Social Stability - 68. page

According to South China Morning Post, China has cancelled or postponed many conferences due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. At least 177 exhibitions set for February had been called off and another 262 exhibitions scheduled in March, are likely to be cancelled or rescheduled. Some high-profile events are:

• Annual National People’s Congress
• Annual Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
• Canton Trade Fair, China’s largest and oldest trade expo
• The Boao Forum for Asia, a Davos-style gathering of regional business and political elites
• The China Development Forum, a gathering of global business executives organized by the Development Research Center of the State Council
• Shanghai International Industrial Automation and Robot Exhibition
• Prolight and Sound Fair in Guangzhou
• International Equipment Machinery Exhibition in Jinan city
• 2020 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition

Source: South China Morning Post, February 21, 2020
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3051725/coronavirus-china-postpone-tropical-davos-outbreak-derails

Hangzhou Daily newspaper, under its Weibo account, reported that the government of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, gave companies directions that they should get employees to return to work and can punish those who refused to come back.

At the city’s coronavirus epidemic control press conference, Liu Zhiyong, a Party member from the Hangzhou Municipal Human Resources and Social Affairs Bureau stated, “For those employees who are concerned with the coronavirus and do not want to return to work, companies and labor unions should tell them the epidemic control requirements and the importance of resuming production, to persuade them to report to work. For those who do not listen or use improper excuses to refuse to return work, companies can handle them according to the law.”

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Resuming Production: E-Commerce Company Dangdang Found an Infection Case after Resuming Work
• Resuming Production: Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Sichuan Working on Resuming Production
• Resuming Production: Jiangxi and Guizhou Provinces Working on Fully Resuming Production
• Resuming Production: Companies Discover Coronavirus Cases after Resuming Work – February 16

Continue reading →

Gu Zhuheng, the owner of Sing Pao Daily News, one of the oldest Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong, tweeted on February 23, that soldiers from the Guangdong Army Biological and Chemical Protection Regiment that was recently sent to Wuhan had died three weeks ago. He also posted a picture of himself in military uniform and his ID when he worked with that regiment. Gu was exiled to the U.S. in 2017 after Beijing wanted to arrest him for a financial matter.

Qi Leyi, a host of a military program for Radio Free Asia, talked about the Biological and Chemical Protection troops in the PLA. She said that each army has such a unit at the regiment or battalion level. They participated in the rescue mission during the 2003 SARS outbreak in China.

She also pointed out that three things were needed to develop lethal biological weapon and China had all of them. One was the relevant technology, facility, and raw materials. Two was a laboratory of the highest safety level. Three was access to the original virus. Qiu Xiangguo and Cheng Keding, the couple and expert virologists in Canada had been visiting the Wuhan P4 lab multiple times. Canadian police arrested them  for taking virus samples to China from the Canadian P4 lab that they worked at.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Virus Origin: Wuhan Lab Has Close Tie to the PLA
• Virus Origin: Henan Province Issued an Order to Safely Manage Laboratory Animals
• Leadership: Xi Stressed Biosafety as Part of National Security System
• Virus Origin: SARS Virus Was Leaked in Beijing in 2004
• Virus Origin: Genome Analysis of the New Wuhan Coronavirus Found Viral Sequences Suspicious of Laboratory Engineering

Continue reading →

Radio France International reported that Major General Chen Wei, China’s chief biochemical weapon defense expert, took over the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, China’s first Biocontainment Level 4 (BL4) lab (Chinese call it a P4 lab) in Wuhan, after the coronavirus outbreak. A news report on February 7 mentioned that she had been in Wuhan for over ten days, so she probably took over the P4 lab around the same time as Wuhan locked down the city (on January 23, 2020).

Radio France International also reported that China requested France to help it build this lab in 2003. Despite the warning from its Intelligence offices that China could use it to develop biochemical weapons, France still signed the agreement with China on 2004. The agreement stated that Beijing should not apply the technology to activities of an attacking nature.

In 2005, China designated a local company IPPR in Wuhan to manage the project. That company had close ties with some units affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA); the CIA had been monitoring those units.

