The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in developing nations in Asia is relatively low when compared to those in other regions, but that is unlikely to be the good news optimists hope it is. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) conducted a data analysis suggesting the low figures are due to less testing—meaning there’s a danger the contagion could explode as cases go undetected.  
 
ADB consultants Trinh Long and Peter Morgan looked at the number of tests and infections in Asian nations, and then compared them to the income per capita in those nations. Their study showed a “strongly positive relationship” in which wealthier nations had more “aggressive testing programs,” while poorer nations did far less testing per capita, they said. 
 
“The prevalence of the virus in Asian emerging economies has been surprisingly subdued on the whole, so far,” Long and Morgan said in an analysis for the ADB Institute shared by email Friday. They added, “There are two possible interpretations—either people in lower-income economies have higher immunity, or those economies have less testing.” 
 
There is no evidence to suggest people’s income has something to do with their immunity to a virus. Many of the developing nations in the analysis also are in hot climates, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand. People have said COVID-19 could go away in hotter weather. The World Health Organization, however, says on its “myth busters” page this is not true.Medical staff members of a government-run medical college collect swabs from people to test for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a newly installed Walk-In Sample Kiosk in Ernakulam in the southern state of Kerala, India, April 6, 2020.“COVID-19 virus can be transmitted in areas with hot and humid climates,” the WHO said. “You can catch COVID-19, no matter how sunny or hot the weather is.” 
 
In the absence of testing, people have used other proxies to deduce if rates of infection or death linked to the virus may be higher than are reported. 
 
In the Indonesia capital of Jakarta, the number of funerals rose 40% in March, which the governor attributes to the virus, according to Reuters. The Economist magazine is compiling data that shows how many deaths various governments are reporting, compared with the number of deaths usually expected this time of year.  
 
There is more than one factor that might explain why test rates are so low in developing nations in Asia, according to the ADB Institute’s Long, a project consultant, and Morgan, a senior consulting economist. These include cost, expertise and facilities.  
 
“First, simply obtaining testing kits may be difficult due to their cost and competition with advanced countries for limited supplies,” they said. “Even if testing kits reach a country, the capacity to use them may be limited due to inadequacies in the health care system, a lack of laboratory facilities, or a relatively high share of the rural population, which is more difficult to reach. Country-level strategies may focus on testing only those with symptoms, rather than trying to sample the whole population.” 
 
Not testing those without symptoms, however, could affect a nation’s ability to control the pandemic, they say. 
 
