Seeking a great escape from Hong Kong
The China Letter: February 1, 2021
A new month of coverage from The China Letter includes the state of the crackdown in Hong Kong, the WHO effort to trace the origins of COVID-19, and expert advice on how the new U.S. president should deal with Beijing. We’ll keep watching the stories in the week leading up to Chinese New Year—tell a friend they can also subscribe for free.
To leave or to stay in HK
The path to U.K. citizenship has been cleared for up to 300,000 Hong Kongers, who’ve been told by the Chinese foreign ministry that the British National Overseas passport will no longer be recognized as a travel document. Forcing all dual citizens to choose the nationality they want to remain stands to raise these tensions even further.
HSBC was accused by British MPs of “aiding and abetting” China’s crackdown in Hong Kong, but the bank says it never acted on political grounds, and only froze accounts when ordered by government. Pro-democracy campaigner Ted Hui still isn’t buying the explanation, now that he’s among those who fled due to the security law.
Wuhan walk with WHO
After completing a delayed 14-day quarantine, the team of World Health Organization investigators set about investigating the origins of the coronavirus, starting with two hospitals and a museum exhibition dedicated to the early days of COVID-19. And then they went to the Huanan market where the virus was identified on the final day of 2019:
Meanwhile, a story from the Washington Post based on U.S. federal reports outlined how officials who met with the first 200 evacuees from Wuhan last year lacked a virus protection plan or infection-control training. Measures to control any spread were lacking, as officials were told to remove their protective gear to avoid “bad optics.”
A long letter to Joe Biden
An anonymous strategy paper is calling on Joe Biden to draw red lines against China and focus on Xi Jinping’s authoritarian leadership as a strategy spelled out in over 26,000 words. The new White House administration is also being urged to push back against the persecution of the Uighur minority if it truly cares about human rights.
India banned these apps
TikTok owner ByteDance had over 2,000 employees in India who are now out of a job after its government decided to permanently ban a total of 59 Chinese apps. A measure taken after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese troops in a remote border region was made permanent. But these digital services remain operational in the U.S.
The last words, for now
Chinese New Year season kicked off on January 28 amid a lockdown revival in cities seeing new COVID-19 outbreaks: the transport ministry’s estimated 1.2 billion trips over the holiday period will be about 60 per cent fewer than in 2019. But others are receiving financial incentives for staying put to keep their family celebrations virtual:
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