India using Kashmir to oppose Silk Road project: Chinese media

March 30, 2017

Beijing, Mar 30: India sees China's Silk Road initiative as a geopolitical competition and is using the Kashmir issue as an "unfounded excuse" to oppose the ambitious project, Chinese state media today alleged and asked New Delhi to "abandon" its "cliche mentality".

"The official reason the Indian government rejected the offer to join the initiative (Silk Road) is that it is designed to pass through Kashmir. However, it is just an unfounded excuse as Beijing has been maintaining a consistent position on the Kashmir issue, which has never changed," one of the two articles on India by state-run Global Times said.

China1"India sees the Belt and Road initiative as a geopolitical competition," the article said, criticising India for hindering Beijing's push into South Asia and the world with multi-billion Silk Road project which is also known as the 'Belt and Road' (BR).

"Whether to continue to boycott or join the Belt and Road remains a conundrum for New Delhi," it said adding that, India is the only one which can help itself. The article said that India should give up its "biased" view on the BR initiative. "It is high time to abandon the cliche mentality of associating everything with geopolitics.

India will surely see a different world if it does," the article said. Referring to India's reservations to attend the BR summit called by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the article said it may be an "embarrassing occasion" for India as the meeting is backed by "China's peripheral countries, notably Russia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Pakistan".

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently said 20 heads of state will attend the summit, together with over 50 leaders from international organisations, over 100 ministerial officials and more than 1,200 guests from around the world.

The article referred to a comment by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar during his visit here last month to co-chair the upgraded India-China strategic dialogue, saying India is examining China's invitation to attend the summit and "how a country whose sovereignty has been violated can come on aninvitation".

In the meantime, however, state-run Chinese media stepped up campaign to pressurise India to join the summit. China apparently is keen about India's participation in the summit as the project struggled to make headway in the region except the USD 46 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) where both Beijing-Islamabad are putting all efforts to show early harvest.

Media reports here said that Xi plans to invite his US counterpart Donald Trump to attend the meeting during their first summit early next month in Florida. BR consisted of maze of roads, including CPEC, Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic (BCIM) Corridor and 21st Maritime Silk Road besides road network to connect China with Eurasia.

The article also said, "it seems that the mainstream opinion throughout India is that the connectivity brought about by BR initiative is geopolitically significant. Therefore, India cannot allow the initiative to expand further into South Asia".

"This could also explain why the BCIM has seen no progress since its proposed by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2013, and also why New Delhi has been keen on Japan's investment in the Iranian port of Chabahar," it said.

"New Delhi may also feel embarrassed as Moscow has actively responded to the Belt and Road initiative and will build an economic corridor with China and Mongolia," it said, adding Russia and Iran seeking to join the CPEC putting "India in a more awkward position".

It said, "Beijing has expressed, on various occasions, its anticipation to see New Delhi join the grand project and to make concerted effort with India in building economic corridors involving China, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar".

Another article in the same daily said a "benign" competition between India and China may help development in South Asia but they should avoid "cut-throat" rivalry. "The so-called dragon-elephant contention is perhaps a blow against strategic mutual trust between Beijing and New Delhi, but may be conducive to development in South Asia," it said.

Accusing India of not being "generous" to its neighbours, it said "a yawning infrastructure funding gap in South Asian countries creates space for China and those nations to strengthen economic cooperation".

"Bangladesh and China signed 27 deals worth billions of dollars during President Xi Jinping's visit last year," it said, adding China's BR initiative has received an increasing amount of attention from Bangladesh.

"Only by investing more resources in regional integration and extending the benefits from India's rapid economic growth to other South Asian countries can New Delhi maintain its influence in the region," it said.

"Benign competition between China and India will be conducive to development in South Asia. The question remaining is how to avoid cut-throat competition as Beijing and New Delhi jostle for influence. India and China should seek common ground while strengthening cooperation with South Asian countries to promote regional integration," it said.

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Agencies
July 7,2020

Washington DC, Jul 7: With US President Donald Trump promoting re-opening the economy, the country has now four epicentres of coronavirus instead of one -- Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida and Arizona. This has led to the governors fearing that their hospitals could be overrun with patients.

"We are right back where we were at the peak of the epidemic during the New York outbreak...The difference now is that we really had one epicentre of spread when New York was going through its hardship. Now, we really have four major epicentres of spread -- Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida and Arizona. Florida looks to be in the worst shape," Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner was quoted by The Washington Post as saying in an interview.

As per the latest data, Florida, New York and California have crossed the 200,000 mark of coronavirus cases.

