Civil rights leaders call for more diverse oil and gas industry

Amy Harder, author of Generate

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

America’s leading civil rights leaders are calling on the oil and gas industry — dominated by white men — to hire more women and people of color.

Why it matters: The effort, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson and National Urban League President Marc Morial, has been underway for weeks, though the topic has taken on a new urgency in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.

Driving the news: Jackson and Morial are calling on the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, a trade group representing natural-gas transportation companies, to increase racial and gender representation across the industry, including on boards of directors and C-suites.
“We believe that through the development of a workforce that reflects the country’s demographics, upward mobility will take place in underserved, urban, rural, middle class and other communities,” Morial said in a May 18 letter to Alex Oehler, INGAA interim president.
“I urge your association and member companies to double your efforts to include more women, African Americans, Latinos and Asian Pacific executives amongst your ranks,” Jackson wrote in a May 5 letter to Oehler.

The intrigue: Even while advocating for a more diverse workforce, Jackson and Morial are also trying to work with the trade group on ensuring affordable access to natural gas, especially for communities of color.
The leaders, along with Rev. Al Sharpton, have recently expressed opposition to a swift move away from natural gas— which is the cleanest fossil fuel, but one that environmentalists nonetheless oppose given its role heating up the planet.
Jackson, in particular, is pushing for a natural-gas pipeline in a low-income, largely black community near Chicago.

For the record: Oehler, who is filling in as CEO until the association finishes its process of hiring a permanent leader, told Axios he plans to respond soon to Morial and welcomes the conversation about diversity. He already responded to Jackson’s letter, though that response was focused on the energy access question.

By the numbers: The oil and gas industry workforce is generally less diverse than American workforce as a whole, and African Americans are especially underrepresented.
6.7%: share of African Americans working in the oil and gas industry in 2015, according to a report published that year by the American Petroleum Institute. That’s compared to 11.7% of the overall workforce that same year.
20.4%: share of Hispanic workers in the sector (compared to 16.4% of the overall workforce that year).
17%: share of women in the industry (compared to 46.8% overall).
(More recent numbers suggest roughly the same picture compared to today's overall workforce.)
54%: Share of new industry jobs women and people of color are projected to fill through 2040, according to a forthcoming study from API not yet released.
Oehler’s staff of roughly a dozen people and his board of directors are overwhelmingly white; its board is also heavily male. API, a far bigger association, is 33% people of color (18% black) and 47% female, according to a spokesperson.

How it works: Ensuring diversity is important for several reasons, experts say, including making sure that organizations’ workforces reflect their customers — as well as the growing evidence that more diverse companies do better financially.
“The argument I’ve made with industry is the importance of trust among communities and the public at large. When you start to try to build coalitions and trust in a community and you bring a monolithic group to that community, then you seem out of step and out of touch, and that’s not the way you build trust.”— Paula Glover, president and CEO, American Association of Blacks in Energy

Racial diversity in the industry’s leadership positions and on boards of directors is almost certainly far less prevalent than the sector’s overall workforce, says Glover. She says it’s hard to even track down numbers given it’s such a small share.
More data exists for women’s increasing roles on boards and in C-suites. The share of female board members in the S&P Global indices nearly doubled since 2000 to reach an average of 15% for the energy sector, according to a recent report by S&P Global Platts.
As part of another recent broader survey on women in energy, McKinsey did a sidebar story on the even greater challenges facing women in color, but that work wasn’t looking at leadership positions and didn’t address people of color generally.

Go deeper:
Civil rights leaders oppose swift move off natural gas
Inside Rev. Jesse Jackson’s push for a natural-gas pipeline
Energy industry joins calls denouncing racism

Editor’s note: This piece was updated to replace 2019's overall employment figures with 2015 ones to compare the same years.

The great economic data crisis

Dion Rabouin, author of Markets


Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

Economists have long been disparaged for inaccurate predictions, but Friday's jobs report laid bare a new problem for the world's largest economy: questionable data.

Why it matters: Economic data is a crucial element in the movement of asset prices that determine what Americans pay for just about everything.
It's not just the stock market — the yield on U.S. Treasury bonds helps set rates for mortgages, student loans, credit cards and more.
Market moves also determine the value of assets like oil and the dollar, based largely on economic data.

