Containing the Coronavirus: Countries Limit Travel to China

With cases spiking in China and early signs of a spread outside Asia, Hong Kong severely cut back transportation to the mainland.

By Paul Mozur

Medical workers at a checkpoint near the border of Hubei Province on Tuesday.

HONG KONG — Countries, cities and businesses across the globe issued new travel warnings on Tuesday, vastly expanding a cordon intended to control the flow of people to and from China, where the authorities are struggling to contain the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
In the most drastic measure to limit travel, the Hong Kong authorities reduced by half the number of flights and shut down rail service to mainland China, and they also limited visas — moves that could inspire other governments to follow suit.
Measures to contain the outbreak of the virus to its epicenter in Hubei Province appear to have failed to stop the contagion.
On Wednesday morning, Chinese officials said the number of cases had increased by nearly a third overnight. 

Experts warned that the actual number of cases could be significantly higher and growing quickly. The number of deaths attributed to the virus also continued to grow.
The new travel restrictions put a deeper freeze on China’s contact with the world, cutting off business and tourism as China’s economy faces a potential slowdown.
With China’s Lunar New Year holiday nearing its end, companies ordered workers to stay home and avoid travel. 

The economic impact of such measures pointed to a deeper political crisis, with many people accusing the Chinese authorities online of failing to act quickly to contain the virus, even as the government continues to struggle to control its spread.
The travel advisories and bans came as the virus showed early signs of spreading outside China, with cases of transmission to people who had not recently traveled to China reported in Japan, Germany and Vietnam. 

Countries across the world may now be faced with the task of limiting the spread of the disease on their own soil, not simply seeking to identify and quarantine infected people who had been in China.

Disinfecting a Thai Airways airplane near Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand.

Officials at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned against nonessential travel to China, noting that there is “limited access to adequate medical care in affected areas.” 

The United States is expanding the screening of travelers arriving from Wuhan to 20 airports and other ports of entry, from five, federal officials said on Tuesday.
The World Health Organization revised its global risk assessment for the outbreak from “moderate” to “high,” although it noted this shift in a footnote buried in a report published on Monday. 

The change in the risk assessment, which coincided with a visit to China by the organization’s director general, risked confusing the public about the severity of the outbreak, which has killed more than 130 people in China and been diagnosed in at least 14 countries.

The pro-China World Health Organization was criticized after it refused twice in recent days to declare the outbreak a global emergency, despite its spread.
With other countries scrambling to evacuate their citizens from the locked-down epicenter of the outbreak in central China, the WHO said its director general, Beijing puppet Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had discussed with Chinese officials “possible alternatives to evacuation of foreigners if there are ways to accommodate them and protect their health.”
Although Chinese medical workers have described a desperate need for more resources to treat thousands of new patients, state-run Chinese media reported that Tedros had spoken highly of the Chinese efforts to contain the virus. 

The Chinese authorities agreed on Tuesday to allow in teams of international experts, coordinated by the World Health Organization, to help with research and containment.

A hospital under construction in Wuhan that will treat people infected with the coronavirus.

Chinese officials said Wednesday that 132 people had died from the virus, up from 106 the day before. 

The total number of confirmed cases rose sharply as well, to 5,974 on Wednesday, according to the National Health Commission.
The youngest confirmed patient is a 9-month-old girl in Beijing. 

While the majority of confirmed cases were in Hubei, where a number of cities have been put under effective lockdown, an additional 1,800 cases have been diagnosed outside the province, the authorities said.
In Wuhan, medical workers have cited a lack of masks and kits to test for the virus. 

China’s medical products administration said on Sunday it had approved new virus detection kits to speed detection, but three Chinese medical companies said they did not have the capacity to produce enough of them, according to local news media reports.
Many in Wuhan with symptoms of the virus have not been tested or have been told the hospitals did not have enough test kits, some local residents said.
During a visit to Wuhan on Monday, Li Keqiang promised to provide more equipment, and the local government has begun building new hospitals that it hopes to open in a matter of weeks. 

But online, many people mocked the government’s efforts.
In indications of the virus’s spread beyond China’s borders, Thailand reported 14 cases of infection, while the United States and Australia have each confirmed five cases. 

Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia each said they had confirmed four cases.

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which has now confirmed six cases, said that the virus had been found in the first Japanese citizen. 

The ministry said he had worked as a bus driver for two different tour groups from Wuhan. 

He had no history of traveling to Wuhan.
The man, who had driven for the tours earlier this month, first reported experiencing chills, a cough and joint pain on Jan. 14. 

He visited a clinic three days later, but was sent home. 

