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Chinese Public Hurls Anger at Hubei Officials

Hubei Province, the province where the epidemic is most severe, held a press conference on January 26. Governor Wang Xiaodong, the Wuhan city mayor Zhou Xianwang, and other officials spoke at the conference. A series of mistakes they made at the press conference angered many Chinese netizens.

Governor Wang Xiaodong didn’t wear a mask at the press conference. This was a violation of Wuhan’s regulation that wearing a mask in a public area was compulsory. Netizens also pointed out that the Wuhan mayor, Zhou Xianwang, wore his mask incorrectly. It was inside out. People were critical of the mayor. If the mayor does not know how to wear a mask, “how could ordinary people know?” Some even called these officials “incompetent and irresponsible politicians.”

In China, criticisms of politicians are often quickly removed from cyberspace, but this time the speed of angry comments from the people even exceeded the speed of the online censorship. One online post criticizing the press conference received more than 680 million views on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform.

Netizens also focused on the inaccuracies in governor Wang’s speech. When referring to the annual output of masks in Hubei Province, he repeatedly revised the data first from 10.8 billion to 1.8 billion and then he reduced it to 1.08 million. One netizen was puzzled, “As the governor, how can you not know how many masks Hubei produces?”

Hubei Province is the epicenter of the outbreak. Wuhan pneumonia has reportedly killed at least 81 people and infected more than 2,700 people worldwide, including in the United States, Australia and Taiwan.

Source: Central News Agency, January 28, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202001280006.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Taiwan Condemns China for Using Wuhan Pneumonia to Play Politics

Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus, Taiwan has confirmed at least one case of the Wuhan pneumonia. Nevertheless, Taiwan was not invited to join other member states with confirmed cases in an emergency meeting that WHO (the World Health Organization) held on Wednesday January 22.

On Wednesday, in its response to the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular press conference regarding Taiwan’s exclusion from the WHO, “No one cares more about the health and well-being of Taiwan compatriots than the Chinese central government.” On Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, Geng said, “Reasonable arrangements must be made through cross-strait consultations under the one-China principle.”

The Taiwan government responded to Geng’s statement with dissatisfaction, regret, and condemnation. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Joanne OU said on Thursday that, while the pneumonia epidemic in Wuhan has “intensified sharply and continued to spread outward,” not only did the Chinese Foreign Ministry not “share the facts about the epidemic’s situation” with Taiwan, but it also “posed as the central government and played politics” to denigrate Taiwan’s national sovereignty status. “The Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs deeply regrets such a bad act on China’s part and condemns it.”

In an interview with the VOA, Richard Bush, a senior researcher at the East Asian Studies Center at the Brookings Institute, said that the handling of the new coronavirus put China in an awkward situation, but Beijing’s political operations may “not be a bad thing. It actually let people see clearly what kind of government it is.”

Source: Voice of America, January 23, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/taiwan-accuses-china-of-playing-politics-on-coronavirus-20200123/5257924.html

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Beijing Funds a Professorship at Distinguished University in Germany

Recently, several alumni from the Free University of Berlin (FUB) published an open letter to Germany’s Federal Minister of Education and Research, the Mayor of Berlin, and the President of FUB, calling for clarification on the issue of China funding a German professorship position in the East Asian Studies Department. They called for an immediate end to such a practice. The advocate of the open letter, David Missal, had been deported from China in August 2018 for following the story of a Chinese activist lawyer who the regime had suppressed.

According to the Berlin based Daily Mirror newspaper, the Chinese government agency Hanban has being funding a professorship at FUB. The professor will create a Chinese teaching program while, at the same time, serving as the head of the Confucius Institutes in Berlin. The newspaper also reported that the German government was aware that Hanban is a cultural institution under the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that China and the CCP are trying to exert influence on Germany’s China scholars through the activities of the Confucius Institutes, which have close ties with Hanban. Signatories of the open letter are worried that such a language teaching program will exclude articles that are critical of the CCP. Because this professorship receives funding from China, it faces a greater risk of self-censorship. One cannot even rule out the possibility that the CCP will fund political science professorships in the future.

The open letter made four requests. These include the exposure of the contents of the contract signed between Hanban and the FUB on the professor position; clarification of the channels via which such an agreement was reached; an announcement of the measures planned to prevent Hanban and the CCP’s influence on teaching contents; and a request that either Hanban’s contract for this new professor position be terminated immediately or the position be funded through other channels.

