Innholdsfortegnelse for June 16, 2016 i Beijing Review

CUBA Presidents and heads of state of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) pose for group photos during the opening ceremony of an ACS summit in Havana on June 4 THE NETHERLANDS Visitors take pictures with several performers who cosplay as stormtroopers from the movie Star Wars during an animation festival event held in Haarlem on June 4 ROMANIA Gabriela Firea, a member of the left-wing Social Democrat Party, becomes the first female mayor of Bucharest in local elections on June 5 THAILAND The last batch of a total of 137 tigers, rescued by police in a raid against the illegal wildlife trade, are put in cages before relocation from the “Tiger Temple” in Kanchanaburi Province on June 3 FRANCE Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic poses for photos with the…

Editor’s Note: The eighth round of the China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) and the seventh round of the China-U.S. High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchanges took place in Beijing on June 6-7. Prior to the most intensive annual dialogues between the two nations, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs convened the 16th Lanting Forum in Beijing on June 2, during which distinguished scholars and senior Chinese officials in diplomacy, economy and education gave opinions on the development of, and questions surrounding, China-U.S. relations. Edited excerpts of the forum follow: More dialogues Zheng Zeguang, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs: The S&ED and the High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchanges are the most important talks between the two states. They have a broad agenda and involve a large number of high-ranking officials from most…

Artillery shells showered on their targets, exploding in a glaring blaze and with a deafening roar as bullets whistled past. Fortunately, this was not a real battle zone, but scenes experienced by visitors to the pavilion of the Vistandard Digital Technology Co. Ltd., a Shenzhen-based company spe-cializing in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and other related software and hardware development. People queued up to try out the company’s VR equipment at the China International Defence Electronics Exhibition (CIDEX), which was held in the China International Exhibition Center from May 11 to 13. This year’s exhibition was centered on military and civilian technological integration. The event yielded civilians a rare glimpse into military electronics and offered opportunities to those seeking to transfer technology between military and civilian sectors. A large…

This is the season of brisk sales for vendors selling watermelons from the back of small vans at road intersections or pavements. Of late, another way of reaching buyers is catching on—through online sales. In Beijing’s Daxing District, technology is empowering farmers to sell their products online, a method that is more convenient, faster, and with better outreach. According to some farmers, thanks to the Internet, all the watermelons they grew this summer have been booked by buyers even before the fruits have ripened. “Previously, we would have to wait for the ripening and then for buyers to come and take their pick. But selling watermelons through the Internet is much more conve-nient,” Wang Zhili, a 50-year-old farmer who began to sell fruits online since last year, told Beijing Review.…

Tackling Climate Change Zhang Yong, Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, speaks at the opening ceremony of the Second China-U.S. Climate-Smart/Low-Carbon Cities Summit in Beijing on June 7. State Councilor Yang Jiechi and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry both made speeches during the summit, calling for more cooperation on low-carbon development. Senior representatives from over 50 Chinese and U.S. cities attended the event. Family Doctors China is planning to extend family doctor services to the entire population by 2020 and ensure more convenient health services for residents who have signed contracts with such doctors. In 2016, 200 Chinese cities that are piloting public hospital reforms will introduce family doctor service contracts, according to a set of guidelines issued on June 6, which also encourage other regions…

On June 23 the United Kingdom (UK) will hold a referendum on whether to con-tinue its membership of the European Union (EU). A referendum is a question put to a country’s citizens in which a “Yes” or “No” answer can be given. Thus, the British public has the opportunity to sever ties with the suprana-tional body and take the unprecedented step of leaving the union. The vote appears to hang on a knifeedge, with a YouGov poll conducted on May 31 putting both those who intended to vote to remain and leave in a dead heat on 41 percent apiece. Meanwhile, an Observer/ Opinium poll on June 4 put leave on 43 percent, compared to remain on 40. So what are the key factors that could sway voters in the…

A 12-year-old boy who had disappeared for several hours was found by Tianjin police, thanks to a new online platform. The boy, named Jiang Yuzhe, went missing around 9 p.m. on May 23 from Tianjin’s Hexi District. The next day, his information that included a photo and other descriptions were put on an emergency response system, which alerted local mobile phone users. Police subsequently found the boy in a library in Tianjin at 3:30 p.m. on May 25. The new system was launched on May 11 by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). The platform is similar to the United States’ Amber Alert for emergency information broadcasts on missing children. It is based on Alibaba’s mobile app, DingDing. According to the MPS’ Criminal Investigation Bureau, more than 5,000 police officers…

