L’attacco alla petroliera russa Artic Metagaz, colpita nel Mediterraneo centrale e successivamente abbandonata tra Malta, Lampedusa e la Cirenaica, rappresenta molto più di un episodio isolato. È il segnale di una trasformazione profonda: la guerra tra Mosca e Kiev non è più confinata all’Europa orientale, ma si sta espandendo lungo le rotte energetiche, commerciali e militari che collegano il Mediterraneo, il Sahel e il Mar Rosso. Secondo diverse ricostruzioni, i droni utilizzati contro la nave russa sarebbero partiti dalla Libia occidentale. Se confermata, l’operazione dimostrerebbe che l’Ucraina dispone ormai di una rete logistica e operativa capace di proiettarsi ben oltre il Mar Nero. L’obiettivo strategico appare evidente: colpire la flotta ombra russa utilizzata per aggirare le sanzioni energetiche occidentali e ridurre i flussi finanziari con cui il Cremlino sostiene il proprio apparato bellico. La nave trasportava Gnl ed era già sottoposta a sanzioni internazionali. Ma il vero nodo geopolitico riguarda il luogo dell’attacco: la Libia, oggi diventata il crocevia della competizione globale tra Russia, Ucraina, Turchia, Stati Uniti e potenze regionali arabe.

La strategia africana di Kiev

Negli ultimi tre anni Kiev ha progressivamente modificato la propria politica estera verso il continente africano. Dopo il voto dell’Assemblea generale Onu del 2022, che registrò numerose astensioni africane sulla condanna della Russia, la leadership ucraina ha compreso come il conflitto si giochi anche sul terreno diplomatico e simbolico. L’Ucraina non vuole più essere percepita soltanto come avamposto dell’Occidente. Per questo ha iniziato a costruire relazioni dirette con governi africani e mediorientali, sfruttando soprattutto il proprio know-how militare nel settore dei droni, della guerra elettronica e delle operazioni speciali. In Sudan, ad esempio, emissari dell’intelligence ucraina sarebbero intervenuti contro strutture riconducibili al vecchio Gruppo Wagner. Parallelamente Kiev avrebbe ottenuto canali alternativi di approvvigionamento di armamenti sovietici, indispensabili per sostenere lo sforzo bellico sul fronte orientale. Il modello è chiaro: offrire assistenza tecnica e militare in cambio di sostegno geopolitico, informazioni strategiche o forniture belliche. È una forma di diplomazia securitaria che trasforma l’esperienza maturata nella guerra contro Mosca in uno strumento di influenza internazionale.

La Libia come piattaforma militare e logistica

La Libia rappresenta il perno di questa nuova proiezione strategica. Formalmente il Paese vive una fase di relativa stabilizzazione dopo gli scontri tra Tripoli e Bengasi, ma sul terreno permane una frammentazione profonda. A Est domina il sistema di potere del maresciallo Khalifa Haftar, sostenuto da Russia, Emirati Arabi Uniti ed Egitto. A Ovest resiste il Governo di Unità Nazionale di Tripoli, riconosciuto dall’Onu e appoggiato militarmente dalla Turchia. In mezzo si sviluppa un mosaico di milizie, traffici illegali, rotte migratorie e interessi energetici che rende la Libia il principale hub geopolitico africano del Mediterraneo. Le recenti segnalazioni sulla presenza di personale ucraino nell’area di Misurata suggeriscono che Kiev stia tentando di replicare, in senso opposto, la penetrazione che Mosca aveva costruito attraverso Wagner negli anni precedenti. Non più soltanto supporto diplomatico, ma presenza operativa stabile. La Libia consente infatti tre vantaggi decisivi:

• controllo delle rotte marittime nel Mediterraneo centrale;
• accesso diretto al Sahel;
• possibilità di monitorare i flussi energetici e militari tra Africa ed Europa.

Il Sahel e la guerra per le risorse strategiche

Dietro la dimensione militare emerge una competizione ancora più importante: quella per le materie prime strategiche. Il Niger, dopo il golpe del 2023, è progressivamente entrato nell’orbita russa. La presenza dell’Africa Corps, struttura subentrata a Wagner, ha consolidato il controllo di Mosca su aree cruciali per l’estrazione dell’uranio. Secondo diverse fonti regionali, sarebbe operativo un corridoio logistico che collega Niamey alla Cirenaica libica per trasferire “yellowcake” verso la Russia mediante cargo militari. La base di Al Khadim, nei pressi di Bengasi, sarebbe diventata uno snodo fondamentale di questa rete. L’uranio del Niger possiede un valore strategico enorme. Serve alla produzione energetica civile, ma soprattutto rappresenta un asset geopolitico centrale nella filiera nucleare globale dominata dal colosso russo Rosatom. Chi controlla le miniere saheliane e le rotte di trasporto controlla una parte decisiva della sicurezza energetica internazionale.

Droni, mercenari e guerra ibrida

La vera novità dello scenario africano è tuttavia l’evoluzione della guerra ibrida. In Libia, Sudan e Sahel si stanno sperimentando modelli operativi già osservati in Ucraina e nel Golfo Persico: utilizzo massiccio di droni, mercenari, intelligence privata e operazioni clandestine. Le forze di Haftar avrebbero recentemente acquisito droni cinesi Feilong-1 e Bayraktar TB2 turchi, mentre diverse inchieste hanno documentato traffici di componenti elettroniche dirette verso la Cirenaica. L’Africa rischia così di diventare il nuovo laboratorio mondiale della guerra automatizzata a basso costo. Non è un caso che anche gli Stati Uniti stiano aumentando la propria attenzione verso la regione. Le esercitazioni Flintlock 2026, coordinate dall’US Africa Command con il coinvolgimento di forze libiche, italiane e turche, mostrano come Washington consideri ormai la Libia un teatro strategico prioritario.

Il nuovo confronto globale passa dall’Africa

Dietro le operazioni navali, i droni e le basi militari si intravede una trasformazione geopolitica più ampia. La guerra tra Russia e Ucraina sta progressivamente mutando in un conflitto globale per il controllo delle infrastrutture energetiche, delle risorse minerarie e delle rotte strategiche africane. Mosca punta a consolidare una cintura d’influenza che dal Sahel arrivi al Mediterraneo. Kiev, sostenuta indirettamente da parte dell’Occidente, tenta invece di sabotare questa espansione costruendo proprie reti di influenza locali. La Libia diventa così il punto di collisione tra due modelli di proiezione geopolitica: quello russo fondato su mercenari, risorse e basi militari; e quello ucraino, basato su droni, intelligence e operazioni asimmetriche. Il rischio è che il continente africano si trasformi definitivamente nel nuovo fronte occulto della guerra euroasiatica.

