Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 60/No. 15 i Beijing Review

PMI Data China’s manufacturing sector in March stayed above the boombust line for the eighth month in a row, providing fresh evidence of a stabilizing economy, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) came in at 51.8 in March, higher than 51.6 recorded in February, according to NBS data released on March 31. The reading beat market expectations and was the highest in nearly five years. In April 2012, it had reached 53.3. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while below 50 reflects contraction. This also marked the second consecutive month that the expansion rate of the index has accelerated. Major sub-indexes posted upticks, pointing to strengthened momentum of the manufacturing sector, said NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe. “Hi-tech manufacturing continued its rapid expansion,…

Comments to yuanyuan@bjreview.com Three small counties resting in the middle of north China’s Hebei Province had stayed silent for years until breaking news brought them all the way to the front stage to sparkle in the spotlight. The news, released on April 1 by News Broadcast, the most important daily news program on China Central Television, is not an April Fools’ joke. The three places, Xiongxian, Anxin and Rongcheng, under the jurisdiction of Baoding, Hebei Province, will form a new devel-opment zone, the Xiongan New Area, to parallel the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and the Shanghai Pudong New Area, China’s successful test beds for reform and opening up. Compared with the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which covers 1,991 square km, and the Shanghai Pudong New Area, which covers 1,210 square…

Xiao Jin is a magician. He can turn ordinary men into bloody corpses, zombies and even aliens. The more prosaic would call him a special effects makeup artist who has a studio near Beijing’s 798 Art District. While studying stage art in college, Xiao was amazed at the artistic level of American movies, especially the special effects. After he started working, he got to know that these effects can be created by art. At that time, China’s domestic TV soaps were using special effects, but the techniques were far from mature. So he went to the United States to study special effects makeup in 2008. Today, his studio has become a company with around 40 people and he has changed from being a technician to a manager. During busy seasons,…

Comments to zhouxiaoyan@bjreview.com The fact that an Israeli wine master class was held in China for the first time is testament to the Chinese market’s formidable power of attraction. Chinese wine distributors, sommeliers, importers and experts were invited to taste some of Israel’s best vintages at the Israeli Embassy in Beijing on March 28. The class was hosted by Tal Gal-Cohen, an international wine expert appointed by Israel’s Foreign Ministry as a wine ambassador, and Ma Huiqin, professor at the China Agricultural University and a renowned consultant on wine projects in China. An uphill battle Israel might not be what springs to mind on a wine map traditionally dominated by Europe and more recently by new jug- gernauts such as California, Australia, New Zealand and Chile. Gal-Cohen faces an uphill…

A freight train carrying small commodities departs from Xi’an, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, to head to Budapest, Hungary, on April 1. It’s the fourth China-Europe freight rail route, following the launch of those connecting Xi’an with Warsaw, Hamburg and Moscow. The rail links are part of the China-proposed Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative aimed at boosting cooperation along the ancient trade routes. China will host the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on May 14-15.…

RUSSIA Citizens mourn the victims of a bomb attack at a metro station in St. Petersburg on April 3 which killed at least 14 people and injured around 50 TURKEY A rally in Ankara on April 2 to support an upcoming referendum to replace the parliamentary system with a presidential one COLOMBIA The photograph taken on April 1 shows a part of Mocoa City in Putumayo which suffered a massive landslide, causing at least 207 deaths UNITED STATES Hundreds of people participate in New York City’s annual pillow fight on April 1 SOUTH AFRICA A model presents a Chinesestyle creation during South African Fashion Week 2017 at Hyde Park Corner in Johannesburg on March 30 SERBIA A woman casts her ballot in the general election at a polling station in…

Comments to wanghairong@bjreview.com A hairy monkey stands on display in Zhou Yongning and Li Wen’s room. It’s not really a monkey but a tiny hu-manoid figure with its limbs fashioned from sloughed-off cicada shells while its torso is a dried magnolia bud. Both Zhou, 80, and Li, his 78-year-old wife, are proud of this piece of traditional Beijing handicraft that Zhou has made. “Although it is tiny, it took a long time to make,” the octogenarian told Beijing Review. The senior couple now resides in China Everbright Huichen Seniors’ Apartment, a housing service for the elderly in Beijing’s Changping District, where they have learned to make such artifacts. Both of them worked in a factory mak- ing radio parts before retirement. Zhou, tall, strong and dexterous, was honored as a…

