Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2015 i Beijing Review

A girl plants trees together with her mother on February 25 in Liping County, Guizhou Province. It was the first working day after the Spring Festival holiday. Many people plant trees to mark the start of a new year. Antarctic Achievements February 20 marks the 30th anniversary since China set its step at the South Pole. On February 20, 1985, China’s first Antarctic station, the Great Wall station, was opened on King George Island, on the north of the continent. Compared with the Westerners who first landed in Antarctica in 1820, the Chinese were newcomers, arriving 75 years later than Japan, the first Asian country to record an expedition to the “end of the world” in 1910. While now, China’s 31st Antarctic expedition, consisting of 281 team members, is perhaps…

Preference for boys is not uncommon in China, particularly in the countryside, where thousands of years of feudal values still cast their shadow. China introduced the family planning policy in the 1970s to curb the rapid population explosion. Many couples prefer boys over girls in the belief that males will better support their families as well as carry on the family line and inherit property, as is required in feudal values. In Shandong Province, for instance, the sex ratio among newborns in 2013 was 116.6 to 100. This made 2013 the fourth consecutive year in which the ratio had narrowed in Shandong, but it is still “relatively high,” commented Lian Fang, an expert at the Reproductive and Genetic Center of the Hospital Affiliated with Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.…

Just like the reform and opening up to the outside world has determined the destiny of contemporary China, it will also pave the way for Huizhou to become a boomtown in the Pearl River Delta. In the early 21st century, Huizhou has spent four years raising its GDP from 100 billion yuan ($16 billion) to 200 billion yuan ($32 billion). While sustaining sound economic development, the city has also maintained its environment and continued to improve the lives of its people. Reform is the key to all these achievements. In the next five years, Huizhou plans to raise its GDP to 500 billion yuan ($80 billion) and raise its local budgetary revenue to 50 billion yuan ($8 billion). To realize the goals as soon as possible, keeping to conventional aways…

It was hard to go anywhere in Beijing in December 2014 without being assailed by posters advertising Chinese auteur Jiang Wen’s latest movie Gone With the Bullets. I was drawn to the film’s beautiful promotional material showing Jiang’s character with one of the film’s female leads adversarially juxtaposed against Ge You’s character and another female character. I was also taken with the title, blending associations of a rip-roaring old-fashioned romantic epic, interspersed with frequent bouts of gunfire. Advance word on the movie was good internationally, and the film’s opulent promotional campaign whetted appetites on the home front. It carried an enormous budget of 300 million yuan ($48.8 million). Jiang’s previous movie Let the Bullets Fly (2010) had broken box office records for domestic releases in China. His body of work,…

Visitors buy lanterns in Nanjing, capital of east China’s Jiangsu Province, ahead of Lantern Festival, which falls on March 5 this year. The festival is traditionally marked by parades of dancers dressed as lions and dragons and lantern shows. Family members gather together to eat yuanxiao—glutinous rice balls with various fillings such as sesame or peanut paste—which symbolize familial togetherness and the joy of reunion. The holiday falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month and marks the end of Chinese New Year celebrations.…

Children attired in traditional costume read poems of Du Fu, a great romantic poet in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), at the Du Fu Thatched Cottage in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, on February 25. It is the seventh day of the first lunar month, also the “Renri” which literally means Human Day in Chinese. According to Chinese legend, the goddess Nyuwa created the world and animals during the first six days, after which humans were created. It is a tradition for citizens in Chengdu to visit the Du Fu Thatched Cottage on Human Day. Housing Prices China’s real estate market has extended its downward trend with new home prices in January registering month-onmonth declines in most cities surveyed. Of 70 large and medium-sized cities surveyed, new home prices…

Zhang Si, a 24-year-old village assistant in Zhouliang Village, Baodi District in the northern port city of Tianjin, gathers opinions from villagers every day. She began her current job in September last year. “The villagers tell me their opinions on village affairs, which will then be taken into consideration when important decisions are being made,” Zhang told Beijing Review. In every village of Zhouliang Township, there is a village assistant responsible for communicating the villagers’ demands to the villagers’ committees. In Baodi District, a consultative democratic system has been an important way in making decisions. Villagers’ voices “In 2013, several villagers made a proposal to village representatives to transfer their land, so that they could be freed from farm work and find jobs in cities,” said Li Guang’en, Party chief…

Japan’s cabinet on February 10 adopted a foreign aid charter stating for the first time that its official development assistance (ODA) program can be used to support foreign armed forces. The newly enforced Development Cooperation Charter, previously known as the ODA Charter, said military aid is allowed to be used in non-combat operations such as disaster relief, infrastructure building and coast guard activities. The administration’s murky language may allow for flexibility in the charter’s use. The new charter said, “If the military or military officers of recipient countries are involved in development cooperation for the purpose of [improving] the people’s livelihood and nonmilitary activities such as disaster relief, [Japan] will consider individual programs case by case, while taking into account the significance of extending such aid.” This first revision of…

