Australia's PM Scott Morrison,  Bloomberg

"We won't be compromising on the fact that we'll set what our foreign investment laws are, or how we build our 5G telecommunications networks, or how we run our systems ... that are protecting against any interference."

"We will always set our own laws and our own rules according to our national interests -- not at the behest of any other nation, whether that's the U.S. or China or anyone else."

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau  CP/Sean Kilpatrick

"Do I regret that Canada followed its laws? Do I regret that Canada lived up to a long-standing extradition treaty with our closest ally? Absolutely not."

"Canada is a country of the rule of law. And obeying those laws can't just be when it's convenient or when it's easy. If you're a country of the rule of law, if you're a country of values, you need to stick up for those. And that's exactly what we're doing."

"In the face of pressure and increasingly coercive moves by one of the world's great powers, I think that really highlights at which point we need to be working together as allies, as neighbours, as friends, as countries."

"Very few countries could stand up on its own to a superpower, to a great power. But working together in alignment, we can make sure there is a recognition that the path that China is choosing to take right now is probably not going to be as effective -- even for them -- as they think it will."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"[The government must] make a decision on Huawei's involvement in Canada's 5G network within 30 days [and] develop a robust plan, as Australia has done, to combat China's growing foreign operations here in Canada and its increasing intimidation of Canadians living in Canada [within 30 days]."

House of Commons Opposition Conservatives

"We are aware that China is, and will remain, an important commercial partner for Canada."

"China is also a significant source of tourists and students to Canada, and brings economic and enriching social benefits across our nation."

Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne

Sing4DemocracyHK protest outside the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong (Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images)

Australia and Canada have displeased China mightily. China awaits both countries to come to their senses and that would entail sincerely apologizing to Beijing for their intransigent wrong-headed views on China regarding many issues, inclusive of Hong Kong, Uighurs, Huawei, Chinese benevolence, Chinese cyber espionage, copyright infringement, and above all, COVID-19. Beijing's release this week of a list of 14 grievances with Australia put matters out in the open down under when a Chinese official spoke on record to an Australian reporter: "China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy." 

According to Australian sources the list of grievances includes instigating an investigation in the United Nations regarding the spread of COVID-19 at the turn of 2020, cancelling Chinese student visas as a COVID-aversion safety measure, blocking Chinese investments in Australia, leading international focus on violation of human rights by China and the banning of Huawei from contributing to the Australian 5G telecommunications network upgrade. All hostile actions guaranteed to poison relations between China and Australia; the latter the aggressor, the former the victim.

Australia's Prime Minister made it abundantly clear that Australia's sovereign decisions are not up for discussion much less explanation or apology to the world's number one natural resources-hoarder, trade colossus, and cybertheft expert. Australia puts its words into action and lives with the consequences, unwilling to be bullied and coerced into pleasing or pleading with the Chinese Communist Party for concessions and forgiveness. 

 G20 Leaders photo, Riyadh on Friday. Getty Images

Canada's Prime Minister enjoys grabbing the limelight as a victim whose defence of justice and the rule of law has occasioned Beijing's wrath and imprisoned two innocent Canadians for the past two years, charged with threatening China's security, in retaliation for the detention of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei, on a U.S. extradition request. Canada has appealed to other APEC nations to support Canada in a joint rejection of Chinese bullying in the hopes that Xi Jinping would be confronted at this weekend's G20 Saudi-hosted virtual gathering.

But is Canada prepared to  go it alone, to stand up for its sovereign rights as its Prime Minister boasted? It remains the only Five Eyes intelligence-sharing nation to leave open the question of whether Huawei will be included in Canada's 5G telecommunications upgrade, fearful of Beijing's explosive wrath, whereas Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States have all clearly stated their positions to shut out Huawei citing obvious security reasons.

Canada, on the other hand, saw fit to award a standing offer for conveyor-style X-ray machines to Nuctech, a Beijing based company partially owned by the Chinese government, once operated by the sun of the former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Canadian, American and British companies all competed for the standing offer, but it was Nuctech who won the tender including delivery, installation, operator training and software training at Canadian embassies located world-wide.

