Tag Archives: defences

World

China’s vast countryside in rush to bolster COVID defences

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  • Hospitals, funeral parlours overwhelmed by COVID wave
  • Some countries impose testing rules on Chinese travellers
  • China reports one new COVID death for Dec. 28

SHANGHAI/BEIJING, Dec 29 (Reuters) – China’s sprawling and thinly resourced countryside is racing to beef up medical facilities before hundreds of millions of factory workers return to their families for the Lunar New Year holiday next month from cities where COVID-19 is surging.

Having imposed the world’s strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and relentless testing for three years, China reversed course this month towards living with the virus, leaving its fragile health system overwhelmed.

The lifting of restrictions, following widespread protests against them, means COVID is spreading largely unchecked and likely infecting millions of people a day, according to some international health experts.

China officially reported one new COVID death for Wednesday, down from three on Tuesday, but foreign governments and many epidemiologists believe the numbers are much higher, and that more than 1 million people may die next year.

China has said it only counts deaths of COVID patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as COVID-related.

In the southwestern city of Chengdu, funeral parlours were busy after dark on Wednesday, with a steady stream of cars entering one, which was heavily guarded by security personnel.

One van driver working for the parlour said the past few weeks have been particularly busy and that “huge numbers of people” were inside.

Hospitals and funeral homes in major cities have been under intense pressure, but the main concern over the health system’s ability to cope with surging infections is focused on the countryside.

At a Shanghai pharmacy, Wang Kaiyun, 53, a cleaner in the city who comes from the neighbouring Anhui province, said she was buying medicines for her family back home.

“My husband, my son, my grandson, my mother, they are all infected,” she said. “They can’t get any medicine, nothing for fever or cough.”

Each year, hundreds of millions of people, mostly working in factories near the southern and eastern coasts, return to the countryside for the Lunar New Year, due to start on Jan. 22.

The holiday travel rush is expected to last for 40 days, from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15, authorities said.

The state-run China Daily reported on Thursday that rural regions across China were beefing up their medical treatment capacities.

It said a hospital in a rural part of Inner Mongolia where more than 100,000 people live was seeking bidders for a 1.9 million yuan ($272,308) contract to upgrade its wards into intensive care units.

Liancheng County Central Hospital in the eastern Fujian province was seeking tenders for ambulances and medical devices, ranging from breathing machines to electrocardiogram monitors.

In December, tenders put out by hospitals for key medical equipment were two-to-three times higher than in previous months, according to a Reuters review，suggesting hospitals across the country were scrambling to plug shortages.

TESTING REQUIREMENTS

The world’s second-largest economy is expected to suffer a slowdown in factory output and domestic consumption in the near term as workers and shoppers fall ill.

The contact-intensive services sector, which accounts for roughly half of China’s economic output, was hammered by the country’s anti-virus curbs, which shut down many restaurants and restricted travel. As China re-opens, many businesses in the services industry have no money to expand.

The re-opening also raises the prospect of Chinese tourists returning to shopping streets around the world, once a market worth $255 billion a year globally. But some countries have been taken aback by the scale of the outbreak and are sceptical of Beijing’s COVID statistics.

China’s official death toll of 5,246 since the pandemic began compares with more than 1 million deaths in the United States. Chinese-ruled Hong Kong has reported more than 11,000 deaths.

The United States, India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan said they would require COVID tests for travellers from China. Britain was considering a similar move, the Telegraph reported.

The United States issued a travel alert on Wednesday advising Americans to “reconsider travel to China, Hong Kong, and Macau” and citing “reports that the healthcare system is overwhelmed” along with the risk of new variants.

The main airport in the Italian city of Milan started testing passengers arriving from Beijing and Shanghai on Dec. 26 and found that almost half of them were infected.

China has rejected criticism of its statistics as groundless and politically motivated attempts to smear its policies. It has also played down the risk of new variants, saying it expects mutations to be more virulent but less severe.

Omicron was still the dominant strain in China, Chinese health officials said this week.

Australia, Germany, Thailand and others said they would not impose additional restrictions on travel for now.

For its part, China, whose borders have been all but shut to foreigners since early 2020, will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine from Jan. 8.

($1 = 6.9774 yuan)

Additional reporting by Martin Quin Pollard in Chengdu; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Sports

Arsenal vs Liverpool: A lesson in the perils of defences holding a high line

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In the 49th minute of Arsenal’s thrilling 3-2 victory over Liverpool on Sunday, there was an entirely forgettable 30-second passage of play which nevertheless summed up the tactical nature of the game.

First, Takehiro Tomiyasu launched a ball over the Liverpool defence for Gabriel Martinelli, who was flagged offside.

