BEIJING: The United States has ordered China to close its Houston consulate, Beijing said Wednesday (Jul 22), in what it called a "political provocation" that will further harm diplomatic relations.
"China urges the US to immediately withdraw its wrong decision, or China will definitely take a proper and necessary response," said foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, adding that they were told Tuesday that the consulate would have to close.
"It is a political provocation unilaterally launched by the US side, which seriously violates international law ... and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the US."
He added that China "strongly condemns" the "outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-US relations."
He said the consulate was operating normally but did not reply to questions about US media reports in Houston on Tuesday night that documents were being burned in a courtyard at the consulate.
"It appears to be open burning in a container within the courtyard of the Chinese consulate facility. It does not appear to be an unconfined fire but we have not been allowed access," Houston fire department chief Samuel Pena was quoted as saying by KTRK, an ABC television affiliate.
"We are standing by and monitoring."
Houston police told FOX 26 that staff there were burning documents because they are being evicted from the building on Friday afternoon.
The closure of the consulate was directed "in order to protect American intellectual property and American's private information," spokesperson for the State Department Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.
The Chinese Consulate in Houston was opened in 1979 - the first in the year the US and the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations, according to its website.
The website says the office covers eight southern US states - including Texas and Florida - and has nearly one million people in the area registered at the consulate.
There are five Chinese consulates in the US, as well as an embassy in Washington.
The development is another fissure in the increasingly fraught relations between the two countries. Tensions are mounting by the day, leading to a talk of a new Cold War.
US President Donald Trump's administration has increasingly gone global against China, pushing other nations to reject its strings-attached aid and telecom titan Huawei, and siding unreservedly with Beijing's rivals in the dispute-rife South China Sea.
Trump has made China a major campaign issue as he heads into the November election, but the relationship looks unlikely to change in more than tone if he loses to Joe Biden, who has accused the president of not being tough enough.
The Bill was approved by the US Congress to penalise banks doing business with Chinese officials who implement Beijing’s new national security law on Hong Kong.
The executive order is aimed at furthering punishing China for what he called its "oppressive actions" against Hong Kong.
It will end the preferential trade treatment Hong Kong has received for years - "no special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies," Trump told a news conference.
In addition, last week Washington formally declared Beijing's pursuit of territory and resources in South China Sea as illegal, explicitly backing the territorial claims of Southeast Asian countries against China's.
Washington has also infuriated Beijing by banning telecom giant Huawei and seeking the extradition from Canada of top company executive Meng Wanzhou.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the "entire world" to stand up to China on Tuesday during a visit to Britain.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Tuesday (July 21) said the coronavirus situation in America would worsen before improving and encouraged Americans to wear masks, breaking with his earlier optimism that the virus would disappear and his reluctance towards masks.
His shift in tone during his return to the White House briefing room podium after a long hiatus appeared to be an attempt to regain the political narrative, as coronavirus cases and deaths surge in America.
The reversal from his initial downplaying of the seriousness of the virus comes amid a spate of polls showing his Democrat opponent Joe Biden expanding his lead over Mr Trump into the double digits, less than four months to the November election.
Mr Trump said as he opened the briefing on Tuesday: “It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better. Something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is.”
He had tweeted that wearing masks was “patriotic” and posted a photo of himself wearing a mask on Monday after months of choosing not to wear one.
“We’re asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask,” he said at Tuesday’s briefing. “Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact.”
The briefing was relatively short, lasting around 30 minutes, and focused mostly on his administration’s response to the coronavirus, unlike some of his previous briefings which could last hours and included attacks on Democrats and media organisations.
He previously helmed those briefings almost daily in March, when the pandemic first spiked in America.
But he stopped doing so in April after a backlash to his suggestion that disinfectants could be injected into Covid-19 patients to treat them.
He may well see the briefings as a way to reach more voters and drum up support for himself, especially since the pandemic curtails attendance at in-person rallies.
