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The U.S. Exported QAnon to Australia and New Zealand. Now It’s Creeping Into COVID-19 Lockdown Protests

Like most people, Jess spent a lot of time online during weeks of lockdown earlier this year. But the 36-year-old Australian wasn’t focused so much on playing Animal Crossing or watching Netflix. Instead, she found herself diving ever deeper into the Internet for information about QAnon.

Jess, who asked for her last name not to be used because her employer doesn’t allow her to share views on social media, says she became interested in the complex conspiracy theory in part because it claims to offer answers amid the turbulence of 2020.

She says she’s not always sure she believes everything she reads about QAnon online. But she has become active in the QAnon community on Twitter, tweeting out a mix of claims about secret pedophilia rings, anti-Joe Biden articles and pro-Trump content several times a day. “It seems to have really started picking up here. I think, because things are picking up so much over there in America,” Jess tells TIME from her Sydney home. “A lot of the stuff I read and see is shared by people in the U.S.”

TwitterJess, a mother from Sydney, Australia, says she became interested in QAnon during weeks of lockdown. She now tweets claims about secret pedophilia rings, anti-Joe Biden articles and pro-Trump content multiple times a day.

For a conspiracy theory with origins in American politics, QAnon is proving remarkably malleable for export outside the U.S., fueled by growing frustration over COVID-19 restrictions around the world. In Australia and New Zealand, especially, it has taken on a life of its own—with followers adapting QAnon to incorporate local politicians and causes.

As in the United States, QAnon in Australia and New Zealand has mixed with other global conspiracy theories, including false beliefs that 5G towers are spreading coronavirus, unfounded claims that COVID-19 was either pre-planned or is a hoax and baseless theories about public vaccination programs. That turgid brew of misinformation is increasingly moving offline and spilling over into the streets in the form of protests or sometimes aggressive refusals to follow social distancing restrictions.

“We have seen the emergence of transnational, amorphous conspiracy-theory based movements,” says Joshua Roose, a senior research fellow at Deakin University in Australia. “All share a strong distrust in government and state institutions.”

QAnon began in 2017 as a uniquely American conspiracy theory. Followers of the movement, which has moved from far-right Internet forums onto mainstream social media sites, believe that President Donald Trump is fighting against a shadowy secret society that runs the world. Supporters claim this elite cabal is comprised of Democratic politicians, Satan-worshipping pedophiles and Hollywood celebrities who run a global child sex-trafficking ring, harvesting the blood of children for life-sustaining chemicals. None of this has any basis in fact.

Read More: How Conspiracy Theories Are Shaping the 2020 Election—and Shaking the Foundation of American Democracy

QAnon spills over into the streets

The local strain of QAnon appears to be spurred by anger at COVID-19 restrictions: A resurgence of COVID in July forced the Australian state of Victoria—where Melbourne is located—into one of the most restrictive lockdowns in the world for weeks. In New Zealand, a small coronavirus outbreak in August also forced the government to reimpose restrictions in Auckland, the largest city.

Lockdown measures have eased in both countries, but supporters of QAnon continue to spread their conspiracy theories online—and, increasingly, offline. QAnon signs cropped up at “Freedom Day” anti-lockdown protests across Australia on Sept. 5, as well as at similar protests in Auckland.

Speed Media/Icon Sportswire/Getty ImagesA protester holds a sign up during the Freedom Day Rally in Sydney on Sept. 5, 2020.

At checkpoints set up to ensure citizens are following COVID-19 movement restrictions in the state of Victoria in August, police were forced to smash several peoples’ car windows and drag them out for refusing to provide personal details because they claimed to be “sovereign citizens”.

The fringe movement started in the United States in the 1970s, with followers believing that ultimate power is vested in individuals, who are therefore not obligated to obey government rules they disagree with, whether that be motor vehicle regulations, answering to the police or paying taxes. Videos of the Victoria arrests have been widely shared on social media accounts that also spread QAnon theories—further fueling anger over COVID-19 restrictions.

Read more: The Misinformation Age Has Exacerbated—And Been Exacerbated By—the Coronavirus Pandemic

A local twist on a conspiracy theory

QAnon may center around an American conspiracy theory, but that hasn’t stopped supporters in Australia and New Zealand from adding their own local flavors.

One twist involves the hundred miles of storm drain tunnels running beneath Melbourne. Some Australian QAnon posts claim that Melbourne’s coronavirus lockdown was meant to keep the streets clear for an operation to rescue child sex-trafficking victims in the tunnels. (There is no evidence of this.)

The conspiracy theory also predicts the arrest of high-level officials for sex trafficking crimes. Again, resourceful Australian QAnon followers have adapted that narrative for their home turf. One Facebook post seen by TIME (falsely) alleged that Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been under house arrest since January. The evidence? Blurry, close-up photos of Morrison wearing long pants, which appear to have either bunched up or been folded at the ankle and supposedly prove the Australian leader is wearing an ankle monitor.

Similar (false) rumors have also circulated using pictures that show Victoria Premier Dan Andrews walking down the street. Andrews, who has faced heavy criticism from the right for weeks-long coronavirus lockdowns this summer, features heavily in posts on QAnon-affiliated pages.

At a rally in New Zealand in early September, protesters referenced multiple COVID-19 conspiracy theories, according to local reports. But demonstrators have also woven in local causes. Some protesters were seen holding signs calling to “ban 1080,” a reference to the government’s use of poison to control populations of invasive rodents (the cause has been supported by some mainstream groups in recent years, but has been fodder for conspiracy theorists.) At least one protester was spotted with a sign that depicted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as Adolf Hitler.

At the anti-lockdown rally in Aotea Square today the organiser told the crowd he found it "exhausting to go along with tyranny and to forgo my freedom of speech and my freedom to associate". There was also this. pic.twitter.com/jaStobR4Gc

— Simon Wilson (@simonbwilson) September 5, 2020

One social media post in May claimed that Bill Gates was in New Zealand and asserted that the country of 5 million is a “perfect” nation “to test and trial” a vaccine for the coronavirus. (A spokesperson for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said Gates had not been in New Zealand.)

