Beijing Archives - Lokmarg - News Views Blogs

Pure Offence: China Fumes After US special Envoy Meets Dalai Lama

By LokMarg 10th July 2023

Amid soaring tensions between the United States and China, Beijing has firmly opposed the meeting of Joe Biden administration’s top official on human rights, Uzra Zeya, with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in the national capital.

Strongly objecting to the meeting, Beijing has asked Washington to stop meddling in the internal affairs of China under the pretext of Tibet-related issues.
Taking to Twitter, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India, Wang Xiaojian, said, “The US should take concrete actions to honour its commitment of acknowledging Xizang as part of China, stop meddling in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of Xizang-related issues, and offer no support to the anti-China separatist activities of the Dalai clique.

“Xizang (Tibet) affairs are purely internal affairs of China and no external forces have the right to interfere. China firmly opposes any form of contact between foreign officials and the ‘Tibetan independence’ forces,” the Chinese spokesperson added.

This follows after Zeya met with the Dalai Lama during her India visit, according to Central Tibetan administration, a non-profit political organisation, which works for the Tibetan government in exile.

The Chinese Embassy spokesperson stated that the designation of Uzra Zeya as Special Coordinator for Tibet issues is “pure offence” and a political manipulation to “interfere in China’s internal affairs” and “undermine Tibet’s development and stability.”

China has always been firmly opposed to this and has never recognized it, the spokesperson said.

“The 14th Dalai Lama is by no means just a religious figure, but rather a political exile who has long been engaging in anti-China separatist activities and attempting to split Xizang from China,” Wang Xiaojian said.

“The so-called ‘Tibetan government-in-exile’ is an out-and-out separatist political group and an illegal organization completely in violation of China’s Constitution and laws. It is not recognized by any country in the world,” the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India said.

On July 9, US official Zeya tweeted, “Namaste, New Delhi! Look forward to productive meetings with Government of India & civil society leaders building on momentum of @narendramodi ‘s historic State Visit. Together, we are working toward a world that is more open, prosperous, secure, inclusive & resilient!”

The US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues is on a 7-day visit to two nations — India and Bangladesh– from July 8-14.

US State Department in a statement had said that during her India visit, she is expected to meet with senior government officials to discuss the deepening and enduring US-India partnership, including advancing shared solutions to global challenges, democracy, regional stability, and cooperation on humanitarian relief.

Zeya is being accompanied by US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu.

Zeya was appointed as the special coordinator for Tibetan Issues in December 2021. (ANI)

Read More: http://13.232.95.176/

Trudeau In A Spot Over Chinese Interference In Election

By LokMarg 12th March 2023

Leaked documents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) have revealed the ways in which the Chinese government has attempted to tamper with Canadian elections, Aisa Times reported.

According to the report, the leaked papers give support to a number of allegations regarding the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) behaviour that has been circulating for years. This includes the Conservative Party of Canada’s claim that the interference cost it seats in the 2021 federal election, along with allegations about the operation of illegal “police stations” used by China to gather information on the Chinese diaspora in Canada, Aisa Times reported.

The story is a developing one, and many precise details remain unclear, the report stated, adding that it is still to be determined, for instance, where the leaks came from, why the information was leaked and whether it’s representative of the full scope of intelligence.

Because the leaks tend to emphasize how the federal Liberals benefited from Chinese interference, it could be a politically motivated attempt by elements within CSIS to bring down the current government, Aisa Times reported.

The leaks obviously have substantial political implications that will likely intensify as the scandal continues to develop. Both the Conservatives and NDP have called for a full public inquiry into the full picture of Beijing’s meddling, the report stated.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, despite previously claiming that no further action was required, has now announced that the government will appoint a “special rapporteur” who will work with two national security committees to probe the details of the controversy.

The exact details of this investigation, including who will be appointed rapporteur, are yet to be determined. But it will certainly be immersed in partisan posturing and strategising, said the report.

The Opposition will undoubtedly attack the integrity of the process, especially given the fact that its scope is entirely determined by the very government it’s investigating. The rapporteur reportedly will ultimately determine whether a full public inquiry is necessary.

The Liberals have a lot to lose from a continuing public focus on the topic.

The allegations raise not only questions about the integrity of Canadian democracy itself but also the collaboration of the government in not properly addressing it — and the appearance, to put it more precisely, that the Liberals deliberately underplayed, denied or buried allegations of interference because they benefited from it, the report said.

