Trade negotiators from China and the U.S. have held their first meeting
under the Biden presidency, which coincided with the fallout over President Biden ordering a new intelligence report on the origins of COVID-19. The theory that the virus was leaked from a lab in China's Wuhan has resurfaced, although no new evidence has been presented. China is calling the move a smear campaign.
U.S. politicizing COVID-19 origin tracing by openly denying WHO report
US is "preparing some bold moves" against China regarding tracing the origins of the pandemic
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Cornerstone of China’s strategic deterrence against the US: more nuclear missiles and warheads
A formation of Dongfeng-41 intercontinental strategic nuclear missiles
takes part in a military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Beijing, capital of China, October 1, 2019. Photo: Xinhua
As the US strategic containment of Chinas has increasingly intensified, I would like to remind again that we have plenty of urgent tasks, but among the most important ones is to rapidly increase the number of commissioned nuclear warheads, and the DF-41s, the strategic missiles that are capable to strike long-range and have high-survivability, in the Chinese arsenal. This is the cornerstone of China's strategic deterrence against the US.
We must be prepared for an intense showdown between China and the US. In that scenario, a large number of Dongfeng-41, and JL-2 and JL-3 (both intercontinental-range submarine-launched ballistic missile) will form the pillar of our strategic will. The number of China's nuclear warheads must reach the quantity that makes US elites shiver should they entertain the idea of engaging in a military confrontation with China.
On this basis, we can calmly and actively manage divergences with Washington to avoid a minor incident sparking a war. US hostility toward China is burning. We must use our strength, and consequences that Washington cannot afford to bear if it takes risky moves, to keep them sober.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) isolated the
first viral strain of the novel coronavirus and handed it over to the
World Health Organization (WHO) as early as January 12, 2020, media
reported.
A healthcare worker holds a vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine arranged at the University Hospital in Sungai Buloh, Selangor, Malaysia, on Tuesday, March 2,2021. The first phase of the vaccine roll-out that will run through April involves about 500,000 frontliners comprising health-care, defense and security personnel, as well as teachers with co-morbidities, according to the government. Photographer: Samsul Said/Bloomberg
Of course not. The Covid-19 and its variants do not discriminate between race, creed or borders. They simply infect everyone indiscriminately, so the only defence is vaccines and social distancing.
But the handling of the pandemic has become intensely political along racial, class and national lines. To debate whether it should be called a China virus or an Indian variant is racist by implication. What matters urgently is how each individual, community or nation handles the pandemic. To distribute to the rich and powerful first before the poor and weak is discriminatory, but that is exactly what has happened in many countries.
The virus transmits through people. The epidemiologists suggest that minimising people travel and contacts would slow the transmission.
Those who care more about money object to shutting down the economy. Asians reacted more quickly by adopting masks and staying at home.
The West cared more about individualism and objected to masks, allowing the pandemic to get out of control.
But money and vaccines have begun to bring matters under control, except that if the coronavirus and its variants continue to spread in countries which cannot afford vaccines or can’t get enough supplies, no one is safe.
Thus, a microscopic virus has opened up the Pandora’s Box of almost all social divisions that were ignored and unaddressed. It is clear that science and technology, as well as competent organisation, plus mass cooperation would be the way to solve the pandemic.
But these three factors require trust that everyone should be protected justly.
The record so far shows that those governments which preach democracy, equality and rules-based order may be practising something rather different.
Why is it that in the United States, Pacific Islander, Latino and Black Americans have double the Covid-19 death rate than White and Asian Americans?
Israel is leading in the world vaccination rollout, and yet Palestinians have been slow to get vaccines. The UN Human Rights body has called the Israeli differential treatment of Palestinians “morally and legally unacceptable”.
Israel has illegally occupied Palestinian territory since the 1967 war, and even in the Holy Month, physically raided the Al Aqsa Mosque, sparking off the current conflict that has raged on in the middle of the pandemic.
This is not an equal fight. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed, including 64 children, versus 12 dead in Israel. More than 58,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been rendered homeless and Israelis have knocked out the only lab in the territory that processes covid tests.
An Arab-Israeli member of the Israeli Parliament has openly called the Israel action in Jerusalem as “ethnic cleansing”. The Israeli government can ignore world opinion because of the US’ strong backing.
