Taiwan

Hong Kong will review COVID-19 restrictions as cases decline

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Hong Kong’s leader said Sunday that the government would consider lifting strict social distancing measures as new COVID-19 infections in the city continued trending downward.

“I wouldn’t promise now that there’s room for adjustment,” Chief Executive Carrie Lam said. “But following a review, we have a duty to account for the findings in this review and the direction we will take.”

China battles multiple outbreaks, driven by stealth omicron

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Chinese authorities reported 1,337 locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 across dozens of mainland cities Monday as the fast-spreading variant commonly known as “stealth omicron” fuels China’s biggest outbreak in two years.

The vast majority of the new cases were in far northeastern Jilin province with 895. Shenzhen reported 75 new cases as residents began the first of three rounds of mass testing. Officials on Sunday locked down the city, which has 17.5 million people and is a major tech and finance hub that neighbors Hong Kong.

Taiwan warns Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone

TAIPEI, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Taiwan's air force scrambled again on Thursday to warn away nine Chinese aircraft that entered its air defence zone, Taiwan's defence ministry said, on the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine, a crisis being watched closely in Taipei.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has complained of regular such missions by the Chinese air force over the last two years, though the aircraft do not get close to Taiwan itself.

Responding to Ukraine tensions, Taiwan says it is watching situation with China

TAIPEI, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Taiwan is closely watching the situation in the narrow strait that separates it from China and raising its preparedness in response to what is happening with Ukraine, the government said on Saturday, though it added the two cases were very different.

China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, has stepped up military activity near the self-governing island over the past two years, though Taiwan has reported no unusual manoeuvres by Chinese forces in recent days as tensions over Ukraine have spiked.

For Taiwan’s Olympics team, everything is in a name

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — For Taiwan, every appearance on the global stage is fraught with politics — and even more so when that stage is China.

The four Taiwanese athletes competing in Beijing for the Winter Olympics, which open Friday, can’t use Taiwan’s flag. They have long competed under a name — Chinese Taipei — that is rarely used and was forced on the team by a geopolitical divide that predates the Cold War.

A Uyghur gets death sentence, as China bans once OK’d books

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — As the Chinese government tightened its grip over its ethnic Uyghur population, it sentenced one man to death and three others to life in prison last year for textbooks drawn in part from historical resistance movements that had once been sanctioned by the ruling Communist Party.

U.S. carriers in South China Sea, Taiwan reports further Chinese incursion

TAIPEI, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Two U.S. aircraft carrier groups have entered the disputed South China Sea for training, the Department of Defense said on Monday as Taiwan reported a new Chinese air force incursion at the top of the waterway including a fearsome new electronic warfare jet.

The South China Sea and self-governing Taiwan are two of China's most sensitive territorial issues and both are frequent areas of tension between the United States and China.

Taiwan reports new large-scale Chinese air force incursion

TAIPEI, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Taiwan on Sunday reported the largest incursion since October by China's air force in its air defence zone, with the island's defence ministry saying Taiwanese fighters scrambled to warn away 39 aircraft in the latest uptick in tensions.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has complained for more than a year of repeated missions by China's air force near the democratically governed island, often in the southwestern part of its air defence identification zone, or ADIZ, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.

China’s success taming virus could make exit strategy harder

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The sweeping “zero-tolerance” strategy that China has used to keep COVID-19 case numbers low and its economy functioning may, paradoxically, make it harder for the country to exit the pandemic.

Most experts say the coronavirus around the world isn’t going away and believe it could eventually become, like the flu, a persistent but generally manageable threat if enough people gain immunity through infections and vaccines.

China faces omicron test weeks ahead of Beijing Olympics

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Just weeks before hosting the Beijing Winter Olympics, China is battling multiple coronavirus outbreaks in half a dozen cities, with the one closest to the capital driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant.

With the success of the Games and China’s national dignity at stake, Beijing is doubling down on its “zero-tolerance” COVID-19 policy.

Across China, more than 20 million people are in some form of lockdown, with many prevented from leaving their homes.

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