It was only when a national newspaper broke the news of the contract that the federal government committed to a review once the contract was exposed, and ultimately decided not to buy Xray machines for Canadian embassies from the controversial Chinese firm. But it turns out that the Canadian Border Services Agency had already bought and installed Nuctech X-ray machines: 

"We have a number of mitigating interventions that we put in place around this technology. One of the first ones is obviously to keep it disconnected from our networks and from any Government of Canada networks ... the second is (anyone) affiliated with any of our suppliers would be screened through security processes and would be escorted on site if they were present in our facilities", explained the vice-president of the CBSA;s intelligence and enforcement branch. 

 

Why go through all this rigamarole necessitated by the use of the machines to begin with? To do otherwise, it would seem, would be to offend Beijing. Who could easily retaliate as they have done with holding two Canadians they've charged with espionage as hostages to force the release of the Huawei executive. China also flexed its trade muscles when it refused Canadian pork exports and canola products, both commodities that enjoyed a heavy trade prior to the Huawei affair.

Cong Peiwu, China's ambassador Canada (Justin Tang/CP

All of this in light of Canada's Communications Security Establishment's Canadian Centre for Cyber Security releasing a new report in which Russia, North Korea, Iran and China are listed as cybersecurity threats to Canada. An earlier report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians pointed out that China and Russia are using their diaspora, undercover agents and groups based on Canadian campuses as part of "significant and sustained" foreign interference campaigns in Canada, according to a redacted intelligence report.

 

"The committee believes that these states target Canada for a variety of reasons, but all seek to exploit the openness of our society and penetrate our fundamental institutions to meet their objectives."

"They target ethnocultural communities, seek to corrupt the political process, manipulate the media, and attempt to curate debate on post-secondary campuses."

"Each of these activities poses a significant risk to the rights and freedoms of Canadians and to the country's sovereignty: they are a clear threat to the security of Canada."

"[This] so-called genocide [is] a rumour and a farce fabricated by some anti-Chinese forces to slander China." 

"Its groundless statement  [committee report] is full of lies and disinformation. {Parliamentarians would do well to] avoid doing any further damage to China-Canada relations."

"This is blatant interference in China's internal affairs and reflects those Canadian individuals' ignorance and prejudice. China firmly deplores and rejects that."

"[The installations are] vocational training and education centres [where religious] extremists [are educated in the] national common spoken and written language, legal knowledge, vocational skills and de-radicalization."

"The aim is to eliminate the root cause of terrorism and extremism." 

Zhao Lijian, spokesperson, Chinese foreign ministry

In this photo, a guard tower and barbed wire fence surround a detention facility in the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region. (Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

The Powerful New Bellicose China

Ambassador Cong Peiwu  Blair Gable/Reuters

"We strongly urge the Canadian side not to grant so-called political asylum to those violent criminals in Hong Kong, because it is interference in China’s domestic affairs, and certainly it will embolden those violent criminals."

"If the Canadian side really cares about the stability and the prosperity in Hong Kong, and really cares about the good health and safety of those 300,000 Canadian passport holders in Hong Kong and the large number of Canadian companies operating in Hong Kong … you should support those efforts to fight violent crimes."

"I want to make clear that a stable and prosperous Hong Kong … is not only in the interest of the vast majority of Hong Kong residents, but it is also conducive to the majority of those … law-abiding foreigners and enterprises in Hong Kong."

"[Beijing would have a] strong reaction [if Canada's Parliament were to pass any resolution that condemned China’s treatment of its Muslim Uyghur minority as] genocide [referring to the over one million Uyghurs in detention camps in Xinjiang province, facilities for] vocational and education training."

"We will take resolute measures to safeguard our sovereignty and national security. [The Uyghurs] live in harmony … and [China’s] human-rights record is the best in history."

"There is no coercive diplomacy on the Chinese side. The Hong Kong issue and the Xinjiang-related issue are not about the issue of human rights. They are purely about internal affairs of China, which brooks no interference from the outside."