The humanitarian crisis in Palestine is beyond a tragedy. But the Israel-Palestinian crisis shows how science and technology play a role in turning a David to a Goliath, switching the roles from victims of the Holocaust to become perpetrators of Occupation by might alone.
As geopolitical futurist George Friedman writes about “Gaza: Morality and Reality”, the moral question is extremely complex because both sides see themselves as victims.
In his geopolitical realist view, as long as Israel holds the greater military superiority, with the backing of the strongest military power of all – the United States – the conflict will not be resolved by anyone else.
This point is fully understood by the Israelis, who were scattered and not particularly powerful as a wandering people until 1947. But it was their brains and deep application of science and technology that overcame the Palestinian and Arab numerical superiority.
There are 1-2-3 options for the Israel-Palestine situation. If Israel-occupied territory were to be governed as one country, the demographics would favour the Palestinians with higher birth rates, so this solution was ruled out.
Logic suggests that perhaps a two-country solution of a separate Palestine and Israel state would be possible. The rest of the world supports this option, but the Palestinians are divided into the Fatah faction controlling the West Bank and the Hamas controlling Gaza. This creates a three-state possibility. Indeed, the greater the division between its enemies and their supporters, the more secure Israel’s position. This is classic “divide and rule” domination exercised by imperial colonials.
The Egyptian economist Samir Amin summed up this perennial Arab dilemma, commenting on the 2011 Arab Spring.
If it succeeds, then the Arab world will break out of the imperialist centre’s control. If it fails, then the Arab world will remain in “its current status as a submissive periphery, prohibiting its elevation to the rank of an active participant in shaping the world”.
Samir’s critique of Capitalism in the Age of Globalisation saw a capitalist centre comprising America, Europe and Japan, controlling a periphery of the rest.
This is achieved through five monopolies over technology, financial control, monopoly access to natural resources, media and communications, and weapons of mass destruction. The Israelis understood these perfectly and exploited them to achieve success and survival.
Thus, Israeli devotion to science and technology, military equipment, media and communications and their lobbying power playing guilt on the Eurocentric countries, ensure their dominance over the Palestinian and Arab opponents.
This is why faith or ideology alone will not control the pandemic, because it is through science and organisational power that domination continues over the weak and oppressed.
The Arab world may have physical control over much of the fossil-fuel natural resources, but as long as they remain technologically backward and divided, they will always be victims.
So, the coronavirus is not racist.
Guns do not kill people, people kill or dominate other people.
Friedman is right. Might decides geopolitical reality. For him and his ilk, morality is for the victim to complain and the victor to preach.
Those who do not learn from history will remain its victims.
Andrew Sheng comments on global affairs from an Asian perspective. The views expressed here are his own.
India is at a critical moment of fighting the virus. Yet some Indian media outlets and politicians are still manipulating politics, slandering China with an attempt to shift contradictions away from their failed policies. India has descended into a COVID-19 mess. Indian media and politicians should bear a large part of the blame. It's a tragedy for the Indian people.
In recent days, some news channels in India have been busy spreading the groundless conspiracy theories that "the coronavirus is a bio-weapon created in a Wuhan lab." As the new wave of COVID-19 wreaks havoc on India, they have hyped up conspiracy theories and old lies cooked up by some Western media and politicians last year, baselessly accusing China of "weaponizing the virus." Some Indian media's professionalism, cognition and sense of social responsibility are really jaw-dropping.
With India caught up in the crisis and as criticisms of the Indian government's response increase, the "lab leak" conspiracy theory has attracted some new attention in India, ranging from news channels to politicians. Earlier this month, some Indian ministers and BJP leaders shared an article on Twitter. The article warned Indians not to fall into the opposition's trap of making Prime Minister Narendra Modi the scapegoat. It said, "very few are talking about China and the possibility that the virus has been unleashed to weaken India."
The "lab leak" theory has been largely discarded by the world. A World Health Organization report in late March concluded that it's "extremely unlikely" that the virus was leaked from a lab. It's really ridiculous and clumsy for some Indian media outlets to flog a dead horse. And it's easy to figure out their real purpose.
