China

PORT MORESBY: China faced demands on Thursday (Aug 20) to explain why a state-backed firm claimed it had vaccinated dozens of staff against the coronavirus before sending them back to work at a mine in Papua New Guinea. The China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) - which controls a major nickel mine in the country - warned local authorities that 48 staff who returned from China this month may test positive for the virus because they had received a vaccine. In response, Papua New Guinea authorities called for "immediate clarification" from Beijing and blocked a charter flight full of Chinese workers that was due to land on Thursday. The pandemic has disrupted operations at several lucrative mines in Papua New Guinea, one of the Pacific's poorest nations. While moving its staff i...

HANOI: Vietnam on Wednesday (Aug 26) accused China of violating its sovereignty by conducting military drills in a disputed part of the South China Sea and said Beijing's actions were "complicating" negotiations on establishing a code of conduct in the region. China this week began six days of exercises in waters near the Paracel Islands, where Vietnam has competing claims, according to the Maritime Safety Administration of Hainan, an island off China's southern coast. It was the second set of drills in the area by Beijing in two months. "China's repeated military exercises in (the Paracel Islands) violate Vietnam's sovereignty, complicating negotiations for a Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea between China and ASEAN," foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said...

This photo taken on May 3, 2018 shows a worker cutting steel at a factory in Huaibei in China's eastern Anhui province. China's factory activity expanded in July for the fifth month in a row and at a faster pace, beating analyst expectations despite disruptions from floods and a resurgence in coronavirus cases around the world. The official manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) rose to 51.1 in July from June's 50.9, official data showed on Friday, marking the highest reading since March. Analysts had expected it to slow to 50.7. The 50-point mark separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis. China has largely managed to recover from strict lockdowns that had led to weeks of economic paralysis, although it is now battling the most aggressive return of the novel coronavi...

An Indian army convoy drives towards Leh, on a highway bordering China, on June 19, 2020 in Gagangir, India. As many as 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a "violent face-off" with Chinese troops on Tuesday in the Galwan Valley along the Himalayas. Yawar Nazir | Getty Images India's border clash with China in June is likely to accelerate a trend where New Delhi continues to build and strengthen strategic partnerships with the United States and others to protect its national interests, experts told CNBC. The stand-off in the Himalayas began in May and a violent June face-off killed 20 Indian soldiers, putting pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to respond. China did not disclose if there were casualties on its side. Former diplomats and political commentators have said the...

WASHINGTON: The lure of the massive Chinese market has led Hollywood to readily self-censor its films to please Beijing, according to a new report by Pen America, an anti-censorship group. Screenwriters, producers and directors in the huge US film industry are changing scripts, deleting scenes and altering other content, afraid of offending Chinese censors who control the gateway to the country's 1.4 billion consumers, according to the report released Wednesday. The actions include everything from deleting the Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise's bomber jacket in the upcoming Top Gun: Maverick, to removing China as the source of a zombie virus in 2013's World War Z. But it also means completely avoiding sensitive issues including Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong politics, Xinjiang and the portr...

JAKARTA: Only last week Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s maritime minister and close confidant of the country’s president, touted herbal mangosteen juice as a coronavirus remedy. His suggestion was the latest in a string of unorthodox treatments put forward by the president’s Cabinet over the past six months, ranging from prayer to rice wrapped in banana-leaf to eucalyptus necklaces. The remedies reflect the unscientific approach to battling the coronavirus in the world’s fourth-most populous country, where the rate of testing is among the world’s lowest, contact tracing is minimal, and authorities have resisted lockdowns even as infections spiked. Indonesia has officially reported 6,346 deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, the highest overall toll in Southe...