China CDC: COVID-19 One of the Drivers Behind Outbreak | China In Focus

infections making a comeback in China. What a top Chinese CDC expert is saying, plus a rising suspicion among Chinese residents related to the side effects of Chinese-made vaccines. Is it safe to travel to China right now? Five U.S. senators say no. They're pointing fingers at the Chinese communist regime, saying it cannot be trusted. A campaign is mobilizing Chinese citizens to register as organ donors, but some report the optional program isn't so voluntary. And a weapons upgrade for U.S. naval submarines? They'll soon be armed with a new version of the Tomahawk missile and a 1,000-mile range. What do you think? Let us know below and subscribe if you haven't already. Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Is China seeing another comeback of COVID-19? Here's a rare admission from top Chinese CDC expert Wang Huaqing. He said on Saturday that COVID-19 is one of the main viruses driving the country's current sickness outbreak between ages 15 and 59. Chinese authorities at first said mycoplasma pneumonia was the main driver, but later changed that narrative to include seven pathogens. Meanwhile, Chinese media reports say Chinese authorities approved newly developed COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use on Sunday. With outbreaks sweeping across China, residents are speculating about other causes. Some are blaming Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines, saying their side effects have weakened people's immunity and contributed to the severity of the current outbreak. I think the Chinese COVID-19 vaccines have played a part. When I was little, we didn't have that many vaccinations. But in recent years, the more inoculations you get, the easier it is for you to fall ill. Local residents share their concerns with NTD. Once you've been inoculated or been infected with a CCP virus, your immune system has been weakened, so it will be easier for viruses or bacteria to affect you. Similar fears surfaced last year in an open letter from a group of leukemia patients across China, and all of them were diagnosed with leukemia after being inoculated with Chinese-made vaccines against COVID-19. The letters said the patients appealed to Chinese authorities, but couldn't find lawyers to represent them. Reporters were also warned to not cover their stories. One expert said the possible risks might be baked into the Chinese vaccines themselves. China mostly uses inactivated vaccines, a kind made by killing the virus it fights using chemicals or heat. If the quality control of one single step in the process wasn't up to standard, then the virus might not have been completely killed. Another virologist told NTD that she's concerned these cases are just the tip of the iceberg. There could be many more Chinese people who have received the vaccine without experiencing symptoms. However, their immune systems, blood cells and bone marrow may have already suffered damage associated with the vaccine. Although symptoms may not appear immediately, they could be triggered by subsequent other negative factors, leading to further dampened immunity and severe infections. Now, neighboring areas are on high alert. Japan, Thailand, India and Taiwan are warning of precautionary measures in response to China's outbreak. Should people avoid travel to China at this point? According to six U.S. lawmakers, the answer is yes. They're calling on the Biden administration to restrict travel to and from China. That's until more is known about the mysterious pneumonia outbreak happening there. Let's zoom in. Communist China cannot be trusted. That's what Florida Representative Carlos Jimenez told Fox News on Monday. His remark follows a letter sent Friday by a group of five U.S. senators urging Washington to halt travel between the U.S. and China. Why? They say that's because of China's quote long history of lying about public health crisis. They also called out the World Health Organization for what they called its slavish deference toward the communist regime. Both the WHO and Beijing deny a new virus is causing the recent surge in pneumonia cases inside China, adding there's no cause for alarm. Instead, Beijing seems to have a different focus, tourism. China started to extend visa-free policy to six European countries, including France and Germany on December 1st. About 18,000 travelers from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia entered China within the first three days. China reopened its borders in January after years of COVID-19 travel restrictions. When the pandemic first broke out in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, authorities halted domestic flights to and from the city. But millions of Chinese citizens were still traveling abroad, unknowingly carrying virus with them. In other news, Beijing is now urging Chinese citizens to register for its voluntary organ donation program. But according to social media reports, some citizens allege they were coerced into joining. In July, China's Administrative Center for Organ Donation issued a major notice to promote organ donation among Chinese citizens. Across the country, schools, medical institutions and businesses all shared the notice, touting their participation in the campaign. The program is registering people as young as middle school students. While some reports say there's more to the story. In the northern province of Shandong, online reports say local authorities have mandated all health care system staff to register for the organ donation program. The reports alleges that pressure to sign up is coming directly from supervisors. In a video posted online, a resident says she received a text message showing she had registered as a voluntary donor after she lost her ID. Others shared similar messages, noting they never initiated the sign-up process. Some also met with difficulty when trying to pull out of the program. Here's what a former Chinese lawyer who now lives in Canada had to say. They force you to donate and then claim it's voluntary. They force you to donate and then claim it's voluntary. They make all of society participate in this organ donation campaign. Only through this can the CCP conceal the illegal forced organ harvesting in China. According to the United Nations Human Rights Office, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were killed between 2001 and 2006 with their organs sold as state-backed black market transplants. Falun Gong is a spiritual meditation practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Early this year, a CCP official's death during the COVID-19 outbreak uncovered certain privileges reportedly enjoyed by Beijing's elite. According to his obituary, he had many organs replaced in his body. The obituary was quickly scrubbed from the Chinese internet. America's submarines getting an upgrade as early as next year. The Navy is getting ready to arm them with a variation of the Tomahawk missile called the Maritime Strike version. The usually ground-based weapon was modified to target enemy ships. It comes with a new guidance system and according to senior research fellow Brent Sadler of the Heritage Foundation, touts a thousand mile range. The upgrade is slated to further strengthen maritime defenses. The U.S. aims to counter China's larger fleet through advancing superior American technology. That's especially as the U.S. looks to deter a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The Navy plans to fit the missiles on surface ships in the future. The upgrades are expected to be sent out in September. Will China really invade Taiwan? On a Japanese