On Jan. 22, his joint pain and cough grew worse, and he returned to a health clinic on Saturday, when a chest X-ray showed abnormalities and he was admitted to a hospital. 

A test confirmed the coronavirus on Tuesday.
German officials said Tuesday that they had identified what they believed was the first instance of the virus spreading within Europe. 

They said a man from Starnberg in Bavaria was infected and was being treated and kept in isolation. The health ministry described him as being in “good condition” medically and said it was also monitoring his family and other people who might have been exposed, including in his children’s day care center.
“It was to be expected that the virus would come to Germany,” Jens Spahn, Germany’s health minister, said in a statement on Tuesday. 

“But the Bavarian case shows us that we are well prepared.” 

He said the risk to Germans remained low.
Japan planned to send a chartered plane to Wuhan on Tuesday night to bring back the first Japanese citizens who wish to be repatriated. 

At least 13 countries have said they would evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have been transmitted from animals to humans.
Businesses that operate in China have issued warnings of their own. 

In a flurry of emails sent in recent days, General Motors, Honeywell, Bloomberg, Facebook and other companies have warned employees not to travel within mainland China.

A shopping area in Beijing, normally busy during the Chinese New Year, was nearly empty on Tuesday.

Honeywell, which has offices and operations across China, said it had restricted travel to some regions, but did not specify which ones. 

A spokesman for General Motors said the company had issued a global travel ban to China, with only “business-critical” travel allowed and only after clearance from a doctor. 

Bloomberg told its employees in Hong Kong and mainland China to work remotely until further notice and it restricted travel to China and Hong Kong over the next 30 days, according to an email seen by The New York Times.
The Chinese government has extended the Lunar New Year holiday until Feb. 3, with some of China’s biggest cities telling businesses not to open until the following week. 

China’s biggest technology companies went further, notifying employees to work from home until Feb. 10. 

NetEase, an internet and entertainment platform, asked employees who were returning from another city to quarantine themselves for 14 days.
Investors in Asia were gripped on Tuesday with fear about the health of the global economy for a second day, with a widespread sell-off continuing in the markets. 

Investors dumped stocks in companies thought to be most vulnerable to the effects of the virus.
“The coronavirus is the No. 1 threat to financial markets currently as global investors are becoming jittery on the uncertainty,” said Nigel Green, founder of an investment company, the deVere Group.
In Hong Kong, medical professionals called for additional border checkpoints.
“The next week or two will be a critical time for the development of the epidemic,” the faculty at the Chinese University of Hong Kong wrote on its Facebook page. 

“We must closely monitor whether there is a community outbreak outside Hubei Province, especially in Hong Kong’s neighboring regions.”

A checkpoint on the outskirts of Beijing.

U.S.-Led Infrastructure Aid to Counter China in Indo-Pacific

• Australia, Japan link with ally to fund ‘peace and prosperity’
• Pact enhances Trump’s evolving national security policies

By Jason Scott
Julie Bishop 

The U.S., Japan and Australia agreed to invest in infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific in a move seen as a counter to China’s rising influence in a region that stretches from the east coast of Africa, through Australia to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
“This trilateral partnership is in recognition that more support is needed to enhance peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” Australia Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Tuesday in an emailed statement. 

The pact will mobilize investment in energy, transportation, tourism and technology infrastructure, according to the statement, which didn’t give any funding details.
The announcement comes after U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy in December called for policies to answer rival powers’ infrastructure-building efforts. 

Chief among these is Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global plan to build or expand highways, railways, ports, pipelines and power plants that Morgan Stanley forecasts could grow as large as $1.3 trillion over the next decade.
U.S. infrastructure cooperation with Japan and Australia would dovetail with the Trump administration’s evolving national security policies, which have cast the U.S. as in “long-term, strategic competition” with China and Russia. 

Beijing’s BRI calls for half a trillion dollars in investment in infrastructure along trade routes to China, which is expected to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy before 2030.
Before visiting China in November, Trump signed two deals with Japan, pledging cooperation on infrastructure projects in the region.
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, speaking Monday before a trip to Asia amid an escalating trade war with China, said the U.S. believes in “strategic partnerships, not strategic dependency” -- a veiled criticism of Beijing’s efforts to woo countries with cheap financing for infrastructure projects.
“With American companies, citizens around the world know that what you see is what you get: honest contracts, honest terms and no need for off-the-books nonsense,” Pompeo said. 

Another advantage of the U.S. is that “we will help them keep their people free from coercion or great power domination,” he said.
Pompeo is likely to make announcements about the pact’s funding arrangements during his visit to Asia, which will include Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, according to Stephen Kirchner, director of trade and investment program at the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
“This is designed to provide mechanism that will allow more private-sector funding for the infrastructure projects that countries in this region need,” Kirchner said. 

