Innholdsfortegnelse for May 19, 2016 i Beijing Review

CANADA Policemen gather near the site of a wildfire in the province of Alberta on May 7. The massive wildfire has spread over 2,000 square km so far and forced almost 100,000 residents to evacuate RUSSIA Soldiers participate in a Victory Day parade in Moscow on May 9 to mark the 71st anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II KENYA Local residents leave with their belongings from the site of a building collapse in Nairobi on May 6. At least 49 people were killed and many others injured or displaced as heavy rains pounded the capital UNITED KINGDOM Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (fifth left) makes a speech during a campaign launch urging voters to back continued membership of the EU AUSTRALIA Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull…

Comments to liuyunyun@bjreview.com After weeks of futile brinkmanship, the foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India met on April 26 in New Delhi on the sidelines of the Sixth Heart of Asia conference. They exchanged warm handshakes, and the usual photo-ops and wide smiles followed. However, the session ended without any agreement to revive a stalled peace process, dashing the hopes of millions in both countries who desire peaceful ties based on the simple principle of coexistence. As there was no formal joint communiqué at the end of the talks, the two sides quickly resorted to social media to offer “glimpses” of the discussion. The selective comments dished out to the media was an effort to satisfy domestic elements, which are ever hungry to feed on any hint of antagonism in…

Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture staged a series of cultural events, including exhibitions of Tibetan Buddhist artifacts, Tibetan calligraphy and scenic photos, from May 6-12 in Shanghai. The events, held as part of a program entitled “Holy Garze Into Shanghai,” aimed to attract tourists and investors to Garze, a prefecture in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. Xiao Feng, head of the Garze Tourism Development Commission, said at a press conference that “Holy Garze Into Shanghai” served as a window to Garze for people in the global commercial hub of Shanghai. Garze, the largest and most sparsely populated region in Sichuan, covers some 153,000 square km. Its 1.14 million inhabitants belong to 25 ethnic groups, with Tibetans accounting for 81.5 percent of the population. Courtesy of its pristine environment and splendid traditional culture,…

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 Recently, the Nanjing Museum in Jiangsu Province made headlines for hosting a real estate developers’ promotional activity. On April 26, the museum’s curator was suspended for an alleged misuse of power. According to China’s regulations on the protection of cultural relics, heads of museums do not have the authority to give the green light to commercial promotions at their institutions and should instead apply for approval for such events from higher-level authorities. The Nanjing Museum’s curator failed to follow this requirement. The case has again…

Art Forum Honored guests pose for a group photo before the opening ceremony of the China-CEEC Arts Cooperation Forum in Beijing on May 9. Nearly 300 artists and participants from Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) attended the five-day event. College Enrollment Chinese universities will enroll about 60,000 candidates from poverty-stricken areas this year, according to a circular on May 5. Issued by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), it says that the arrangement is designed to promote equal access to higher education in both urban and rural areas. The circular does not specify how the 60,000 candidates would be selected. Chinese students access college through a highly competitive entrance exam, the gaokao , and students from better-resourced families usually do better in…

Comments to zanjifang@bjreview.com At the Eighth Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) held in Beijing from April 28 to May 2, famous Chinese pop rocker and songwriter Wang Feng displayed the headphones made by Fiil, his new audio equipment startup that is his latest industry crossover attempt. It isn’t his first switch. He learned to play the violin from the age of 5, attending the Central Conservatory of Music. However he swapped the instrument for rock n’ roll when he reached 22, becoming both a composer and singer. In 2013 and by the age of 42, Wang changed again, deciding to produce headphones in a display of his affection for music. He was encouraged by friends in the Internet industry. According to a report published by the China Internet Network Information…

