International

China's aviation regulator said on Monday it is suspending Donghai Airlines from adding new routes, flights and capacity after concluding an investigation into a mid-air dispute between crew members on a recent domestic flight. The pilot, who, according to media outlet Caixin, blamed the head flight attendant for not clearing his way to the bathroom, will have his license revoked, Wu Shijie, deputy director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), told a monthly briefing. The flight attendant will also receive corresponding administrative punishment, Wu added. Wu did not specify how long the restrictions on routes, flights and capacity would last. He also did not offer the details on the mid-air fight. Media reports, citing an aviation-focused Wechat account, said the fight between the two men had broken out 50 minutes before the flight landed and both men were injured. Shenzhen-based Donghai Airlines, which had said last week it had immediately suspended the crew members involved in the fight, could not be reached immediately for comment on Monday. China is a stickler for aviation safety, after maintaining a strong safety record for over a decade. In 2018, CAAC had reduced Air China's Boeing 737 flights by 10% and cancelled licenses of the pilot and co-pilot after it found the co-pilot was smoking an e-cigarette, leading to an emergency landing.

China has launched a digital Covid-19 vaccination certificate for its citizens planning cross-border travels, joining other countries issuing similar documents as they seek ways to reopen their economies. As vaccines are globally being rolled out, a few countries including Bahrain have already introduced certificates identifying vaccinated people, and the European Union agreed to develop vaccine passports under pressure from tourism-dependent southern countries. The certificate issued by China will have details about the holder's Covid-19 vaccination information and coronavirus test results, the Department of Consular Affairs under China's foreign ministry said on its website. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Sunday the aim of the certificate is to achieve mutual verification of information such as nucleic acid testing and vaccination, and contribute to safe and orderly interaction of people. It is not immediately clear with which countries China is talking to get its Covid-19 certificate recognised. China also has yet announced any relaxation of quarantine restrictions for people arriving in China who are vaccinated against Covid-19. Existing quarantine requirements should remain in place for people arriving in China, as it is possible that vaccinated people can still be infected by the virus, a spokesman with China's National Health Commission said in February.    

China has urged the United States to remove “unreasonable” curbs on co-operation as soon as possible and work together on issues like climate change, while accusing Washington of bringing chaos in the name of spreading democracy. Last week US President Joe Biden singled out a “growing rivalry with China” as a key challenge facing the United States, with his top diplomat describing the Asian country as “the biggest geopolitical test” of this century. Speaking at his annual news conference, the Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, struck a tough line even as he outlined where the world’s two biggest economies could work together. Questioned about recent US-China frictions over Taiwan, Xinjiang and the disputed South China Sea, the foreign minister said that Beijing “will never accept baseless accusations and smears”. The United States had used democracy and human rights as a basis for arbitrarily interfering with other countries’ affairs, he said. “The US should realise this as soon as possible, otherwise the world will continue to experience instability.” Wang added that differences between China and the United States must be managed carefully, the two sides must advocate healthy competition not zero-sum finger-pointing, and that areas like climate change and fighting the pandemic were where they could co-operate. “It is hoped that the United States and China will meet each other halfway and lift the various unreasonable restrictions placed on Sino-US co-operation to date as soon as possible, and not create new obstacles artificially.” The United States and China are at odds over influence in the Indo-Pacific region, Beijing’s economic practices, Hong Kong (see accompanying report), Taiwan and human rights in China’s Xinjiang region. The Biden administration has indicated it will broadly continue the tough approach to China taken by former president Donald Trump, but do so in co-ordination with allies. Wang warned that on Chinese-claimed Taiwan there was no room for compromise, urging the new US government to change the previous administration’s “dangerous acts of playing with fire”. Biden’s team says the US commitment to democratic Taiwan is “rock solid”. During Trump’s administration, the United States levied a series of sanctions against China and its officials over Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Beijing’s economic policies, which have not been lifted under the new administration. Activists and UN experts say 1mn Muslim Uighurs are held in Chinese camps. China denies abuses and says its camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism. Wang addressed accusations over human rights abuses in Xinjiang, saying some Western politicians chose to believe lies about the region, and took a dig at Western countries’ record. “When it comes to ‘genocide’, most people think of North American Indians in the 16th century, African slaves in the 19th century, Jews in the 20th century, and the Australian aborigines who are still fighting today,” he said. “The so-called ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang is ridiculously absurd. It is a rumour with ulterior motives and a complete lie.”