Long Xingchun, a senior research fellow with the Academy of Regional and Global Governance at the Beijing Foreign Studies University and president of the Chengdu Institute of World Affairs, said the purpose of hyping the "lab leak" theory is obvious: deflecting public attention. With no sign of abating, the raging epidemic in India has aggravated public dissatisfaction.
By hyping-up the "lab leak" theory, some Indian media outlets and politicians are attempting to divert the public's anger to China. "For countries with an electoral system like India, the top consideration for some politicians is not people's health and lives, but votes. Accusing China of unleashing the virus to weaken India provides a good excuse for India to defend its anti-epidemic response and economic downturn," Long said.
China has refuted the lies of the "lab leak" theory many times. China has strictly fulfilled its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention and does not develop, research or produce bio-weapons.
If the Indian media and politicians are really keen on figuring out whether the virus is a bio-weapon, they should ask Washington to clarify the US' biological militarization activities inside and outside the country and to disclose the real purpose of its more than 200 biological laboratories overseas. India could also demand an international inquiry.
It looks like some Indian media outlets and politicians are resorting to the old scheme of the former Trump administration, which tried every possible means to shift the blame onto China for its failed coronavirus response.
Just have a look at the results of Trump and his failed secretary of state Mike Pompeo. They didn't focus on fighting the epidemic, but instead played tricks to politicize the virus, concocting political manipulations to discredit China. As a result, the US witnessed the highest COVID-19 death toll. This became the main reason why Trump lost the election.
Since the second wave of COVID-19 outbreak hit India, China has expressed its goodwill and taken concrete actions to provide necessary support and help to India. China has sent life-saving supplies such as ventilators, oxygen generators, masks and medicines to India. This has shown China's goodwill and humanitarianism.
However, some Indian media outlets and politicians are requiting kindness with ingratitude. They have slandered China's help, tried to play the Taiwan card, attempted to sow discord between China and neighboring countries, and devilishly spread rumors and lies to discredit China. They are shameless and have no moral bottom. What they are now doing is no different from creating a humanitarian disaster in India. It's the Indian people that will have to bear this egregious suffering.
Tianwen-1 successfully landed on Mars Infographic: GT
A review of China’s Tianwen-1 Mars exploration mission
Tianwen-1, China’s first interplanetary expedition, has spectacularly conquered a new major milestone, with its lander-rover combination successfully soft-landing at the planned site in the southern part of a vast plain known as Utopia Planitia on Mars on early Saturday morning, Global Times learned from the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
Chinese President Xi Jinping sent warm congratulations and sincere greetings to the personnel involved in the Saturday feat.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said in his congratulatory letter that this success marks a major step forward in the country’s interplanetary exploration, achieving a leap from Earth-moon system to the interplanetary one. Leaving the footprint of Chinese people on Mars for the first time marks another milestone of the country’s space industry development.
Xi also noted that the country will always remember the contributions and achievements of the participants of the mission, stressing that it is their courage to challenge and pursue excellence that has brought the country to a leading position in the world in terms of interplanetary exploration.
Screen of Beijing flight control center shows the landing site of Tianwen-1 on Saturday. Photo: Zhang Gaoxiang/ CNSA
According to the CNSA, Tianwen-1 probe lowered its altitude from the Martian parking orbit around 1 am Saturday, before its lander-rover combination separated with the orbiter around 4 am. The lander-rover combination then took another flight of three hours before its entry into Mars atmosphere.
The Chinese spacecraft, after entering the Mars atmosphere, spent around nine minutes decelerating, hovering for obstacle avoidance and cushioning, before its soft landing on the designated landing site at the Utopia Planitia, CNSA said.
The orbiter rose and returned to the parking orbit 30 minutes after the separation, to provide relay communication for the landing craft combo, the Chinese space agency said.
Photo: Coutersy of CAST
Photo: Coutersy of CAST
CNSA underscored that it has conducted cooperation with a range of international aerospace organizations and countries including the Europe Space Agency, Argentina, France and Austria, throughout the implementation of its Tianwen-1 Mars mission.
The smooth landing of the Tianwen-1 probe marked that China has become the third nation that has achieved such a feat, following Russia and the US.
The successful touchdown of Tianwen-1 took place on the 295th day of its journey after it was launched and sent into planned orbit via a Long March-5 carrier rocket from Wenchang Spaceport in South China’s Hainan Province on July 23, 2020.
