China is about to build a satellite system that is even more powerful than Starlink project. It is the Hongyan constellation. This constellation will consist of hundreds of small communication satellites, which can provide mobile Internet data connectivity for the world.
So, is Hongyan Constellation really more powerful than the Starlink project? Can it break Musk’s space hegemony? How long will it take to complete this project? What can it bring to China?
Asians cities (such as HK, China, Singapore, Japan etc) mass transits are incidents FREE. We lives in SF, afraid to take mass transits since we are Chinese, we got bitten up because of our skin color. 亞洲城市（如香港、中國、新加坡、日本等）的公共交通是安全的。 我們住在美國三藩市, 因為我們是中國人所以不敢乘坐公共交通工具，因為我們的膚色我們被搶被打的機會極高.
China’s ZeroCovid policy is NOT OVER. Don’t Let People Manipulate The Facts by Mario Cavolo December 4 2022 中國的零新冠病毒政策還沒有結束。 不要讓人們操縱事實
As usualy, you cannot trust the basket of mis and disinformation found in the combination of western mainstream media and social media influencer voices with high #s of followers. So follow me here to clarify the many misunderstandings and even vicious intentional manipulation & deception you are seeing each day.
The only purpose of China’s ZeroCovid policy is to protect everyone’s health and in doing so has been wildly successful at the expense of economic growth, ability to engage in business, careers and quality of daily life in the society.
ZeroCovid is based on constant assessment & adjustment of the evolving situation based on specific factors being constantly assessed. Those factors include severity, death rate, vaccine effectiveness and coverage, availability and effectiveness of therapeutics and hospital capacity.
Over the past three years there have been many, many periods of time when ZeroCovid had more relaxed period of policies and times when there were more strict period of policies depending on those above factors. Depending on where you lived here in China, you were either lucky or unlucky. For example, we here in Shenyang went through several lockdowns lasting from one to three weeks during the past year including online schooling, restaurants and other retail closed, etc.
This next point is REALLY important. The recent protests were absolutely NOT the reason the recent round of relaxed policies were announced. The new round of 20 relaxed policies were announced many days before the protests began. The protests were understandable and served as an important passionate confirming nudge to the govt that the policies needed to be relaxed. But the govt already knew this and had already begun relaxing them substantially. Immediately after the protests, the govt moved along the process more quickly as an act of the govt listening to the people and preventing further unrest. LUCKILY they already knew what I am about to explain to you and had ALREADY announced they were relaxing restrictions. What I am saying is that the most important question is WHY they had already begun relaxing restrictions. To think the Chinese govt has not been meticulous this entire time in assessing, evaluating the evolving Covid situation is pure ignorance. They know what’s going on better than any of us and they had finally come to the conclusion it was time to relax restrictions based on the evolving state of the Covid infections. Let’ me tell you exactly
In February 2022 Hong Kong had a wild outbreak and deaths were high, over 9000, approximately 75% of which were unvaxxed elderly. In June, Taiwan decided to open up. Keep in mind the population of these two places around the same in the range of 20-30 million people. Their decision to open up had disastrous results. Even though the vaccine coverage was very high, with #mRNA, over the next 6 months they had a parabolic rise in deaths to over 18,000. Not good, folks. The question is WHICH variant hit these cities and which vaccines were used?
Then in August 2022 a wild outbreak hit Shanghai despite the entire city locking down. Bad news, right? Well, no, because for whatever reasons, the death rate was VERY low this time, only around 500 people died. Also by this time in the evolution of the positive cases, the govt could also see clearly in the data that 90% of positives were asymptomatic, 10% of positives had symptoms.
So, OBVIOUSLY nobody is watching, gathering data and analyzing more meticulously all of this information along the way. During the months of October / November following the Shanghai outbreak plus the data of continuing lesser outbreaks across China, the govt could finally conclude that relaxing restrictions makes sense. Heading into China’s four pandemic winter, the death rate was finally very low, relative to other outbreaks such as annual flu death rates. Their remaining concern is Long Covid, however with the death rate finall at acceptable levels, PLUS they were fully aware the people’s level of frustration was very high heading into the fourth winter, they knew it was both reasonable and timely to relax the policies and announce an updated set of 20 policy points on November 1!th.
