Pestiferous Pariah: No Country For Sick Chinese

Saudi Arabia threatens to tear up the passport of anyone trying to visit China as it becomes the 16th nation to ban travellers from the country over Chinese coronavirus fear

• Kingdom followed likes of US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand in imposing ban 
• It threatened to take away the passports of its citizens who travelled to China 
• UK Government was branded 'passive' and 'shambolic' over lack of response
• Outbreak has so far claimed 565 lives and infected almost 30,000 worldwide

By CONNOR BOYD

Saudi Arabia has become the 16th nation to ban travellers from coronavirus-hit China entering the country -- piling pressure on the UK to ramp up its security.
The kingdom has barred its citizens from going to mainland China and suggested it would tear up the passports of anyone who defied the ban.
Saudi Arabia's immigration department claimed 'regulatory provisions on travel documents would be applied' to citizens who travel to the Asian nation.

No further details were given.
The virus hasn't yet been detected in Saudi Arabia, but five cases, including a family-of-four from Wuhan, have been confirmed in neighbouring United Arab Emirates.
Fifteen other nations and territories have imposed travel restrictions, including the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. 
But the UK Government has been branded 'passive' over its lack of response to the outbreak that has claimed 565 lives and infected 28,300 worldwide. 
Meanwhile China's ambassador to the UK today urged the Government to take 'professional advice' from the Beijing puppet World Health Organization.
Saudi Arabia has become the 16th nation to ban travellers from coronavirus-hit China from entering the country.

Passengers from China are checked by Saudi Health Ministry employees upon their arrival at King Khalid International Airport, in Riyadh, January 29
The kingdom has now barred its own citizens from going to mainland China and suggested it would tear up the passports of anyone who defied the ban
Almost 30,000 people have now been diagnosed with the Chinese coronavirus, which has devastated China. Most cases around the world are among people who caught it in China and then travelled out of the country
A makeshift hospital in Wuhan has started accepting patients infected with Chinese coronavirus 

Which countries have banned people from China entering? 

1. US: The US has temporarily banned any non-US citizens who have been to China in the past two weeks from entering America.
2. AUSTRALIA has banned entry for any Chinese travellers or foreign passengers who been to China within the last 14 days or even have passed through the mainland during a layover.
3. NEW ZEALAND has closed its borders to any foreigners arriving from China after February 2, including passengers who passed through in transit.
4. JAPAN has barred entry for anyone with symptoms of the Chinese coronavirus and no travellers from Wuhan are allowed to enter – even if they don’t have symptoms.
5. MONGOLIA: Mongolian citizens have until February 6 to return to their home country if they want to. Travellers from China – whether they are Chinese or not – are not allowed to enter the country.
6. NORTH KOREA was one of the first countries to completely shut its borders to travellers and flights from China, introducing the measure on January 21.
7. KAZAKHSTAN: Officials have suspended all forms of passenger travel to and from neighbouring China. The country has also suspended the issuance of visas to Chinese citizens.
8. TAIWAN: Authorities have decided to ban entry to all foreign nationals who have visited mainland China in the past two weeks.
9. SINGAPORE has banned travellers who have been to mainland China in the past 14 days.
10. SOUTH KOREA has banned all foreign travellers who have passed through Wuhan in the past 14 days.
11. THE PHILIPPINES: Authorities banned all travellers from China, Hong Kong and Macau – except for Filipino citizens and holders of permanent residency visas.
12. PAPUA NEW GUINEA has shut its air and seaports to all foreign travellers from Asia. Its land border with West Papua has also been closed.
13. IRAQ has banned entry for all foreign nationals travelling from China.
14. GUATEMALA has banned non-resident travellers who had been to China in the past two weeks.
15. TRINIDAD & TOBAGO have banned non-resident travellers who had been to China in the past two weeks.
16. SAUDI ARABIA

The US is temporarily barring entry to foreign nationals, other than immediate family of US citizens and permanent residents, who have travelled in China within the last 14 days.
Australia and New Zealand have imposed the same ban, while Japan is refusing entry to anyone travelling from Wuhan, regardless of whether they have symptoms.
Scores of passengers fleeing the coronavirus-hit country have been pouring into Britain every day without being properly screened or tested for the virus, prompting calls for a similar blanket travel ban.
But the UK is still thought to be bound to EU immigration laws and obligated to fall in line with any decisions on travel restrictions made by the bloc, despite having technically left on January 31.
Ministers are said to be debating whether or not to impose the ban anyway, but Government sources say it would be pointless if Brussels does not follow suit.
Passengers could still enter Britain indirectly via another EU state due to freedom of movement rules.
'What is the point in one of you banning flights if none of the others are going to do it?' a senior government source told MailOnline on Wednesday. 

'Because you just get in by an indirect route.'
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said last night: ‘We can monitor flights from China landing back in the UK but we can’t monitor those landing from China in the rest of Europe. EU freedom of movement does make us more vulnerable.' 

It comes after China's ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, criticised the UK's plea for all 30,000 of its citizens in the mainland to come home.

Saudi Arabia's flagship national carrier, Saudia, had already joined other major airlines in suspending flights to China.
On Sunday, 10 Saudi students were evacuated from the Chinese city Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, and quarantined upon arrival to Riyadh for two weeks.
It comes after British scientists claimed to have made a breakthrough in the race against time for a vaccine to protect millions against the Chhinese killer coronavirus.
Infection specialist Professor Robin Shattock, of Imperial College London, revealed his team plan to begin trials of their experimental jab on animals next week.
The team will then move onto humans in the summer, if they can achieve funding and that early tests are successful.
Researchers across the world are desperately trying to find a vaccine against the SARS-like infection, which can cause pneumonia.

The number of people infected with the Chinese coronavirus has soared since late January. The true toll is expected to be considerably higher as many may have such mild symptoms they never get diagnosed
The death toll jumped by more than 70 overnight, taking total deaths to 565 since January 20
A medical worker in East Java, Indonesia, examines an isolation chamber which could be used to contain people with the contagious Chinese coronavirus
Patients infected with the coronavirus are pictured arriving at a makeshift hospital in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the outbreak

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
 More than 28,200 people are now confirmed to have been infected with the Chinese 2019-nCoV.
Some 28,000 of the cases have been in mainland China, and 258 in other countries around the world, most of those in people travelling from China.
A total of 565 people have died, only two of those outside of China.
Dozens of countries have restricted the movement of people from China by either banning foreign citizens from entering their country if they have been to China in the past two weeks, or stopping all flights from China.
Western nations have been chartering planes to the crisis-hit city of Wuhan to evacuate their citizens. Australia and New Zealand evacuated this week and the UK will send its second plane on Sunday.
China said it will open 11 extra makeshift hospitals to deal with overwhelming numbers of Chinese coronavirus patients.

