Chinascope – Page 344

Justice U.S. Law Firm Filed Class Action Lawsuit against Beijing over Its Role in Coronavirus Pandemic

The Berman Law Group, a law firm in Boca Raton, Florida, filed a class-action lawsuit on March 12, to hold the Chinese government accountable for the deadly coronavirus now sweeping America.

The lawsuit, which names five plaintiffs from Florida, seeks class-action status for any American injured or affected by the coronavirus.

None of the plaintiffs have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the law firm said.

The suit alleges that the Chinese government “knew that COVID-19 was dangerous and capable of causing a pandemic, yet officials acted slowly, proverbially put their heads in the sand, and/or covered it up for their own economic self-interest.”

“No nation, particularly a rich world superpower like China, should be able to get away with what it has done,” said Jeremy Alters, chief strategist at Berman Law Group and father of plaintiff Logan Alters. “It suppressed information from the global medical community that could have averted or minimized the damage that has been done.”

Among other claims, the suit is alleging negligence on the part of the Chinese government and is requesting a jury trial.

While the Chinese government could ignore the suit, a consultant with the Berman Group told reporters there are economic ways to ensure the Chinese government comply with the court process, including targeting various bank accounts and relying on treaties between the U.S. and China.

Sources:
1. Palm Beach Post, March 13, 2020
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20200313/coronavirus-boca-law-firm-sues-chinese-government-over-its-role-in-pandemic

2. CBS, March 13, 2020
https://cbs12.com/news/local/boca-firm-sues-chinese-government-over-handling-of-coronavirus

Hot Topics | | March 17, 2020 | Social Stability

Propaganda and Lies: Major Negligence Resulted in the Virus Spreading in the U.S. and China

After reporting extremely low numbers of cases of the coronavirus infection in China for many days, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to report on imported cases to show that China is “clean” but the world is “a mass,” and that China is able to treat the coronavirus but the world is not.

Beijing seemed to be making a “perfect” case against the United States.

On March 13, the Beijing Health Commission reported a confirmed case of infection of a patient traveling from the United States to Beijing. Ms. Li, who lived in Boston, said that she attended a company meeting on February 26 and 27 and a colleague at the meeting was later confirmed to have the Coronavirus. On March 1, she started to feel cold and later had a fever and a high temperature of 39 Celsius (102.2 Fahrenheit). She went to the hospital four times but was not admitted for hospitalization. She requested a nucleic acid test three times but her requests were all denied.

Therefore, she and her husband and son took a plane to fly back to China via Los Angles for diagnosis and treatment. Upon arriving in Beijing on March 13, she was confirmed to have the infection. Her husband and son were suspected cases.

However, this “exemplar” case started to show some flaws. On March 15, Zhang Yun, General Manager of Air China’s Product Service Department, disclosed more information about Ms. Li’s travels. During the boarding process, the CA988 flight attendants measured every traveler and found no one had a high temperature. An hour after the plane took off, Ms. Li, who was in seat 40B told the flight attendant that she felt shortness of breath and had a lack of energy. She claimed that she was traveling by herself, didn’t take any medicine before boarding the plane, and had a short period of fever a week ago. Her temperature test was 36.4 Celsius (97.5 Fahrenheit). She was moved to the end row and given a designated bathroom for quarantine purpose. Flight attendants tested her temperature four more times. All showed it was below 37 Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit).

Two hours before landing in Beijing, she told the flight attendants that colleagues in her company in the U.S. had been confirmed to have the coronavirus infection. She said she had a fever in the U.S. She also said she took antipyretics to reduce her temperature before boarding the plane and that her husband and son were also on the plane in seats 54K and 54L.

The flight attendants immediately moved her husband and son to the same quarantine area with her.

The Paper reported this story, with the title “Speechless! A Lady Took Antipyretics to Fly with Family to Beijing and Told Major Lies on the Flight!”

Epoch Times reported that there were more lies in the story. According to people in the U.S. who know Ms. Li, she had already been confirmed to have the Coronavirus infection. Since her symptoms were mild and she did not meet the standard for hospitalization, she was asked to self-quarantine at home. Instead she flew back to China and lied that she had not been confirmed to have the infection in the U.S.

She was an employee at Biogen Inc., whose meeting at the end of February had resulted in massive infections. By March 14, among the 138 confirmed cases in Massachusetts, 104 cases were related to Biogen.

One person commented, “How many more people might have been infected because of her? From her home to Boston, at the Boston Airport, on the plane to LA, at the LA Airport, and then on the plane to Beijing!”

U.S. Dollar Shines in Market Free Fall

Well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported that the U.S. Dollar Index has frequently reached highs when the financial market saw free falls across the globe. Key non-U.S. currencies suffered most, including the Euro, the British Pound, the Canadian Dollar, and the Australian Dollar. The Japanese Yen followed the U.S. Dollar’s growth, but with heavy fluctuations. With this background, central banks like the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have been lowering interest rates and pushing new easing plans. However, these activities have not made much of a difference. The U.S. Dollar remained outstanding among all of this bad news and appears to be able to hold its position to serve as a safe harbor for money looking for a place to park. The coronavirus situation continues to spread fear in financial markets globally. That, coupled with the Saudi-Russia oil price war, means that the future remains uncertain for the time being. Major economies are expected to have a new round of announcements regarding their poor economic data.