Long and Morgan are calling on development agencies like theirs to aid nations to get test kits, provide medical care and buttress the economy from coronavirus impact. Without aid, they said, there is a “risk of rapid increases in infection rates in the future.” 
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Tons of covid-related medical supplies are arriving in Argentina from China. A second plane of masks, protective suits, and chemicals used for coronavirus tests purchased from Beijing arrived in Argentina Monday, with more supplies expected to follow.  Argentina is boosting its inventory to combat the virus as the country’s month long- lockdown comes to an end on Sunday. The imported supplies are flowing into Argentina just as the country’s Ministry of Productive Development issued a disposition to change the tariff codes, making it easier for supplies needed by medical professionals and the public to fight the virus to enter the country. Argentina is hoping by simplifying guidelines for importing certain products that its less likely to face shortages. Argentina has reported more than 2,900 coronavirus cases and 142 deaths linked to the disease.  
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China’s vice minister of public security, Sun Lijun, has been arrested for alleged “severe violations of party discipline and law,” the Communist Party’s top anti-graft body said late Sunday in what observers say is an indication of corruption.Analysts describe Sun as an “invisible hitman,” who had played a key role in top leader Xi Jinping’s past efforts to maintain social stability by rounding up dissidents including Falun Gong followers and rights lawyers during a 2015 crackdown.They add that his arrest, which follows the jailing of former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei earlier this year for bribery, is baffling, but indicates undercurrents in Xi’s power fight amid the global coronavirus pandemic. There has been rife speculation that Xi’s authority has been seriously challenged after China failed to swiftly contain the outbreak.Political purge“This isn’t a corruption probe. This is sending a chilling effect to anyone else inside the party, which allows Xi to control them with fear so that he can further consolidate his grip of power,” a rights lawyer told VOA on condition of anonymity. The lawyer likened Sun’s being purged to Mao Zedong-style infighting. Mao was founder of the People’s Republic of China and advocated strict Communist Party control over all aspects of life.The lawyer said he suspected that Sun was ousted because he was seen as “not loyal enough.”Another rights lawyer also said that, according to the ministry’s statement, Sun was accused of “being disrespectful” – an indication that he may be seen as disloyal to Xi.Late Sunday, China’s Ministry of Public Security released a statement, throwing support behind what it calls the “timely and correct” investigation into Sun as it showcases Xi’s pledges to root out corruption.The ministry said Sun “had long ignored the party’s political discipline and rules.”Officials did not elaborate on the alleged corruption.Instead, the ministry went to great lengths to explain how party members should pledge “absolute loyalty” to the core – a reference to Xi – and refrain from double-dealing as what they called a “two-faced man.”Sun, 51, led the ministry’s First Bureau, which manages the country’s army of state agents while handling domestic political security and Hong Kong’s security affairs.Prior to that, he served as the ministry’s director of the office of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan affairs and a deputy director of the 610 Office, which was in charge of suppressing Falun Gong practitioners.Sun was last seen in Wuhan by Xi’s side, helping to contain the coronavirus outbreak and keeping social order there. Wuhan was where the outbreak was first reported.Exiled tycoon Guo Wenqui said that Sun was never considered a protégé to Xi since Sun formerly worked under Meng Jianzhu – the former secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission before 2017.Shanghai GangFILE – Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, chats with former President Jiang Zemin during the closing ceremony for the 19th Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Oct. 24, 2017.Guo said both Sun and Meng belong to a group known informally as the Shanghai Gang, led by Xi’s political rival, former President Jiang Zemin. Jiang oversaw the return of Hong Kong from British rule and is credited with reforms that helped turn China into a global economic power.The exiled tycoon called Sun a “murderer,” saying Sun should be held responsible for the persecution and torture of detained dissidents at home and abroad over the years. Guo also blames Sun for the seizure of the tycoon’s assets.Guo also said Sun had stashed away assets worth of billions in his wife’s bank account in Australia, where Sun’s wife and 19-year-son currently live as citizens.Xi’s “scapegoat”Thailand-based Wang Xili is a Chinese political dissident in exile and says he does not think Sun’s arrest is part of a corruption probe or due to political infighting. Wang says he believes the party is trying to use Sun as a scapegoat to cover up past wrongdoings in persecuting rights lawyers. Wang also says Sun himself also deserves blame for what happened during the 2015 crackdown.“Sun Lijun was the commander-in-chief of the July 9 crackdown [against rights lawyers]. Many sources have revealed that all investigators [including state agents] had to report directly to Sun…Upon Sun’s arrest, [the authorities] will either doctor the documents or take whatever necessary actions before they seal up these documents for archiving and forbid anyone to read,” Wang said.The political dissident said his personal experience with China’s security apparatus shows its latest shake-up is a tactic used by the Communist Party to shift blame so that Sun’s bosses, including Xi, won’t be held accountable in the future for the persecution of lawyers.Sun’s arrest has sparked heated discussion on Twitter with some users calling his case a wake-up call to many of his party comrades, who will end up being sacrificed if they take the wrong side.On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging site, thousands of online comments, however, were censored except for those that mostly voiced support for Sun’s arrest. 
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Malaysia and Vietnam, militarily weaker than China, are expected to protest through diplomatic channels over a Chinese survey ship fleet that entered disputed waters this month, inviting a long but nonviolent standoff.   Both Southeast Asian countries are monitoring movement of the Chinese Haiyang Dizhi 8 fleet, which multiple news reports say passed through disputed tracts of the South China Sea last week. The same vessel spent four months in 2019 in an oil-rich tract of the sea claimed by Vietnam and blocked Vietnamese crews from exploring for oil underwater.   This time both states will probably protest diplomatically to China but do little more, analysts believe. They lack China’s overall military might. Malaysia’s prime minister, in office for less than two months, also has little foreign policy experience.  Against that muted response, China could keep its survey fleet in disputed waters and stymie the energy drilling efforts of Malaysia and Vietnam, experts believe.   “It’s just the status quo,” said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “China is doing its survey work and Malaysia’s searching for oil, and occasionally they have harassment and close calls —  diplomatic pressure behind the scenes – and then at some point weather changes or what not and China, if Malaysia doesn’t cave in, takes the vessel and brings it back,” Thayer said.   