International

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake jolted Shaya County of Aksu Prefecture in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Monday.The epicentre was monitored at 40.01 degrees north latitude and 82.29 degrees east longitude, with a depth of 50 km, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).There were no reports of human losses or material damage as a result of the earthquake so far.China usually suffers from earthquakes and strong tremors, especially in the mountainous areas in the west and southwest of the country.

China has resumed the issuance of ordinary visas for Japanese citizens travelling to the country, the Chinese embassy in Japan said on Sunday, in a move that could ease a diplomatic row.Effective on Sunday, the embassy and Chinese consulates in Japan will resume the examination and issuance of ordinary visas for Japanese citizens to China, the embassy said in a statement.China this month stopped issuing visas for Japanese nationals after Japan toughened Covid-19 border control rules for travellers coming directly from China. Japan lodged a protest to China over the suspension of visas for Japanese citizens, asking Beijing to reverse the action.

Residents of China's Wuhan said Monday they were hopeful for the future and no longer afraid of Covid-19, three years after the city was locked down over what was then a mysterious virus.Since Beijing ordered Wuhan sealed off in a bid to suffocate the outbreak in January 2020, Covid has devastated the planet, killing millions and plunging the global economy into turmoil.But life is now back to normal for many across the globe and after almost three years of gruelling lockdowns and mandatory mass testing, Beijing last month lifted its hardline zero-Covid policy.As China celebrated Lunar New Year this week, Wuhan was unrecognisable compared to the apocalyptic scenes that gripped the city of 11 million in early 2020.Locals braved icy temperatures to pack busy markets and families -- some not wearing masks -- bought toys and threw stones along the Yangtze River.Many told AFP they were elated that life was returning to normal."The new year will of course be better," Yan Dongju, a cleaner in her sixties, told AFP."We are not afraid of the virus anymore.""Now that we have opened up, everyone is quite happy," said delivery driver Liang Feicheng, wearing glasses and a black facemask to keep warm."A lot of our worries and depression have all slowly been resolved," he added."People are going about their lives, coming together with family and friends, going out to play and travel and being happy."- 'House of hope'-The January 2020 decision to lock down the city, announced in the middle of the night, took Wuhan's residents by surprise as the world watched on with uncertainty.For 76 days, Wuhan was cut off from the world, with residents holed up in their homes for fear of being infected as hospitals overflowed with patients.But the horrifying scenes which marked the world's first Covid lockdown are now a thing of the past.Outside a shop where AFP captured the scene of a man who lay dying in the street in January 2020 -- in an image that would become a symbol of the world's fight against Covid -- a sign for a new school on the second floor reads "House of Hope".But in a cogent reminder of the fraught geopolitics that would emerge as the virus spread across the globe, Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market -- once suspected of being the epicentre of the outbreak -- remains closed.The area around the once-bustling wet market was desolate when AFP visited Monday, though a police car kept watch.- Over a billion infected –China, relatively unscathed for years after its initial outbreaks thanks to draconian zero-Covid measures, has faced its biggest-ever case surge in recent weeks.About 80 percent of the population is believed to have contracted Covid since health restrictions were lifted in December, according to leading epidemiologist Wu Zunyou.On Saturday, China reported at least 13,000 Covid-related deaths in just under a week.This figure, which only includes deaths reported in hospitals, adds to the approximately 60,000 deaths since December that were previously reported by authorities.But it is likely a huge underestimate for a population of 1.4 billion, and Beijing's official case tally is no longer believed to reflect reality.

Archaeologists have discovered traces of human activity dating back over 40,000 years in Ziyang City, southwest China's Sichuan Province.So far, more than 1,000 pieces of stoneware items and animal fossils have been unearthed at the Mengxi River site, Ziyang. The stone products include cores, blades and scrapers, while the fossils include the remains of rhinos and elephants, according to the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute.The findings resulted from an archaeological project, jointly launched by several organizations, including the institute and the local cultural relic departments of Ziyang, in January 2022, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.Notably, some bone artefacts, suspected wood artifacts and a large number of plant remains have also been excavated - which is extremely rare to see at Paleolithic ruins.The carbon-14 dating method shows that the Mengxi River site is at least 43,000 years old.It is one of the most systematic and all-element Paleolithic sites in China, showing the relationship between humans and the environment, and providing a vivid view of human activities during the Late Pleistocene, said Wang Youping, a professor of the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University.

China has told travel agencies in Japan that it has stopped issuing new visas for travel, three companies confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday, an apparent response to stricter measures for Chinese arrivals after their country freed up travel.Chinese authorities gave notice that they had stopped issuing all tourist and business visas to Japanese nationals, said an official of a Tokyo-based agency that focuses on Chinese travel, speaking on condition of anonymity.A spokesperson of China's embassy in Tokyo said it had no new information on visa policy, however, adding that any such updates would be posted on the embassy website.The move came soon after Japan toughened Covid-19 rules for travellers coming directly from China, prescribing a negative result of a PCR test taken less than 72 hours before departure, as well as a negative test on arrival in Japan.Earlier on Tuesday, China's embassy in Seoul said it had stopped issuing short-term visas for visitors from South Korea.