And from the subsequent free kick, Joe Gomez hammered a ball downfield for Darwin Nunez, who attempted to chase his own flick-on, then realised he’d been flagged offside.

In other words, here were two consecutive offside decisions, one at either end of the pitch, without a single event taking place between.

In 16 per cent of Premier League games this season, there have been fewer than two offsides in the entire game. Here, we had two in the space of 30 seconds.

Irrelevant trivia, perhaps. But this was entirely in-keeping with the nature of the contest.

Here’s an image from 20 minutes in, and the notable thing is that there’s almost no midfield whatsoever.



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World

Taiwan says war with China ‘absolutely’ not an option, but bolstering defences

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TAIPEI, Oct 10 (Reuters) – War between Taiwan and China is “absolutely not an option”, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Monday, as she reiterated her willingness to talk to Beijing and also pledged to boost the island’s defences including with precision missiles.

China again rejected her latest overture, saying the island was an inseparable part of its territory.

Democratic Taiwan, which China claims as its own, has come under increasing military and political pressure from Beijing, especially after Chinese war games in early August following a Taipei visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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Any conflict over Taiwan could drag in the United States, Japan and perhaps much of the world, as well as shatter the global economy, especially given Taiwan’s dominant position as a maker of semiconductors used in everything from smartphones and tablets to fighter jets.

Tsai, in her national day speech outside the presidential office under a grey sky, said it was “regrettable” that China had escalated its intimidation and threatened peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and region.

China should not think there is room for compromise in the commitment of Taiwan’s people to democracy and freedom, she said.

“I want to make clear to the Beijing authorities that armed confrontation is absolutely not an option for our two sides. Only by respecting the commitment of the Taiwanese people to our sovereignty, democracy, and freedom can there be a foundation for resuming constructive interaction across the Taiwan Strait.”

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Taiwan is part of China, “has no president and is not an independent country”.

“The root cause of the current tensions in the Taiwan Strait lies in the Democratic Progressive Party authorities’ stubborn insistence on Taiwan independence and secession,” she said, referring to Taiwan’s ruling party. “We are willing to create a broad space for peaceful reunification, but we will never leave any space for Taiwan independence and secession activities.”

China calls Tsai – re-elected by a landslide in 2020 on a promise to stand up to Beijing – a separatist and refuses to speak to her.

Tsai’s speech comes less than a week before China’s ruling Communist Party’s congress opens in Beijing, where President Xi Jinping is widely expected to win a precedent-breaking third five-year term.

An official familiar with Tsai’s thinking, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters the president was looking to “clearly convey” her position to the world and Beijing.

“Standing firm on the status quo of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is the main axis of Tsai’s comments on cross-strait relations this year,” the official said, adding this was the world’s expectation and responsibility of both Taipei and Beijing.

‘NO ROOM FOR COMPROMISE’

Tsai said, to applause, that her government looked forward to the gradual post-pandemic resumption of healthy and orderly people-to-people exchanges across the strait, which would ease tensions.

But the broad consensus in Taiwan is that its sovereignty and free and democratic way of life must be defended, she added.

“On this point, we have no room for compromise,” she said.

Tsai has made strengthening Taiwan’s defences a cornerstone of her administration to enable it to mount a more credible deterrence to China, which is ramping up an ambitious modernisation programme of its own military.

Taiwan will show the world it is taking responsibility for its own defence, Tsai said.

Taiwan is increasing mass production of precision missiles and high-performance naval vessels, and working to acquire small, highly mobile weapons that will ensure Taiwan is fully prepared to respond to “external military threats”, she added.

The military tensions have raised concerns, especially in the United States, about the concentration of chip making in Taiwan.

“I want to specifically emphasise one point to my fellow citizens and the international community, which is that the concentration of the semiconductor sector in Taiwan is not a risk,” she said.

“We will continue to maintain Taiwan’s advantages and capacity in leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing processes, and will help optimise the worldwide restructuring of the semiconductor supply chain, giving our semiconductor firms an even more prominent global role,” she added.

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Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Martin Pollard in Beijing; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Taiwan says China can ‘paralyse’ its defences, threat worsening

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By Yimou Lee

TAIPEI (Reuters) – China’s armed forces can “paralyse” Taiwan’s defences and are able to fully monitor its deployments, the island’s defence ministry said, offering a stark assessment of the rising threat posed by its giant neighbour.

Beijing is stepping up military activities around the island, which it views as Chinese territory. It has never renounced the use of force to bring democratic Taiwan under its control.

In its annual report to parliament on China’s military, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry presented a far graver view than it did last year, when the report said China still lacked the capability to launch a full assault on Taiwan.