island close to Taiwan, officials there are already preparing for an influx of refugees. That's if conflict between Taiwan and China breaks out. Here's more. This disaster drill is meant to prepare for crisis on Japan's westernmost frontier. Be it a natural disaster or as island mayor Kenichi Itakatsu increasingly worries, a humanitarian one. Yonaguni Island recently ran this exercise with Japan's self-defense forces, bracing both for tsunami and the event of the island's close neighbor Taiwan coming under attack from China. I'm worried about what could happen. It's a situation that we cannot predict. Yonaguni is only about 60 miles east of Taiwan, a self-ruled island of 24 million people. China claims it as its own territory and has ratcheted up simulated missile strikes and other military displays. Yonaguni residents say they worry about a possible refugee crisis if conflict broke out nearby. Japan has earmarked 290 billion dollars for defense this year, the biggest build-up since the Second World War. But more than two dozen current and former Japanese officials and island residents said there was no plan from Tokyo for Yonaguni, where they imagine hundreds if not thousands of refugees could try to flee. What if they come here? What if they come here? I asked the government. There was no answer. Everyone was silent. It's like their mouths were taped shut. Yonaguni has around 1,700 residents. Koji Sugama, the official in charge of preparing the island for disasters, thinks right now there wouldn't be enough emergency supplies if the worst comes to pass. This container is one of three on the whole island. Sugama says each one can support around 800 people. These are cookies made from rice. Then there's curry pilaf, tomato risotto, corn pilaf, mixed rice. This will do for one, maybe two days. Yonaguni relies on bi-weekly ferry and a handful of daily flights from nearby islands for supplies. But these can often be canceled due to bad weather. So far, the Japanese government's response to rising tension in the Asia-Pacific has focused on military spending, which Prime Minister Fumio Kishida plans to double in the next five years. If something happens, I really have no idea how the Prime Minister at the time will act, what decisions they will take or even be able to take. Another update from Japan. The country is getting on board with a global framework for space security cooperation. Japan's defense ministry said Tuesday that the paperwork to join was complete. Called the Combined Space Operations Initiative, the framework was established in 2014 by the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia. It aims to strengthen cooperation on monetary threats in space. The news comes as China continues to speed up its space projects. Shifting gears, we have some quick updates from around the globe. First, Australia and France agreed to rebuild relations. The two countries' foreign ministers unveiled a new road map Monday in the capital of Australia. It's a plan to progress defense ties as well as improve foreign aid and climate resilience in the Pacific. The French foreign minister's visit to Australia was the first since 2019. Moving to the U.S., a regulator there has fined the China arm of auditing firm PwC seven million dollars. It says the firm allowed cheating during training exams in China and Hong Kong. A U.S. agency said the cheating was extensive and the company didn't detect it or try to stop it. The regulator said that from 2018 to 2020, over a thousand PwC workers shared answers for online tests that were part of a U.S. mandated auditing curriculum. Zooming in on China, U.S. officials are taking a harsher tone on Beijing and China isn't pleased. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo spoke over the weekend saying she needed more funding to prevent Beijing from catching up on chips that can't be used for military purposes. She called it the biggest threat the U.S. ever had, adding that China is not America's friend. China pushed back on the comment. Raimondo's remarks come as American chipmaker Nvidia said that the U.S. is at least a decade away from supply chain independence from China and emerging technologies could shake up China's grip on rare earth refining. That's a startup tech firms in the West are racing to transform the way rare earths are refined. If these new technologies could deliver as expected by 2025, they could greatly reduce western dependence on Chinese rare earth technology. According to some estimates, China now controls 87% of the world's rare earth refining capacity. One Hong Kong activist says she was ordered to write gratitude letters to the CCP in exchange for the chance to study abroad and that she's facing threats from Chinese authorities tied to it. Take a look at her story. This 27-year-old Hong Kong student, now living in Canada, says she may never return home. In consideration of the political situation in Hong Kong and my personal health and high political risk of being, you know, not being allowed to leave Hong Kong again, I've decided not to go back. She posted on Instagram last Sunday that the CCP's national security members had threatened her with conditions in exchange for returning her passport and allowing her to study in Canada. Flashback to summer 2021. I was being forced to write a letter of repentance and I was being forced to go to mainland China and they are not something within the Hong Kong legal system. Chow noticed that police also took pictures of her during the process. But there's more. Before that, Chow had been involved in many major pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong. As a leading member of a young activist group called Demosisto. And three years ago, her life was turned upside down. That's after China passed a national security law to tighten the control of the city. Especially this year, I really, really understand what is freedom from fear. Because I feel like I have been living in fear for three years and that was horrible. She was sentenced to 10 months in prison for being a leading member of pro-democracy campaigns and released in June 2021. Authorities refused to return her passport even after her release and continued investigating her. Chow publicly shared her experience for the first time over the weekend. If I don't make it public that something like this happened in Hong Kong and happened on me, one day these photos, these documents might become evidence showing that I'm a you know, patriot or you know, I really regret what I did before. Chow is asking the world not to forget about Hong Kong. She says many are still suffering under Beijing's oppression there, with no way to speak out. That's all for today's China In Focus on YouTube. We're now sharing a shortened version of our program here after being demonetized for more than two years. If you'd like to support us, subscribe to our partner platform, Epic TV, where you can watch our full episodes or consider donating. Find us at donorbox.org slash China dash in dash focus. Here's what to look out for in our second half, a U.S. strategic military buildup in the making. Anti-ship missiles getting fitted on American submarines next year to counter China. How will the weapons serve as a regional deterrent as tensions grow in the Taiwan Strait? At the same time, China is ramping up its submarine capabilities. Who will seize the upper hand in the ultimate showdown? To discuss the latest, we have retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding, currently National Security Analyst at the Hudson Institute. Thanks for watching China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. See you tomorrow.