China is experiencing a huge Covid-19 surge after years of hardline containment restrictions were dismantled last month.A growing number of countries are worried about a lack of data and transparency surrounding China's outbreak.Here is why it is sparking concern:- Unreliable data –Beijing has admitted the scale of the outbreak has become "impossible" to track following the end of mandatory mass testing last month.The National Health Commission has stopped publishing daily nationwide infection and death statistics.That responsibility has been transferred to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which will only publish figures once a month after China downgrades its management protocols for the disease on January 8.China has only reported 15 Covid deaths since it began unwinding restrictions on December 7, shortly after which it narrowed the criteria by which deaths from the coronavirus are recorded.This has stoked concerns that the wave of infections is not being accurately reflected in official statistics.Authorities admitted last week that the scale of data collected is "much smaller" than when mandatory mass PCR testing was in place.CDC official Yin Wenwu said authorities are now compiling data from hospitals and local government surveys as well as emergency call volumes and fever medicine sales, which will "make up for deficiencies in our reporting".Chinese hospitals and crematoriums are struggling with an influx of patients and bodies, with rural areas hit particularly hard.Several countries including the United States, Australia and Canada last week said they were imposing testing restrictions on arrivals from China because of a lack of transparency on infection data.- Piecemeal estimates –Last month, a few local and regional authorities began sharing estimated daily infection totals as the scale of the outbreak remained unclear.Disease control authorities in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang said Tuesday that the number of new cases jumped one million in the past few days, and "the epidemic is expected to enter a peak plateau in January".The Zhejiang cities of Quzhou and Zhoushan said at least 30 percent of the population had contracted the virus.The eastern coastal city of Qingdao also estimated around 500,000 new daily cases and the southern manufacturing centre of Dongguan forecast up to 300,000.Officials in the island province of Hainan estimated Friday that the infection rate there had surpassed 50 percent.But top health official Wu Zunyou said Thursday that the peak had passed in the cities of Beijing, Chengdu and Tianjin, with Guangzhou city officials saying the same on Sunday.A senior doctor at a Shanghai hospital estimated Tuesday that up to 70 percent of the city's 25 million population may have been infected in the current wave.Leaked notes from a meeting of health officials last month revealed they believed 250 million people had been infected across China in the first 20 days of December.Independent infection models paint a grim picture. University of Hong Kong researchers have estimated nearly one million Chinese may die this winter as a result of opening up.And health risk analysis firm Airfinity forecast 11,000 deaths and 1.8 million infections per day, with a total of 1.7 million fatalities by the end of April.- New variants? –Many countries have cited concerns over potential new variants as a reason to screen Chinese arrivals for Covid.But there is as yet no evidence of new strains emerging from the current wave.Top CDC official Xu Wenbo said last month that China was developing a national genetic database of Covid samples derived from hospital surveillance that would help track mutations.Chinese health experts have said in recent days that the Omicron subvariants BA.5.2 and BF.7 are most prevalent in Beijing, in response to public fears that the Delta variant may still be circulating.They said Omicron also remained the most dominant strain in Shanghai.In many Western nations, these strains have been overtaken by the more transmissible subvariants XBB and BQ, which are not yet dominant in China.Beijing has submitted 384 Omicron samples in the past month to the global online database GISAID, according to its website.But the country's total number of submissions to the database, at 1,308, is dwarfed by those of other nations, including the United States, Britain, Cambodia and Senegal.Recent samples from China "all closely resemble known globally circulating variants seen... between July and December", GISAID said Friday.University of Hong Kong virologist Jin Dong-yan said on an independent podcast last month that people need not fear the risk of a deadlier new variant in China."Many places all over the world have experienced (large-scale infection) but a more deadly or pathogenic variant did not emerge afterwards," said Jin."I'm not saying that the emergence of a (more deadly) strain is completely impossible, but the possibility is very small."