L'articolo Dalla Libia al Sahel: la guerra tra Ucraina e Russia trascina anche l’Africa sulla linea del fronte proviene da InsideOver.

Nel cuore dell’Asia Centrale il cotone uzbeko non è soltanto una commodity agricola. È una materia prima strategica che, trasformata in nitrato di cellulosa, entra nella produzione di propellenti ed esplosivi. In questa zona grigia tra economia civile e industria bellica si muove Rustam Rakhimdzhanovich Muminov, imprenditore nato a Tashkent nel 1965, con tripla cittadinanza uzbeka, russa e britannica.

Il suo nome è emerso con forza dopo l’inserimento nelle liste sanzionatorie dell’Unione Europea (19° pacchetto), del Regno Unito e dell’Ucraina. L’accusa: aver sostenuto il complesso militare-industriale russo fornendo derivati della cellulosa alle fabbriche di polvere da sparo di Perm e Kazan, snodi centrali della produzione di munizionamento destinato al fronte ucraino.

Privatizzazioni e ascesa di un magnate

L’ascesa di Muminov si intreccia con la stagione riformista inaugurata dal presidente uzbeko Shavkat Mirziyoyev dopo il 2016. La fine del monopolio statale sul cotone e l’introduzione del sistema dei cluster hanno aperto spazi enormi a capitali privati e reti imprenditoriali ben connesse. Attraverso la holding Mercury Renaissance e il controllo del Fergana Chemical Plant, Muminov ha consolidato una posizione dominante nella lavorazione della polpa di cotone. Formalmente attive nella produzione di cellulosa, le sue società operano in un segmento a doppio uso: civile nelle dichiarazioni doganali, potenzialmente militare nella destinazione finale. Secondo diverse fonti regionali, una quota significativa delle importazioni russe di derivati del cotone proverrebbe da questo circuito industriale.

Sanzioni europee, resilienza eurasiatica

L’inclusione nelle black list europee e britanniche comporta congelamento dei beni, divieti di ingresso e restrizioni finanziarie. Tuttavia, l’impatto reale appare limitato. Il business di Muminov è orientato quasi esclusivamente verso mercati eurasiatici, dove il perimetro sanzionatorio occidentale incide poco. Non risultano legami strutturali con banche o imprese dell’UE. Inoltre, l’assenza di misure restrittive da parte degli Stati Uniti riduce l’effetto deterrente globale. Washington, impegnata a coltivare relazioni con le repubbliche centroasiatiche anche in funzione anticinese, evita al momento un confronto diretto con Tashkent su questo dossier. Il risultato è una asimmetria sanzionatoria che rischia di indebolire la credibilità del fronte occidentale.

Elusione doganale e ambiguità regolatoria

Uno degli aspetti più controversi riguarda la classificazione merceologica. Alcune spedizioni sarebbero state registrate sotto codici doganali riferibili a fibre di cotone, anziché a nitrato o pasta di cellulosa. Se confermata, la pratica configurerebbe una forma sofisticata di elusione tecnica, più che una violazione esplicita. Il problema è strutturale: molte materie prime chimiche hanno natura “dual use”. Senza un controllo stringente sulla destinazione finale, la linea tra commercio legittimo e supporto militare resta sfumata.

Bruxelles tra principi e realpolitik

La posizione europea è particolarmente delicata. L’Uzbekistan è partner chiave nel corridoio energetico e logistico centroasiatico, oltre a essere coinvolto nei progetti infrastrutturali del Global Gateway. Premere eccessivamente su Tashkent potrebbe compromettere una cooperazione considerata strategica per diversificare rotte e forniture. Così, mentre Bruxelles sanziona l’imprenditore, mantiene aperto il dialogo politico con il governo uzbeko. Una scelta che riflette la tensione tra coerenza normativa e interesse geopolitico.

Best e worst case: il futuro di Muminov

Nel breve periodo, Muminov appare protetto dalla solidità dei suoi legami regionali e dalla domanda russa di materiali strategici. Se la guerra in Ucraina proseguirà ad alta intensità, la richiesta di propellenti e derivati della cellulosa resterà elevata. Lo scenario peggiore per lui si materializzerebbe solo in caso di pressione occidentale coordinata su Tashkent, con minaccia di restrizioni secondarie o blocco di investimenti europei. In quel caso, il presidente Mirziyoyev potrebbe scegliere la strada della nazionalizzazione o di una presa di distanza formale.

Una cartina di tornasole del regime sanzionatorio

La parabola di Rustam Muminov non riguarda soltanto un imprenditore. È un test sulla capacità dell’Occidente di chiudere le falle nella rete sanzionatoria e di gestire le ambiguità del commercio dual use. Finché le rotte eurasiatiche resteranno aperte e la cooperazione economica con l’Asia Centrale sarà prioritaria, il “re del cotone” continuerà a muoversi in uno spazio di manovra che supera i confini uzbeki. E dimostra come, nella guerra contemporanea, anche una fibra vegetale possa diventare un asset strategico globale.

L'articolo Il re del cotone tra Tashkent e Mosca: Muminov, le sanzioni europee e le crepe del fronte occidentale proviene da InsideOver.

While China’s economy continues to be in the throes of problems as it is not able to generate enough jobs in the market, it is staring at a crisis at the food security front. The country’s Meteorological Administration has predicted deadly El Nino gripping it in coming weeks and months that will lead to the likely return of floods in the southern region and droughts in the north. Already around 30 million metric tons of wheat have been damaged in Henan, Anhui, Shanxi, and Shandong provinces due to excessive rains in May. Of this total, Henan province, popularly known as the grain bowl of China, lost more than 20 million metric tonnes of wheat. The losses may mean rising grain imports into China, the world’s biggest wheat consumer, Reuters said.

On account of extreme weather conditions, one-twelfth of China’s total rice yield has declined over the last two decades, a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal Nature Food said in its recent study. Recently, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that El Nino’s effect could remain for eight to 10 months and is likely to gradually strengthen into the Northern Hemisphere winter that will stretch into next year.

