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Infection Count: Wuhan Plans to Test All People in Ten Days

There are signs that Wuhan faces the risk of a coronavirus recurrence.

On May 11, the Epidemiological Big Data and Epidemiological Investigation Team of the Wuhan Municipal Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention and Control Command Center issued an “Emergency Notice on Carrying out the City’s Novel Coronavirus Nucleic Acid Screening.” The notice informed the command center of each district of Wuhan that the government decided to carry out a “ten-day battle” on the nucleic acid screening for the coronavirus throughout the entire city. It advised that each district shall make arrangements to screen all people in its jurisdiction within ten days. (Editor’s note: This implies Wuhan needs to test 1 million people per day.  There are concerns as to whether China has that much testing capacity.)

Changjiang Daily, the newspaper under the Wuhan Party Committee, reported that on the same day, Wang Zhonglin, the Wuhan Party Chief hosted a video conference for the Wuhan command center. He said at the meeting, “(We) should have a deep understanding that ‘decisive achievement’ does not mean ‘decisive victory’ and ‘reducing the response class’ does not mean ‘reducing prevention.’ We can never take it lightly, care less, or slack off (on the coronavirus prevention and control).” (#1, China News Agency)

On May 8, Xi Jinping declared in a speech that “the war to defend Wuhan and Hubei has obtained a decisive achievement.” (#2, People’s Daily)

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Infection Count: Jilin City Locked Down Due to Coronavirus Epidemic

Amidst a recurrence of the Coronavirus, Jilin City in Jilin Province required a residential neighborhood to lock down.

#1: On May 7, Jilin Province reported an infection case in Shulan City, which is a subordinate city under Jilin City. On May 9, the Jilin government reported 11 confirmed cases in Shulan. On May 10, Shulan city adjusted to a high risk status of the coronavirus epidemic from medium risk. On May 11, the Shulan Mayor announced that Shulan “entered a war time state.” (Stock Times)

#2: Due to Shulan City’s coronavirus epidemic, Jilin City stopped all long-distance buses and chartered tour buses; the graduating high school students (12th graders) and graduating middle school students (9th graders) which had come back to school for classes were asked to stay at home for online classes once again; the plan to bring other high school students back to school were also postponed. Jilin City required all residential neighborhoods and villages to lock down completely; any person wanting to leave the city had to provide a negative result within 48 hours on testing that was conducted; all school activities were to be closed; all drug stores and clinics were not to sell fever-reduction drugs; all clinics were not to take patients with a fever and were directed to designated hospitals for treatment; all tour sites and movie theaters were to be closed; and all cafeterias were to be closed. (China Economic Net)

#3: Shulan City issued a notice to search for all people who went to Qinghua Public Bath from April 1 to May 6 and required them to perform self-quarantine at home for 21 days. The bath was near the residence of two infected patients. (Beijing News)

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World Against the CCP: Trump Administration to Pull TSP out of Funds Investing in Chinese Companies

On May 11, the U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and National Economic Council Chair Larry Kudlow wrote to U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia stating that the White House does not want the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), a federal employee retirement fund, to have money invested in the stock of Chinese companies.

Secretary Scalia wrote to Michael Kennedy, the chairman of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, sharing the Kudlow/O’Brien letter noting the two have “grave concerns with the planned investment on grounds of both investment risk and national security.” (#1, Stock Times)

TSP manages near 600 billion dollars of retirement money for several million federal employees including Congressmen, White House staff, and military staff. It plans to invest about 4.5 billion dollars in the Morgan Stanley Capital International All Country World Ex-U.S. Investable Market Index (MSCI ACWI ex-USA IMI). That index covers 22 developed and 26 emerging markets and consists of large, mid, and small-cap stocks from more than 6,000 companies, including Chinese securities.

The MSCI index fund controversy is that it includes “many firms that are involved in the Chinese Government’s military, espionage and human rights abuses,” which Senator Marco Rubio and other U.S. law makers have repeatedly pointed out. For example, AviChina Industry & Technology Ltd. is the listing company for the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) that develops manned aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, missiles, and other weapons systems for the People’s Liberation Army. AVIC and its subsidiaries have been the subjects of repeated sanctions for proliferation activities related to Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology (Hikvision), a state-run technology firm, provides tens of thousands of surveillance cameras throughout the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The cameras support the Chinese Communist regime in detaining over one million Uighur Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities. (#2, Senator Marco Rubio’s website)

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Hiding Information: Did Xi Jinping Ask WHO to Withhold Information?