This sort of friction surfaces regularly in the broader South China Sea dispute. China, Malaysia, Vietnam and three other governments claim all or part of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway. They prize it for fisheries, shipping lanes, oil and natural gas. China has grown more powerful than the other claimants over the past 10 years by landfilling tiny islets for military installations. Claimant states have made little headway diplomatically in settling disputes. The U.S. Navy periodically passes ships through the South China Sea as a warning to Beijing. New PM in Malaysia Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, a former interior minister appointed in March, will probably take a low-key approach to Chinese presence in the sea, analysts say. His predecessor Mahathir Mohamad had publicly questioned the basis for China’s claims and warned against use of any warships. “This new prime minister is no Mahathir,” said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. “He is not well known for taking a harsh diplomatic or political stand.”In this photo released by Malaysia’s Department of Information, the country’s new Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin poses for pictures on his first day at the prime minister’s office in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Monday, March 2, 2020.Expect instead low-key negotiations between Malaysia and China, which in turn will move its vessels “peacefully but deliberately” in the disputed waters, Oh said. China resents Malaysia for filing documentation in December to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf about plans to extend its rights in the South China Sea beyond 370 kilometers from its baselines, Thayer said. China claims about 90% of the sea and cites historical usage records as support.   Malaysia began in October looking for oil and gas just outside those 370 kilometers. A British company-managed contract drillship West Capella became the “heart of the standoff” that has also attracted Chinese coast guard vessels, the U.S. think tank-operated Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says on its website.   The survey ship came last week with about 10 escort boats and might return with 20 or 30 –an unprecedented show of force by China toward Malaysia – said a scholar doing research for the Malaysian government.  The vessel was sailing near China’s mainland east of Hong Kong as of late Sunday, according to ship tracking website Marine Traffic.   Vietnam learned from 2019 In July last year, the same Chinese energy survey ship began patrolling near Vanguard Bank 352 kilometers off the coast of southeastern Vietnam. Vietnam operates an undersea energy exploration platform near Vanguard Bank. The vessel left in October.   Vietnamese and Chinese boats rammed one another in 2014 when China allowed an oil rig into disputed waters. But when the survey vessel showed last year, China just kept Vietnam away from its oil drilling site and the standoff came down to “who blinks first”, Thayer said.   Vietnam will probably protest again this time and avoid use of force, scholars say. In that case, Haiyang Dizhi 8’s fleet could spend two to three months in disputed waters this year by using landfilled islands for resupply, said Nguyen Thanh Trung, Center for International Studies director at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam hopes eventually for backup from other Southeast Asian states, he said.   “This is like the annual,” Nguyen said. “It seems to me this is the second time the survey ship is back to the South China Sea. If the Southeast Asian countries do not collaborate right now, maybe next year the survey ship will be back again and maybe they will choose another area of the South China Sea for the survey.” 
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A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer who was released two weeks ago after spending 4 ½  years in prison for subversion has been prohibited from reuniting with his family for the second time, after a 14-day quarantine period amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Wang Quanzhang’s wife and rights groups fear the authorities are using the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to continue holding him indefinitely under de facto house arrest, as has happened to many Chinese right activists who completed their prison terms.Wang, a lawyer who had defended political activists and members of the banned Falun Gong sect, was released April 4 but was barred from returning home by the authorities, who took him to his hometown, Jinan, in the eastern province of Shandong, 400 kilometers south of Beijing, for compulsory quarantine.The authorities told him upon his release that he would be freed after 14 days of quarantine. However, on Sunday, the day he should be free to go home, Wang was still barred from returning to Beijing, where his wife and 7-year-old son live, his wife, Li Wenzu, said.She said Wang told her by phone Saturday that he was unable to come home because he had “just come out and needed to get used to [everything].”  She questioned whether he was speaking of his free will.“Did this really come from him?” she asked, “I am shocked, they said he’d be freed after 14 days but now his freedom of communications and personal freedom continue to be limited.”FILE – Li Wenzu, wife of prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang wears a sweater with her husband’s portrait printed with the words “Release Quanzhang” after Wang’s sentencing, at her house in Beijing, Jan. 28, 2019.Li said since his release, her husband has been living under surveillance and was only able to call her under the supervision of police, who controlled the content and length of their conversations.  She said Wang told her that outspoken online postings she had written that were critical of authorities “were causing him trouble” and told her to delete them.“This is not the Wang Quanzhang I knew,” she said. “His courage and strength appeared to have been taken away by some supernatural power … The pain is like a knife stabbing into my bleeding heart.”Chinese rights activists are often released from prison into de facto house arrest or enforced restriction to their villages, where they are obliged to remain for years, leading New York University School of Law China expert Jerome Cohen to dub the practice “non-release release.”Rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, who was officially released from jail in February 2019, was taken by security police to his home village in rural Henan province, where he has remained under 24-hour police surveillance since.Rights groups Sunday condemned Wang’s prolonged, extralegal detention.Human Rights Watch China researcher Yaqiu Wang said the authorities’ treatment of the lawyer is “a complete travesty of justice” and “is part of the authorities’ most recent scheme of using the coronavirus as a pretext to restrict the freedom of human rights activists, lawyers and independent journalists.”“The Chinese government seems determined to silence Wang indefinitely, through first sham prosecutions and now this completely bogus reason for him to be ‘quarantined.’ Who knows what reasons authorities will come up with after the pandemic is passed to continue to restrict Wang’s movement and freedom of speech,” she said.William Nee, a China researcher at Amnesty International said Wang’s “continued non-freedom is appalling, but not at all surprising.”“The suppression of [the rights lawyer] community, combined with the Communist Party’s systematic use of incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment, harassment of family members, show trials, and post-release surveillance has given the international community a clear warning of what to expect under China’s understanding of ‘rule by law,’” he said.Francine Chan, executive director of Hong Kong’s China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, said the authorities’ treatment of Wang is just “a manifestation of the continued suppression of human rights lawyers” since the notorious 2015 crackdown on lawyers and activists that Wang was swept up in.Detained in August 2015, Wang was sentenced to jail in January 2019 on the blanket charge of “subversion of state power” after 3 ½ years of incommunicado detention where he was at risk of torture.Wang was one of more than 300 lawyers and activists detained in a wave of crackdown on rights lawyers which started in July 2015. He was the last lawyer of the group to be convicted. 
