Apple is moving its production away from China and will switch to plants in India and Vietnam, according to a new report by Nikkei Asia. Sources have revealed Cupertino will diversify the manufacturing process due to the US-China tensions - factories in India should start manufacturing iPhone 12 devices as early as this quarter, while plants in Vietnam will work on iPads and HomePod mini devices.

A study by the UBS Evidence Lab found that a staggering 76% of US companies with factories in China were in the process of or considering moving operations to other countries in 2020. They include sportswear colossus Nike. The firm's suppliers have been relocating production facilities to southeast Asia and Africa for some time now, and the company is reviewing its supply chains in Xinjiang too.

Further closures were announced last year, with Samsung ceasing production at its last PC plant in China in August, instead moving operations to Vietnam, and the company also shuttered its only TV factory in the country in November.

Fellow South Korean firm LG Electronics has followed in the footsteps of Samsung and relocated the manufacturing of some of its products from China. In an effort to avert hefty US tariffs, the company shifted all production of refrigerators bound for the American market from China's Zhejiang province to South Korea.

Adidas' German arch-rival Puma is shifting production away from China as well. The company, which makes more than a quarter of its products in the People's Republic, is keen to diversify its manufacturing base and supply chains, not to mention avoid US tariffs by producing more of its running shoes, sportswear and other products in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

American firm Hasbro moved a significant proportion of its production out of China to factories in Vietnam and India. Amid the ongoing US-China trade war, the world's number one publicly-listed toymaker expected to produce around 50% of goods destined for the American market in China by the end of 2020, down from just under two-thirds in 2019.

Likewise, Hyundai Mobis, which supplies parts for Hyundai Motor and Kia, has followed the lead of its major clients by closing its plant in Beijing. Having cut production in China, the company has ramped up investment in South Korea, where it is set to build a third electric vehicle components factory in the city of Pyeongtaek

With the US-China trade war showing no sign of abating, a number of well-known American companies are reshoring, including Stanley Black & Decker. The industrial tools and household hardware maker permanently closed its factory in Shenzhen in November after it had been in operation for 25 years. Growing competition and rising labour and land costs were cited as reasons for the closure. Stanley Black & Decker had also planned to open its brand new 425,000-square-foot, $90 million (£68.5m) factory in Fort Worth, Texas by the end of 2020,

As relations between the US and China worsened and the trade conflict intensified, Dell quietly moved production and supply chains away from the People's Republic. In fact, the Nikkei Asian Review reported in 2019 that the Texas-headquartered tech company was planning to shift up to 30% of its notebook production out of China.

That same Nikkei Asian Review report cited anonymous sources stating that Dell competitor HP was also planning to relocate 30% of its notebook production away from China. The reasoning behind both moves was to avoid the punishing US tariffs on tech products produced in the People's Republic for the US market.

Google is more or less blocked in China, but the search engine's parent company Alphabet still produces hardware products in the country, although perhaps not for much longer. As supply chains have become disrupted, the tech behemoth has moved manufacturing of its flagship Pixel smartphone to Vietnam and will reportedly produce various smart home products in Thailand rather than the People's Republic, while production of its Cloud motherboards and Nest products has relocated to Taiwan and Malaysia.

fter moving production of its Surface line of notebooks and desktop PCs from the US to China in 2017, reports also suggested Microsoft was planning to move production to north Vietnam during 2020. The US tech titan has been tight-lipped about the news, but the move is thought to have been fast-tracked because of coronavirus.

Though Intel remains confident in the Chinese economy and is strongly committed to operating in the country, the Silicon Valley-based semiconductor chip maker has followed many US companies by shifting the manufacturing and assembly of some of its wares from the People's Republic to Vietnam. Intel’s CEO Bob Swan also wrote to then-President-Elect Joe Biden in November, outlining the necessity of a “national manufacturing strategy” to “ensure American companies compete on a level playing field” in response to the likely scenario of China dominating the semiconductor chip production industry in the next decade.

In light of the US-China trade War, American sportswear and casual apparel company Under Armour has mapped out a plan to reduce its reliance on manufacturing in China in favour of countries such as Vietnam, Jordan, the Philippines and Indonesia. The company is aiming to source just 7% of its products from China by 2023, down from 18% in 2018.

