‘China said it has signed the inter-governmental framework agreement on security cooperation this week with Solomon Islands.
Responding to questions from Xinhua News Agency in their daily Press Conference, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Wang Wenbin said China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister, Wang Yi and Solomon Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade Jeremiah Manele signed the framework agreement on behalf of both countries.
Wenbin said the China-Solomon Islands security cooperation is a normal exchange and cooperation between two sovereign and independent countries and an important part of China-Solomon Islands comprehensive cooperation.
He said the security cooperation aims at promoting social stability and long-term tranquillity in Solomon Islands, which conforms to the common interests of Solomon Islands and the Pacific region.
Wenbin said the China-Solomon Islands security cooperation follows the principle of equality and mutual benefit, and is based on respecting the will and actual need of Solomon Islands.
“The two sides will conduct cooperation in such areas as maintenance of social order, protection of the safety of people’s lives and property, humanitarian assistance and natural disaster response, in an effort to help Solomon Islands strengthen capacity building in safeguarding its own security”.
Webin also said that the China-Solomon Islands security cooperation is open, transparent and inclusive, and does not target any third party.
“It proceeds in parallel and complements Solomon Islands’ existing bilateral and multilateral security cooperation mechanisms. China stands ready to work with relevant countries to leverage respective strengths to form international synergy”.
The Solomon Islands government has not made any official announcement yet of the signed agreement.
Australia and New Zealand including the Federated State of Micronesia have raised concerns about the security agreement. The President of the Federated States of Micronesia wrote a letter to Sogavare, urging him to abandon the security agreement with China.
Australia’s Minister for International Development and the Pacific flew in to have an audience with the Solomon Islands Prime Minister despite Sogavare telling parliament that the security agreement does not include a military base.
On Monday the White House issued a statement that U.S government officials from the National Security Council, Department of State, Department of Defense and United States Agency for International Development will visit Solomon Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea to further deepen enduring ties with the region and to advance a free, open and resilient Indo-Pacific.
Solomon Islands is reiterating that the arrangements for the framework stems from the country’s National Development Strategy and there should not be any cause for worry.
“All our security arrangements with our partners stemmed from the Solomon Islands National Development Strategy. And that strategy has gone out nationwide. So we are basically starting to implement some of the strategies that we have already made”, PS Foreign Affairs, Collin Beck, recently told the Press.
In parliament on Tuesday, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Douglas Ete made mention that an official group from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs will arrive in Honiara mid-May.
“I also understand that the PRC Foreign Affairs is arriving in Honiara in the middle of May to sign multilateral agreements and cooperation with the Solomon Islands government. That means we will be opening up cooperation in education, cooperation in fisheries and other socio-economic cooperation”, Ete said.’https://www.solomontimes.com/news/solomon-islands-and-china-signs-security-cooperation-agreement/11792
‘Some 13 years after the end of a civil war that saw 100,000 deaths, Sri Lanka is once again on the cusp of serious violence. Earlier today, the police opened fire on protesters in the town of Rambukkana. One person has died and at least ten people are said to be in critical condition. It’s the first use of deadly force against demonstrators who seem to have filled the entire island in recent weeks. Grainy footage shows half-conscious bodies being carried into hospital, bullet casings littering the quiet palm-lined streets.
This was meant to be a time of celebration. Buddhists are marking the new year while the country’s Muslim minority observe Ramadan. Instead, the country has been brought to a standstill by nationwide protests demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign amid a crippling economic crisis.
Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, is now a ghost town. The savings of the country’s burgeoning middle classes have become worthless: the Sri Lankan Rupee is now the world’s worst-performing currency. India’s southern neighbour owes international lenders more than £21 billion, with just £1.7 billion in reserves. Shops and restaurants are closed and armed police patrol the streets. The price of vegetables has increased fivefold since 2021, while the cost of rice has doubled. Many residents say they are unable to eat more than one meal a day.
Rajapaksa, a Sinhalese Buddhist, was elected President in 2019 following the Easter Sunday terror attacks. To many Sri Lankans – particularly the country’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority, around 70 per cent of the population – he seemed the obvious choice to restore law and order, having served as defence secretary during the civil war. He is credited with bringing an end to the 26-year conflict, but not without allegedly committing an array of gross human rights abuses against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority. It’s difficult to find a more polarising figure in South Asian politics.
