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Kamis, 16 Juli 2020

Japan domestic tourism campaign under fire as COVID-19 cases spike in Tokyo - CNA

TOKYO: A Japan government campaign to kickstart domestic tourism after the coronavirus outbreak has come under fire, with officials in Tokyo and the countryside saying it is too soon to boost travel from the capital, hit by a spike in new cases.

A panel of experts was set to meet with Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura to discuss the multi-billion dollar Go To promotion on Thursday (Jul 16), a day after Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike publicly queried the campaign's timing and methods.

Scheduled to kick off Jul 22, the campaign will see travellers receive subsidies of as much as 50 per cent in an effort to boost tourism-reliant economies outside of Japan's major population areas.

READ: Japan traces new COVID-19 outbreak linked to Tokyo theatre

Nishimura said he wanted to hear the panel's opinions on containment measures, such as preventing large gatherings and ensuring ventilation in means of transport.

But opposition lawmakers and others have raised concerns that with infections in the capital Tokyo running at their highest level since the outbreak began – currently around 100 to 200 daily – city dwellers could spread the virus through regions that have been relatively lightly hit by COVID-19.

"I don't see why it can't be delayed a bit, or it could be limited to certain regions," said Ryuta Ibaragi, governor of Okayama in the west of the country, which has had just 29 infections out of 23,000 recorded across Japan.

READ: COVID-19: Japan medical workers warn pay reduction jeopardises patient care

Though new cases in the capital have stoked alarm, Japan has not seen the kind of explosive spread that has killed tens of thousands in other countries.

Tokyo itself raised the city's coronavirus alert to its highest level on Thursday.

"Based on the current situation with infections, I really want them to think again about the timing and method for implementing" the campaign, Governor Koike said. "I want to convey this to the national government."

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2020-07-16 02:49:56Z
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Rabu, 15 Juli 2020

Beijing's top Hong Kong office slams US sanctions as 'gangster logic and bullying' - CNA

HONG KONG: China's top representative office in Hong Kong condemned what it called gross interference by the United States in the Asian financial hub, labelling President Donald Trump's move to end the city's special status as "gangster logic and bullying".

In a strongly worded statement released late on Wednesday (Jul 15), the Hong Kong Liaison Office said the sanctions would not have a substantial impact on the special administrative region and rather damage the United States' own interests.

"Unreasonable meddling and shameless threats by the United States are typical gangster logic and bullying behaviour," the statement said.

"No external force can block China's determination and confidence to maintain national sovereignty and security for Hong Kong's long-term prosperity and stability."

The security law imposed by Beijing punishes what China broadly defines as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.

Critics of the law fear it will crush the wide-ranging freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997, while supporters say it will bring stability to the city after a year of sometimes violent anti-government protests.

READ: Hong Kong academics fear for freedom under new security law

The Chinese government said it had a sovereign duty and legitimate right to maintain national security in Hong Kong and end the "chaos" caused by often violent protests last year.

In response to the law, Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to end preferential economic treatment for Hong Kong.

China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday Beijing will impose retaliatory sanctions against US individuals and entities in response to a US law targeting banks which deal with Chinese officials who implement Hong Kong's security law.

The Hong Kong government in a statement late on Wednesday said it fully supported the central government in adopting countermeasures against the United States.

"It is hypocritical for the US to introduce measures to attack China by creating issues in (Hong Kong) under the pretext of human rights, democracy and autonomy out of its own political considerations."

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2020-07-16 02:28:43Z
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US President Donald Trump has not ruled out sanctions on Chinese officials, says National Security Council - CNA

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has not ruled out additional sanctions on top Chinese officials as a result of actions he took on Tuesday (Jul 14) to punish China for its handling of Hong Kong, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said on Wednesday.

The Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which Trump signed on Tuesday, allows him to impose sanctions and visa restrictions on Chinese officials and financial institutions involved in the imposition of China's new national security law in Hong Kong.

Bloomberg News reported that Trump had ruled out additional sanctions on top Chinese officials for now to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing.

But National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot noted Trump last week issued sanctions against Chinese Communist Party officials for their treatment of minority Uighur Muslims.

"In no way has he taken anything off the table with respect to further sanctions of party officials for actions in Hong Kong or on other issues. Any suggestion otherwise by anonymous sources is flat out wrong," Ullyot said.