Available information shows that both the prime minister and his staff were briefed, on multiple occasions, about indications of Chinese interference as it was happening in both the 2019 and 2021 elections.

The governing party is in crisis mode, reeling from intelligence leaks that it did not anticipate. This is evident in how Trudeau quickly moved from initial, reactive and ad-hoc response, effectively denying the seriousness of the reports and attacking any opponents as being racially motivated, to now succumbing to pressure for further investigations.

The New Democrats, whom the Liberals rely on to stay in power, have not ruled out the idea that they could bring the public inquiry to a confidence vote. The Conservatives, who continue to poll well with Canadians, no doubt see their electoral fortunes on the horizon, it stated further.

Yet this isn’t just about politics — it’s also a genuine and deeply concerning the crisis of national security. Evidence of Chinese interference raises serious questions about the entire legitimacy of our electoral process, Aisa Times reported.

The available information shows that the actual way votes were counted in 2019 and 2021 remains relatively intact.

Instead, Beijing seemingly employed significant resources in personal financing and social media content to influence — if not downright manipulate — Canadian voters to advance their specific interests.

In 2019 and 2021, this involved working through informal channels to assist the campaigns of several Liberal party candidates.

As demonstrated by the American experience with Russian interference, this is the “new normal.”

The reality is that unlike in the past, there are a number of dominant world powers that are more than willing to do whatever it takes to advance their interests, including interfering with the domestic politics of other states, Aisa Times reported.

The recent leaks not only prove this is happening in Canada but, more seriously, demonstrate that Canadian security organizations are struggling to find ways to manage it as Chinese interference strategies continue to develop.

The politicization of the issue, while inevitable, isn’t helpful. But as long as the Liberal government prioritizes its electoral viability, the scandal will only intensify.

The leaks did not help the work of CSIS, but rather damaged the organization’s international credibility and will likely make it more difficult for CSIS to acquire sensitive information.

Still, with an elected democratic government that has so far only sat on its hands, the leaks may have been necessary for the sake of Canadian democracy, the report stated. (ANI)

Read More: http://13.232.95.176/

US Imposes Sanctions On Six Chinese Companies

By LokMarg 18th February 2023

The Biden administration has imposed new sanctions on China, targeting the country’s several companies for supporting Beijing’s military modernization efforts, as part of its response to a Chinese spy balloon that traversed U.S. airspace last week, The New York Times reported.

The Commerce Department added five Chinese companies and one research institute to its so-called entity list, which will prevent companies from selling them American parts and technologies without a special license. Officials said the six entities had supported Chinese military programs related to airships and balloons used for intelligence and reconnaissance, the publication reported.

Earlier this week, the US Commerce Department added five Chinese companies and one research institute connected to Beijing’s aerospace programs including airships and balloons to an export blacklist.

The Commerce Department said the six entities were supporting “China’s military modernization efforts, specifically the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) aerospace programs including airships and balloons.”

The Chinese government has tried to downplay the incident, arguing that the balloon was a civilian device for monitoring weather.

The entities that the United States targeted Friday were Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology Company, Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology Company, Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Company, Guangzhou Tian-Hai-Xiang Aviation Technology Company, Shanxi Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Company and China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 48th Research Institute, The New York Times reported.

The Commerce Department did not specify whether the companies and the institute had played a direct role in developing or operating the balloon that flew across the United States. But the Biden administration said earlier this week that it would consider taking action against any entities that had aided the balloon’s flight.

The balloon was shot down by a highly advanced US fighter jet last week. President Joe Biden congratulated US fighter pilots for taking down the balloon in the country’s airspace and above its territorial waters.

The Pentagon decried what it called China’s unacceptable violation of US airspace.

China has expressed regret blaming unfavourable winds for pushing what it calls a “civilian airship” into US airspace.

Beijing China insists the balloon was a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes,” and it unintentionally veered off into US airspace.

Notably, the US shot down the giant balloon, which China claimed to be a civilian airship used for research mainly meteorological, on February 4 after it hovered over the country for a week.

Beijing denies it uses spy balloons and says the craft was for weather research. Subsequently, it accused Washington of sending its own espionage balloons over its territory, which the US denied.

The spate had led US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a rare visit to China abruptly.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration imposed new sanctions on China, targeting the country’s several companies for supporting Beijing’s military modernization efforts, reported GlobalSecurity.org.