In the last week of May, China’s Department of Emergency Management warned that northeastern and northern parts which are home to some of the country’s top grainproducing provinces might experience heavy rain, floods, and hailstorms from June to August. Yunnan, lying in China’s Southwestern area, continues to face drought. Average rainfall in Yunnan, during the first quarter of 2023 was 60% lower than the same period last year, South China Morning Post quoted the country’s Department of Emergency Management as saying. The province is the country’s second-largest source of hydropower, with 80% of power supply coming from hydropower, but the drought has dented the province’s power generation capacity. While more than 870,000 people in Yunnan province’s 12 cities and prefectures were affected by the drought to different degrees in the first quarter of this year, the last sugar mill in the province was closed down on May 11 due to non-production of sufficient sugarcane, the Hong Kong-based daily English newspaper said.

China consumes nearly 16 million metric tons of sugar annually. In 2022, it could produce only 9 million metric tons of sugar and this year, it is expected that sugar production could decline furthermore due to drought and other extreme weather conditions in the country. Global Times, which is a mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party, last year in August quoted the country’s Ministry of Water Resources as saying that the water level of the main stream of the Yangtze River hit a record low, and 9.67 million mu of arable land in 6 provinces and cities from Anhui to Sichuan suffered from drought. The last El Nino to hit China hard was in 2016. It is said that the impact of El Nino, a climate pattern that leads to unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, was so devastative that it led to China’s worst flooding in decades, with reported economic losses of 255.1 billion yuan, or 3% of the GDP that year.

According to South China Morning Post, more than 31 million people in 12 provinces were affected and over 2.7 million hectares of farmland were submerged due to El Nino triggered rain and typhoons that hit central and southern China in June 2016. It had led to the death of 237 people, destruction of farms, damage of transportation arteries. In 1998, the dance of destruction, caused by El Nino, had almost snuffed life out of China. As per the Chinese government estimates 223 million people—one fifth of China’s population were affected, 3004 people died and 15 million were made homeless due to extensive flooding of the Yangtze River and its tributaries. As many as 15 million farmers had lost their crops due to floods in China in 1998.

In 2023, China is staring at the same deadly prospect due to El Nino as a report prepared by the National Disaster Reduction Committee Office and ministries of natural resources, water resources, agriculture and rural affairs and the China Meteorological Administration and State Forestry and Grassland Administration has painted a gloomy picture of the country. As per this report, while the country’s North may face a heightened risk of water-related disasters, the South is likely to face drought. On the other hand, eastern China which is known as a key engine of economic growth, is likely to experience typhoon triggered disasters.

On account of such extreme weather conditions, China’s effort to ensure food security for its 1.4 billion people has suffered hugely, making the country dependent on others for the supply of corn, soyabeans, and wheat to record levels, said Bloomberg in its recent report. China was the world’s largest importer of wheat in 2022, bringing in an estimated 12 million tonnes of wheat, said the US Department of Agriculture. The total rice imports, from January to August 2022, reached 4.56 million tons, up 42.5% year-on-year, said China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC). It also imported 20.63 million tons of corn in 2022, as per China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. With China’s economy not in good health and several financial institutions from Nomura to UBS and Standard Chartered, Bank of America and JP Morgan cutting their forecast for the country’s 2023 GDP growth to 5.1% from 5.5%, faltering food security situation may further impact the world’s second largest economy hard, say analysts.

L'articolo Extreme weather conditions: Is China staring at a food security crisis? proviene da InsideOver.

In February 2003, portions of my PhD thesis on Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus were plagiarized in the infamous “intelligence dossier” that justified the 2003 Iraq War. Exactly twenty years later, within the span of a week, a prominent environmental activist was kidnapped and a Youtuber was murdered in an honor killing in Iraq, part of the quotidian violence over the last two decades.

The British government plagiarized my research on the network of secret police, spy agencies, and military units that maintained Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, referred to as the “republic of fear”. After the invasion and collapse of the state, Iraq became a “republic of anarchy”. Decades later it still is, evident by the recent kidnapping and honor killing.

Iraq’s security sector, as I documented in my work, was brutal under Saddam Hussein, but violence was primarily inflicted by the state. After 2003, Iraqis endured violence from a myriad of sources, not only from the foreign occupying forces, but Iraqi criminal gangs, militias, tribes, and family members, in addition to the new security organs of the state.

The two recent events in Iraq are emblematic of how the post-2003 state fails to provide environmental or human security. As a result, women will be disproportionately affected and bear the brunt of climate change in Iraq opposed to men.

Iraq’s Gendered and Environmental Insecurity since 2003

In early February a 22-year-old Iraqi YouTube star, Tiba Al-Ali was strangled by her father in an “honor killing”. The murder part of the rise of gender-based violence, due to a revival of tribal culture that Saddam encouraged after the 1991 Gulf War to maintain order, which only increased as the security sector collapsed after the 2003 invasion.  

The failure to prevent “honor killings” is an example of patriarchy at the state level. The US touted post-Saddam Iraq as a model state that that would inspire a wave of democratization in the region. Yet Articles 41 and 409 of the Iraqi Penal Code, to this day, permits males to “punish” female members of a household.

Furthermore, state patriarchy is evident by the security sector failing to address this issue, as  the police allegedly knew beforehand that her life was at risk and failed to take action.

Societal patriarchy appears to equally pernicious in Iraq. One twitter user, Ali Bey, wrote that women should “behave or face the same fate as Tiba Al-Ali,” along with a series of other voices in the Iraqi cybersphere condoning, if not celebrating the murder.

On the same day of the news of al-Ali’s death, Iraqi environmentalist Jassim Al-Asadi was kidnapped near Baghdad. Al-Asadi’s brother, with him during the kidnapping, was assured that “Iraq’s security and intelligence services” are investigating his whereabouts, yet US technical aid, these agencies are driven by bureaucratic inertia and infighting, and as a result are rather ineffective.  

Al-Asadi heads the NGO “Nature Iraq,” which seeks to protect the vulnerable southern marshes, a UNESCO world heritage site. Saddam Hussein had drained of the marshes, the site of an antigovernment uprising since 1991, by constructing canals to divert the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, an act of punitive political ecology, leading to the disappearance of several freshwater lakes and increases in soil salinity.