On May 8, Der Speigel, a German newspaper, cited a German intelligence assessment that, on January 21, Xi Jinping personally threatened the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The information said that when Xi talked to Tedros, Xi requested that Tedros not release human-to-human transmission information and delay the announcement of a public health emergency.

In a press briefing, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, rejected this claim.

WHO also claimed that Xi Jinping and Tedros did not talk on January 21.

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Hiding Information: CIA Report: China Pressured WHO to Hide Info

On May 12, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) issued a report, titled “U.N.-China: WHO Mindful but Not Beholden to China.” The report stated that China threatened to cut ties with the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) coronavirus investigation team if the agency declared a global health emergency.

On May 8, Der Speigel, a German newspaper, published a German intelligence report that Xi Jinping personally requested that WHO Director-General Tedros not release human-to-human transmission information and delay the announcement of a public health emergency. (See Chinascope posting: Hiding Information: Did Xi Jinping Called WHO to Withhold Information?)

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Source: Fox News, May 13, 2020
https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-who-coronavirus-warning-stockpile-cia-report

Hiding Information: Wuhan Virology Lab Deleted Files

The Daily Mail reported that the Wuhan’s Institute of Virology (WIV) has removed photographs taken of scientists being slack in the enforcement of safety standards. It also edited out references to visits that US diplomats made.

The institute edited its website page showing pictures of staff members entering caves to take swabs from bats that carried the coronavirus – with the scientists wearing minimal protective equipment.

The institute has also removed references to the March 2018 visit to the institute of Rick Switzer, a science and technology expert from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. As a result of Switzer’s visit, the U.S. Embassy sent cables to the U.S. State Department, warning about the risks of the bat experiments. One read: “During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they [the diplomats] noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to operate this high-containment laboratory safely.”

Last month, The Mail on Sunday published alarming pictures from inside the institute showing a broken seal on the door of one of the refrigerators holding 1,500 different strains of virus.

Concern about bat experiments has not been confined to the Wuhan institute. An Internet video posted in December showed Tian Junhua, a researcher at the nearby Wuhan Centre for Disease Control, collecting samples from the caves and saying, “We can easily make contact with the feces of bats which contaminate everything. So it is highly risky here. I feel the fear, the fear of infection.”

At the end of the film, a caption declares, “Nearly 2,000 types of viruses have been discovered by the Chinese CDC authorities over the past 12 years. Only 2,284 were discovered over the 200 prior years.” Chinese media reports from 2017 described how Junhua “forgot to take protective measures,” while “bat urine dripped from … his head like raindrops.”

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Source: Daily Mail, May 2, 2020
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8281085/Wuhan-virus-lab-cover-up.html

Infection Count: Beijing Sent Supervisory Group Back to Wuhan Again

After the outbreak of the Coronavirus in Wuhan City and Hubei Province, Beijing sent a Central Government Supervisory Group, headed by Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, to Hubei to oversee its pandemic prevention and control work. The group left Hubei on April 27.

However, on May 4, the State Council sent a Liaison Group under the State Council Joint Defense and Joint Control Mechanism back to Hubei Province. Ding Xiangyang, Deputy Secretary General of the State Council serves the Director of the liaison group and Yu Xuejun, Deputy Director of the National Health Commission serves the Deputy Director.

The liaison group’s main responsibilities include gathering information on the status of the pandemic prevention and control work in Wuhan and Hubei and reporting it, supervising implementation, preventing coronavirus rebound, and also gathering information on the work of resuming production and schooling.

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World against the CCP: A Top Chinese Think Tank Warned Beijing about Global Anti-China Sentiment

Reuters reported that an internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation. The report concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, created the report. The ministry presented this report to top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders, including Xi Jinping, early this week.

The report concluded that Washington views China’s rise as an economic and national security threat and a challenge to Western democracies. It also said the U.S. was aiming to undercut the CCP by undermining public confidence.

It warned that anti-China sentiment sparked by the coronavirus could fuel resistance to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and that Washington could step up financial and military support for regional allies, making the security situation in Asia more volatile. It also warned Beijing to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the U.S. and China.

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Source: Reuters, May 4, 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-sentiment-ex/exclusive-internal-chinese-report-warns-beijing-faces-tiananmen-like-global-backlash-over-virus-idUSKBN22G19C