• Top German wolf warrior wants China to end war the West sponsors
    https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3217122/top-german-wolf-warrior-wants-china-end-war-west-sponsors

    Pour les Chinois connaissant la politique occidentale la ministre des affaires étrangères allemande est une précieuse ridicule. L’auteur du South China Morning Post de #Hong_Kong se moque d’elle en l’appellant une guerrière loup qui aurait mieux fait rester chez elle pour assouvir ses besoins d’écologiste.

    14.4.2023 My Take by Alex Lo

    It’s unlikely Annalena Baerbock will convince Beijing during her visit to toe line of Washington, Nato and force Moscow to capitulate in Ukraine

    When a former peacenik makes a religious conversion to American-style neoconservative interventionism, she can be more gung-ho than your average Pentagon general.

    Here we have Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s warrior foreign minister, who is going to Beijing to tell China to behave and follow instructions – or else.

    “China bears a special responsibility for world peace,” she said ahead of her trip. “The role that China plays with its influence vis‑a‑vis Russia will have consequences for the whole of Europe and for our relationship with China.

    “At the top of my agenda … is our interest in bringing the war on our European doorstep in Ukraine to a swift, lasting and just end.”

    I am sure she will find a receptive audience in Beijing by issuing a direct threat before starting her visit.

    The leader of the Greens, the once peace-loving lefty party of Germany, Baerbock has openly declared that her country, along with Nato and the United States, is fighting a war against Russia.

    This is what she said at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, on January 24: “We are fighting a war against Russia … We can fight this war only together.”

    Let me include the whole passage lest someone accuse me of quoting out of context: “Yes, we have to do more to defend Ukraine. Yes, we have to do more also on tanks. But the most important and the crucial part is that we do it together, and that we do not do the blame game in Europe, because we are fighting a war against Russia, and not against each other.

    “Obviously, Ukraine needs more military support, but not only by one country like mine or the US, by all of us. We can fight this war only together.”

    The day after her speech, Berlin announced it was sending 14 cutting-edge Leopard 2 tanks – and would allow other countries to send theirs as well – to Ukraine. Earlier in January, she visited the front lines in eastern Ukraine to rally for more Western weapons.

    So, let me wrap my head around her warning against China. The collective West has been sending endless weapons and military training, along with the provision of real-time intelligence on Russian troop movements and targets, but it is China’s responsibility to get Russia out of Ukraine.

    Beijing has supplied no weapons or intelligence to Moscow’s war machine and is the only world power to have offered something that resembles a peace proposal.

    Baerbock reminds me of an internet meme a while back: “Sorry, but I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.” It seems she is so mesmerised by the awesomeness of her Churchillian war-rallying cries she can’t be bothered to gauge how she sounds to others.

    She is probably too used to adulation and cheerleading – “Germany is waking up to its historic responsibility” blah, blah, blah – at Nato headquarters and in Washington.

    Her country is now at the forefront of the European Union’s military resurgence, led by a former peacenik.

    There is the minor problem, though, that most people in the EU want the war to end quickly by starting negotiations. According to a December poll conducted by the Project Europe Research of Szazadveg, a Hungarian think tank, an overwhelming 82 per cent of people in the EU agreed with the statement that “Russia and Ukraine should be forced into peace talks to end the war”.

    Somehow the majority voices don’t count in Europe – despite repeated surveys showing similar results and mass rallies across the continent – when it comes to prosecuting the war in Ukraine.

    It’s hard not to conclude Baerbock’s China trip is more window-dressing to show Western warmongers like her are reasonable people, and it’s the Chinese who won’t play to the tunes of Washington and Nato to force Moscow to capitulate.

    As a greenie, she might have helped Mother Earth by saving her trip and its carbon footprint from her state jet to China.

    Alex Lo has been a Post columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China. A journalist for 25 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.

    Le site Nachdenkseiten nous offre une traduction du commentaire du SCMP.
    https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=96479
    Le traducteur allemand de l’article se trompe quand il explique la signification du titre du commentaire.

    L’expression « diplomatie du guerrier loup » ("wolf warrior diplomacy") est un terme répandu parmi les diplomates chinois qui désigne une attitude agressive, cherchant le conflit avec la Chine. Il représente l’équivalent du « guerrier froid » dans les relations internationales ou du « faucon » en général.