Even with attempts to restore the marshes after 2003, Saddam’s actions left basins of dried-up bodies of water that provide the fodder for dust storms, which were so intense last year that they persisted over months, shutting down air traffic and leading to hospitalizations.

Second, Saddam’s legacy made it easier for saltwater intrusion from the Gulf to Basra, as sea-levels rise. The resulting saltwater intrusion in Basra’s canals and streams continues 300 kilometers upward through Shatt al-Arab waterway, killing crops, livestock, and fish in the marshes.

This is why Al-Asadi’s work was so important, along with other NGOs that constitute Iraq’s environmental civil society. While the pre-2003 state punished the environment, releasing oil in the Gulf in 1991 and draining the marshes, the post-2003 state is merely dysfunctional, failing to implement sustainable environmental policies.

The government has mismanaged water resources, failing to curb inappropriate farming practices, rapidly depleting groundwater resources, which dries up the land contributing to sandstorms. Coupled with corruption, Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources has suffered budget cuts, failing to improve irrigation practices and overall water management.

The drying up of the marshes has a security dimension as well. While the influx of men to join Iraq’s Shi’a militias in 2014 to combat Islamic State (IS) was attributed to a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Sistani, environmental degradation also contributed to this trend.

Gendering the Anthropocene

Fishermen, farmers, and cattle herders became unemployed due to the deteriorating conditions in the marshes. As of 2014 the militias offered salaries, demonstrating the links between environmental disaster and the militarization of society.

IS and Al-Qaida assassinated and executed male head of households, as were a good number killed fighting these terrorist groups.

As a result, women in the marshes are left to deal with the ensuing desertification and salinization, and the death of fish stores or cattle.

In others areas, such as the Diyala province, a region that has suffered due to IS’s presence, women were engaged in beekeeping, but because of the shortage of water, farms and orchids are dying out.

Otherwise, families of internally displaced persons, escaping conflict or climate change due to lack of water and drought, are usually headed by women.

As Iraq endures the Anthropocene, women will continue to suffer.

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq has called for greater protection for women in light of Al-Ali’s death. The United Nations Environment Programme condemned Al-Asadi’s abduction. That UN body tries to provide technical solutions for Iraq crises as well as strengthening its NGOs. Unlike Tiba Al-Ali, fortunately, Al-Asadi was eventually released. Both UN agencies will need to see how both issues are linked. Iraq’s problems twenty years after the invasion can be linked the unilateral actions of a single nation, the United States. Multilateral institutions, in tandem with Iraqi civil society, are the nation’s greatest hope for the next 20 years. 

L'articolo The precarious future of Iraq’s women and the environment 20 years after the invasion proviene da InsideOver.

Chinese authorities are in a fix as they are finding it hard to overcome challenges of declining baby population in the country because of the growing number of millennium youth, particularly women prefer owning pets rather than marrying and having kids due to unaffordable housing prices and high cost of child care.

According to a 2021 White Paper released by China Pet Industry Association, the number of pet owners will reach 62.94 million in 2020—up from 62.8 million in 2019. Of the total Chinese pet owners, 88% are women who are well-educated and enjoying high income per annum, said the consulting firm PwC.
In terms of pets’ numbers, China’s urban areas saw the presence of 100.8 million dogs and cats in 2020—1.7% up from 2019 and 10.2% higher than 2018, the White Paper said, while estimating the pet market to be worth 445.6 billion yuan (US$70 billion) in 2023.

However, more eye-catching is London-based international professional services network, Deloitte’s report. According to it, the number of pet dogs and cats in China is fast approaching 200 million, after their household penetration jumped from 12% in 2012 to 25% in 2021.

Interestingly, cats are winning more hearts than dogs. As per Deloitte report, while the total number of cats stood at 96 million, there were 92 million canines as pets in China in 2021. “Younger generations tend to favour cats more, as dogs require greater responsibilities and more companionship,” Crystal Wang, a financial advisory leader at Deloitte’s China Consumer Products and Retail Sector was quoted by South China Morning Post as saying.

Analysts say this trend of owning pets will receive a feverish support in China as more and more well educated and high salaried urban residents prefer to stay alone, abhorring marriages and having kids as the cost of living is high and working hours are very long in the country. This inclination is particularly very high among youth of ages between 20 and 30.

A survey of 2,905 unwed urban people aged 18-26 by the Communist Youth League in October 2021 found that 43.9% of women had no intention of getting married or were unsure if it would happen, while 24.6% of male wished to remain single. However, among all the surveyed people, there was one strong commonality; they treated their pets as sons or daughters.

This has triggered a major concern among Chinese authorities as the country has entered an era of negative population growth. To fix the problem of declining population growth, they want youth to reverse the trend of remaining unwed and spending life with pets. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the country’s population fell by 850,000 to 1.41 billion people in 2022. In fact, since the 1990s, China’s fertility rate has declined to below the replacement level of 2.1. It was 1.30 in 2020 and 1.15 in 2021. Several studies have found that rising costs of raising children and lack of welfare provisions have been key factors behind China’s low fertility rate.

Fearing its adverse impact on the number of working-age people, which will shrink beyond estimation, and overall economic health of the country will suffer heavily, the Chinese government in recent years has begun to offer incentives such as tax breaks, subsidies for childcare and longer parental leave while discouraging singlehood among youth. Couples are now allowed to have three children. But these measures are falling flat like house of cards. The country’s keen desire for a baby boom is not getting translated into a reality. Instead, on account of increasingly changing people’s lifestyles, it is witnessing a pet boom in urban areas.

According to the Guangzhou based data mining and analysis organisation, iiMedia Research, in spite of economic headwinds, China’s pet industry is all set to grow by 68% to 811 billion yuan (US$116 billion) by 2025, compared with 494 billion yuan this year. With fewer youth see marriage as an important family and social responsibility, it is believed that such projections on the pet industry’s growth are not without a basis. Yet this attitude is not just limited to mainland China, in Hong Kong too, youth choose to pick up life in association with pets rather than marrying and having babies.