China's export growth jumped to the highest in over two decades, official data showed Sunday, with imports also surging in a sharp bounceback from the coronavirus outbreak that had brought activity to a near halt. Electronics and textile exports such as masks contributed to the spike in outbound shipments, as demand for work-from-home supplies and protective gear against the virus outbreak soared during the pandemic. Exports spiked 60.6 percent on-year in the January-February period, well above analysts' expectations, while imports rose 22.2 percent, official data showed Sunday. The latest customs figures stand in stark contrast to last year's fall of around 17 percent in exports and 4 percent drop in imports. The country struggled to contain the spread of Covid-19 early on, with consumers staying home and businesses seeing a slow return to operations. The customs administration said comparison to last year is also likely to have bolstered the latest figures, saying in a statement that the "low base is one of the reasons for the larger increase this year." On Sunday, official data showed that electronics exports rose 54.1 percent, while textiles including masks rose 50.2 percent. China's overall trade surplus came in at $103.3 billion, its customs administration said. Chinese authorities started combining January and February trade data last year, while it battled the coronavirus outbreak. This is in line with how some other indicators are released, to smooth over distortions from the Lunar New Year holiday, which can fall in either month. China's foreign trade data remained strong despite the "off-season", the customs authority said Sunday. Trade was also high due to a recovery in production and consumption in major economies such as Europe and the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic, as well as improvements in domestic consumption. Although business activity usually falls during the Lunar New Year period when workers return to their hometowns, official appeals to avoid travelling this year to keep the Covid-19 outbreak in check supported production, the customs administration added. "Many enterprises in major foreign trade provinces such as Guangdong and Zhejiang maintained production during the Lunar New Year," it said. "Market demand is expected to rebound further." Some companies have also been stocking up on goods such as integrated circuits, iron ore and crude oil imports. But authorities cautioned that, given global uncertainties, there is "a long way to go towards steady growth in foreign trade".

Four retired Taiwanese military intelligence officers -- including a major general -- have been indicted for spying for China, prosecutors said Saturday. The quartet were charged with developing a spying network and collecting confidential information for Beijing, the Taipei district prosecutors' office said. The two sides have been spying on each other since the Nationalists fled to the island to set up a rival government in 1949, having lost a civil war on the mainland to the communists. China claims self-ruled, democratic Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. Two Taiwanese former colonels were recruited by a Chinese national security official in the southern province of Guangdong, the government lawyers said, and had introduced several colleagues to the official since 2012. Among those allegedly introduced was the ex-major general, identified by his family name Yueh. Yueh received cash, gifts and free excursions during multiple trips to mainland China and Macau, and worked to recruit other officers to "develop an intelligence network" for Beijing, prosecutors said. The accused "were aware of the standoff between our country and the Chinese communists... but they coveted illegal gains such as the perks (offered by China) to do business there, the financial rewards and free trips," prosecutors said in a statement. They face charges under national security law and national intelligence work law. Beijing has ramped up pressure on Taipei since the 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-wen, in part because she regards Taiwan as a de facto sovereign nation. In October, a Taiwanese court sentenced a lieutenant colonel to four years in prison for spying for Beijing, as Chinese state media reported a crackdown on "hundreds" of espionage cases linked to Taiwan and arrested "a batch of Taiwanese spies and their accomplices". Chinese state broadcaster CCTV also aired four television "confessions" by Taiwanese nationals detained in China's opaque judicial system. Multiple Taiwanese nationals have disappeared into Chinese custody accused of various anti-state crimes in cases that have caused an outcry at home.

