Innholdsfortegnelse for July 16, 2015 i Beijing Review

Aluminum Ride Visitors observe an all-aluminum car at the Aluminum China 2015 show in Shanghai on July 8. The three-day expo attracted more than 500 companies from 30 countries and regions to demonstrate aluminum-related materials, products and machinery. CPI and PPI Data Growth in China’s consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, edged up to 1.4 percent in June, slightly above market forecasts of 1.3 percent and a 1.2-percent rise in May, respectively. On a monthly basis, consumer prices in June remained unchanged, compared with a dip of 0.2 percent posted in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on July 9. NBS statistician Yu Qiumei attributed the pick-up to a lower comparative base from last June and higher prices of food, including vegetables and pork. For…

After a two-year long bidding journey, Beijing hopes to be named the host city of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games at the 128th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on July 31. Beijing formally announced its bid in November 2013 and then was selected as one of the three candidate cities by the IOC’s Executive Board in July 2014. Later that year, Oslo, Norway’s capital, withdrew its candidacy, leaving only Kazakhstan’s Almaty and Beijing in the bidding race. Beijing, along with its co-bidding city Zhangjiakou in north China’s Hebei Province, has every advantage for the bid for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, said Zhu Chengyi, former Vice Director of the Winter Sports Management Center of China’s State General Administration of Sports (SGAS). “The rapid economic…

Six years after its inception, the BRICS group of the world’s five major emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—again held its highest-level meeting in Russia, its place of birth. Ufa, capital of Russia’s inland Bashkortostan Republic, host-ed the Seventh BRICS Summit on July 8 and 9. The First BRIC Summit was held in Russia’s Yekaterinburg in 2009, which had participation of leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China. It turned an economic idea raised in 2001 by Jim O’Neill, then chief economist of investment bank Goldman Sachs, into a full-fledged organization. Due to their strong economic growth in particular, the countries became the new driving force of the world economy after the financial crisis in 2008. BRIC turned to BRICS after South Africa formally became a member in…

A new national security law was adopted in China on July 1 by the country’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC). The law earned overwhelming support from members of the NPC Standing Committee, with 154 votes for the bill, no votes against it and one member abstaining. It be-came effective on the same day. Although the new law shares a name with a previous law implemented in 1993, it departs significantly from the old one by encompassing a wide range of topics such as defense, finance, resource and energy security, grain security, ecological environment, cyberspace security, culture and religion, among others. The old national security law, which focused on sabotage and espionage activities, was replaced by the Counterespionage Law that went into force on November 1, 2014. The new…

Dear Readers, Forum is a column that provides a space for varying perspectives on contemporary Chinese society. We invite you to submit personal viewpoints on past and current topics (in either English or Chinese). yanwei@bjreview.com Please provide your name and address along with your comments Yulin, a city in southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has garnered controversy owing to its dog meat festival held annually in June, the observance of which typically triggers an avalanche of scorn. While no one knows for sure how many dogs are killed and made into a selection of dishes and delicacies during this festival, the number is rumored to be somewhere around 10,000. While local people continue to celebrate this festival, dog lovers and animal welfare campaigners have stoked opposition to it. They…

Chinese President Xi Jinping visits an exhibition commemorating the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45) in Beijing on July 7, along with other members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. “The great contributions made by the Chinese people to the World Anti-Fascist War should be remembered,” Xi said. The exhibition began on that day at a museum near southwest Beijing’s Lugou Bridge, also known as Marco Polo Bridge, where Japanese forces attacked Chinese troops stationed there and launched their full-scale invasion of China on July 7, 1937.…

CANADA Team USA defeats Japan 5-2 in the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada final and wins the soccer tournament for the first time since 1999 LATVIA Former Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis is sworn into office as the country’s president on July 8 NORTH KOREA Supreme leader Kim Jong Un (center) visits the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to mark the 21st anniversary of the death of his grandfather Kim Jong Il on July 8 AFGHANISTAN A suicide bomber attacks a convoy of NATO troops traveling through Kabul on July 7, killing one Afghan citizen and injuring 21 others GERMANY A child cools himself off in a water fountain in Berlin on July 4 during a massive heat wave, which hit Western Europe at the beginning of this summer ITALY Japanese…

The mountains near Beijing will have enough high-quality snow for the 2022 Winter Olympics, meteorological and sports experts reaffirmed one month ahead of the International Olympic Committee’s announcement of the host city for the 2022 Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on July 31. China will compete with Kazakhstan for the event. If chosen, China’s cities Beijing and Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, will host. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan offers up Almaty, a city near the country’s southeastern border, as rival. Indoor ice sports and games will be held in downtown Beijing, while snow-based events will take place in Yanqing County in suburban Beijing and Chongli County in Zhangjiakou. According to Wang Ji, Deputy Director of the Beijing Municipal Climate Center of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, low snowfall will not prevent Beijing from hosting a…

In what some deemed like an indulgent— even petulant—move, the people of Greece voted a resounding “no” to their EU creditors’ demands on austerity in the bailout referendum, but their troubles will most definitely not end there. For the civilians of Greece, whether it owes to EU austerity policies or to the current capital control measure of the Greek authorities, their lives in recent years have gotten a lot harder. The referendum has placed both Greece and European Union (EU) at an embarrassing crossroads. The future development of the Greek debt crisis concerns not only the well-being of the Greeks but also the process of EU integration and even the pockets of global investors. However, with both sides standing firm, the way out of the current crisis appears to be…