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Australia is demanding transparency from China in a proposed international investigation into the origins and spread of COVID-19.Chinese authorities have been under pressure over their handling of the coronavirus outbreak.  U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that China should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the pandemic.Beijing has dismissed this criticism and has insisted it has been open about the contagion and did take responsible steps to warn the world about the dangers of COVID-19.  The virus is thought to have originated at an animal market in Wuhan.However, Australia has now joined calls for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and how it spread around the world with such devastating speed.Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne has told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that China’s actions should be thoroughly investigated.“The key to going forward in the context of these issues is transparency, transparency from China most certainly, transparency from all of the key countries across the world who will be part of any review that takes place,” said Payne. “I think it is fundamental that we identify, we determine an independent review mechanism to examine the development of this epidemic, its development into a pandemic, the crisis that is occurring internationally.”The government in Canberra is adamant that any global review should not be undertaken by the World Health Organization.Australian officials have said some of its response to the coronavirus outbreak “was not helpful.”Australia went against WHO’s advice in early February when it banned travelers arriving from mainland China.  Canberra later closed Australia’s borders and imposed strict lockdown measures.  Health Minister Greg Hunt said Australia was winning in its campaign against COVID-19 but the battle was far from over.WHO has called for countries to work together to fight the pandemic.There are now more than 6,600 cases of the new coronavirus in Australia and 70 people have died from the virus. 
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Experts fear North Korea could be using its tough anti-virus measures to gain tighter centralized control over its people by prioritizing regime stability over public health.“What I’m seeing is that there seems to be a premium placed on population control, regime-strengthening stability, and not the public health of the population,” said W. Courtland Robinson, a professor focusing on North Korea’s public health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.North Korea has been taking tough measures to fend off the virus, even as it says the country has no cases of COVID-19. The highly contagious virus has spread rapidly from Wuhan, China, where the first cases emerged, to infect more than 2.3 million and kill nearly 160,000 people worldwide as of Saturday evening, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.Pyongyang FILE – People wear face masks amid the concern over the spread of the coronavirus in Pyongyang, North Korea, April, 1, 2020.Pyongyang apparently issued its strict anti-virus measures with notice of penalties for violation rather than as advisory guidelines issued for people to follow voluntarily to reduce health risks.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in February that A nurse explains details about COVID 19 and ways to prevent contracting it at the Phyongchon District People’s Hospital, April 1, 2020, in Pyongyang, North Korea.He said many North Koreans would not report the flu-like symptoms of COVID-19 for fear of being “rounded up and isolated and possibly detained in prison in ways that are not conducive to their health.”Experts said North Korea could use COVID-19 as an excuse to try reining in “jangmadang,” the unofficial markets stocking a wide range of goods, such as food, clothing and other household items. Such a move would prevent commercial activities outside state-controlled channels.“One of the things they may also be trying to do is to reinstitute some centralized control over the population that the markets have really taken away from the regime,” Gause said.North Koreans became increasingly reliant on the markets that emerged in the 1990s amid a famine that left an estimated 2 million dead. People became more dependent on the markets in 2019 after the regime slashed state-distributed rations.Gause said any restrictions on the markets would help the regime prevent people from gathering and sharing information in the marketplaces.At the same time, the epidemic provides the regime a justification to impose tighter control over the markets as it resorts to self-sufficiency after failing to obtain sanctions relief from the U.S, he said.In January, Kim announced that the country would focus on self-sufficiency.’Better narrative’“This virus could be used as an explanation of why they were cutting themselves off from the world,” Gause said. “It’s a better narrative [for the regime] to say, ‘We’re protecting you from this deadly virus’ than ‘We’re turning our back economically on the world because our supreme leader [Kim] was unable to get a deal with the United States.’ ”Gause said, however, controlling the markets would be temporary as Kim’s vision of the economy in the future does not involve centralized regulation.William Brown, a former CIA analyst and an expert on North Korea’s economy, said North Korea’s current desire to control the markets may reflect the economic impact it feels from closing the border with China, its primary trading partner.“The North Korean government may try to stop the markets because [it] might be afraid of soaring prices, price inflation,” Brown said. “The North Korean government tends to stop this kind of price jump by putting a price cap on it. But the price cap destroys the market.”After shutting the Chinese border, a move that blocked what is normally 90% of North Korea’s trade, imports from China fell to $198 million. North Korea’s exports to China dropped 75% to $10 million, Brown wrote in an article on 38 North, a website devoted to analyzing North Korea.The figures “do not include Chinese pipeline deliveries of crude oil, which are assessed to be about 50,000 tons a month, worth $10 million to $20 million at current prices,” according to the article.Drop in consumer goods“What’s happened in January and February is a drop in [North Korea’s] imports of consumer goods,” Brown said. “That has more direct impact on the population.”Fewer imports of Chinese soybeans, for example, mean North Korea could experience supply shortages and price increases.Restricting or closing the markets could possibly lead to “pockets of starvation,” Brown said.“If they destroy the markets, then we go back to the scenario like the ‘90s, where if there’s a food shortage, there is no mechanism for moving the food around,” Brown said. “And then you could have pockets of starvation, not whole-scale famine but pockets of starvation.”
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Hong Kong police Saturday arrested 15 prominent democracy activists on charges of illegal assembly in the biggest crackdown on the semiautonomous city’s pro-democracy movement since mass, sometimes violent anti-government protests rocked the former British colony in June.   
 