Since his election, Rajapaksa has faced accusations of economic mismanagement, embezzlement and corruption. His brother, Mahinda, is the country’s Prime Minister and another brother, Basil, was finance minister until he resigned last week along with the rest of the cabinet. Basil implemented a series of ill-advised tax cuts back in 2019; Sri Lanka was subsequently locked out of international debt markets and has had to burn through its foreign exchange reserves to service sovereign bond payments.
The Rajapaksas were also behind a sudden decision to suddenly ban chemical fertilisers last May, without consulting farmers, which led to a disastrous drop in rice yields this year. They claimed that it would protect farmers from harmful chemicals which were causing kidney issues. Unable to afford food imports, Sri Lanka saw yields of domestically-grown rice fall by around 50 per cent.
In order to deal with the surging levels of debt, Sri Lanka announced a blanket ban on non-essential imports last year. Now, everything from milk powder to spare car parts are unavailable. Even school exams have been cancelled because the government can’t afford the paper on which to print the tests.
Fuel, gas and diesel shortages have become common. Sunrise in Colombo is met by crowds of residents heading to petrol stations and waiting, usually in vain, to fill up their vehicles. In an attempt to preserve supplies, the government is enforcing ten-hour daily power cuts across the country.
Unsurprisingly, Sri Lankans are angry. Last Saturday, in the largest protest to date, tens of thousands of Colombo residents took to the streets demanding regime change. Many also called for the Rajapaksa brothers to have their day in court. ‘It was never this bad during the civil war,’ one 43-year-old IT worker in Colombo explains. ‘At least then we had food to eat, power in our homes and fuel in our cars.’
It seems growing numbers of Sri Lankans agree. The weekend before last, Muslim leaders marched side-by-side with saffron-robed Buddhist monks before members of the country’s LGBTQ community joined them to break the Ramadan fast. You find groups of wealthy professionals chanting anti-Rajapaksa slogans alongside poor rickshaw drivers who can no longer afford fuel. Doctors and nurses are becoming a vocal part of the protests.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s largest public medical body, the Government Medical Officers Association, has declared a health emergency. Hospitals have run out of five life-saving drugs and the GMOA says there are shortages of another 180 medicines, as well as a lack of vital surgical and testing equipment. There are reports of several deaths due to a shortage of Tenecteplase, a drug administered to patients after heart attacks. Pharmacies surrounding Colombo’s leading cancer hospital are turning away patients. The GMOA is pleading with Sri Lankan expats to send essential drugs.
Yet the Rajapaksas remain resolute: Gotabaya has refused to resign. The country’s new finance minister, who attempted to quit less than 24 hours in the job, has said that reviving the economy will be a ‘Herculean’ task. He estimates Sri Lanka requires £2.3 billion in aid over the next six months to purchase essentials like food and fuel, in addition to meeting £5.3 billion of debt repayments for the rest of the year.
Many Sri Lankans blame high-interest Chinese loans for the crisis. Already, Sri Lanka has been forced to lease a new mega port to China in lieu of repayments. Spotting an opportunity, India has signed over £760 million of credit to Sri Lanka and talks are underway for a further £1.1 billion of financial support.
Back in Colombo, some are saying this is Sri Lanka’s ‘Arab Spring’ moment, as peaceful protesters seek to overthrow an autocratic government mired in corruption allegations and complicit in gross economic mismanagement. But for now, Sri Lanka’s notorious military continues to support the Rajapaksas. Whether that continues is an open question.
‘We haven’t seen anything like this for decades, there is no gas, no fuel, no food. The whole country is coming out onto the streets,’ one 22-year-old protester says. ‘The Rajapaksas have to go right now or it is going to be the end of us all.’’https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/04/sri-lankas-descent-into-chaos/
‘International demand for commercial ships is fueling the growth of the Chinese navy, according to a new report, which found that billions of dollars in foreign shipbuilding contracts could be being used by Beijing to fund new combat vessels.
The new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a security-focused think tank, found that four major shipyards responsible for building Chinese naval vessels also raked in billions of dollars in foreign commercial investment and technology transfers every year.
“China’s opaque business ecosystem offers limited transparency into the flow of capital within its shipbuilding industry, but available evidence indicates that profits from foreign orders likely lower the costs of upgrading China’s navy,” the report said.
This is because of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategy of military-civil fusion (MCF), which aims to prioritize commercial, technological, and research endeavors which simultaneously serve civilian and military purposes.
With MCF in mind, China’s premier state-owned shipbuilders are able to use the profits from international contracts to hasten military projects, such as the CCP’s expanding fleet of aircraft carriers.