Source: Sina, March 14, 2020
https://finance.sina.com.cn/money/forex/hbfx/2020-03-14/doc-iimxyqwa0445356.shtml

Briefings | | March 16, 2020 | US-China Relations

Apple Smartphone Chinese Sales Saw a Sharp Decline in February

Shanghai-based Chinese financial news site East Money recently reported that, according to statistics that the China Academy of Information and Communication Technologies just released, the Chinese smartphone market declined by 54.7 percent, year-over-year. Apple iPhone sales in China saw a 61 percent decline during the same period of time. Apple announced its first quarter sales will miss its earlier projection, mainly due to the public health situation in China, which has impacted both manufacturing and market demand. Although Apple’s Chinese factories resumed their work, yet the pace of restoring capacity has been slower than expected. This will impact Apple’s global sales. Some Apple suppliers like Qorvo also reduced their forecasts. Also worth noting is that, the International Data Group (IDC) projects that the first quarter global smartphone sales will decline by 40 percent, year-over-year.

Source: East Money, March 9, 2020
http://finance.eastmoney.com/a/202003091411529178.html

Briefings | | March 16, 2020 | Economy/Resources Information/Technology

Public Opinion: Refusing to Remain Silent Any Longer, a Wuhan Young Man Decided to Speak for the Dead

Voice of America (VOA) reported a story of a young man in Wuhan, in his twenties, with the pseudonym “Tulong,” who decided not to remain silent in front the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) propaganda and thought control, but to speak out for the people who died from the coronavirus.

“I know how sinister this regime is,” Tulong said, “but before, I just told myself not to look at these things.”

His dream was to be a news reporter. He studied at the top journalism department in China, but soon he found that his dream would never come true.

“My school is the place where they train people to control public opinion. More than once, I heard my teachers’ brag about how they controlled public opinion.”

After the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, Tulong said that he might have been infected with the virus and even been cremated had he not broken the firewall blockade to visit websites outside of China and not heard the truth from friends overseas.

“When they drove the ‘low-end’ people out of Beijing, I told myself that I was not a low-end person and would not be cleaned out (see Chinascope’s report: Beijing Official: Take Real, Rough, and Quick Action to Demolish Buildings). When they set up a “reform” campus in Xinjiang, I thought I was not a Uyghur and didn’t have a religion, so I would not be put in the camp; I am sympathetic to Hong Kong people, but I felt that I wouldn’t go to the streets to protest, so still it had nothing to do with me. This time, it happened in my hometown. Many people around me were infected and some had passed away, so I could not tolerate it anymore.”

“Most of the Chinese, including myself, are not innocent because we have condoned (the CCP) for doing evil, and many have even done evil together with the CCP.”

A friend once told him that, to live in China, a person has to be able to do at least one of two things and both things would be better. First, let go of one’s own rationality; and second, let go of one’s conscience.

However, Tulong felt that he couldn’t do either.

“I survived in the epidemic,” Tulong told the VOA, “I am lucky. However, as a survivor from Wuhan, I have a responsibility to speak out, for the rest of my life, for the people who died.”

World Journal: The U.S. Met Hong Kong Political Representatives from Both Sides

Well-known U.S. Chinese language newspaper World Journal recently reported that a Hong Kong political group attended The US-HK Dialogue that the World Affairs Council, the largest nonprofit organization for international affairs in the United States, had hosted. The group consisted of four representatives from Hong Kong’s pro-mainland parties and three from pro-democracy parties. In California, the group met Johnathan Fritz, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian & Pacific Affairs, and Hanscom Smith, Consul General representing the United States to Hong Kong and Macau, as well as people from the House Foreign Relations Committee. The event occurred right before the State Department’s annual Hong Kong Report was about to be released. The pro-mainland representatives described the conversations as frank and constructive, while the pro-democracy representatives brought detailed requests on what more the U.S. government should do on sanctioning the current Hong Kong government, especially on the human rights protection side. With the recent passage of the Taipei Act in Washington, it appears the U.S. government has a comprehensive political view on the issue of Hong Kong and Taiwan. It’s not unusual for the pro-democracy activists to visit the United States. However, pro-mainland leaders are not frequent visitors, especially not in groups. This at least made the typical label of “colluding with foreign powers” that Mainland media often gave the HK pro-democracy parties look very weak.

Source: World Journal, March 9, 2020
https://bit.ly/2IOgZlG

Briefings | | March 15, 2020 | Geo-Strategic Trend US-China Relations

Public Opinion: Netizens Relay Posting of “The Person Who Handed out Whistles” Article

In its March 2020 edition, China’s People Magazine (note: different from the People magazine in the United States), a publication under People’s Publishing House, published an article called, “The Person Who Handed out Whistles.” However, within three hours, the Communist region removed all posted versions.

The article talked about Ai Fen, Director of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Wuhan Central Hospital, which treated several coronavirus patients in December, 2019. Ai Fen took a picture of the diagnose report of “SARS coronavirus” and sent it to some doctors including Dr. Li Wenliang. Dr. Li Wenliang then sent the message to a WeChat group, including the picture, and became the whistle blower. Ai is thus considered to be the person who handed Dr. Li Wenliang a whistle.

Chinese netizens were very disappointed in the government’s Internet control and started to relay the posting of the deleted article. However, their postings were soon deleted. Then people translated the article into different languages and kept posting it. The different languages that were used include: 1. Traditional Chinese, 2. Mirrored Image, 3. English, 4. Martian language, 5, Braille, 6. Upside-down Image, 7. Garbled version, 8. Obituary (an Ancient Chinese writing style), 9. A rewrite in the Classic Chinese language, 10. Hand-writing, 11. Morse Code version, 12. No Letter version, 13. Vertical layout (read the article vertically), 14. German, 15. Binary code, 16. Voice…

Netizens told Radio Free Asia, each version might exist a few hours, or just a few minutes, before the Communist regime deleted it. Since several versions were not readable, people passed them around not for others to read but to protest and to release their anger towards the authorities’ Internet control.

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World Journal: The U.S. Met Hong Kong Political Representatives from Both Sides

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