Cats are preferred over babies by residents in the city where, as per the United Nations Population Fund, the total fertility rate (TFR)—the number of children women are expected to have in her life time—is 0.8, the lowest in the world. The total number of babies born in the city was 32,500 last year, a drastic decline in the number of births recorded five years ago. In 2017, 56,500 babies were born in Hong Kong. Five primary schools in the city, as per media reports, are on the verge of closure as they lack fresh enrolments in the new academic year.

L'articolo As pets replace babies in China, Beijing scrambles to fix problem proviene da InsideOver.

Italy’s government has activated the Italian Anti-Mafia Commission to investigate and clean up the Chinese Communist infiltration in Italian society and collusion with officials and gangsters to manipulate illegal activities organized by Chinese gangsters. The Commission also investigates China’s overseas police stations, Chinese truck cases, and underground banks.

The Mysterious Bank

According to a report by the Italian news magazine Le Formiche on March 16, the Florence court has arrested two Chinese people involved in illegal money launching. In addition, 13 people were listed as suspects. The case involved a secretive Chinese bank with branches in Rome, Florence, Prato and other places that transferred billions of euros to China. Italian investigators dubbed the bank a “Chinese underground bank.”

The “bank” provides a hidden remittance service and charges 2.5 per cent of the transfer amount as a commission. There are mainly two ways to transfer money – small amounts transfers from one or more credit cards to an account through apps such as WeChat or Alipay.

Larger amounts are prepaid to the “underground bank” designated by the customer through the account and bank card opened in China, and then the cash is withdrawn at the branches of the underground bank in Florence and Prato and then transferred to other Chinese to be shipped back to China in other ways.

Prato, near Florence, has a concentration of textile and accessories factories and is also a city inhabited by Chinese in Italy. The Italian police discovered that this city has become a stronghold for illegal infiltration by the Chinese underworld.

The “Chinese Mafia” in Italy

The crime of money laundering run by the “Chinese Mafia” in Italy has a long history. In December 2014, the AFP news agency quoted the Roman police as saying that some Chinese business owners and businessmen sent income from smuggling and selling counterfeit products and tax evasion to China through a British financial company named Sigue.

Sigue has seven branches in Rome, mainly engaged in the remittance business of local Chinese people. Most of the remittances use false names, some are fabricated, and there are names of the deceased, and there are even customers who do not know.

The official banks of the Chinese Communist Party are involved in these illegal operations. In June 2015, the Italian Prosecutor submitted an indictment against 297 people and the Bank of China to the court. Bank of China’s Italian branch was accused of assisting Italian Chinese in money laundering. The 297 people included 4 Bank of China’s Milan branch senior managers. The Florence police found that in less than four years, as of 2010, more than 4.5 billion euros from fraud, prostitution, labour exploitation and tax evasion were transferred to China through remittance services. Among them, 2.2 billion euros were remitted through the Milan branch of the Bank of China.

The Italian prosecutors’ indictment is based on an investigation started in 2008 called “Money River” that the money was sent to China through a remittance intermediary called Money2Money, from which the Bank of China received a middle fee of 758,000 euros. Prosecutors have sought help from the Chinese authorities but to no avail. The Italian authorities restarted the Anti-Mafia Committee this time, with an obvious goal of targeting the infiltration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

China Set up Highest Number of Overseas Police Stations

According to a survey published by the Spanish human rights group Safeguard Defenders in December 2022, China had established 54 police stations worldwide by September 2021 and added 48 “overseas police and overseas Chinese service stations”.

“In name, it is to assist the Chinese overseas Chinese in administrative affairs. It uses the bilateral security agreement signed with the host country to set up a “police station” to monitor Chinese overseas Chinese and wait for opportunities to repatriate dissidents. Giuseppe Morabito, Director of the NATO Defence Academy Foundation (NDCF), told to L’Espresso, an Italian weekly news magazine, on 19 December 2022 that Italy has the most overseas police bases set up by the CCP, with 11.

At present, Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence, Sicily, and Prato, the city with the largest Chinese community in Italy, all have so-called “service stations” by the CCP’s overseas police. According to a report by RFI in December 2022, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi stated that sanctions against the CCP’s illegal actions in Italy would not be ruled out. Italy has not authorized the CCP regime to care about police affairs.

L'articolo Italy Activates Anti-Mafia Agency to Investigate Chinese Infiltration proviene da InsideOver.

Desperate to encourage its married citizens to have more children to prop up the fast-declining population rate, China has an unenviable challenge at hand in the form of discouraging would-be brides from charging exorbitant “bride prices” unable to pay which prospective grooms are backing out of marriage.

Suddenly bride money has emerged as a social ill and the communist government has launched campaigns, for example, in several cities and prefectures in east China’s Jiangxi province, famous for bridal money, to make young women refuse the local custom. Videos that have gone viral show dozens of women, possibly in their 20s and 30s, making vows that they do not ask for cars, houses, or plenty of cash when they get married. The move is aimed at eliminating obstacles to marriages for higher birth rates.

Simultaneously, China unveiled its key policy document or No. 1 central document for 2023 recently, vowing to launch a special campaign against problems including exorbitant “bride prices” and extravagant wedding ceremonies as part of nationwide efforts to strengthen the construction of public cultural-ethical standards in the country’s rural areas.

The document encouraged local governments to formulate norms for changing outdated customs in light of local conditions, strengthen the role of village rules and conventions in restraining bad behavior, and Party members and officials to take the lead in setting examples.

The “Bride Price”

The “bride price” is a traditional Chinese prerequisite for marriage. Giving a “bride price” as a betrothal gift has a long history in China as a goodwill gesture between the couple and their two families. However, the “bride price” has risen from a token amount to very high levels, particularly in poorer areas, and the nature of the traditional custom has changed a lot over the years.

Some families in rural areas or low-income families are forced to exhaust their entire savings to get their sons married. Some young couples, once in a good relationship, have fallen out over high betrothal prices, and some have broken up.

Last September, eight national departments of the Chinese government issued a joint notice to address the problems of excessive “bride prices” and extravagant wedding ceremonies in rural areas, rolling out a special work plan for a nationwide campaign.

Many cities in East China’s Jiangxi Province, which have long been known for exorbitant “bride prices”, are also stepping up campaigns to address the problem. Global Times reported that on September 28, 2022, Guangchang county in Jiangxi held a group wedding for 10 couples with a “zero bride price,” vigorously promoting this newly-wed fashion.