After Texas continued to break its own record of registering the highest number of coronavirus cases, Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D) was quoted as saying in an interview, "If we do not change this trajectory, then I am within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun."

He further said that intensive care units in the city will start overflowing within 10 days.

Echoing similar sentiments, Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, said, "As long as we're doing as little as possible and hoping for the best, we are always going to be chasing this thing. We are always going to be behind and the virus will always outrun us...And so what we need right now is to do what works, which is a stay-home order."

She was stripped of authority to issue stay-at-home orders after Governor Greg Abbott decided to move forward with the reopening plan.

"It is clear that the (coronavirus) growth is exponential at this point...We have been breaking record after record after record... the last couple of weeks," Miami Mayor Francis Suarez was quoted as saying in an interview.

"The city of Miami was the last city in the entire state of Florida to open. I was criticized for waiting so long. But there is no doubt that the fact that when we reopened, people started socialising as if... the virus didn't exist."

He further said that if the numbers do not begin to fall "more drastic measures" will be taken in the coming week.

As per the latest update by the Johns Hopkins University, a total of 2,938,625 people in the US have tested coronavirus positive and 130,306 deaths have been reported so far.

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News Network
February 17,2020

Feb 17: Chinese authorities on Monday reported a slight upturn in new virus cases and 105 more deaths for a total of 1,770 since the outbreak began two months ago.

The 2,048 new cases followed three days of declines but was up by just 39 cases from the previous day’s figure. Another 10,844 people have recovered from COVID-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus, and have been discharged from hospitals, according to Monday’s figures.

The update followed the publication late Saturday in China’s official media of a recent speech by President Xi Jinping in which he indicated for the first time that he had led the response to the outbreak from early in the crisis. While the reports were an apparent attempt to demonstrate the Communist Party leadership acted decisively from the start, it also opened Xi up to criticism over why the public was not alerted sooner.

In his speech, Xi said he gave instructions on fighting the virus on Jan. 7 and ordered the shutdown of the most-affected cities that began on Jan. 23.

The disclosure of his speech indicates top leaders knew about the outbreak’s potential severity at least two weeks before such dangers were made known to the public. It was not until late January that officials said the virus can spread between humans and public alarm began to rise.

New cases in other countries are raising growing concerns about containment of the virus.

Taiwan on Sunday reported its first death from COVID-19, the fifth fatality outside of mainland China. Taiwan’s Central News Agency, citing health minister Chen Shih-chung, said the man who died was in his 60s and had not traveled overseas recently and had no known contact with virus patients.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened an experts meeting to discuss containment measures in his country, where more than a dozen cases have emerged in the past few days without any obvious link to China.

“The situation surrounding this virus is changing by the minute,” Abe said.

Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said the country is “entering into a phase that is different from before,” requiring new steps to stop the spread of the virus.

Japan now has 413 confirmed cases, including 355 from a quarantined cruise ship, and one death from the virus. Its total is the highest number of cases among about two dozen countries outside of China where the illness has spread.

Hundreds of Americans from the cruise ship took charter flights home, as Japan announced another 70 infections had been confirmed on the Diamond Princess. Canada, Hong Kong and Italy were planning similar flights.

The 300 or so Americans flying on U.S.-government chartered aircraft back to the U.S. will face another 14-day quarantine at Travis Air Force Base in California and Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. The U.S. Embassy said the departure was offered because people on the ship were at a high risk of exposure to the virus. People with symptoms were banned from the flights.

About 255 Canadians and 330 Hong Kong residents are on board the ship or undergoing treatment in Japanese hospitals. There are also 35 Italians, of which 25 are crew members, including the captain.

In China’s Hubei province, where the outbreak began in December, all vehicle traffic will be banned in another containment measure. It expands a vehicle ban in the provincial capital, Wuhan, where public transportation, trains and planes have been halted for weeks.

Exceptions were being made for vehicles involved in epidemic prevention and transporting daily necessities.

Hubei has built new hospitals with thousands of patient beds and China has sent thousands of military medical personnel to staff the new facilities and help the overburdened health care system.

Last Thursday, Hubei changed how it recognized COVID-19 cases, accepting a doctor’s diagnosis rather than waiting for confirmed laboratory test results, in order to treat patients faster. The tally spiked by more than 15,000 cases under the new method.

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News Network
February 24,2020

Kuala Lumpur, Feb 24: Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has submitted his resignation to the king, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Monday, amid talks of forming a new coalition to govern the country.

Mahathir, 94, assumed office in May 2018 for his second stint as prime minister.

A spokesman from the prime minister's office declined to comment, saying only that a statement will be issued soon.

The sources declined to be named as they were not authorised to talk to the media.

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