China's ambassador to Canada, Ambassador Cong Peiwu

China has the temerity to have its envoy to Canada lecture the government of Canada on how it may and may not represent China, based on fairly universal knowledge and agreement of China's human rights situation in reference to its treatment of minority populations within the country, its belligerent attitude toward 'splittism' and demand for 'harmony', refusing to honour its commitment to Hong Kong's democratic authority as a semi-autonomous enclave, and its determination to ensure that Shanghai be returned to Chinese authority, through military means if necessary.

China's boastful self-praise over its human rights and respect for the rule of law evinces itself in other ways, as for example the arrest of two innocent Canadians in China, held virtually incommunicado, with no access to lawyers, and charged with espionage. This, in retaliation for Canada holding the CFO of China's Huawei telecommunications giant on an extradition warrant from the United States on a charge of illegally supplying Iran with communications equipment in defiance of UN/US-imposed sanctions. The implied threats in Ambassador Cong's statement are evident and reflect the Politboro sentiments.

 President Xi Jinping Photo Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty

"You should focus your minds and energy on preparing to go to war, and stay highly vigilant", a report in the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, quoted China's President Xi Jinping, as lecturing to marine corps at a military base in Guangdong province, at a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. Priming his military apparatus for action, at a time when the mood in China is decidedly nationalist, fed by this government which has gone out of its way to alienate its neighbours through regional aggression.

 

The Peoples Republic has spent time, energy, and treasury in making friends and influencing people in some parts of the world, happy to be noticed by China, delighted at its investment in upgrading their infrastructure (for its own trade benefit alongside delivering of other countries' natural resources to feed China's rapacious appetite for energy and raw materials), while leaving those dependent countries with debts through infrastructure loans that will ensure they remain vassals-in-debt for the long-range future.

 

Elsewhere in the developed world, Xi and Beijing have soured international relations, while claiming entitlements and ownership of disputed regions it plans to swallow, to China's territorial advantage. China insists it will have jurisdiction over the island democracy of Taiwan off its southeastern coast, sending Chinese warplanes and navy vessels to harass Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait. "The fact that Taiwan is a separate country, democratically elected, they should be seeing Taiwan as a neighbour, not as a point of conquest", pointed out Margaret McCuaig-Johnson, senior fellow, Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa.

 

China's state television recently released a video of military drills with amphibious landing craft, attack helicopters and missile systems. The unsubtle warning is that China could attack should Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen who has repeatedly attempted to placate China, continue maintaining Taiwanese independence, not recognize Taiwan as part of China. "I believe that regional tension can surely be resolved", she responded. China is enraged that the U.S. is considering an arms deal with Taipei with whom the U.S. is establishing a growing relationship. China warns against any such deal.

According to Reuters seven "major weapons systems" were undergoing an export process with a mind to equipping Taiwan with advanced weaponry. Lijian Zhao, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warns that China will retaliate: "The United States should immediately cancel the planned weapon sales to Taiwan, stop any arms deals and cut off their military ties." Gordon Houlden, director of the China Institute at University of Alberta emphasizes that Xi is satisfying China's growing nationalist sentiment.

 

"Taiwan is a special case. No Chinese president, in my view, would survive a week if he .. abandoned the goal of reunification. The biggest risk for China is the intervention of the United States. The language is always alarming and we should not ignore it, but I don't think there should be panic about it ... it's not the first time and it shouldn't be surprising. But also, it's a warning, perhaps to the international community and to Taiwan that this [unification] is still a Chinese goal, which they still take seriously and which they intend to complete." 

 

Chinese warships, including an aircraft carrier, in formation during drills in the South China Sea, January 2, 2017. Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images

Another COVID Complication -- No Simple Solutions

"The finding does not mean taking vaccines will be useless. Immunity induced by vaccination can be different from those induced by natural infection."                  "The patient got re-infected 4.5 months after the first infection. Therefore, it shows that for this patient, the immunity induced by the first infection is short lasting."    Dr.Kai-Wang To, University of Hong Kong

"Given the number of global infections to date, seeing one case of reinfection is not that surprising even if it is a very rare occurrence."                                                  Jeffrey Barrett, consultant, COVID-19 Genome Project, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Britain