The US Commerce Department on Friday said that it added five Chinese companies and one research institute connected to Beijing’s aerospace programs including airships and balloons to an export blacklist.

The Commerce Department said the six entities supported “China’s military modernization efforts, specifically the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) aerospace programs including airships and balloons.”

The six companies include Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology Co; China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 48th Research Institute; and Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology Co.

The other three are Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Co.; Guangzhou Tian-Hai-Xiang Aviation Technology Co.; along with Shanxi Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group Co. (ANI)

New Chinese Foreign Min Qin Seeks Improved Ties With India

By LokMarg 2nd January 2023

China’s new Foreign Minister Qin Gang, in an op-ed piece for US-based magazine, The National Interest, has indicated that Beijing seeks to improve ties with New Delhi.

Days before replacing Wang Yi, Qin in an article titled “How China Sees the World”, referred to India-China border issues and said, “both sides are willing to ease the situation and jointly protect peace along their borders.”

The Galwan Valley and Pangong Lake in the west of the LAC, have hosted flashpoints in recent years. In the east in Tawang, the site of the latest scuffle, there are discussions about Buddhist holy sites whose control can have implications for China’s authority over Tibet and its next spiritual leader according to a report in Newsweek.

Recently, India and China held the 17th Round of Corps Commander Level Meeting at the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point on the Chinese side on December 20 and agreed to maintain security and stability on the ground in the Western Sector.

“In the interim, the two sides agreed to maintain the security and stability on the ground in the Western Sector,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

The MEA statement said the two sides agreed to stay in close contact, maintain dialogue through military and diplomatic channels and work out a mutually acceptable resolution of the remaining issues at the earliest.

Qin, meanwhile also blamed the US for challenging the status quo on Taiwan, and Japan for altering the status quo in the South China Sea.

“China’s development means a stronger force for peace, not a growing power poised to ‘break the status quo’, as some call it. The tension across the Taiwan Strait was not created by the Chinese mainland breaking the status quo, but by ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists and external forces continually challenging the status quo of ‘one China’,” Qin wrote.

“In the case of the East China Sea, it was Japan who attempted to ‘nationalize’ Diaoyu Dao ten years ago, altering the “status quo” between China and Japan by agreeing to put aside differences. In the South China Sea, the status quo is that regional countries are consulting on a code of conduct that will lead to meaningful and effective rules for the region,” he wrote.

Earlier, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a phone call with Qin, discussed the Washington-Beijing ties and keeping the lines of communication open.

Taking to Twitter, Blinken said, “Spoke by phone this morning with incoming People’s Republic of China Foreign Minister Qin Gang as he departs Washington for his new role. We discussed the US-PRC relationship and maintaining open lines of communication.”

Qin, who was China’s ambassador to the United States, was appointed as the country’s new foreign minister on Friday.

This decision was made by the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, Global Times reported.

Qin, 56, replaced Wang, who is now a Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and State Councillor, the report added.

On Thursday, the Chinese ambassador had warned Washington that it could face “military conflict” with Beijing over the future status of Taiwan.

“If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict,” Qin told US-based publication NPR in his first one-on-one interview since assuming his post in Washington, last July.

Qin, who arrived in Washington last year at a time of bipartisan discontent with China, told NPR that any idea of “changing China” was always “an illusion”. (ANI)

Top Epidemiologist Sounds Alarm Bells On Covid Spike In China

By LokMarg 20th December 2022

After the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, China is experiencing a massive surge in coronavirus cases. Hospitals are completely overwhelmed in China, reported Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist.

The epidemiologist estimates that more than 60 percent of China and 10 percent of Earth’s population are likely to be infected over the next 90 days with deaths likely in the millions.
One of Beijing’s designated crematoria for Covid-19 patients has been flooded with dead bodies in recent days as the virus sweeps through the Chinese capital, offering an early hint at the human cost of the country’s abrupt loosening of pandemic restrictions, reported Wall Street Journal (WSJ)

According to Feigl-Ding, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) goal is “let whoever needs to be infected, infected, let whoever needs to die, die. Early infections, early deaths, early peak, early resumption of production.”

China has reported no Covid deaths in Beijing since the authorities announced four deaths between November 19 and 23. The information office for China’s cabinet, the State Council, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment sent late on Friday.

Beijing Dongjiao Crematory, on the eastern edge of the Chinese capital, has experienced a jump in requests for cremation and other funerary services, according to people who work at the compound, reported WSJ.

