CHINA CRITICIZES OVERTURE BY US TO TAIWAN ON UN

The United States' mission to the United Nations has "gravely" interfered with China's internal affairs by openly supporting Taiwan's participation in the UN, said a spokesperson for the Permanent Mission of China to the UN.

The US mission to the UN on Friday, via Twitter, openly supported the Taiwan region participating in the UN.

A spokesperson for the Permanent Mission of China to the UN responded, saying this is "a serious violation of Resolution 2758 of the UN General Assembly, the three joint communiques between China and the United States, and China's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

"It gravely interferes with China's internal affairs and deeply hurts the feelings of the 1.4 billion Chinese people," the spokesperson said on the same day. "The Chinese mission hereby expresses strong indignation and firm opposition."

The spokesperson reiterated that there is only one China in the world. The government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.

"The one-China principle enjoys popular support and meets the call of the times, and represents the consensus of the international community. Resolution 2758 of the UN General Assembly has restored the lawful seat of the People's Republic of China at the UN and affirmed the one-China principle at the organization, which has been strictly observed across the UN system and widely respected by UN member states," he said.

The Chinese spokesperson said the US mission is in no position to speak for the Taiwan region using the UN's openness to diverse views as a pretense.

The United States has repeatedly used visa issuance to block or delay access of member states or civil society to UN activities.

"This points to the hypocrisy of the US position," he said.

While the COVID-19 pandemic is raging across the world, people of all countries are calling for international solidarity in fighting the outbreak.

The spokesperson said political manipulation by the United States on an issue concerning China's core interests will poison the atmosphere for cooperation of member states at a time when unity and solidarity are most needed. The US attempt to "divert attention and shift blame is futile and cannot fool the international community".

The spokesperson stressed that the Chinese government is "rock-solid" in safeguarding China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"China strongly urges the United States to abide by the one-China principle, the three joint communiques between the two countries, and UNGA Resolution 2578, and immediately stop backing the Taiwan region, politicizing and undermining international response to the pandemic," he added.

SCHOOLS TO REFUND ACCOMMODATION FEES

Regions across the country have required schools to return unused accommodation fees to students as this year's new term has been delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Schools that have charged students a whole school year's fees for boarding at school should refund the part that wasn't used during the second semester, according to a notice by the Education Department of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

A school year in China normally starts in September and is composed of two semesters−the first from autumn to winter and the second from spring to summer, with five months for each.

Hebei province in North China has issued a similar notice to local schools. It said schools should collect students' accommodation fees according to their actual length of residence during the period of COVID-19.

Zhou Jiong, a junior student at Hebei Normal University, said she hasn't received a notice from the school about returning to school for the semester, which was scheduled to begin in February.

"Our boarding fee for a school year is 600 yuan ($85) and it was charged at the beginning of the school year," she said, adding the school hasn't given a notice about the refund either.

"I think the refund will be collected when we go back to school," Zhou said.

Universities and colleges in the province are still suspended, as are primary schools and kindergartens. Senior students in high schools returned to school on April 23 while the graduating students in middle schools will resume classes on Thursday after the May Day holiday ends.

Other provinces, including Zhejiang, Sichuan and Shaanxi, have publicized similar refund policies. Some places are resuming classes in batches.

The Education Department of Sichuan said related fees should be refunded by the end of the spring semester. The province has also required schools to set up a hotline to address refunds.

The Ministry of Education issued a warning last month concerning school fees, on account of some schools and kindergartens starting to collect tuition fees or charges for preschool education when the new semester was still being delayed.

Schools are not allowed to collect the fees before students go back to school and resume the semester, the warning said.

The ministry also said schools should provide financial aid to students with financial difficulties, including those infected by the novel coronavirus and ones whose family has been affected by COVID-19.

OPTICS VALLEY RESUMES ITS OPERATIONS

All major industrial enterprises have returned to work at East Lake High-tech Development Zone, also known as Optics Valley, in Wuhan, Hubei province, according to the zone's management committee.

Major service enterprises, real estate development and construction enterprises, and new and high-tech enterprises in the zone have also resumed production, it said.

The zone, dubbed the city's Silicon Valley, boasts more than 90,000 enterprises. The high-tech zone, which is the base of China's optoelectronic industry, has a 25 percent share of the world market and more than 60 percent of China's in terms of optical fiber.

Zhu Xiaohan, director of the investment promotion bureau of the management committee of Optics Valley, said as the major high-tech zone in Wuhan, Optics Valley has been leading the city in resuming work and production, while employing strict epidemic prevention and control measures.

The zone has made full use of intelligent temperature measuring equipment, 5G remote diagnosis platforms and novel coronavirus test kits produced by enterprises located in the zone to assist its epidemic prevention and control efforts, he said.

In addition, it also strengthened policy support, including reductions in costs, rent and taxes to help affected enterprises, he said.

It has sped up allocation of funding for scientific research, employment incentives and social security to help enterprises cope with external risks, he said.

"The zone has more than 1,000 foreign enterprises and all major foreign industrial enterprises and service enterprises have resumed work and production," he added.

On April 20, industrial conglomerate Honeywell registered wholly-owned subsidiary Huosheng Industrial Technology Co in Optics Valley, the first Fortune Global 500 enterprise to set up a subsidiary in the city this year.

As a key city in Central China, Wuhan is an important industrial base as well as a technology and research hub in the country, the company said.

Honeywell would like to enhance cooperation with Wuhan, promote innovative technologies, provide better coverage in Central and West China and further fulfill China's vast market needs, it said.

As fresh college graduates face greater challengers finding jobs this year due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the zone set up a recruitment program on April 9 with more than 140 high-tech companies offering more than 16,000 jobs to graduates, according to the management committee.