This year’s report said that China can launch what it termed “soft and hard electronic attacks”, including blocking communications across the western part of the first island chain, the string of islands that run from the Japanese archipelago, through Taiwan and down to the Philippines.

China “can combine with its internet army to launch wired and wireless attacks against the global internet, which would initially paralyse our air defences, command of the sea and counter-attack system abilities, presenting a huge threat to us”.

China has also improved its reconnaissance abilities using Beidou, China’s answer to the U.S.-owned GPS navigation system, the ministry added.

This means Beijing can monitor movements around Taiwan, helped by China’s regular use of its own spy planes, drones and intelligence gathering ships, it said.

China’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Although Taiwan’s report noted, like last year, that China still lacked transport abilities and logistical support for a large-scale invasion, the Chinese military is working to boost those abilities.

With precision missile attacks that can hit anywhere on the island, China is also capable of “paralysing” Taiwan military command centres and combat capacity of its naval and air forces, it said.

Chinese spies in Taiwan could launch a “decapitation strike” to destroy political and economic infrastructure, it added.

With the deployment of mid- and long-range missiles and more exercises involving its aircraft carriers, China is trying to position itself to delay “foreign military intervention” in an attack on Taiwan, the ministry said.

President Tsai Ing-wen has made bolstering Taiwan’s own defences a priority, building up its domestic defence industry and buying more equipment from the United States, the island’s most important arms supplier and international backer.

(Reporting by Yimou Lee; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

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World

Delta Variant Cases in China: How an overseas flight from Moscow broke through China’s Covid defences | World News

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NEW DELHI: The fast-spreading Delta variant seems to have broken through China’s Covid defences as the country battles its worst outbreak since the virus first emerged there in late 2019.
On Wednesday, China reported its highest daily number of local coronavirus cases in months at 71. The number of new cases has been increasing for five consecutive days since July 30.
Mass testing and contact tracing campaigns have uncovered a trail of Delta variant infections.
Delta challenge
The highly transmissible Delta variant, which was first identified in India, has been detected in more than a dozen Chinese cities, including capital Beijing, since late July.
China has reported 485 locally transmitted cases with symptoms between July 20 and August 3, although it’s not immediately clear how many involve the Delta variant.

As of early Wednesday, 17 provinces, regions and municipalities have reported locally transmitted cases both with symptoms and without.
Chinese officials admit that curbing the latest outbreak will be much harder than the others, owing to the fast and asymptomatic spread of the Delta variant.
What led to the outbreak
The initial Delta infection arrived via an overseas flight from Moscow into the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing in mid-July.
Seven passengers on the flight were infected with the variant. It subsequently spread on to a group of airport cleaning staff with nine of them testing positive on July 20.
Their infections spread quickly among people who entered the airport, a major transportation hub.
Within weeks, cases popped up as far away as Hainan island in China’s south, 1,900 kilometers (1,180 miles) from Nanjing.
Mass testing, restrictions
China went into an overdrive following the latest outbreak of the Delta variant, ordering mass testing and clamping down cities.
Nanjing and Yangzhou in eastern Jiangsu province, where the majority of China’s local Delta cases have been reported since July 20, have suspended domestic flights, long-distance shuttle buses, taxis and ride-hailing vehicles from entering and leaving the two cities, and suspended some bus services.
In Wuhan, officials are this week testing all of the city’s 12 million residents over three days after uncovering the first locally transmitted infections since mid-2020, and shut parts of an economic development and innovation zone.
Many cities with Covid-19 cases have closed tourist sites and shuttered entertainment venues. The southern tourist city of Zhangjiajie has banned residents and travellers from leaving.
Meanwhile, in Nanjing millions of residents have had to participate in four rounds of testing.
“It’s just torturing the masses,” Jiang Ruoling, a resident in Nanjing, who has been tested four times in the last three weeks, told The New York Times.
Jiang, who works in real estate, said she understood the need for testing, but was still critical of officials for failing to control the latest outbreak. “The leaders are actually wasting resources and everyone’s time,” she said.
City sealed off
Zhangjiajie, a city with a population of about 1.5 million, sealed residential communities last week, preventing people from leaving their homes.
In a subsequent order on Tuesday, officials said no one, whether tourist or resident, could leave the city.
The city itself has only recorded 19 cases since last week, three of which were people with no symptoms, which are counted separately.
However, individual cases linked to Zhangjiajie’s outbreak have spread to at least five provinces, according to the Shanghai government-owned newspaper the Paper.
Far higher numbers were reported in Yangzhou, a city next to Nanjing, which has recorded 126 cases as of Tuesday.
(With inputs from agencies)



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