Driving the news: The government's jobs report on Friday wasn't just much better than expected — showing the U.S. added 2.5 million jobs in May, 10 million more than economists predicted — it was full of inexplicable holes and numbers that contradicted other government readings.

To wit, as DRW Trading rates strategist Lou Brien points out, the Labor Department's unemployment insurance report showed that for the week ending May 16 there were 29,965,415 unemployed people receiving unemployment benefits.

The Labor Department's jobs report — which surveys individuals and businesses during the week of May 16 — found there were 20,985,000 unemployed people.

That would mean there were 9 million more people receiving unemployment benefits than there were unemployed people during the exact same survey week.

What they're saying: "Safe to say it is fair to be a bit skeptical of the numbers," Brien said in a note to clients.

Between the lines: The Labor Department also noted that only 35 states reported pandemic unemployment assistance numbers and just 22 reported claims for extended benefits during that week.
The extended benefits data was missing from the nation's second and fourth most populous states — Texas and Florida — suggesting the number of unemployed people is likely higher than the unemployment insurance data show, not lower by 9 million.

The big picture: Economic data is often incorrect or incomplete in its initial iterations, as it is based on human reporting and techniques as simple as making phone calls and filling out questionnaires.
What's different now is that the shock of the coronavirus pandemic is pushing the potential scale of error to previously unimaginable levels.
However, as Friday's trading action showed, the reports can still move markets.

The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics offered a bit of explanation for some of the irregularities in its numbers, pointing out that data collection for the jobs report was "affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic."

How so: "Although [BLS regional data collection centers] were closed, about three-quarters of the interviewers at these centers worked remotely to collect data by telephone," BLS said in its May jobs report, also noting that no in-person surveys were taken during the month.
The pandemic led to a rate of responses to its survey of households that "was about 15 percentage points lower than in months prior to the pandemic."

There's more: The May nonfarm payrolls report included a “misclassification error” that would have made the unemployment rate "3 percentage points higher" than the reported 13.3%.
BLS said it was "investigating why this misclassification error continues to occur" as it's happened in the last three jobs reports.

Go deeper: Unpacking a surprise jobs report

Governments turn to protectionism in pandemic fallout

Dan Primack, author of Pro Rata

Protectionism is poised to play an elevated role in global dealmaking, particularly as countries grapple with the economic fallout of COVID-19.

Driving the news: Governments are creating new regulations and incentives to maintain local ownership of homegrown companies. 

France’s Finance Ministry on Friday formed a fund to invest in domestic tech companies if they receive unsolicited takeover offers from foreign suitors. It begins with €150 million, managed via state-backed lender Bpifrance, but could expand to €500 million next year. 

Australia has proposed a series of changes related to foreign takeover offers in all sorts of industries, regardless of deal size, including one that would let the country's treasurer force divestitures on the basis of national security. 

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are in various stages of implementing new restrictions of foreign direct investments, with the goal of restricting takeovers by non-EU companies. 

Germany also strengthened its screening of foreign direct investments, initially aimed at health care, but it's expected to expand to other "sensitive" industries like artificial intelligence. 

Sweden today got into the act, with top government officials introducing a series of proposals to better screen foreign direct investments. 

India last month said that companies from its seven neighboring nations, including China, must receive government approval for takeovers of Indian businesses. It also applies to other changes to beneficial ownership. 

The U.S. doesn't appear likely to enact similar restrictions, regardless of White House saber-rattling toward China, although there was that proposal from some congressional Democrats in April to put an overall moratorium on large M&A until the pandemic subsides.

By the numbers: Global cross-border merger activity is down 40% year-to-date, compared to an overall 43% drop in total M&A, per Refintiv. Cross-border deals for European targets, however, are down 5% versus an overall 12% increase in European dealmaking.

The bottom line: The world may be flat, but political policy is marked by peaks and valleys.

IBM is exiting the face recognition business

Ina Fried, author of Login


IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. Photo: IBM

In a letter to members of Congress on Monday, IBM said it is exiting the general-purpose facial recognition business and said it opposes the use of such technology for mass surveillance and racial profiling.

Why it matters: Facial recognition software is controversial for a number of reasons, including the potential for human rights violations as well as evidence that the technology is less accurate in identifying people of color.