On Monday, he told reporters in the Oval Office as he announced the return of the briefings: “I was doing them and we had a lot of people watching, record numbers watching in the history of cable television, and there’s never been anything like it.
“It’s a great way to get information out to the public as to where we are with the vaccines and the therapeutics,” he said.
“We had a good slot. A lot of people were watching.”
But one criticism he drew at the briefing was the absence of a clear national plan to combat the coronavirus.
“We are in the process of developing a strategy that’s going to be very, very powerful. We’ve developed them as we go along,” he said, without giving further details.
This could disadvantage him against Mr Biden, who voters rate higher in responding to the coronavirus and who is also trying to seize the narrative.
Hours before the Tuesday briefing, the former vice-president announced a US$775 billion (S$1.07 trillion) economic plan focusing on affordable caregiving, which he linked to America’s economic recovery.
In his speech broadcast online, he blasted Mr Trump’s approach, saying: “This man simply doesn’t understand. He can’t deal with our economic crisis without serving and saving and solving the public health crisis.
“For all his bluster about his expertise on the economy, he’s unable to explain how he’ll actually help the working families hit the hardest. You know, he’s quit on you, and he’s quit on this country,” said Mr Biden.
A Quinnipiac University poll on July 15 found that 57 per cent of Americans think Mr Biden would do a better job handling a crisis, compared to 38 per cent who say the same of Mr Trump.
The same poll showed that 62 per cent of voters think Mr Trump is hurting rather than helping efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Some of his mixed messages also continued on Tuesday, raising questions about whether the President can turn around his re-election bid and turn the tide against the coronavirus.
When answering a question from a reporter, he repeated his earlier messages that the virus will disappear.
He also did not wear a mask at the briefing, despite showing reporters he was carrying one and saying he had no problem with wearing it.
Georgetown University’s global health law professor Lawrence Gostin wrote on Twitter that Mr Trump’s sudden support for masks was too little, too late, as there had been “countless mixed messages”.
“We’ve failed in clear consistent health messages leaving Americans confused and bitterly divided,” he said.
WASHINGTON: Scientists have known for several months the new coronavirus can become suspended in microdroplets expelled by patients when they speak and breathe, but until now there was no proof that these tiny particles are infectious.
A new study by scientists at the University of Nebraska that was uploaded to a medical preprint site this week has shown for the first time that SARS-CoV-2 taken from microdroplets, defined as under five microns, can replicate in lab conditions.
This boosts the hypothesis that normal speaking and breathing, not just coughing and sneezing, are responsible for spreading COVID-19, and that infectious doses of the virus can travel distances far greater than the two meters urged by social distancing guidelines.
The results are still considered preliminary and have not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, which would lend more credibility to the methods devised by the scientists.
The paper was posted to the medrxiv.org website, where most cutting-edge research during the pandemic has first been made public.
The same team wrote a paper in March showing that the virus remains airborne in the rooms of hospitalised COVID-19 patients, and this study will soon be published in a journal, according to the lead author.
"It is actually fairly difficult" to collect the samples, Joshua Santarpia, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center told AFP.
The team used a device the size of a cell phone for the purpose, but "the concentrations are typically very low, your chances of recovering material are small".
The scientists took air samples from five rooms of bedridden patients, at a height of about 30cm over the foot of their beds.
The patients were talking, which produces microdroplets that become suspended in the air for several hours in what is referred to as an "aerosol", and some were coughing.
The team managed to collect microdroplets as small as one micron in diameter.
They then placed these samples into a culture to make them grow, finding that three of the 18 samples tested were able to replicate.
For Santarpia, this represents proof that microdroplets, which also travel much greater distances than big droplets, are capable of infecting people.
"It is replicated in cell culture and therefore infectious," he said.
Linsey Marr, a professor at Virginia Tech who is a leading expert on aerial transmission of viruses and wasn't involved in the study, said it was rare to obtain measurements of the amount of virus present in air.