Streets all over the country are deserted as people are too afraid to leave their homes. 

The current record time for producing a vaccine is for Zika, which took academics seven months to go from the lab to human trials.
Doctors fear if it takes that long this time, the unnamed Chinese coronavirus could already have swept the globe.
Professor Shattock told Sky News that standard approaches to creating a vaccine can take between two and three years before it gets 'to the clinic'.
But he added: 'We have gone from that sequence to generating a candidate in the laboratory in 14 days.
'And we will have it in animal models by the beginning of next week. We've short-tracked that part.
'The next phase will be to move that from early animal testing into the first human studies.'

Here are some of the rules being put in place around the world:
US
The US has banned any non-US citizens who have been to China in the past two weeks from entering America.
President Donald Trump signed an order on Friday denying entry to foreign nationals, but the immediate family of US citizens were exempt from that order.
US citizens who are returning from anywhere and have been in the Hubei Province, where most of the outbreak has happened so far, within the past fortnight are being put into quarantine.

AUSTRALIA
Australia has banned entry for any Chinese travellers or foreign passengers who been to China within the last 14 days or even have passed through the mainland during a layover.
But Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families will be exempt from the strict measures.
Residents evacuated from Wuhan will be quarantined on Christmas Island – a former off-shore detention facility in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia.

NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand has closed its borders to any foreigners arriving from China after February 2, including passengers who passed through in transit.
Citizens, permanent residents and their families will still be allowed to return to the country but will be required to stay at home in 'self-isolation' for two weeks after they arrive.

ITALY
Officials in Italy have banned all flights to or from China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan until the end of April. 

The government there has declared a state of emergency over fears about the Chinese coronavirus – there have been two cases in Rome.
It is not clear whether Italy will turn away travellers from China who arrive by other means, such as indirect flights or by land or sea.

A flight carrying dozens of Australians out of Wuhan landed today. Evacuees are being quarantined on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean for two weeks.

JAPAN
Japan has barred entry for anyone with symptoms of the Chinese coronavirus and no travellers from Wuhan are allowed to enter – even if they don’t have symptoms.
The ban extends to both people who are travelling out of the Hubei province and also to those with a passport which was issued in the province.

RUSSIA
Officials suspended visa-free tourist travel to and from China. 

Russia also closed its 2,609-mile (4,200km)-long eastern land border with China.
Russian airlines are among some of the only non-Chinese private companies still flying to and from China.
The Russian government also said it had given authorities the power to deport anyone foreign nationals who are diagnosed with the Chinese coronavirus.

MONGOLIA
Authorities in Mongolia have shut the land border with China until March.
Mongolian citizens have until February 6 to return to their home country if they want to. 

Travellers from China – whether they are Chinese or not – are not allowed to enter the country.
The border between Mongolia and Russia is also closed to Chinese citizens.

VIETNAM

Vietnam has banned all flights to and from mainland China until May.

Flights to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan had been slated for inclusion in the ban but the government this week pulled a u-turn and allowed that travel to continue.
Vietnam is no longer issuing visas to Chinese tourists and trade between the two countries is being advised against by the authorities.

NORTH KOREA
North Korea was one of the first countries to completely shut its borders to travellers and flights from China, introducing the measure on January 21.

SOUTH KOREA has banned all foreign travellers who have passed through Wuhan in the past 14 days.

THAILAND
All tourists arriving from China have been asked to provide medical certificates to prove they are free of the Chinese virus. 

Flights between the two countries continue.

KAZAKHSTAN
Officials have suspended all forms of passenger travel to and from neighbouring China. 

The country has also suspended the issuance of visas to Chinese citizens.

Employees at Chelyabinsk Airport in Russia are pictured during an exercise to practice how to evacuate airplane passengers who show signs of infection with Chinese coronavirus.

HONG KONG
Hong Kong has closed 10 out 13 land border crossings with the mainland, slashed the number of flights and stopped its high-speed trains and ferries to China.
Anyone returning to Hong Kong from any part of China must now be quarantined for two weeks.

TAIWAN
Authorities have decided to ban entry to all foreign nationals who have visited mainland China in the past two weeks.
Visitors from Hong Kong and Macau can still enter the country.

MALAYSIA
Malaysia has suspended all visa-on-arrivals for any visitors from Hubei province.
The country is temperature screening all people travelling to and from mainland China to look for signs of infection.

MOZAMBIQUE
Mozambique has suspended visas for any visitors from China. 

No cases have been diagnosed in Africa yet.

SINGAPORE
Singapore has banned travellers who have been to mainland China in the past 14 days.
It has also banned all Chinese tourists from entering the country.
Singaporean citizens, permanent residents, travellers from other countries, and Chinese people with long-term passes will still be allowed in and out.

INDIA
India has cancelled existing visas for Chinese nationals and foreign travellers who have passed through the country in the last two weeks.
It has also shut down its visa service for new applicants.

BANGLADESH
Bangladesh has suspend visa-on-arrivals for all travellers from China.

ISRAEL
Israel has banned all incoming flights from China.
China’s acting ambassador to Israel had to apologise after comparing the travel ban to the turning away of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.

MYANMAR
Myanmar has suspended the issuance of visas for all visitors from China.
Myanmar is unable to test samples itself so is sending them to Thailand.

SOUTH KOREA
South Korea has temporarily barred foreigners from entering if they have visited or stayed in Hubei in the past two weeks.

THE PHILIPPINES
Authorities banned all travellers from China, Hong Kong and Macau – except for Filipino citizens and holders of permanent residency visas.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Papua New Guinea has shut its air and seaports to all foreign travellers from Asia. 

Its land border with West Papua has also been closed.

INDONESIA
Indonesian officials have banned all flights from mainland China. 

They have also withdrawn visa-free entry for Chinese nationals.

Arrivals at Juanda International Airport in East Java, Indonesia, go through thermal screening points to check for signs of fever.

NEPAL has closed two checkpoints on the Chinese border for 15 days.
IRAQ has banned entry for all foreign nationals travelling from China.
UZBEKISTAN has cancelled all flights from China.
GUATEMALA has banned non-resident travellers who had been to China in the past two weeks.
ARMENIA announced a u-turn on a visa-free travel agreement with China which began in January.
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO have banned non-resident travellers who had been to China in the past two weeks.

