Category Archives: China

Australia says China should allow in WHO Covid investigators ‘without delay’

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Foreign minister Marise Payne issues mild statement, but opposition parties attack China’s ‘unacceptable’ actions and ‘paranoia’

The Australian government has called on China to allow a visit by World Health Organization experts investigating how the coronavirus pandemic started, insisting the country should grant them visas “without delay”.

Canberra raised its concerns on Wednesday over reports that Chinese authorities had blocked the arrival of a WHO team investigating the early cases of Covid-19 in Wuhan.

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Coronavirus live news: EU medicines regulator approves Moderna vaccine; Japan’s daily cases hit new record

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Moderna is second vaccine to get EU approval; Japan under pressure to impose state of emergency for Tokyo

Ukrainian police and health officials are investigating reports that some citizens have been illegally getting inoculated against Covid-19 with vaccines that have not been officially approved, prime minister Denys Shmyhal said.

Ukraine, which has registered more than one million Covid-19 infections and 19,357 deaths so far, has yet to approve any of the newly developed vaccines, though it signed a contract in December to buy 1.9m doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine and the shots are expected to be delivered soon.

The Covid-19 vaccine developed by Moderna is expected to also be effective against the new variant of coronavirus detected in Britain, the Dutch national drugs authority CBG said.

The CBG said the European Commission was expected to give the final stamp of approval to the Moderna jab on Wednesday, after the European Medicines Authority gave its approval earlier.

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Where is Jack Ma? Chinese tycoon not seen since October

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Alibaba co-founder has fallen out of favour with Beijing, but observers cautious about drawing conclusions

Speculation is mounting over the whereabouts of the Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, who has not been seen or heard in public for more than two months.

Ma, the co-founder and former chairman of the technology firm Alibaba, has fallen out of favour with China’s leadership. In late October, he stood alongside senior officials and delivered a blunt speech criticising national regulators, reportedly infuriating China’s president, Xi Jinping.

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China moves to punish lawyers who helped Hong Kong activists

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Authorities threaten to revoke licences of pair who assisted group of 12 that tried to flee to Taiwan

Chinese authorities have threatened to end the careers of two lawyers who assisted 12 activists who tried to flee Hong Kong for Taiwan last August, 10 of whom were given jail terms by a Chinese court last week.

Ren Quanniu – who also represented the Wuhan citizen journalist Zhang Zhan – and Lu Siwei received notices from local departments of justice on Monday that authorities intended to revoke their licences and they had three days to arrange for a defence hearing.

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Australia ‘not for turning’ in dispute with China, UK envoy George Brandis says

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The high commissioner in London offers sharp observations on the dispute between Canberra and Beijing

Australia is “not for turning” in its dispute with China and must cut its reliance on supply chains “over which we had little to no sovereign control”, the country’s top envoy to the UK has said.

George Brandis, Australia’s high commissioner in London, argued the situation “must change” as he called for a trade deal between Australia and Britain to be completed by the end of this year.

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Covid vaccinations: slow start around world brings dose of reality

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Burst of optimism over approvals has been followed by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors

The global introduction of newly approved coronavirus vaccines has been marked by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors as it has become clear that many governments will miss their targets for mass inoculation.

The burst of optimism that arrived with approvals of new vaccines – encouraged by unrealistic expectations raised by politicians – is colliding with the reality of the challenge of vaccinating a large part of the world’s population.

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The world in 2021 – how global politics will change this year

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Donald Trump’s departure will alter the face of geopolitics. The climate crisis and Covid response will affect all nations – while others face very particular challenges. Observer correspondents examine the 12 months ahead

A potent mix of hope and fear accompanies the start of 2021 in most of the world. Scientists have created several vaccines for a disease that didn’t even have a name this time last year. But many countries, including the UK and the US, are still stumbling through the deadliest period of the pandemic.

The shadow of Covid will not begin to lift, even in richer countries, for months. Britain was the first to approve a vaccine and has secured extensive supplies, yet Boris Johnson’s suggestion that life might be returning to normal by Easter is widely seen as optimistic. Other countries, particularly in the south, face a long wait to get vaccines, and help paying for them. The rebuilding of economies shattered by Covid everywhere will be slow; even countries that managed to contain it have taken a hit, from Vietnam to New Zealand.

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Wuhan a year after Covid struck: ‘Everyone wants to reset 2020’

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Wang Fan is a young craft beer brewer in Wuhan. When his city became the first in the world to enter lockdown, he volunteered to help support other residents, and documented the sudden and strict pandemic rules over that harsh winter. One year later, Wuhan is getting back to normality, and Wang Fan is even releasing a special beer to mark the recovery. He and other young people reflect on trying to get their lives back on track while much of the rest of the world struggles with the virus

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Hong Kong activist Jimmy Lai returned to jail until at least February

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Court grants prosecutors’ request to appeal against bail order on media mogul

The Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been returned to jail after the city’s highest court ruled in favour of prosecutors’ request for leave to appeal against his already highly restrictive bail order.

The decision will keep the 76-year-old in jail until at least February, even though he has not been accused of a violent crime and is not considered a flight risk.

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Indonesian fisher finds drone submarine on possible covert mission

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Navy seizes UUV, likely a Chinese Sea Wing, that experts say could be used to plot routes for military subs

An Indonesian fisher has found what experts say is likely to be a Chinese submarine drone in waters on a strategic maritime route from the South China Sea to Australia.

According to Indonesian media the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) was found on 20 December near Selayar Island in South Sulawesi. Six days later it was handed to police and then transferred to the Indonesian military.