China refused to give raw data on early Covid-19 cases to a World Health Organisation-led team probing the origins of the pandemic, one of the team's investigators said, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began. The team had requested raw patient data on the 174 cases of Covid-19 that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, as well as other cases, but were only provided with a summary, said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert who is a member of the team. Such raw data is known as ‘line listings’, he said, and would typically be anonymised but contain details such as what questions were asked of individual patients, their responses and how their responses were analysed. ‘That's standard practice for an outbreak investigation,’ he told Reuters on Saturday via video call from Sydney, where he is currently undergoing quarantine. He said that gaining access to the raw data was especially important since only half of the 174 cases had exposure to the Huanan market, the now-shuttered wholesale seafood centre in Wuhan where the virus was initially detected. ‘That's why we've persisted to ask for that,’ he said. ‘Why that doesn't happen, I couldn't comment. Whether it's political or time or it's difficult ... But whether there are any other reasons why the data isn't available, I don't know. One would only speculate.’ While the Chinese authorities provided a lot of material, he said the issue of access to the raw patient data would be mentioned in the team's final report. ‘The WHO people certainly felt that they had received much much more data than they had ever received in the previous year. So that in itself is an advance.’ A summary of the team's findings could be released as early as next week, the WHO said on Friday. The WHO-led probe had been plagued by delay, concern over access and bickering between Beijing and Washington, which accused China of hiding the extent of the initial outbreak and criticised the terms of the visit, under which Chinese experts conducted the first phase of research. The team, which arrived in China in January and spent four weeks looking into the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak, was limited to visits organised by their Chinese hosts and prevented from contact with community members, due to health restrictions. The first two weeks were spent in hotel quarantine. China's refusal to hand over raw data on the early Covid-19 cases was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal on Friday. The WHO did not reply to a request from Reuters for comment. The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment but Beijing has previously defended its transparency in handling the outbreak and its cooperation with the WHO mission. HARMONIOUS, WITH ARGUMENTS Dwyer said the work within the WHO team was harmonious but that there were ‘arguments’ at times with their Chinese counterparts over the interpretation and significance of the data, which he described as ‘natural’ in such probes. ‘We might be having a talk about cold chain and they might be more firm about what the data shows than what we might have been, but that's natural. Whether there's political pressure to have different opinions, I don't know. There may well be, but it's hard to know.’ Cold chain refers to the transport and trade of frozen food. Beijing has sought to cast doubt on the notion that the coronavirus originated in China, pointing to imported frozen food as a conduit. On Tuesday, Peter Ben Embarek, who led the WHO delegation, told a news conference that transmission of the virus via frozen food is a possibility, but pointed to market vendors selling frozen animal products including farmed wild animals as a potential pathway that warrants further study. Embarek also said that the team was not looking further into the theory that the virus escaped from a lab, which it considered highly unlikely. The previous US administration of President Donald Trump had said it suspected the virus may have escaped from a Wuhan lab, which Beijing strongly denies. ‘It was an unanimous feeling,’ Dwyer said. ‘It wasn't a political sop whatsoever.’  

China's space agency released video footage from its spacecraft circling Mars on Friday, two days after it successfully entered the planet's orbit in Beijing's latest ambitious space mission. In the video, published by state broadcaster CCTV, the surface of the planet is seen coming into view out of a pitch black sky against the outside of the Tianwen-1, which entered the orbit of the Red Planet on Wednesday. White craters are visible on the planet's surface, which fades from white to black through the video as the probe flies over the course of one Martian day, said official news agency Xinhua. The five-tonne Tianwen-1 -- which translates as ‘Questions to Heaven’ -- includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a solar-powered rover and launched from southern China last July. It is the latest step in Beijing's space programme, which aims to establish a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually put an astronaut on the moon, and has opened up a new, extraterrestrial arena for US-China competition. Tianwen-1 launched around the same time as a rival US mission, and is expected to touch down on the surface of the planet in May. Its success comes the same week as the United Arab Emirates' ‘Hope’ probe also successfully entered Mars' orbit -- making history as the Arab world's first interplanetary mission. Chinese scientists hope to land a 240-kilogram (530-pound) rover in May in Utopia, a massive impact basin on Mars. Its orbiter will last for a Martian year. For the three-month study of the planet's soil and atmosphere, the mission will take photos, chart maps and look for signs of past life. The probe has already sent back its first image of Mars -- a black-and-white photo that showed geological features including the Schiaparelli crater and the Valles Marineris, a vast stretch of canyons on the Martian surface. Mars has proved to be a challenging target, with most missions since 1960, sent by Russia, Europe, Japan and India, ending in failure. NASA's Perseverance, which is set to touch down on the Red Planet on February 18, will become the fifth rover to complete the voyage since 1997 -- and all so far have been American.  