“Since the Covid reopening, we’ve been overloaded with work,” said a woman who answered the phone at the crematorium on Friday, adding, “Right now, it’s 24 hours a day. We can’t keep up.”

The woman said Dongjiao Crematory, which is operated by Beijing municipality and which the National Health Commission has designated to handle Covid-positive cases, was receiving so many bodies that it was conducting cremations in the predawn hours and in the middle of the night. “There’s no other way,” she said.

She estimated that there were roughly 200 bodies arriving each day at the crematorium, from 30 or 40 bodies on a typical day. The increased workload has taxed the crematorium staff, many of whom have become infected with the fast-spreading virus in recent days, she said.

Men who work at the compound, which in addition to a funeral hall includes a small complex of shops selling burial attire, flowers, caskets, urns, and other funerary items, said the number of corpses had risen markedly in recent days, though none would offer an estimate of the magnitude of the increase, reported WSJ.

Doubling time in China may not be days anymore. Doubling time now possibly “hours,” says some experts — let that sink in. R is hard to calculate if doubling is less than 1 day because it’s hard to PCR test that fast. The point is China & the world is in deep trouble, said Feigl-Ding.

Moreover, the deaths in mainland China are being hugely underreported. Through a survey of hospitals, funeral parlors, and related funeral industry chains in Beijing–there is a recent explosion in funeral services caused by the sharp increase in deaths.

According to the epidemiologist, cremation in Beijing is nonstop. Morgues are overloaded. Refrigerated containers are needed. 24/7 funerals. 2000 bodies backlogged for cremations. Sound familiar? It is spring 2020 all over again– but this time for China, emulating a more Western-mass infection approach.

People rushed to a pharmaceutical factory to buy ibuprofen because it is completely sold out elsewhere.

One said that, typically, all the day’s corpses would be cremated by midday. But the recent increase in the number of bodies has meant that cremations are now taking place long after nightfall.

In a series of abrupt moves this month, China dismantled much of the lockdown, testing, and quarantine regimes that underpinned its ‘Zero Covid’ approach for the past three years to suppress even small outbreaks of the virus.

Because of the lifting of testing requirements, the scale of China’s coronavirus surge has been hard to measure. Daily national case counts have steadily fallen as fewer people test themselves at public facilities, and health authorities earlier this week stopped releasing daily tallies of asymptomatic cases for the first time since the pandemic began.

Earlier this month, the Beijing Emergency Medical Centre urged only critically ill patients to call for ambulances, saying that emergency requests had jumped to 30,000 a day from an average of about 5,000, straining the capacity of paramedics to respond, reported WSJ.

According to National Health Commission regulations, corpses diagnosed as Covid-positive or suspected of being Covid-positive must be cremated immediately in specially designated furnaces, with no dressing of bodies or memorial services.

But many of China’s 1.4 billion people remain vulnerable to the virus because of limited exposure, low vaccination rates and poor investment in emergency care. (ANI)

China Censors Reference To Protest Code Words, Demonstration Hotspots Like Xinjiang

By LokMarg 28th November 2022

Chinese censors are scrambling to scrub references to protest code words and demonstration hotspots like Xinjiang.

Chinese internet users and government censors are engaged in a cat-and-mouse game to control the narrative around the country’s anti- “zero COVID” protests, reported Al Jazeera.
By Monday, Chinese social media appeared to have scrubbed searches for protest hotspots like “Xinjiang” and “Beijing”, while posts with oblique phrases like “I saw it” – a reference to an internet user having seen a recently deleted post – were also censored.

“As the fissure widens between the lie and the truth, even what cannot be said or seen becomes immensely symbolic,” David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project, told Al Jazeera.

“It can punch right through the veneer. And this is what we’ve seen over the past few days. The words, ‘I saw it, marking the void in the wake of a deleted protest video, can become powerful. Or students protesting on campus can hold up blank sheets of paper and they speak volumes.”

Many posts documenting the protests have already jumped China’s Great Firewall with the help of virtual private networks (VPNs) and have been shared on popular Western platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, which are officially banned in China.

“Beijing appears to be using the same tactics of censoring Chinese social media based on keywords – however, the amount of information that is getting out past the Great Firewall is definitely noteworthy,” Stevie Zhang, the associate editor of First Draft News, a non-profit dedicated to combating online misinformation, told Al Jazeera.

