XI'S SPEECH AT ANTI-VIRUS SUMMIT HAILED

African leaders and experts have hailed President Xi Jinping's keynote speech at the Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity Against COVID-19, saying the mutual support of China and African countries in the anti-epidemic fight is a vivid illustration of a China-Africa community with a shared future.

In his speech at the summit he presided over via video link in Beijing on Wednesday, Xi assured African countries that China will continue supporting COVID-19 containment measures on the continent.

While calling for solidarity and cooperation to defeat the novel coronavirus pandemic, Xi unveiled an array of measures to help Africa cope with the public health crisis, including providing technical and material support and debt relief for African countries.

Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said after the summit that what Xi advocated in his speech showed the firm determination of China and Africa to defeat the epidemic and overcome difficulties, indicated the direction for future cooperation and injected impetus into international anti-epidemic efforts.

China and Africa expressed support for each other not only in the anti-epidemic fight and economic and social development, but also on issues related to each other's core interests and major concerns, Chen said.

The virtual summit was initiated by China, South Africa and Senegal. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is the current chairperson of the African Union while Senegalese President Macky Sall is a co-chairperson of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

Ramaphosa said the summit demonstrates the depth and resilience of solidarity between China and Africa. "Sino-African solidarity and better multilateral cooperation are key to winning the battle against this pandemic," he said.

Calling the summit "an excellent initiative", Sall said that leaders attending the meeting reaffirmed their aspiration to consolidate the friendship between Africa and China and to build a community with a shared future for mankind.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who attended the summit in his capacity as a member of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union, thanked China for its swift response to provide Kenya and the rest of the continent with medical supplies, including testing kits, personal protective equipment and pharmaceuticals to help them fight the epidemic.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari also commended the Chinese government for its efforts to help African countries tackle the pandemic and said Xi's strong support has further demonstrated the spirit of solidarity and enhanced the bond of partnership that already exist among FOCAC members.

A joint statement released after the summit reiterated the countries' opposition to the politicization and stigmatization of the virus and called on the international community to jointly prevent discrimination and stigmatization and reject misinformation and disinformation.

The countries also reaffirmed their commitment to supporting multilateralism, opposing unilateralism, safeguarding the United Nations-centered international system and defending international equity and justice, according to the statement.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus participated in the summit as special guests.

Speaking at a news conference in Geneva, Tedros said that since the pandemic started, China has been supporting Africa, especially in sending experts, sharing information and providing supplies, including COVID-19 testing kits. He applauded the summit, saying the platform will be important in strengthening China-Africa relations and solidarity across the world.

REVIEW OF SECURITY LAW FOR HK GETS UNDERWAY

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the nation's top legislature, started to review the draft law on safeguarding national security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on Thursday.

The draft specifies four types of criminal acts and stipulates relevant criminal responsibilities. The four types of crimes are secession, subversion of State power, terrorist activity and collusion with foreign forces that endanger national security.

The draft was submitted for deliberation to the 19th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th NPC, which opened on Thursday.

The NPC approved a decision on May 28 during its annual session in Beijing to improve the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for Hong Kong.

The decision authorized the NPC Standing Committee to draft the law.

The legislation came after continuous unrest in Hong Kong starting last June, triggered by a now-withdrawn bill to amend the SAR's extradition law. The chaos saw a number of cases of vandalism and attacks, making national security risks in Hong Kong a prominent problem, legislator Wang Chen said in May.

Although Article 23 of the Basic Law stipulates the SAR shall enact national security laws on its own, the SAR's legislature has failed to introduce such laws since Hong Kong's return to China in 1997.

On Wednesday, foreign ministers from the Group of Seven countries issued a joint statement urging China to reconsider the national security legislation planned for Hong Kong, claiming that the decision is not in conformity with the Hong Kong Basic Law, the region's mini-constitution, and would risk undermining the "one country, two systems" principle and the region's autonomy.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Thursday that China expressed strong indignation and opposition to the G-7 statement.

He said China is determined to advance the national security legislation for Hong Kong and urged the G-7 nations to stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs.

"We urge relevant parties to study the Constitution of the People's Republic of China and the Hong Kong SAR Basic Law and view the national security legislation in an objective manner," he said.

The central government listened to views concerning the legislation on June 3 from a delegation from Hong Kong led by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.

Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah said she believes the NPC Standing Committee will take into account Hong Kong people's opinions and concerns.

Cheng said the legislation is to protect the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong people and safeguard the city's long-term prosperity under the "one country, two systems" principle.

SHANGHAI FORUM CALLS FOR QUALITY DEVELOPMENT

While China's major economic indicators have shown marginal improvement amid the COVID-19 epidemic, continued efforts are needed to make the nation's prudent monetary policy more appropriate and flexible to better serve the real economy, Vice-Premier Liu He said in a letter addressed to the two-day 12th Lujiazui Forum, which opened in Shanghai on Thursday.

To better serve economic development, China's monetary policy should stress countercyclical adjustments, and the credit supply should be kept at an appropriate level while securing reasonable and sufficient liquidity in the market, Liu said. A beneficial balance can be thus sustained between finance and the real economy, he said.

Supply-side reform should be deepened to ensure higher-quality development. The monetary transmission mechanism should be improved to cater to the demands of various market entities. More credit should be provided to micro and small enterprises and manufacturing companies, he added.

In addition, deepened reform and further opening-up will take place in the financial sector. In this regard, more financial opening-up policies will be introduced to better protect the legal rights of foreign companies in China, Liu said.

