XI UNVEILS STEPS TO HELP AFRICA IN COVID FIGHT

President Xi Jinping announced a number of measures to consolidate China-Africa cooperation in battling COVID-19 at a special summit on Wednesday evening.

China will continue to make full efforts to support African countries' fight against the disease and continue to provide material support, dispatch medical teams and help representatives of African countries come to China to purchase medical materials, Xi said in the keynote speech at the Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity Against COVID-19.

The summit, jointly initiated by China, South Africa and Senegal, was held via video link. The countries issued a joint statement afterward. South Africa is the rotating chair of the African Union and Senegal is co-chair of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

At the beginning of his speech, Xi proposed observing a moment of silence for victims of the novel coronavirus and expressed condolences to their families.

China will begin construction of the Africa CDC headquarters ahead of schedule this year, Xi said. He added that China will speed up the construction of China-Africa Friendship Hospitals and the cooperation between paired-up Chinese and African hospitals.

"We pledge that once the development and deployment of a COVID-19 vaccine is completed in China, African countries will be among the first to benefit," Xi said.

For African countries that are hardest hit by COVID-19 and under heavy financial stress, China will work with the global community to provide them greater support, such as by extending periods of debt suspension, to help tide them over their current difficulties, he said.

"We encourage Chinese financial institutions to respond to the G20's Debt Service Suspension Initiative and to hold friendly consultations with African countries according to market principles to work out arrangements for commercial loans with sovereign guarantees," he said.

Within the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation framework, China will cancel the debt of relevant African countries in the form of interest-free government loans that mature by the end of 2020, Xi said.

Xi called for further cooperation in jointly building the Belt and Road to cushion the impact of the disease. Greater priority needs to be given to cooperation in public health, economic reopening and people's livelihoods, he said.

He said the international community, especially developed countries and multilateral financial institutions, should act more forcefully on debt relief and suspension for African nations.

"China will work with the United Nations, the World Health Organization and other partners to assist Africa's response to COVID-19, and do it in a way that respects the will of Africa," Xi said.

China will explore broader cooperation with Africa in such new areas of business as the digital economy, smart cities, clean energy and 5G technology to boost Africa's development and revitalization, Xi said.

China will work with Africa to uphold the UN-centered global governance system and support the WHO in making greater contributions to the global COVID-19 response, he said, adding that China opposes politicization and stigmatization linked to COVID-19.

Xi said that the Chinese people have put up a fierce fight and made enormous sacrifices to bring the situation in China under control, and the country remains mindful of the risk of a resurgence.

African governments and people have also put up a united front and taken strong measures to effectively slow the spread of the virus, which is indeed a hard-won result, he said.

TOP DIPLOMAT YANG JIECHI MEETS US SECRETARY POMPEO

China and the United States agreed to take actions to honestly implement the consensus reached by leaders of both countries and to keep in touch and communication.

The consensus was made during a two-day meeting between Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and the United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from Tuesday to Wednesday in Hawaii, the Foreign Ministry announced. Yang is also the director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs.

The two sides exchanged in-depth views on China-US relations and regional and international issues of common concern, according to a press release.

Both sides have comprehensively elaborated their respective positions and believed that the dialogue was constructive, it said.

FOREIGN INVESTORS RAISE ALLOCATIONS FOR CHINESE BONDS

Foreign investors are increasing fund allocations in China's booming government bond market, in anticipation of higher returns at a time when central banks in developed markets are further slashing rates, experts said.

Local government bond issuances in May totaled 1.3 trillion yuan ($183.4 billion), a record, as local governments continued to accelerate fundraising via bonds, despite recent price volatility.

A study from Morgan Stanley said on Wednesday that the average monthly government bond issuance could be around 1 trillion yuan during the June-to-September period.

The growth in government debt is largely to finance the unprecedented fiscal stimulus package this year to counter the shocks of the novel coronavirus epidemic. The government plans to issue government bonds worth 8.51 trillion yuan, 3.6 trillion yuan higher than in 2019, to maintain large spending and bail out the weak and smaller businesses.

Freddy Wong, managing director and head of fixed income for the Asia-Pacific region at Invesco, said on Wednesday that Chinese government bonds have maintained their attraction for foreign investors, as interest rate spreads are further extending when major central banks are keeping lower interest rates and conducting quantitative easing to spur the economy amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

"Foreign investors will prefer to hold the government bonds as the Chinese government has vowed to channel the funds into the real economy and accelerate production resumption, which will strengthen the market's confidence in economic recovery," said Wong.

A senior official from the National Treasury Department of the Ministry of Finance said earlier that more policy measures will improve the market liquidity to support the government bond issuance and accelerate the opening up of the onshore bond market, making local government bonds more attractive for foreign investors.

Data from China Central Depository and Clearing Co Ltd showed that by the end of May, foreign institutions held 2.43 trillion yuan of Chinese bonds, up by 114.6 billion yuan on a monthly basis. In May, the net increase in bond purchases by foreign investors was 167.6 billion yuan, with the average daily trading volume rising to a record.

Some investors were, however, apprehensive that bond issuances in June and July may tighten liquidity, as the yield on 10-year cash bonds is approaching its highest level since February. Some said the recent bond price drop was a normalization from an unconventional low interbank rate in March and April to reduce arbitrage risks within the financial system.

Given that the 2020 Government Work Report stated that both broad money supply and aggregate financing should be "significantly higher" than last year, Xing said that sustaining a faster growth of aggregate financing remains the central bank's top goal.

NEW LAW TO PLUG HK'S NATIONAL SECURITY LOOPHOLES

The National People's Congress, China's top legislature, has authorized its Standing Committee to enact national security legislation for Hong Kong to plug the national security loopholes in the special administrative region. The new law will be incorporated into Annex III of the Basic Law of Hong Kong so it can be implemented in the SAR.