Editor’s Note: China has entered the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), which is pivotal for building a moderately prosperous society, and this year it’s also confronting the arduous task of carrying out supply-side structural reform. In the first quarter, China managed sound economic growth, structural upgrading and the improvement of people’s livelihoods despite numerous complex domestic and overseas factors. At the same time, it still faces a series of deep-seated contradictions and problems. How can the Chinese economic restructuring be assessed and how will the reforms be carried out? In a recent interview with the People’s Daily, a top government source shared views on these issues. This is an edited excerpt from the interview: Overall economic situation Q: In the first quarter, China’s GDP grew 6.7 percent year on year,…

Comments to yuanyuan@bjreview.com This month, Xu Xiaohui got her 10-year, multiple-entry visa to the United States and is now planning to make her first trip there in October. “It is a surprise,” the 30-year-old told Beijing Review as she stood at the gates of the United States Embassy in Beijing. “I was told it’s not easy for a single woman of my age to get an American visa. I didn’t expect to get it so smoothly.” Xu works in Beijing as an interior designer. The United States had not been on her travel list until November 2014, when it started to offer 10-year travel and business visas to Chinese citizens. “Before that, I didn’t even try to get a visa from there as visa agents and many of my friends…

Comments to yanwei@bjreview.com The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines transition as “the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.” These transitions should be given special attention. Generally speaking, most people stress and worry when they graduate from high school or university and make the transition to the next important stage in life. Going to a job interview, moving to another city and even starting a family are usually life-changing transitional periods. And when traveling from one culture and moving to a foreign country, a person traditionally goes through a topsy-turvy phase of adjustment called culture shock. China will continue to change at a sprint while it further develops every sector and industry, and this change often makes the transition to life in China a…

Resource Tax Reform Starting on July 1, China will expand the reform of resource taxes across the board, authorities announced on May 10. A resource tax will be levied on most mineral products based on price rather than quantity, according to a statement jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation. China introduced resource taxes in 1984, mainly targeting businesses in oil, natural gas and coal. Since 2010, it has experimented with taxes based on price instead of quantity for six mineral products—coal, gas, molybdenum, oil, rare earth and tungsten. A pilot on water resource taxation in north China’s Hebei Province is expected to expand to wood, pasture and tidal flat. Authorities will cut certain fees on minerals to reduce tax burdens, the statement said.…

Comments to jiing@bjreview.com ‘Why did I quit a leisurely job deemed as an ‘iron rice bowl’ by many?” wrote a former employee of the Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corp. (WISCO), one of the country’s largest steelmakers, on his microblog on May 2. Using the nickname Duomaguo to pen his post, he explained why he chose to quit his job at WISCO several months ago, despite having had an “iron rice bowl”—a secure job at an administrative post in a state-owned company—for over two years. “Because it’s not an ‘iron rice bowl’ any more. The steel industry is undergoing drastic changes and WISCO is no exception. Also I cannot accept living the same way all my life,” he wrote. “The experiences I had at WISCO are unforgettable. However, it’s time…

Comments to yulintao@bjreview.com Despite Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hailing a potential breakthrough in a decades-long territorial dispute with Russia after talks with President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on May 6, work remains to be done before both sides can reach a detente. A prevailing view among some observers is that Japan’s prime minister has misjudged both the extent of Japan’s economic leverage and Moscow’s firm stance on territorial issues and that the territorial dispute between the two sides will undoubtedly continue to cast a shadow over their rapprochement. Japan and Russia’s joint claim to four Pacific islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia, has long prevented the two sides from inking a peace treaty after World War II. Under the 1945 Yalta…

Some have expressed concern that the domestic debt level may rise as a consequence of policies aimed at stabilizing economic growth. Such concern seems reasonable given that China relies primarily on investment, which is supported by debt financing, to shore up growth. According to an estimation by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the combined debt of households, enterprises and the government stood at 236 percent of China’s GDP in 2014, more than 60 percentage points higher than in 2007. As economic growth slows and the return ratios of investment decline, rising debt levels seem to pose great risks. Nevertheless, there is no direct correlation between high debt levels and a debt crisis. Spain’s debt-to-GDP ratio was only 70 percent in 2011, even lower than Germany’s at the time,…