That will mean it will operate in different ways to established funds such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, he said.
In February, Bishop said the three nations, along with India, had discussed opportunities to address “the enormous need for infrastructure” in the region, which encompasses some of the world’s poorest as well as fastest-growing economies.
India wasn’t mentioned in Tuesday’s announcement. 

Instead, the pact will be organized by the U.S.’s Overseas Private Investment Corp., the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
“This partnership represents our commitment to an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open and prosperous,” the three nations said in a joint statement issued on Monday, according to Bishop. 

The trilateral partnership will be formalized “in due course,” Bishop said.

Strained Ties
Australia’s diplomatic relationship with China has been strained since December when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Chinese meddling in the nation’s government and media were a catalyst for new anti-foreign interference laws, which passed parliament last month.
China lodged a formal protest with Australia in January after Turnbull’s minister for international development, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, said the Belt and Road plan risked building “useless buildings” and “roads to nowhere.”
Australian Trade Minister Steve Ciobo denied the new pact was designed to counter China and said he wasn’t expecting a backlash from Beijing.
“Why would there be any?” Ciobo said in a Sky News interview on Tuesday. 

“The fact is that we demonstrate consistently that Australia is very focused on making sure we can help the least-developed economies in our region.”

China's New Vassal

As Trump focuses on North Korea, Cambodia slips toward China
By Elizabeth MacBride 

On a Saturday this past fall, hundreds of people were waiting in an hourlong line to climb the staircases of Angkor Wat. 

Legend has it that if you ascend to the third level of the huge 12th-century Hindu temple, you'll find the center of the universe. 

The news has reached China: Most of the tourists in the courtyard and at dozens of other ancient temples in the Cambodian jungle were Chinese.
Almost unnoticed, on the coattails of China's rising economy, Cambodia has become one of the world's economic success stories, a tiny tiger in Southeast Asia. 

China's long economic growth is helping to boost Cambodia.
Tourists from China have helped push Angkor Wat to a perch as the world's top tourism destination, according to TripAdvisor. 

China is helping to spur Cambodia's economy in other ways, too. 

It is investing billions to develop the nation's infrastructure, agriculture and health care. 

At the same time, as wages rise in China's manufacturing sector, some of that business is shifting to Cambodia. 

The deepening connections with Communist-controlled China worry some Cambodians, but China is seen as a better alternative than a deeper alliance with Vietnam, the landing place for communists allied with the Khmer Rouge.
Neither option seems that great to one Cambodian. 

At Angkor Wat a tour guide, noticing an American, leans in: "Please take this message back to America: Do not let communists run the world economy."

Ta Prohm, a Buddhist temple in the heart of the jungle in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, is a popular tourist destination.

The World Bank predicts Cambodia's GDP will grow more than 6.9 percent in 2018, after its economic performance ranked it sixth best in the world over the previous 10 years and pushed it into the lower-middle-income country group. 

The two big drivers are tourism and garment manufacturing. 

Between 2012 and 2016, tourism to Cambodia increased to more than 5 million visits from 3.5 million, according to the government of Cambodia. 

Tourism contributed 12 percent, or $2.4 billion to Cambodia's economy in 2016, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council, a number that is expected to grow by 7 percent a year over the next 10 years.
Those are huge numbers for a country with a little more than 15 million people. 

And Cambodia's projected economic growth rate remarkably outflanks China's. 

One reason may be because Cambodian companies have been able to position themselves as low-cost, reliable alternatives to Chinese factories, where wages are rising, according to Afshin Molavi, senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

"Cambodia is becoming part of an interesting Asian strategy for any of the global multinationals," said Molavi, also co-director of think tank Emerge85. 

"We're seeing [the growth] in real estate. There is a lot of construction going on. When I look at the Phnom Penh Post, I see lots of stories about the middle class buying properties."
Cambodia still lives under a shadow, however. 

Memories of the genocide from 1975–79 still color the world's perception of Cambodia, though they are also driving the country's young people to overcome that perception. 

The authoritarian government hasn't helped: It has been cracking down on civil society, dissolving the largest opposition party in November.
That makes things tricky for big multinationals, like Walmart. 

A spokeswoman for the company said it sources apparel, footwear, home goods and accessories in Cambodia. 

"We recently discussed with the government potential to increase our sourcing further, as well as the importance and our expectations of the protection of civil rights in the countries from which we source. We respectfully asked the Cambodian government to continue to improve working conditions for Cambodian factory workers and treat civil society with fairness, in accordance with international standards and norms."
There remains a serious issue with income inequality in the Asian nation. 