The paper quoted an official from Shangrao, another city in Jiangxi, who requested anonymity, revealed a surprising but typical situation: in some urban areas, the “bride price” is usually in the range of 100,000 to 150,000 yuan ($14,700 to $22,000), while in some rural areas, it’s even higher. For example, prices of 188,000 and 288,000 yuan are common in less economically developed areas.

A few years ago, with the improvement of incomes and living standards, people started to ask for higher “bride prices”, the same official said, adding that binding the lifelong happiness of young men and women to material conditions went against traditional virtues.

The official also told the paper that it is unrealistic and unnecessary to completely stop or forcibly curb the “bride price” tradition, but excessive and unaffordable “bride prices” should be restricted.

The government’s response

Social scientists have jumped into the debate trying to explaining the whys of its sudden burst. Some say it is difficult to root out the problem because it is an ancient custom, deep rooted in particularly the rural areas. Changing the mindsets of people will take time.

Some other argue that if it is not possible to phase out “bride money”, then Chinese society should experiment with “a more rational range for ‘bride prices’, but how effective it will be largely depends on local economic development and people’s thinking”.

These scientists feel growing “over materialism” in an otherwise socialist-cultural society is the main cause. Also, fast-increasing living costs are making parents of would-be brides to ensure that their daughters have some financial security in the future.

Another factor is the imbalance of the male to female ratio, especially in rural areas, partially due to the concept of families preferring sons over daughters. Over time, as families found it difficult to find brides, they were ready to pay the “bride money” to get their sons marries. The families of the girls smelled an opportunity and so began the escalation of the money grooms would need to shell out to marry.

The problem is so highly manifest in China now that the government is worried if it is allowed to continue and males do not have the financial capacity to marry, that may negatively impact the already declining population.

In the context of declining marriage registrations in recent years, by encouraging reasonable “bride prices”, young people might be more willing to get married, and the country could see higher marriage registrations, more stable marriages and fewer divorced couples due to money troubles, some families believe.

But women’s groups strike a different note. They say the concept of “bride money” make the women look independent, self-content and as this mindset becomes popular, there may come a time when these modern girls may not want to unnecessarily tax their would-bes. But who knows when that will happen, the men counter.

Still, some small pockets of change are being reported from some quarters in China. Some groups of unmarried women are taking pledges not to force the grooms’ families to give hefty or impossible amounts of money. That, they say, is the beginning. The Chinese government has its fingers crossed.

L'articolo China Prioritises Ending “Bride Money” Practice as Weddings Stall proviene da InsideOver.

The news from China is bad. The lifting of strict COVID-19 regulations in early December -regulations that had been sternly enforced for almost three years, under the country’s so-called “Zero-COVID” policy- has been followed by a great surge of infections. The existence of such a surge was suspected for weeks but denied by Chinese officialdom, who withheld data. Then, on January 14, a spokeswoman from the National Health Commission admitted that the country had suffered almost 60,000 Covid-related deaths since December 8. The virus is belatedly tormenting China the way it tormented northern Italy, New York City, and parts of Brazil back in spring of 2020.

The China surge hit first in urban areas, including Beijing and Shanghai, but also far-flung cities such as Dongguan in the South and Yulin in the North. Hospitals were overwhelmed, medicines (including simple fever reducers such as ibuprofen) became scarce, and many healthcare professionals continued to work despite being infected themselves. Since early January, the disease has begun piling up victims in rural areas well. Small clinics and community health centers are filling with patients to whom they can offer only basic care. The Chinese population remains especially vulnerable because immunity from past infections is very low and full vaccination of elderly people is low also. The three years of “Zero-COVID” were evidently wasted by Chinese authorities, who might have used that delay period to prepare better for the inevitable. But they did not.

So the pandemic is not over. The Covid coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, is not gone. It’s as busy as ever, replicating, mutating, evolving. It will almost certainly remain in the human population forever. And there is no guarantee (despite what some people believe they have heard) that it will evolve into a less harmless form, such as the viruses that cause common colds. That misunderstanding is sometimes supported by an ill-informed adage that passes for wisdom: “A successful parasite does not kill its host.” Wrong. The correct statement would be: “A successful parasite does not kill its host until it has had time to infect another host.” If the coronavirus infects person A, transmits to person B and person C, and from person C onward to others, then it has achieved evolutionary success, whether or not person A dies. Darwinian natural selection, the main mechanism of evolution, does not “see” and does not “care” what happens to infected individuals after they have transmitted a virus.

Amid the continuing turmoil, we need to appreciate that SARS-CoV-2 may remain not just present but deadly, and that we may need to continue vaccinating against it, and fighting it in other ways, for decades.

Where did this virus come from? How did it get into humans? Those questions are also important, because the answers will help guide our efforts to prevent similar viral pandemics in the future. The mystery of the origins of SARS-CoV-2 has been hotly discussed, with mostly scientific experts on one side of the matter and mostly amateur sleuths plus a few journalists on the other. That discussion has been muddled by misinformation, speculation, and accusation, all offered to suggest that the virus somehow leaked from a laboratory. A lab leak is theoretically possible, but there is no positive evidence that it happened. There is much empirical evidence and expert analysis by molecular evolutionary virologists and epidemiologists, on the other hand, suggesting that the virus probably reached humans by natural spillover from a wild animal. That seems to have occurred in or around a certain “wet market” in the city of Wuhan. The animal carrying the virus may have been a raccoon dog or a palm civet or a bamboo rat or one of the other wild creatures, captured live and transported to Wuhan, that were on sale for food in the market. Some evidence even suggests that two distinct chains of human infection began in the market, which might reflect viral transmission from two different animals. The carrier animal (or animals) likely acquired the virus, either in the wild or during transport, from a horseshoe bat. Viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 have been detected in horseshoe bats in southern China, and also in Thailand and Laos, just across the southern Chinese border.

More evidence is needed, but the process of gathering such evidence and sharing it among scientists has been severely constrained by two factors: the pandemic itself and mutual distrust between the Chinese government and its critics in the West, much exacerbated by this origins controversy.

One more thing is important for everyone to remember: that the trafficking of wild animals for food-bats or raccoon dogs in China, bats or pangolins in Africa, other creatures elsewhere- is not the only disruptive activity that exposes humans to wildlife viruses. The extraction of timber and fossil fuels from richly diverse tropical ecosystems is another. The mining of strategic minerals such as coltan—a material essential for the manufacture of high-tech electronic devices—is still another. Therefore, anyone who owns a smart phone or a laptop computer or a fancy camera, or even a new car, also owns a share of responsibility for the continuing threat of viral spillover.

