, saying it was an “enormous misunderstanding”.
The interview with French sports daily L’Équipe came as the International Olympic Committee said it wasn’t up to them or anyone else “to judge, in one way or another, her position”.
Continue reading...Accord signed by Alberto Fernández and Xi Jinping at Winter Olympics also supports Chinese claim to Taiwan
Liz Truss has defended the Falklands as “part of the British family” after China backed Argentina’s claim over the South American islands.
The foreign secretary tweeted that “China must respect the Falklands’ sovereignty” after the Argentinian president, Alberto Fernández, met China’s President Xi on the fringes of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Continue reading...Worsening Sino-US ties, strict Covid rules and the crackdown on dissent have dented the territory’s fabled allure as a business hub, say expats
In July 2018, Tara Joseph, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, wrote an article in the best-known local English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, stressing to Americans the territory’s unique position as an Asian business hub.
“The US is forgetting the differences between Hong Kong and China. Let’s remind them,” she wrote. “Hong Kong continues to have a robust and hearty infrastructure of values, practices and institutions that could not contrast more starkly with those of the mainland system.”
Continue reading...On the eve of the Winter Olympics, China promised the world a “streamlined, safe and most splendid” Games. But just two days into the event organisers are facing a litany of complaints from athletes and countries on multiple fronts.
The Swedes have suggested that the conditions in the mountains are perilously cold. A Polish skater says she was living in fear in a Beijing isolation ward and has “cried until I have no more tears”. The Finns have claimed an ice hockey player is being kept in Covid quarantine for no reason. And the Germans? They are frustrated that there is no hot food at the downhill skiing.
Continue reading...Tub-thumping talk of all-out war in Ukraine seems overblown but the White House knows the fledgling Sino-Russian axis is a real threat, in Taiwan and elsewhere
If, as seems increasingly probable, Russia decides not to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine, tub-thumping US and British politicians who have spent weeks scaring the public with loose talk of looming Armageddon will have some explaining to do.
The military build-up directed by Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is real enough. But suspicion grows that the actual as opposed to the hypothetical threat of a large-scale conventional attack is being mis-read, misinterpreted, over-estimated or deliberately exaggerated.
Continue reading...Secretary general says he expects Xi Jinping to allow ‘credible’ visit to troubled region during meeting on Winter Olympics sidelines
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres told leaders in Beijing he expects them to allow UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to make a “credible” visit to China including a stop in the Xinjiang region, his spokesman said on Saturday.
Guterres met with Chinese president Xi Jinping and foreign minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics, according to a readout of their talks.
Continue reading...Lawyers say delay in case against three defendants including a Briton is to avoid embarrassing China
The trial in Greece of activists who protested against Beijing holding the Winter Olympics has been postponed amid accusations that proceedings were delayed to avoid embarrassing China on the eve of the Games.
The highly anticipated hearing had been due to take place on Thursday in the town of Pyrgos, with human rights lawyers travelling from the UK and Athens to attend. The activists, who included a Briton, an American and a Tibetan-Canadian, were arrested when they briefly disrupted the Olympic flame lighting ceremony in October.
Continue reading...Taipei calls ‘no limits’ agreement announced after Xi-Putin summit an insult to the Olympic spirit
Taiwan has condemned as “contemptible” the timing of China and Russia’s “no limits” partnership at the start of the Winter Olympics, saying the Chinese government was bringing shame to the spirit of the Games.
China and Russia, at a meeting of their leaders hours before the Winter Olympics officially opened, backed each other over standoffs on Ukraine and Taiwan with a promise to collaborate more against the west.
Continue reading...Chinese and Russian leaders call on west to abandon ‘cold war’ approach at pre-Olympic meeting
China’s Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin of Russia have signed a joint statement calling on the west to “abandon the ideologised approaches of the cold war”, as the two leaders showcased their warming relationship in Beijing at the start of the Winter Olympics.
The politicans also said the bonds between the two countries had “no limits”. “[T]here are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation’,” they declared.
Continue reading...Fifty years after Nixon and Mao’s historic handshake, the geopolitical world order is again being reshaped
When the leaders of China and Russia meet in Beijing this Friday shortly before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, observers of the bilateral relationship will be looking for insights into how this 21st century quasi-alliance is reshaping the postwar world order.
It was 50 years ago this month, on 21 February 1972, that the historic handshake between Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong changed the geometry of the cold war. Historians called the visit “the week that changed the world”. It later influenced Washington’s subsequent movement towards détente with Moscow.
Continue reading...Communist party tightens grip on critics to preserve ‘perfect’ image of Winter Games
A chill is blowing through Chinese civil society as activists, journalists and academics report receiving police warnings and censorship of their social media platforms in recent weeks as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics beginning on Friday.
In mid-January, the Beijing-based human rights activist Hu Jia said in a tweet that China’s state security apparatus was summoning activists around the country to question them and warn them to stay silent.
The author Zhang Yihe and prominent journalist Gao Yu said they had lost some or all of their access to WeChat, China’s dominant social media platform. Academics including Guo Yuhua, the outspoken Tsinghua University sociologist, and He Weifang, the Peking University law professor, reported similar issues.