What he's saying: "IBM no longer offers general purpose IBM facial recognition or analysis software," CEO Arvind Krishna said in the letter. "IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency."

The big picture: An IBM representative told Axios that the decisions were made over a period of months and have been communicated with customers, though this is the first public mention of the decision. IBM said it will "no longer market, sell or update these products" but will support existing clients as needed.

What to watch: The letter also included Krishna's suggestions for legislation around police reform and the responsible use of technology. IBM said that AI, for example, has a role to play in law enforcement, but should be thoroughly vetted to make sure it doesn't contain bias. The company is also calling for stricter federal laws on police misconduct.
"Congress should bring more police misconduct cases under federal court purview and should make modifications to the qualified immunity doctrine that prevents individuals from seeking damages when police violate their constitutional rights," Krishna said.
"Congress should also establish a federal registry of police misconduct and adopt measures to encourage or compel states and localities to review and update use-of-force policies."

KOREA

BTS fans match K-pop superstars' $1 mn Black Lives Matter donation

Fans of K-pop megastars BTS raised and donated $1 million to the Black Lives Matter movement, matching the septet's donation of the same amount within 24 hours, organisers said Monday.

 

AFP/File / Ed JONES

Fans of K-pop superstars BTS have rallied to support the Black Lives Matter movement

The band's managers Big Hit Entertainment said at the weekend that they and BTS -- currently one of the biggest acts in the world -- had jointly donated $1 million to the ongoing anti-racism movement in the US and beyond, triggered by the death in police custody of an unarmed black man as an officer knelt on his neck.

"We stand against racial discrimination. We condemn violence," BTS tweeted last week, which has since been retweeted around 1 million times.

The Big Hit announcement soon sparked a #MatchAMillion hashtag trending worldwide on Twitter, with a set of BTS fans -- One in an Army -- setting up an online donation project for the cause.

On Monday morning, One in an Army announced they had raised just over $1 million from nearly 35,000 donors.

"Just like BTS, we were able to donate 1M dollars to help fund bailouts for those arrested for protesting police brutality," and support black-led advocacy groups, among others, they said on Twitter.

None of the fan group's organisers are South Korean, according to their website, with most from Europe or North America.

The announcement follows a recent online effort by K-pop fans to take over the controversial #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag, often used by those who criticise the anti-racism protesters, by posting the tag along with videos and images of their favourite singers.

BTS -- or Bangtan Sonyeondan, which translates as Bulletproof Boy Scouts -- are the first K-pop group to top charts in the United States and Britain with a string of sold-out shows in Los Angeles, Paris and London's Wembley Stadium.

"I am from London. My mom had to deal with racism all her life," wrote one black BTS fan.

"I'm absolutely proud to tell her the group that... I adore supports us and stand with us."

Pandemic drives broadest economic collapse in 150 years: World Bank

AFP/File / Noel CELISChina's economy is reopening in the wake of the pandemic, and the country is almost alone in seeing growth this year, according to the World Bank

The coronavirus pandemic inflicted a "swift and massive shock" that has caused the broadest collapse of the global economy since 1870 despite unprecedented government support, the World Bank said Monday.

The world economy is expected to contract by 5.2 percent this year -- the worst recession in 80 years -- but the sheer number of countries suffering economic losses means the scale of the downturn is worse than any recession in 150 years, the World Bank said in its latest Global Economic Prospects report.

"This is a deeply sobering outlook, with the crisis likely to leave long-lasting scars and pose major global challenges," said World Bank Group Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Ceyla Pazarbasioglu.

The depth of the crisis will drive 70 to 100 million people into extreme poverty -- worse than the prior estimate of 60 million, she told reporters.

And while the Washington-based development lender projects a rebound for 2021, there is a risk a second wave of outbreaks could undermine the recovery and turn the economic crisis into a financial one that will see a "wave of defaults."

Economists have been struggling to measure the impact of the crisis they have likened to a global natural disaster, but the sheer size of the impact across so many sectors and countries has made that difficult.

Under the worst-case scenario, the global recession could mean a contraction of eight percent, according to the report.

But Pazarbasioglu cautioned: "Given this uncertainty, further downgrades to the outlook are very likely."

Meanwhile, a group of American economists who are the arbiters of when a recession starts and ends said Monday the United States entered a downturn in February, ending 128 months of uninterrupted growth, the longest streak in history.