The move came just hours after China’s top representative office in the semiautonomous city declared it is not bound by restrictions in Hong Kong’s constitution, the Basic Law, that bar Chinese government from interfering in local affairs. Earlier this week, Chinese officials urged Hong Kong to enact national security legislation, amid accusations of Chinese overreach into the city’s legislative council and judiciary.
 
Police arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai, the 81-year-old founder of Democratic Party and senior barrister Martin Lee, lawyer Albert Ho, barrister Margaret Ng, labor rights activist Lee Cheuk-yan, former legislators Cyd Ho and Leung Kwok-hung as well as Figo Chan, the vice-convener of the group Civil Human Rights Front, which has organized several mass protests approved by police last year.
 
The 15 arrested allegedly organized and took part in unlawful assemblies, and police “do not rule out that more will be arrested,” superintendent Lam Wing-Ho warned.  They were accused of joining three unapproved protests on August 18, October 1 and October 20 last year, local media reported.
 
Hong Kong authorities have arrested more than 7,800 people for involvement in the anti-government protests, including many on rioting charges that can carry jail terms of up to 10 years.  
 
Pro-democracy lawmakers say the arrests are an attempt to silence them ahead of the legislative council election in September, which makes the authorities nervous as they may claim a majority in the same way that they won a landslide victory in district council elections last November.
Pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo said, “Beijing now calls itself above the Basic Law and is choreographing legal and judicial means, however twisted, to try to terrorize Hong Kong opposition.”She said Beijing’s promise in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration of the “one country two systems” principle for at least 50 years after China resumed control in 1997 has become “One country 1.01 systems.”  
 
Democratic Party leader Wu Chi-wai said the arrests were the government’s attempt to silence the pro-democracy camp after mainland and Hong Kong officials this week stressed the need for Hong Kong to enact national security legislation.
 
Veteran China watcher Johnny Lau said the Hong Kong government and police are on an “all-out attack” on the pro-democracy camp by making an example of its leading figures in the hope of intimidating other critical voices in the run-up to the legislative council election.  He said the authorities also hope to speed up the enactment of the national security law, which has been shelved since 2003 after a mass protest, possibly before the September vote.
 
“[Chinese President] Xi Jinping has lost his patience with the Basic Law and ‘one country two systems,’ so they are blatantly twisting and trampling it according to their own needs,” he said.  
 
He said while the world is busy fighting against COVID-19, “in Xi’s eyes this is an opportunity to shuffle the cards and to assert its narrative.”  
 
“If the foreign countries turn a blind eye and fail to rein in [China’s power], they would also be impacted,” Lau said.
 