The Daily Mirror reported in December of last year that the Liberal Democratic Party’s parliamentary group warned against China’s influence over German universities through cultural institutions. There are currently 19 Confucius Institutes in Germany, most of which cooperate with German universities. The Confucius Institute at the Free University of Berlin started in 2006. It is the first Confucius Institute in Germany.

Source: Deutsche Welle, January 21, 2020
https://p.dw.com/p/3WYFM

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

Six Deaths among 323 Wuhan Coronavirus Cases in 13 Chinese Provinces

The number of confirmed cases in China of the Wuhan pneumonia has exceeded 300. According to China’s official media, as of 7:00 am on January 22, a total of 323 cases of the Wuhan pneumonia had been diagnosed in mainland China, spreading over 13 provinces. There have been six deaths,

The distribution of the pneumonia patients infected with the new coronavirus is as follows: 270 cases in Hubei Province, the origin of the outbreak, 10 in Beijing, 17 in Guangdong, six in Shanghai, five in Zhejiang, one in Yunnan, two in Sichuan, two in Tianjin, one in Henan, five in Chongqing, one in Shandong, one in Hunan, and two in Jiangxi. Most patients have a history of having traveled to Wuhan city in Hubei province. As of 2:40 am on January 22, Hubei Province launched a secondary emergency response mechanism for public health emergencies, requiring strict implementation of isolation measures and strengthened prevention and control over the region.

After a visit to the city of Wuhan to investigate the epidemic on December 31 last year, Wang Guangfa, a member of China’s National Health Committee and the chief physician at Peking University First Hospital, was confirmed, on January 21, as having been infected with the Wuhan pneumonia. So far a total of 14 medical staff members have also been infected.

Source: Central News Agency, January 22, 2020
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/202001220019.aspx

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Unknown Severe Pneumonia Case Showed up in Shenzhen

Recently, after the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, Hubei Province, Shenzhen also  found a case of severe pneumonia of unknown origin. The government announced on Sunday (January 12) that the possibility of SARS and a coronavirus infection have been ruled out. However, due to the authorities’ manner of epidemiological investigation, coupled with the opaqueness of government information, the people’s distrust has continued to spread.

A hospital in Shenzhen issued a notice Sunday about a 41-year-old female patient who is of Indian nationality and teaches at a local international school. The notice stated that, after Shenzhen did some testing, CDC, influenza, bird flu, SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and the new coronavirus that was recently discovered in Wuhan have been ruled out.

To this end, Radio Free Asia called the hospital in question, but the doctor declined to be interviewed on the grounds that the situation was unclear. The local district health bureau in Shenzhen said that the above-mentioned pathogens have been ruled out, but it did not say that it was a new type of pneumonia; it was just a case of severe pneumonia. At present, the pathogen of this severe pneumonia case does not have a clear target, so it is not possible to sequence the pathogen genetically. The only conclusion is that it is a severe pulmonary infection. The official also said that, due to the rapid development of the disease, screening was performed for several known conditions. He was not sure that they belonged to a specific disease.

In order to achieve social control, the Chinese government controls important information releases, including any animal epidemic disclosures. Thus this has, by law, been classified as a state secret. Based on the logic of maintaining stability, concealment of information about the epidemic has become the norm. The government’s concealment of the SARS epidemic in 2003 led to catastrophic consequences.

Source: Radio Free Asia, January 13, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/cn-shenzhen-01132020101348.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Beijing’s Response to the Taiwan Election

The Chinese regime regards Taiwan’s election as a very sensitive topic. For example, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda authority warned Phoenix New Media, a Hong Kong based and Beijing controlled media, about setting up a special web page for Taiwan elections and broadcasting the news live. The website was told to remove the pages about this news topic immediately.

China’s official Global Times warned in a commentary on Saturday that “‘Don’t be flippant’ should be the motto of Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party.” The article made the comment that, “Tsai’s reelection will increase the uncertainty in the situation across the Taiwan Strait.”

Another opinion that Beijing’s mouthpiece, the Xinhua News Agency, published said, “As people on the island and in the media have noted, this is obviously not a normal election. Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP used deceit, suppression, intimidation, and other dirty methods to obtain votes, which fully exposed their selfish, greedy, and evil nature.”

