Beijing

Donald Trump still refuses to admit he lost the presidential election, on-brand for him but off-brand for American democracy. The US is about to enter an unprecedented few months of political dysfunction as the presidential transition gets under way. Which US adversaries will attempt to take advantage of the domestic chaos?

"Our daily lives are getting tougher as China continues to put pressure on Taiwan to accept its political conditions, conditions that would make Taiwan a future Hong Kong," Wu told US Secretary of Health Alex Azar.
Azar's visit to Taiwan was condemned by Beijing, which assessed that it endangers peace.

Twenty Indian soldiers were killed during "hand-to-hand' fighting with Chinese troops in a disputed Himalayan region, India's military said, the first deadly clash between the nuclear powers in decades.

Both sides blamed the other for June 15's violence, which followed weeks of rising tensions over their competing territorial claims, with thousands of extra troops deployed.

Scores of domestic flights in and out of Beijing were cancelled on June 17 as officials ramped up attempts to contain a coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese capital over the past week that has sparked fears of renewed wider contagion.

Global cases of the novel coronavirus reached over 8 million on Monday, as infections surge in Latin America and the United States and China grapple with fresh outbreaks.

The coronavirus situation in China's capital is "extremely severe", a city official warned on June 16, as 27 new infections were reported from Beijing where a new cluster has sparked a huge trace-and-test programme.    

WHO is following up with Chinese authorities about a cluster of COVID-19 cases in Beijing, People's Republic of China.

As of 13 June, 41 symptomatic laboratory confirmed cases and 46 laboratory confirmed cases without symptoms of COVID-19 have been identified in Beijing.

Lately, however, China has been stepping up its media game and taking centre stage, surfing on the pandemic wave.

"The Chinese embassy in Slovakia has started an information offensive," the Slovak cyber security portal Infosecurity.sk noted last month.

China reported its highest daily number of new coronavirus cases in months on June 14 with parts of Beijing still under lockdown, offering a second wave warning to the rest of the world as the pandemic rages in South America.    

China reported 11 new coronavirus cases on June 13, including six domestic cases in the capital that raised concerns about a resurgence.