On March 12, Zhao Lijian, Spokesman & Deputy Director General of the Information Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accused the United States of being the origin of the novel coronavirus, stating, “It might be the US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent!”

On March13, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell summoned China’s Ambassador Cui Tiankai to the State Department. Stilwell gave a very “stern representation” of the facts to the Chinese Ambassador, who, according to a senior State Department official, was “very defensive.” Stilwell did not issue any threats, but the two diplomats had a frank diplomatic discourse, the official said.

On March 13, Senator Josh Hawley posted the following on Twitter:

“I’m pleased to report this #China Foreign Ministry clown has blocked me for daring to challenge his outrageous lies that the US is responsible for #coronavirus #Covid_19. Fact is, Chinese Communist Party lied to its citizens & the world about this virus. They are responsible.”

Senator Rick Scott posted on Twitter:

“This is unhinged. Communist China will say and do anything to avoid responsibility for their role in allowing the Chinese #Coronavirus to spread.

They lied about it. Covered it up. Silenced doctors who were sounding the alarm. They let their own people die. Shameful.”

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Propaganda and Lies: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Said Virus Was From the US
• Virus Origin: Zhang Wenhong Disagreed That Coronavirus Originated Outside China
• Virus Origin: Zhong Nanshan Said Coronavirus May Originate Outside China
• Virus Origin: Chinese Researchers Said That Wuhan Seafood Market Is Not the Origin
• Virus Origin: Genome Analysis of the New Wuhan Coronavirus Found Viral Sequences Suspicious of Laboratory Engineering

Sources:

1. CNN, March 13, 2020
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/13/politics/state-department-chinese-ambassador-coronavirus/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

2. Twitter

I’m pleased to report this #China Foreign Ministry clown has blocked me for daring to challenge his outrageous lies that US is responsible for #coronavirus #Covid_19. Fact is, Chinese Communist Party lied to its citizens & the world about this virus. They are responsible pic.twitter.com/A2u8cQcoIX

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 13, 2020

3. Twitter

This is unhinged. Communist China will say and do anything to avoid responsibility for their role in allowing the Chinese #Coronavirus to spread.

They lied about it. Covered it up. Silenced doctors who were sounding the alarm. They let their own people die. Shameful. https://t.co/uVthsdjsIX

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) March 13, 2020

After Wuhan Party Secretary Wang Zhonglin gave an order to Wuhan citizens to conduct a “Be Grateful” education campaign to teach them to “be grateful to Xi Jinping and be grateful to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” the public overwhelmingly denounced it.

Some people dug out a People’s Daily article published back on November 18, 2013, which criticized certain officials for having a wrong mentality of “being grateful,” and re-circulated it with the title “People’s Daily: Be Vigilant about the Wrong ‘Be Grateful’ Mentality.” Some even modified the content but still referred to People’s Daily as the source. They were making fun of the CCP: even the party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily is against the “be grateful” campaign.

Beijing later removed articles reporting Wang’s “Be Grateful” order and sent Wang and Ying Yong, the Hubei Provincial Party Secretary, to thank the people of Wuhan and Hubei instead.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Leadership: The CCP Was Forced to Reverse the “Be Grateful to the CCP” Education
• Leadership: Wuhan Party Chief Asked Wuhan People to Be Grateful to Xi Jinping and the CCP

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As China pushes for resuming production, Wuhan City and Hubei Province sent out a signal to move towards lifting the “lockdown” controls.

On March 8, the Hubei Airport Group issued a notice to prepare for resuming operations. The notice said, according to arrangements by the Hubei Provincial and Wuhan Municipal Novel Coronavirus Epidemic Prevention and Control Command Center, each unit of the Hubei Airport Group should resume work starting March 10, each regional airport should complete preparation for resuming operations by March 12, each company should complete preparations for resuming flights and operations by March 16, and the group company and relevant government offices should inspect the preparations on March 17.

A reporter from e Company obtained information from someone close to the airport group, “Now it is just in the preparation stage. Whether to resume flights is dependent on how the epidemic develops from March 15 to March 20.”

[Editor’s Note: There had been several incidents in the past few weeks in which a local government planned to lift the “lockdown” but then reverted back, including: Wuhan allowed people to leave the city for few hours, Beijing rescinded a plan to resume operations for the movie industry, and Qianjiang City, Hubei Province retracted an announcement to unlock the city.]