US intelligence on the supposed origin of the coronavirus pandemic was not reliable, a member of the special WHO mission to China said Wednesday, after Washington cast doubt on the transparency of the probe. The World Health Organization mission ended Tuesday without finding the source of the virus, but members had to walk a diplomatic tightrope during their stay, with the US urging a ‘robust’ probe and China warning against politicising the issue. Information dribbled out via their personal Twitter accounts during the mission, but more details and opinions emerged as they prepared to leave the country. Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO team, waded directly into the murky geopolitics which covers the pandemic origin story. President Joe Biden ‘has to look tough on China’, he said in a tweet adding: ‘Please don't rely too much on US intel: increasingly disengaged under Trump & frankly wrong on many aspects.’ Daszak also tweeted that they worked ‘flat out under the most politically charged environment possible’. His comments were linked to an article referencing US state department comments which cast doubt over the transparency of China's co-operation with the WHO mission. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the White House ‘clearly support this investigation’, but shared criticism that China concealed information. Asked if China had fully cooperated with the WHO team, Price told reporters: ‘I think the jury's still out.’ - Virus sources – Daszak heads US-based non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, which monitors epidemic outbreaks and has partnered for more than a decade with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on joint research of coronaviruses. He has been one of the most vocal proponents of a natural origin and in comments to AFP last year dismissed the possibility of a leak from the Wuhan lab as a politically motivated ‘conspiracy theory’ pushed by Trump. Last year, the Trump administration abruptly terminated a US government grant supporting the group's joint research with the Wuhan facility, a move the scientific community criticized as political. Despite failing to find the virus origins a year after the pandemic began, the team of foreign experts in China did agree it likely jumped from bats to an unknown animal species before transmitting to humans. They also concluded the theory of lab experiment gone wrong was ‘extremely unlikely’, while introducing new avenues of inquiry -- chiming with China's view that it may have originated overseas or have been spread by frozen foods. Beijing has repeatedly floated the theory that the virus was brought to China through packaging on so-called cold-chain products such as frozen seafood, linking these to various domestic outbreaks in the past few months. While WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan has previously said ‘there is no evidence that food or the food chain is participating in transmission’, the WHO mission members on Tuesday appeared to give weight to China's theory that it could be carried on cold-chain products. There had also been widespread concerns about the scientists' access to data a year on from the outbreak, and amid accusations that Beijing downplayed the initial severity of the outbreak. Several WHO team members insisted that they were granted full access to the sites and individuals they requested to visit. But Danish epidemiologist and team member Thea Kolsen Fischer appeared to break ranks, revealing after the briefing that they were not given raw data and instead relied on analyses by Chinese scientists. ‘If you come as an outsider and look at the individual, identifiable data, you would most likely -- in most scenarios -- get access to aggregated data,’ she said Tuesday after the briefing, referring to the common practice in most countries.  

Sinovac Biotech said on Saturday that its unit's Covid-19 vaccine has been formally approved for use by the general public by China's medical products regulator. It marks the second Covid-19 vaccine green-lighted for public use in China, after a shot developed by a Beijing institute affiliated to state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) was approved in December. Prior to the approvals, both vaccines have already been used in China's vaccination program mainly targeting key groups deemed to be at higher risk of exposure to the virus. Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, and Laos have granted emergency authorizations for the CoronaVac vaccine developed by Sinovac Life Sciences, Sinovac said in a news release. The approval is based on the two-month results from late-stage clinical trials overseas, from which the final analysis data has not yet been obtained, Sinovac said.

A year after his death from Covid-19, residents in the Chinese city of Wuhan say they remain grateful to the "whistleblower" doctor who first sounded the alarm about the outbreak before it received official recognition. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at a hospital in the city, became one of the most visible figures in the early days of the outbreak in Wuhan when he tried to sound the alarm about its appearance, but was reprimanded by police for "spreading rumours." The 34-year-old's death from the virus on Feb. 7 led to an outpouring of public mourning and rare expressions of anger online. Several days later Zhong Nanshan, a renowned epidemiologist, shed tears for Li in an interview with Reuters, calling him a "hero of China." But when President Xi Jinping honoured the "heroes" of the "people's war" against the virus in September, there was no mention of Li's contribution. While people on the streets around Li's hospital say life in the city has mostly returned to its usual rhythm, they still revere Li for his actions. As Reuters journalists visited the area around the hospital on Saturday they were followed by two men in plainclothes who identified themselves as "hospital parking security," and local guards blocked a cameraman from filming the hospital entrance. "He was the first to tell us about the virus," said Li Pan, 24, who owns an online store. "He must have considered the impact would be huge, but he still raised the alarm. That was really brave," Li said. Ji Penghui, a 34 year-old designer, said he heard about Li's warning in the early days and rushed to stock up on masks before the officials spoke openly about the virus. "The public strongly acknowledges him, and personally, I think he should receive more official honours, rather than being treated as what he did is already in the past" Ji said. Ji said the government made mistakes in the early stages, but it has handled it well since. A World Health Organization team is currently in Wuhan researching the early stages of the outbreak, and is preparing to present its findings, team member Dominic Dwyer told Reuters on Friday. The team visited the sprawling Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, thought to be where the virus first became an outbreak, which led to a pandemic that has infected over 105 million people and killed nearly 3 million worldwide. The market site has been shut to the public since the beginning of last year. The origins of the virus have become highly politicised, and some Chinese diplomats and state media have thrown support behind theories that the virus potentially originated in another country. While 80-year-old Qian Wende said he does not know where the virus came from, he regards Li as a hero. "We should be commemorating his contribution to fighting the pandemic," he said.