The whole entry, descent and landing (EDL) of Tianwen-1 took around 9 minutes, during which the speed of the craft was reduced from 20,000 kilometers per hour to zero, according to the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) the developer of the lander-rover combo of Tianwen-1.
The EDL of the Chinese craft first involved an aerodynamic decelerating stage before it deployed parachute and variant thrust engine systems.
Timeline of China's first Mars exploration mission Infographic: GT
Timeline of China's first Mars exploration mission Infographic: GT
Such an aerodynamic decelerating stage reduced the craft's speed by some 90 percent, and then the parachute stage helped it further decelerate to some 100 meters per second before the thrust engine systems were turned on to enable the craft to enter a hovering stage as it reaches some 100 meters above the surface, said Wang Chuang, the chief director-designer of the Tianwen-1 probe with the CAST.
“At the hovering stage, the six instruments on board the rover, including microwave sensors to determine speed and distance and optical cameras, were started simultaneously in order to ‘search for a safer’ spot for the soft landing,” he explained.
Chinese space industry insiders told the Global Times on Saturday that although Tianwen-1 has inherited mature hovering and obstacle avoidance technology from the previous Chang’e-3,-4, and -5 lunar probe missions, there are still plenty of new challenges in its Mars landing attempt.
Currently, the success rate of humanity’s Mars landings is only below 50 percent, and most failed attempts happened at the EDL stage. “It took an extremely accurate operation of a range of technology, including aerodynamic shape design, parachute and engine, to achieve [the] soft landing on Mars. There is no room for defiance of even one second on any single system,” Sun Zezhou, the Tianwen-1 designer-in-chief with the CAST, noted.
Photo: Coutersy of CAST
Photo: Coutersy of CAST
Compared to the moon, Mars is first and foremost much further from Earth, which results in an inevitable communication delay of some 20 minutes. It means that Tianwen-1 is very much on its own in the landing process, CAST experts said.
Also, although the density of Mars’ atmosphere is only 1 percent of Earth’s atmosphere, it causes a more complicated environment for landing than a touchdown on the moon, as there is no atmosphere on the Earth’s closest celestial neighbor, they added.
“We did not have first-hand data on the Mars atmosphere… which means we were put in an entirely unknown environment. One can imagine the level of difficulty,” Chen Baichao, chief director-designer of the rover system with the CAST.
China has adopted a unique trajectory-elevation plan based on trim-wing design to resist the risks of uncertainty brought by the Mars atmosphere, according to the CAST.
Named after an ancient fire god of Chinese mythology, the 1.85-meter-tall and some 240-kilogram Zhurong Mars rover will then be deployed. It is designed to rove the planet for at least 3 Martian months, approximately 92 days on Earth.
Infographic:Global Times
Infographic:Global Times
In total, six scientific payloads – a pair of navigation and terrain cameras, a multispectral camera, a Mars surface composition detector, a penetrating radar, a mast-mounted magnetometer and a Mars climate station – were installed on Zhurong to study the topography, geology, soil structure, minerals and rock types and atmosphere in the area.
To survive the notoriously harsh sand storm on Mars’ surface, speed of which could reach 180 meters per second, about three times stronger than that of a super typhoon on Earth, Chinese engineers have developed a new material for Zhurong, enabling it to resist dust stains and shake off the dust, if any, by vibration.
Also, when the Mars rover encounters complicated situations on its drive path, Chinese scientists will conduct a simulation test on Earth with a 1:1 Zhurong model in the lab first, before they send instructions to the rover, Global Times learned from the CAST.
The technology used in the landing is based on China's successful human spaceflight and lunar missions, Andrew Jones, a Finland-based space observer who follows China's space industry, told the Global Times. "They haven't tested this altogether, but they have had the experience of dealing with these technologies."
What China is doing in the Tianwen-1 expedition is “extremely challenging and impressive,” said Jones.
China's Sinopharm vaccine approved by WHO for global use https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2021-05-07/Sinopharm-vaccine-approved-by-WHO-for-global-use-104LK27VVcc/index.html via @cgtnofficial
The WHO's emergency approval of China's COVID-19 vaccine will boost global vaccine supply amid shortfall as China's overall yearly production capacity is approaching five billion doses, observers said.