Zhang said internet users were evading censors by taking screenshots of posts before they were deleted and then sharing them with each other or posting them on Western social media. In some cases, posts have made it full circle back to China via Twitter screenshots.

Other users have taken to using seemingly unrelated and uncensored phrases to express their feelings, Zhang said, using “repetitions of ‘good’, or ‘well done’, or ‘win’ as a sort of sarcastic or passive-aggressive way of highlighting the inability for Chinese people to voice any form of criticism.”

The use of euphemisms is a common tactic of Chinese netizens to evade government censors, with abbreviations and homonyms often standing in for banned words. During China’s “Me Too” movement in 2018, many internet users posted under the hashtag “rice bunny” – which when said aloud in Mandarin Chinese sounds like “me too” – after the original hashtag was banned, reported Al Jazeera.

This time, China’s censors have also taken note of how much information is circulating on Western platforms such as Twitter.

Protests began in Urumqi, the capital of the far-western Xinjiang region, on Friday following the deaths of 10 people in an apartment block fire before spreading over the weekend to major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Chengdu.

Meanwhile, China’s western Xinjiang region eased some COVID-19 restrictions in its capital Urumqi on Monday, after a deadly fire in the city blamed on virus controls sparked protests across the country.

People in the city of four million, some of whom have been confined to their homes for weeks on end, can travel around on buses to run errands within their home districts starting Tuesday, officials said at a press conference Monday, reported Arab News.

The protests in Urumqi erupted after footage posted on social media showed fire trucks spraying water from too far away to reach the apartment building, with internet users claiming authorities could not get closer due to pandemic barricades and cars that had been abandoned by people who had been quarantined.

Videos and photographs of the protests quickly circulated on Chinese social media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, where they received tens of thousands of views before being deleted by government censors, reported Al Jazeera.

The acts of defiance shared online included scenes of people tearing down barricades, calling for the resignation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and holding up blank white pieces of paper as a symbol of protest.

China’s COVID protests come as the country is grappling with its most cases yet, promoting a new wave of lockdowns and restrictions on freedom of movement in big cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Guangzhou. Health authorities reported 40,347 new infections for Sunday, a fifth straight daily record.

Residents of Urumqi, where the recent protests began, have lived under harsh restrictions since August 10, in what is believed to be China’s longest continuous lockdown.

In late March and early April, a five-day “circuit breaker” lockdown in Shanghai was extended to two months, prompting food shortages and rare displays of public discontent.

China is the last country in the world sticking to a “zero-COVID” policy aimed at stamping out flare-ups of the virus at almost any cost. The strategy, which relies on lockdowns, border controls, and mass testing, has kept cases and deaths low compared with elsewhere but inflicted serious economic and social costs. (ANI)

Read More: http://13.232.95.176/

Covid In China: Protests Erupt In Jinping’s Alma Mater Tsinghua Univ

By LokMarg 27th November 2022

In defiance of China’s zero-Covid policy, hundreds of students on Sunday protested at President Xi Jinping’s alma mater, Tsinghua University here.

“Protests have spread to Xi Jinping’s alma mater Tsinghua, where a student said: If we don’t speak up due to the fear of the [dark regime], I think our people will be disappointed. As a Tsinghua student, I’d regret this for the rest of my life. The crowd called out don’t be scared!” tweeted Linda Lew, a Bloomberg reporter.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Shanghai, where people were being bundled into police cars. Students have also demonstrated at universities in Beijing and Nanjing.

Hundreds of students from Beijing’s Tsinghua University rallied at their campus on Sunday.

“Tsinghua university right now the city after city seeing protests small and large against Zero Covid policies and against excesses of Communist Party rule – every hour there seems to be a new one,” tweeted Emily Feng, she posted a clip from Weibo, a China microblogging website.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered in downtown Shanghai on Sunday afternoon to hold what appeared to be a silent protest near where a demonstration against China’s zero-Covid policy erupted in the early hours.

Demonstrators holding blank pieces of paper and white flowers stood silently at several intersections, the person said under condition of anonymity, before police officers eventually moved to clear the blocked roads.

Protests in China against heavy COVID-19 curbs spread to Shanghai on Sunday, with demonstrators also gathering at one of Beijing’s most prestigious universities after a deadly fire in the country’s far west sparked widespread anger, reported Reuters.

The latest unrest follows a protest in the remote north-west city of Urumqi, where lockdown rules were blamed after 10 people died in a tower block fire.