Asian countries are bracing for an influx of Chinese tourists as Covid restrictions are dismantled, and while some are wary, operators in others are preparing packages such as hotpot buffets to cash in on the expected spike in travel.Chinese tourists will no longer need to quarantine on return home starting Jan. 8, the government announced this week, a move that spurred a surge in bookings from what was the world's largest outbound travel market in 2019.The once $255 billion a year in global spending by Chinese tourists ground to a virtual halt during the pandemic, leaving a gaping hole in the Asian market, where countries from Thailand to Japan had depended on China as the largest source of foreign visitors.International flights to and from China are at just 8% of pre-pandemic levels, VariFlight data shows, but carriers are looking to ramp up capacity as authorities ease Covid-driven limits on the number of flights."There is little doubt mainland Chinese are the spark plug for Thailand's tourism recovery," said Bill Barnett, managing director of hospitality consultancy C9 Hotelworks. "It's not a question of if it will happen, it's now just a matter of how many and how fast."Malaysia Airlines and Vietnamese budget carrier VietJet Aviation said they hope to restore China flights to pre-pandemic levels by June 2023, while others such as Singapore Airlines and Australia's Qantas Airways declined to provide detailed targets as the situation evolves.Chinese airlines are likely to make significant increases to capacity from the end of March, coinciding with the start of the summer scheduling season, Morningstar analyst Cheng Weng told clients in a note.REBOUND "WITH A VENGEANCE"The prospect of cash-rich Chinese flocking to shopping streets across the world boosted luxury stocks this week, as China accounts for 21% of the world's 350 billion euro ($371.91 billion) luxury goods market.As the Lunar New Year holiday - typically a peak travel period for Chinese tourists - starts on Jan. 21, some businesses are already gearing up.Sofitel Sentosa in Singapore is creating Lunar New Year packages aimed at Chinese visitors, including a hotpot buffet and romantic packages for couples, said Cavaliere Giovanni Viterale, general manager of that hotel and the upcoming Raffles Sentosa, as the company bets that a travel rebound will come "with a vengeance".In Japan, tour bus firm Hato Bus says next month it will try out Chinese-language tours it had halted during the pandemic, with the aim of a full resumption by the spring, a spokesperson said.Japan, however, is being cautious about Chinese tourism due to the rapid spread of the virus in China. It is requiring a negative Covid-19 test on arrival from Chinese visitors, and those who test positive must quarantine for seven days under new border measures taking effect on Dec. 30.The United States said it would impose mandatory Covid tests on travellers from China, joining India, Italy and Taiwan in taking new measures, while the Philippines is considering a testing requirement.Australia, Germany, Thailand and others, however, said they would not impose additional rules on Chinese travel for now, with France taking to social media platform Sina Weibo to emphasise it welcomed Chinese friends "with open arms".In Vietnam, where tourist visas for Chinese are not yet being issued, Saigon Halong Hotel in Halong Bay expects it will receive Chinese arrivals from the second quarter of next year.Any hopes of a massive rebound in Chinese travel to Australia during the Lunar New Year holiday are probably misplaced, James Shen, general manager of Melbourne-based tour agency Odyssey Travel said, citing sky-high airfares."There are still very few flights and they would be booking very last minute," he said. "I suspect any meaningful rebound will have to wait until the travel boom in June or July next year." ($1 = 0.9411 euros)

After China scrapped three years of zero-Covid curbs in 30 days, setting off a massive wave of infections, Beijing's policymakers face an immense challenge to treat the sick and minimise deaths while winning back public trust dented by previous policies.Scenes of overwhelmed hospitals, people on intravenous drips by the roadside and lines of hearses outside crematoria have fuelled public concern. An extraordinarily small number of reported fatalities - 10 deaths since the old policy regime was overturned on Dec. 7 - and a decision by authorities to stop publishing data on cases have also stoked distrust.With estimates of millions of daily cases and at least 1 million Covid deaths next year, global experts say the world's most populous nation needs to bolster its medical infrastructure quickly. Chinese officials have vowed to step up protection for key demographic groups - including millions of elderly people - boost vaccination rates and expand healthcare resources.Experts say China has been caught ill-prepared by the abrupt U-turn in policies long championed by President Xi Jinping and implemented by trusted ally Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, be it the Chinese capital or the countryside.In December, tenders put out by hospitals for key medical equipment such as ventilators and patient monitors were two to three times higher than in previous months, according to a Reuters review，suggesting hospitals across the country were scrambling to plug shortages.China's Covid policy, especially at the grassroots level, is in chaos due to crunches in medical supplies and the sheer number of sick elderly people, said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore."This is very much an unprecedented emergency now, because of the healthcare crunch that has happened everywhere, at different levels, even in Beijing," Wu said."More fundamental, and more subtle and more important is the social contract and social trust in China. It is supposed to be very high and supposed to help the government deal with many challenges but now the issue is we don't know how much faith people have in the government."The State Council Information Office, which handles media queries for the government, did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.Covid CZAROver the past three years, Vice Premier Sun, 72, has been the face of China's Covid fight, a mother-like figure who has executed Xi's zero-Covid policy with a firm hand.On Jan. 22, 2020, while visiting the central city of Wuhan where the new coronavirus was first found, Sun told local cadres to implement the "strictest" counter-epidemic measures. A day later, the city of over 13 million was thrown into a lockdown - the first of many across China that sparked anger and protests.In April this year, Sun rushed to Shanghai as the city went under lockdown, according to state media reports. At the end of a one-month stay, Sun said it was not the time for the city of 25 million to relax. The lockdown continued for another month.Trusted by Xi, the former factory worker has taken blows for his Covid policies.In 2020, while inspecting a high-rise condominium in Wuhan, her group was heckled by residents under lockdown. "It's fake! It's fake!" they yelled from their windows, accusing officials of staging grocery deliveries to coincide with her visit.During the Shanghai lockdown, while also on an inspection tour, Sun was bombarded by pleas from residents shouting from their windows: "No more rice! No more cooking oil! Please take us with you! Don't leave us!"Sun will step down in March during a Cabinet reshuffle that also involves many other top government officials. She is also past the typical retirement age of 68."From a political perspective, she has faithfully obeyed the orders of President Xi," said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an independent U.S. think tank.According to minutes of a COVID teleconference among top policymakers seen by Reuters and confirmed by a source with knowledge of the meeting on Dec. 25, Li Qiang, the former Communist Party chief of Shanghai who oversaw the city's two-month lockdown, spoke as the new head of a small but powerful policy-deciding group on COVID.Li is a close ally of Xi's and was recently elected to the No.2 position on the seven-man Standing Committee, the pinnacle of power within the Communist Party.How the current infections are tackled remain a key near-term challenge to COVID czars."If they cannot do a good job in handling the surge of cases and this leads to mass die-off, that fear and panic would be a challenge to social and political stability," CFR's Huang said.