Sophie Richardson, China director at U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, said “today’s arrests of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong is another nail in the coffin of ‘one country, two systems.’” 
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China’s top representative office in Hong Kong said Friday it is entitled to get involved in Hong Kong affairs and is not subject to the semi-autonomous city’s constitutional restrictions that bar the Chinese government from interfering in local affairs.The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration promised Hong Kong “a high degree of autonomy” under the “one country, two systems” principle for at least 50 years after China resumed sovereignty in 1997.  The Basic Law, the city’s post-handover mini-constitution, mandates that the mainland Chinese government cannot interfere in its affairs.However, the China liaison office said in a strongly worded statement issued late Friday that “a high degree of autonomy is not complete autonomy.” It said Hong Kong’s right to self-govern is “authorized by the central government” and “the authorizer has supervisory powers over the authorized.”Both the liaison office and the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office — China’s top bodies overseeing the city’s affairs — are “authorized by the central authorities to handle Hong Kong affairs,” it said.  It added that it is entitled to supervise affairs in Hong Kong and make statements on issues on Hong Kong’s relationship with Beijing, ranging from the “correct” implementation of the Basic Law to matters pertaining to the overall interests of society.“This is not just responsibilities but authority granted by the [Chinese] constitution and Basic Law,” the statement said. “How else can these two bodies promote the implementation of ‘one country two systems’ in Hong Kong? The legitimacy and legality are beyond doubts.”“They are not what is referred to in Article 22 of the Basic Law, or what is commonly understood to be ‘departments under the Central People’s Government,’” the statement said.Article 22 states that “no department” of the Chinese central and local governments “may interfere in the affairs which the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region administers on its own in accordance with this Law.”The statement from the liaison office came a couple of days after its new chief, Luo Huining, appointed in January, told Hong Kong to urgently enact national security legislation to tackle what he called radical violence, foreign interference and pro-independence forces in the city, apparently referring to the monthslong, sometimes violent anti-government demonstrations sparked by a controversial extradition bill in June last year.FILE – Newly-appointed head of China’s liaison office in Hong Kong, Luo Huining, right, waves as he arrives for a media briefing at China’s liaison office in Hong Kong, Jan. 6, 2020.Both the liaison office and the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office had changed heads early this year, with political analysts saying the gesture indicated China’s tighter control over Hong Kong.This week, pro-democracy lawmakers accused the Chinese government of “blatant intervention” and violation of Article 22 of the Basic Law after the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said some of them committed “misconduct in public office” for delaying bills, failing to appoint a House committee chairman and paralyzing the legislature by filibustering.The lawmakers who made such allegations were “deliberately distorting the Basic Law” and “intentionally misleading public opinion,” the liaison office said.The office said lawmakers pledged allegiance to the Chinese and Hong Kong governments when they took their oaths of office, so their “loyalty to the country is a necessary requirement.”China law expert Professor Jerome Cohen at New York University said China’s statement is “astounding and incendiary” and “collapses the whole one country two systems edifice that was constructed over so many years since the Joint Declaration.”Alvin Cheung, a legal scholar specializing in Hong Kong issues at New York University’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute, said the move shows that “Beijing sees itself being in a position of such strength that it can abandon even the pretense of abiding by the Basic Law,” even though China has already been interfering with Hong Kong affairs for years.“It suggests repression will intensify further — expect a concerted attempt to railroad national security legislation through the legislature before the [September legislative] elections, as well as continued systematic attempts to remove politicians and activists from civic life,” he said.Michael Davis, a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and former law professor at the University of Hong Kong, said, “This sort of aggressive language is totally inappropriate and will just result in further pushback from civil society in Hong Kong.”He said “it is not news” that the liaison office comments on Hong Kong politics, and it is widely known that they work behind the scenes to promote pro-China politicians they want to win in legislative and local council elections and also try to direct the Hong Kong leadership on critical decisions, as well as influence the courts.“This fear that Hong Kong’s autonomy will be lost, along with it the rule of law, is what has driven the many protests in Hong Kong and international concern,” he said.
 