And combining QAnon’s American roots with local feelings often meshes in inconsistent ways. For example, many Australian QAnon-affiliated accounts are highly critical of Australian police, who have used tough responses to enforce COVID-19 restrictions. Those posts are often shared alongside rightwing U.S. media articles praising American officers.

Read More: Here’s Why Experts Worry About the Popularity of QAnon’s Conspiracy Theory

Social media companies respond

Despite its presence at protests, QAnon really thrives online, and it gained a substantial foothold in Australia and New Zealand during COVID-19 lockdowns. One Facebook group started in Australia, comprising a mix of people denying the existence of the coronavirus, anti-vaxxers, so-called sovereign citizens and QAnon supporters, had more than 65,000 members before it was removed by the social media giant.

“You put marginalized people under pressure and fear and they look for non-mainstream and unorthodox theories to regain their sense of control and agency,” says Michael Grimshaw, of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

The conspiracy theories—and opposition to coronavirus restrictions in general—remain at the fringes in both nations. A recent Pew poll shows that 94% of Australians think the country did a good job handling the pandemic (the same poll reported that only 47% of Americans felt the same way). An August poll found that public confidence in health officials in New Zealand was above 80%.

But misinformation is increasingly bleeding over into the mainstream. Australian television chef Pete Evans—who has 275,000 Instagram followers—has posted QAnon-related content on Instagram in recent months. In New Zealand, a lifestyle influencer with more than 60,000 followers posted in support of QAnon claims in her Instagram story. “There’s soooooo much I want and need to address on here. But I’m going to start slowly and it will start with Hollywood, Cabal and Human Trafficking,” she said in one Instagram story. “People may think why? That’s America it has nothing to do with us. In the big scheme of things it has EVERYTHING to do with us. All you need to do is research Jacinda Ardern and her ties with Bill Gates…”

Both Facebook and Twitter say they’re taking action against QAnon-related content. Twitter announced in late July a stronger approach to dealing with QAnon, including permanently suspending accounts that violate its policies, banning URLs associated with QAnon from being shared on the site, limiting content from its trends and recommendations and not highlighting it in searches.

Facebook said in August it had removed 790 groups, 100 pages and 1,500 ads tied to QAnon and other groups it said support violence and blocked more than 300 hashtags across Facebook and Instagram worldwide. The company says that QAnon pages, groups and accounts will be removed when they violate Facebook’s community standards, including inciting violence. The company also said it will limit some content from recommendations and the ranking of this content will be lower in News Feed.

Despite their efforts to reduce the accessibility of QAnon content, a quick search shows Australia and New Zealand-specific QAnon conspiracy theories are widely available on both platforms. TIME found at least three separate Twitter accounts, with thousands of followers each, that used Australian QAnon hashtags in their profiles. TIME also found public Facebook groups specific to Australia and New Zealand that hosted QAnon posts, each with hundreds of members.

Three Facebook groups with QAnon-related posts that TIME asked the company about remain public. Facebook said that one post alleging the Australian Prime Minister is under house arrest would be removed when TIME inquired about it. But days later the post was still available on the platform. Facebook said this was due to a technical glitch on their end. However, at least one other post on the group also made the same false allegation about the Prime Minister.

One Australia-focused QAnon account with more than 4,000 followers was removed by Twitter for “multiple account violations” after TIME inquired about it.

Entering the mainstream

Increasingly, ordinary Internet users are spreading QAnon-related memes and theories. Lydia Khalil, a research fellow at the Sydney-based think-tank the Lowy Institute, says some conspiracy theories have spread via mommy blogs, and fitness and wellness influencers, who have latched on to the child-sex trafficking and anti-vaccine elements of these theories.

“Not all of the people spreading this stuff are hard-core conspiracy theorists or extremists, they’re picking up on hashtags or more nebulous elements of this and then pushing it out without really understanding who’s behind it and where it’s coming from,” she says.

But leaders in Australia and New Zealand have been forced to publicly address some of the conspiracy theories because they became so prevalent. Australian officials have been forced to publicly refute the link between 5G and coronavirus, and on a television program on Aug. 5, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told people identifying as “sovereign citizens” and anti-maskers intentionally defying coronavirus restrictions to “get real.”

New Zealand’s health minister asked the public at a Sept. 10 COVID-19 briefing to “think twice before sharing information that can’t be verified.”

Speed Media/Icon Sportswire/Getty ImagesMany protesters blame 5G technology for the Coronavirus during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Anti-Lockdown Protest at Parliament House in Melbourne on May 10, 2020.

Matthew Schlapfer, a business consultant who lives in the Australian city of Perth, says he’s unfriended or been unfriended by about 10 people in recent months as he got fed up with seeing conspiracy theories filling his Facebook feed.

“I started getting really annoyed and reaching out and saying ‘where are you getting your information from?'” he says. “I would ask ‘what’s the source for this?'” and they couldn’t tell me.

Schalpfer, who is in his mid-forties, says many of the posts that started the disagreements were related to QAnon. Others argued against the use of vaccines, or falsely proclaimed that COVID is a hoax. Some of his former friends—including two ex-girlfriends, three former colleagues and several high school acquaintances—have posted messages supporting Trump.

“They have fully bought into this Trump saving us from the deep state and this global child pedophilia ring run by the liberal elites thing,” Schlapfer says.

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Seagram liquor heiress jailed for role in US sex-trafficking ring

Clare Bronfman handed 81-month term for involvement in group that allegedly enslaved women for sex with its leader.

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Sanctions against Belarus stall as US awaits EU consensus

EU had pledged to impose sanctions on Belarus but Cyprus has blocked the move until it also sanctions on Turkey.

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Technical glitch halts trading on Japan's exchanges

Stock markets in Tokyo and other cities suffered suspended trading on Thursday.

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Some Chinese automakers show off concept sportscars, amid auto market slump

Auto sales in the world's largest car market are down 9.7% for the first eight months of the year from the same period in 2019, according to official reports.