The report notes that one such company, state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), is the primary builder of Chinese naval vessels, and also develops weapons and other national security equipment for the regime.
According to the report, CSSC alone accounts for 21.5 percent of the world’s shipbuilding market, and the mammoth company controls more than 100 subsidiaries. The United States placed CSSC on an investment blacklist in 2020 but, as the numbers demonstrate, such has had little to no effect on international demand.
The example of CSSC highlight the important issue of China’s centrality to the global shipbuilding market. In 2020, China accounted for more than 40 percent of all merchant shipbuilding in the world. Second place went to South Korea with 31.5 percent, and third to Japan with 22.2 percent.
The rest of the world combined accounted for less than eight percent of all merchant shipbuilding.
Vitally, the report found that the same shipyards used to build the world’s merchant vessels were also being used to rocket China’s navy to global ascendency.
Four shipyards, Dalian, Jiangnan, Hudong-Zhonghua, and Huangpu Wenchong, received billions from foreign investors in recent years, where top firms from France and even Taiwan commissioned ships to be built in the same drydocks as China’s combat vessels.
Previously, a French ship was being built in the same drydock that is now constructing China’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier. Recent satellite imaging, moreover, showed that a commercial container ship for Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corporation was being built in the next dock over.
The incident raises concerns that the Taiwanese shipping titan could be essentially funding China’s capacity to invade the self-governed island.
“It should raise more than a few eyebrows in Taipei that Taiwan’s premier shipping company is pouring money into the coffers of shipyards assembling warships for the Chinese navy,” the report said.
“Given CSSC’s lack of transparency and its central role in supporting the PLAN [People’s Liberation Army Navy], foreign companies should exercise more caution when engaging with it and other Chinese shipbuilders. For democracies, especially those in the region that must weather the brunt of China’s rising assertiveness, these ties are more than just worrying. They present a tangible threat to national security. ”
In all, CSIS found that Evergreen purchased 44 vessels from China from 2018-2022. Only two of those orders were built by shipyards that were not known to produce combat vessels for the Chinese navy.
Evergreen’s contracts with CSSC are just the tip of the iceberg, however.
The CSIS report found that from 2019 to 2021, the four aforementioned shipyards received 211 orders for commercial vessels, with some 64 percent of those orders originating from outside of China and Hong Kong.
As such, the report warned that global demand for commercial vessels was likely accelerating Chinese naval development by a significant margin at a time when the West is increasingly at odds with the communist regime over its global ambitions.
Nevertheless, the report said that there was a silver lining in the fact that the two other largest shipbuilders were South Korea and Japan, which CSIS described as “thriving democracies.” Both nations also enjoy favorable trade and security agreements with the United States.
As such, CSIS recommended that lawmakers in Washington seek to draw international shipbuilding contracts away from China and into the markets of more democratic societies in the Pacific.
“Policymakers in Washington should explore opportunities to incentivize foreign companies away from China and toward partnerships with South Korean and Japanese alternatives,” the report said.
“The shift will not be easy or immediate. Short-term capacity issues will arise. But in managing hard choices vis-à-vis China, especially those critical to national security, the United States should be prepared to steer the lead ship. “’https://www.theepochtimes.com/international-shipbuilding-contracts-fuel-chinese-navy-modernization-report_4397072.html?est=eBFJ5doDK8dDckunmwgx%2BtWt2FpLlFD1zeTDrC5b5YeHX9NJncBCWQzK%2FCyeWH%2FPdg%3D%3D
‘Viral hemorrhagic fever cases in the UK ·3rd relative suspected, but is awaiting confirmatory tests ·All 3 are members of the same family from the East of England, officials said ·2 new cases are among only 10 ever spotted in the UK — and first since 2009
Originally published 2/10
Well-placed sources have informed CDMedia that the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army, have launched another virus on its own people during the Olympics in Beijing, in order for athletes and diplomats to return home and infect the rest of the world, particularly the West.
The purpose of the launch is multifold. After being developed in a lab, the PLA is testing the pathogen’s performance on China’s own people and those attending the Olympics.
The virus has been altered inside a laboratory to make the incubation period longer than usual, now suspected at 3-4 weeks, in order to allow visitors to Beijing to return home with no symptoms during transit.
The launch of the virus is following the procedure used during the launch of Covid-19, in that portions of China are infected, locked down, in an attempt to stop the transmission to the rest of China after release. This scenario gives the PLA plausible deniability.
However, as with Covid-19, those infected visiting China will be allowed, even encouraged to travel to the West.