"Based on what we know about other diseases and what we know so far about SARS-CoV-2, I think we can assume that if the virus is 'infectious in aerosols,' then we can become infected by breathing them in," she told AFP.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Tuesday (July 21) said the coronavirus situation in America would worsen before improving and encouraged Americans to wear masks, breaking with his earlier optimism that the virus would disappear and his reluctance towards masks.
His shift in tone during his return to the White House briefing room podium after a long hiatus appeared to be an attempt to regain the political narrative, as coronavirus cases and deaths surge in America.
The reversal from his initial downplaying of the seriousness of the virus comes amid a spate of polls showing his Democrat opponent Joe Biden expanding his lead over Mr Trump into the double digits, less than four months to the November election.
Mr Trump said as he opened the briefing on Tuesday: “It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better. Something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is.”
He had tweeted that wearing masks was “patriotic” and posted a photo of himself wearing a mask on Monday after months of choosing not to wear one.
“We’re asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask,” he said at Tuesday’s briefing. “Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact.”
The briefing was relatively short, lasting around 30 minutes, and focused mostly on his administration’s response to the coronavirus, unlike some of his previous briefings which could last hours and included attacks on Democrats and media organisations.
He previously helmed those briefings almost daily in March, when the pandemic first spiked in America.
But he stopped doing so in April after a backlash to his suggestion that disinfectants could be injected into Covid-19 patients to treat them.
He may well see the briefings as a way to reach more voters and drum up support for himself, especially since the pandemic curtails attendance at in-person rallies.
On Monday, he told reporters in the Oval Office as he announced the return of the briefings: “I was doing them and we had a lot of people watching, record numbers watching in the history of cable television, and there’s never been anything like it.
“It’s a great way to get information out to the public as to where we are with the vaccines and the therapeutics,” he said.
“We had a good slot. A lot of people were watching.”
But one criticism he drew at the briefing was the absence of a clear national plan to combat the coronavirus.
“We are in the process of developing a strategy that’s going to be very, very powerful. We’ve developed them as we go along,” he said, without giving further details.
This could disadvantage him against Mr Biden, who voters rate higher in responding to the coronavirus and who is also trying to seize the narrative.
Hours before the Tuesday briefing, the former vice-president announced a US$775 billion (S$1.07 trillion) economic plan focusing on affordable caregiving, which he linked to America’s economic recovery.
In his speech broadcast online, he blasted Mr Trump’s approach, saying: “This man simply doesn’t understand. He can’t deal with our economic crisis without serving and saving and solving the public health crisis.
“For all his bluster about his expertise on the economy, he’s unable to explain how he’ll actually help the working families hit the hardest. You know, he’s quit on you, and he’s quit on this country,” said Mr Biden.
A Quinnipiac University poll on July 15 found that 57 per cent of Americans think Mr Biden would do a better job handling a crisis, compared to 38 per cent who say the same of Mr Trump.
The same poll showed that 62 per cent of voters think Mr Trump is hurting rather than helping efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Some of his mixed messages also continued on Tuesday, raising questions about whether the President can turn around his re-election bid and turn the tide against the coronavirus.
When answering a question from a reporter, he repeated his earlier messages that the virus will disappear.
He also did not wear a mask at the briefing, despite showing reporters he was carrying one and saying he had no problem with wearing it.
Georgetown University’s global health law professor Lawrence Gostin wrote on Twitter that Mr Trump’s sudden support for masks was too little, too late, as there had been “countless mixed messages”.
“We’ve failed in clear consistent health messages leaving Americans confused and bitterly divided,” he said.
HONG KONG: On Jul 14, US President Donald Trump signed the “Hong Kong Autonomy Act” and issued an executive order on Hong Kong Normalisation.
It states that “Hong Kong is no longer sufficiently autonomous to justify differential treatment in relation to the People’s Republic of China”.