A Chinese actress has shared shocking photos of her ‘nightmare’ botched nose operation, warning fans of the dangers of cosmetic surgery. Gao Liu posted candid pictures of her post-surgery face on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform, which showed a part of her nose blackened with dead flesh. She wrote to her five million followers that the experience had left her feeling suicidal and cost her several acting jobs. ‘I had thought that these four hours (of surgery) would make me more beautiful, but I didn't realise that they would be the beginning of a nightmare,’ she wrote Tuesday. Plastic surgery is booming in China, with over 15.2 million patients estimated to have gone under the knife last year, according to a report by Chinese market research firm iiMedia. Gao said she hoped the surgery would improve her acting career. But what she thought was a ‘micro-adjustment’ to graft cartilage onto the tip of her nose in late October left it infected, requiring repeated follow-up surgeries, she wrote. Gao said she was then hospitalised for 61 days and lost some 400,000 yuan ($61,800) in work. Photos she posted of her face show a clear patch of blackened flesh on the tip of her nose, as well as bandages and bruising. Her post this week has sparked sympathy online and the hashtag ‘why is cosmetic surgery becoming more and more common’ had gained 330 million views on Weibo by Friday. ‘I feel so bad for Gao Liu, everyone should take this as a warning and be aware of the risks of cosmetic surgery,’ wrote one user in a comment liked more than 100,000 times. ‘We should emphasise natural beauty,’ wrote another. A local health bureau in the southern city of Guangzhou, where the clinic is located, has confirmed it was investigating the matter, reported Chinese media. China became the second-largest market for plastic surgery in the world in 2020, worth over $14 billion, according to a report by Daxue Consulting. Medical disputes in the sector are rampant, and iiMedia has estimated that only 12 per cent of China's 13,000-plus beauty clinics are compliant with laws and regulations. Many patients are young women, influenced by high beauty standards set by celebrities and ubiquitous online influencers.  

The BBC came under fire from Chinese officials and social media on Friday in an escalating diplomatic dispute, a day after Britain's media regulator revoked the TV licence of Chinese state media outlet CGTN. Britain and China have been exchanging barbs for months over China's crackdown on dissent in the former British colony of Hong Kong, concern over the security of Huawei technology and the treatment of ethnic Uighur Muslims in China's Xinjiang region. On Thursday, Britain's Ofcom revoked the licence of CGTN, the English-language sister channel of state broadcaster CCTV, after concluding that China's ruling Communist Party had ultimate editorial responsibility for the channel. Minutes later, China's foreign ministry issued a statement accusing the British Broadcasting Corp of pushing "fake news" in its Covid-19 reporting, demanding an apology and saying that the broadcaster had politicized the pandemic and "rehashed theories about covering up by China". The BBC said its reporting is fair and unbiased. On Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin slammed the Ofcom ruling as "politicising the issue on a technical point" and warned that China reserves the right to make a "necessary response". Britain's Telegraph newspaper separately reported on Thursday that Britain had in the past year expelled three Chinese spies who were there on journalism visas. China's state media has ramped up attacks on the British public broadcaster in recent weeks. "I highly suspect that the BBC has been closely instigated by the intelligence agencies of the US and the UK. It has become a bastion of the Western public opinion war against China," Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Communist Party-backed tabloid the Global Times, said on Twitter. The foreign ministry's criticism of the BBC was among the top trends on China's Weibo social media platform on Friday. "BBC shall not become Bad-mouthing Broadcasting Corporation," ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Twitter. BBC broadcasts, like those of most major Western news outlets, are blocked in China. Some people called for the BBC to be expelled in response to CGTN's licence being revoked. "The BBC has long been stationed in Beijing, yet has always held ideological prejudice and broadcast fake news from its platform, deliberately defaming China. After so many years, it's past time that we took action," one Weibo user said. The BBC's coverage of Xinjiang came under heavy criticism after it reported on Wednesday that women in internment camps for ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in the region were subject to rape and torture. China's foreign ministry said the report had no factual basis. The Global Times said in an editorial on Friday that the BBC had "seriously violated journalistic ethics".