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Bushfire danger: Smoke puts lives of mothers and babies at risk

Experts agree smoke from forest fires is as toxic as urban pollution and causes serious health problems in babies.

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China approves arrest of 12 Hong Kong speedboat fugitives

The group was reportedly trying to reach Taiwan when mainland authorities picked them up on August 23.

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A look back at the reign of the Emir of Kuwait

The Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, has died at the age of 91 after ruling the Gulf state for 14 years, officials announced. CNN's Ben Wedeman reports.

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Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict: Russia offers to host Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks

The offer comes as Azerbaijan vows to fight for full control of the disputed Armenian-majority area.

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France’s Colonial Legacy Is Being Judged in Trial Over African Art

Activists are being tried in Paris over the attempted theft of an African artwork from the Quai Branly Museum, which they say was a protest of colonial-era practices.

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The U.S. and China could slip into a 'new cold war' that pushes countries to pick sides

The new "cold war" could be a generation long, global economic, military and ideological struggle between the U.S. and China, said Darren Tay of Fitch Solutions.

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Rwanda's clothing spat with the US helps China

As the African nation continues to ban the import of used US clothes, China takes advantage.

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Trump set to miss required deadline for 2021 refugee quota

Without a new admissions quota, the US refugee resettlement programme will not be able to take in new refugees.

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Coronavirus: How Italy has fought back from virus disaster

Italy was the first country in Europe to be overwhelmed by the virus but is so far keeping it in check.

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Nigeria turns 60: Can Africa's most populous nation remain united?

Nigeria's greatest challenge on its 60th anniversary remains its diversity, writes Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.

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Onions, ironing and 'sex appeal': Who is Tony Abbott?

The gaffe-prone former prime minister is a polarising figure in Australia.

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Families of 12 Hong Kong activists captured at sea by China look for answers

The families of 12 activists captured by China in August demand their swift return.

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US Election: Whoever becomes the next president, social media is changing

Both Trump and Biden want to take away the US law that protects platforms from being liable for what their users post.

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Brazil judge stymies plan to revoke mangrove protection

Environmentalists feared fragile coastal ecosystems would be destroyed by redevelopment.

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Extra facility opened for planes grounded by Covid-19

Analysts say it's an indication of more trouble ahead for the struggling airline industry

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Alibaba expects cloud business to turn profitable for the first time within the next few months

Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang called cloud computing a "growth engine" but said the world is in a "nascent stage of the global cloud era."

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Azerbaijan, Armenia reject talks as Karabakh conflict widens

UN Security Council expresses concern about the clashes, as Guterres calls for halt in fighting.

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Indigenous people sceptical of Indonesia mapping project

Communities, which are on front lines of land disputes, say they have been left out of mapping project.

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Disney lays off 28,000 at US theme parks

Prolonged closures and limited capacity at the parks has forced the company to cut its workforce.

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Helen Reddy: Australian singer of feminist anthem I Am Woman dies

The Australian singer had a string of hits in the 1970s, but is best known for her feminist pop anthem.

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Here are the highlights from the vicious first debate between Trump and Biden

Hardly a minute went by in the debate without one of the candidates angrily interrupting the other, whether on the coronavirus pandemic, the Supreme Court or the economy.

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Pinterest is this year's best social media stock

Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat get all the buzz in the social media investing world. But Pinterest has sharply outperformed them all in 2020.

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America's CEOs say Trump failed on coronavirus -- and they're backing Biden

President Donald Trump says he deserves an "A+" for his handling of the pandemic. Corporate America says he deserves a failing grade.

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Azerbaijan and Armenia Brush Off the Suggestion of Peace Talks

YEREVAN, Armenia — Leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia brushed off the suggestion of peace talks Tuesday, accusing each other of obstructing negotiations over the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, with dozens killed and injured in three days of heavy fighting.

In the latest incident, Armenia said one of its warplanes was shot down by a fighter jet from Azerbaijan’s ally Turkey, killing the pilot, in what would be a major escalation of the violence. Both Turkey and Azerbaijan denied it.

The international community is calling for talks to end the decades-old conflict between the two former Soviet republics in the Caucasus Mountains region following a flareup of violence this week. It centers on Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian government since 1994 at the end of a separatist war.

The U.N. Security Council called on Armenia and Azerbaijan Tuesday evening to immediately halt the fighting and urgently resume talks without preconditions. The U.N.’s most powerful body strongly condemned the use of force and backed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ earlier call to stop the fighting, deescalate tensions, and resume talks “without delay.”

Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev told Russian state TV channel Rossia 1 that Baku is committed to negotiating a resolution but that Armenia is obstructing the process.

“The Armenian prime minister publicly declares that Karabakh is (part of) Armenia, period. In this case, what kind of negotiating process can we talk about?” Aliev said. He added that according to principles brokered by the Minsk group, which was set up in 1992 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to resolve the conflict, “territories around the former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region should be transferred to Azerbaijan.”

Aliev noted that if Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says “that Karabakh is Armenia and that we should negotiate with the so-called puppet regime of Nagorno-Karabakh, (he is) trying to break the format of negotiations that has existed for 20 years.”

Pashinyan, in turn, told the broadcaster that “it is very hard to talk about negotiations … when specific military operations are underway.” He said there is no military solution to the conflict and called for a compromise.

But first, Azerbaijan must “immediately end (its) aggression towards Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia,” Pashinyan said. “We all perceive this as an existential threat to our nation, we basically perceive it as a war that was declared to the Armenian people, and our people are now simply forced to use the right for self-defense.”

Since Sunday, the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Ministry reported 84 servicemen were killed. Aliyev said 11 civilians were killed on its side, although he didn’t detail the country’s military casualties.

Both countries accused each other of firing into their territory outside of the Nagorno-Karabakh area on Tuesday.

The separatist region of about 4,400 square kilometers (1,700 square miles), or about the size of the U.S. state of Delaware, is 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Armenian border. Soldiers backed by Armenia also occupy some Azerbaijani territory outside the region.