Recessions typically are defined by several months of declining economic activity.

But the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a non-profit, non-partisan research organization, called the current situation in the world's largest economy "unprecedented" due to the severity of the drop in employment and production, even if it might turn out to be shorter than other recessions.

- China still growing, barely -

China is nearly alone in seeing modest growth this year. However the World Bank warned the depth of the slowdown in the world's second-largest economy will hinder recovery prospects in developing nations, especially commodity exporters.

While China will see GDP rise just one percent, the World Bank said, the rest of the forecasts are grim: US -6.1 percent, eurozone -9.1 percent, Japan -6.1 percent, Brazil -8 percent, Mexico -7.5 percent and India -3.2 percent.

AFP/File / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDSThe World Bank now believes 70 to 100 million people could fall into extreme poverty due to the coronavirus pandemic

And things could get worse, meaning the forecasts will be revised even lower, the bank warned.

Though dramatic, the current forecast falls short of the Great Depression, which saw a global contraction of 14.5 percent from 1930 to 1932, while the post-war downturn in 1945-1946 was 13.8 percent, according to the World Bank.

But because of the pandemic there remain some "exceptionally high" risks to the outlook, particularly if the disease lingers and authorities have to reimpose restrictions -- which could make the downturn as bad as eight percent.

"Disruptions to activity would weaken businesses' ability to remain in operation and service their debt," the report cautioned.

That, in turn, could raise interest rates for higher-risk borrowers. "With debt levels already at historic highs, this could lead to cascading defaults and financial crises across many economies," it said.

But even if the 4.2 percent global recovery projected for 2021 materializes, "in many countries, deep recessions triggered by COVID-19 will likely weigh on potential output for years to come."

UK anger at toppled slave trader statue but few want it back

AFP / -Sequence of pictures showing demonstrators pulling down the bronze monument to Edward Colston in Bristol and threw it into the harbour

The British government on Monday denounced the toppling of a slave trader's statue during anti-racism protests, urging campaigners to use democratic means for change rather than breaking the law.

But the action won some support, including from the city's mayor, against a backdrop of public pressure to re-examine representations of the country's colonial past.

Demonstrators pulled down the 18-foot (5.5-metre) bronze monument to Edward Colston in the southwest English city of Bristol and threw it into the harbour on Sunday.

The protest was one of many across Britain in recent days in response to the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of police in the United States.

Most marches were peaceful but there were flashes of violence, including in London, where the statue of World War II leader Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was defaced.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the clashes as "a betrayal of the cause they (protesters) purport to serve".

Johnson's spokesman told reporters on Monday the violence was "unacceptable", while the removal of the statue in Bristol was a criminal act that should be prosecuted.

"We fully understand the strength of opinion but in this country we settle our differences democratically," he added.

In parliament, Home Secretary Priti Patel said there had been 135 arrests in protests across Britain and 35 police officers injured in London alone.

She described those behind the clashes as "thugs and criminals".

Colston, who came from a wealthy merchant family, was a former top official in the Royal African Company in the late 17th century.

The company sent into slavery hundreds of thousands of men, women and children from West Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas. Many were branded with the company's initials.

Colston was also a Tory member of parliament and philanthropist, donating huge funds to support schools, hospitals, almshouses and churches in Bristol.

- 'Symbol of injustice' -

Historic England, a government heritage body, said the local community must now decide what to do with the fallen statue but "we do not believe it must be reinstated".

"We recognise that the statue was a symbol of injustice and a source of great pain for many people," it added.

Authorities had agreed to rename his statue, which was erected in 1895, to highlight his role in slavery but the process became deadlocked because of conflicting views.

Marvin Rees, Bristol's elected Labour mayor, said he believed the statue would end up in a museum, alongside banners from Sunday's Black Lives Matter protest.

Rees, who is of Jamaican heritage, said he "cannot condone the damage" but described the destruction of the statue as an "iconic moment".

"I cannot pretend it was anything other than a personal affront to me to have it in the middle of Bristol, the city in which I grew up," he told BBC radio.

Leading Bristol music venue Colston Hall, which has hosted concerts from Louis Armstrong to The Beatles, said Sunday's protests had spurred it to speed up a plan to change its name.