What do we know about the Chinese coronavirus?
Someone who is infected with the Chinese coronavirus can spread it with just a simple cough or a sneeze, scientists say.
At least 565 people with the Chinese virus are now confirmed to have died and more than 28,200 have been infected in at least 28 countries and regions. 

But experts predict the true number of people with the disease could be 100,000, or even as high as 350,000 in Wuhan alone, as they warn it may kill as many as two in 100 cases. 

 Here's what we know so far:

What is the Chinese coronavirus? 
A Chinese coronavirus is a type of virus which can cause illness in animals and people. 

Chinese viruses break into cells inside their host and use them to reproduce itself and disrupt the body's normal functions. 

Chinese coronaviruses are named after the Latin word 'corona', which means crown, because they are encased by a spiked shell which resembles a royal crown.

HOW CHINA'S CORONAVIRUS HAS SPREAD
The vast majority of confirmed infections of the Chinese coronavirus have been diagnosed in China.
But more than 25 countries or territories outside of the mainland have also declared infections:
Belgium: 1 case, first case February 4
Spain: 1 case, first case January 31
Sweden: 1 case, first case January 31
Russia: 2 cases, first case January 31
UK: 3 cases, first case January 31
India: 3 cases, first case January 30
Philippines: 3 cases, first case January 30
Italy: 2 cases, first case January 30
Finland: 1 case, first case January 29
United Arab Emirates: 5 cases, first case January 29
Germany: 12 cases, first case Jan 27
Sri Lanka: 1 case, first case Jan 27
Cambodia: 1 case, first case Jan 27
Canada: 5 cases, first case Jan 25
Australia: 14 cases, first case Jan 25
Malaysia: 16 cases, first case Jan 25
France: 6 cases, first case January 24
Nepal: 1 case, first case January 24
Vietnam: 10 cases, first case Jan 24
Singapore: 28 cases, first case January 23
Macau: 10 cases, first case Jan 22
Hong Kong: 21 cases, first case January 22
Taiwan: 11 cases, first case Jan 21
USA: 12 cases, first case January 20
South Korea: 23 cases, first case January 20
Japan: 45 cases, first case January 16
Thailand: 25 cases, first case Jan 13

The Chinese coronavirus is one which has never been seen before this outbreak. 

It is currently named 2019-nCoV, and does not have a more detailed name because so little is known about it.
Dr Helena Maier, from the Pirbright Institute, said: 'Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that infect a wide range of different species including humans, cattle, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats and wild animals.
'Until this Chinese coronavirus was identified, there were only six different coronaviruses known to infect humans. 

Four of these cause a mild common cold-type illness, but since 2002 there has been the emergence of two new coronaviruses that can infect humans and result in more severe disease (Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronaviruses).
'Coronaviruses are known to be able to occasionally jump from one species to another and that is what happened in the case of SARS, MERS and the new coronavirus. The animal origin of the Chinese coronavirus is not yet known.'
The first human cases were publicly reported from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where approximately 11million people live, after medics first started seeing infections on December 31.
By January 8, 59 suspected cases had been reported and seven people were in critical condition. 

Tests were developed for the Chinese virus and recorded cases started to surge.
The first person died that week and, by January 16, two were dead and 41 cases were confirmed. 

The next day, scientists predicted that 1,700 people had become infected, possibly up to 7,000.
Just a week after that, there had been more than 800 confirmed cases and those same scientists estimated that some 4,000 – possibly 9,700 – were infected in Wuhan alone. 

By that point, 26 people had died.
By January 27, more than 2,800 people were confirmed to have been infected, 81 had died, and estimates of the total number of cases ranged from 100,000 to 350,000 in Wuhan alone.
By January 29, the number of deaths had risen to 132 and cases were in excess of 6,000.

Where does the Chinese virus come from?
According to scientists, the Chinese virus may come from bats. 

Coronaviruses in general tend to originate in animals – the similar SARS and MERS viruses are believed to have originated in civet cats and camels, respectively.
The first cases of the virus in Wuhan came from people visiting or working in a live animal market in the city, which has since been closed down for investigation.
Although the market is officially a seafood market, other dead and living animals were being sold there, including wolf cubs, salamanders, snakes, peacocks, porcupines and camel meat.
A study by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, published in February 2020 in the scientific journal Nature, found that the genetic make-up virus samples found in patients in China is 96 per cent similar to a coronavirus they found in bats.
There may have been an animal which acted as a middle-man, contracting it from a bat before then transmitting it to a human, researchers suggested, although details of this are less clear.
Dr Michael Skinner, a virologist at Imperial College London, was not involved with the research but said: 'The discovery definitely places the origin of nCoV in bats in China.
'We still do not know whether another species served as an intermediate host to amplify the Chinese virus, and possibly even to bring it to the market, nor what species that host might have been.' 

So far the fatalities are quite low. Why are health experts so worried about it? 
Experts say the international community is concerned about the Chinese virus because so little is known about it and it appears to be spreading quickly.
It is similar to SARS, which infected 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 in an outbreak in China in 2003, in that it is a type of Chinese coronavirus which infects humans' lungs.
Another reason for concern is that nobody has any immunity to the Chinese virus because they've never encountered it before. 

This means it may be able to cause more damage than viruses we come across often, like the flu or common cold.
Speaking at a briefing in January, Oxford University professor, Dr Peter Horby, said: 'Novel viruses can spread much faster through the population than viruses which circulate all the time because we have no immunity to them.
'Most seasonal flu viruses have a case fatality rate of less than one in 1,000 people. Here we're talking about a virus where we don't understand fully the severity spectrum but it's possible the case fatality rate could be as high as two per cent.'
If the death rate is truly two per cent, that means two out of every 100 patients who get it will die.
'My feeling is it's lower,' Dr Horby added. 

'We're probably missing this iceberg of milder cases. But that's the current circumstance we're in.
'Two per cent case fatality rate is comparable to the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 so it is a significant concern globally.'

How does the Chinese virus spread?
The illness can spread between people just through coughs and sneezes, making it an extremely contagious infection. 

And it may also spread even before someone has symptoms.
It is believed to travel in the saliva and even through water in the eyes, therefore close contact, kissing, and sharing cutlery or utensils are all risky.
Originally, people were thought to be catching it from a live animal market in Wuhan city. 

But cases soon began to emerge in people who had never been there, which forced medics to realise it was spreading from person to person.
There is now evidence that it can spread third hand – to someone from a person who caught it from another person.

What does the Chinese virus do to you? What are the symptoms?
Once someone has caught the virus it may take between two and 14 days for them to show any symptoms – but they may still be contagious during this time.
If and when they do become ill, typical signs include a runny nose, a cough, sore throat and a fever (high temperature). 