The Urumqi fire tragedy occcured on November 24th and protests began on on November 26th, a full two weeks after Beijing had already announced the new policy set based on the evolving reality, which was that the past several months of data were surely confirming that latest Covid omicron variants were milder.
One also needs to wonder about vaccine effectiveness of Sinovac, which we do already know, that Sinovac 3 shot is equally effective to any mRNA. Well, Hongkong, which had mixed use of #mRNA/Sinovac had a bad result all the way back in February. Taiwan had a bad result, with 100% mRNA from May/June through October, but Shanghai during July/August/September had a great result, and of course mainland is 100% Sinovac. Frankly, we can only say it would seem that the use of Sinovac was further validated. But we can’t forget that vaccine effectiveness varies and generally declines as new variants evolve, even though that is obviously not what happened in Shanghai. So either the most recent variants have become mild and / or the vaccine is effective against it, some relationship between the two.
So as I have come to frame the situation realistically and accurately. The protests were important and meaningful and they served well as a passionate confirming nudge to the government that indeed, it was time to relax restrictions, and fortunately, the govt’s ongoing assessments were already coming to that same conclusion.
Where are we now. Well, the Guangzhou / Shenzhen area have been chosen as the first cities to have substantially reduced policies; no more city wide mandatory testing while still maintaining local quarantine / lockdowns in higher case/risk areas. Other cities have reduced yet continue with moderate levels of restrictions including our city Shenyang, Shanghai, Beijing and countless others. Of note Guangzhou had been currently experiencing well over 5000 cases per day. So we can suggest that in choosing Guangzhou as the test city, the government is already confidently aware that while there will be many cases, the death rate and related severity will be manageable.
So, in conclusion, we are now in a period marked by the two most important points to remember. The Chinese government has finally judged after a long period of constant assessment lasting longer than many thought it should, along with the rest of the world that the most recent Covid omicron variants are substantially milder with an acceptably low death rate. Well, I told you all along China would move slowly to reach this conclusion and by the way, WE ARE LUCKY this is the case. Because if the recent variants were more severe with higher death rate, you can be certain China would NOT under any circumstances relax the policies. If a more severe variant comes in the future, I firmly believe they will go right back to stricter policies.
I can only conclude by saying, we’ll see what the coming weeks and months bring.
Mario Cavolo: In China for 23 years, Senior Fellow, Center for China & Globalization | Founder, Mr Ma’s China Adventures | CCTV Media host, China Daily writer | Author of 3 books on China | Argument supporting China based on evidently observable references, knowledge & on the ground experiences
BYD was the top-selling car brand in China in November, outperforming the Volkswagen brand in a reversal that highlights the pressure on legacy brands in the world’s largest auto market.
VW Group still outsold BYD, when 36,847 units sold under the Audi brand are included.
Tesla’s retail sales in China also nearly doubled this month from a year earlier, after the U.S. automaker cut prices and offered incentives on its Model 3 and Model.
US formally ends shady case, the blackmailed & extortion case against Meng Wanzhou, makes a fool out of Canada 美國正式結案，孟晚舟敲詐勒索案，把加拿大當傻子
A US district judge in Brooklyn, New York on Friday dismissed an indictment against Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies. The move is purely a formality after a deferred prosecution agreement reached with US prosecutors in September 2021, which paved the way for Meng’s release by Canadian authorities and her subsequent return to China.
Still, Friday’s dismissal by the US judge marks a formal end to the US’ shady case against Meng, which became an international incident of profound implications that dragged China-US relations as well as China-Canada relations into historic lows. The US judge may have formally ended the case, but much of the damage the case has done on so many fronts, including the US justice system’s credibility, the US’ global image and indeed relations among the three countries, remains irreparable.