Half a million people in a single Chinese city are being infected with Covid-19 every day, a senior health official has said, in a rare and quickly censored acknowledgement that the country's wave of infections is not being reflected in official statistics.China this month has rapidly dismantled key pillars of its zero-Covid strategy, doing away with snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and travel curbs in a jarring reversal of its hallmark containment strategy.Cities across the country have struggled to cope as surging infections have emptied pharmacy shelves, filled hospital wards and appeared to cause backlogs at crematoriums and funeral homes.But the end of strict testing mandates has made caseloads virtually impossible to track, while authorities have narrowed the medical definition of a Covid death in a move experts have said will suppress the number of fatalities attributable to the virus.A news outlet operated by the ruling Communist Party in Qingdao on Friday reported the municipal health chief as saying that the eastern city was seeing "between 490,000 and 530,000" new Covid cases a day.The coastal city of around 10 million people was "in a period of rapid transmission ahead of an approaching peak", Bo Tao reportedly said, adding that the infection rate would accelerate by another 10 percent over the weekend.The report was shared by several other news outlets but appeared to have been edited by Saturday morning to remove the case figures.China's National Health Commission said Saturday that 4,103 new domestic infections were recorded nationwide the previous day, with no new deaths.In Shandong, the province where Qingdao is located, authorities officially logged just 31 new domestic cases.China's government keeps a tight leash on the country's media, with legions of online censors on hand to scrub out content deemed politically sensitive.Most government-run publications have downplayed the severity of the country's exit wave, instead depicting the policy reversal as logical and controlled.But some outlets have hinted at shortages of medicine and hospitals under strain, though estimates of actual case numbers remain rare.The government of eastern Jiangxi province said in a Friday social media post that 80 percent of its population -- equivalent to around 36 million people -- would be infected by March.More than 18,000 Covid patients had been admitted to major medical institutions in the province in the two weeks up to Thursday, including nearly 500 severe cases but no deaths, the statement said.

Laurie CHEN "Deceased, deceased," a staffer in full protective gear shouted as she handed a nurse a death certificate, their hospital in central China overflowing with Covid patients.China is battling a wave of infections that has hit the elderly hard, but has officially logged only a handful of deaths from the coronavirus after the government redefined the criteria by which Covid deaths are counted.At No. 5 People's Hospital in Chongqing, the main entrance lobby had been converted into a makeshift Covid ward when AFP visited on Friday.In the vast atrium, about a dozen beds occupied by mainly elderly patients on IV drips were cordoned off with red and white tape.In a nearby room, about 40 mostly elderly and middle-aged patients sat on sofas and lay on beds receiving IV drips, some coughing. A nurse said they all had Covid.In an intensive care unit next door, three people lay on beds attached to respirators and heart monitoring equipment.An elderly man was wheeled in on a stretcher, coughing and struggling to breathe. At the emergency department, around 50 people queued for triage, including Covid patients, with one person at the front of the queue telling AFP they had waited for more than an hour.The emergency room at another medium-sized hospital in downtown Chongqing was also overrun, with around 30 elderly people attached to IV drips, squeezed among beds and chairs. Several were breathing through respirators and a few had pulse oximeters attached to their fingers.A cleaner and a nurse at the first hospital told AFP there were several deaths per day since the government's sudden decision at the beginning of the month to lift health restrictions and end mass testing.It was not clear if all of the deaths were related to the virus.'Died too quickly' On Thursday evening, AFP visited a crematorium in the city's south and witnessed 40 bodies being unloaded in two hours.The relatives of several of the deceased said the deaths were due to Covid.One woman said her elderly relative, who was suffering from cold symptoms, had tested negative but died after they could not get an ambulance in time.A woman in her 20s told AFP she suspected her father had died of Covid, though he had not been tested."He died too quickly, while on the way to hospital," she sobbed. "He had lung issues to begin with... He was only 69."Under China's new definition of Covid deaths, only those who die of respiratory failure -- and not pre-existing conditions exacerbated by the virus -- are counted.That means many of the dead in Chongqing -- and across the country -- are no longer even being registered as coronavirus victims.At the first hospital's ICU on Friday, the cleaner told AFP it was mostly elderly people who were dying. Gesturing to a space where a bed had been a little while before, he said: "Look, that old man in there died just now."