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China faces a drawn-out struggle to revive an economy that suffered its biggest contraction since possibly the mid-1960s after millions of people were told to stay home to fight the coronavirus. 
The world’s second-largest economy shrank by 6.8% from a year earlier in the quarter ending in March after factories, offices and shopping malls were closed to contain the outbreak, official data showed Friday. Consumer spending, which supplied 80% of last year’s growth, and factory activity were weaker than expected. 
China, where the pandemic began in December, is the first major economy to start to recover after the ruling Communist Party declared the virus under control. Factories were allowed to reopen last month, but cinemas and other businesses that employ millions of people still are closed. 
There are signs that after an “initial bounce” as controls ended, “the recovery in activity has since slowed to a crawl,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics in a report.  “China is in for a drawn-out recovery,” he said. 
The last contraction this big was 5.8% in 1967 during the upheavals of the ultra-radical 1965-75 Cultural Revolution, according to Iris Pang of ING.
Forecasters earlier said China might rebound as early as this month. But they say a sharp, “V-shaped” recovery looks increasingly unlikely as negative export, retail sales and other data pile up.
Instead, they expect a gradual crawl back to growth in low single digits in the coming quarters. For the full year, forecasters including UBS, Nomura and Oxford Economics expect little to no growth. 
In total, China has reported 4,632 deaths after the total for Wuhan, the city of 11 million people at the center of the outbreak, was revised upward Friday. The mainland has announced 82,367 cases.
Retail sales fell 19% from a year earlier in the first quarter. That improved in March, the final month of the quarter, to a decline of 15.8%. But consumers, jittery about possible job losses, are reluctant to spend despite government efforts to lure them back to shopping malls and auto showrooms.  That is a blow to automakers and other companies that hope China will power the world economy out of its most painful slump since the 1930s.  Job-hunter Ni Hong’s challenge highlights the problem. Ni, 32, quit her job in Beijing in January to find a new one, but the virus disrupted those plans. Ni is paying her mortgage out of her savings and avoiding other spending while she looks in a market flooded with newly laid-off workers.”In the past, there were maybe two or three candidates for a post,” Ni said. “Now, I have eight to 10 competitors, so the chance for me to be eliminated is much higher.”That is a political challenge for the ruling party, which bases its claim to power on China’s economic success. The party appealed to companies to keep paying employees and avoid layoffs during the shutdown. But an unknown number have failed, adding to public anxiety.  The economy already was squeezed by a tariff war with President Donald Trump over Beijing’s technology ambitions and trade surplus. Last year’s growth sank to a multi-decade low of 6.1%.
Exports fell 6.6% in March from a year earlier, an improvement over the double-digit plunge in January and February. But forecasters say demand is bound to slump in America and Europe as anti-virus controls keep shoppers at home.  “Lingering consumption weakness and sliding foreign demand will weigh on the upturn,” said Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics in a report.Growth was stronger than some forecasts that called for a contraction of up to 16% but this is the biggest contraction since market-style reforms started in 1979.  “The numbers were even uglier than most anticipated, which is good!” said Andy Rothman of Matthews Asia in a report. “These ugly numbers indicate that the leadership didn’t fudge the data to hide the seriousness of the situation.”Investment in factories, real estate and other fixed assets, the other major growth driver, sank 16.1%.  
Auto sales sank 48.4% from a year earlier in March. That was better than February’s record 81.7% plunge but is on top of a 2-year-old decline that is squeezing global and Chinese automakers in the industry’s biggest global market.  Asian stock markets rose following the announcement, which was in line with investor expectations. By mid-afternoon, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 3% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was 2.4% higher.  The ruling party has yet to announce this year’s official growth target. It has been at least 6% in previous years. Beijing looks likely to miss its target of doubling incomes from 2010 levels by this year.  
Controls on Beijing, the capital, and some other cities have been tightened to prevent a resurgence of the disease. Most foreigners are barred from entering the country.Beijing is boosting spending on a “New Infrastructure” Plan that includes next-generation telecom networks, artificial intelligence, electric vehicle charging and data centers. But leaders don’t want to pump too much money into the economy with full fledged stimulus for fear of adding to debt or pushing up inflation that is near a seven-year high.  Carrying out that infrastructure investment “will take a much longer time than it would do without social distancing in place,” said Pang of ING. “Recovery will be a long road.”
 
