Interesting story in The Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/it-would-be-such-a-shame-if-ireland-were-to-lose-its-beautiful-native-tongue-1.4256286

On 24 June, Ambassador He Xiangdong met with H.E. Mr. Simon Coveney, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and exchanged views on China-Ireland collaboration in fighting against COVID-19 pandemic. Interesting article at weixin.qq.com

Coronavirus: This is how China is preventing a second wave - and the UK must learn lessons.  The UK was slow to learn and apply the lessons from the first wave in China - it shouldn't make the same mistake for the second, by Tom Cheshire in SkyNews

Here is a very interesting post from CNN: "Vote in Japan to change status of disputed islands threatens to raise tensions with China" By Brad Lendon and Junko Ogura, CNN

Coronavirus has brought the rivalry to a head sooner than expected – and the scope for non-alignment is narrowing - interesting article by Patrick Wintour in The Guardian: theguardian.com

Another interesting article by Evelyn Cheng, in CNBC: "In a post-coronavirus world, China looks set to grow while the rest of the world contracts"

Interesting story in The Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/it-would-be-such-a-shame-if-ireland-were-to-lose-its-beautiful-native-tongue-1.4256286

Here is a very interesting post from CNN about how China's economy is still struggling to recover from the pandemic : https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/economy/china-trade-economy-intl-hnk/index.html

Premier Li Keqiang met press at 4 pm on Thursday after the closing of the third session of the 13th National People's Congress. The premier took questions from Chinese and foreign reporters via video link. Here are the highlights: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/NAKt0o1EbVdXiKHoIzvwWQ

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, together with the Ireland-China Institute, hosted an event on the 22 October entitled “Ireland and China – Looking Towards the Next 40 Years”, to mark the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Ireland and the People’s Republic of China. During his remarks on the night, the Tánaiste highlighted the growing relations between Ireland and China, and said that he hoped we would continue to grow our relations in the next 40 years. He also acknowledged the need to improve the mutual understanding, and asked the audience: “How do we bring together the different layers of knowledge of China that we have, our different experiences and different perspectives? In this agora of understanding, we could share and deepen our knowledge of China and discuss how we might best penetrate this vast country to good effect. This will help us to ensure that China will be one of our key international partners as it continues to grow in stature.  It will ensure that we deepen our positive relations with China on the basis of friendship and cooperation far into the future.” Overview of bilateral relations between Ireland and China: Ireland established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China in June 1979 Two-way trade between Ireland and China reached €16 billion in 2017 Two-way goods trade has almost doubled since 2013, with companies in Ireland exporting nearly €5 billion worth of goods to China in 2018 There have been 6 ministerial visits to China from Ireland so far in [...]