Jing Xuan TENG China's top health body said Wednesday the true scale of coronavirus infections in the country is now "impossible" to track, with officials warning cases are rising rapidly in Beijing after the government abruptly abandoned its zero-Covid policy last week.After nearly three years of attempting to stamp out the virus, the sudden end of mass testing and quarantines has led to a corresponding drop in officially reported infections, which hit an all-time high only last month.With testing no longer required for much of the country, China's National Health Commission on Wednesday admitted its numbers no longer reflected reality."Many asymptomatic people are no longer participating in nucleic acid testing, so it is impossible to accurately grasp the actual number of asymptomatic infected people," the NHC said in a statement.The statement comes after Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said the capital's new infections were "rapidly growing", according to state media.Chinese leaders are determined to press ahead with opening up, with Beijing's tourism authority saying Tuesday that it would resume tour groups in and out of the capital.But the country is facing a surge in cases that experts fear it is ill-equipped to manage, with millions of vulnerable elderly still not fully vaccinated and underfunded hospitals lacking the resources to deal with an expected influx of infected patients.A line of about 50 people stretched out the door of the Puren fever clinic in Beijing on Wednesday, with multiple residents telling AFP they were infected with Covid."Basically, if we are lining up here, we are all infected. We would not come here if we weren't," one person waiting in line told AFP."I'm here with a senior member of my family, he's had a fever for nearly 10 days in a row now, so we are coming to do a checkup on him."— Medicine shortage –Restaurants, shops and parks are now allowed to reopen, but residents are finding the path to living with the virus less than straightforward.Many with symptoms have opted to self-medicate at home, while others are staying in to protect themselves from getting infected.And businesses are struggling as Covid-19 rips through the population and affects their staffing.As a result, Beijing's streets are largely empty.Residents have complained of sold-out cold medicines and long lines at pharmacies, while Chinese search giant Baidu said that searches for fever-reducing Ibuprofen had risen 430 percent over the past week.Soaring demand for rapid antigen tests and medications has created a black market with astronomical prices, while buyers resort to sourcing the goods from "dealers" whose contacts are being passed around WeChat groups.Authorities are cracking down, with market regulators hitting one business in Beijing with a 300,000 yuan ($43,000) fine for selling overpriced test kits, the local Beijing News reported Tuesday.And in a sea change for a country where infection with the virus was once taboo and recovered patients faced discrimination, people are taking to social media to show off their test results and give detailed descriptions of their experience while sick."When my body temperature went past 37.2 degrees, I began to add some sugar and salt to my lemon water," Beijing-based Xiaohongshu social site user "Nina" wrote in one account intended as advice for those not yet infected."I've been resurrected!!" wrote another account owner in the caption of a photo showing a row of five positive antigen tests and one negative.

Authorities in China's financial hub of Shanghai will from Monday scrap some testing requirements in the country's latest relaxing of its strict zero-Covid policy following nationwide protests unseen in decades.Multiple cities have started to roll back some restrictions after public resentment at harsh and prolonged containment measures reached a boiling point last weekend, when spontaneous protests broke out in multiple Chinese cities.Shanghai residents will no longer need a 48-hour negative test result to use public transport and enter outdoor venues such as parks and tourist attractions, authorities said in a WeChat post on Sunday.The city of more than 23 million was sealed off for months this year, weighing heavily on domestic economic activity.Shanghai follows multiple cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shenzhen and Chengdu, which all cancelled the testing requirement for public transport on Saturday.Beijing's local authorities also abandoned on Saturday real-name registration that had been required to buy cold and fever medicine.Chinese health authorities last month released a list of measures designed to "optimise" zero-Covid and minimise its socio-economic impact, but local enforcement of the measures has varied widely.The northeastern city of Jinzhou said Thursday it would continue to impose lockdowns because "it would be a shame to not achieve zero-Covid when we are able to", before backtracking the next day after public outcry.Officials in the eastern city of Jinan said Sunday that residents would still need to scan a health code and have a recent negative test result to access public toilets.Protests erupted over the past week in residential compounds in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou over what residents deemed were excessive measures.

Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who steered the country through a transformational era from the late 1980s and into the new millennium, died Wednesday at the age of 96, state news agency Xinhua said.Jiang took power in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and led the world's most populous nation towards its emergence as a powerhouse on the global stage."Jiang Zemin passed away due to leukemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai at 12:13 p.m. on Nov. 30, 2022, at the age of 96, it was announced on Wednesday," Xinhua reported.Xinhua said the announcement of his death was made in a letter expressing "profound grief" at Jiang's death, addressed to the whole Communist Party, military and Chinese people.His death came after all medical treatments had failed, it said."Comrade Jiang Zemin was an outstanding leader... a great Marxist, a great proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist and diplomat, a long-tested communist fighter, and an outstanding leader of the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics," Xinhua quoted the letter as saying.Jiang's death comes as China sees a flare-up of anti-lockdown protests that have morphed into calls for wider political freedoms - the most widespread since the 1989 pro-democracy rallies that were crushed the year Jiang took power."During the serious political turmoil in China in the spring and summer of 1989, Comrade Jiang Zemin supported and implemented the correct decision of the Party Central Committee to oppose unrest, defend the socialist state power and safeguard the fundamental interests of the people," state broadcaster CCTV said on Wednesday.State broadcaster CCTV said flags would be flown at half-mast at Chinese government buildings.When Jiang replaced Deng Xiaoping as leader in 1989, China was still in the early stages of economic modernisation.By the time he retired as president in 2003, China was a member of the World Trade Organization, Beijing had secured the 2008 Olympics, and the country was well on its way to superpower status.Analysts say Jiang and his "Shanghai Gang" faction continued to exert influence over communist politics long after he left the top job.In the immediate aftermath of the announcement, Chinese state media all posted the same black-and-white photo of a chrysanthemum on their official accounts on social media platform Weibo.Jiang is survived by his wife Wang Yeping and two sons.