US officials like to go around the world and lecture other countries about its judicial independence. But as the saga surrounding Meng’s case showed, the US’ justice system is very much part of the US’ government apparatus in targeting foreign competitors and preserving its hegemony. In the case against Meng, a political decision was made in the White House to target Huawei, and the US justice system did the rest of the government’s dirty work, with prosecutors putting together dubious bank fraud charges and the court issuing arrest warrant. Then, clearly with political decisions involved, US prosecutors moved to ask the US judge to dismiss the case and the judge did just that on Friday.
Is that really the type of judicial independence the US officials constantly tout? What do that say about the US’ justice system? Yes, being the hypocrites, US officials, prosecutors and judges make the whole process seem like real with all the foamabilities like filings, hearings and rulings. But as the final outcome shows, that is all about geopolitics. And this geopolitical trick continues today and for the foreseeable future against Huawei. The Chinese firm is not the first to be targeted by the US (French industrial conglomerate Alstom and its executive Frederic Pierucci were in the same position only a few years ago), and make no mistake, it will not be the last foreign company to be unfairly targeted by the US. All non-US global industry leaders shouldn’t take that risk lightly.
As vicious as it may be, the US’ case against Meng was clearly well orchestrated with close inter-agency coordination. That’s not the case with Canada. Canadian authorities arrested Meng at a Vancouver airport at the behest of the US and put her under house arrest for nearly three years. Over the past several years, Canadian officials showed nothing but complete ineptness in dealing with the fallout of that move, other than repeatedly pointing to its extradition agreement with the US. In fact, even as the US has officially wrapped up the case, Canadian officials have not been able to also put an end to the saga and work to repair the massive damage done to what otherwise had been a friendly and mutually beneficial China-Canada relationship. With Meng’s release, many expected an improvement in China-Canada ties. Needless to say, that did not materialize.
On the contrary, Canadian officials have only doubled down on their hostile moves against China, even as many other Western countries, as they become increasingly clear-minded about the danger of the US’ unilateral, protectionist and confrontational approach, are trying to pursue constructive and pragmatic ties with China. With Meng’s case, the US made a fool out of Canada’s government, and Ottawa’s response is that it will go all in in following the US’ confrontational approach against China. That is truly regrettable.
Just last week, the Canadian government released its so-called Indo-Pacific Strategy, making clear that it will stubbornly embark on a confrontational path. From the name to the content, Canada’s strategy is a complete knockoff of the US’ Indo-Pacific Strategy, which is full of prejudice and hostility toward China. Meanwhile, some Canadian politicians are peddling claims of China “interfering” in Canadian elections – also a knockoff of the US claims against perceived adversaries. Also, Canadian authorities recently arrested a public utility worker at Hydro-Quebec, alleging the worker was “spying for China.” Canadian officials have also publicly supported the US’ push for an economic decoupling from China, while other US allies have rejected that.
Many in China are puzzled by Canada’s moves and regret to see the increasingly hostile words and deeds against China coming out of Ottawa. For many Chinese, Canada had long been a friendly country and there is so much potential for win-win cooperation between the two countries, granted there are differences. However, much of the differences in terms of political system and culture existing today had existed decades ago when Canada, under former legendary Prime Minister Pierre-Elliott Trudeau, established diplomatic ties with China in 1970. What changed is the rapid development of China, which should be good news for economic partners like Canada, and the US’ desperate attempt to crack down on China’s rise and cling onto its sliding global dominance, which apparently has tremendous sway over Canada’s foreign policy. What’s also truly regrettable for many to see is the loss of Canada’s independent foreign policymaking to US influence.
The author is an editor with the Global Times. bizopinino@globaltimes.com.cn
US political prosecutions against Subrina Meng of Huawei finally came to an end. It further exposed US fake democracy and rules of laws. 美國對華為孟晚舟的政治起訴終於落下帷幕。 這進一步暴露了美國的假民主和法治.
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