The country is continuing to strengthen its anti-pollution controls and meet 2020 envionmental targets but has now said that the pandemic would ‘weigh’ on these intensity goals. This is another excuse for the country who is using this as a safety net if it fell short of its energy efficiency goals, like it did last year.

Chinese doctors are seeing the Coronavirus manifest differently among patients new cases in the NE region, compared to the initial outbreak in Wuhan. Patients are taking longer to develop symptoms after infection, making it harder to identify cases. 46 cases have been reported over the past two weeks. China has one of the most comprehensive virus detection and testing regimes globally and yet is still struggling to contain its new cluster.

Senior officials in Australia have accused China of ‘cheap politicking’ after Beijing attempted to trivialise Canberra's (Beijing’s top diplomat) role in the global push for a coronavirus inquiry.

Taiwan President, Tsai Ing-wen, has said the country will not accept attempts made by China to “downgrade” its status in a speech that celebrated the island’s fight against Covid-19 and pledged to stand up to pressure from Beijing. The president believes that both sides must find a way to coexist.

Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State congratulated Taiwan’s President on her re-election and praised the country’s response to the Coronavirus and referred to the country as a reliable partner. The IS government has cast China as secretive and ineffective in dealing with the pandemic which is currently sweeping across the US, and has pushed the massive Asian economy to uphold agreements on ending the countries’ trade war.

Covid-19 crisis has had a greater impact on global emissions than we thought but in China, the benefits have been brief. A recent study has shown that China’s pollution levels had rebounded to above their pre-crisis levels. Levels of air pollutants including ozone, sulphur dioxide across the country reached concentrations above the same period last year. The spike has been described as an “early warning of what a smokestack industry-led rebound could look like”. Power plants and transportation are thought to be responsible for the surge, since China lifted its lockdown in March and April.

According to the article, China’s president has pledged $2 billion in order to fight the virus – a move which the US has criticised by stating that is is an effort to detract from the scrutiny of its handling of the virus. This was seen at yesterday’s World Health Organization meeting, which highlighted the current tensions between China and the US over the handling of the pandemic.

The article highlights how the return of China’s economy has negatively impacted the country’s air pollution levels, which have gone back to the pre-lockdown levels. According to a new report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the major pollutants have exceeded concentration levels from a year ago for the first time since the start of the lockdown 5 months ago. This has been mostly noticed in the areas where coal-burning is the major source of energy.

Air pollution is China has rebounded rapidly from the lows observed during the coronavirus outbreak. The nation recorded a spike in levels in April which surpassed records from last year. Researchers warn this could begin the start of a ‘dirty’ economic recovery in China.

A government official for the Chinese government has confirmed that an order was issued “to dispose of coronavirus samples at unauthorized laboratories on January 3”. Liu Dengfeng, a supervisor with China's National Health Commission, insisted that the order was issued in order to 'prevent risk to laboratory biological safety and prevent secondary disasters caused by unidentified pathogens.'