China is battling a surge in infections that has prompted lockdowns and other restrictions in cities across the country as Beijing adheres to a zero-Covid-19 policy even as much of the world tries to coexist with the coronavirus.

A fire on Thursday that killed 10 people in a high-rise building in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region, has sparked widespread public anger. Many Internet users surmised that residents could not escape in time because the building was partially locked down, which city officials denied.

In Shanghai, China’s most populous city and financial hub, residents gathered on Saturday night at the city’s Wulumuqi Road – which borrows its name from Urumqi – for a vigil that turned into a protest in the early hours of Sunday.

“Lift lockdown for Urumqi, lift lockdown for Xinjiang, lift lockdown for all of China!” the crowds in Shanghai shouted, according to a video circulated on social media.

At one point a large group began shouting, “Down with the Chinese Communist Party, down with Xi Jinping, free Urumqi!”, according to witnesses and videos, in a rare public protest against the Chinese leadership.

China defends President Xi Jinping’s signature zero-Covid-19 policy as life-saving and necessary to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system.

Officials have vowed to continue with it despite the growing public pushback and its mounting toll on the world’s second-biggest economy.

Videos from Shanghai widely shared on Chinese social media showed crowds facing dozens of police and calling out chants including: “Serve the people”, “We don’t want health codes” and “We want freedom,” reported The Straits Times.

Some social media users posted screenshots of street signs for Wulumuqi Road, both to evade censors and show support for protesters in Shanghai. Others shared comments or posts calling for all of “you brave young people” to be careful. Many included advice on what to do if police came or started arresting people during a protest or vigil.

Shanghai’s 25 million people were put under lockdown for two months earlier this year, an ordeal that provoked anger and protest.

Chinese authorities have since then sought to be more targeted in their Covid-19 curbs.

But that effort has been challenged by a surge in infections as China faces its first winter with the highly transmissible Omicron variant. (ANI)

Read More: http://13.232.95.176/

Protesters Chant Step Down CCP In Shanghai Against China’s Zero-Covid Policy

By LokMarg 27th November 2022

Protests erupted in China’s Shanghai on Saturday night against Beijing’s strict COVID-19 policy. Several videos have emerged on social media which showcased people chanting slogans against restrictions imposed by the Chinese government to curb the spread of Covid.

The protests erupted after 10 people died and nine others were injured in an apartment fire in Urumqi. Saturday saw protests erupt in Shanghai with people calling to relax COVID-19 curbs across the country. Expressing anger over the stringent Covid policy, Chinese citizens took to the streets in large numbers.
According to a video posted by DW News East Asia Correspondent William Yang on Twitter, people at ‘Urumqi Road’ held a protest against Xi Jinping-led Chinese Communist Party (CCP), chanting slogans like “Step down the Communist Party” and ” the Communist Party, Step down. Xi Jinping, step down.”

In a series of tweets regarding the protests in Shanghai, William Yang said that countless people gathered on Urumqi Road and chanted slogans, “I don’t want PCR test, I want freedom.” In another tweet, William Yang said, people in ‘Urumqi Road’ also called for ending the lockdown in Xinjiang.

“Citizens chanting #Xinjiang, end lockdown, #Xinjiang, end lockdown,” Yang wrote on Twitter.

Continuing the thread, he said that a scuffle broke out between people and police at the site of a protest in Shanghai. In a tweet, William Yang said, “Police surrounded the last few dozens of protesters at the scene in Shanghai and some women were reportedly taken away.”

“Incredible footage from #China’s #Shanghai, where countless people gathered at a road called “#Urumqi road,” chanting the slogan “Step down, the Communist Party” very loudly,” William Yang wrote on Twitter. Notably, the Chinese government has been adhering to strict COVID-19 policy in order to curb the spread of the virus ever since the pandemic emerged in China. The restrictions imposed by the Chinese government include strict lockdowns, travel restrictions, and mass testing.

Meanwhile, Joyce Karam, senior US correspondent at The National, also posted a video on her Twitter handle in which people were seen protesting against COVID-19 restrictions in Wulumuqi Road. “Rare protests erupt in #China’s largest city over Covid restrictions & gov. rules. “We want freedom” the crowd chants in this video from Wulumuqi road tonight,” Karam tweeted.

