Month: March 2021

By ZhongSheng (Peoples Daily)09:23, March 16, 2021

The decision of the National Peoples Congress (NPC), the top legislature of China, to improve the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has won wide support from the 1.4 billion Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots.

However, a very few countries in the west recently issued statements to smear the NPC decision, which trampled on international laws and basic norms governing international relations and came as blatant interference in Chinas internal affairs.

Photo shows the beautiful scenery of the Wan Chai section of Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong. (People鈥檚 Daily Online/Duan Changzheng)

It only lays bare their ulterior motive to wish Hong Kong ill and use Hong Kong as a pawn to hold back Chinas development at large.

Modern international relation system shall no longer be a jungle world from which justice and morality are absent. A very few western countries, however, have made unwarranted remarks about Hong Kong affairs on the pretext of democracy and freedoms, which only revealed their malicious intentions.

To improve the HKSARs electoral system is not about whether democracy and freedoms, but about a battle against those trying to grab power and commit subversion and infiltration.

These western countries must be aware that China today is no longer the old one that was once bullied by the Eight-Nation Alliance. Chinese people do not believe in fallacy. Nor are they afraid of evil forces. No country should expect China to trade its core interests away or tolerate any infringement on its sovereignty, security and development interests.

The statements made by these countries are nothing but ideological prejudices and hegemonic thinking, which expose their hypocrisy and double standard.

Democracy never existed in Hong Kong when it was still a colony ruled by a UK-appointed governor. When did any of these western countries care about its democracy back then? Their statements today are not about democracy at all. If they really intend to uphold democracy in Hong Kong, they would have never sat back and watched riots attempting to break into the Legislative Council building, or rebuked Chinas effort to improve the regions electoral system and bring long-term stability of democracy.

The value of democracy is how it brings governance, not chaos. Currently, the forces that impede Hong Kongs governance and make troubles on Hong Kong affairs are exactly standing at the opposite side of democracy.

Since Hong Kongs return to the motherland, the region has entered a new historical period featuring the principle of one country, two systems and high autonomy, and Hong Kong residents have enjoyed more extensive democratic rights than at any other time in history.

However, in recent years, anti-China disruptors jumped on the loopholes of the electoral system to endanger national security, and some western countries and external forces added fuel to the fire and covered up the rioters.

Facing such challenges, the NPCs decision to improve the electoral system is totally necessary and is conducive to the stable development of Hong Kongs democratic system. It has received wide support from Hong Kong compatriots, who believe it carries the central governments caring for the special administrative region and will develop a new democratic electoral system with Hong Kong characteristics.

Hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong citizens recently joined an online petition to support the decision, which explained that to improve the electoral system is an unstoppable trend that complies to the aspiration of the people.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration has always been taken as a tool by certain western countries to meddle in Hong Kong affairs. They did this because they wanted to label China as an irresponsible country that is reluctant to fulfill its international obligations. However, what they did was just comparing apples to oranges.

Its known by all that as China resumed exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong, all rights and obligations of the British side under the Sino-British Joint Declaration were completed. And the Chinese government started administering it, in accordance with the Constitution and the Basic Law, not the Joint Declaration. The relevant countries have no legal basis or any right to cite the Joint Declaration to point fingers at Hong Kong affairs.

Hong Kong was, is and will always be China鈥檚 Hong Kong. To improve the regions electoral system is a decision that carries the will of the Chinese people. The countries that covered up anti-China rioters have already been widely condemned by the international society, and no attempt of foreign countries to interfere in Hong Kong affairs and Chinas domestic affairs will ever succeed. To have the patriots govern Hong Kong and eliminate anti-China forces is a necessary choice of all Chinese people and the history.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by Peoples Daily to express its views on foreign policy.)

(Xinhua)09:06, March 16, 2021

GENEVA, March 15 (Xinhua) — Officials of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that the use of e-certificate for COVID-19 vaccination is a potentially very useful instrument, but warned about its use, notably for international travels, because of the tremendously iniquitous situation in the world.

Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO Health Emergencies Program, explained at a virtual press conference on Monday that electronic certificates for vaccination could be a very useful instrument for governments to use for managing the registration of vaccination in the country.

However, he added that the use of such certificates for travels across the world might not be fair, since the likelihood of one being offered a vaccine has very much to do with the country you live in, as vaccination for now is not widely available and is inequitably distributed throughout the world.

Several countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, are considering adopting electronic certificates, while the European Union announced on March 1 its plans for a green pass.

The WHO said that it was also collaborating with partners to develop electronic certificates as having a digital certificate on a mobile phone would be an advantage to having a paper certificate, said WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan.

Over the next few weeks and months we will be working mainly with our member states to discuss how this could be implemented, she explained.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in an increasing number of countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.

Meanwhile, 263 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide — 81 of them in clinical trials — in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, according to the latest information released by the WHO on March 12.

(Chinadaily.com.cn)16:43, March 16, 2021

Web Photo

China approved a recombinant protein subunit vaccine against COVID-19 for emergency use on Wednesday, according to the vaccines developer, the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

So far, the vaccine is the fourth approved by the country for emergency use against COVID-19.

The vaccine was developed by the institute and Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical. It is currently in phase-three clinical trials in foreign countries including Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Ecuador and Indonesia, with plans to inoculate a total of 29,000 volunteers, the institute said in a statement on Monday.

On March 1, Uzbekistans Ministry of Innovative Development said it has approved the vaccine for market use in the Central Asian nation under the name ZF-UZ-VAC2001. The vaccine was approved for emergency use in the country on Feb 22, making it the worlds first recombinant subunit vaccine to be authorized for clinical use.

Rather than injecting a whole inactivated pathogen to trigger an immune response like previously approved vaccines, subunit protein vaccines contain purified pieces of the viruss protein to train the immune system. These fragments are incapable of causing disease, thus making this type of vaccines very safe.

Notable subunit vaccines include the vaccine for hepatitis B. This type of vaccine does not require high biosecurity labs to make, has high output and low storage requirements, the institute said.

The vaccine completed phase one and two clinical trials in October, and there were no severe adverse effects recorded, the institute said, adding the protection rate for this vaccine is on par with other COVID-19 recombinant subunit and mRNA vaccines in the world, though it did not disclose efficacy details.

US biotech company Novavax is the maker of another recombinant nanoparticle subunit vaccine for COVID called NVX-CoV2373, whose phase-three trials results released last week showed it was 96.4 percent effective against mild, moderate and severe disease caused by the original COVID-19 strain. The mRNA vaccines, developed by Pfizer and Moderna, both have a protection rate of around 95 percent.