Armenia also alleged that Turkey, which supports Azerbaijan, was involved. “Turkey, according to our information, looks for an excuse for a broader involvement in this conflict,” Pashinyan said.

The Armenian military said an SU-25 from its air force was shot down in Armenian airspace by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet that took off from Azerbaijan, and the pilot was killed.

The allegation of downing the jet was “absolutely untrue,” said Fahrettin Altun, communications director for Turkey’s president. Azerbaijani officials called it “another fantasy of the Armenian military propaganda machine.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Armenia to withdraw immediately from the separatist region, and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey is “by Azerbaijan’s side on the field and at the (negotiating) table.”

Armenian officials said that Turkey, a NATO member, is supplying Azerbaijan with fighters from Syria and weapons, including F-16 fighter jets. Both Azerbaijan and Turkey deny it.

Earlier in the day, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said Armenian forces shelled the Dashkesan region in Azerbaijan. Armenian officials said Azerbaijani forces opened fire on a military unit in the Armenian town of Vardenis, setting a bus on fire and killing one civilian.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry denied shelling the region and said the reports were laying the groundwork for Azerbaijan “expanding the geography of hostilities, including the aggression against the Republic of Armenia.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pushed for “an immediate cease-fire and a return to the negotiating table” in phone calls with the leaders of both countries, her office said.

She told them the OSCE offers an appropriate forum for talks and that the two countries’ neighbors “should contribute to the peaceful solution,” said her spokesman, Steffen Seibert.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a visit to Greece that “both sides must stop the violence” and work “to return to substantive negotiations as quickly as possible.”

Russia, which along with France and the United States co-chairs the Minsk group, urged every country to help facilitate a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

“We call on all countries, especially our partners such as Turkey, to do everything to convince the opposing parties to cease fire and return to peacefully resolving the conflict by politico-diplomatic means,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.

Putin spoke to Pashinyan on Tuesday for the second time in three days, urging de-escalation and, like the other leaders, an immediate cease-fire.

—-

Associated Press writers Daria Litvinova in Moscow, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Suzan Fraser in Ankara and Elena Becatoros in Athens contributed.

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China says manufacturing activity expanded in September

China's official manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) for the month of September came in at 51.5 as compared to 51.0 in August, according to the country's National Bureau of Statistics.

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Kenya’s women entrepreneurs lack access to capital, study finds

Women face pay and promotion disparities as well as obstacles in accessing information, technology and finance.

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North Korea tells UN it now has ‘effective war deterrent’

North Korea is struggling under international sanctions imposed for its nuclear and ballistic missiles programmes.

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Joyce Echaquan: Outcry in Canada over treatment of dying indigenous woman

A nurse is sacked after Joyce Echaquan filmed herself in hospital apparently being insulted by staff.

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Trump vs. Biden: Facing Off on Taming a ‘Rising China’

As President, Donald Trump has cast China as a global villain: a malevolent actor that all but launched a worldwide pandemic on an unsuspecting world, robbed Americans of their jobs and stole U.S. business secrets. He has made the Chinese Communist Party a catch-all enemy that pulls puppet-like strings to make international organizations like the World Health Organization work at cross-purposes with Washington, all charges Beijing vigorously denies.

At the same time, Trump has presented himself to the world—and to U.S. voters—as the only person capable of pummeling Beijing into submission, chiefly through a landmark trade deal. Democrats, the President and his allies say, are the willing patsies who bow to Beijing, as when former Vice President-turned-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden sought closer ties to the growing superpower in his multiple visits there. “A rising China is a positive, positive development, not only for China but for America and the world writ large,” Biden said in 2011 after returning to the U.S. from one such trip.

It’s a black-and-white narrative that will be argued on stage Tuesday night during the first Presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio, with each man’s record and the COVID-19 pandemic on the debate docket. China will loom large for its role as Trump’s designated fall guy for the virus that has killed more than 200,000 Americans, for its economy, which is thriving despite the pandemic, and for its military, which could surpass America’s in size and strength by 2049.

Biden heads for the debate stage buoyed by an August Fox News poll that shows more Americans trust him over Trump to handle China. He is sure to point out Trump’s swings between painting China as an existential threat to the U.S. and effusive praise for Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

But many Trump supporters, if not most Americans, have become accustomed to Trump’s praise of strongmen in public, which in this case has given way to a barrage of insults, slamming Xi for letting the “Wuhan virus” spread. And Trump’s arguments that the Obama Administration was fooled by China could be persuasive on live television, says Michael Green, an Asia specialist from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The Trump Administration’s line,” says Green, a former Bush official who has backed Biden, “is that everybody was duped by China.” Green says that is “ridiculous and wrong…but it’s a pretty easy line to use in a debate.”

It will be tricky for Biden to counter these charges in clear terms to the American people. During his early years as Vice President, Washington and key allies like the U.K. were still hopeful of working with China, guardedly optimistic that Chinese Communist Party leaders could be carrot-pulled into more free-market, human-rights and democracy-oriented behavior.

The last year has seen China double down in a different direction. Its crackdown on Hong Kong demonstrators culminated in enacting a National Security Law on the region, decades ahead of the city’s agreed return to Chinese rule, and it has continued its crackdown on Muslim Uighurs, with hundreds of thousands reportedly sent to re-education camps.

The Trump Administration has accused Chinese leaders of being slow to tell the world how easily COVID-19 was spreading from person to person, and slow to admit a WHO team trying to investigate the outbreak. The Administration criticized China for releasing a DNA map of the virus without also sharing actual physical samples, which could help determine whether it jumped from animals or originated in a Chinese weapons lab, a popular but unsubstantiated theory among some in the GOP that is ridiculed by Chinese officials.

The Trump Administration has pursued a go-it-alone policy of using economic pain to bring Beijing to the negotiating table, aiming to check unfair trading practices and China’s aggressive militarization in the South China Sea. The Administration has slapped hundreds of billions of tariffs on Chinese goods, and imposed sanctions against alleged Chinese hackers accused of stealing U.S. intellectual property. The U.S. has also sanctioned Chinese officials who have cracked down on Hong Kong and the country’s Muslim Uighur minority.