About 13.5 percent of Cambodia's population lives on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank. 

That is down from 47.8 percent in 2007, and income levels have barely risen for many people. Cambodia stagnated for the latter part of the 20th century partly because of internal conflict and the lack of infrastructure in rural areas. 

There are still unexploded land mines left over from bombing during the Vietnam War. 

In a sign of Cambodia's increasing importance in Southeast Asia, the Trump administration aimed to cut U.S. State Department funding of $2 million for land mine clearance — and then reinstated it after an outcry.

The China factor
Many of the tourists visiting Cambodia are Chinese, and they are stoking tourism growth. 

Even though only about 6 percent of Chinese people have a passport, China has become the world's largest outbound tourist market, with more than 135 million departures a year — and Angkor Wat is an easy two- or three-hour flight from many cities in China.
Signs of the tourism boom abound in Siem Reap, the town near many of the hundreds of temples constructed during the Khmer Empire, which once stretched from Myanmar to Vietnam. 

In 2016, Cambodia-based Sokha Hotels & Resorts opened a 776-bed resort, and a drive down the highway leading to Angkor Wat revealed two more hotels under construction. 

Most online platforms report hundreds of hotels in the town (TripAdvisor lists more than 300), though concrete numbers are hard to come by.
Angkor Wat hit the tourist map in the early 1990s, when it became a World Heritage Site — but it is already the world's top-rated tourism destination, based on a combination of the number of reviews and what they say, according to TripAdvisor. 

Many Americans are only vaguely aware of it, but it beats out the Great Wall and the Taj Mahal. Visitors call it "majestic," "memorable" and "like nothing I've ever seen."

A key outsourcing hub
Cambodia's boom in garment manufacturing has also been driven by changes in China. 

As wages have risen in China over the last decade, Cambodian companies have positioned themselves as low-cost, reliable manufacturers, said Johns Hopkins Molavi. 

"I don't see anything to show that it's going to slow in 2018," he said. 

"When you have that kind of manufacturing growth, what also happens is that you have rapid urbanization and growing middle classes at the lower end. People buy motorbikes and scooters, Kit Kat bars and Coca-Cola." 

Village markets show multinationals adapting their strategies for markets like Cambodia, with inexpensive, single-serve boxes of detergent and shampoo, for instance.

A factory in Phnom Penh. Cambodian companies have positioned themselves as low-cost, reliable manufacturers.

Cambodia has a couple of other things going for it: Angelina Jolie and a generation of young people determined to rebuild their country from the poverty of previous generations and heal the scars of the genocide.
The other spur to Cambodian tourism has a much darker cast. 

A few hundred thousand people visit the Killing Fields every year; there is another site open to the public in Phnom Penh, a former school where victims of the genocide were tortured before being taken to the Killing Fields. 

The communist Khmer Rouge took control of the country under a dictator, Pol Pot. 

An estimated 2 million Cambodians, many of them the educated professionals of Cambodian society, were killed.
In 2001 action-adventure film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie, was shot in Cambodia, and Jolie adopted one of her children, Maddox, from an orphanage in the country. 

She has become an advocate for Cambodians. 

Last fall she released First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, about the genocide, on Netflix.
After an event for rising Cambodian leaders at the private school Liger Leadership Academy, one of the Cambodian stars of Jolie's film said working on it inspired her to start talking to her grandmother, who lost her husband in the genocide, about her experience. 

"She's open to talking about it more and more."
Sreyneang Oun plays a daughter of the family in the film — and has since developed a friendship with Jolie's family.
For years, said Caroline Bell, leader teacher at the school, the genocide wasn't spoken about in Cambodia. 

Now it's become something young Cambodians feel they can explain to the world. 

"We try to get them to see there's always gray area between victim and perpetrator," said Bell. "Globally, it's one of the two things Cambodia is known for."

Palau holds out as China squeezes Taiwan’s allies

Tiny tourism-reliant Pacific nation defies pressure from its biggest source of visitors
By Edward White in Taipei and Nicolle Liu in Hong Kong

Tommy Remengesau, Palau's president, and Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the Democratic Progressive party, which has replaced the more China-friendly Nationalist party in power in Taiwan.