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China on Thursday denied allegations in a U.S. State Department report that it was secretly testing nuclear weapons in violation of its international obligations.  Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters at a daily briefing that the allegations about Chinese nuclear testing in the department’s Nuclear Compliance Reportwere “totally unfounded countercharges that confuse right and wrong.”  “China has always performed its international obligations and commitments in a responsible manner, firmly upheld multilateralism, and actively carried out international cooperation,” Zhao said. “The U.S. accusation against China is made of thin air, which is totally unfounded and not worth refuting.”  The 2020 Compliance Reportissued Wednesday accused China of failing to adhere to its non-proliferation commitments and suspend nuclear testing by maintaining a “high level of activity” last year at its Lop Nur test site in the far northwestern region of Xinjiang.  China has pledged not to test nuclear weapons, but like the U.S. and several other nations has yet to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. China is an acknowledged nuclear power but claims it possesses only a fraction of the number of weapons maintained by the U.S. and Russia.  Zhao on Thursday pointed to the U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and other agreements as grounds for discounting Washington’s accusations.  China, in contrast, has “made important contributions to upholding the international arms control and non-proliferation regime, as well as safeguarding international peace and security,” Zhao said.  He also said the U.S. had yet to destroy its stock of chemical weapons and was continuously bolstering its armed forces in a manner that “undermines the global strategic balance and stability and obstructed the process of international arms control and disarmament.”  “So, it is not qualified to be a judge or referee in this regard,” Zhao said.  
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China’s top official in Hong Kong told the semi-autonomous city on Wednesday to urgently enact a national security law, shelved since 2003, to combat what he called violence, foreign interference and pro-independence forces. The comments come amid concern by pro-democracy lawmakers of China’s interference in the territory’s internal affairs, including the legislative council and judiciary.”[Hong Kong] must make efforts to safeguard national security in the legal system and at implementation level … and ensure Hong Kong does not become a window of risk for national security,” Luo Huining, the head of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, said in a video clip released to mark China’s National Security Education Day.The “violent, criminal acts by pro-independence and radical forces” in the anti-government protests which erupted last June have damaged the rule of law and challenged the foundation of the “one country, two systems” principle, said the former top Communist Party leader in China’s Shanxi province.FILE – Anti-government demonstrators march in protest against the invocation of the emergency laws in Hong Kong, China, Oct. 14, 2019.The demonstrators took to the streets to demand the full withdrawal of a controversial extradition bill and the resignation of the territory’s chief executive, Carrie Lam. The measure was belatedly withdrawn in October. The protesters also made “five demands” of city officials that included calls for an investigation of police abuse of protesters.More than 7,000 people were arrested in the months-long anti-government protest movement in which police fired live rounds, tear gas and rubber bullets and used severe beatings to deal with protesters. Some protesters retaliated with Molotov cocktails, setting fire to objects and wrecking shops seen as pro-China.The Chinese government maintains that foreign governments such as the United States and Britain supported and fueled the Hong Kong protests in a ploy to undermine the stability of China.FILE – Riot police detain a protester, left lying on the ground, during a demonstration in Hong Kong, Dec. 25, 2019.The protests posed one of the greatest challenges to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he took office in 2012. The Chinese government had supported the extradition proposal and accused protesters of colluding with Western governments.Separately, Luo Huining said that even during the ongoing fight against the coronavirus pandemic, people have staged protests by setting fires, blocking roads and making explosives to threaten the community’s safety. He said if these acts are not stopped, they would escalate and threaten national security.”If the anthill that erodes the rule of law is not busted, the dam of national security will be ruined,” he said.Reaction by LamSeparately, Lam said the months-long anti-government movement which she said involved illegal protests, “cold-blooded hate speech” and “extremist acts close to terrorism” had challenged the rule of law and endangered public safety.FILE – Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam addresses a news conference in Hong Kong, China, Nov. 11, 2019.”Extremist actions that are close to terrorism emerged, including homemade bombs, possession of firearms and attacks on police officers,” she said in a separate video clip to mark the National Security Education Day.”If these illegal acts are not effectively curbed, they may escalate to a level which threatens national security,” she said.Lam said the Hong Kong government is determined to safeguard its safety and stability and will be responsible to the city as well as the Chinese government.This week, pro-democracy lawmakers accused the Chinese government of “blatant intervention” after its Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said some lawmakers were guilty of misconduct in public office for delaying bills in the legislature by filibustering. Lam rejected claims of interference from Beijing in local affairs, which is barred by the city’s post-handover mini-constitution.Article 23Hong Kong Security Secretary John Lee said on Wednesday that the seizure of explosives by the police in recent months indicated a growing threat, with the pattern resembling terrorism in foreign countries. He said the government would try to create a “favorable environment” to pass the Article 23 national security law.FILE – A sign in the shape of a hand with the colors of the China national flag for fingernails and a “23” on its palm with reference to the controversial Article 23 law, is carried by protesters at a rally in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2018.Article 23 of Hong Kong’s constitution, the Basic Law, said the city shall enact legislation to prohibit acts of “treason, secession, sedition, subversion” against the Chinese government and “theft of state secrets.”The Hong Kong government tried to pass anti-subversion laws in 2003 but shelved the plan after a mass protest. The Chinese government has pressured it ever since, particularly amid political tensions, to reintroduce the law.Veteran political analyst Chris Yeung said China’s hard-line approach toward the territory has made Hong Kongers feel increasingly alienated. Yeung said China’s involvement in the city’s political affairs only makes people feel the “one country, two systems” policy promised in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration has in fact become “one country, one system or 1.5 systems.””Is China’s escalation of Hong Kong’s political controversies to the national security level a sign of further crackdown on the city’s existing freedoms?” Yeung questioned.Upcoming electionChina warned in a 2014 policy white paper that it has “comprehensive jurisdiction” over Hong Kong and the city’s “high degree of autonomy … comes solely from the authorization by the central leadership.”Kong Tsung-gan, a writer and activist, said he believed the officials’ remarks are meant to intimidate the pro-democracy movement before the local legislature’s election in September.”All I can see is they’re preparing the way to do something really drastic if the Legislative Council does go majority pro-democracy,” he said on Twitter. “Are they trying to frighten us? Who do they think they are talking to?” he asked.This week, the Reuters news agency quoted senior judges in Hong Kong as saying the independence of the city’s courts was at peril under pressure from Beijing. Judges and lawyers say Beijing is trying to limit the courts’ authority to rule on core constitutional matters, while state-controlled media on the mainland have warned Hong Kong judges not to “absolve” arrested protesters.The former British colony was granted special autonomy for 50 years after it returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Many in Hong Kong are concerned China is slowly encroaching on those rights and tightening its grip on the territory. 
 
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