MP complains of being ‘bombarded’ by China on social media over Uighur report
 
Minister says intimidatory tweets are ‘totally unacceptable’

Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani told the Commons today that the publication was followed by a flood of hostile messages.
 
And she was backed by international trade minister Greg Hands, who said that “the apparent targeting of her by anybody in an intimidatory way, including by foreign embassies, is totally unacceptable”.

Over 200 Chinese militia ships spotted in West Philippine Sea

Around 220 Chinese fishing vessels, believed to be part of China's maritime militia, have been located within the country's exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in the West Philippine Sea.
 
The National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) said it has received a report from the Philippine Coast Guard about the presence of Chinese vessels seen in line formation at the Whitsun or Julian Felipe Reef on March 7.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., meanwhile, said he is waiting for an order to "fire" a diplomatic protest from National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana.
 
"Still waiting for the order to fire. I listen only to Generals; never media or an NTF press release which amounts to nothing. Only a shot from DFA counts," Locsin tweeted Sunday morning.

At the handing-over ceremony for the site in the East End of London where the Chinese embassy is to be relocated, the ambassador boldly proclaimed that it would “write a new chapter for a China-UK golden era”.
 
Three years later, before the redevelopment has begun, those hopes appear in tatters after councillors in Tower Hamlets voted to consider naming roads and buildings in the surrounding area of the site Tiananmen Square, Uyghur Court, Hong Kong Road and Tibet Hill, to assert “support for the freedom and diversity of our borough”.

China’s vaccine diplomacy stumbles as clinical trial data remain absent

Last month, a shipment of Sinovac coronavirus vaccines arrived without fanfare in Singapore from China.
 
Today, the vaccines sit unused in a storage facility. The wealthy city-state is moving ahead with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna for its coronavirus immunization program, with officials saying Sinovac needs to provide more data before they will consider rolling out its doses.
 
The case highlights the limitations of Beijing’s vaccine diplomacy. China’s lack of transparency in its clinical trials has hurt public confidence, even as national leaders from Indonesia to Sierra Leone have gotten the shots to rally their populations to do the same.

China’s coronavirus vaccine makers Sinovac and Sinopharm were among the earliest in the world to begin clinical trials last year. It remains unclear why they still have not published the data from the studies, even after dozens of governments have greenlighted their vaccines for emergency use.

This week, Sinopharm’s distributor in the United Arab Emirates said a “very small number” of people are being invited to take a third dose of the vaccine after insufficient antibody response from the first two.

China’s President Xi Jinping has yet to publicly take a vaccine.

@AmbassadeChine
 
L’Ambassadeur LU Shaye ne s’est pas rendu aujourd’hui au MAE français en raison d’agenda. Demain, il s’y rendra pour entreprendre des démarches auprès de la partie française sur les sanctions imposées par l’UE aux individus et aux entités chinois et les questions liées à Taiwan.

China threat to Taiwan 'closer than most think': US admiral

The Chinese threat to invade Taiwan is serious and more imminent than many understand, the US admiral chosen to lead the Pentagon's Indo-Pacific region said Tuesday.
 
China considers recovering control over Taiwan its "number-one priority," Admiral John Aquilino, nominated to become commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
 
"The rejuvenation of the Chinese Communist Party is at stake" with the Taiwan issue, he said.

"My opinion is that this problem is much closer to us than most think and we have to take this on," he told the panel, which was reviewing his nomination

Aquilino, currently the head of the US Pacific fleet, stressed that there were two major concerns of letting China seize Taiwan.
 
First is the potential threat to global trade, much of which passes the island.
 
Second, he said, is the damage that would have on US credibility with its Asian allies like Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.
 
"The status of the United States as a partner with our allies and partners also is at stake should we have a conflict in Taiwan," he said.

Êtes-vous prêts à passer au tout éléctrique sur vos déplacements du quotidien ? C'est la question qu'a posé Continental, le manufacturier de pneus, dans une étude menée dans 5 pays dont la France. Et la réponse est majoritairement "non" : 57 % des Français ne se sentent pas prêts à franchir le pas. Et parmi les 5 pays interrogés (Allemagne, France, Japon, États-Unis, Chine), la France est la deuxième plus réticente, après l'Allemagne. La Chine est prête à sauter sur l'électrique : seuls 12% des Chinois interrogés se disent encore réfractaire au tout électrique.