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Local Government: After Announcing Unlocking the City, Qianjiang Reverted Back to Lockdown
• Resuming Production: Companies in Shenzhen Fighting for Labors
• Resuming Production: After Issuing Direction for Movie Industry to Resume Operations, Beijing Said Not to Resume
• Resuming Production: By February 26, One Third of Small or Mid-Sized Companies Resumed Work
• Resuming Production: Xi Jinping Said Half of China’s Counties Do Not Have Coronavirus

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As the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic continued, Radio France International and Deutsche Welle published separate articles praising Taiwan for taking effective measures to contain the virus and set a good example for the world.

Though located across a strait from mainland China, Taiwan, with a population of 23.5 million, managed to have only 42 cases of infection and one death.

As they mentioned, Taiwan, with a democratic system and a history of resisting the Chinese Communist Party, set an example to show the “difference between a democratic country and an autocratic regime in handling the pandemic.”

The two articles listed the following factors that resulted in success in Taiwan:

1. Stopped people from mainland China from entering Taiwan and quarantined non-Chinese citizens who traveled from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao to Taiwan.
2. Established a “unified command” system in 2004, a year after the SARS outbreak. The key to this mechanism is to include multiple agencies, including transportation, customs, and education, together. At the beginning stage, the  government conducted a big data analysis with citizens’ health records and the National Immigration Agency’s data, to provide travel history to the medical staff members to better identify the coronavirus infection.
3. Implemented quarantine measures with full respect for individual rights. “They let the people under quarantine feel that the government cares about their safety. Thus the people with suspected infections come forward to the government for a further check. This is the biggest difference between a democratic country and an autocratic regime in handling the pandemic.” Many people in China are afraid to admit that they have been infected because they don’t know what the government might do to them afterward.

Also, the Communist regime reduced the number of Chinese visitors to Taiwan as a punishment to Taiwan for re-electing Tsai Ing-Wen as the President. This helped Taiwan to contain the pandemic.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• “World Leader”: Beijing Released a Documentary “The Lockdown: One Month in Wuhan”
• “World Leader”: Beijing Is Thinking Creating a Beijing-led World Health Organization to Replace WHO
• “World Leader”: Commentary by Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Leadership: The Hype and Stop of the Book “The Great Power Fighting Epidemic”

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Zhao Lijian, Spokesman & Deputy Director General of the Information Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accused the United States of being the origin of the novel coronavirus, stating, “It might be the US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent!”

On his Twitter account @zlj517, Zhao posted in both Chinese and English:

During the House Oversight Committee Wednesday, “1/2 CDC Director Robert Redfield admitted some Americans who seemingly died from influenza in the posthumous diagnosis, had tested positive for the novel #coronavirus. #COVID19

“2/2 the CDC was caught on the spot. When did patient zero begin in the US? How many people have been infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be the U.S. army that brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! The US owes us an explanation!”

Zhao also posted:

“Some #influenza deaths were actually infected with #COVID-19, Robert Redfield from the US #CDC admitted to the House of Representatives. The US reported 34 million cases of influenza and 20,000 deaths. Please tell us how many are related to COVID-19?”

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Virus Origin: Zhang Wenhong Disagreed That Coronavirus Originated Outside China
• Virus Origin: Southern Medical University Found The Coronavirus Is Unlikely to Evolve from Bat
• Virus Origin: Zhong Nanshan Said Coronavirus May Originate Outside China
• Virus Origin: Chinese Researchers Said That Wuhan Seafood Market Is Not the Origin
• Virus Origin: Henan Province Issued an Order to Safely Manage Laboratory Animals

Continue reading →

The Novel Coronavirus is taking a severe toll in Iran. Iran government reported 9,000 infected cases on March 11, though many people suspected the actual number is much higher.

Jerusalem Post reported that the virus is spreading among the country’s elites, particularly the religious establishment and Islamic Revolutionary Gard Corps (IRGC) circles. It listed the following officials and clerics as being impacted by the virus:

Infected:

• Massoumeh Ebtekar, Vice President
• Iraj Haririchi, Deputy Health Minister
• Mustafa Pourmohammadi, a former Justice Minister and Deputy at the Intelligence Ministry
• Pirhossein Kolivand, a top official of the Emergency Medical Services
• Esmail Najjar, an official of the “Crisis Management” Department, Interior Ministry
• At least 24 Members of the Parliament
• Mojtaba Rahmanzadeh, a local mayor of district 13 in Tehran
• Mojtaba Zonnour, a cleric and National Security Official from Qom
• Mojtaba Fazeli, an adviser to a senior cleric

