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Pandemic: Xuchang Police Accused a COVID Testing Company of Spreading the Virus

On January 12, the  Xuchang Police in Henan Province published a short announcement. The police claimed that manager Zhang of the KingMed Diagnostics’ office in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, “violated the provisions of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act and committed acts that caused the spread of the (COVID-19) virus or which had a serious risk of causing such a spread.” The police started an investigation into the case.

In early January, Xuchang found COVID cases in its affiliated city Yuzhou and locked down Yuzhou. Last month, it became the second city in the province to be locked down after Xi’an.

KingMed Diagnostics is the largest medical lab testing COVID-19 in China. By November 2011, it had completed 220 million COVID tests, which was the highest number among all labs in the world.  Zhong Nanshan, a communist regime endorsed COVID-19 expert doctor, who speaks for the government from time to time, created the company.

Since the police didn’t disclose what Zhang did, there were rumors on the Internet about what happened. One guess was that KingMed spread the virus and in the meantime collected money from the government for testing it. Another guess was that KingMed received many testing samples but couldn’t complete them in the required time-frame; then the manager reported the test results were ALL negative and discarded the samples that they didn’t have time to test. However, later the government found there were positives cases.

The next day, January 13, KingMed published a statement that the Zhengzhou KingMed office received the Xuchang City’s request to participate in the COVID testing. Zhang and five other people formed a supporting team and came to Yuzhou. They worked on the testing from January 2 to 9. The company’s statement also denied the rumors of “actively spreading the virus,” “faking test results,” and “hiding infection numbers.” The company said that it reserves the right to go after those who spread rumors.

Other postings on Chinascope:
Pandemic: Omicron Appeared in China and One More City Locked Down
Pandemic: COVID Spread to Henan and Zhejiang Province
Pandemic: Xi’an Locked Down

Sources:
1. BBC, January 13, 2022
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-59976287
2. China News Agency Finance, January 13, 2022
http://www.jwview.com/jingwei/html/01-13/457207.shtml

PLA Deployed Unmanned Ground Vehicles at the China-India Border

In September 2020, military soldiers from China and India clashed and the two countries have continued having standoffs along the border between the two countries. The Indian television station Times Now reported that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has stationed unmanned ground vehicles (UGV’s) along the border, including 88 Sharp Claw vehicles. WION reported that the PLA has stationed 120 to 300 Mule-200 vehicles.

According to National Interest, the Sharp Claw can either be controlled remotely, or move on its own. It can be used either as an unmanned delivery truck or as a weapon, such as a mounted firearm.

Sharp Claw was developed by a PLA defense company NORINCO, for surveillance and limited combat capability. The Mule was developed by Zhong Tian Zhi Kong Technology Holdings, with a firing range of 31 miles and a weight capacity of 440 pounds (it can carry ammunition, supplies, or weapons.)

The PLA has also stationed VP-22 anti-mine, anti-ambush vehicles there.

Source: Epoch Times, December 31, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/12/31/n13473000.htm

Pandemic: Omicron Appeared in China and One More City Was Locked Down

By January 10, six cities in China reported Omicron cases, including Tianjin, Guangzhou (Guangdong Province), Shenzhen (Guangdong Province), Changsha (Hunan Province), Anyang (Henan Province), and Wuxi (Zhejiang Province).

Tianjin reported two cases on January 8. So far, the city has not been locked down, but started COVID testing of all 14 million residents in the city.

On January 10, Anyang reported that its cases were from Tianjin. The city, with 5.5 million residents, locked itself down, becoming the third city that was locked down in China. The first two cities were Xi’an, Shaanix Province (13 million people) and Yuzhou, Henan Province (1.1 million people).

Related postings on Chinascope:

Sources:
1. SINA, January 11, 20222
https://news.sina.com.cn/c/2022-01-11/doc-ikyakumx9563836.shtml
2. Deutsche Welle, January 10, 2022
https://www.dw.com/zh/奥密克戎案例增-中国再封城影响两千万人/a-60384737

People’s Lives: Tragic Deaths in Xi’an

Since December 23, 2021, Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province has been locked down for 20 days due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) fierce Internet monitoring and constantly deleting postings that did not follow the party’s main theme, some people in Xi’an still managed to post videos or texts to report on the tragedies due to the authorities’ inhumanity.

A video reported that a woman who was eight-months pregnant went to a hospital in Xi’an, but the hospital refused to treat her since her COVID test result (though negative) expired four hours earlier.

A netizen wrote,“My auntie sat on the chair, using her hands to support her body with great difficulty (as shown in a video).”  “Blood flowed down the chair and her pants and the floor was covered with blood.” She was admitted for hospitalization two hours later. By then, the eight-month-old fetus had died.