This decision was taken by the Trump administration after “the National People’s Congress of China announced its intention to unilaterally and arbitrarily impose national security legislation on Hong Kong”.
If there is no differential trade treatment for Hong Kong, the city will be treated by external countries such like the US as the same as other cities in China in many aspects, including passport control and trade status.
Perhaps the only differences that remain between Hong Kong and other Chinese cities are the free flow of money, information, people and an independent judicial system.
Although there is no obvious capital exodus from Hong Kong yet, the US sanctions can be quite detrimental.
In 2019, according to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, about 11.2 per cent of China’s exports were handled via Hong Kong. Imports and exports contributed 17.2 per cent of Hong Kong’s GDP, generating 376,600 jobs.
The total trade value between Hong Kong and the US was HK$517 billion (US$67 billion) with imports at HK$213 billion, domestic exports at HK$3.7 billion and re-exports, routed through Hong Kong, at HK$300.3 billion.
According to the President Trump’s Order, the US will revoke license exceptions for exports from Hong Kong, re-exports from Hong Kong, and transfers within Hong Kong of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations.
FILE PHOTO: A Star Ferry boat crosses Victoria Harbour in front of a skyline of buildings during sunset, as a meeting on national security legislation takes place in Hong Kong, China June 29, 2020. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
If there is no preferential treatment, these re-exports may no longer pass through Hong Kong. The impact to Hong Kong’s economy could be substantial, including specific sectors.
IMPACT TO THE FINANCIAL SECTOR
The Hong Kong Autonomy Act, targets the financial sector.
First is the identification of “persons” who are described as “materially contributing to, has materially contributed to, or attempts to materially contribute to the failure of the Government of China to meet its obligations under the Joint Declaration or the Basic Law”.
Second, the identification of “any foreign financial institution that knowingly conducts a significant transaction with a foreign person.”
The president can levy sanctions on these persons and foreign financial institutions.
Section 7(b) of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act states the potential sanctions such as prohibition from acting as a primary dealer in US debt, participating in foreign-exchange transactions that are subject to US jurisdiction, on the export of commodities or software to the financial institution, on any US person from investing in equity or debt of the financial institution.
It is obvious that foreign institutions would try to stay away from such foreign persons or otherwise as these institutions would be sanctioned by the US government. These financial institutions will not only suffer from sanctions in certain transactions but also suffer reputation loss.
If the US government sanctions a particular financial institution, its operation would definitely be seriously jeopardised.
According to global financial messaging service SWIFT, in May 2020, about 40 per cent of global payments were made in US dollars, 33 per cent in euros and only 1.79 per cent were in renminbi. The Hong Kong dollar accounted for only 1.41 per cent of global payments.
The US dollar is still the widest used currency in the world. Thus, any restrictions in foreign exchange transactions that are subject to the US jurisdiction and sanctions will undermine Hong Kong as an international financial centre in the region.
The US economy is also the biggest in the world, and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the NASDAQ are the two biggest stock markets globally with total market capitalisation of US$35 trillion.
Therefore, global financial institutions, which typically have shareholders from the US, cannot ignore American investors.
Hong Kong has been plunged into crisis over the past year, threatening its status as a reliable world-class business centre. (Photo: AFP/Anthony WALLACE)
For example, dealers in US debt or foreign exchange transactions are subject to the US jurisdiction. Financial institutions may still be able to deal with US debt in an alternative way or have foreign exchange transactions not subject to the US jurisdiction, but the scale of such opportunities would be limited.
STOCK MARKET BENEFITS FROM CHINESE COMPANIES
Also, if other countries take a leaf from the US’ book to issue similar sanctions, then these financial institutions will not be able to provide full-scale global operations to their customers.
Already, Australia, the UK and New Zealand have all announced a review of policies that regarded Hong Kong as separate from China. The UK, for instance, suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and extend its arms embargo with China to the island.
Will the stock market in Hong Kong collapse? It may not.