Eight billion humans presently inhabit this planet, all of us hungry, all of us thirsty, all of us consuming energy and wood and other material resources, in various quantities, as our appetites dictate and our levels of affluence allow. At the other end of the spectrum of sentience lie viruses, these relatively simple creatures, of which Earth harbors many millions of different forms. Among the millions, maybe one or two million kinds of virus reside in nonhuman mammals and birds. I highlight mammals and birds because they are generally the sources of the new viruses that infect people—not just SARS-CoV-2 and the original SARS virus of 2003, but also Ebola virus and Marburg and Lassa and Hendra and Nipah and HIV and many others.

With our voracious consumption, our disruption of diverse ecosystems, our devastation of natural landscapes all over the globe, we humans continue driving the most vulnerable of our fellow creatures toward extinction: the western chimpanzee, the eastern lowland gorilla, the tiger, the slender-billed curlew, the sociable lapwing, Hill’s horseshoe bat, and too many others to name, each serving as host to its own viruses. Many of those viruses are malleable opportunists. Evolution allows them to change, rather quickly, and compels them to survive. As the planet gets smaller and emptier, their best remaining opportunity will be to infect us.

That’s a grim and ironic sort of justice, and we should do all possible not to earn it.

L'articolo Ecological disruption and pandemic threats proviene da InsideOver.

The health system of the much vaunted second most powerful economy of the world has all but collapsed in the face of a Covid-19 outbreak. According to a New York Times report on December 26, 2022, “the government has now simply disappeared, just as many Chinese are getting very ill with the virus or dying from it.”

The irony of the situation is quite telling. The faulty Covid management policy of the Communist Party of China caused some problems. Experts have pointed out that the root cause behind the explosive Covid outbreak in China is the policy of President Xi Jinping of self-reliance in fighting Covid. Xi has refused to use foreign-made mRNA vaccines that are a product of cutting edge technology; instead promoting domestic vaccines based on inactivated versions of the virus and barring all foreign ones from the market.

Unfortunately, however, Chinese vaccines have been marked for lack of efficacy and waning durability. According to reports adverse reactions to Chinese vaccines have led to death and severe disabilities. Parents are refusing to give permission to administer the shots to their children. According to an AP report from Beijing on December 27, 2022, with the massive outbreak in Covid-19 cases, as the authorities in China were going door to door and even paying people older than 60 years of age to get vaccinated, many people were refusing to get vaccinated; alarmed over reports of fever, blood clot and other side effects of Chinese vaccines. “When people hear about such incidents, they may not be willing to take the vaccine,” the report quoted 64-year-old resident of Beijing Li Liansheng.

Instead of importing effective vaccines and other medicines, President of China Xi Jinping had been trying to keep the impending Covid outbreak under control through a draconian zero-Covid policy which did incalculable harm to the Chinese economy but failed to control the virus.

That the zero-Covid policy did not have the desired result is evident from a report of the National Health Commission of China that over 40,000 new cases were recorded even in the midst of harsh lockdowns and repeated mass testing which have marked the zero-Covid policy. Rather, the policy was counterproductive, as the subsequent developments have established. The emphasis on lockdown and mass testing had led to a low rate of administration of vaccines and boosters, leaving the elderly particularly vulnerable to infection. About 65 percent of the people above the age of 60 years have been vaccinated in China and only about 45 percent have received the booster shots. Hitherto, the Chinese policy has been to limit the administration of vaccines to people between 19 and 60 years of age.

Faced with a mutinous situation the Chinese government did a U-turn and withdrew all restrictions in a hurry, causing a massive outbreak of the disease. Swiftly and haphazardly, Beijing reversed course by abandoning altogether the strict zero-Covid policy two weeks ago.

The NYT report has summarized the situation succinctly. “In its single-minded pursuit of the zero-Covid strategy, the Chinese government was omnipresent and omnipotent, using its unlimited resources and unchecked power to control the nation. After having nearly exhausted its resources and the goodwill of the public, the government has now simply disappeared, just as many Chinese are getting very ill with the virus or dying from it.”

As people are dying in thousands and doctors are collapsing under pressure at overcrowded hospitals, there is not even a mask mandate in the country now. Medicines are in short supply. Schools are still open though no one is attending them as children are either ill or are worried about getting sick. “No one is in charge now,” the NYT report has quoted Shenzhen engineer Yang who did not want his full name to be quoted in the report for fear of persecution. For about the last one year, Yang had to undertake Covid tests almost every day; and used to get a reminder from the bosses in the district if he missed one. 

Things have come to such a pass that in the absence of directions at the moment of crisis, the people are questioning the legitimacy and the credibility of the rule of the CPC. Videos have gone viral of hundreds of Chinese citizens in queues outside fever clinics and hospitals. Understaffed hospitals and the shortage of ventilators and medicines have led to chaos and panic in several cities in China. A video shared by a U.K.-based media outlet shows a doctor collapsing on the floor while attending patients.

It does not need an expert to analyze why the Covid situation in China has come to such a sorry pass. The authorities in China had known for a long time that the vaccines developed domestically were ineffective. The need to establish the superiority of the Chinese system was, however, stronger than the need to save lives of the common Chinese people; so the import of vaccines from the USA or the U.K. was ruled out.

To delay the inevitable outbreak, a draconian lockdown was imposed; harming the economy and ruining the daily life of the ordinary citizens; leaving people without jobs and a fall in income. At the end of 2022, sentiments among the manufacturing and service business in China were said to be the lowest since 2020. Almost 80 percent of European business in China has cut revenue projections, according to the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. The unemployment rate among the youth is estimated to be 20 percent.

When people rebelled, the restrictions were completely withdrawn; leading to a massive outbreak. The government conveniently passed the blame on “foreign agents” for engineering the rebellion and withdrew from the scene.

“Government disappears”

As the situation continues to worsen, the Chinese government has panicked and stopped giving out the death figures. Reports say this decision of the National Health Commission of China came into effect on December 25, 2022. The drastic decision has baffled experts as the NHC has released Covid data for the last three years.