The tough talk led to the January signing of the first phase of a trade deal, which keeps U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods largely intact, with the threat of more if China doesn’t follow through, and requires Beijing to buy upwards of $200 million in U.S. goods and services over the next two years. As of August, China has only bought $56.1 billion in U.S. goods, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and with Trump skewering Beijing verbally at every opportunity, doesn’t appear to be working to step up spending.

Meanwhile, China’s global exports rose this summer, mainly because of its dominance of personal protective equipment manufacturing and work-from-home technology, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, while the U.S. trade deficit with China has grown. The U.S.-China trade war had already cost 300,000 jobs since it started in early 2018, according to Moody Analytics, even before the coronavirus wreaked havoc on the U.S. job market.

Biden’s own approach to China, as outlined in his public comments so far, sounds like a Trump-lite trade policy with a side of wishful thinking that Beijing can still be coaxed back to better behavior by a concerted scolding by Washington and its allies. He told the Council on Foreign Relations he would double down on Trump’s sanctions over the Hong Kong security law and its detention of up to a million minority Uighurs, but he told NPR that he would lift tariffs on Chinese imports and work through international trade bodies like the WTO to bring Beijing to heel.

Biden claims a key tool to counter China would be to super-charge those measures in cooperation with allies, in part by renegotiating the Trump-abandoned Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, an acronym that by itself can cause eyes to glaze, to band Pacific economies against Beijing. As Biden wrote in Foreign Affairs, “The most effective way to meet that challenge is to build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge.”

Explaining that on stage on Tuesday would be a wonky turn likely lost on any popular audience, who may not remember that it was combined allied economic action against Iran that brought it to the negotiating table for the Iran nuclear deal, an argument that would draw scorn from most Republicans.

Trump, for his part, will likely argue that if a tougher tack had been taken sooner, it might have clipped Beijing’s wings—though some current and former U.S. military and intelligence officers will tell you China was always heading this way, citing hawkish books like The Hundred-Year Marathon, which relies on Chinese documents and defectors to claim, controversially, that China intends to replace the U.S. as a global superpower by 2049.

Trump has already previewed a debate attack to come on Biden’s son Hunter, who Trump has claimed made more than a billion dollars in an investment deal with the Bank of China, less than two weeks after flying there on his father’s plane in 2013, a charge that multiple fact-checks have found false. Hunter Biden’s spokesperson George Mesires tells TIME that he has “never made any money” from BHR Partners, the company he founded that struck the deal, “either from his former role as a director, or on account of his equity investment, which he is actively seeking to divest.”

Then and Now

When Biden served as Vice President, he helped launch Obama’s 2009 “U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.” At the time, it seemed that Washington and Beijing could work together toward common good in the service of mutual interests. Those early efforts arguably produced tangible results, as when both countries signed up to the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016, together representing 40% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. “We are moving the world significantly towards the goal we have set,” Obama said of the nations’ cooperation. China also “tightened its controls on weapons sold to Iran” in response to U.S. pressure, according to a Brookings Institution review, and the countries worked together to keep North Korea in check.

“There was very broad bipartisan support for a strategy towards China… that mixed engagement with China, and counterbalancing China by keeping our defenses strong, pushing on human rights, and especially working with allies, like Japan, and Australia,” says Green, the former Bush NSC official.

The mood soured, however, by the second Obama/Biden term, with the Obama Administration decrying thousands of cyberattacks a day on the U.S. government by Chinese military hackers, and later arresting a Chinese national for the theft of millions of government employees’ personal records from the Office of Personnel Management by a secretive Chinese military hacking unit, leading to a bilateral anti-hacking pact that the Trump Administration later accused the Chinese of violating.

Obama and Biden also negotiated the TPP—which Trump swiftly pulled out of after his inauguration in 2017—to gather together 12 regional Pacific economies, representing 40% of the world’s trade, into a single trading market to offset China’s economic bullying. And Obama’s military challenged China’s construction of an artificial island and military base in the South China Sea with its own “presence patrols” of U.S. Naval vessels steaming through sea channels in international waters that China was trying to claim for its own.

All of the Obama Administration’s efforts were eventually swallowed up and erased, like the wakes of those U.S. Naval ships, in part by Trump’s TPP departure, but mostly by the steady waves of a strategically planned and clinically executed Chinese campaign to widen its economic influence, build its military might, and become a diplomatic superpower that cannot be ignored on any major international issue.

The U.S. public hasn’t paid much heed to China’s long-game, but the COVID-19 crisis has caused more Americans to see China negatively, according to a Pew Research Service poll released in July. It’s against that backdrop that Biden will have to explain to information-overwhelmed American viewers why he once entertained the notion that China’s Communist Party could be reasoned with, and how his policies would produce a different result than the steadily increasing cold war between Beijing and Washington.

China-focused political economist Derek Scissors, of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, believes both candidates are weak on China. He says the first phase of the President’s trade deal is a “failure,” with U.S. exports to China “far behind schedule,” U.S. portfolio investment in China soaring, Beijing’s hack-and-grab theft of U.S. intellectual property continuing, and Trump’s sanctions having little effect on Chinese tech companies’ predatory behavior.

On the other hand, Biden’s China record is one of “wishful thinking,” Scissors says, mostly focused on global climate change initiatives. “The Obama Administration was paralyzed by hope for meaningful Chinese cooperation, instead getting an increasingly nasty dictatorship,” he says. “Biden’s move away from that approach is unconvincing so far.”

Retired Amb. Joseph DeTrani, former CIA director of East Asia Operations, says both candidates behaved appropriately for the China they faced at the time. In Biden’s engagement with China as a Senator during the 1980s and 1990s “bilateral relations were solid,” he says, so cooperative moves like championing Beijing’s entry into the World Trade Organization were appropriate. When tensions later rose, the Obama Administration announced its “pivot” to East Asia, concerned about China’s behavior in the South and East China Seas and its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, which ostensibly aimed to improve China’s physical access to markets by building roads, bridges and ports globally, but instead often trapped countries in debt-ridden deals that forced them to forfeit ownership of the projects to the Chinese.