It is unclear whether Beijing has honored its promise not to develop biochemical weapons at the lab. A government official in France told news reporters that China has broken its promises several times in the past. For example, China promised to build only one lab, but now it has built several and some labs look suspicious.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Virus Origin: Henan Province Issued an Order to Safely Manage Laboratory Animals
• Leadership: Xi Stressed Biosafety as Part of National Security System
• Virus Origin: SARS Virus Was Leaked in Beijing in 2004
• Virus Origin: Genome Analysis of the New Wuhan Coronavirus Found Viral Sequences Suspicious of Laboratory Engineering

Continue reading →

Associated Press reported that Russia has given orders to profile Chinese for coronavirus.

“Moscow officials ordered police raids on hotels, dormitories, apartment buildings and businesses to track down the shrinking number of Chinese people remaining in the city. They also authorized the use of facial recognition technology to find those suspected of evading a 14-day self-quarantine period upon their arrival in Russia.”

“A leaked email that the media reports said that the state-owned transportation company Mosgortrans” sent out “instructed drivers to call a dispatcher if Chinese nationals boarded their buses” and “told the dispatchers who took such calls to notify the police. The email, which the company immediately described on Twitter as fake, carried a one-word subject line: coronavirus.”

“The effort to identify Chinese citizens on public transportation applies not only to buses, but also to underground trains and street trams in Moscow, Russian media reported Wednesday.”

Source: Associated Press, February 22, 2020
https://apnews.com/8a43b0b86b63b1179ccd9a9c1977a339?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow[2

Yahoo reported that it obtained information from U.S. intelligence that the Chinese leadership is planning “for what is known as a ‘continuity of operations,’ meaning the ability for the government to maintain its basic functions during an unprecedented crisis, such as nuclear war or natural disaster.”

The source stated, “In China, this might involve senior leaders leaving the country or seeking safety in shelters, ‘like U.S. doomsday bunkers.’ The intel community, said the source, is seeing some signs that Chinese officials are making those kinds of contingency plans, indicating the potential level of concern within Beijing.”

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Leadership: “Turning Point Has Not Come Yet”
• Leadership: Ding Xiangyang: Xi Jinping Ordered Wuhan Lockdown
• Leadership: Xi Stressed Biosafety as Part of National Security System
• Leadership: Xi Jinping Told Trump That by April, the Heat Will Kill Coronavirus
• Leadership: Xi Jinping: I Have Been In Charge All Along

Source: Yahoo, February 21, 2020S
https://news.yahoo.com/with-information-from-china-scarce-us-spies-enlisted-to-track-coronavirus-173612656.html

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo held a meeting on February 21 to discuss the control and prevention work on the novel coronavirus. The meeting pointed out, “While the wide spread of the epidemic has been initially controlled and the number of new cases nationwide and the suspected cases have been declining, we must understand it clearly. The turning point of the nationwide epidemic’s development has not come yet.”

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Leadership: Ding Xiangyang: Xi Jinping Ordered Wuhan Lockdown
• Leadership: Xi Stressed Biosafety as Part of National Security System
• Leadership: Xi Explains His Role in Containing Coronavirus since January 7
• Leadership: Xi Jinping Told Trump That by April, the Heat Will Kill Coronavirus
• Leadership: Xi Jinping Made a Public Appearance on February 10
• Leadership: Xi Jinping: I Have Been In Charge All Along

Continue reading →

Ding Xiangyang, the Deputy Chief Secretary of the State Council and a member of the Central government’s Supervision Group at Hubei Province, stated that it was Xi Jinping who ordered the Wuhan lockdown.

Ding made such statement at a press conference on February 20, 2020. Ding said, “Actually, when Vice Premier Sun Chunlan came to Wuhan on January 22, she made two decisions based on the specific direction from the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (Xi Jinping), that would be a ‘city lockdown’ and that the holiday would be extended (so people had to stay home instead of going back to work).” “It is not easy to reach a consensus with everyone at that time, but with the CCP Central’s support, we were determined to do that. No matter who said what, we were determined to do that.”

On January 27, 2020, when China Central Television (CCTV) interviewed Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang,   Zhou stated that he had decided to lock down the city under the pressure in spite of people’s negative response. (See posting Leadership: Wuhan Mayor Not “Authorized” to Release Epidemic Information to the Public Before)

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Leadership: Xi Explains His Role in Containing Coronavirus since January 7
• Leadership: Xi Jinping Made a Public Appearance on February 10
• Leadership: Xi Jinping: I Have Been In Charge All Along
• Leadership: Wuhan Mayor Not “Authorized” to Release Epidemic Information to the Public Before

Continue reading →