Palau, a tiny Pacific nation of just 21,500 people, has vowed to resist renewed pressure from Beijing to cut its diplomatic links with Taiwan.
 One of just 20 nations keeping formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Palau was named in a notice issued by Chinese officials last month warning travel agencies that it was illegal to advertise group tours to destinations not on China’s approved list.
 But while a clampdown on Chinese visitors would hurt the Palau economy, the nation said it had no plans to switch its allegiance away from Taipei.
 “Palau is a country of laws, it is a democracy and we make our own decisions,” said Olkeriil Kazuo, spokesperson for Palau’s president, Tommy Remengesau.
 China is the biggest source of visitors to tourist-dependent Palau, comprising roughly half the 113,000 visitors to the archipelago so far this year, according to the Asian Development Bank. Tensions between China and Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing regards as a renegade province, were heightened last year when the Democratic Progressive party led by Tsai Ing-wen won power, replacing the China-friendly Nationalist party, or Kuomintang.
 The republication of China’s list of approved travel destinations reflects Beijing’s toughening approach towards Taiwan’s allies, experts said.
 Mr Kazuo said Beijing’s exclusion of Palau from its list of approved destinations — a measure in place for several years but to date not strictly enforced — has “never affected” the country.

Tourism growth “largely determines economic performance” — the sector accounted for more than half of Palau’s gross domestic product in 2015 — and a “significant” decline in visitors from China, Japan and Taiwan this year has already caused “uncertainty over near-term economic prospects”, according to the ADB.
 Dilmei Louisa Olkeriil, Palau’s ambassador to Taiwan, said that, if the number of Chinese visitors suddenly fell, “of course the [tourism] industry will hurt”.
 “If China says, ‘no tourists go to Palau’, then no tourists will come to Palau, we need to be aware of that,” she said, adding that Palau must further diversify its source markets to “protect us from something like this”.
 In the decades since China was admitted to the UN in 1971, most countries withdrew recognition of the Republic of China, as Taiwan is formally known, to establish relations with Beijing.
In a dogged battle for recognition, both sides have long used promises of financial aid and infrastructure spending to attract allies.

But policymakers in Beijing have now decided that China’s political objectives are not “something they can obtain purely by soft power alone”, said Lauren Dickey, a researcher in cross-Strait relations and a visiting fellow at National Chengchi University in Taipei.
 “Even when China has relied on the carrot, the threat of the stick has always been there. The difference is the stick is actually being used this time,” Ms Dickey said.
 William Stanton, former head of the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial US embassy in Taipei, said it was clear China was “stepping up pressure” against Taiwan.
 “It seems to be an important shift,” he said, noting that Chinese dictator Xi Jinping had signalled a toughening foreign policy at the Communist party congress in October.
“They are a bully and they are going to get worse unless people stand up to them,” said Mr Stanton, who now lectures at National Taiwan University.

Chinese Aggressions

China to Step Up Observations, Tourism in South China Sea
By Ralph Jennings

China's Liaoning aircraft carrier with accompanying fleet conducts a drill in an area of South China Sea, in this undated photo taken December 2016.

China is expanding its presence in the South China Sea with plans to build an underwater observation system and to send tourists to the disputed areas.
Chinese media say the government is planning to build an underwater observation system to provide real-time information on many different seabed conditions. 

The Chinese government newspaper, Global Times, says it will study the physical and chemical qualities of the sea.
Experts say the effort will help China to better explore the area for valuable resources such as oil and natural gas. 

Each year, five trillion dollars worth of trade passes through the South China Sea. China claims territorial rights to most of the sea.

China expands control of the area
Some observers say the observation equipment is another way for China to strengthen its claims to the area. 

The Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia hold competing claims in the South China Sea.
Satellite images suggest that China has added military weapons to some of the islands.
Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, May 21, 2015.

The Global Times reports that the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Acoustics and Shanghai’s Tongji University together will build the observation system. 

An Academy official reportedly said that the undersea project would also cover areas in the East China Sea.
Both China and Japan claim the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea.
Experts say they think the system will include an underwater platform with a series of wires linked back to China. 

They say it could collect information for undersea mineral gathering or oil drilling, but also for military purposes.
Euan Graham is an East and South China seas security expert with Australia’s Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney. 

He said it is very likely that scientific findings will be passed to China’s military.
“It’s possible all of those things can inter-operate in the rather gray space between oceanography and military science.”

In this Dec. 7, 2016, photo, Chinese Navy officials stand in front of the ship Daqing, in San Diego.
Tourism in disputed waters
Meanwhile, Chinese media reported a new passenger ship began its first trip to the disputed Paracel Islands (Hoàng Sa) in the South China Sea.
Xinhua news agency reported the Chinese ship left Thursday from Sanya, in the southern province of Hainan. 

It was carrying 308 passengers on a four-day trip. 

Tourists would be visiting three islands in the disputed Paracels, Xinhua added.
According to the South China Morning Post, officials are also planning to launch tourist flights to the Paracel Islands. 

The officials are currently seeking approval from government ministries and the military for the flights, the newspaper reported.