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Wuhan one year on: normality returns, but pain over handling of Covid endures

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As China’s leadership celebrates national triumph over virus, some residents want an investigation into the start of the pandemic

Jianghan Road in Wuhan throngs with shoppers and strollers bundled up against the late December freeze. Bells ring out on the hour from the landmark Hankou Customs House where the road terminates near the wide banks of the Yangtze River.

Restaurants along the city’s main pedestrian thoroughfare are packed, even on an icy weekday night, and resound with loud conversation.

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‘Vaccine diplomacy’ sees Egypt roll out Chinese coronavirus jab

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A lack of trial data transparency from China has raised concerns, but the country is confidently pushing ahead

When Egypt’s health ministry sent out an invitation to doctors to be vaccinated against Covid-19, they neglected to make clear it was a clinical trial.

Instead, it assured them that two Covid-19 vaccines developed by China’s National Biotec Group, part of a state-owned conglomerate known as Sinopharm, had no side-effects and that “the minister of health was vaccinated today, and orders were issued to vaccinate all doctors and workers who wish to be vaccinated”.

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Hong Kong: China jails 10 who fled by boat to Taiwan for up to three years

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Group’s trial on the mainland lasted just one day and was held with few public witnesses

Ten people who tried to flee Hong Kong for Taiwan have been sentenced in a Chinese court to up to three years in jail, while two minors will be returned home without charge.

On Wednesday the Yantian people’s court ordered the group to serve varying sentences of between seven months and three years in jail. Of the two people charged with organising the illegal border crossing, one was sentenced to three years and fined RMB20,000 (£2,260), and the other to two years and fined RMB15,000.

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Pressure on Turkey to protect Uighurs as China ratifies extradition treaty

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Ankara has long welcomed Uighur and Turkic Muslims fleeing China but human rights groups fear the treaty will endanger them

Beijing has ratified an extradition treaty with Turkey that human rights groups warn could endanger Uighur families and activists fleeing persecution by Chinese authorities if it is adopted by Ankara.

The treaty, first signed in 2017, was formalised on the weekend at the national people’s congress, with state media saying it would be used for counter-terrorism purposes. Facing strong opposition within its parliament, Turkey’s government has not yet ratified the deal, and critics have urged the government to abandon it and prevent the treaty from “becoming an instrument of persecution”.

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Australia insists WHO inquiry into Covid origin must be robust, despite China tensions

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Australia, whose early call for inquiry sparked furious Chinese response, says it expects ‘robust, independent and comprehensive’ report

Australia is pushing to ensure the global inquiry it helped trigger into the early handling of the Covid-19 pandemic doesn’t pull any punches – a move that has the potential to risk further recriminations from China.

Amid scepticism among several government backbenchers that the inquiry will fully address Chinese authorities’ early missteps and reporting delays, Australia is using its final months on a top World Health Organization board to press for the investigation to remain robust and independent.

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Game of Thrones video game tycoon dies in suspected poisoning

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Police in China detain colleague of Yoozoo Games founder Lin Qi on suspicion of involvement in death

Shanghai police have detained a man in relation to the suspected poisoning death of the wealthy founder of a video games company.

Lin Qi, 39, died on Christmas Day, eight days after he was taken to hospital with “acute symptoms of illness”, according to his company, Yoozoo Games Co, known for the Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming strategy game and as the producer of a forthcoming Netflix adaptation of the science fiction hit The Three-Body Problem.

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Wuhan Covid citizen journalist jailed for four years in China’s Christmas crackdown

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Prosecution of 10 Hong Kongers detained in mainland China after allegedly attempting to flee to Taiwan also began on Monday

Zhang Zhan, a 37-year-old former lawyer and citizen journalist who was arrested in May while reporting from Wuhan, has been sentenced to four years in jail.

Zhang was arrested for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – an accusation commonly used against dissidents, activists and journalists – with her video and blog reports from the Wuhan lockdown. Last month she was charged with disseminating false information.

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Liu Xiaoming to quit his role of Chinese ambassador to Britain

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Critic of UK decision to ban Huawei from 5G networks to be replaced by China’s vice-foreign minister

China’s long-serving envoy to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, a staunch defender of closer UK-China economic ties and the imposition of new security laws in Hong Kong, is standing down, marking the end of an era in relations between the two countries that hit a high in 2015 but has since worsened markedly.

He is being replaced by his country’s vice-foreign minister, Zheng Zeguang, a former Cardiff University law student once tipped to become China’s ambassador to the US, and still seen as a candidate for that post in a couple of years’ time.

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China to overtake US as world’s biggest economy by 2028, report predicts

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Centre for Economics and Business Research says it expects this to happen half a decade sooner than it forecast a year ago

China will overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy before the end of the decade after outperforming its rival during the global Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research said that it nowexpected the value of China’s economy when measured in dollars to exceed that of the US by 2028, half a decade sooner than it expected a year ago.

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Coronavirus global report: Christmas curtailed as UK arrivals face tougher measures

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Pope addresses fewer than 200 people in St Peter’s; China and US take action against UK amid concerns about new variant; South Korea reports daily case record

The coronavirus pandemic cast a pall over Christmas celebrations worldwide, with the pope holding a reduced St Peter’s mass, and further restrictions imposed on arrivals from the UK and South Africa amid concerns about potentially more transmissible variants of the virus.

China said it would halt UK flight arrivals indefinitely, deciding to follow the example of dozens of countries that introduced bans this week following the emergence of a new mutation in the virus. There are currently eight weekly flights between mainland China and Britain, including two by British Airways.

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