DeTrani says Trump can argue that he, rather than his predecessors, acted against Beijing’s predatory trade practices, including “a very unfavorable historical trade imbalance with China, something previous administrations ignored.” He points out that Trump’s position hardened when it became clear China hadn’t shared data on the pandemic “in a timely way,” and with its crackdown on Hong Kong, the proliferation of Uighur reeducation camps and other human rights abuses.

With China’s military growing, already outpacing the U.S. Navy, and its still-expanding economy keeping it on track to eclipse U.S. power in the next decade, according to the Australia-based Lowy Institute, the next U.S. president will be facing a formidable adversary that no recent American leader has managed to check.

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Asia-Pacific stocks dip as investors await China's manufacturing activity data, U.S. presidential debate

Investors are keeping their eyes on the first U.S. presidential debate between incumbent President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, set to start at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook receives first major stock grant since 2011, could earn more than 1 million shares by 2025

The stock grant suggests that Cook's performance over the past decade is viewed highly by Apple's board, which wants to make sure that he will be paid competitively through 2025 if he continues to be the CEO of Apple. 

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US presidential debate live updates: Trump, Biden’s first clash

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are facing off in Cleveland, Ohio, for their first of three debates.

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Lockheed Martin ‘mishandled toxins’, causing illness: US lawsuits

Two lawsuits filed in US state of Florida allege defence company mishandled disposal of hazardous waste materials.

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Russian cleaner sweeps to power in surprise village vote

'Flabbergasted' Marina Udgodskaya only entered the race as her boss needed someone else to stand.

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Chris Wallace: First debate host and Fox anchor unloved by Trump

Chris Wallace, known for his tough interviewing of all politicians, hosts the first US presidential debate.

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Coronavirus: The disabled Indians losing their livelihoods

As Covid hits India, many disabled people are losing their jobs and can't afford food and healthcare.

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Two women file sexual abuse complaints against Nikola founder Trevor Milton

Nikola founder Trevor Milton has been formally accused of sexual abuse by two women who told police he touched them when they were 15. The allegations date back more than 15 years ago.

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Coronavirus Deaths Pass One Million Worldwide

Over the past 10 months, the virus has taken more lives than H.I.V., malaria, influenza and cholera. And as it sows destruction in daily life around the globe, it is still growing quickly.

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Analysis: Why Armenia and Azerbaijan are clashing over a disputed region

The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has run hot and cold since the 1994 ceasefire -- one of several "frozen conflicts" that blight the post-Soviet world. Yet this weekend's clashes mark a new height in rhetoric and signs of intent.

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Sweden may have tackled Covid. But its strategy may be dangerous to follow.

An expert on the spread of Covid-19 proclaimed last week that the pandemic in Sweden was essentially over — the virus there was "running out of steam," he said, as researchers suggest Swedes could be building immunity.

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Coronavirus: Global Covid-19 death toll passes one million

UN chief António Guterres calls it "an agonising milestone" as the fight to stem the virus continues.

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BTS to become multi-millionaires after label goes public

The South Korean K-pop group will become multi-millionaires after their label Big Hit goes public.

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1 Million People Have Died of COVID-19. It’s a Reminder That We Still Have So Much to Do

With an ever-climbing tally of COVID-19 infections, deaths, and calculations about how quickly the virus is spreading, the numbers can start to lose meaning. But one million is a resonant milestone.

According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the world has now lost one million lives to the new coronavirus. It’s easy to draw analogies—one million people dying of COVID-19 would be the equivalent of just over the entire population of a country like Djibouti, or just under the populace of Cyprus. Perhaps more sobering would be to think of that number less as an entity and more in terms of the precious individual lives it represents. It’s a chance to remind ourselves that each of those deaths is a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather, a friend, a loved one.

It’s also a warning to learn from these deaths so they haven’t occurred in vain. When the novel coronavirus burst into the world last winter, the best virus and public health experts were initially helpless to combat infections in a world where almost nobody had any immunity to fight it. As a result, the mortality rate, which hovered just under 3% around the world starting in late January, slowly began to creep upward, doubling in two months and hitting a peak of more than 7% at the end of April before inching downward again.

While every death from COVID-19 is one too many, public health experts see some hope in the fact that while new cases continue to pile up around the world, deaths are starting to slow. That declining case fatality curve was and continues to be fueled by everything we have learned about SARS-CoV-2 (the COVID-19 virus) and everything that we have put into practice to fight it. That includes using experimental therapies like the antiviral drug remdesivir, as well as existing anti-inflammatory medicines that reduce the inflammation that can compromise and damage the lungs and respiratory tissues in the most severely ill patients.

That falling case fatality is also due in part to wider adoption of prevention strategies such as frequent hand washing, mask wearing and social distancing. And to the fact that globally, we began testing more people so those who are infected can then self-isolate quickly.

Read more: The Lives Lost to Coronavirus

Still, another thing we have learned from the pandemic is that deaths often lag behind cases, sometimes by months. And the number of cases globally continues to increase, especially in new hot spots in South America and India, so the declining curve of the fatality rate hasn’t necessarily led to fewer overall deaths.

Understanding how the geography and nature of COVID-19 deaths have shifted in recent months will be critical to maintaining any progress we’ve made, as nations and as a species, in suppressing COVID-19. In the U.S., for example, deaths early in the pandemic were centered in densely populated metropolitan areas, where infections spread quickly and hospitals became overwhelmed with severely ill people needing intensive care and ventilators to breathe. The virus had the advantage, and exploited the fact that there wasn’t much that science or medicine could do to fight it.

Read more: COVID-19 Has Killed More Than 200,000 Americans. How Many More Lives Will Be Lost Before the U.S. Gets It Right?

The only strategy was to take ourselves out of the virus’s way. Lockdowns that prohibited gatherings, mandates for social distancing and requirements that people wear masks in public helped to slow transmission and gradually reduce mortality, as the most vulnerable were protected from infection. But nine months into the pandemic, deaths are beginning to rise in less populated parts of the country. Medium- and small-sized cities and rural areas accounted for around 30% of U.S. deaths at their peak in late April, but in September they have been responsible for about half of COVID-19 deaths in the country.