The WHO gave Emergency Use Listing (EUL) to Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine on Friday afternoon, making it the sixth vaccine and the first made by a non-Western country to receive WHO validation for its safety, efficacy and quality. This will send a statement to Western media's doubts and questions over the vaccine's authenticity, observers noted.
The other five COVID-19 vaccines previously approved by the WHO were made by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna.
The approval allows Sinopharm to become a qualified supplier to the COVAX platform that aims to provide two billion doses to developing countries and regions by the end of 2021. As of Friday, 54 million doses had been delivered to 121 participants of the program.
India was supposed to deliver one billion shots through COVAX, but the plan has been halted due to the ongoing severe outbreak in the country.
With a huge supply-demand gap, the world is in urgent need for Chinese vaccines. In most low-income regions, Chinese vaccines are the only choice they have. This comes as the US and Europe are busy grabbing and overbuying shots for themselves, experts said.
The emergency approval for Chinese vaccines will largely expand COVAX supply as China's production is likely to reach five billion doses by the end of this year, Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine expert, told the Global Times on Saturday.
Chinese manufacturers are already providing vaccines to about 80 countries. The Global Times learned from Sinovac, another Chinese manufacturer whose COVID-19 vaccine is undergoing WHO review for EUL and the result is scheduled to come out next week, that they had produced 300 million doses as of April 28 with about 60 percent being delivered overseas.
On Thursday, Sinopharm announced the completion of phase-three construction of its production factory for the Beijing institute vaccine. It is the world's largest COVID-19 vaccine production factory and will ramp up the group's production capacity to three billion per year.
Sinovac has said that their production capacity will reach two billion doses per year after their production factory is completed in June.
Some experts have expressed concerns over challenges in delivery and application. Especially due to the underdeveloped infrastructure in most developing regions, but Chinese manufacturers are making efforts to tackle these challenges.
The Sinopharm product is an inactivated vaccine called SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine (Vero Cell) that can be delivered through common cold chain with temperatures between 2 C and 8 C. While Moderna vaccine has to be stored in a temperature of at least -20 C, while the Pfizer vaccine at -70 C.
Sinopharm vaccine's easy storage requirements make it highly suitable for low-resource settings, WHO said in a statement on Friday.
It is also the first vaccine that will carry a vaccine vial monitor. The vial monitor is a small sticker on the vaccine vial that change color when the vaccine is exposed to heat, letting health workers know whether the vaccine can be safely used, according to the statement.
The sticker clearly shows the degree of over exposure to high temperatures and ensure the safety of the vaccine's application in different environments, Tao said.
China can assist regions with unsatisfactory infrastructure conditions with cold-chain vehicles as well as training for health workers on vaccination, experts noted.
Some foreign news medias had long been questioning the efficacy and safety of the Sinopharm vaccine due to fewer data on its clinical trials. The data had not been released until the latest document uploaded by the WHO on the assessment of Sinopharm's vaccine.
The WHO document confirms experts have an "overall confidence" in its ability to prevent COVID-19, while having "low confidence" on the risk of side effects for older patients.
WHO said in the Friday statement that they are not recommending an upper age limit for the vaccine because preliminary data and supportive immunogenicity data suggest the vaccine is likely to have a protective effect in older people. "There is no theoretical reason to believe that the vaccine has a different safety profile in older and younger populations."
North Macedonian PM receives China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine
In the safety ranking, the top four are all Chinese vaccines
- reported by The New York Times on Feb 5, 2021.
1. Sinopharm (China)
2. Sinovac (China)
3. Kexing (China)
4. Can Sino (China)
5. AstraZeneca (UK)
6. Pfizer (United States and Germany)
7. Modena (United States)
8. Johnson & Johnson (United States)
9. Novavax (United States)
10. Satellite 5 (Russia)
Sinopharm has two vaccines, ranking first and second respectively.
China has exported more than 500 million doses of vaccines to more than 50 countries around the world, and it is estimated that hundreds of millions of people have been vaccinated. And China's vaccine accident rate is lower and safer.
As reported by Western media, many wealthy people in Britain fly to the UAE to vaccinate Chinese national medicine.
Sinopharm vaccine File photo:VCG