Shares in Chinese video app company Kuaishou almost tripled on their Hong Kong debut Friday, following a $5.4 billion initial public offering for the TikTok rival that was the biggest for an internet firm in nearly two years. Its outstanding debut comes despite a crackdown by China on tech firms in recent months and will be a sign of encouragement to TikTok owner ByteDance, which is said to be planning its own listing. The firm -- among China's most popular short video platforms -- soared to HK$338 at the open, from an IPO price of HK$115, valuing it at about $180 billion. It ended the day at HK$300. The Kuaishou app -- which means "quick hands" -- has more than 260 million daily active users on average in China and is the main rival to Douyin, the Chinese counterpart to Tiktok. Fans spent more than 86 minutes a day on Kuaishou on average, according to the company, watching videos and sharing small virtual gifts, tips and stickers with the creators who make them. Investors snapped up the new stock even as the firm noted that it faced severe constraints in China at a time when Beijing is paying closer attention to the country's technology sector and high-flying firms within it, tightening rules for runaway e-commerce companies. The most notable is Alibaba, whose co-founder Jack Ma has had his wings clipped after years of being hailed as the darling of China's entrepreneur class, with officials halting the record-breaking IPO of its fintech arm, Ant Financial, last year. - Overseas ambition -Crucially, rules were tightened on livestreaming in November, which banned underage users from giving virtual rewards on online live shows. "Given that the internet business is highly regulated in China, intensified government regulation of the short video, live streaming and e-commerce industries in China could also restrict our ability to maintain or increase our user base or the user traffic to our platform, which will materially and negatively impact our business operations and financial results," Kuaishou said in its prospectus. Still, the firm reported revenue of 40.7 billion yuan ($6.3 billion) in the nine months ended September -- with 62 percent of that from income for virtual gifts, for which Kuaishou takes a cut. The firm is also looking to take on ByteDance's TikTok in the overseas arena, launching Zynn which is already proving increasingly popular, particularly in the United States. ByteDance will take the soaraway success of the debut as a sign of optimism as it considers a listing of some of its assets, having spent most of last year battling a potential US ban on TikTok as Donald Trump raised national security concerns. "A successful listing by Kuaishou will pave the way for its larger rival," said Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst Vey-Sern Ling. "Douyin will be more motivated to come to the market and investors can get better insight into China's short-video industry with Kuaishou's regular disclosures going forward." Proceeds from the IPO, the biggest since Uber's $8.1 billion issue in May 2019, will go to boosting diversity in the company's content offerings, strengthening its research and development and tech capabilities, as well as to acquisitions, Kuaishou said.

A team of investigators led by the World Health Organization (WHO) arrived on Tuesday at an animal health facility in China's central city of Wuhan in the search for clues about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. The independent team has already visited key hospitals, the regional disease control centre and the city's Huanan seafood market, where the first cluster of infections was believed to have originated late in 2019. The trip was going "really well, excellent," one of its members, Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, told Reuters on Tuesday, responding to a query just before entering the animal health centre. As the team left, Daszak said it had held "very informative meetings", but did not elaborate. The centre in the province of Hubei, which fights epidemic diseases in animals, could provide information on how a coronavirus endemic in horseshoe bats in southwest China might have crossed into humans, possibly via an intermediary species. Studies suggest the virus could have been transferred from mink or pangolins, but there has also been speculation that traders dealing in bat products could have carried the disease for months before it began to spread in Wuhan. Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO's top expert on "zoonotic" diseases that originate in animals, was among the team members clad in white suits of personal protective equipment spotted within the centre's premises. A worker, also wearing protective gear, sprayed disinfectant on the road outside after the team had entered. Though most researchers say the disease is most likely to have originated in China's disturbed ecosystems, some believe it could have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has researched bat viruses. The WHO team is expected to visit the institute later this week. On Monday, the WHO's top emergency official, Mike Ryan, said the investigation might not find all the answers to the origins of Covid-19, calling the mission a "detective story" that raises new questions. He also criticised those who have said they would not accept the team's findings. "It deserves the support of the international community and it deserves to be able to finish its work," he added.

A team of WHO experts investigating the origins of Covid-19 visited a market in Wuhan on Sunday where one of the first reported clusters of infections emerged over a year ago. Members of the group arrived at Huanan seafood market -- which has been sealed since January last year -- driving into its barricaded premises as guards quickly blocked others from entering, according to AFP journalists at the scene.   The mission, delayed by China and weighed down by political baggage, has a remit to explore how the virus jumped from animal to human.   But with the fieldwork element of a trip in its early stages, World Health Organization officials have already downplayed expectations of finding the source of a virus which has killed more than two million people and devastated the global economy.   On Sunday, the WHO team arrived at the Huanan market as part of a long-planned trip now closely monitored by the Chinese authorities.   The experts did not take any questions and the sprawling market remains boarded up.   Security staff told reporters outside to leave and shook a tall ladder on which a photographer was sitting for a better view.   Earlier this week, state media outlet Global Times published a report downplaying the importance of Huanan as an early epicenter of the virus, claiming "subsequent investigations" have suggested the market was not the source of the outbreak.   Chinese authorities have relentlessly pushed a positive narrative of heroism and decisive, swift action in their fight against the coronavirus that has spurred an economic recovery and kept deaths down to 4,636.