The United States refused the reappoint-ment of Seung Wha Chang, a South Korean judge, for his second four-year- term at the World Trade Organization (WTO) appellate body last month. (Note: The WTO appellate body is a standing body of seven per-sons that hears appeals from reports issued by panels in disputes brought by WTO members.) The United States said it was troubled by four recent panel decisions that Chang was involved in because they “raised systemic concerns about the disregard for the proper role of the appellate body and the WTO dispute settlement system,” according to Bloomberg BNA. The European Union (EU) and some legal experts said the U.S. decision posed a serious threat to the independence and impartiality of the appellate body. Statistics show that India launched the largest…

Huangshan, a city in east China’s Anhui Province, was named after the world-fa-mous scenic spot Huangshan Mountain, which is known for its beautiful natural land-scape of uniquely-shaped rocks, pine trees, cloud scenery as well as the many local water-falls and hot springs. The city name Huangshan, though, was not adopted until the late 1980s. Beforehand, the local region had been known as Huizhou, a name that dated back more than 1,000 years. In 1987, the State Council, China’s cabinet, approved the local authorities’ request to replace the name of Huizhou with that of Huangshan in a bid to increase visitor numbers to the area by taking advantage of Huangshan Mountain’s fame. But, besides being a geographical name, the word Huizhou also carries a cultural legacy that encompasses diverse aspects—from philosophy,…

China’s PMI The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector came in at 50.1 in May, the same as in April, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing on June 1. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below 50 reflects contraction. NBS statistician Zhao Qinghe said that the country’s manufactur-ing activity maintained steady growth in May, partly due to the expansion of hi-tech and consumer goods manufacturing. Hi-tech manufacturing PMI hit 50.8 and consumer goods manufacturing PMI stood at 51.5. Meanwhile, business activity in China’s non-manufacturing sector expanded at a slower pace in May. The PMI for the non-manufacturing sector came in at 53.1 in May, down from 53.5 in April and 53.8 in…

‘In all, there are 24,800 venues for religious activities in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, about 24,400 of which are Muslim mosques. Almost every village in Xinjiang has a mosque,” said Muhtar Eshan, Deputy Director of Xinjiang’s Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs, when meeting a group of journalists, ei-ther domestic or foreign, at the Xinjiang Islamic Institute in Urumqi, capital city of the autono-mous region in northwest China, on May 24. “This is different from what I had learned before,” said Thean Lee Cheng from The Star, Malaysia’s largest paid-for English-language newspaper by circulation. She said that most of what she had learned about Xinjiang talked about how the government bans religious activities. Of course, she add-ed, that information had come mostly from Western media. This was Thean’s first opportunity…

It has been two years since Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister of India and subsequently formed a government of a strength rarely seen in India over the past several decades. Great expectations set-tled on this new administration, and people around the world wondered which direction the populous, emerging nation would take under Modi’s leadership. Modi has been busily engaged in diplomatic efforts, the frequency of which peaked in 2015. Last year, he visited 28 countries and welcomed state leaders from 12 countries, including the United States, Germany, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bhutan. Overall, Modi’s foreign policy can be seen as concurrently acting east and linking west, attaching equal importance to both major powers and neighboring states. A new strategy To shape ties with the Asia-Pacific region, the…

Unmanned cars automatically avoid traffic jams, air temperatures and pollution par-ticles at construction sites are monitored in real-time, and firefighters can see video foot-age of fires from the scene, before setting out to tackle the flames. That’s not a dream world, but a real prospect for smart cities, which became a hot topic and one of the proposals put forward at a recent APEC forum on urbanization. Themed on urbanization and inclusive growth, the First APEC High-level Urbanization Forum was convened in Ningbo, a coastal city in east China’s Zhejiang Province, from June 2 to 3, attracting more than 200 government officials, scholars and enterprises from 21 countries and regions. Currently, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial reform is gaining momentum, and urbaniza-tion is accelerating throughout…

If Wang Yuanlu, a 20th-century Taoist monk and self-styled caretaker of a cluster of caves in Gansu Province in northwest China, had not sent an assistant to clear the sand pile that had accumulated in the grottoes, the world would have been poorer without the discov-ery of a wondrous cache of cultural relics. But thanks to the monk’s effort, the cleaning-up revealed tens of thousands of Buddhist manu-scripts and artworks in a blocked cave and the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang became celebrated as a world cultural heritage site. Unfortunately, after the relics were found, the caves attracted a number of foreign visitors with an eye to acquiring the trove. With cultural relic preservation laws being nonexistent in those days, many of the manuscripts, murals and statues were shipped overseas and…