Wen Bin, chief analyst at China Minsheng Banking Corp, said that opening-up has been one of the top priorities of China. The country will promote further opening of the financial sector in an orderly manner and allow greater market access for foreign investors to the domestic market and encourage more domestic financial companies to do business in overseas markets.

More reform measures are expected to be released in the country's foreign exchange management system after China made substantial progress in the reform of its market-oriented interest rate system, he said.

"The construction of free trade zones and ports will continue to be improved, the procedure for cross-border trade and investment will be further streamlined and the legitimate interests of foreign companies will be better protected," he added.

According to the State Council's decision announced in 2009, Shanghai should grow into an international financial center which is compatible with the country's economic power and the renminbi's international status.

BEIJING'S OUTBREAK CONTROLLED

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 cases in Beijing is under control as the city has seen a decline in confirmed cases, but the caseload will continue to grow for some time, health expert Wu Zunyou said on Thursday.

"It's positive that Beijing has controlled the epidemic. All the cases reported today were infected before June 12," said Wu, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

He added that the full tally of locally transmitted cases will continue to emerge in the coming days, but the number of cases will decrease over time, since the newly added cases were just new confirmations, not new infections.

The city reported 21 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, 10 cases less than the previous day. All the cases are related to Xinfadi wholesale market in Beijing's Fengtai district, according to Pang Xinghuo, deputy head of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Beijing reported eight clusters of coronavirus infection as of Wednesday, all of which were closely connected with the Xinfadi market, according to Pang.

Research and sampling have been conducted at the market over the past few days, which showed that infected seafood vendors outnumbered vendors with positive results in beef, mutton and other sections. Those seafood vendors tended to show COVID-19 symptoms earlier than other workers, Wu said.

The facility with the seafood section also was found to be more contaminated by the novel coronavirus, he said, adding that in the early stages of the epidemic, cluster infections were found in a seafood market in Wuhan, Hubei province. Research being conducted is expected to provide more clues, he added.

"One possible reason is that the freezing and humid environment at the seafood section might contribute to preserving the virus. But more analysis is needed to determine how it triggered the new outbreak," he said.

"The recent cases in Beijing, as well as the sporadic infections across the country, are within expectations given the global spread of the virus."

MASKS, HEALTH MONITORING AMONG MEASURES TO CURB VIRUS AT GAOKAO

Students from moderate- to high-risk regions of coronavirus infections should wear masks when taking the national college entrance exam, or gaokao, this year, an official from the National Health Commission said on Friday.

He Qinghua, inspector at the commission's bureau of disease prevention and control, said students from low-risk regions should wear masks before they enter the test centers and they can decide whether to wear them during the exam.

All monitors should wear masks throughout the exam, he said at a news conference.

All students and monitors should undergo 14-day health monitoring and temperature checks before the gaokao and their temperature will be checked before they enter the test centers, he said.

Quarantine test centers will be arranged for students that show symptoms of fever and cough during the exam, and each quarantine test center should only have one student there, he said, adding that when there are not enough quarantine test centers, up to four students are allowed to sit at four corners of the test center.

Schools that have had confirmed infections cannot be used as test centers and all test centers should conduct strict sanitization and sterilization before the exam, he added.

A total of 10.71 million high school students will take this year's national college entrance exam scheduled on July 7-8, up 400,000 from last year, said Wang Hui, director of the Department of College Students Affairs at the Ministry of Education.

There will be around 400,000 test centers around the country with 945,000 monitors supervising the test, he said.

The gaokao will be the largest organized gathering event in China since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, he added.

COVID-19 TESTING GOES ON, RAIN OR SHINE

A downpour on Thursday afternoon did not halt nucleic acid testing for the novel coronavirus in Beijing's Haidian district.

As the rain fell, several buses carrying dozens of people from across the district arrived at a testing station near the West Fourth Ring Road.

Fifty medics from hospitals in Haidian, divided into 10 groups, worked under tents, taking residents' throat swabs, registering their information, and putting the samples away in a protected storage box. The box would later be transported to a local disease control and prevention center for analysis in the next two days.

In the afternoon, about 1,000 district residents took the tests, a requirement because they had ties to markets where infections spread, were close contacts of those people or live in areas designated as medium-or high-risk.

The effort is part of a massive screening campaign across the capital aimed at detecting those with evidence of exposure to COVID-19 in an effort to cut off the virus' further spread.

Taking a throat swab can take only a few seconds, said Wang Lei, deputy director of the sampling testing location. But it's not always that easy.

"Children and the elderly are the most difficult group for throat swabs, since they are more prone to nausea and sneezing," said Wang, who is also a physician at Beijing Zhongguancun Hospital.

Since Saturday, the testing site, encompassing 12 tents, has been operating from 8 am to midnight. The medics work in shifts of eight hours a day, with a break every hour and a half. While on duty, the sampling workers wear heavy protective suits and face masks.

"On previous days that were scorching hot, some exhibited symptoms of heat exhaustion," Wang said.

When the sampling is finished every day, the area has to be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, he said.

One of those waiting to be tested was Ji Jingkun, 49, a worker at Furongli nursing home.

"Since we often go to different places to buy groceries while the elderly stay in the nursing home, it's vital for us to take the tests because the aged are more vulnerable," she said.

Because the investigation into the origin and what's driving the latest outbreak in Beijing is still going on, massive and quick screening covering all considered to be at risk is necessary to curb the epidemic, according to the nation's top epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

The perfect day: going to bed with a dream and waking up with a purpose. – Unknown