Tag: China

Trump to end Hong Kong’s special trade status

Axios logoPresident Trump announced on Friday that the U.S. would be fundamentally changing longstanding policies toward Hong Kong as a result of Chinese encroachment on the city’s autonomy.

Why it matters: Trump said he would be effectively ending the special trade status that has allowed Hong Kong to flourish as a gateway to the Chinese market. That leaves an uncertain future for businesses that operate in Hong Kong, not to mention the city’s 7 million residents, and could be met with reprisals from Beijing.

More from Trump’s remarks:

  • The president said the U.S. would be “terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization” because it had become entirely beholden to China. He said funds the U.S. would have contributed to the global health body will be redirected to other public health initiatives.
  • Trump declared that China had “continually violated its promises to us and so many other nations” through unfair trade practices, industrial espionage and other violations.
  • He did not refer to the “phase one” trade deal with China, signed in January, which at least nominally remains in place.
  • Trump left the Rose Garden without taking questions on the events in Minneapolis.

Continue reading.

China plans sweeping national security law for Hong Kong

Axios logoChina plans to implement a sweeping national security law for Hong Kong that could dramatically constrain Hong Kong’s autonomy and provoke fierce backlash from pro-democracy activists.

Why it matters: Beijing’s encroachment on Hong Kong’s independent legal system prompted massive protests last year that have resumed on a smaller scale as social-distancing measures lift.

  • The current proposal appears to be far-reaching, banning sedition, treason and secession, which Beijing tends to define very broadly, per the BBC.
  • The proposal would amend the Basic Law, which has governed relations with the mainland since Hong Kong was handed back to China from the U.K. in 1997. Continue reading.

Scoop: Xi accepts, while Trump rejects, invite to address WHO

Axios logoPresident Trump declined an invitation to address a virtual gathering of the World Health Organization, which proceeded today with addresses from several world leaders but only a blistering rebuke from the U.S.

The big picture: A source familiar with Trump’s thinking said he has no interest in doing anything with the WHO right now. Trump has excoriated the WHO, saying it’s kowtowing to China, and he’s frozen U.S. funding for the global health agency.

Behind the scenes: The WHO extended an invitation earlier this month for Trump to speak at Monday’s virtual gathering of the World Health Assembly, according to two sources familiar with the situation. Continue reading.

Fauci: No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab

In an exclusive interview, the face of America’s COVID-19 response cautions against the rush for states to reopen, and offers his tips for handling the pandemic’s information deluge.

ANTHONY “TONY” FAUCI has become the scientific face of America’s COVID-19 response, and he says the best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China.

Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, shot down the discussion that has been raging among politicians and pundits, calling it “a circular argument” in a conversation Monday with National Geographic.

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,” Fauci says. Based on the scientific evidence, he also doesn’t entertain an alternate theory—that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped. Continue reading.

Trump steps up effort to blame China for coronavirus

The Hill logoThe Trump administration is escalating an effort to blame China for the novel coronavirus pandemic as global pressure grows on Beijing to cooperate with an investigation into the origins of the outbreak.

President Trump, who has endured consistent scrutiny for his own lagged response to the virus domestically, has accused China of covering up the outbreak and suggested that the virus wouldn’t have spread globally if Beijing had been more transparent to begin with.

“I think they made a horrible mistake and they didn’t want to admit it. We wanted to go in. They didn’t want us there,” Trump said during a Fox News virtual town hall Sunday. “This virus should not have spread all over the world. They should have put it out.” Continue reading.

Pompeo immediately flip-flops on claim ‘experts’ think coronavirus was manmade after ABC host educates him on the true scientific ‘consensus’

AlterNet logoU.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is engaging is a campaign of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and gaslighting in efforts to shore up President Donald Trump’s MAGA base while ramping up their attacks on China over the coronavirus that to date has killed more than 66,000 people in America.

On Sunday’s ABC News’ “This Week” (video below) Pompeo said the “best experts” think it was “manmade,” referring to the novel coronavirus, then immediately switched and said he believes and trusts the Intelligence Community which says it was not.

“We’ve said from the beginning this was a virus that originated in Wuhan, China,” Pompeo  told ABC’s Martha Radditz.  “We took a lot of grief for that from the outset but I think the whole world can see now.” Continue reading.

Was the new coronavirus accidentally released from a Wuhan lab? It’s doubtful.

Washington Post logo“I will tell you, more and more, we’re hearing the story [that the new coronavirus emerged from a Wuhan lab].”

— President Trump, in a news conference, April 15, 2020

President Trump isn’t the only one hearing this tale. The political world, Internet theorists, intelligence analysts and global public health officials are abuzz with a big question: Is it possible that the new coronavirus — which causes covid-19 — leaked from a lab?

For months, Chinese authorities have pointed to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan as the virus’s likely origin. A cluster of early cases had contact with the market. It sold a wide variety of wildlife which, officials hypothesized, was critical to the virus’s formation and spread. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which cause similar symptoms, were formed after a coronavirus from a bat transformed in another animal and then jumped to humans.

The logic seems straightforward. But a more complete analysis of early cases suggests that locating the origin of the virus may not be so simple. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that of the first 425 patients, only 45 percent had connections to the market. A separate Jan. 24 analysis published in the Lancet found that three of the first four cases — including the first known case — did not have market links. Continue reading.

Chinese lab conducted extensive research on deadly bat viruses, but there is no evidence of accidental release

Washington Post logoFor nearly a decade, a team of scientists from Wuhan, China, crisscrossed southern Asia in a high-stakes search for bats and the strange diseases they harbor. They crawled through caves, catching the razor-toothed mammals with nets and scooping up liters of their excrement. They trapped insects and mice living near bat roosts and collected blood from villagers who hunt bats for food or folk medicine.

They returned to their state-of-the-art laboratory in central China with tubes and vials containing known killers — pathogens associated with diseases that are deadly in humans — and also a few surprises. On multiple occasions, their takings included exotic coronaviruses previously unknown to science.

The highlights of the Wuhan researchers’ work on bat viruses are spelled out in more than 40 published studies and academic papers that describe a sprawling, ambitious effort to document the connection between bats and recent disease outbreaks in China. The experiments were intended to illuminate how dangerous pathogens sometimes jump from animal hosts to humans. But experts say the research also carried an implicit risk: the possibility that the lab itself could facilitate the spread of the very diseases the scientists were trying to prevent. Continue reading.

US intelligence says it’s investigating COVID-19’s origins

The Hill logoU.S. intelligence agencies in a rare public statement Thursday said they agreed with “the widespread scientific consensus” that the COVID-19 virus was “not manmade or genetically modified” but also that they are investigating whether it emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

“The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to U.S. policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China. The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified,” the statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reads.

“As we do in all crises, the Community’s experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to U.S. national security. The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan,” the statement concluded. Continue reading.