Bristol trip-hop outfit Massive Attack have consistently refused to play at the venue because of its name and associations.

- 'Who we are' -

British institutions and local authorities have in recent years been re-examining their public monuments in the face of demands to better represent the country's colonial past.

Churchill's legacy has come under scrutiny for his wartime policies that are blamed for the death of millions during famine in the Indian state of Bengal in 1943.

"No debate about the way we run our public spaces should ever be finished," mayor Rees said. "We should be constantly wrestling with who we are and where we've come from."

British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton called Colston a "monster" and urged all similar statues to be torn down.

The wider protests won the backing of Manchester City and England footballer Raheem Sterling, while world heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua joined protesters in London.

Hong Kong seethes one year on, but protesters on the back foot

AFP/File / Anthony WALLACETens of thousands of protesters defied a ban on public gatherings to hold a candlelight vigil to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown

Hong Kong on Tuesday marks a year since pro-democracy protests erupted, but a resumption of city-wide unrest is unlikely as activists reel from mass arrests, coronavirus bans on public gatherings and a looming national security law.

Seven months of massive and often violent rallies kicked off on June 9 last year when huge crowds took to the streets to oppose a bill allowing extraditions to mainland China.

Battles between police and protesters became routine, leaving in tatters the city's reputation for stability, and a population divided.

Messaging groups used by protesters have called for people to come out in force on Tuesday evening, although locations will only be announced an hour ahead of time.

The tactic is a bid to thwart police, who now move swiftly against such gatherings to enforce anti-virus restrictions.

Student groups and unions have also announced plans to canvas members over possible strike action in coming days, but Hong Kong's labour movement has limited influence.

"I don't think the passion has subsided much, but the problem is that many actions are now not allowed in the current circumstances," Leung Kai-chi, an analyst at the Chinese University, told AFP.

Beyond a withdrawal of the extradition bill, the protest movement's core demands -- such as universal suffrage and an inquiry into police tactics -- have been rejected by the city's leadership and Beijing.

Instead, China has unveiled plans to impose a more sweeping law -- one that will bypass the city's legislature entirely -- banning subversion, secession, terrorism and foreign interference.

China says an anti-subversion law will only target "a small minority" and will restore business confidence.

- 'Anti-virus software' -

In a speech on Monday Zhang Xiaoming, the deputy head of Beijing's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, likened the law to "anti-virus software".

"Radical separatists have been mistaking the central government's restraint and forbearance for weakness and timidity," he said.

"They have gone too far".

"No person or organisation will succeed in intimidating the (Hong Kong) Government by extreme means," the city's pro-Beijing leadership said in a statement on Monday.

AFP / John SAEKIA year of turmoil in Hong Kong

Opponents fear the law will bring mainland-style political oppression to a business hub supposedly guaranteed freedoms and autonomy for 50 years after its 1997 handover from Britain.

"First (Beijing) loses the hearts and minds of Hong Kong's people and then it seeks to force them to be loyal," said Kong Tsung-gan, an activist who has published three books on the protest movement.

"This is a long-term struggle, the Communist Party is upping the ante, and Hong Kong people will have to be willing to suffer and sacrifice much more than they have up to now to see their way through," Kong said.

Over the last year around 9,000 people have been arrested and more than 1,700 people charged, but by the time the deadly coronavirus hit the city in January, the protest movement was already on the back foot.

The virus has made any protest effectively illegal, with emergency laws banning gatherings of more than eight people even though local transmissions have been virtually eradicated.

Still, protests have bubbled up again since the security law plans were announced -- including tens of thousands defying a ban on a June 4 gathering to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.

Trump wanted to deploy 10,000 troops in Washington D.C., official says


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told his advisors at one point this past week he wanted 10,000 troops to deploy to the Washington D.C. area to halt civil unrest over the killing of a black man by Minneapolis police, according to a senior U.S. official.

The account of Trump’s demand during a heated Oval Office conversation on Monday shows how close the president may have come to fulfilling his threat to deploy active duty troops in U.S. cities, despite opposition from Pentagon leadership.