"This case illustrates that re-infection can occur even just after a few months of recovery from the first infection. Our findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may persist in humans, as is the case for other common-cold associated human coronaviruses, even if patients have acquired immunity via natural infection or via vaccination."                                                                                                   "Patients with previous COVID-19 infection should also comply with epidemiological control measures such as universal masking and social distancing,"                                                                                                     Research paper

Medical staff wearing protective clothing take test samples for the Covid-19 coronavirus from a foreign passenger at a virus testing booth outside Incheon international airport, west of Seoul, on April 1, 2020

"What I think is really important is that we put this into context. There's been more than 24 million cases reported to date. And we need to look at something like this on a population level. And so it's very important that we document this -- and that, in countries that can do this, if sequencing can be done, that would be very, very helpful. But we need to not jump to any conclusions."                                       "Even if this is the first documented case of reinfection, it is possible of course because with our.experience with other human coronaviruses, and the MERS coronavirus and the SARS-CoV-1 coronavirus, we know that people have an antibody response for some time but it may wane."                                           Maria Van Kerkhove, World Health Organization's technical lead for coronavirus response, head, emerging diseases and zoonoses unit

 

"The report from Hong Kong of a re-infection in a man by COVID-19 that was genetically different from the first infection should not be too surprising. It is, however, important that this is documented."

"Of particular note was that the case was a young and otherwise healthy person and that the second infection was diagnosed 4.5 months after the initial episode." "Commentators have been saying for some time that immunity is unlikely to be permanent and may only last a few months. Given the different intensity of the antibody response in people with mild or severe illness and the subsequent decay in levels, it is likely that those with a mild illness will have a shorter duration of immunity than those with severe illness."                                                                      Dr. Paul Hunter,  professor in medicine, University of East Anglia's Norwich School of Medicine, Britain

 

"Second infection was asymptomatic. While immunity was not enough to block reinfection, it protected the person from disease. Patient had no detectable antibody at the time of reinfection but developed detectable antibody after reinfection. This is encouraging. [Since reinfection can occur, herd immunity by natural infection is unlikely to eliminate the novel coronavirus.]"                          "The only safe and effective way to achieve herd immunity is through vaccination." "Lastly, while this is a good example of how primary infection can prevent disease from subsequent infection, more studies are needed to understand the range of outcomes from reinfection."                                                                                         Akiko Iwasaki. Yale School of Medicine

There have been reports from various countries; Israel, the Netherlands, of reinfections with COVID-19. People who had once contracted the disease then recovered months later being reinfected with an entirely new infection, and a new strain of the disease; meaning that the antibodies their immune system produced after their first infection were perhaps partially or temporarily effective in warding off new infection, but not long-lasting enough to prevent a future reinfection. This finding, should it turn out to be a common occurrence, would blow the effect of the herd immunity concept out of the water.

A 33-year-old man in Hong Kong, recovered from a bout of COVID-19, some four and a half months later was once again infected. His is the first documented case of human reinfection, and researchers at the University of Hong Kong, reporting on this case produced a study, published in the international medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. The man had been judged entirely recovered from COVID on his discharge from hospital in April.

He had later gone on a trip, returning on August 15 to Hong Kong from Spain through Britain. He appeared to be healthy but was found to have contracted a different strain of the coronavirus from that he had previously been infected with. For the second infection he remained asymptomatic, not knowing he was infected and theoretically passing the virus on to others with whom he came into contact. 

The virus which causes the disease has led directly to the deaths of over 800,000 people globally. And according to the findings documented in the newly published paper, COVID may continue to spread around the globe, in spite of herd immunity. The hope that the more people within any given population contracted the disease and community antibodies build, the better the opportunity for the greater, uninfected population to be able to avoid contracting SARS-CoV-2 causing COVID-19.

Dr. To, the lead researcher in the study, cautioned that no such predictions can yet be made with confidence, that results of the vaccine trials would determine just how effective they will turn out to be in preventing the further spread of the virus. Mainland China has reported instances of people having been discharged from hospitals after recovering from COVID-19 infection, later testing positive for the virus. There was no clarity however, whether the virus had been contracted following full recovery as with the patient in Hong Kong or whether these people had virus remaining in their body from the initial infection.

A man walks past a mural in Hong Kong on Sunday. | AFP-JIJI