“The Tsai Ing-wen regime has proactively cooperated (with the U.S.), promoted “reliance on the United States against China,” including using the situation in Hong Kong to fan the flames and mislead the people of Taiwan. Obviously, external dark forces have largely manipulated this internal election in the Taiwan region.”

Sources:
1. Radio Free Asia, January 11, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/censor-01112020072051.html
2. Voice of America, January 12, 2020
https://www.voachinese.com/a/Taiwan-Leader-Reelection-As-Voters-Back-Tough-China-Stance-20200111/5241592.html
3. Xinhua, January 11, 2020
http://www.xinhuanet.com/tw/2020-01/11/c_1125450579.htm

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend

A Chinese Province Declares a .01 Percent Poverty Rate

The Chinese government proposed a national poverty alleviation plan five years ago and vowed to make China a xiaokang society. A Confucius term from 3000 years ago, xiaokang means a condition of moderate prosperity. Recently, the Jiangsu Provincial Poverty Alleviation Office announced amazing results. The province’s poverty alleviation rate had reached 99.99 percent. That means that only .01 percent of the population is living under the poverty line. A progress report released on Tuesday January 7 announced that there were currently six households and 17 people in the province who had not “extricated themselves from poverty.” However, the news resulted in widespread suspicion. People expressed doubt and thought that it was another official propaganda fraud like the “Great Leap Forward” in the 1950’s.

Hu Jia, a longtime human rights activist in Beijing, pointed out directly that the government is lying, that the public knows that the government is lying, and that the government, knowing that the public knows that it is lying, still chooses to lie.

Hu Ping, Editor-in-Chief of the overseas political magazine Beijing Spring said, “Chinese-style poverty alleviation is a poverty alleviation as established in the books. The actual situation is a different matter. When the leader has a goal, the subordinates will come up with a figure.”

In 2015, as one of his political legacies, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised that the entire rural population would be lifted out of poverty by 2020. Soon afterwards, local government offices across the country announced that they would strictly implement the standard of an annual per capita net income of 4,000 yuan (US$576) and do a good job of poverty alleviation in 2020.

Source: Radio Free Asia, January 8, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/shehui/hj-01082020113236.html

Briefings | | |   Economy/Resources

Chinese Police Collect Blood Samples from Elementary and Middle School Boys

The Chinese Communist Party has forcibly collected DNA data using reasons such as “combating crime.” Beginning in 2016, the authorities in Xinjiang had massive collections of DNA samples from ethnic Muslims to establish databases for the purpose of surveillance and suppression. Now this practice has extended to the whole country. The regime is collecting DNA and other biological information on a large scale. All males, even elementary and middle school boys, are included and have not been spared.

In November, people from multiple cities in Guangxi Province told the Bitter Winter magazine, an Italian based publication focusing China’s religious freedom and human rights, that local police were collecting blood samples from elementary and middle school boys without notifying their parents. When asked for the reason, some teachers explained that it was to prevent children from being trafficked or lost, but they failed to explain why they were collecting only from boys but not from girls.

Bitter Winter obtained a document that the Public Security Bureau of Chongren County in Jiangxi Province issued in November. The document required the local Education and Sports Bureau to cooperate with the police to collect information on all male students in elementary and middle schools. The document stated that this work was carried out nationwide to collect information for the nation’s seventh population census, to issue third-generation digital ID cards, to improve the dissemination of population data, and to facilitate rapid identity verification.

Chinese media also reported that police have collected blood from male adult citizens for a number of reasons such as “free medical examinations” and “checking for drug abuse.”

A “Y-STR DNA Database Construction Work Plan Notice” that a county government in Hubei Province issued in September 2018 called for “the establishment of a male-dominated pedigree information database that comprehensively covered the rural areas,” and “through investigation of the family tree to maintain the social order and strengthen the ability to control the population.”

The Chinese government often uses the collected DNA data to suppress dissidents and religious believers. In July 2019, the police harassed the parents of a believer in the Church of Almighty God and forcibly collected blood samples.

Source: Bitter Winter, January 3, 2020

將建家系信息庫　警方強制採集中小學男生血樣未通知家長

Briefings | | |   Social Stability