Kang Lipo, 30, is an editor for a Beijingbased radio station. Each year, he returns to his hometown Jiaozuo, central China’s Henan Province, to spend the Spring Festival with his family. However, this year, things are a little bit different. During this year’s Spring Festival holiday, which ran from February 18 to 24, Kang spent a large amount of time giving and receiving electronic hongbao, red envelopes filled with money, via WeChat, China’s most widely used mobile messaging application boasting over 400 million users. The app includes a “random distribution mode” in which a set sum of money is randomly dealt out to one’s friends who have to claim it, increasing the excitement of a group of friends fighting over a hongbao. As the host of a chat room for…

Sitting in the vast west China, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region has plentiful waterways and fertile land. People here are honest and simple, and the area is blessed with a favorable climate and rich resources. On this land of 66,400 square km, 6.6 million people of Hui and Han ethnic groups live in harmony with the environment. In 2015, the 11th People’s Congress of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region approved strategic planning on Ningxia’s development featuring the region as a whole city. Today’s Ningxia is where Muslims live in happiness, while in the future it will be a “city” that is open, prosperous, harmonious and beautiful. This golden dream is coming true from a blueprint. An open region Though located inland, Ningxia has never been an isolated place. As a series of…

Settling Down China plans to abolish its controversial temporary residence permit and push forward reform of the household registration system, according to a public security reform plan released on February 15. Permanent residence permits will be adopted to replace the temporary residence permit, according to the plan approved by central authorities. Temporary residence permits have long been held by hundreds of millions of Chinese migrant workers, who have to apply for the permit before formally living and working in a new city. Observers said the permit has led to instability and unsettlement and the temporary residence registry system is no longer suitable for today’s situation. Many cities in China have already ended the temporary permit system, but Beijing continues to use it. According to the reform plan, the level of…

Chinese companies are changing their interests from oil and gas resources to tiny microchips. As the global semiconductor industry remains in the doldrums and China is issuing various favorable policies, the Chinese chip industry is bracing significant opportunities for takeoff. Trendsetters Since 2014, Chinese firms have been buying more foreign integrated circuit (IC), or chip, companies. In May 2014, STATS ChipPAC Ltd., a leading service provider of advanced semiconductor packaging design, assembly, test and distribution solutions headquartered in Singapore, disclosed that some investors were offering to buy up the company, but didn’t specify the names of the buyers. When disclosed later, the buyers turned out to be two Chinese firms, Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology Co. Ltd. and Tianshui Huatian Technology Co. In August, California-based OmniVision Technologies Inc., an image sensor…

One of every three Barbie dolls in the world can trace its origin back to Dongguan of China. Of every five people in the world, one wears a sweater made in Dongguan. Of every eight cellphones in the world, one was crafted in Dongguan... Welcome to Dongguan, a city thriving in manufacturing. Occupying less than 0.03 percent of China’s land, it produces more than 1 percent of the country’s industrial output. The output of smartphones, electronic components, garments, shoes and toys rank among the top in volume in China and even the whole world. With products sold throughout the world, Dongguan has a little-known claim to fame. Years of development have improved the quality and scale of the manufacturing industry in Dongguan, but extensive development model, weak innovation capability and…

On February 11, the management of New World Beijing Hotel paid a visit to the elderly inhabitants of the Beijing Social Welfare Institution. This special initiative brought New World Hotels and Resorts’ spirit of Modern Oriental Hospitality, along with the much needed day-to-day supplies to Beijing’s elderly citizens just in time for the Lunar New Year. Focusing special attention on those elderly inhabitants who currently have no other living family members, New World Beijing Hotel’s management team was able to bring them happiness and joy. In addition to spending time with the elderly in Beijing, New World Beijing Hotel also provided abundant gifts including quilts and blankets, hand warmers, air cleaners, scarves, neck massagers, laundry detergent and daily supplies to help them maintain optimal health and wellness all year long.…

I sat down in a small, crowded hutong restaurant and waited for the harried waitress to finally navigate through the bustle of requests and take my food order. From my obvious appearance as a foreigner, she must have guessed in advance that my spoken Chinese would be barely intelligible. As I waited, I mooted whether or not to blow my runny nose on a few sheets taken from the toilet paper roll deposited at my table, a white cluster of garlic bulbs resting against the small spool caught my attention. I surveyed my surroundings and again noticed that where each customer sat, accompanying the toilet paper that sufficed as napkins, were whole bulbs or half clusters of garlic. I watched one man quickly pry open a cluster, peel a raw…