While sharing the protest video on Twitter, Axial Vibe Studio Co-founder Vivian Wu wrote, “Scale of the protest tonight in Shanghai. Notice police didn’t do anything but stand calmly watching ppl protest and shout. It’s not benevolence. My guess: they need to ask for directives from the top authorities. Police might be stunned as nobody dares to do so for decades.”

Earlier on Friday, a fire in a residential high-rise in Urumqi, where many residents have been placed under lockdown, set off public anger and questions about China’s zero-Covid policy. Chang Che, a freelance writer covering Chinese technology and society and Amy Chang Chien covering news in mainland China and Taiwan, writing in The New York Post (NYT) said that the protest erupted after the fire killed 10 persons in the region, with residents calling for the lifting of lockdowns.

Chinese commenters on social media shared reports and footage of the blaze that killed 10 people and injured nine in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, demanding to know if Covid restrictions had hampered the rescue or prevented residents from escaping their apartments or the building. Late Friday, videos circulated widely on the Chinese internet showing throngs of residents in Urumqi marching to a government building and chanting “end lockdowns.” (ANI)

Read More: http://13.232.95.176/

India Issues Advisory For Students Planning To Study In China

By LokMarg 11th September 2022

India has issued a detailed advisory related to studying at Chinese medical schools as thousands of enrolled students continue to remain stuck at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 23,000 Indian students enrolled in various Chinese universities have been affected by the Chinese visa ban.
“Embassy of India in Beijing has been receiving several queries from prospective Indian students and their parents with respect to seeking admission for undergraduate clinical medicine programme in China,” the embassy said in a statement on September 8.

China in July said that the country has made progress on facilitating the return of Indian students and is working in tandem with relevant departments to see that the first batch of Indian students can come back to study in China at the earliest.

The Indian Embassy also shared the link to a study conducted by the National Board of Examination to highlight that only 6387 out of 40,417 students, who appeared in the FMG Examination from 2015 to 2021 have cleared it.

“The study shows that only 6387 out of 40,417 students, who appeared in FMG Examination from 2015 to 2021 have cleared it. Here, the pass percentage of Indian students who have studied clinical medicine programme in China in that period in these 45 universities was only 16 per cent,” it statement further added.

Indian students pursuing medicine from Chinese Universities are unable to return to China to attend classes due to COVID-19-induced restrictions.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting also stressed the need for expediting the process of return of Indian students to China to attend classes at an early date.

In order to facilitate the return of Indian students, Jaishankar met with Wang Yi on March 25.

Earlier in April, the Chinese side had expressed its willingness to consider facilitating the return of Indian students to China on a need-assessed basis, said the Indian Embassy in China. (ANI)

Challenges Loom For Xi Jinping Ahead Of 20th Party Congress

By LokMarg 9th September 2022

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is set to convene its 20th Party Congress next month in Beijing, the country’s top decision-making body announced last month.

During the Party Congress that is held every 5 years, Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to secure a third term in office as President while a new top leadership line-up will also be unveiled.
Ahead of the national congress, Xi Jinping is already calling for cadres in leading positions to remain loyal to the spirit of the party.

If reports are to be believed, the need for the maintaining spirit has arisen for growing discontent over Xi Jinping’s policies. Writing for InsideOver, Federico Giuliani contended that all is not smooth in China.

“The infighting within the party is going on and the fight between Xi Jinping, General Secretary, and the faction of Jiang Zemin, former CCP head; and another one is the fight between Xi and Li Keqiang, China’s Premier,” he argues.

Since the Chinese chairman assumed power, he has centralized power and made CCP and government less flexible. He has transformed it into a top-down institution led by a single dominant leader.

“The congress is an event held once every five years at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to set major policies and select top leaders – including the roughly 370-strong Central Committee and 25-member Politburo,” said Giuliani.

Even Xi’s call for persistence and his overarching goal to prevent social unrest and political doubts is intensely debated among China watchers. Experts believe that it may take longer for economic activity to fully recover from the impact of stringent lockdowns and the harsh Zero Covid-19 strategy.

Despite a rise in the party membership of the CCP, President Xi has expressed concern over the loyalty of party members towards him as he continues to bid for the third presidential term.

The party members often have two types of loyalty. The first includes loyalty to the party and the second to Xi himself. However, it is crucial to note that most government job positions in the country require the individual have a party membership.

Giuliani said the battle for the 20th Congress is not over. “While Xi’s securing of a third term is virtually guaranteed, the success of those he will seek to promote is less so i.e. he will not get up around him all the folks that he wants,” he concludes. (ANI)