The decision is a significant move to plug the national security loopholes in Hong Kong that have been exposed in recent years in the practice of "one country, two systems".

The national security legislation will provide the legal basis to prevent, curb and punish those elements that compromise China's sovereignty over the SAR and threaten national security. It will also safeguard the SAR's development interests, help maintain its long-term prosperity and stability, and protect the legal rights and interests of the city's residents.

Article 23 of the Basic Law of the SAR stipulates that Hong Kong "shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies". But in the 23 years since its return to China, the SAR has failed to promulgate a national security law.

Apart from the SAR failure to enact such a law, some existing laws and regulations to safeguard national security also seem to be lying "dormant" for a long time. As a result of these serious legal loopholes, Hong Kong has failed to meet the requirements of "one country, two systems" with regard to national security.

In recent years, violence and acts of terrorism have posed a major national security risk in "Asia's world city". The illegal "Occupy Central" movement in 2014, riots in Mong Kok during Spring Festival in 2016 and the mayhem committed by the violent demonstrators since the middle of last year, due to the opposition camp's hostility toward the now withdrawn amendment to the SAR's extradition law, have exposed Hong Kong's administrative and statutory drawbacks.

In particular, the fact that some radicals openly advocated "Hong Kong independence" during last year's riots made the promulgation of national security legislation extremely necessary. The wanton violence, vandalism and looting, and indiscriminate attacks on police officers and innocent people, including setting a resident on fire, have threatened the rule of law in Hong Kong, for which it was known across the world, and derailed the city's economic development.

In other words, the radicals have seriously challenged the bottom line of "one country, two systems" and China's sovereignty.

EXPERTS CALL FOR END TO GLOBAL POWER RIVALRIES

The COVID-19 crisis has led to economic, social and structural changes in almost all countries, and stakeholders should find ways to strengthen multilateralism rather than enter an endgame of continuing power rivalries and confrontations, experts said at an online forum.

"The coronavirus magnifies the underlying structural reality that great power rivalry is still a main topic in the world order and disorder," said Graham Allison, Douglas Dillon professor of government at Harvard University.

Allison is the author of the book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides' Trap?, which unpacks whether China and the United States can avoid direct confrontation.

Allison, whose remark that China and the US will ultimately fall into the "Thucydides trap"−where when one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result−said at the World Peace Forum held by China's Tsinghua University on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic did not change his view that China and the US are still different in many ways.

Tensions between China and the US are rising again, but rivalries will do no good to either China or the US, Allison said. "The pathogen has condemned, in effect, both countries, despite whatever hostility to work together at least to the extent necessary to ensure each nation's survival and well-being."

In addition, Allison said the coronavirus also provided a vivid reminder that every nation, not only China and the US, is facing external threats. "It cannot be defeated by countries acting alone."

As the coronavirus threatened all human beings, "survival required adversaries to constrain their competition".

Although some countries, Allison said, have politicized the fight against the pandemic and used the virus to promote competition among countries based on their own interests, China's performance during the outbreak reflected its global vision of being a responsible major country.

INFECTIONS IN BEIJING 'LIKELY' TO INCREASE

Beijing has stepped up overall measures−including canceling flights, suspending classes and expanding nucleic acid testing−to contain a new cluster of local COVID-19 infections. The move comes as the number of confirmed cases in the city is expected to rise in the coming days.

The Chinese capital reported 31 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 137 since the first new local case was reported on June 11. All are related to the Xinfadi wholesale market in southern Beijing's Fengtai district.

"Given that Xinfadi was the largest produce market in the city, with large flows of people, and the outbreak was still in the early stage, it's likely that the number of new COVID-19 patients will continue to rise for a certain period," Pang Xinghuo, deputy head of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The cluster of local infections is believed to be associated with human-to-human transmission and contaminated objects, she said.

Among the 31 new cases reported on Tuesday, the youngest patient is 8 years old and the oldest is 70. The average age is 43, with 19 males and 12 females, Pang said.

After Beijing announced on Tuesday night it would raise its public health emergency response from the third−to the second-highest level of its four-tier system, a group of strengthened measures was launched to keep infections from spreading.

On Wednesday, hundreds of flights to and from Beijing were canceled. Both the railway authority and domestic airlines granted full refunds on all tickets to and from Beijing.

By Wednesday, four provinces−Hebei, Sichuan, Liaoning and Zhejiang−had reported patients with confirmed illness related to the cases that had appeared in Beijing since Saturday. Many cities in China have introduced a range of quarantine measures for travelers from Beijing.

In order to make nucleic acid testing available to more people, 98 hospitals and medical institutions now will provide the service to residents, but authorities suggest reservations be made to avoid a concentration of people and the potential for infection from crowds.

"Currently, the city has the ability to test an average of 400,000 people per day, and we plan to step up testing capacity in the coming days," said Zhang Qiang, a member of the city's epidemic-control office, on Wednesday.

The capital has tested about 356,000 people since Saturday, he said.

Also, to help residents who have been to Xinfadi and other high-risk areas report their information quickly and easily, many districts in Beijing including Xicheng have released hotline numbers to communities so social workers and volunteers can visit the residents to collect information.

The city also has suspended group events such as wedding receptions and banquets to contain the further expansion of COVID-19.

Beijing's education authorities have also responded quickly, suspending on-campus classes and requiring all students to return home and study online starting on Wednesday.

While many markets have been shut down for disinfection, the major supermarkets and stores across the city are capable of supplying the needs of residents, said Wang Hongcun, an inspector from the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light. - Ralph Waldo Emerson