Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 60/No. 2 i Beijing Review

TURKEY An injured woman is carried to an ambulance from the Reina nightclub in Istanbul where a gun attack killed at least 39 people during a New Year party on January 1, 2017 IRAQ Members of the Hashid Shaabi militia fire toward positions of the Islamic State extremist group in Mosul on December 28, 2016 UNITED KINGDOM Fireworks light up the skyline and Big Ben just after midnight in London on January 1, 2017, where thousands of people lined the banks of the Thames to see the spectacular display UNITED STATES President Barack Obama is awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter during the Armed Forces Full Honor Review Farewell Ceremony for Obama in Arlington, Virginia, on January 4, 2017 SOUTH KOREA…

The relationship between China and Switzerland is coming under the spotlight ahead of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, scheduled to take place on January 17-20 in Davos. These photos capture some of the memorable moments in the bilateral ties in recent years.…

The Central Economic Work Conference which took place in December 2016 pledged to curb real estate bubbles. “Houses are built to be inhabited, not for specu-lation,” said a statement issued after the state- level policymaking meeting. Moreover, the government plans to use a variety of methods to establish market-oriented and long-term mechanisms which suit conditions in China in order to prevent erratic market fluctuations. Stability is key to establishing these mechanisms as soon as possible, and to keep them running in the long term. Related policies must be stable, continuous and consistent. Real estate used to be a pillar industry in many regions because of its high investment returns and fast capital turnover rate. But the industry has also faced many problems. For instance, some local governments are highly dependent…

Bridge in the Clouds The Beipanjiang Bridge, which took three years to build, opens to traffic on December 29, 2016, connecting southwest China’s Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. It stretches for 1,341 meters over and hangs 565 meters above the Nizhu River Gorge, equivalent to the height of 200 floors, and is the world’ shighest bridge. The bridge helps save motorists more than four hours in journey time. Sansha Rescue Center The search and rescue center in China’s southernmost island city, Sansha, rescued 113 people in 2016, helping save both lives and assets. It mobilized 13 vessel and six aircraft trips in 21 emergencies, with a 99.1 percent success rate. Over the past year, the center helped resist four tropical storms, or typhoons, that swept across the city, it said in…

Ye Zi, a journalist in Beijing, traveled to Switzerland in 2012. She chose the country because she can speak German and also because of its idiosyncratic scenery, featuring high mountains and lakes. Located in Central-West Europe, Switzerland borders France, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Italy. The country contains about 20 percent of the Alps mountain range. Approximately 100 Swiss peaks are close to or higher than 4,000 meters above sea level. Swiss mountains are famous for climbing, skiing, snowboarding, biking, hiking and other recreational activities. Ye visited Jungfrau—one of the main sum-mits of the Alps in west Switzerland—and the cities of Geneva and Zurich during her stay. She said she was most impressed with Jungfrau, because it satisfied her desire to experience the Alps. A booming market In recent years, as…

There was a time when Gao Mengwen felt her life was a cruel twist of fate. The 26-year-old native of Hangzhou, in east China’s Zhejiang Province, has had cerebral palsy since birth and can move around only in a wheelchair. One of her biggest fears for several years was how she could earn a living and not be a financial burden on others. It was technol-ogy that threw Gao a lifeline, and today, the newly motivated young woman, armed with a laptop and WiFi, has taken advantage of the gi-ant e-commerce platform Taobao.com to carve out a thriving business for herself. E-commerce is creating more job opportunities for people with disabilities in China like Gao. Dream to reality Though Gao always knew she was different growing up, she never lost…

Full Charge for Cars A driver charges his electric car at a charging station in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, on December 29, 2016. The city has established an electric vehicle power station network comprising 2,563 charging poles and 28 charging stations. Manufacturing Activity The manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) came in at 51.4 in the last month of 2016, lower than the 51.7 recorded in November but staying above the 50-point boom-bust line for the fifth straight month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement. This is the second highest monthly reading in 2016. Despite the slight decline in December, the latest data reaffirmed the idea that the Chinese economy is stabilizing, said Zhang Liqun, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council. The sub-index…

Sino-Swiss relations have created many “firsts” since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949. Switzerland was one of the first European countries to establish official relations with the PRC. It recog-nized the PRC on January 17, 1950. And on September 14 that year, the two countries established a diplomatic relationship. It should be noted that Switzerland’s diplomatic move was very courageous at the time. Before taking the decision, the United States put significant pressure on Switzerland not to recognize a communist state in Asia that was still in its infancy. However, Bern believed it would be better to recognize the PRC earlier rather than later; thus it defied Washington’s call. Growing links In the past over six decades, Sino-Swiss relations have developed smoothly. In…

Gao Fei, a Chinese engineer with a 3-year-old daughter, had been working for the Malaysia-based subsidiary of the Metallurgical Corp. of China (MCC), a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), for nearly three years. “When I left China to work in Kuala Lumpur, my daughter was just 2 months old. Now that I am back, I am like a stranger to her because I have missed many important stages in her growing up process,” Gao said. Gao often regrets his failure to be with his family in China because of his work. Like him, there are millions of Chinese professionals who have given up their traditional domestic lives to serve SOEs’ overseas projects. Expanding overseas markets Since President Xi Jinping put forward the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk…

At a recent forum in Beijing, Zhan Qimin, President of the Peking University Health Science Center, proposed that the na-tion’s public health insurance programs should cover the costs of general health checkups. This proposal has sparked a heated debate. Currently, China’s public health insurance system, which consists of the urban medical insurance and the new rural cooperative medical scheme, covers both outpatient and inpatient treatments. Under these programs, a proportion of the associated medical expenses can be reimbursed. However, general health checkups are excluded from the schemes. As the combined cost of checkups for an extended family can add up to a large sum, many choose not to undergo such examinations. Against this backdrop, a large number of people have welcomed Zhan’s proposal. They argue that many malignant diseases are…