The vast majority of patients – at least 97 per cent, based on available data – will recover from these without any issues or medical help.
In a small group of patients, who seem mainly to be the elderly or those with long-term illnesses, it can lead to pneumonia. 

Pneumonia is an infection in which the insides of the lungs swell up and fill with fluid. 

It makes it increasingly difficult to breathe and, if left untreated, can be fatal and suffocate people.

What have genetic tests revealed about the Chinese virus? Scientists in China have recorded the genetic sequences of around 19 strains of the Chinese virus and released them to experts working around the world.
This allows others to study them, develop tests and potentially look into treating the illness they cause.
Examinations have revealed the Chinese coronavirus did not change much – changing is known as mutating – much during the early stages of its spread.
However, the director-general of China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, yesterday said the Chinese virus was mutating and adapting as it spread through people.
This means efforts to study the Chinese virus and to potentially control it may be made extra difficult because the Chinese virus might look different every time scientists analyse it.
More study may be able to reveal whether the Chinese virus first infected a small number of people then change and spread from them, or whether there were various versions of the Chinese virus coming from animals which have developed separately.

How dangerous is the Chinese virus?
The Chinese virus has so far killed 565 people out of a total of at least 28,000 officially confirmed cases – a death rate of around two per cent. 

This is a similar death rate to the Spanish Flu outbreak which, in 1918, went on to kill around 50million people.
However, experts say the true number of patients is likely considerably higher and therefore the death rate considerably lower. 

Imperial College London researchers estimate that there were 4,000 (up to 9,700) cases in Wuhan city alone up to January 18 – officially there were only 444 there to date. 

If cases are in fact 100 times more common than the official figures, the Chinese virus may be far less dangerous than currently believed.
Experts say it is likely only the most seriously ill patients are seeking help and are therefore recorded – the vast majority will have only mild, cold-like symptoms. 

For those whose conditions do become more severe, there is a risk of developing pneumonia which can destroy the lungs and kill you.

Can the Chinese virus be cured? 
The Chinese coronavirus cannot currently be cured and it is proving difficult to contain.
Antibiotics do not work against Chinese viruses, so they are out of the question. 

Antiviral drugs can, but the process of understanding a Chinese virus then developing and producing drugs to treat it would take years and huge amounts of money.
No vaccine exists for the Chinese coronavirus yet and it's not likely one will be developed in time to be of any use in this outbreak, for similar reasons to the above.
The National Institutes of Health in the US, and Baylor University in Waco, Texas, say they are working on a vaccine based on what they know about coronaviruses in general, using information from the SARS outbreak. 

But this may take a year or more to develop, according to Pharmaceutical Technology.
Currently, governments and health authorities are working to contain the Chinese virus and to care for patients who are sick and stop them infecting other people.
People who catch the illness are being quarantined in hospitals, where their symptoms can be treated and they will be away from the uninfected public.
And airports around the world are putting in place screening measures such as having doctors on-site, taking people's temperatures to check for fevers and using thermal screening to spot those who might be ill (infection causes a raised temperature).
However, it can take weeks for symptoms to appear, so there is only a small likelihood that patients will be spotted up in an airport.

Pariah State

Sick China Increasingly Walled Off as Countries Seek to Stem Chinese Coronavirus
The number of deaths from the virus outbreak rose to 427 and the number of cases soared to more than 20,708 as Australia, Russia, Italy and Japan joined the United States in imposing travel restrictions.
By Alexandra Stevenson

Vietnamese wearing face masks, center, in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Friday.

HONG KONG — New walls are rising between China and the world as the country grapples with a fast-moving coronavirus and its mounting death toll.
Vietnam on Saturday became the latest country to try to close itself off from the world’s most populous country, barring all flights from and to China. 

Over all, nearly 10,000 flights have been canceled since the outbreak.
Australia joined the United States denying entry to noncitizens who have recently traveled to the country. 

There are officially eleven confirmed cases in the United States, including one person connected to the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
Japan also said it would bar foreigners who had recently been in the Chinese province at the center of the outbreak, or whose passports were issued there.
As the death toll increases and more countries cut off China, the economic and political crisis caused by the virus is only intensifying there, with authorities coming under scrutiny for their slow initial response.

How Bad Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Get? Here Are 6 Key Factors


Major businesses have started to acknowledge the effect that the virus — and China’s near shutdown — is having on their bottom lines. 

Earlier, Apple had said it was rerouting part of its supply chain but would shut only one store. 

By Saturday, it said it would close all 42 of its stores in mainland China, its third-biggest market and where it generates about one-sixth of its sales.
It was the latest move by some of the world’s biggest companies to shift supply chains and adjust operations in China.
Chinese officials have been changing course after their initially slow response to the virus.
A prominent government expert admitted that he had been wrong to say the virus was under control in early January.
And the mayor of a town near Wuhan, the center of the outbreak, was fired for negligence after the disabled teenage son of a quarantined patient died. 

The cause of death was still under investigation.

An Apple store in Beijing on Friday. The company operates 42 stores in mainland China.

But the Chinese authorities also appeared to be taking tougher measures to stifle criticism, for example scrubbing the internet of an article critical of the government in The Global Times, a tabloid controlled by the governing Communist Party.
As the number of deaths and new cases rapidly rose this week — 427 deaths and more than 20,748 cases by Tuesday — one by one, international organizations and foreign countries reacted.
The State Department issued a travel alert urging Americans not to go to to China because of the public health threat.
Delta, United and American Airlines suspended all flights between the United States and mainland China.

The death toll surpassed 400, and Apple said it would shut its stores in China.
By the time the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency on Thursday, some of the world’s biggest companies had barred their employees from any travel to China, and countries began to close their borders.
Even as some countries took drastic measures, their leaders also acknowledged the economic impact.
“It’s going to hurt us,” warned Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister of Singapore, after announcing that the small island state would bar all Chinese visitors and foreigners who had traveled to China within the past 14 days. (The incubation period for the disease is believed to be one to two weeks.)
“China is a very big source of tourists for Singapore,” Mr. Lee told reporters after announcing the ban. 

Restaurants, travel operators and hotels in Singapore were all “bound to be significantly affected.”
On Saturday, Australia joined the United States and a growing list of other countries and cities that have issued travel warnings in an attempt to stem the flow of people who could be carrying the virus. The American government said on Friday that it would deny entry to noncitizens who had recently traveled to China.
The Australian government also urged Australian nationals to “reconsider their need to travel” to China. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that “Australian citizens, Australian residents, dependents, legal guardians or spouses” would still be allowed to return.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media on Saturday.

