Domestic Politics
Deputy head, Senior Superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah revealed that Hong Kong authorities are tracking down around 300 anti-government protesters and suspects believed to be behind a series of violent crimes, including possession of firearms and explosives. As of January 19, 7,143 people have been arrested–mostly students, the youngest aged 11–in the ongoing anti-government protests. [SCMP]
International Relations
An FBI investigation charged a Harvard scientist with making false statements about Chinese funding and accused him of trade secret theft. Charles Lieber, the chairman of Harvard’s chemistry and biology department, has been arrested along with two scientists, both of whom are Chinese nationals. According to prosecutors, Lieber was paid $50,000 a month, and received more than $1.5 million to set up a lab in Wuhan, an affiliation which he failed to disclose. He also was involved in a Chinese government program called the Thousand Talents Plan, which seeks to recruit international experts in scientific research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. This program, dubbed as a national security threat, is used for stealing and siphoning off trade secrets according to security officials. [Asia Times]
New research conducted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) finds China as the world's new number 2 arms dealer, surpassing Russia. Chinese arms makers sold US$54.1 billion worth of weapons and now only trail behind the United States. The report covers three sectors of conventional arms production–aerospace, electronics, and land systems. [Asia Times]
The US military has started issuing furlough warnings to the 9,000 civilian South Koreans who work at American facilities as the deadlock between the two countries over financing the cost of hosting American troops continues. [Strait Times]
Health
Professor Yuen Kwok-Yung, chair of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong, has declared that his team has already developed a vaccine, but will need time to test it. He specified that it would take months to test it on animals, and might take a year to conduct clinical trials for humans. On the other hand, Li Lanjuan, one of the leading infectious disease experts in China, claims he can come up with it in a month. If ready on time, the vaccine could be the answer to a disease that has infected more than 5,974 people globally and killed over 100 on the mainland. [SCMP]
The death toll of people affected with the coronavirus has reached 132, while the number of infected people has risen to 5934, surpassing that of the 2002-03 Sars epidemic. With 840 new reported cases in Hubei and reports of the first case detected in the Tibet autonomous region, the virus has reached every region and province of China. [SCMP]
Japan has confirmed its seventh case of the Coronavirus case and has reported the first human-to-human transmission case in Japan as it begins evacuating its nationals from Wuhan. [Japan Times]
Technology
Apple’s latest transparency report, which is released every two years, shows it took down 805 apps in mainland China. It justified the removal of these apps from China’s iOS App Store by citing both legal and policy violations. [SCMP]
Image Source: New York Times