China yesterday eased some of its strict Covid rules, including shortening quarantines by two days for close contacts of infected people and for inbound travellers, and removing a penalty for airlines for bringing in too many cases. The loosening of curbs, a day after President Xi Jinping led his new Politburo Standing Committee in a meeting on Covid, cheered markets even as many experts warned that the measures were incremental and reopening probably remained a long way off. Under the new rules, centralised quarantine times for close contacts and travellers from abroad were shortened from seven to five days. The requirement for three further days in home isolation after centralised quarantine remains. China will also stop trying to identify “secondary” contacts — a major annoyance for residents of cities who are caught up in sweeping contact-tracing efforts when a case is found — while still identifying close contacts. “Optimising and adjusting prevention and control measures is not relaxing prevention and control, let alone opening up and ‘laying flat’, but to adapt to the new situation of epidemic prevention and control and the new characteristics of Covid-19 mutation,” the National Health Commission (NHC) said. The easing comes even as case numbers in China surge to their highest since April, with Beijing and the central city of Zhengzhou seeing record tallies, and numerous cities widened localised lockdowns and other measures, including in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou. But Bruce Pang, chief economist at Jones Lang Lasalle, said some interpretations of the new rules and what they might mean for prospects for a full opening were “too optimistic”. “The Covid policy will only be fine-tuned in the short term,” he said. The news was greeted with both excitement and wariness among Chinese citizens fed-up with nearly three years of Covid curbs, which are also taking a mounting toll on the world’s second-largest economy. Travel platform Qunar said search volumes for international flights tripled from the previous day. “It depends on how the localities execute. I’m afraid to be optimistic,” said one user on the Weibo social media platform. Still, the measures were China’s most significant specific Covid easing steps to date, and were widely seen as a milestone. “This set of substantial changes marks the beginning of the end of zero-Covid, in our view,” Citi analysts wrote. “We expect the preparation work for full reopening to accelerate with a quick ramp-up of booster vaccinations in the coming months.” The NHC said it would develop a plan to accelerate vaccinations, which experts say is crucial before the country can begin more fully dialling-back a zero-Covid policy that has made China a global outlier. Among the new measures is an adjustment of categorisation of Covid risk areas to “high” and “low” — eliminating a “medium” category in an bid to minimise the number of people caught up in control measures. The new steps include ending a “circuit breaker”, under which airlines faced a suspension of flights if they brought in too many Covid-infected passengers, a system that caused frequent cancellations. Still, international flights remain at a small fraction of pre-Covid levels. “It is a baby step in the right direction,” Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said of the new rules. “But the big question looming over all of us is when is China ready to actually start a vaccination campaign that gives them the herd immunity to really open up the country?”

China announced Wednesday hundreds of new orders for its first domestically manufactured large passenger jet, with the aircraft poised to make its commercial debut early next year. The state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) said it had sealed orders for 300 of the narrow-body C919 at a major airshow on Tuesday. The announcement did not clarify whether the orders had been fully confirmed, and gave no details about the value of the deals or expected delivery dates. If the orders go through, it would take the number of known deals for the C919 to more than 1,100, based on figures from previous COMAC statements. Authorities hope the C919 - the country's first homegrown jetliner with mass commercial potential - will challenge foreign models like the Boeing 737 MAX and the Airbus A320. Beijing also anticipates that the aircraft will help reduce the country's reliance on foreign technology amid testy ties with Western countries - though most of the plane's parts are sourced from abroad. COMAC said it had reached agreements with seven leasing firms for a combined 330 aircraft, including 30 of the C919's predecessor, the ARJ21 regional jet, which came into operation in 2008. The orders "fully expressed the confidence of our leasing partners" in the two models, COMAC said. The company showed off the C919 on Tuesday at the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition. The sleek aircraft taxied down a runway in the southern city of Zhuhai before soaring into the skies in front of hundreds of onlookers. Few details of existing orders for the C919 have been disclosed. But domestic media have reported that four aircraft are expected to be delivered to China Eastern Airlines - the country's second-largest carrier by passenger numbers - by the end of this year, and go into operation in the first quarter of 2023. China sealed a deal for Airbus jets worth $17 billion earlier this year. The company began producing its A321 model in the eastern city of Tianjin on Wednesday with a view to making deliveries early next year, according to Xinhua. The state-owned news agency quoted Airbus China CEO George Xu as saying the move displayed the company's "unwavering support for the Chinese market". The Boeing 737 MAX has been grounded in China since 2019 after two fatal crashes, though Boeing said in July that it may be approved for delivery by Chinese regulators this year. But lingering US-China trade tensions and China's worst commercial air disaster earlier this year involving a Boeing 737-800 have slowed progress.