The virus is said to be highly transmissible, and causes bleeding through multiple orifices of the body, even the skin.
This second wave of biological warfare comes as the Covid-19 phase is winding down.
Our source has declared to have contacted appropriate agencies of the U.S. government to no avail in an effort to have those returning from the Beijing Olympics quarantined.
Other news outlets have recently reported similar stories from the region but not with these specific details. It is always a question of whether or not to publicize such data but we felt the American public needed to be aware of what possibly may be happening as trust in our government and medical establishment is at rock bottom.’https://creativedestructionmedia.com/news/asia/2022/02/13/breaking-from-source-peoples-liberation-army-launches-hemorrhagic-fever-viral-attack-against-the-world-during-olympics/
‘A jaw-dropping, peer-reviewed paper shows China’s old-school vaccine produces a far stronger T-cell response to the coronavirus than the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA jab.
China’s CoronaVac shot caused people to make far more T-cells targeting the coronavirus than those who received Pfizer’s mRNA shot, scientists in Hong Kong have found.
Though it is only one datapoint, the study hints the Chinese shot – which is based on older, well understood principles of vaccinology – may ultimately provide longer-lasting protection than the hastily developed mRNA jabs from Pfizer and Moderna.
The study was published in a peer-reviewed journal called Respirology in November, but has (unsurprisingly) received no attention. It offers a rare head-to-head look at the immune-system effects of the Chinese and Pfizer Covid vaccines, which work in very different ways.
“Humoral responses” are antibodies, the body’s first-line defense against infection; the mRNA vaccines are known to produce supra-natural levels of antibodies, giving rise to short-term protection that fades within months.
T-cells are a part of the immune system crucial for producing long-term immunity and reducing severe disease in people who are infected. The mRNA jabs have been shown to produce relatively limited T-cell protection, but this study appears to have been the first time anyone directly compared them to the Chinese vaccine.
The scientists compared the immune responses in more than 700 people who had received either CoronaVac or mRNA shots, matching them by age and demographic data.
As expected, they found very high levels of anti-spike protein antibodies in people who received the mRNA shot. The mRNA jabs force our cells to make large amounts of the spike protein that sticks out of the shell of the coronavirus. Those proteins then cause the immune system to produce antibodies against it.
The CoronaVac recipients had lower levels of anti-spike protein antibodies. But they also had antibodies to other parts of the coronavirus. Even more importantly, when the scientists ran further tests on a smaller group of about 100 people, they found the CoronaVac shot had sharply increased the level of their coronavirus-targeting T-cells, which last far longer than antibodies.
The new T-cells targeted both the spike protein and another important part of the virus. They included both CD4+ T-cells – which stimulate the overall immune response to infection – and CD8+ T-cells – which directly attack infected cells. Meanwhile, the mRNA jab produced an equally good response in only one of those four types of T-cell.
“The average magnitude of post-vaccination responses was higher in CoronaVac subjects for structural and S-specific T-cell responses,” the researchers explain.
The research was possible because Hong Kong offers its citizens both the CoronaVac shot and the BNT162b2 mRNA jab – the Pfizer/BioNTech shot. (In Hong Kong, BNT162b2 is distributed by a Chinese drugmaker called Fosun, but it is still made by BioNTech and is identical to the shot Pfizer sells elsewhere. A Beijing-based company called Sinovac Biotech makes CoronaVac, which is not approved in the United States.)
CoronaVac’s advantage in producing a T-cell response probably occurs because it presents the body with an invader that is far more like the actual coronavirus than the mRNA shots do.
The CoronaVac shot is a traditional “inactivated virus” vaccine. It contains whole Sars-Cov-2 particles grown in kidney cells and chemically treated so they cannot reproduce. They are then injected alongside an “adujvant” meant to boost the immune response.
In short-term trials, the mRNA vaccines reduced infections far more than the CoronaVac and a second Chinese vaccine called Sinopharm BIBP, which is also an inactivated virus vaccine.
The early results led to considerable chest-pounding about the superiority of Western vaccines and biotechnology in general.
The New York Times, Jan. 13, 2021:
—
But the real-world data from the last year has made clear that the mRNA shots lose their protective effect quickly. Because they focus the body’s immune response on a small part of the coronavirus, they are also very vulnerable to new variants such as Omicron, even after a third “booster” dose.
In fact, Western countries have faced a much harsher Omicron wave since December than countries such as Indonesia, which used more Chinese vaccines than any country except China (although in the last two weeks Omicron cases have risen sharply in Indonesia).