Comments to zhouxiaoyan@bjreview.com Both cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region and the global economic and trade landscape are undergoing a process of restructuring. U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw his country from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) almost as soon as he took office, endangering the deal as a whole and shaking global markets. It is still too early to determine whether the U.S. Congress will endorse the with drawal from the TPP. It’s likely that two regional trade agreements, the TPP and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), will both be imple- mented in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, the wave of adjustment to international trade and investment rules, stirred up by the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade in Services Agreement…

OPINION A recent front-page article in People’s Daily referred to a new concept while reporting significant changes in the real economy of Zhejiang Province—the new real economy. The report said Zhejiang is doing its utmost to support the new real economy. With the Zhejiang-based e-commerce giant Alibaba Group as a representative, the new real economy is rising rapidly. In 2016, Alibaba Group and its financial branch paid 23.8 billion yuan ($3.45 billion) in taxes. Moreover, the merchants operating on its platforms, upstream manufacturers and logistics companies paid at least 200 billion yuan ($29.03 billion) in taxes, which was equivalent to the tax paid on the total sales of 4,000 large department stores, and created more than 30 million job opportunities. This might mark an end to the prolonged debate over…

Comments to yanwei@bjreview.com I was talking to one of my friends recently about a stunning piece of artwork to be found on the Beijing subway. “Oh, you mean there is art there?” she asked incredulous-ly. She said she had never noticed and I have to admit that when you see thousands of people rushing daily past these murals, sculptures, calligraphy, painted columns, or special lighting displays—many of them with their noses stuck in their mobile phones—it makes you won-der why anyone actually bothered to put anything up in the first place. The idea of a subway was first discussed for Beijing in the 1950s. Although the primary aim was to expand the city’s transport system, the metro was also seen as some- thing that could be used for civil defense.…

Race on Water Boats gather for a competition, a national intangible cultural heritage event, in Xinghua, east China’s Jiangsu Province, on April 4. Smog Inspection The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) has sent inspection teams to seven cities in the north as China copes with a new round of severe smog. The cities are Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Baoding, Xingtai and Anyang. The inspectors discovered factories fabricating pollutant data in Anyang and Xingtai. A steel mill in Tangshan was found to have shut down a pollutant detector. Those responsible have been detained by local police, MEP said in a statement on April 4. In Tianjin, smog emergency plans have been poorly implemented. Several cement producers in Tangshan were found to have continued operations when they should have been suspended. In…

Comments to baishi@bjreview.com Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, the newly crowned pairs skating champions in Helsinki, had the opportunity to meet visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinistö on April 5, three days after the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships ended. Xi said that sports exchange is an important bridge in promoting China-Finland friendship and that China has a lot to learn from Finland as the Nordic country excels in winter sports. In response, Niinisto said that Finland is willing to share experiences and deepen cooperation with China in winter sports and games preparations. Xi paid his first state visit as Chinese president to Finland from April 4 to 6. During his stay in Helsinki, China and Finland confirmed the establishment of a future-oriented new-type cooperative…

Comments to zanjifang@bjreview.com Guo Fengqin says her life changed three years ago when she suffered a brain hemorrhage. Though she pulled through after intensive treatment in hospital, Guo, in her 60s, could not manage to walk on her own. So every time she had to go back to hospital for follow-up treatment, she needed her husband or son to accompany her. “My husband was not keeping well and my son was busy with his work. I felt like a burden on my family,” Guo said. Last year, however, she found a way out. She came to know about Yihu365.com, the first mobile app in China to provide nurse services at home. She contacted the agency and was assigned Yang Hui, a nurse regis tered with them. Today, Guo says her…

Comments to jijing@bjreview.com The British Museum’s acclaimed exhibition, A History of the World in 100 Objects, opened in Beijing in March after a tour of cities such as Abu Dhabi, Tokyo and Canberra. The audience turnout was larger than expected, with an average of 2,000 to 3,000 visitors per day during weekdays and nearly 6,000 on the weekends. Audience numbers are expected to grow until the exhibition ends on May 31. The exposition was inspired by a radio series jointly produced by the BBC and the British Museum in 2010. An eponymous book penned by Neil MacGregor, former Director of the British Museum, was first published by Allen Lane in 2010. “The series demonstrated the unique power of objects to tell diverse stories and forge global connections,” said Hartwig Fischer,…