China will make substantial changes to its “dynamic-zero” Covid-19 policy in coming months, a former Chinese disease control official told a conference hosted by Citi yesterday, according to a recording of the session heard by Reuters. Separately, three sources familiar with the matter said China may soon further shorten quarantine requirements for inbound travellers. Zeng Guang, former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention who has remained outspoken on China’s Covid fight, said the conditions for China opening up were “accumulating”, citing new vaccines and progress the country had made in antiviral drug research. Asked by Citi chief China economist Yu Xiangrong if China would open up after its annual meeting of parliament that traditionally takes place in early March, he said many new policies would be introduced in the next five to six months, without indicating the basis for that information. “The situation is changing now and China’s ‘dynamic zero’ will also undergo major changes. Substantive changes will happen soon,” he said, according to the recording of the session, which was titled “China’s Exit Strategy from Zero-COVID”. Citi declined to comment on Zeng’s remarks. Zeng and Yu did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Zeng’s remarks add impetus to recent investor hopes China will ease some of the strict measures that have made it a global outlier and inflicted deep damage to the world’s second-largest economy. Public health experts have warned that reversing China’s rigid Covid regime would require a clear timeline and strategy for booster shots in a nation of 1.4bn people with little natural immunity, and many believe China will begin significant easing only after the March parliamentary session. This week’s optimism defies news of rising infections and widespread Covid-related disruptions in China, including the postponement yesterday of the Guangzhou auto show that had been planned for later this month. Chinese health authorities will hold a press conference at 3pm today on Covid-19 prevention, according to a notice that said officials from the National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention would attend. No other details were immediately available.

China will continue to support Pakistan as it tries to stabilise its financial situation, state media quoted President Xi Jinping as saying yesterday, during a visit by Pakistan’s prime minister to Beijing. Pakistan had been struggling with a balance of payments crisis even before devastating floods hit the country this summer, causing it an estimated $30bn or more in losses. Pakistan was expected to seek debt relief from China, particularly the rolling over of bilateral debt of around $23bn. China’s central bank and the State Bank of Pakistan have signed a memorandum of co-operation recently for the establishment of an RMB clearing arrangement in Pakistan, in a bid to facilitate the use of RMB for cross-border transactions by enterprises and financial institutions in both countries, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) said yesterday. China and Pakistan should also move forward more effectively with the construction of their economic corridor, as well as accelerate the construction of infrastructure for the Gwadar Sea Port, Xi told Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during their meeting at the Great Hall of the People. China has been involved in major mining and infrastructure projects in Pakistan, including the deep-water Gwadar port, all part of the $65bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Xi added that the countries should work together to create conditions for the early implementation of the Mainline-1 (ML-1) railway upgrading project and the Karachi Circular Railway project. China will also export technology for a 160km/h high-speed railway train to Pakistan, state broadcaster CCTV said yesterday. The developments and projects in Pakistan, a longtime Chinese ally, are part of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to improve China’s road, rail and sea routes with the rest of the world. China is willing to deepen co-operation in the digital economy, e-commerce, photovoltaic technology and other new energy-related areas, Xi said. Sharif was one of the first leaders to meet Xi since he secured a third term as leader of the ruling Communist Party in October. China will also export technology for a 160km/h high-speed railway train to Pakistan, state broadcaster CCTV said yesterday. A first batch of 46 train carriages has been loaded and will be shipped on November 3. Parts for another 184 carriages will be delivered to Pakistan to assemble, the report said, adding this is the first time China has exported the technology.

Hong Kong has made its biggest ever seizure of methamphetamine after uncovering a shipment arriving from Mexico worth more than HK$1 billion ($130 million), authorities said Saturday. Customs officials found a record-breaking 1.8 tonnes of liquid meth hidden in cartons of coconut water en route for Australia. The shipment, which officials said likely involved a massive international drug trafficking ring, comes as the Chinese finance hub sees a rise in drug busts involving meth. "We believe the liquid meth, of high purity, came from South America. It was packaged there and shipped via a convoluted route to Hong Kong, to be sent to Australia," said senior superintendent Lee Ka-ming, head of the drug investigation bureau at Hong Kong customs. No arrests have yet been made. Hong Kong has so far this year uncovered more than double the meth seized in the whole of last year, with almost three tonnes confiscated by authorities. The latest bust came days after law enforcement seized meth worth $5.9 million hidden in electrical transformers, which was also headed for Australia. Hong Kong authorities were alerted via intelligence exchanges with overseas law enforcement to the possibility of large liquid meth shipments arriving in the city, customs official Fong Heung-wing told reporters. "Coconut water (shipments) from Mexico are extremely rare... the last time was in 2016 and weighed just six kilograms," Fong said, adding that the size of the shipment also made it suspicious. The contraband, worth a total of around HK$1.1 billion ($140 million), was found among other goods in a cargo container and identified using X-rays last Sunday. An online search for the shipment's alleged recipient, an Australian company, came up empty, officials said. The previous largest meth bust in Hong Kong came in April when officials found 700 kilograms of the drug hidden in industrial equipment from Mexico.