    Cet article de Wikipedia nous permet une meilleure compréhension de la fine ironie d’Alex Lo.
    https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatie_du_loup_guerrier

    La diplomatie du guerrier loup se caractérise par l’utilisation par les diplomates chinois d’une rhétorique de confrontation, ainsi que la volonté accrue des diplomates de repousser les critiques à l’égard de la Chine et de susciter la controverse dans des interviews et sur les médias sociaux. Il s’agit d’une rupture avec l’ancienne politique étrangère chinoise, qui s’attachait à travailler en coulisses, à éviter la controverse et à privilégier une rhétorique de coopération internationale, illustrée par la maxime selon laquelle la Chine « doit cacher sa force » dans la diplomatie internationale. Ce changement reflète la façon dont le gouvernement chinois et le PCC entendent interagir avec le monde entier.

    Quand les représentants de deux nations différentes s’expriment de la même façon ce n’est pas la méme chose.

    Les efforts visant à incorporer la diaspora chinoise dans la politique étrangère de la Chine se sont également intensifiés, l’accent étant mis sur la loyauté ethnique plutôt que nationale.

    Alex Lo dessine implicitement l’image d’une diaspora allemande en Chine incorporée dans la politique étrangère allemande C’est fort drôle à cause de sa taille minuscule en comparaison avec la diaspora chinoise en occident. Ce faisant il qualifie de mégalomane l’attitude d’Annalena Baerbock par rapport à la Chine. Ici sa fine ironie prend la même signification comme la maivaise blague qui présente la politicienne verte comme « la pire ministre des affaires étrangères allemande depuis Ribbentrop ».

    #Chine #Allemagne #OTAN #Ukraine

  • Virtual foreign exchange allowing students to ‘study abroad’ without leaving home will outlast Covid-19 | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3162918/virtual-foreign-exchange-allowing-students-study-abroad-without

    Virtual foreign exchange allowing students to ‘study abroad’ without leaving home will outlast Covid-19. Virtual technology has not only allowed study abroad experiences to continue during the pandemic, but made them more accessible to less privileged students With international travel likely to remain a luxury in a post-pandemic world, online student exchanges offer an affordable alternative
    Knowledge has no boundaries. This is especially true in a global society, with more and more students crossing borders to access overseas education. Going abroad to study or on exchange has become a rite of passage for millions of young people around the world.According to an OECD report published in 2020, the number of tertiary students pursuing education in a foreign country reached 5.6 million in 2018, more than doubling over the last 20 years. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development also projected that the international student population is likely to reach 8 million by 2025.This phenomenal growth is attributed to the rise of the middle class in developing economies as well as a shortage of high-quality institutions in much of the developing world. The relative affordability and accessibility of international air travel, as well as the rapid development of communication technology, means students can be increasingly mobile while remaining connected to friends and family in their home countries.But the emergence of Covid-19 changed all this. As with so many areas of our lives, the pandemic has massively disrupted the traditional approach to international education; it threatened to erase decades of progress as the world retreated into quarantine almost two years ago.
    Travel restrictions, border closures, public health measures and pandemic politics have led to a significant decline in international student enrolment levels in most leading host countries.Short-term exchange programmes, which are the backbone of the internationalisation agenda for so many universities, have seen a particularly sharp drop. Short-term overseas experiences are critical for fostering people-to-people links across nations, and provide students with the cultural smarts to forge global careers. Their absence is a potential tragedy for globalisation.Demand for full-degree programmes in top host countries has declined by as much as 20 per cent, but short-term programmes have fallen even further, with demand in many cases evaporating altogether. As universities and analysts think about recovery, it is forecast to take at least five years for international student mobility to return to pre-pandemic levels.
    Far from passively waiting for borders to reopen, universities have been reimagining their approach to student mobility and harnessing the power of technology to deliver immersive international student experiences.This is much bigger than putting everything on Zoom or other virtual platforms. The novel approach has the potential to revolutionise access to international experiences and make global education accessible to anyone with an internet connection, rather than merely to those privileged few with financial means to jump on a plane and spend up to a year in a foreign land.
    According to a survey by the International Association of Universities in 2020, 60 per cent of universities have replaced physical student mobility with virtual mobility or collaborative online learning.
    Can globalisation survive coronavirus or will the pandemic kill it?Hong Kong is a global city, and its openness to international talent has underwritten much of its development and prosperity – the territory was simply not built to be isolated from the rest of the world. The pandemic could have been catastrophic to its educational exchanges, and indeed to the very fabric of Hong Kong’s people-to-people links with mainland China and overseas.
    Home to four top-100 global universities and the headquarters of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), an alliance of 61 leading universities from four continents on both sides of the Pacific, Hong Kong has taken a leadership role in developing innovative solutions which allow crucial international student exchange to thrive despite the headwinds of a once-in-a-century global health crisis.(...) Tech-driven and highly immersive, the programme received a commendation at the Times Higher Education’s prestigious Asia awards in 2021. Today, thousands of students from around the world have completed an exchange via the Virtual Student Exchange, and such virtual international experiences look set to endure post pandemic.