Qantas, Australia’s biggest airline, canceled its mainland flights, though it said it would still fly to Hong Kong.
Taiwan said it would bar Chinese nationals from the southern coastal province of Guangdong from entry beginning Sunday and travelers who recently visited the area would be subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
Vietnam, China’s neighbor along its southern border, joined Singapore and Mongolia in essentially shutting off its borders to China, banning all flights coming from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau until May 1, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Only flights that have received approval from the country’s Civil Aviation Authority will be allowed following the ban, which took effect on Saturday.
The Mongolian authorities also shut the border with China until March 2, while other countries and regions this past week stopped short of sealing off their borders entirely.
Hong Kong halved the number of flights from China, shut down rail service to mainland China, and also limited visas to the semiautonomous region in a move that has prompted criticism from trade unions including hospital workers, some of whom have voted to strike. 

They want to shut the city off from the mainland.
In a twist, Hun Sen, the leader of Cambodia, one of China’s close neighbors, emerged as a contrarian when he decided not to limit any travel and movement of Chinese tourists to his country.
He was defiant in his decision, saying that doing so would “be an attack on the Cambodian economy” and would “strain relations” with China.
“I don’t care what other countries think — Cambodia does not behave this way,” he said.
Cambodia is home to many Chinese businessmen and China is the country’s largest benefactor.

Riders on a bus in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Saturday. 

North Korea was one of the first countries to shut its borders to visitors from China to keep out the coronavirus.
Amid the expanding crisis and growing criticism of Beijing’s strategy, a "prominent" respiratory expert who originally told Chinese state news media that the coronavirus was under control and preventable admitted that his "choice of words had been inappropriate".
The expert, Wang Guangfa, head of the department of pulmonary medicine at Peking University First Hospital in Beijing, compared himself and other medical professionals tackling the outbreak to soldiers walking onto a battlefield.
“All the bullets are flying,” Wang said in an interview with Jiemian, a finance-focused news site founded by Shanghai United Media Group, which is controlled by the Shanghai government.
The doctor has come to symbolize how slowly China recognized the urgency of the outbreak. 

Wang himself contracted the coronavirus, apparently during a visit to Wuhan.
He initially said that the virus could not be spread by person-to-person contact. 

But 11 days later, he confirmed to state news outlets that he had the virus and that he might have contracted it during a trip to the center of the outbreak with a group of experts.
In his interview, Wang said that he had misdiagnosed his symptoms as those of flu, and that he had waited days before checking himself into a hospital. 

He said he had since recovered and was discharged on Thursday.
Asked why he had originally called the coronavirus “preventable and controllable,” Wang blamed limited information at the time of his Wuhan visit. 

A clearer picture of the virus’s transmissibility would have required “epidemiological data, which is difficult to judge,” he said.
His interview has been widely shared on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform. 

Some of the most popular comments have come from angry users.
Criticism about how long it took for the authorities to act has grown online. 

The initial reports of the virus began in early December, but it was not until late January that Chinese officials sprung into action, eventually locking down entire cities around the epicenter and halting public transport across the country during its busiest holiday travel period of the year.
China’s sudden action drew dithyrambic praise from the pro-China World Health Organization and other Beijing puppets, but at home, anguished and angry comments sneaked past censors.

A lone traveller wearing a protective mask at Beijing Capital International Airport.

Yet not all criticism made it through the great firewall. 

On the Chinese internet, people complained that censors were working in overdrive as many articles and social media posts were deleted.
One of the starkest examples of censorship that critics pointed to was an article written by Hu Xijin, the editor of The Global Times, the nationalist tabloid of the Communist Party.
Hu wrote that the heads of the national health commission and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention should take responsibility for the delay in reporting the seriousness of the epidemic.
A few hours after it was posted on Friday, his article was deleted from The Global Times’s website.

Chinazi's Self-Victimisation

China’s Israel envoy compares Chinese coronavirus travel bans to Holocaust
Dai Yuming likened Israel's closure of borders to “the Holocaust, the darkest days in human history”
Associated Press

China’s acting ambassador to Israel apologised on Sunday after comparing the closure of several national borders to Chinese citizens amid fears of a new virus from China to the turning away of Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.
Dai Yuming told reporters at an English-language press conference in Tel Aviv that the “errors to limit or even ban entries of Chinese citizens” reminded him of “the old days, the old stories that happened in World War Two, the Holocaust, the darkest days in human history”.

Dai Yuming is seen giving a speech on March 19, 2012. 

“Millions of Jewish were killed, and many, many Jewish were refused when they tried to seek assistance from other countries. Only very, very few countries opened their door, and among them is China,” Dai said.

Israel halted direct flights to China on Thursday, and Israel’s Health Ministry has authorised border control agents to deny entry to non-Israelis who have visited China in the past two weeks. 

Israeli citizens who returned from China have been instructed to remain quarantined at home for two weeks in order to prevent the spread of the Chinese coronavirus, which has killed more than 300 people and sickened thousands of others in China.

The number of Chinese coronavirus cases worldwide has passed 17,488, according to China’s National Health Commission and other countries.
Most reported incidents are in China, but around 150 cases have been reported in two dozen countries around the globe.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers on Sunday that the country had “closed land crossings, seaports and airports to arrivals from China” for the time being. 

He said he has instructed the country’s Health Ministry to develop a vaccine for the fast-spreading virus.
“We are also updating the Palestinian Authority on all preventive steps and public health measures that they must take into account here as well,” he said.
The world marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp last week.

Chinese Killer Virus

China Expands Travel Restrictions to 2 More Cities as Outbreak Grows

• The authorities enacted strict travel bans for the central Chinese cities of Huanggang, Ezhou and Wuhan, collectively home to nearly 20 million people. 
• At least 17 people have died and more than 570 have been sickened by a mysterious illness.

By The New York Times

In addition to canceling flights and trains, the authorities also shuttered movie theaters, cafes and other public spaces.

Police officers guarding an entrance to the closed Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan, China, on Thursday.

The authorities ban travel from three cities at center of outbreak, affecting millions.
The authorities expanded travel restrictions to two central Chinese cities near Wuhan, the epicenter of a mysterious outbreak of coronavirus, hours after announcing that 17 people had died and more than 570 had contracted the disease.
The restrictions on train and other forms of travel will apply to tens of millions of people and come just days before the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of people travel around and out of the country.
The Chinese authorities on Thursday morning closed off Wuhan — a major port city of more than 11 million people and the center of a pneumonia-like virus that has spread halfway around the world — by canceling flights and trains leaving the city, and suspending buses, subways and ferries within it.
By evening, officials planned to close off Huanggang, a city of seven million about 30 miles east of Wuhan, and shut rail stations in the nearby city of Ezhou, which has about one million residents.
In Huanggang, public transportation and departing trains would were to stop service at midnight. Residents would not be allowed to leave the city without special permission, according to a government statement. 