Millions of people in China were under tight Covid restrictions on Wednesday as sporadic outbreaks across the country prompted business closures and disruption at the world's largest iPhone factory. China is the last major economy welded to a zero-Covid strategy, persisting with snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines in a bid to keep infections to a minimum. But fast-spreading virus variants have challenged that approach in recent months, with shutdowns and an ever-shifting patchwork of curbs sparking public exasperation and rare pockets of protest. The world's most populous nation recorded just 1,241 new local cases on Wednesday, the majority of which displayed no symptoms, according to the National Health Commission. But they include an outbreak at a factory in the central city of Zhengzhou that employs around 300,000 people and is known as the largest producer of iPhones in the world. Foxconn Technology Group, which runs the facility, acknowledged the flare-up on Wednesday but said "operation and production... is relatively stable". "Health and safety measures for employees (are) being maintained," the Taiwanese electronics maker said, adding that it was "providing the necessary guarantees for livelihoods, including material supplies, psychological comfort and responsive feedback". The company did not specify how many staff were affected by the outbreak but said it was a "small number" and that unsubstantiated online rumours of tens of thousands of infections were "patently false". "At present, the epidemic prevention work in Zhengzhou is progressing steadily, and the impact... is controllable," the statement said. "The operating outlook for this quarter remains unchanged," it added. There were signs of further tightening in Beijing, with the capital's Universal Resort theme park saying on Wednesday that it had "closed temporarily... to implement epidemic control requirements". "We will continue to evaluate the impact on operations and work hard to restore them as soon as possible", the resort said on its official Weibo social media account, without giving a timeline for reopening.   - Inhalable vaccine - Chinese authorities have shown little willingness to ease Covid measures even as the number of daily cases has diminished, with Japanese investment bank Nomura estimating this week that more than 200 million people are under some form of enhanced restrictions. In the northwestern city of Xining -- home to 2.5 million -- residents complained on social media about grinding stay-home measures, with some making accusations of underreported cases that AFP was unable to verify. "Xining is like Shanghai in April," wrote one Weibo user, referencing the months-long lockdown that triggered isolated protests in the eastern megacity earlier this year. But Shanghai's situation has since improved, and officials there began rolling out an inhalable Covid vaccine on Wednesday in what is thought to be the first such campaign in the world. The vaccine -- produced by Tianjin-based manufacturer CanSino Biologics -- was approved by domestic regulators last month and is being administered as a booster for those who have previously received a jab. Footage posted on social media by local news outlets showed residents lifting translucent beakers to their lips and sucking in the mist-like vaccine through a nozzle.

Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as China’s leader yesterday and filled his inner circle with close allies, achieving after a decade in power complete dominance over the ruling Communist Party. The party’s central committee elected Xi as its general secretary for another five-year term, bringing the country back towards one-man rule after decades of power-sharing among its elite. “I wish to thank the whole party sincerely for the trust you have placed in us,” Xi told journalists at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People after the closed-door, rubber-stamp vote was announced. Xi, 69, was also reappointed head of China’s Central Military Commission, keeping him in charge of the People’s Liberation Army. He is now all but certain to sail through to a third term as the country’s president, due to be formally announced during the government’s annual legislative sessions in March. Yesterday’s developments cement him as the most powerful leader since Communist Party founder Mao Zedong. In a wide-ranging acceptance speech yesterday, Xi made signature remarks celebrating China’s rise as a global power and its success under his rule. “The world needs China,” Xi said. “After more than 40 years of unflagging efforts towards reform and opening up, we have created two miracles — rapid economic development and long-term social stability.” Six of Xi’s proteges and allies were also unveiled yesterday alongside him as members of the politburo standing committee — the party’s apex of power that rules the country. Li Qiang — a former chief of staff for Xi who oversaw a gruelling two-month Covid lockdown in Shanghai this year — was named as number two in the standing committee. This means he is likely to take over as premier from Li Keqiang, a former Xi rival who will retire next year. Close aide Ding Xuexiang and Guangdong party chief Li Xi, a longtime confidante of the president, were among other allies named in the standing committee. “The new politburo standing committee confirms decisively that Xi has consolidated power at the top of the Communist Party to an extent unseen since the Mao era,” said Neil Thomas, a senior China analyst at Eurasia Group. “Xi has installed allies onto all seven seats of the Communist Party’s top decision-making body, allowing him to dominate the political system for the foreseeable future.” Alfred Wu Muluan, a Chinese politics expert at the National University of Singapore, said: “It is all Xi’s people, signalling he wants to rule even beyond a third term.” Xi abolished the presidential two-term limit in 2018, paving the way for him to govern indefinitely. Xi was swiftly congratulated yesterday by some of China’s allies, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The United States offered no immediate response. Yesterday’s announcements came after a week-long Congress of 2,300 hand-picked party delegates during which they endorsed Xi’s “core position” in the leadership and approved a sweeping reshuffle that saw Li and other former Xi rivals relegated. On Saturday the delegates elected the central committee of around 200 senior party officials, who yesterday chose the 24-person politburo and the standing committee. The politburo will have no women members for the first time in 25 years. Analysts had closely watched for whether the party charter would be amended during the Congress to enshrine “Xi Jinping Thought” as a guiding philosophy, a move that would put Xi on a par with Mao. That did not take place, though a resolution did call the creed “the Marxism of contemporary China and of the 21st Century”, adding that it “embodies the best Chinese culture and ethos of this era”. In the most dramatic moment of the Congress, Hu Jintao — Xi’s predecessor as party leader and president — was forcibly led out of Saturday’s closing ceremony. The frail-looking 79-year-old was reluctant to leave the front row, where he was sitting next to Xi. State media reported that Hu had been removed because he was feeling unwell, and that he had since recovered.