This year's recruitment drive will be carried out entirely online until May 20. Special online recruitment sessions will be held at the city's top universities, such as Wuhan University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), it said.

The posts mainly focus on optoelectronics, integrated circuits, biomedicines, the internet and other pillar and emerging fields, it said.

In 2017, Wuhan launched a plan for 1 million graduates to stay in the city for businesses and jobs over the following five years.

Optics Valley's current resident population has an average age of 31 and it has attracted more than 350,000 university students in Wuhan in the past three years, it added.

AFRICA HAS A QUESTION FOR BEIJING: WILL YOU FORGIVE US OUR DEBT?

African states expect a devastating impact on their economies this year from the Covid-19 pandemic and are appealing for relief from repayments on billions of dollars in outstanding debt to cope. Most of those appeals involve China, the biggest lender to the continent, but it is unclear how Beijing will respond.

Angola, Zambia, Sudan and the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) are among those seeking relief, arguing they need to reallocate funds to health care and equipping hospitals to fight the coronavirus, which has infected over 3.5 million people worldwide. Africa was largely spared in the early days of the outbreak, but cases as of Sunday had jumped to more than 44,000 and 1,771 dead.

Yun Sun, a fellow with the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said Beijing was unlikely to take a unilateral approach to debt forgiveness.

“Rather than outright relief, postponement of loan payments, debt restructuring, and debt/equity swap are more likely in China’s playbook,” said Sun, who is also co-director of the East Asia programme and director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre. She said the most likely loans to be forgiven would be zero-interest ones.

As the virus itself starts to spread further on the continent, the economic havoc it has caused elsewhere in the world has already hammered African economies.

The plunge in oil prices hit producers such as Angola, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan, while tourism-dependent nations such as the Seychelles and Mauritius face recessions. Zambia, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Zimbabwe are all counting the cost of a drop in demand for commodities they produce.

CHINESE NAVY ANTI-PIRACY DRILL ENDS WITH DETOUR THROUGH SOUTH CHINA SEA ISLANDS FOR US ATTENTION

A Chinese navy fleet conducted an escort mission drill through the disputed Spratly Islands chain in the South China Sea after completing an anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia.

Analysts said the mission on Saturday by the 35th escort fleet of the Chinese navy was to boost far-sea training for combat ships and boost protection against piracy for Chinese merchant ships.

The official People’s Liberation Army outlet PLA Daily reported that the fleet, including the destroyer Taiyuan and frigate Jingzhou, conducted drills to rescue hijacked ships and coordinated anti-piracy operations in the Spratlys – called the Nansha Islands by China – passing through the Miyako Strait and Bashi Channel.

PLA Navy officer Yang Aibin was quoted as saying that the Chinese fleet focused on combat exercises to improve their ability to respond to sea and air conditions.

“At the same time, in response to the new situation created by the global epidemic [of Covid-19] and pirates in the nearby area, we are constantly improving our plan and carrying out specialised refining to further enhance the fleet’s ability to perform escort tasks,” he said.

The drill came as the United States stepped up its freedom of navigation operations in the disputed waters, challenging Beijing’s maritime claims.

Last week, guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill “asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the Spratly Islands, consistent with international law”.

US guided-missile destroyer USS Barry also conducted a freedom of navigation mission near the Paracel Islands. China calls them the Xisha Islands, and Vietnam, which also lays claim, calls them the Hoang Sa Islands.

China said it had deployed its navy to warn away the USS Barry.

The US has long accused China of building up military facilities in the South China Sea, deploying anti-ship cruise missiles and long-range surface-to-air missiles.

The 35th escort fleet went to the South China Sea after an anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden in late April, a peacekeeping mission under the United Nations.

The fleet comprises 690 officers and two helicopters in addition to the Taiyuan and Jingzhou. The Chinese military said it was still committed to its mission despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

CHINA-AUSTRALIA RELATIONSHIP AT RISK FROM COVID-19 BLAME GAME, MINING MAGNATE WARNS

The relationship between China and Australia is one of the “most important” in the world, but it could be put at risk by the erupting blame games over the coronavirus, Australian billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest has warned.

Forrest, the chairman of Fortescue Metals Group, one of the largest iron ore suppliers to China, said Australia’s finger-pointing at Australia-based Chinese companies for shipping face masks to China earlier this year was “un-Australian.”

His comments came just as a new diplomatic row exploded between the two countries over the Australian government’s push for an independent international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus outbreak, an effort Beijing has blasted as a political manoeuvre to smear China.

“Pandemics start anywhere and their origins are not an important statistic,” Forrest said in an interview with the South China Morning Post, in reference to humanitarian aid. “Covid-19 is an opportunity for the world to work together.”

China has given Australia a great deal of help in its fight to control Covid-19, particularly providing supplies of medical equipment, he said, taking issue with reports to the contrary.

Since January, when the outbreak was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, shipments of personal protection equipment to Australia from China have been “many times” more than those heading in the opposite direction, Forrest said.

Tensions erupted earlier last month when The Sydney Morning Herald claimed Chinese-backed Australian companies had bought large quantities of medical face masks and shipped them to China as humanitarian aid, depleting Australia’s supply when they were most needed.

Forrest defended the Chinese companies that exported the masks from Australia, arguing the shipments were based on normal business practices.

“The Chinese companies which sent masks back to China in January acted in a proper legal marketplace, they did absolutely nothing wrong … this is just what you do to help another country [in need],” said Forrest.

The move prompted China’s ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, to warn the Chinese public could boycott Australian wine and beef if Canberra pushed ahead with a probe, remarks interpreted by senior Australian government figures as a threat of economic retaliation.

The rapid rise in tension between the two countries highlights the precarious balancing act between Australia’s business dealings with and its foreign policies toward China.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. - Martin Luther King Jr