Another lady who was six weeks pregnant reported a similar experience on January 5. She saw blood in her discharge and went to the hospital. Several hospitals refused to take her. Her husband called several public hospitals and they all rejected her. He called 120 (China’s emergency phone number which is like 911 in the United States) and received no answer either. She was finally accepted by a hospital six hours later, but it was too late. The hospital aborted the baby due to her heavy bleeding.

In another case, on December 31, 2021, a 39-year-old man suddenly had chest congestion. Since he had not had COVID test within the last 48 hours, 120 (China’s 911) refused to help him. He had no choice but to take the test. Even after he got a negative result, three hospitals still refused to take him. The fourth one took him, but it was too late. He died at the hospital.

Another citizen said that his mother needed to have a hemodialysis treatment three times a week, but people enforcing the lockdown wouldn’t let her go through, despite the fact that she showed her proof. However, if she didn’t take the hemodialysis treatment on time, her life could be in jeopardy. So she had no choice but to climb over the highway to go to the hospital for treatment.

The CCP intensified Internet control. On January 10, the CCP controlled media reported that the Xi’an police had processed 30 fake news cases on the Internet and detained 23 people. The authorities didn’t disclose what information those people posted.

Xi’an people also suffered from a severe lack of food. Many people posted on the Internet that the authorities didn’t deliver food to them after the lockdown. A netizen posted on January 9 that she received only one delivery of vegetables during the 20 days of lockdown, which included 2 potatoes, 2 onions, 1 cabbage, and 2 radishes. She asked, “What are we supposed to eat? Exept for the COVID test, we are not allowed to go out. Should we just die out of hunger at home?”

Her second post said, “Today our door was sealed off (we are not allowed to open it anymore). Last evening, I cooked a quarter pound of steak for my six-year-old son, my 61-year-old mother, and me. I took one bite, mother took two bites, and my son had the rest. I was so heartbroken. Both mother and I cried … In such a prosperous time, it is unbelievable that we can’t buy and eat food due to the pandemic.”

Another netizen posted some pictures, showing that the vegetables that other cities sent to Xi’an were left alone in one spot for four or five days. No authorities came to process them.

Related postings on Chinascope:

Sources:
1. BBC, January 7, 2022
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-59906253
2. Epoch Times, January 11, 2022
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/22/1/11/n13497983.htm

AI Finance Hosts Broadcast for 70 Days without Anyone Knowing Host Was Not Real

National Business Daily has several daily TV programs reporting on financial news. One of them is “N Xiao Hei Financial News” with a male host and another one is “N Xiao Bai Mutual Funds” with a female host.

Xiaoice, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system developed by Microsoft Software Technology Center, announced on December 20, 2021, that it had broadcast those two programs with AI virtual hosts for 70 days. Until the announcement, the general public didn’t realize those hosts were not real persons. Apparently the technology was able to make the AI persons appear close enough to their original human hosts. Also the whole content editing was a streamline of full automation, without human involvement. That way, National Business Daily could broadcast AI TV programs 24/7.

Source: Phoenix, December 20, 2021
https://tech.ifeng.com/c/8C7ltJX9sCF

Minister of Finance: Plan to Live with a Tighter Budget

Liu Kun, China’s Minister of Finance published an article in the 12th issue of the magazine, “Organ’s Party Development Research,” calling on officials to work hard and be thrifty. It doesn’t matter if there is an ample or an insufficient budget, (officials) should always manage income and expenditure as a whole, truly spend the money where it most needs to go, and effectively put the requirement of living on a tight budget into practice.

Source: Sohu, December 29, 2021
https://www.sohu.com/a/512608562_115479

A Chinese Student at Yale Called on the School to Reflect on its Ethics in Investing in China

VOA reported that Yale Daily News, the oldest college newspaper in the United States, published an article that a Chinese student wrote. (His name was protected so that his family members in China would not be endagered). The article, titled, “Where is Peng Shuai,” suggested that people should not forget about Peng Shuai as the (Chinese Communist Party) regime has gone rogue; it no longer bothers even with keeping up a façade of protecting human rights.

More importantly, the article asked Yale to reflect on whether its investment in China is ethical. “Despite having a significant Chinese portfolio, which includes top-earning tech companies like Tencent and JD.com, the Yale Investments Office currently has no publicly available ethical policy specific to China; nor has it reviewed any ethical implications.”

“Shouldn’t we be legitimately concerned that Yale’s Chinese portfolio might create a conflict of interest between placating parties close to the CCP and using Yale’s influence to advocate for Chinese people’s human rights? Additionally, what has prevented Yale, while profiting from China, from just releasing a statement acknowledging that human rights abuse allegations even exist?”

“The Yale endowment needs to do some soul-searching. We are demanding answers to these questions, because we have a right to know whether our University that claims to uphold both ‘light and truth’ is playing an unethical role in perpetuating some of the worst human rights abuses in modern history – and whether our institutional integrity remains intact when doing the right thing is hard.”

Source: VOA, January 4, 2022
https://www.voachinese.com/a/yale-chinese-student-pengshuai-20220103/6380863.html