In Ezhou, all rail stations were to be closed.
In Wuhan, residents said that a sense of fear was growing as the city went into lockdown.
The new virus, which first emerged at the end of December, has killed at least 17 people and sickened more than 570, including in Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, South Korea and the United States. 

It has raised the specter of a repeat of the SARS epidemic, which broke out in China in 2002 and 2003 and spread rapidly while officials obscured the seriousness of the crisis. 

That virus eventually killed more than 800 people worldwide.
Roughly 30,000 people fly out of Wuhan on an average day, according to air traffic data. 

Many more leave using ground transportation like trains and cars. 

The city is the hub of industry and commerce in central China, home to the region’s biggest airport and deepwater port.
The sudden restrictions could upend the travel plans of millions of Chinese citizens, who travel in huge numbers during the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins on Friday. 

The government said it would close Wuhan’s airport and train stations to departures, and it urged residents not to leave the city unless they had an urgent reason to do so.

Residents are nervous and angry.

A supermarket in Wuhan, on Thursday.

Across Wuhan on Thursday, residents — some wearing masks, some sniffing or coughing — visited hospitals and clinics seeking treatment. 

In interviews with a New York Times correspondent in the city, some said they were angry about the sudden lockdown. 

Others said they were confused by the restrictions.
Outside the Wuhan No. 3 Hospital, Yang Lin, said she had come to the hospital to see if a sniffling cold she had might be the coronavirus. 

She said that after a quick check, the doctors told her not to worry. 

But she was not reassured.
“They said it was just a common cold, and told me to get some medicine and go home,” Ms. Yang, 28, said. 

“But how am I to know? They didn’t even take my temperature. It’s just not responsible.”
The outbreak is testing Wuhan’s health care system. 

Several Wuhan residents said on social media websites that they had gone from hospital to hospital, waiting in lines for hours, only to be sent home with medicine and instructions to seek further treatment later if symptoms persisted in a few days.
“The government did not fulfill its duty,” Du Hanrong, 56, a retiree, said by telephone. 

“They just are doing things hastily and carelessly.”
Doctors told some patients that there was a shortage of hospital beds as well as testing kits, according to posts on Chinese social media sites.
Cheng Shidong, a doctor at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, said in an interview that his hospital had set up 100 beds to receive infected patients, but that it didn’t have enough protective material, such as masks and suits, for the medical staff.
In Wuhan, Ms. Yang said that while she was in a pharmacy buying medicine, another person complained that he thought he had the coronavirus but had not been isolated. 

The city’s medical system, especially its smaller hospitals, seems unprepared for the influx of patients, she said.
“I’m willing to accept that we have to stay in Wuhan, O.K., but the medical care needs to keep up,” she said. 

“You shouldn’t tell us we can’t leave, and then give us second-rate medical care. That’s unfair.”


Who are the victims?
Health workers wear protective suits at the Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan, China, on Wednesday.

China’s health commission, which has tightly controlled news about the toll of the outbreak, released on Thursday its most detailed list of the people who have died of the disease.
The first 17 people were largely older men, many with underlying health problems. 

All died in Hubei Province, which includes the city of Wuhan.
The first confirmed death was a 61-year-old man who went to a hospital in Wuhan on December 27, weak with a fever and a cough. 

He was transferred to another hospital as his condition worsened, and he was later attached to a machine that helped oxygenate his blood. 

But his condition worsened, and he died on Jan. 9.Of the first 17 deaths, 13 were men and four were women, officials said. 

The youngest victim was a 48-year-old woman identified only by her surname, Yin, who died on Monday. 

The oldest were two 89-year-old men who died on Saturday and Sunday.
Many had underlying conditions like cirrhosis of the liver, hypertension, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. 

Most had gone to the hospital with a fever and a cough, though at least three had no fever when they were admitted, according to the health commission.
While a full picture of the virus is still unknown, medical experts found some positive signs in the fact that the disease did not appear to be killing young and otherwise healthy people.It was a somewhat reassuring sign that “the majority of fatal cases are elderly and/or have a chronic disease that would increase their susceptibility to infectious diseases,” said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York.

‘I feel extremely powerless,’ says a SARS expert, raising an alarm.

Travelers arrive on Thursday at a nearly deserted train station in Wuhan.

In an unusually blunt interview, Dr. Guan Yi, a professor of infectious diseases in Hong Kong and expert on SARS, criticized the authorities in Wuhan for acting too slowly and obstructing his efforts to investigate the outbreak.
Dr. Guan, who helped successfully identify the coronavirus that caused SARS during the 2002-2003 outbreak in China, told the influential Chinese magazine Caixin that he was deeply frustrated by the city government’s response to the spread of the virus.
He and his team had visited Wuhan on Tuesday hoping that they could track the animal that was the source of the coronavirus but were shocked to find that residents at a market were not taking any precautions or wearing masks. 

No special measures were in place at the airport to disinfect surfaces and floors, either. 

This showed that the city government was being complacent despite the urgent orders handed down by Beijing, he said.
“I thought at the time, we had to be in a ‘state of war’, but how come the alarm has not been raised?” he told Caixin. 

“Poor citizens, they were still preparing to ring in the New Year in peace and had no sense about the epidemic.”
He also criticized the local authorities for disinfecting the market where many infections had been traced to, saying that made it difficult for researchers to investigate where the virus came from.
“I consider myself a veteran in battles,” he said, citing his experience with bird flu, SARS, and other outbreaks. 

“But with this Wuhan pneumonia, I feel extremely powerless.”

What is a coronavirus and why is it so dangerous?

Paramedics taking a man believed to be Hong Kong’s first coronavirus patient to a hospital on Wednesday.

Coronaviruses are named for the spikes that protrude from their membranes, which resemble the sun’s corona. 

They can infect both animals and people, and cause illnesses of the respiratory tract, ranging from the common cold to severe conditions like SARS, which sickened thousands of people around the world — and killed nearly 800 — during a 2003 outbreak.
Symptoms of infection include a high fever, difficulty breathing and lung lesions. 

Milder cases may resemble the flu or a bad cold, making detection very difficult. 