    #covid-19#migrant#migration#monde#sante#education#etudiant#economie#connaissance#mondialisation

  • European Union’s Covid-19 travel pass discriminates against the developing world | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3140118/european-unions-covid-19-travel-pass-discriminates-against

    European Union’s Covid-19 travel pass discriminates against the developing world. Restricting the certificate to only those inoculated with four EU-approved jabs exacerbates the vaccine inequality already perpetuated by the West. The exclusion of India’s Covishield, manufactured using the AstraZeneca formula, is particularly mind-boggling.
    International travel to the EU is currently suspended, but once travel resumes, these rules would likely apply to international travellers as well. The “green pass”, as it is more popularly known, will disproportionately affect people of colour, discriminating widely against Asians, Africans and much of the developing world.
    At first glance, the policy seems innocuous and well-meant. It’s a digital proof of vaccination, allowing vaccinated travellers greater freedom of movement across the European Union, without the need for tiresome quarantines in every country.However, to have this privilege, travellers must have been vaccinated with one of four EU-approved vaccines – Pfizer/BioNtech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Vaxzevria, the latter developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University in Europe and the United Kingdom.There are some notable omissions on this list – every vaccine manufactured outside the global West, for instance, despite their having received emergency approvals by the World Health Organization. The Russian-made Sputnik V
    And while those assessments could possibly take time, even those who have taken AstraZeneca jabs manufactured in other parts of the world, such as India’s Covishield, have not been authorised for travel under the green pass as yet, even though these vaccines are being manufactured with the identical formula to the EU approved Vaxzevria. While vaccines have been the source of much debate in recent months, there is one aspect on which most people tend to agree: when you cannot choose, you take the vaccine that is available and offered in your country.
    However, if entry into the EU is being denied because these vaccines aren’t good enough protection, why are they being distributed through Covax in the first place, an alliance which is supported and philanthropically fundedby many European countries, including Sweden, Germany and Italy? It is no secret that AstraZeneca has had a rather bumpy ride with European regulators. It was authorised for use in Europe at the end of January but has since run into one controversy after another.
    In March, several countries in Europe banned it briefly due to concerns over cases of blood clots emerging as a rare side-effect in people under 30. Despite its published efficacy data
    from Phase 3 clinical trials showing 76 per cent efficacy after the first dose and 82 per cent after the second, the AstraZeneca vaccine’s efficacy has been repeatedly questioned; a German newspaper recently even falsely claimed that it wasn’t effective in an elderly population.However, none of this explains why the UK/European-made Vaxzevria version of AstraZeneca jabs is acceptable for the green pass, but travellers who received the Indian-manufactured version of the vaccine are not.India even threatened retaliatory action, saying it would allow ease of travel only for European countries that recognised its Covishield and Covaxin vaccines.
    And in a startlingly inconsistent move since the green pass was announced, some European countries, including Estonia, Greece, Spain and Iceland, have since accepted the Indian-made AstraZeneca vaccine. Media reports suggest that they bowed to pressure, not because they realised the discrimination involved, but because they wanted to allow UK-based holiday travellers into the EU. Nearly 5 million British people have been vaccinated with batches of India’s Covishield. On July 1, the day the green pass came into effect, the WHO issued a statement urging all countries to accept the vaccines that it has authorised. Failure to do so could undermine the authority of the global health regulator, and if every country were to cherry-pick its own vaccines, it could mean even more difficulty and chaos for travellers. In a Covid-19 world, it’s evident that vaccines are becoming the new tools of discrimination and division. Decolonising global health should be an urgent priority, otherwise medicines meant to heal will leave deep, festering wounds.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#UE#paysendeveloppement#vaccination#passesanitaire#frontiere#circulation#sante

  • How China can safely open its borders as it recovers from the coronavirus pandemic | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3136055/how-china-can-safely-open-its-borders-it-recovers-coronavirus