Hilton Worldwide Appoints Alan Stocker as General Manager of Waldorf Astoria Beijing Hilton Worldwide announced the appointment of Alan Stocker as general manager of Waldorf Astoria Beijing. Stocker will be responsible for the operation of the hotel. Stocker joins Waldorf Astoria Beijing from Hilton Chongqing, where he has held the position of general manager since July 2014. Stocker will be based in Beijing and begin his position on June 15. Stocker views his mission as not only to ensure Waldorf Astoria Beijing is the top luxury hotel in Beijing but also to expand the brand awareness in this competitive market. “I’m ready for the challenge to further advance Waldorf Astoria Beijing’s enviable reputation as the ultimate choice of leisure and business travelers from around the world by delivering its signature…

Ant Financial Services Group (Ant Financial), a leader in China’s Internet finance sector, announced on July 3 that it had completed its first round of fundraising; notably, however, it did not disclose the exact amount. The company, an affiliate of China’s largest e-commerce business Alibaba Group, is devoted to inclusive finance and serving small and micro enterprises. According to updated business registration data, Ant Financial introduced eight strategic investors in this funding round, including two Chinese private equity firms. The National Social Security Fund of China acquired a 5-percent stake. China Development Bank Capital Co. and four large Chinese insurance companies, namely China Life Insurance (Group) Co., People’s Insurance Co. (Group) of China, China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co. Ltd. and New China Life Insurance Co. Ltd., each bought 0.5 per-cent…

View of the Past The aerial view of Hailongtun Fortress in southwest China’s Guizhou Province. On July 4, it was inscribed in the World Heritage List together with Laosicheng in Hunan Province and Tangya in Hubei Province as Tusi sites, the remains of an ancient political system adopted by Chinese emperors to govern ethnic minority regions in south-central and southwest China. Cybersecurity Law China’s top legislature released a draft cybersecurity law and began soliciting public opinion. The National People’s Congress (NPC) said the full text has been available on its website since July 6, and the public can express their views or submit proposals until August 5. The proposed legislation will “safeguard cyberspace sovereignty and national security,” according to the draft. It was submitted to lawmakers for its first reading…

Albert Leong: Vacation Together With Tangla Albert Leong, Malaysian, joined the hotel industry in 1987 and has accumulated a wealth of experience in Malaysia, Indonesia and a number of China’s international hotels. Currently he is the General Manager at Tangla Sanya Hotel, which is the HNA Hospitality Group’s leading oriental-style hotel brand. A veteran in the hotel industry after nearly 30 years in the business, this general manager of Chinese decent has led his Sanya team for just over a year, ensuring the provision of highquality services and excellent hotel facilities. The word “Tangla” originates from an inspirational legend about the Tanggula mountains, depicting a sublime picture of man in harmony with nature. It is said to mean “welcome back” in the Kham Tibetan language and, as such, underpins the…

When China’s Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A. D. 220) opened the ancient Silk Road around 130 B.C. to facilitate trade with the West, women were one of the beneficiaries. Thousands of nameless women who ran or served at the inns along the route or sold things to passing travelers saw their small businesses grow. It also gave them a window to the vast world outside, providing glimpses into other cultures and lives. With China’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016- 20) to focus on a new Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road that will revive, extend and modernize the old land and sea routes, women entrepreneurs from South Asia are hailing the initiatives, like their predecessors, in anticipation of the benefits they will bring to them. The two strategies…

Lin Hong, a 28-year-old software engineer, is an amateur stock trader living in Beijing. The three weeks from June 15 to July 3 proved to be a nightmare for him. The market value of the stocks, worth half a million yuan ($80,530) when he bought them, evaporated by 40 percent amid a market slump. “Since the bullish market started last year, there had been several rounds of minor adjustments. Therefore, when the market first started to decline in mid-June, I thought it was nothing but a new round of minor adjustments. Later, when I realized it was more than that, the regulatory authorities had started to save the market and I pinned high hopes on their policies. Then, when those policies failed to lift the market, stock prices had already…

Sam Zhang, a 40-year-old bespectacled man with a Shandong accent, relishes a recent expansion of business territory into Central Asia by Wuzheng Group, an agricultural machinery manufacturer based in Rizhao, east China’s Shandong Province. “We have formed a special team to explore countries like Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and plan to shift some resources and attention from previously cultivated markets, such as Africa and South America to the relatively unexploited region,” Zhang told Beijing Review, confirming that they managed to blaze a path by exporting more than 100 farm machines to Uzbekistan last year. “It’s only the beginning,” Zhang added. The same is true for the Silk Road Economic Belt, which was put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Kazakhstan in September 2013. Since then, the five…

If you have seen the movie Eat, Pray, Love, you must remember Liz Gilbert, a writer and the movie’s main character who gives up almost everything and starts a totally new life in her 30s. In today’s material world, how many people would possess the courage to do this for real? Well, 51-year-old Yin Yan for one. In 2003, Yin was editor in chief of ELLE China, earning an annual salary of 1 million yuan ($161,100). Despite her success, she felt something was missing. “I just wanted to look into myself rather than continuing to move on. I owned many things that other people may have been envious of, but I was not happy at all. I said to myself, ‘I must find the reason’,” said Yin, now founder of…