The incubation period — the time from exposure to the onset of symptoms — is believed to be about two weeks.
Little is known about who is most at risk. 

Some of the nine patients who have died also suffered other illnesses.

Chinese worry the government is underreporting cases.
A hospital worker washes the entrance to the Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, where some infected with a new virus were being treated.

There are growing concerns that the Chinese authorities are underreporting the number of people who are ill with the virus. 

Relatives of patients say that hospitals, strapped for resources as they deal with an influx of patients, are turning sick people away or refusing to test them for the coronavirus.Many people remain skeptical of the government’s official statistics, with memories of the effort to cover up the severity of the SARS outbreak in 2003 still fresh.
In Wuhan, Kyle Hui, an architect from Shanghai, said that doctors at Tongji Hospital declined to test his stepmother for the virus, even though she was showing symptoms like a cough and a fever. 

She died on Jan. 15 of “severe pneumonia,” according to a copy of her death certificate.Mr. Hui said that hospital workers treated his stepmother as if she had the coronavirus, wearing hazmat suits. 

After she died, the hospital instructed the family to cremate the body immediately. 

Mr. Hui said that after her death, doctors informed the family that they suspected his stepmother had the coronavirus.
“I’m very sad my stepmother left without any dignity,” Mr. Hui said during an interview this week in a cafe in Wuhan. 

“There was no time to say goodbye.”

Chinese state media plays down the crisis.
Health officials in Beijing take passengers’ temperatures as they arrive on flights from Wuhan on Wednesday. 

A sense of crisis is spreading through China as more people fall ill to the deadly virus. 

But you wouldn’t know it reading the front pages of China’s official newspapers.
As China grapples with one of its most serious public health crises in years, the ruling Communist Party’s most important news outlets seem oblivious to the emergency.
On Thursday, the front page of the People’s Daily featured stories about Chinese dictator Xi Jinping “visiting and comforting” villagers in Yunnan, a southwestern province, ahead of the Lunar New Year Holiday, describing a “warm and peaceful” scene. 

A photo showed New Year’s revelers aboard a train, smiling and snapping photos.
On Wednesday, China Central Television, the state broadcaster, treated the outbreak as a footnote in its evening newscast, one of the most watched television programs in China, instead focusing on Xi’s talks with world leaders.
While more commercially focused outlets, such as Caixin, a financial magazine, and the Beijing News, a newspaper, are covering the crisis extensively, the party’s flagship news outlets have been quiet.
Experts said Xi Jinping was trying to prevent a sense of panic and to limit criticism of the party’s response.“The top priority will be to keep coverage from asking more probing questions about how China’s institutions have responded, questions that might lead to criticism of the government,” said David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project.

A New York Times reporter travels to the epidemic’s ground zero.
Chris Buckley, our chief China correspondent, headed to Wuhan from Beijing to cover the outbreak. He is sending live dispatches from his trip.

9:25 A.M. — BEIJING
At the Beijing West Railway Station on Thursday morning there were noticeably more people wearing masks than have been seen around the city in recent days. 

Still, the number of travelers heading out for the Lunar New Year is still sizable. 

This is not the empty ghost city that Beijing became during the SARS epidemic of 2003. 

Hundreds of people lined up to take a train that passes through Wuhan and other cities on the way to Hong Kong. 

Almost all wore masks.

11 A.M. — ABOARD THE G79 HIGH SPEED TRAIN
The G79 high speed train from Beijing to Hong Kong, which stops in Wuhan, was crowded with holiday passengers. 

But few seemed to have plans to get off in Wuhan. 

The train was a hubbub of conversation, much of it about the deadly coronavirus and the lockdown around Wuhan.
Guo Jing, a worker from northeast China, was headed with two friends for a holiday in Macau. 

After some hesitation, they had taken off their masks. 

“They’re too uncomfortable inside,” Mr. Guo said. 

“My view is we have to be careful but not panic. If you’re the panicky type, then you wouldn’t be on this train.”


Chris Buckley 储百亮
✔@ChuBailiang
Time to get back onto Twitter. I’m about to arrive in Wuhan to see how the city is coping under the lockdown and the menace of the coronavirus. Also follow live updates at the Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share …
1,821
6:47 AM - Jan 23, 2020

1:37 P.M. — ABOARD THE G79 HIGH SPEED TRAIN
Half an hour out from Wuhan, the train is quite crowded with passengers, most of whom are wearing masks.
I haven’t been able to find any who say they are ending their journey at Wuhan, and when I explain that I’m getting off there the reactions vary from advice — wear masks, don’t go, drink lots of water — to mordant jokes that I may be there a long time.
“You should know that they probably won’t let people out until the New Year holiday is over,” said one woman, who would only give her family name, Yang. 

I had expected that there might be checks on the train, or guards checking people who planned to get off at Wuhan. 

But not so far.

2:29 P.M. — WUHAN
Wuhan Railway Station, usually thronging with people in the days before the Lunar New Year holiday, is very empty.
An announcement playing on a loop over the speakers tells the few people here that residents cannot leave the city and the station is temporarily closed. 

But there is, so far at least, no extraordinary security around the station. 

There was a fever detector at the exit from the train platform, but I’ve seen no other steps to check people.
Many residents tried to leave the city.
The announcement that the city of Wuhan would be temporarily sealed off from the outside world starting at 10 a.m. on Thursday came while most residents were asleep at 2 a.m.
Some decided to flee the city.
Residents were seen hauling their luggage to a train station in the early hours before the citywide lockdown took effect, the Chinese news outlet Caixin reported. 

Several people said they would buy tickets for any destination as long as they could leave Wuhan, the magazine reported.
Lines of passengers in masks and down jackets, lugging suitcases, formed outside the major Hankou railway station just 20 minutes before the cutoff time, a live video by media outlet The Paper showed.
Han Zhen and Wang Mengkai, two migrant workers from Henan Province, said they had rushed to the railway station in order to leave on Wednesday night, but missed the last train out.
Both said they were frustrated by the sudden lockdown and were scrambling to find a way home.
“It’s serious but not that serious,” said Mr. Wang, who works in an electronics parts factory. 

“We’re trying to figure out how we can get home. If we can’t get out on a train, we’ll try putting together a car with a driver.”
Asked if they were motivated to leave by fear of the virus, Mr. Han said: “No, we are not scared.”
“It’s the New Year, we just have to go home,” he added.

Republicans Look to Punish Chinese Leaders Over Hong Kong Crackdown

Senior administration officials and lawmakers are brainstorming ways to punish China for the clampdown in Hong Kong.

By Erin Banco


Donald Trump hasn’t exactly gone after China’s chiefs for cracking down on protesters in Hong Kong. 