READ: Trump says he is 'not interested' in trade talks with China

White House discussions are ongoing about potential targets for sanctions and no final decisions have been made, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Among names being pushed by some China hawks is Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, who has backed Beijing’s implementation of the security law, the source said.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the Trump administration was considering a sweeping ban on travel to the United States by members of the Chinese Communist Party, citing people familiar with the proposal.

READ: China vows retaliation against US over Hong Kong sanctions

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the legislation Trump signed and an executive order ending Hong Kong's special status under US law were justified.

"General Secretary Xi Jinping made a choice to violate the Chinese Communist Party’s promises to Hong Kong that were made in UN-registered treaty. He didn’t have to do that and he made that choice,” Pompeo told reporters. “We have to deal with China as it is, not as we wish it to be.“

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2020-07-16 00:56:15Z
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China vows payback as US scraps Hong Kong's special status - The Straits Times

China and the United States are locked in an ugly showdown after US President Donald Trump revoked Hong Kong's special status and legislated sanctions, bringing further uncertainty to the future of the financial centre still reeling from months of political unrest last year and the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Trump's latest moves were met with swift condemnation from Beijing, which vowed to retaliate and called the actions a "serious violation of international law" and "gross interference" in China's internal affairs.

"The US' attempts to obstruct the implementation of Hong Kong's national security law will never succeed," said a statement by China's Foreign Ministry yesterday.

"In order to safeguard its own legitimate interests, China will make the necessary response and impose sanctions on relevant US personnel and entities."

The US and other liberal democracies have criticised the new Hong Kong national security law that Beijing pushed through just before the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover by the British two weeks ago.

Under the law, anyone charged with subversion, secession, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces to undermine Hong Kong's national security faces up to life in prison.

Before the legislation came into force on July 1, the US already acted to end defence exports and sensitive technology to Hong Kong.

The new Hong Kong Autonomy Act signed into law by Mr Trump on Tuesday targets with sanctions those who implement the Hong Kong security law. It allows the authorities to seize the assets of offending Chinese officials and bar their entry to the US.

"This law gives my administration powerful new tools to hold responsible the individuals and the entities involved in extinguishing Hong Kong's freedom," said Mr Trump at a White House press conference.

"We've all watched what happened. Not a good situation. Their freedom has been taken away. Their rights have been taken away. And with it, goes Hong Kong, in my opinion, because it will no longer be able to compete with free markets."

He also signed an executive order taking away Hong Kong's special trading status with the US, saying Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China.

"No special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies."

The extradition deal with Hong Kong and training for its police also come to an end. Licence exceptions for exports to the city will be revoked and officials said it will now be treated like any other city in China.

Since 1992, the US has recognised Hong Kong as a semi-autonomous city with its own legal and economic systems independent of mainland China.

Hong Kong shares ended flat yesterday on news of the punitive moves, with the Hang Seng Index up by 3.69 points, or 0.01 per cent.

Washington has been hardening its stance towards Beijing in recent months over the coronavirus pandemic, Xinjiang, the South China Sea and Hong Kong.

On Tuesday, it issued its toughest position yet on the dispute over the regional waters, declaring China's claims over vast swathes of the sea "completely unlawful", while warning of sanctions.

Yesterday, foreign ministry spokesman Hua Chunying made light of US threats of sanctions, saying that China was not afraid. "If the US insists on making waves, then let the storms become more violent," she said.

Beijing has been fighting fires on several diplomatic fronts in the past week. On Tuesday, Britain decided to ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G network, drawing sharp rebuke from China, which has accused the United Kingdom of politicising business and technology.

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2020-07-15 21:00:00Z
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US to back nations whose South China Sea claims China violated - CNA

WASHINGTON: The United States will support countries that believe China has violated their territorial claims in the South China Sea, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday (Jul 15) but stressed doing so in multilateral and legal forums.

"We will then go use the tools that we have available and we will support countries all across the world who recognise that China has violated their legal territorial claims as well – or maritime claims as well," Pompeo told reporters. "We will go provide them the assistance we can, whether that’s in multilateral bodies, whether that's in ASEAN, whether that's through legal responses, we will use all the tools we can," he said, referring to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

On Monday, Pompeo said the United States would treat Beijing's pursuit of resources in the dispute-rife sea as illegal.

It was the latest forceful statement by President Donald Trump's administration to challenge China, which he has increasingly cast as an enemy ahead of November's presidential elections.