About 54 per cent of the weight of the Hang Seng Index stocks are mainland or mainland-related companies. As long as the economy of China performs well, international investors can still use Hong Kong to invest in these companies.
International investors can also invest directly in the Chinese markets through the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect but these are subject to a daily northbound quota for each market at 52 billion renminbi.
The utilisation of the north bound quotas is on average at a 40 per cent rate and it indicates that investors prefer to invest in mainland companies through Hong Kong instead of through the stock connect.
Financial services contributed to 19.8 per cent of GDP in 2018 and professional services such as accounting, legal and auditing, contributed another 1.4 per cent. Many of these activities are related to services for the listed companies and wealth management.
If President Trump sanctions the export of commodities or software to financial institutions, these companies may eventually not be able to receive the necessary information to perform some transactions.
Already, the disappearance of preferential treatment was seen even before the President’s Order.
In April, the Federal Communications Commission approved Alphabet Inc unit Google’s request to use part of a US-Asia undersea telecommunications cable. Google agreed to operate a portion of the Pacific Light Cable Network system between the US and Taiwan, but not Hong Kong as the US regulators had blocked its use.
This incident has revealed that even before the security law was passed, the US regulators were subjecting Hong Kong to the same wary treatment as China.
WILL INVESTORS STILL PAY PROPERTY MARKET PREMIUMS?
The Hong Kong property market has been relatively stable after the implementation of the national security law and Trump’s latest announcement.
As of Jul 17, the Centa-City Leading Index, which reflects Hong Kong's property price index, is at around 180.81 – which is 1.04 per cent higher than the previous week and 9.2 per cent lower than its historical high of 190 last July. The demand for housing is always strong in Hong Kong. Unless the core values of Hong Kong change, otherwise, the demand remains.
Commercial and residential property prices in Hong Kong have been fuelled by an influx of money from wealthy mainland Chinese investors and developers. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
As the differences between Hong Kong and Chinese cities converge, foreign investors may start thinking it better to invest directly in other mainland cities rather than paying a premium cost to keep their operations in Hong Kong.
Investors have been willing to incur premium charges for office rentals and residential costs in Hong Kong because the city offered access to China while also retaining core values that they would be more comfortable with.
With a new national security law that came into effect on Jun 30, investors may feel that some of these core values may have changed or even disappeared, bringing into question if they would still feel the need to pay a premium to be in Hong Kong.
If Hong Kong’s role as an international financial centre and re-export hub between China and the US diminishes, the island stands to lose many business opportunities. The demand for housing may drop and level of premium paid by users will reduce.
If Hong Kong is treated as just another mainland city, salaries and house prices would be equalised eventually. It all depends on how the Hong Kong Autonomy Act is implemented and if President Trump wants it to be a symbolic gesture or if he is going to push for more sanctions.
Hong Kong has long occupied a crucial intermediary role for China's economic development. That should now count for more if the rest of the world is going to reduce economic ties with Hong Kong.
Simon Lee is Senior Lecturer at the School of Accountancy and Co-Director of the International Business and Chinese Enterprise Programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School.
WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - US President Donald Trump, in a shift in rhetoric on facial coverings, encouraged Americans on Tuesday (July 21) to wear a mask if they cannot maintain social distance from people around them in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
In his first briefing focused on the pandemic in months, Trump told reporters at the White House that the virus will probably get worse before it gets better.
Trump has been reluctant to wear a mask himself in public.
He wore one for the first time in public during a recent visit to a military hospital but has otherwise eschewed putting one on in front of the press.
As cases rises in states around the country, including in politically important states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona, Trump is shifting his tone to try to get the number of cases under control.
"We're asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact, they'll have an effect and we need everything we can get," he said.
Trump said he was getting used to masks and would wear one himself in groups or when on an elevator.
"I will use it, gladly," he said.
"Anything that potentially can help... is a good thing."
The president also urged young Americans to avoid crowded bars where the virus could spread.