Trump said earlier this month that he wanted to see the situation “worked out in a very humanitarian fashion.” 

And over the weekend at the G7 meeting in France he praised again Xi Jinping as a “great leader.”
But behind the scenes, senior officials in the Trump administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are quietly brainstorming ways to officially punish China for the clampdown in Hong Kong and to deter Beijing from deploying military forces to directly and violently confront protesters in the streets, according to three government sources with knowledge of those efforts. 

The wide-ranging discussions—which include the possibility of imposing travel bans and asset freezes on Chinese leaders—come just two weeks after Beijing’s troops began to amass outside Hong Kong.
“Since Day One of this administration, China has been a national security concern. The protests in Hong Kong are just another example of why we should be focusing our attention on finding ways to push back against Beijing,” said one senior administration official. 

“We’ve been taking other routes to confront China, especially economically. This would be another step in the game plan. The draft legislation is in a lot of ways going to look like some of the sanctions we implemented with Russia.”
Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives are in the midst of drafting legislation, after consulting with senior officials in the ranks of the departments of State and Treasury, to introduce legislation that would hit  with sanctions Chinese entities that support the suppression of protests in Hong Kong. 

The legislation would be the first of its kind to address the crackdown head-on by going after some of China’s most influential and well-connected entities. 

Members of Congress have for weeks sought out ways to respond to the Beijing leadership’s role in the clampdown in Hong Kong, fielding expert opinions from experts in the international sanctions and foreign policy fields.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), along with both his Republican and Democrat colleagues in the Senate, re-introduced the Hong Kong and Human Rights Act in June. 

The bill would make it harder for Hong Kong to keep its trade status with the U.S. if it did not maintain autonomy from China. 

Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) introduced the bill in the House of Representatives.
But other lawmakers on the Hill are considering a more direct approach to confronting China.
Three individuals familiar with the effort said lawmakers view the legislation as a way of establishing a “red line” that would deter China from cracking down on protesters in the future by threatening increasingly steep political and financial punishments. 

Two sources said lawmakers are considering a system whereby Congress could review the list of Chinese companies every several years, adding some and losing others depending on the circumstance.
“The administration has been looking at options for some time now,” one senior Trump official said. “But now things are starting to move forward and the legislation on the Hill will crystalize once Congress comes back. We’ve been looking at smart ways to address the crackdown and this is definitely a start.”
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) has looked over draft legislation for new Chinese sanctions and is considering sponsoring some form of it within the next few months, according to two sources familiar.
In July he delivered an 11-minute speech in which he called out the Chinese government for their involvement.
“If the Chinese officials in Beijing, the communists Chinese who rule mainland China, if they have their way, they will extinguish these rights for the people of Hong Kong,” he said. 

Discussions on Capitol Hill are taking place as the U.S. and China continue to engage in a tit-for-tat trade war. 

President Trump said earlier this month that if China used violence in Hong Kong it would “hurt” trade talks.
“For the most part the administration, and the White House in particular, has been trying to keep the trade talks front and center when it comes to China policy,” one senior administration official said. “But really the trade talks and our response to the protests in Hong Kong are tied. The threat of sanctions is really starting to scare China and so we might begin to see trade talks go a little smoother.”

Rubio Calls for Sanctions on Beijing for South China Sea Antics

“China should not be allowed to continue to pursue illegitimate claims and to militarize an area that is essential to global security.”

BY EMILY TAMKIN

The Trump administration may get an assist in crafting a no–nonsense stance toward China — from Congress.
One-time presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R.-Fla.) introduced a bill Tuesday that would slap sanctions on China for its destabilizing actions in the East and South China Seas, where Beijing has built artificial islands and airfields and warned neighboring countries to stay out.
“The People’s Republic of China,” the bill reads, “should not be allowed to continue to pursue illegitimate claims and to militarize an area that is essential to global security.”
Rubio proposes sanctions — including asset freezes, travel bans, and visa restrictions — on “any Chinese person” who contributes to construction or development projects in any contested area of the South China Sea, or who is complicit in actions or policies that threaten stability of those areas. 

Interpreted broadly, that would target everybody from Chinese coast guard and naval personnel to construction firms to fleets of Chinese fishermen who informally patrol far-flung waters.
The bill also urges a more muscular U.S. response to China’s territorial ambitions. 

It calls for the United States to “continue and expand” freedom-of-navigation operations meant to challenge China’s claims, and calls for the United States to meet Chinese “provocations” with “commensurate actions that impose costs on any attempts to undermine security in the region.”
It isn’t clear yet how much support Rubio can count on; it was introduced in committee without a single co-sponsor. 

Neither Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R.-TN) nor Ranking Member Ben Cardin (D-MD)’s office has yet responded to request for comment.
In the House, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) — Trump’s pick to head the CIA — introduced a bill in July calling on China to cease militarization and reclamation in the South China Sea and to end provocation in the East China Sea.
What is clear is that the hard-line legislation comes on the heels of a carefully arranged call between U.S. President Donald Trump and the president of Taiwan, an issue that the Chinese do not take lightly. 

Trump also, in a series of tweets, accused China of intentionally devaluing its own currency to make it more difficult for U.S. companies to compete — and of building a “massive military complex” in the South China Sea.
Some foreign-policy analysts welcomed the bill as a way to show China some teeth. 

It’s a “welcome reminder that the United States has many tools at its disposal to influence Chinese policy in the South China Sea and East China Sea,” Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Foreign Policy. 

Though the bill has warts — Glaser noted that it focuses exclusively on China’s behavior in the disputed waters, not other claimants’, and targets activities like lighthouses that aren’t necessarily nefarious — she welcomed the effort to push back in area crucial to global trade and to the stability of Asia.
Even if this bill fails, she said, it is a reminder to the incoming administration that a targeted approach to the individuals and companies involved in military activity, construction, and dredging in the South and East China Seas would be useful in taking the lead on this issue, restoring U.S. credibility in the process.

But China is not the only country in Congress’ crosshairs. 

On Dec. 1, the Senate voted unanimously to extend sanctions on Iran for 10 years. 

And the House passed a bill that would restrict travel by Russian diplomats based in the United States. 

The Senate has not yet approved the legislation. 

On Wednesday, Russia made quite clear that it would retaliate by restricting American diplomats’ movement if this bill were to become law.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that U.S. authorities would do well to remember that “diplomacy is based on the principle of reciprocity.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R.-Fla.) introduced a bill Tuesday that would slap sanctions on China for its destabilizing actions in the East and South China Seas.