The reason for that, public health experts suspect, has to do with the false sense of security that less populated communities felt and the assumption that the virus wouldn’t find them. Less stringent requirements and enforcement of social distancing and basic hygiene practices like hand washing and mask-wearing could have provided SARS-CoV-2 the entrée it needed to find new chances to infect people as those opportunities in more populated regions began to dwindle. Furthermore, health resources in rural areas aren’t as well distributed as they are in metropolitan regions, which makes preparing for an infectious disease more challenging.

Globally, COVID-19 mortality also reflects the unequal distribution of health care around the world. While developed countries are able to rely on existing resources—including hospital systems equipped with the latest medical tools and well-trained nurses and doctors—those resources aren’t as robust in lower income countries where health care isn’t always a high national priority. That puts these countries at greater risk of higher fatality from COVID-19 as new infections climb. Without medical equipment and personnel to ramp up testing and isolate infected people, or to care for the sickest patients, deaths quickly follow new infections.

That tragic reality is being borne out in recent case fatality trends. While the U.S. continues to lead the world in overall COVID-19 cases and deaths, the burden of deaths is shifting to countries such as Brazil and Mexico; Brazil has just over half the number of deaths of the U.S. Deaths in India are also likely to continue inching upward before they start to decline, as survival there under lockdown conditions is nearly impossible for families that have no income to buy food and pay rent. The pressure to reopen and re-emerge into densely populated cities will provide more fertile ground for COVID-19 to spread—and to claim more lives—before better treatments and vaccines can start to suppress the virus’ relentless blaze of despair.

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COVID-19 Deaths Top 1 Million. How These 5 Countries Are Driving the Pandemic

Nine months after the first reported fatality in China last January, the world has hit a sobering milestone.

(Image credit: Andre Coelho/Getty Images)

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The coronavirus has now killed more than 1 million people and upended the global economy in less than nine months

The coronavirus pandemic has reach its most grisly milestone to date: 1 million people are dead.

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‘He was always your first fan’: Remembering COVID-19 victims

As the global death toll from the coronavirus passes one million, Al Jazeera remembers some of those who have died.

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Global coronavirus death toll exceeds one million

COVID-19 first emerged late last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

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5 charts show how much the U.S. and Chinese economies depend on each other

As U.S.-China rivalry intensifies, investors and analysts are increasingly worried that the two economies will grow more distant from each other.

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Luxury electric cars take the spotlight in China's condensed auto show

The Beijing auto show kicked off this past weekend after a delay of five months due to the coronavirus pandemic, with a couple hundred fewer vehicles than past shows.

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Asia-Pacific markets trade mixed; ZTO Express listing in Hong Kong ahead

Investors will watch out for ZTO Express shares, which are set to go public in Hong Kong on Tuesday at an offer price of 218 Hong Kong dollars ($28.13) per share. The firm will be the latest U.S.-listed Chinese company to debut in the city.

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David Daoud Wright re-sentenced for plot to kill Pamela Geller

David Daoud Wright ordered to 30 years in prison for conspiring to kill Pamela Geller, an anti-Muslim public figure.

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Ai Weiwei: 'Too late' to curb China's global influence

The Chinese artist and dissident says the West should have worried about China decades ago.

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Kangana Ranaut: The star taking on Bollywood

Why is Kangana Ranaut on a warpath with many of her colleagues?

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TikTok ban: How did TikTok stay online in the US?

Sophia Smith-Galer explains why President Trump shifted his position on banning new downloads of the app

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Dublin Lord Mayor: Hazel Chu and her Chinese heritage

The city's first Lord Mayor of Chinese heritage reveals the racism she and her family have faced.

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Scientists create a microscopic robot that ‘walks’

The scientists behind a microscopic "walking" robot hope their tech could one day be used against cancer.

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From tea fields to university in Sri Lanka

Theresa is one of the first women from her community of tea pickers in Sri Lanka to go to university.

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Allbirds wants people to understand their sneakers’ carbon footprint like they do calories in food

The problem with talking about carbon footprint, or greenhouse gas emissions, is that they're not terms the average consumer instinctively understands, according to Allbirds' sustainability lead Hana Kajimura.

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Dreamworld accident: Australian theme park fined over four deaths

Four people were crushed to death on a water ride at the Dreamworld theme park in 2016.

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U.S. sanctions on chipmaker SMIC hit at the very heart of China's tech ambitions

The U.S. government has reportedly imposed restrictions on exports to SMIC, China's biggest chip manufacturer, a move that threatens Beijing's push to become more self-reliant in one of the most critical areas of technology.

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U.S.-China tech tensions won't go away even if Biden wins elections, analyst says

Tensions around technology will remain between the U.S. and China, even if Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins the U.S. elections in November, according to an analyst.

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Xi: Xinjiang policies 'completely correct'

Chinese President Xi Jinping believes his policies in the far-western region of Xinjiang are "completely correct," despite growing international criticism of alleged human rights abuses and mass internment.

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South Korea entertainment shares surge as K-pop sensation BTS' label prices IPO at top end of range

Shares of Big Hit Entertainment, the music label behind global K-pop phenomenon BTS, were priced on Monday at the top end of the range ahead of its highly-anticipated market debut.

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How a Bollywood star’s death case took a ‘misogynistic spiral’

The death of a Bollywood actor has transfixed India with media accused of vilifying the actor's girlfreind.

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COVID-19 cases in Australia’s Victoria fall as lockdown eases

Victoria has five new COVID-19 cases, three deaths on Monday, while New South Wales has zero cases in last two days.

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Big Hit IPO proves dynamite as BTS label priced at top of range

Shares of Big Hit Entertainment priced at 135,000 won each, at the top of the range for the initial public offering.

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World leaders call for end to clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh

Growing concern that Armenia and Azerbaijan could return to war over disputed territory after dozens killed.