Died:

• Fatemeh Rahbar, Member of Parliament from Tehran
• Mohammad Ali Ramezani, Member of Parliament from Gilan.
• Seyyed Mohammad Mir Mohammadi, a member of the Expediency Council and former Chief of Staff for Ayatollah Khamenei.
• Hossein Sheikholeslam, an adviser to the Foreign Minister
• Ahmad Toyserkani, an adviser to judiciary member Ebrahim Raisi
• Reza Pourkhanali, an Agriculture Ministry official
• Mohammed Reza Rachamani, politician
• Hamed Jalali Kashani, an activist
• Mohammad Haj Abolghasemi, IRGC’s Basij Force
• Ramezan Pourghassem, IRGC ground forces
• Abdollah Jafarzadeh, a high-ranking officer of the IRGC
• Farzad Tazari, IRGC official
• Rasoul Azizi, head of Gilan’s police inspection unit
• Akbar Dehghan, cleric of Qom
• Ayatollah Mohsen Habib
• Ali Khalafi, cleric
• Ayatollah Reza Mohammadi Langroudi
• Mousa Torabzedeh from Astaneh-ye Ashhrafiyeh in Gilan
• Ali Hosseini, cleric of Aliabad-e-Katul in Golestan
• Mostafa Amini, cleric
• Nematollah Javadi Bamiani, cleric
• Reza Modarresi, cleric

Related postings on Chinascope:

• World Outbreak: Four Countries Account for 93 Percent of World’s Infections
• World Outbreak: Korean Military Had 28 Infection Cases and Quarantined Near 10,000 Soldiers
• World Outbreak: Are South Koreans Flying to China? Beijing Admitted That Is a Rumor
• World Outbreak: Iran Vice President Confirmed with Coronavirus Infection

Source: Jerusalem Post, March 11, 2020
https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/How-many-Iranian-officials-have-died-of-coronavirus-620510

Qianjiang City, Hubei Province is 100 miles away from Wuhan with a population of 1 million. Starting on January 17, 2020, it stopped all entertainment activities in the city  and became the first city in Hubei and also in China to implement certain “lockdown” measures. As a result, the infection count in the city was the second lowest among all cities in Hubei Province. As of March 10, it had an accumulation of 198 cases (including 179 cured and 9 deaths).

On March 10, the Qianjiang Novel Coronavirus Epidemic Prevention and Control Command Center issued Order No 26 stating that the city would resume normal production and life in a few days. All traffic checkpoints would be removed, all public transportation would resume, and all companies would resume production.

Many media covered the story and praised the city.

However, on March 11, the Command Center issued Order No 27, announcing the cancellation Order No 26 and that the city would continue strict traffic control and people control.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Local Government: Hubei People Struggled to Live in Other Provinces
• Local Government: A Lady Released from Wuhan Prison Went to Beijing
• Local Government: Some People Stuck in Wuhan Became Homeless
• Local Government: Ying Yong Is in Full Control at Hubei Province
• Local Government: Xiaogan City, Hubei Province Sealed Residents’ Doors from Outside

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As almost every Chinese has been wearing a face mask amidst the outbreak of the coronavirus, Beijing has been actively working on enhancing its capability to monitor people’s faces.

Hanwang Technology Co, a high-tech intelligent pattern recognition company headquartered in Beijing, announced that it has developed a new facial recognition technology to use against people who are behind face masks. The company started the project in January and finished it in about a month.

Hanwang claimed a 95 percent accuracy against people wearing face masks and 99.5 percent accuracy against people without face masks.

Hanwang offers two products based on this technology. One is a single channel product that can be used at the entrance of an office building. The other is a multi-channel recognition system that can be connected with multiple monitoring cameras; it can identify each face instantly from a group of over 30 people.

The primary customer for these products is the Ministry of Public Security.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Stability Control: Hubei Party Propaganda Department Had 1,600 People Monitor Internet Postings
• Stability Control: Four Internet Police Officers Had to Work around the Clock for Seven Days
• Stability Control: High-Tech Companies Seek Funds for Stability Control During Epidemic
• Stability Control: China’s Police Force Asked to Focus on Political Orientation
• Stability Control: Central Propaganda Department Sent 300 News Reporters to Hubei Province

Continue reading →