The team of World Health Organisation experts investigating the origins of the coronavirus met staff Saturday at the Wuhan hospital which received the first confirmed Covid-19 cases, on day two of fieldwork on their highly scrutinised visit to China. The group was driven to the Jinyintan Hospital, the first hospital to receive officially-diagnosed Covid-19 patients in late 2019, as the horrors of the virus emerged in the central Chinese city. Details of the trip have been scant so far, with the media kept at arm's length and information on the itinerary dribbling out via tweets from the WHO experts instead of China's communist authorities. In a tweet, team member Peter Daszak welcomed the hospital visit as an ‘Important opportunity to talk directly w/ medics who were on the ground at that critical time fighting COVID!’ The mission comes with heavy political baggage. It has been beset by delays, with China refusing access until mid-January, while there are question marks over what the experts can hope to find a year after the virus first emerged. On Friday, the WHO's emergencies director Micheal Ryan sought to manage expectations. Success ‘is not measured necessarily in absolutely finding a source on the first mission’, he told a news conference in Geneva. ‘This is a complicated business, but what we need to do is gather all of the data... and come to an assessment as to how much more we know about the origins of the disease and what further studies may be needed to elucidate that.’ Last week China warned the United States against ‘political interference’ during the trip, after the White House demanded a ‘robust and clear’ investigation. The WHO insists the probe will stick tightly to the science behind how the virus jumped from animals -- believed to be bats -- to humans. The team is expected to visit the Huanan market believed to have been the first major cluster of infections, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other labs, in what the WHO's Ryan described as a ‘very busy, busy schedule’. Beijing is desperate to defang criticism of its handling of the chaotic early stages of the outbreak. It has refocused attention at home -- and abroad -- on its handling of and recovery from the outbreak. Since seeping beyond China's borders, the pandemic has ripped across the world killing more than two million people and wrecking economies. China, with a relatively low reported death toll of 4,636, has bounced back. It has swiftly locked down areas where any cases are found, tested millions and restricted travel to snuff out the crisis. The Chinese economy grew by 2.3 percent despite the outbreak last year and its leadership misses few chances to boast of the country's resilience and renewal. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman on Friday flagged the WHO visit as ‘a part of global research’ into the pandemic. ‘It is not an investigation,’ Zhao Lijian told reporters.  

China exported more than 220 billion face masks last year, the commerce ministry said Friday, the equivalent of nearly 40 per person outside China as demand for protective gear skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic. Shifting billions of dollars' worth of the coverings has become an important driver of China's exports after Covid-19 virtually halted economic activity in the earlier part of 2020 and ravaged growth. On Friday, vice-minister for commerce Qian Keming told reporters that in addition to masks, China exported 2.3 billion pieces of protective gear and one billion test kits last year, ‘making an important contribution to the global fight against the epidemic’. The mask shipments alone were worth 340 billion yuan ($52.6 billion), a customs official said earlier this month. ‘(The volume) is equivalent to providing nearly 40 masks to each person in the world outside China,’ said customs spokesman Li Kuiwen. China, where Covid-19 first emerged in late 2019, was also the first country to bounce back after imposing strict lockdowns and virus control measures. It is expected to be the only major world economy to clock positive 2020 growth. But on Friday, commerce ministry official Chu Shijia added that China still faced a ‘severe and complex’ environment in foreign trade and investment this year.  

A World Health Organization-led team of experts investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic began meeting with Chinese scientists on Friday, and the WHO said the group plans to visit labs, markets and hospitals in Wuhan. On Thursday, the team completed two weeks of quarantine following its arrival in China, moving to a lakeside hotel in the central Chinese city where the deadly virus emerged in late 2019. ‘First face to face meeting with our colleagues. Correction: facemask to facemask given the medical restrictions. Discussing our visiting program,’ Marion Koopmans, a virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, tweeted on Friday. ‘China teamleader prof Wannian joking about some technical glitches. Nice to see our colleagues after lengthy zoom meetings,’ she said. The group is expected to spend two more weeks in China, and will visit the seafood market at the centre of the early outbreak. It will also visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology. One hypothesis, rejected by China, is that the outbreak was caused by a leak at the government lab. The WHO has sought to manage expectations. ‘There are no guarantees of answers,’ its emergency chief, Mike Ryan, said earlier this month. The mission has been plagued by delays, concern over access and bickering between China and the United States, which has accused China of hiding the extent of the initial outbreak and criticised the terms of the visit, under which Chinese experts conducted the first phase of research. ‘It is important to remember that the success of this mission and origin-tracing is 100% depending on access to the relevant sources,’ Thea Fischer, a Danish member of the team, told Reuters on Thursday. ‘No matter how competent we are, how hard we work and how many stones we try to turn, this can only be possible with the support from China,’ she said. The origin of Covid-19 has been highly politicised. The investigating team had been set to arrive in Wuhan earlier in January, and China's delay of their visit drew rare public criticism from the head of the WHO, which former US President Donald Trump accused of being ‘China-centric’. China has pushed the idea that the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in Wuhan, with state media citing the presence of the virus on imported frozen food packaging and scientific papers saying it had been circulating in Europe in 2019. China's foreign ministry has also hinted that the sudden closure of a US army labouratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland in July 2019 was linked to the pandemic. ‘At the early stage in China, it was a burden particularly for Wuhan people when everyone was calling it a Wuhan virus, which was humiliating,’ said Yang You, a 30-year-old Wuhan resident. ‘If it could be traced to the source clearly, in my opinion, it could clear either China's or Wuhan's name.’  