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Canada's pension fund plans to invest a third of funds in emerging markets by 2025. India is a major component

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) manages about 434.4 billion Canadian dollars ($329.75 billion) as of June 30.

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TikTok: US judge halts app store ban

District Judge Carl Nichols has issued a temporary injunction preventing a ban on TikTok downloads.

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'You're an opera singer? But you're not white...'

The story of Emmanuel "Onry" Henreid and the unexpected duet that went viral.

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US judge suspends Trump’s TikTok download ban

Ban was due to come into effect at midnight, with US claiming the video app poses threat to national security.

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Greece reports first COVID-19 refugee death since pandemic began

The 61-year-old Afghan father of two died in hospital in Athens where he had been receiving treatment.

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The woman who quit smoking and built a global hypnotherapy firm

Grace Smith used hypnosis to give up smoking, and it inspired her to take up the profession.

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Why India needs to worry about post-Covid care

Experts say India needs more post-Covid care centres as many patients are reporting lasting symptoms.

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The South African cleric taking on the church over a rapist priest

Reverend June Major has gone on hunger strike twice to demand that the church take action against her alleged attacker who still practises as a priest

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Meng Wanzhou: The PowerPoint that sparked an international row

The top Huawei executive's closely watched extradition case returns to court on Monday.

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Judge blocks Trump administration's ban on new TikTok downloads from US app stores

A U.S. judge has blocked an order from the Trump administration that would have banned TikTok from being downloaded from U.S. app stores. 

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Asia-Pacific markets edge higher; China's industrial profits rise in August

China's industrial profits rose 19.1% in August, the country's National Bureau of Statistics announced over the weekend.

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Stock futures rise in overnight trading following a 4-week losing streak

The S&P 500 and the 30-stock Dow were coming off their fourth straight negative week.

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Donald Trump 'paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016' - New York Times

The New York Times says the president paid no income tax at all in 10 of the last 15 years.

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Yemen gov’t, Houthis agree to exchange 1,000 prisoners: Sources

Sources say the warring sides have agreed to the largest prisoner swap so far in bid to revive peace process.

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Japanese actress Yuko Takeuchi found dead at 40

The award-winning actress and mother of two is believed to have taken her own life.

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Fighting erupts between Armenia, Azerbaijan over disputed region

Armenia says Azerbaijan attacked civilian settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh in the worst clashes since 2016.

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The power of smell: Learning to feel through scent

My enhanced sense of smell means my olfactory memory bank overflows while other memories are an incomplete painting.

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China is doubling down on its territorial claims and that's causing conflict across Asia

Since taking power in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has helped cement China's position as a global superpower -- and pushed forward an aggressive foreign policy, making bolder moves in several key flashpoints across Asia.

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Lebanon's PM-designate, named as part of French initiative to save the country, steps down

Lebanon's PM-designate Mustapha Adib, who was set to take the helm of a rescue government, has stepped down after failing to break a political stalemate over the formation of a new cabinet.

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Azerbaijan and Armenia clash over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region

The two sides report fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh and blame each other for starting it.

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North Korea warns of tensions during search for shot South Korean

Pyongyang says incident should not have happened, South Korea mobilises dozens of naval vessels to find man's remains.

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Yangon under strain as Myanmar coronavirus cases surge

Rising case numbers in the country's west quickly spread elsewhere and infection numbers have doubled every week.

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Modi offers India’s COVID-19 vaccine capacity to ‘all humanity’

Prime minister says India moving ahead with third-phase trial before mass production as country's cases, deaths surge.

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France racism: Paris to commemorate slave rebellion figure

A statue will honour Solitude, a black woman involved in a 1802 uprising in the French West Indies.

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Brain-eating microbe: US city told not to use water amid contamination concerns

People in Lake Jackson, Texas, are urged not to use tap water because it might be contaminated.

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French Open to start with fan numbers slashed

The opening day of the French Open sees three Britons - Andy Murray, Johanna Konta and Dan Evans - playing at Roland Garros.

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Denmark confronts sexual harassment at work in #MeToo moment

It started with a comedy awards show and a bombshell revelation that left the audience stunned.

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Italian family fosters Gambian migrant: 'The son we never had'

When Gambian orphan Muhammed Sanneh arrived in Sicily aged 16, his life took an unexpected turn.

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France’s Macron says Belarus leader Lukashenko ‘has to go’

EU refuses to recognise Lukashenko as legitimate president of ex-Soviet republic as Minsk slams foreign intervention.

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'When Lewis is gone, who have you got to look up to?' asks Hamilton's half-brother

This season, Lewis Hamilton's fight has been as much off the track as on it.

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Italian family fosters Gambian migrant: 'The son we never had'

When Gambian orphan Muhammed Sanneh arrived in Sicily aged 16, his life took an unexpected turn.

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Israelis protest against Netanyahu despite coronavirus lockdown

Protesters say attempt to block them was one motivation for them coming out on the streets for the 14th week in a row.

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Who is Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee?

A 'brilliant' constitutional scholar, Trump's Supreme Court pick made a name for herself in conservative legal circles.

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Amy Coney Barrett: Who is Trump's Supreme Court pick?

A favourite of social conservatives, Judge Barrett would swing the highest US court further right.

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Photography award winners show the fragility and beauty of mangrove forests

The Mangrove Photography Award winners show the beauty and fragility of the unique ecosystems.

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California wildfires: The inmates training to be firefighters

Brandon Smith is a former inmate firefighter and now helps former prisoners find jobs in the fire service.

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Bollywood star Deepika Padukone questioned in India drugs probe

Top actress questioned by the narcotics agency that is probing the film industry's alleged links with drug peddlers.

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Germany's ex-royals want their riches back, but past ties to Hitler stand in the way

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Analysis: Trump and his envoys have lost Europe's confidence

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How Jack Ma turned an app into a $200 billion company

When Jack Ma launched an obscure payment service to boost his online shopping empire 16 years ago, few expected it to succeed. Now that service forms the backbone of Ant Group, a financial behemoth that could be worth more than $200 billion.

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