Ng Sauw Tjhoi

Ng Sauw Tjhoi

Journalist

Ng Sauw Tjhoi is a Chinese-Belgian journalist with the Belgian public radio and television broadcasting company VRT and author of several books on China. He is also an advisor on China to Belgian trade unions and the government of the Brussels Region.

Dr Li Yan, intensive care physician at the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Department of the Xuanwu Hospital affiliated to the Capital Medical University in Beijing.

Wuhan lockdown doctor and her story battling the Covid-19 pandemic

Dr Li Yan, one of 40,000 medical workers across the country who served in Wuhan, was one of the speakers at a webinar organised by the Beijing People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Beijing NGO Network for International Exchanges and the Beijing Medical Women's Association on 13 May. Moved by her testimony, former VRT (Flemish Radio and Television broadcaster) journalist Ng Sauw Tjhoi requested to do an interview with her. Prior to leaving her family behind for the first time to take part in such a volunteer mission, Dr Li has been an intensive care physician in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Department of the Xuanwu Hospital affiliated to the Capital Medical University in Beijing for 18 years. The below is the transcript of their video interview, conducted via Zoom.
A woman in Prague walks past a poster of the late Li Wenliang, a Chinese ophthalmologist who tried to raise the alarm about COVID-19 and later died from it, March 27, 2020. (David W Cerny/REUTERS)

Can a messed up world fight the pandemic together?

Did China make up the numbers? Did it waste precious time before getting information out to the world? Belgian writers Ng and Dirk answer these questions and opine that instead of knuckling down and fighting the pandemic together, everyone, from countries to regional blocs to international organisations, seems to have been shell-shocked into “safe-distancing” from each other. This means that the virus is not only attacking our health, economies and mental resilience, but the very international institutions that have been built up since the end of WWII. If a lot of that debilitation has to do with the China threat writ large, it is too high a price to pay. To reverse this dire trend, the world must look beyond finger-pointing and think long and hard about how it will go on once this storm passes.
A boy rides past a supportive sign posted on a storefront in San Francisco, California on 01 April 2020, during the Covid-19 outbreak. (Josh Edelson/AFP)

Trump's America needs to ditch the blame game

Belgian writers Ng and Nimmegeers point out that the only thing much worse than possibly holding racist views, is to be aware of likely controversy yet politicise race issues anyway to deflect blame for the tardiness of the government. They believe that the Trump administration needs to stop playing the blame game and start on a sincere path of health cooperation with China, to tackle the pandemic today and any other global challenges tomorrow.
China is finding out how it fits in on the world stage. (SPH)

China will shake the world: World stage (Part II)

In this two-part article, we explore China’s progress from a poor, underdeveloped country to an economic superpower, with a major impact on world affairs. How has this been possible? What does it mean for the rest of the world?
And as Napoleon Bonaparte predicted earlier: “China is a sleeping giant. When it awakens, the whole world will shake”. (iStock)

China will shake the world: Success recipe (Part I)

In this two-part article, we explore China’s progress from a poor, underdeveloped country to an economic superpower, with a major impact on world affairs. How has this been possible? What does it mean for the rest of the world?