A day later, the top US diplomat for East Asia warned of possible sanctions against Chinese officials and companies involved in what Washington describes as coercion in the South China Sea.

READ: US calls China the new East India Company at sea

Earlier on Wednesday, China said it was not afraid of any sanctions the United States might impose on it over the situation in the South China Sea.

Beijing also accused Washington of stirring up trouble and destabilising the region.

China claims 90 per cent of the potentially energy-rich sea, but Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim parts of it.

Beijing has built bases on atolls in the region but says its intentions are peaceful.

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2020-07-15 15:51:07Z
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China warns UK: 'Dumping' Huawei will cost you - CNA

Business

China warned British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday that his decision to ban Huawei from the 5G network would cost Britain dearly in investment, casting the move as the result of politicised pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomes U.S. President Donald Trump at the NATO leaders summit in Watford, Britain December 4, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/Pool/File Photo

15 Jul 2020 02:20PM (Updated: 15 Jul 2020 11:30PM)

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LONDON/BEIJING: China warned British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday that his decision to ban Huawei from the 5G network would cost Britain dearly in investment, casting the move as the result of politicised pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hours after Johnson ordered Huawei equipment to be purged from the nascent 5G network by the end of 2027, Trump claimed credit for the decision and said that if countries wanted to do business with the United States they should block Huawei.

But China, whose US$15 trillion economy is five times the size of Britain's, warned the decision would hurt investment as Chinese companies had watched as London "dumped" the national telecoms champion.

"Now I would even say this is not only disappointing - this is disheartening," Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming told the Centre for European Reform, adding that Britain had "simply dumped this company".

"The way you are treating Huawei is being followed very closely by other Chinese businesses, and it will be very difficult for other businesses to have the confidence to have more investment," he said.

As Britain prepares to cast off from the European Union, fears over the security of Huawei have forced New York-born Johnson to take sides in the rivalry between the United States and China.

In Beijing, the foreign ministry cast Britain as "a relatively small place" that was becoming subservient of the United States.

"Does the UK want to maintain its independent status or be reduced to being a vassal of the United States, be the U.S.'s cats paw?" Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. "The safety of Chinese investment in the UK is being greatly threatened."

CHINESE MONEY

Britain has become increasingly reliant on Chinese imports. Some 9per cent of all goods imported into Britain in 2018 - worth 43 billion pounds (US$54 billion) - came from China, double the proportion from 15 years earlier.

But British companies have also invested increasingly in China. Between 2013 and 2018, they more than doubled their investment position in the world's No.2 economy to 16 billion pounds, according to official British data.

By contrast, Chinese investment in British companies stood at 1.8 billion pounds in 2018 - far below that of the United States, which is the biggest single foreign investor in Britain.

Trump identifies China as the United States' main geopolitical rival, and has accused the Communist Party-ruled state of taking advantage over trade and not telling the truth over the novel coronavirus outbreak, which he calls the "China plague".

Washington and its allies say Huawei technology could be used to spy for China. Huawei has denied this.

"We convinced many countries, many countries - I did this myself for the most part - not to use Huawei, because we think it's an unsafe security risk, it's a big security risk," Trump told reporters in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday.

"I talked many countries out of using it: if they want to do business with us, they can't use it. Just today, I believe that UK announced that they're not going to be using it."

Britain has said that its ban on Huawei is motivated by its own security concerns and by worries that supplies of Huawei gear could be interrupted by U.S. sanctions.

It denied that Trump alone was responsible for the Huawei ban. Asked about the comments, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: "Well, we all know Donald Trump, don't we."

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in London and Martin Pollard in Beijing; Editing by Michael Holden, Alex Richardson and Peter Graff)

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2020-07-15 13:18:45Z
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China hits out at UK Huawei ban, but some MPs warn it did not go far enough - South China Morning Post

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China hits out at UK Huawei ban, but some MPs warn it did not go far enough South China Morning Post
Trump on UK's Huawei ban: 'I did this myself' CNA
Trump on Britain's Huawei ban: 'I did this myself' The Straits Times
Britain can’t afford to come over all Sinophobic now – we’re in recession, in the middle of a pandemic The Independent
The real reason for Boris Johnson's 5G U-turn is down to his increasingly weak 80-seat majority The Independent
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2020-07-15 13:00:16Z
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Kamis, 16 Juli 2020

Rabu, 15 Juli 2020

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