* Holiday air bookings down 73.7% versus 2019: ForwardKeys * Government requiring travellers to take nucleic acid tests * To delay rebound in airline revenue to pre-crisis levels: analyst Iphie Nie, a 30-year-old designer in Beijing who usually travels to visit family in her hometown of Shenzhen during the Lunar New Year has, like many Chinese, reluctantly decided against booking a flight for the mid-February holiday. To limit the spread of Covid-19, the government has discouraged travel in what is normally the busiest time of the year. Those who are going anyway must to present a nucleic acid test with negative results taken in the seven days before returning home. As a result, airline bookings made as of Jan. 19 for Lunar New Year travel have plunged 73.7% compared with the holiday period in 2019, according to data from travel analytics firm ForwardKeys provided to Reuters. ForwardKeys did not provide 2020 data, saying the early days of the COVID outbreak distorted the numbers. Bookings had been down 57.3% from 2019 as of Jan. 1, with the situation deteriorating due to outbreaks leading to tighter restrictions. ‘Even though I'm in a low-risk area, people in my hometown would get a bit nervous when they hear that I just got back from Beijing. It's just too much trouble,’ Nie said. Beijing has reported new Covid-19 cases for 11 consecutive days and nationwide case numbers, while tiny by the standards of most Western countries, are at 10-month highs. Many employees working for state-owned companies or government agencies have been told not to travel without management approval, state media reported. Some people who already bought air tickets are considering cancelling. ‘I've already booked a ticket but I still haven't made up my mind yet,’ said Kathy Qi, a 29-year-old office worker in Beijing from Henan. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said on Tuesday that passengers who bought tickets for flights scheduled from Jan. 28 to March 8 are entitled to full refunds, as the government looks to reduce population flows over Lunar New Year. A report by aviation data provider Variflight predicts a reduction of 6 million trips over Lunar New Year as a result of the COVID test requirement and home quarantine rules, with about 50% of travellers likely to cancel. Ticket prices, normally at their peak during Lunar New Year, have plunged. As of Jan. 25, flight tickets sold on Qunar.com, a Beijing-based online travel platform, averaged 651.36 yuan ($100) during the holiday, the lowest level in five years, the company said on Monday. In China, domestic airline capacity had recovered to 2019 levels by the end of last year when there were almost no cases, though ticket prices remained low. Luya You, transportation analyst at BOCOM International, said a full recovery of Chinese airline revenue to pre-crisis levels would be delayed to the second or third quarter this year, compared with her earlier assessment of January or February. ForwardKeys said travellers had been booking tickets later than usual, with 61% of Chinese doing so within four days of departure in March to December 2020, up from 52% in 2019. ‘This is the one statistic that gives some hope for travel this Chinese New Year, as a rush in last-minute bookings is a definite possibility if the recent outbreak is brought under control soon,’ ForwardKeys spokesman David Tarsh said. However, Nie, the designer, said she was too concerned about the possibility of increased restrictions to book a last-minute ticket home. ‘What if I need to be isolated at home for 14 days when I get back? And I only have 10 days off for the holiday,’ she said.  

Footage showed the first miner to be rescued, a black blindfold across his eyes, being lifted out of a mine shaft in the morning. The miner was extremely weak, CCTV said on its Weibo site. Rescue workers wrapped the barely responsive man in a blanket before taking him to hospital by ambulance. Later, another three miners were brought out from a different section of the mine, including one who was injured. Three more from the same section followed in the early afternoon.   Twenty-two workers were trapped in the Hushan mine by the Jan. 10 blast in Qixia, a major gold-producing region under the administration of Yantai in coastal Shandong province. One miner has died and 11 have not been in contact with rescue teams, according to a Xinhua report from last week. Officials said on Thursday it could take another two weeks to clear “severe blockages” before they could drill shafts to reach a group of 10 men who had been receiving supplies of food from the rescue team.   State media said earlier however that rescuers were hoping to reach the 10 men in the mine’s 5th section on Sunday.