The Hong Kong study may also help explain China’s apparent reluctance to move forward with mRNA vaccines – either its own or those from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. Fourteen months after Fosun announced a deal to make the BNT162b2 mRNA shot available in mainland China, Chinese regulators have refused to approve it.
Don’t worry, though, China will no doubt be glad to set up CoronaVac clinics at pharmacies across America if we ask nicely!’https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/no-wonder-china-isnt-using-mrna-shots?utm_source=url
The following should come as no surprise for ‘If you use the video-sharing platform TikTok, you may be feeding information to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence services, warns Casey Fleming, a cyber security expert and CEO of strategic advisory firm BlackOps Partners.
In a recent interview with Epoch TV’s “Wide Angle” program, Fleming explained the dangers posed by foreign-controlled cellphone applications such as TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based internet giant ByteDance.
“We must assume,” he said, “that every one of these applications coming from China, Russia, and other declared adversaries of the United States—we have to assume that these applications are weaponized against us.”
TikTok, the hugely popular short-format video app that allows users to create, share, and view 15-second videos often featuring singing, dancing, or comedy, was started in China as “Douyin” in September 2016; within a year, it had 100 million Chinese users.
The app was relaunched as TikTok internationally in September 2017. Attracting dozens of A-list celebrity users, and partnerships with the NBA, NFL, and Comedy Central, TikTok quickly became one of the most popular apps in the world.
By 2020, TikTok reported nearly a billion active users worldwide—less than four years after its launch.
But TikTok may have a dark side. Since TikTok is a Chinese company, all the private information that the app is collecting may be fed directly to the Chinese regime, experts have warned, citing a range of Chinese laws that compel companies to cooperate with regime authorities when asked.
“All of your data on that phone,” Fleming said, “everything you do, and everything that you have stored on your phone is being sent out of the country, possibly to be used against you.
“The Communist Party of China is collecting vast amounts of data. It may not be used against you today. But this information might be used against you, your company, or your country in the future.”’https://www.theepochtimes.com/tiktok-users-are-feeding-data-to-ccp-intelligence-agencies-cyber-experts-warn_4275403.html?utm_source=uschinanoe&utm_campaign=uschina-2022-02-14&utm_medium=email&est=fi9pZQnwvKpYtnxBuqPlePLEYDb%2Fw9O1FKqYX7tTZfaG2Esp0LMiEKT3ktW5%2F9FsUQ%3D%3D
‘Recently, footage of a mentally-ill mother of eight who was chained up in a village hut sparked outrage on Chinese social media.
The controversy has sparked intense discussion about bride trafficking in the country, where men outnumber women due as a result of the decades-long “one-child” policy instituted by the Chinese Communist Party.
The incident serves to underscore wider problems relating to human trafficking in China, an industry that involves the abduction of children and organ harvesting, according to Chinese human rights activists.
Chinese dissident Yao Cheng was a volunteer at Women’s Rights in China (WRIC), a New York-based non profit, working in China from 2007 to 2016. In an interview with the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times, he recounted incidents of child trafficking, as well as suspected organ trafficking using childrens’ organs in China.’https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-industry-behind-child-trafficking-involves-organ-harvesting-activist_4266397.html?utm_source=uschinanoe&utm_campaign=uschina-2022-02-11&utm_medium=email&est=IerWlKEDkUvWrUAuM2XjqkTRtM2w5Yqp9R9wMUXxta0W2k7N1l7MqMeY%2FktMMPSqvQ%3D%3D
‘China’s new digital currency is a trojan horse “disguised as a payment mechanism,” says Erik Bethel, a global finance professional who served as the U.S. representative to the World Bank. “There are a lot of ways that the Chinese government could use this as an instrument of surveillance, tying it to their social credit score, and ultimately keeping an authoritarian regime alive, in effect, forever.”
As the Chinese Communist Party rolls out China’s new digital yuan, it could soon strongarm other nations to adopt it, Bethel says.
And he argues the digital yuan could eventually threaten the U.S. dollars role as the world’s reserve currency, with devastating consequences for America and the rest of the free world.’
‘No American politician has spoken out against China’s oppressive communist regime more than Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who held a press conference last week in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, accusing the Chinese Communist Party of a planned genocide against the Uighur Muslims, and continued repression against Christians and other religious minorities. A devout Catholic, Smith also addressed President Biden’s complicity in appeasing the brutal dictatorship and spoke openly to LifeSite’s Jim Hale about his faith and what other Christians should be doing in the face of repression at home and abroad.’
whatyareckon 