    How China can safely open its borders as it recovers from the coronavirus pandemic ? As China moves to reopen its borders with the rest of the world, it faces a difficult choice. So far, the state narrative
    has been focused on the eradication of Covid-19 as a key indicator of legitimacy. In terms of case/fatality ratios relative to its population size, China has been very successful indeed.The problem for China is that most of the world has not adopted a similar approach. Instead, most countries have developed a strategy of simply coping with the virus while trying to minimise the economic and social impact.
    This means that, as China recovers from the pandemic, it will need to reopen its borders not just to trade and travel, but also to the virus. We are seeing a snapshot of this with the current outbreaks in Guangdong. So, how does China balance this equation? How does it open up and keep itself safe at the same time? The first element has to be the creation of a firewall against community transmission. While strategies such as quarantines
    are useful, they are reactive policy instruments. They are what states use when the virus is already present.As China reopens, the need for such instruments should be reduced to a supporting role rather than a core platform. Put simply, China cannot afford to reopen to the world when all travel into China requires 14- or 21-day quarantine.
    The only way this can be avoided is through a robust vaccination programme. China has already made a very strong start
    with its inoculations, but it needs to deepen this across the entire country, especially in the outlying areas where people cross borders without official control and in rural communities where uptake is relatively lower. Vaccinations are essentially just individual firewalls against virus transmission.The more widespread the vaccination take-up rate, the harder incidental transmission becomes. It has the additional protective benefit that, if Chinese people are already vaccinated when they travel overseas, then not only are they safer abroad but, when they return home, they are less likely to be carrying the virus into the local population as well.
    The pre-travel checks can fail or return false positives. There is significantly less risk if travellers are fully vaccinated before arrival in China. A common platform for recognition of vaccinations will be crucial if such conditions are to be met.China seeks recognition of its WeChat-based digital health certificates for overseas travel China seeks recognition of its WeChat-based digital health certificates for overseas travel It is here that vaccine passports
    are emerging as the next major international policy challenge for governments. These are nothing new. In the past, international travellers had to carry a yellow card in their passports to show they were inoculated against yellow fever, cholera, typhus fever, and smallpox. As international travel resumes, a similar document for the Covid-19 virus will be necessary.
    This is one area where China can leverage its standing as a major trading country, as well as one of the largest source countries for international travel, to set the best-practice standard for the rest of the world. This would also help to obviate the need for mandatory quarantine, except for arrivals from high-risk countries.
    The third element necessitates that China increase its vaccine supplies. It is already doing so domestically, with 20 vaccine candidates currently undergoing trials. Now that the vaccines from Sinovac and Sinopharm have World Health Organization approval, there is also a greater capacity to support international efforts.Doing so not only helps affected countries, it also helps to provide greater health security to Chinese people when they travel overseas. As most of Chinese trade and travel activities are focused on the countries along its periphery, these are the logical focus for China’s vaccine diplomacy either multilaterally through the WHO’s Covax Facility
    or bilaterally.
    The final element requires China to move beyond a vaccine-led approach to its global public health leadership. All the public health data across countries shows that social and economic inequalities have the biggest impact on health. Moving forward, China will need to focus on these structural determinants of health in the countries where it provides health aid, to see a bigger impact from its efforts. In doing so, China will not only deliver more effective health aid to those recipient countries but the spillover from such activities will improve global-level resilience to future health threats.It is only by implementing an endgame strategy that incorporates all four elements that China can guarantee its long-term exit from the risks of the pandemic. To do otherwise would only invite greater social and economic risk with a return of the coronavirus, while restricting China’s ability to fully re-engage with the geopolitical economic order as it reopens its borders and lets the world back in.
    Dr Nicholas Thomas coordinates the CLASS One Health research cluster at City University of Hong Kong. He has previously published on Sars, bird flu, health governance, and antimicrobial resistance. Dr Thomas is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#sante#reouverturefrontiere#variant#passeportvaccinal#vaccination#circulation#diplomatiesanitaire

  • How the coronavirus crisis will affect Hong Kong’s migration dynamics | South China Morning Post
    While the economy has taken an immediate hit, the pandemic will also have repercussions on all kinds of people movements, including labour migration, emigration trends, cross-border mobility, and migrant integration in Hong Kong...

    #Covid-19#Chine#Hongkong#travail#dynamique#migrant#migration#circulation
    https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3079398/how-coronavirus-crisis-will-affect-hong-kongs-migration-dynamics

  • What Trump’s tale about the US trade war’s role in China’s economic decline got wrong | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3019471/what-trumps-tale-about-us-trade-wars-role-chinas-economic-decline

    China’s second-quarter GDP slowdown has more to do with the government’s debt crackdown than the US president’s efforts

    Given China’s huge contribution to global GDP growth, any decline will adversely affect all economies

    #Chine #etats-unis