Travel testing irritation

Is the pre-departure polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test the best way to collect COVID-19 data or is it an unnecessary irritation on global travel? Or just another political tool in an anti-China narrative?
    Many countries have imposed COVID-19 checks on Chinese travellers. The difference is between those who acted with undue haste, making a political decision, and those who delayed the decision, acting on the basis of health advice. Some countries appear to have used this decision as a political tool in part of a broader strategy that paints China unfavourably.
    The UK in particular acted against the advice from its own health authorities. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to impose COVID-19 checks on travellers from China is described by some health experts as a purely political manoeuvre that would make no difference to the rise or fall of cases in the UK.
    Chief Medical Adviser Chris Whitty told Health Secretary Steve Barclay there was no clear evidence of significant benefits from testing travellers from China.
    The Observer newspaper reported that Barclay discussed the issues with Sunak, who still decided it was more important for Britain to align itself with those nations – the US, Japan, Italy and Spain – that had already imposed such testing requirements. This became a political decision driven by Sunak’s anti-China sentiment.
    “I don’t think it’s likely the UK will get any public health benefit from this measure” said Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University. “This can only have been done for political reasons”.
    Australian infectious diseases expert Paul Griffin said he did not agree with the move from some countries to place entry restrictions on people travelling from China. “I think that the practicality and the feasibility … outweighs any potential benefit of implementing those sort of measures”.
    “And I would have liked to think we’ve learned from that by now and we just focus, once again, on those basics to minimise the impact of this virus, wherever it is”.
    The health advice suggests that pre-departure tests for travel out of or into China are a waste of time when it comes to preventing the spread of COVID-19.
    Paul Tambyah, president of the Asia-Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection in Singapore said despite China’s reopening, there is no need for Singapore to toughen its entry requirements for travellers from China. The incidence of new cases in China appears to be no higher than in other countries such as Germany, France and the United States, and there is no evidence that travel restrictions are effective.
    A number of countries, including Australia, imposed the COVID-19 testing as a way of tracking the emergence of new COVID-19 variants. Australian Health Minister Mark Butler, acting on heath advice, said “the decision to implement these temporary measures has been made out of an abundance of caution, taking into account the dynamic and evolving situation in China and the potential for new variants to emerge in an environment of high transmission”.
    This conclusion is backed by UK Professor Woolhouse: “another reason for imposing the tests has focused on the need to track potentially dangerous new COVID-19 variants”.
    Nonetheless, this data collection justification also reveals a political component because it gets applied inconsistently.
    Woolhouse said “but we already know of one variant that is spreading rapidly in the US. Variant XBB.1.5 now accounts for about 40 per cent of cases in the US, but no one in the UK seems worried about it. Instead, a lot of noise is being made about hypothetical variants emerging in China”.
    It is crucial to track the potential emergence of new variants so that action can be taken to manage their impact. This is an essential part of any living with COVID-19 strategy. Data collection sits at the core of this management strategy. This is good science when it’s applied to all travellers, particularly from countries with high infection rates including the UK, or low vaccination rates, like the US.
    It is reasonable in some cases to apply pre-flight PCR testing as a way of tracking the
development of new variants. This is a data collection exercise and it’s essential that all the
    genomic information to be fed quickly and seamlessly into the internationally available data base. Except in cases of significant infection, it is not reasonable to apply this testing as a means of excluding or hindering travel.
    Reliable, consistent and shared data collection through shared testing results is an essential COVID-19 management tool. The processes are a travel irritation, but there’s no reason they should be used to hinder or prevent travel by Chinese or any other tourists. Chinese tourists, like those from any other country, can be welcomed as a vital component of a re-emerging global tourism industry and that helps to drive the global economy.
CGTN

Better Angels at the Chinese Embassy

By New Worker correspondent

People’s China and the USA are locked into a trade war that effects the day-to-day lives of millions of Chinese and American workers. Nobody knows how it will all end but a mutually beneficial way forward is charted out in a documentary that was shown last week at the Chinese embassy in London.

The thaw in Sino-American relations began during the ‘ping-pong’ diplomacy of the Nixon era. The US leader would end decades of confrontation when he met Mao Zedong in 1972.

The film begins with a warning from Richard Nixon’s foreign secretary, the now 95-year-old Henry Kissinger, declaring: “If we are to clash, it would be a disaster for the whole world.”

Better Angels is a documentary focusing on Sino-American relations seen through the eyes of major players and ordinary people on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

Nearly 100 people from all walks of life joined Chinese diplomats at the screening of Better Angels and the reception, jointly organised with the Asia House business forum. They included Chinese diplomats Chen Wen and Ma Hui from the Chinese Embassy in London, along with the film’s director, British born film-maker and two-time Oscar winner Malcolm Clarke.