A World Health Organization report on the Covid situation in China says between January 3, 2020 and December 23, 2022, there have been more than 10 million confirmed Covid cases in China and 31,585 deaths. Experts have warned of between one million and two million deaths in China in 2023.

The WHO has warned that Beijing’s way of counting the deaths would underestimate the total death toll. The Chinese government has narrowed the criterion for Covid deaths, inviting widespread criticisms from across the world. Beijing has announced that only those who had died directly of respiratory failure caused by the virus would be included in the Covid death figures. This does not correspond to WHO guidelines and results in a figure way below the death figures in other countries.

Figures do not reveal the gravity of the whole situation. According to reports emanating from behind the bamboo curtain, emergency wards in hospitals, especially in small cities and towns, are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds and patients are slumped on benches in hospital corridors and lying on floors in want of beds.

“After the Chinese government ordered sudden lifting of lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing, hospitals have been struggling, crematoriums are overwhelmed and pharmacies are running out of medicines,” says one report on the situation in China. Most Chinese hospitals are grappling with the problem of few doctors and a large number of patients. The rate of infection in hospitals is developing faster than that in society. The infected staff is unable to report for duty, leading to the staff shortage.

Because of mismanagement of the situation by the government, insufficient medical resources have emerged as one of the biggest problems facing the people of China. Reports in the Chinese media highlight that hospitals in the country are faced with an acute shortage of ICU beds, ventilators as well as medical professionals while medicines have vanished from the market.

As the zero-Covid policy was abandoned in a hurry and the number of Covid cases rose significantly in the past few weeks, panic-stricken people started hoarding critical medicines. Infected families are unable to find even common antipyretic medicines that are used to reduce fever. Despite the efforts by the CPC to control the epidemic with home-made medicines, more and more people are opting for generic versions of anti-Covid oral drugs from India,  like Pfizer’s anti-Covid oral drug Paxlovid. Within a week of the surge in Covid-19 cases at the end of December 2022, these drugs were sold out in various e-commerce websites and advance pre-booking became necessary. According to reports, these drugs were also selling widely in the Chinese black market.

The rapid Covid outbreak has exposed one weakness of the available medical facilities in China, the disparity in critical care capabilities between urban and rural areas. Despite claims of China now competing with developed countries, the rural areas in China have much weaker medical resources compared to big cities, particularly intensive care facilities for vulnerable groups such as the elderly and the infants. Local governments which are responsible for providing these health services are starved of funds. Doctors in China are reported to be a worried lot if the medical and healthcare system in the Chinese countryside is at all prepared to cope with the impending onslaught of Covid-19. 

L'articolo Health infrastructure in China collapses under Covid-19 outbreak proviene da InsideOver.

China is facing a double whammy of Covid infections and economic crises, which are interlinked, and one gets worse if another is tried to be addressed. The number of new Covid cases is rising rapidly while businesses and industries are facing losses and shutdowns. There are predictions that China is expected to see more than one million Covid-related death in the coming days. At the same time, the Chinese government is struggling to impose curbs thanks to a negative impact on the country’s economy. Analysts have forecasted China’s economic growth to slump to 2.8-3.2 per cent this year, which would be the lowest in five decades.

China has for the first time officially acknowledged Covid deaths in recent weeks. This has given credibility to the reports of a heavy death toll in the country due to Covid infections. Crematoriums are busy and dead bodies covered in yellow bags can be seen lying on the floor. Even health workers are getting infected with coronavirus, leading to disruption of emergency and crematorium services. Bodies had to be kept waiting for three days before they are cremated. This gives a glimpse into the deteriorating situation in China. Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) has projected over a million deaths in the next year while a third of China’s population is expected to be Covid positive by April 1.

Beijing government has sounded an alarm over new three waves of Covid infections in the coming months. Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said there are likely to be three successive waves until March 2023. The rush at hospitals, crematoriums, and social media posts are revealing that China is facing a huge health crisis that is likely to be bigger than the previous waves of Covid. “We cremated 150 bodies [in a day], many times more than a typical day last winter,” said an employee at Beijing Dongjiao Funeral Home. Another employee at Tongzhou Funeral Home said the demand was largely due to Covid deaths. “We’re burning from morning until 10pm. The furnaces can’t take it,” he said.

A few weeks ago, different cities in China had seen unprecedented protests from people over the failure of the Zero Covid policy. Protestors raised concerns over inhuman conditions during quarantines and over the loss of livelihoods.It also saw calls being made to overthrow Xi and the communist regime. While the Zero Covid policy appears to have failed in containing Covid infections, it dealt a severe blow to China’s economy. The retail sale has fallen by 5.9 per cent in November year-on-year while the slump for property investment is a whopping 19 per cent. Industrial output and fixed asset investment have slowed down to 2.2 per cent and 5.3 per cent respectively.

The abrupt shutdown of factories and even small businesses including restaurants led to huge livelihood losses. Major international companies including US-based Apple and Japan’s Renesas Electronics were forced to suspend their operations. The unemployment rate has reached 5.7 per cent while it jumped to 17.1 per cent for young people ages 16 to 24. Yet, the Beijing government continued with strict restrictions under the Zero Covid policy. Following the public protest, it has relaxed some restrictions. However, the warnings of new and dreadful covid waves have created a catch-22 situation.

Earlier, analysts had warned Beijing that its Zero Covid policy was hurting its economy and jobs in China as the restrictions reduced the demand. “Some companies, affected by the drop in orders, laid off workers to lower costs,” said Wang Zhe, senior economist for Caixin Insight Group. Now, Beijing has finally abandoned the Zero Covid policy, experts do not expect economy recovery anytime soon. Rather it continues to deteriorate. “I am expecting a big collapse in industrial production in December,” said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist of Asia-Pacific at Natixis.

Highlighting the slowdown in the Chinese economy, a report by the World Economics Sales Managers Survey has expressed the possibility of a recession in 2023. “(Chinese economy) may be heading for a recession in 2023.The lights may not have gone out, but prospects for economic growth in 2023 have certainly dimmed,” the report reads. If China reimposes the Zero Covid policy to contain damages by upcoming Covid waves, there will be a huge impact on its economy. If not, people’s lives will be in danger. It is a double whammy for China.

L'articolo Beijing struggles to choose between economy recovery and Covid-control proviene da InsideOver.