TOKYO -- On Saturday, the first day of the Year of the Rat, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, who doubles as the country's president, summoned six other top-level leaders for an emergency meeting.
On what was supposed to be a celebratory day, the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee discussed ways to contain the coronavirus that is causing havoc not only in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where it originated, but also across the country and in various parts of the world.