Chen said in her speech that Better Angels, which was filmed over five years across four continents, touched the audience with stories of ordinary Chinese and Americans, and revealed the wisdom and hope for Sino–US relations. She shared her views on how to achieve understanding and trust between big countries. First, “we should bridge over mysteries between cultures” she said. "We could bring our people together and cement public support for our bilateral relations."

Second, we should tear down the wall of prejudice and misgivings, and engage in consultation and cooperation in the spirit of mutual respect, openness and friendship.

Third, guided by Xi Jinping ‘Thought on Diplomacy’, we should build a community with a shared future for humankind and blaze a new path of state-to-state relations by building a new type of international relationship featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice and win–win co-operation.

Forty years have passed since China and the USA established their diplomatic relations. The past experience and enlightenment of Sino–US relations show that the co-operation between the two countries will benefit not only the two nations but also the whole world.

After the screening, Director Malcolm Clarke answered questions from the audience. He said that China has a long history and a splendid civilisation. In its 40 years of reform and opening up, China has created a “miracle of development”. There is always an "information deficit" between China and the West however.

Not everyone can appreciate China’s development, and the extraordinary and far-reaching significance of the “Chinese miracle”. He hoped that this film would reduce the misunderstanding of China, and that more good films showing the true Chinese image and the story of ordinary Chinese people would appear in the future.

The audience, marvelling at China’s achievements, said that the world now needs to know more about China.

The legacy of a great communist thinker

Ma Hui addressing the crowd

By New Worker correspondent

Comrades and friends met last Sunday to salute the memory of Karl Marx at his tomb in Highgate Cemetery in London. They ignored a pathetic band of anti-communists who had gathered outside the gates to hurl abuse at those who had come to honour the revolutionary thinker and rally around the tomb, which had came under fascist attack earlier this year.

Last month the marble plaque was smashed and the tomb daubed with hate slogans in two separate attacks on the monument. Although most of the paint has been scraped away the plaque remains badly damaged. Plans are already afoot for an appeal to restore the monument designed by communist sculptor Laurence Bradshaw that was unveiled in 1956.

Marx died in his study at half-past two on the afternoon of Wednesday 14th March 1883, he was buried three days later at Highgate Cemetery. To commemorate his passing the Marx Memorial Library has for many decades held an annual graveside oration at his burial place in the cemetery.

This year the graveside address was given by Comrade Ma Hui from the Chinese embassy in London. Noting that this year also marks the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese diplomat said: “Marxism is still guiding China’s socialist development [to build] a community with a shared future for humankind and an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace.”

This was followed by Carol Stavris of the Communist Party of Britain, who argued that “new social relations … that do not rely solely upon a crude, alienated formulation of value” would be crucial to women’s liberation.

NCP leader Andy Brooks, along with London comrades, laid the Party’s floral tribute at the tomb together with a procession of other communist representatives that included diplomats from the Cuban and Vietnamese embassies, comrades from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the Progressive Party of Working People of Cyprus (AKEL), the Communist Party (Italy), and many more from other workers’ parties in the Middle East and the rest of the world that have members studying or working in Britain.

Finally the {Internationale} was sung around the monument bedecked with dozens of wreaths and floral tributes. The comrades then departed – some to a reception at a nearby pub and others to brave a sudden hail-storm to get back home.

China and South Asia Gallery reopens

by Mu Xuequan

The British Museum’s China and South Asia Gallery fully reopened to the public last week after renovation and refurbishment.

The gallery explores the cultures of China and South Asia through a range of magnificent objects.

Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming with the Queen at last month's formal reopening

One half of the gallery presents the histories of China from 5000 BC to the present. From iconic Ming dynasty blue-and-white porcelain to delicate hand scrolls, from exquisite Tang dynasty tomb figurines to contemporary ink paintings, the displays feature calligraphy, painting, jade, silk and porcelain.

Some of the modern artworks are on display for the first time in this gallery as the museum seeks to present a glimpse of present China.

The other half of the gallery presents South Asia's many histories chronologically and by region, from early human occupation to the present. Highlights include seals from the Indus civilisation, superb south Indian sculptures of Shiva and one of the finest statues of the goddess Tara from Sri Lanka, sophisticated paintings and objects from the courts of the Mughal emperors, and paintings by the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

Hartwig Fischer, the Director of the British Museum, said that the museum has upgraded the floor, the air-conditioning, light and exhibition structure in a bid to allow the collections to be better seen and understood by the Museum’s seven million annual visitors.

“Obviously, it's about China and its glorious history in its different epochs. It's about giving visitors to the British Museum the opportunity to engage with these much more than five thousand, six thousand years of history. Because it goes all the way back to prehistory and taking it up to the present,” said the director.

The gallery also has incorporated various rotating light-sensitive objects such as paintings, prints, and textiles.

Xinhua