At the meeting, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and Attorney General William Barr recommended against such a deployment, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The meeting was “contentious,” the official added.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has since appeared satisfied with deployments by the National Guard, the option recommended by the Pentagon and a more traditional tool for dealing with domestic crises. Pentagon leaders scrambled to call governors with requests to send Guard forces to Washington. Additional federal law enforcement were mobilized too.

But also key for Trump appears to have been Esper’s move to preposition — but not deploy — active duty soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division and other units in the Washington D.C. area. Those troops have since departed.

“Having active duty forces available but not in the city was enough for the president for the time,” the official said.


Barr told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that no active duty troops were deployed on Washington streets, but there were some military police nearby.

“We had them on standby in case they were needed,” Barr said.

Trump’s bid to militarize the U.S. response to the protests has triggered a rare outpouring of condemnation from former U.S. military officials, including Trump’s first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and retired four-star generals who normally try to steer clear of politics.

Those comments reflect deep unease inside and outside the Pentagon with Trump’s willingness to inject the U.S. military into a domestic race relations crisis following the killing of George Floyd, 46, who died on May 25 after a Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Floyd’s death has led to a wave of protests and national soul-searching over the country’s legacy of violence and mistreatment of African Americans and other minorities.

It has also led some Pentagon leaders of color to issue unprecedented statements bit.ly/30mxTlD about their experiences dealing with issues of race in the U.S. military.

ESPER’S FUTURE?

Esper publicly voiced his opposition on Wednesday to invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy active duty forces — remarks to reporters that did not go over well with either Trump or his top aides.

The senior U.S. official said Trump yelled at Esper after that news conference.

As speculation swirled over whether the president might fire him, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Trump “remains confident in Secretary Esper.”

“Secretary Esper has been instrumental in securing our nation’s streets and ensuring Americans have peace and confidence in the security of their places of business, places of worship, and their homes,” McEnany said in a statement.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters on Sunday he believed “we came right up to the edge of bringing active troops here,” but added that he did not speak to the president. He expected all National Guard who came from out of state to be heading back home within 72 hours as the crisis eased.

Esper issued a memo on Tuesday reminding Defense Department personnel “we commit to protecting the American people’s right to freedom of speech and to peaceful assembly.”

Milley issued a similar statement reminding troops of their oath to the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right to peaceful protests.

Those statements by Milley and Esper came after they took fierce criticism for using military planning terms like “battlespace” to describe American protest sites during a conference call with state governors that Trump hosted on Monday, a recording of which leaked.

FILE PHOTO: National Guard members look on while mounting guard at the Lincoln Memorial during a protest against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Washington, U.S., June 6, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

At the time, the Pentagon was concerned that Trump might deploy active duty troops if the governors did not sufficiently employ the National Guard, the official said.

Esper and Milley have also faced criticism for accompanying Trump for a photo opportunity outside a church near the White House on Monday after police cleared the area by firing smoke grenades and chemical irritant “pepper balls” and charging into peaceful protesters.


Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Daniel Wallis
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

China demands proof from U.S. senator for COVID-19 accusation


BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Monday challenged U.S. Senator Rick Scott to show evidence supporting his accusation that Beijing is trying to slow down or sabotage the development of a COVID-19 vaccine by Western countries.

“Since this lawmaker said he has evidence that China is trying to sabotage western countries in their vaccine development, then please let him present the evidence. There’s no need to be shy,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily briefing in response to the Republican senator’s comments to BBC TV.

Scott declined to give details of the evidence when asked during the interview on Sunday but said it had come through the intelligence community.


“China does not want us ... to do it first, they have decided to be an adversary to Americans and I think to democracy around the world,” he told the BBC.

Scott and six other Republican senators introduced a bill last month aimed at preventing China from stealing or sabotaging vaccine research.

Asked to comment on Hua’s remarks, Scott’s office referred to a statement from the FBI last month saying it was investigating attempts by Beijing-affiliated hackers to steal COVID-19-related research.

Hua said development of a COVID-19 vaccine was not a bilateral competition and Beijing hoped the United States would mirror China’s pledge and offer any vaccine it develops to the world for free.

U.S. President Donald Trump and other top officials in Washington have repeatedly criticised China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected more than 4 million people globally and killed more than 400,000.

China has bristled at Washington’s accusations of wrongdoing regarding COVID-19 and insists it has been open and transparent about the outbreak, which first emerged from the city of Wuhan in late 2019.

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