Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 60/No. 27 i Beijing Review

THE PHILIPPINES A plume of black smoke billows from downtown Marawi City on June 27 after an air raid. The Philippine Government sticks to its policy of not negotiating with extremists overrunning Marawi UNITED STATES President Donald Trump (right) and visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, D.C. on June 26 PAKISTAN Soldiers examine the scene of an oil tanker accident in east Pakistan’s Bawahalpur on June 25. At least 140 people were killed and over 120 others injured in an oil tanker fire on that day RUSSIA A brig with red sails floats on the Neva River as fireworks explode during the Scarlet Sails festivities marking school graduations in St. Petersburg on June 24 BRAZIL President Michel Temer delivers…

If you are looking for an idyllic sanctuary to escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life, Zhaji Village in Jingxian County in Anhui Province is the right place. Tucked away in gently rolling hills, Zhaji is built along three streams gurgling through it. Strolling along river banks lined with whitewashed homes with black—tile roofs iconic to the area, one cannot help being infatuated with its simple and natural beauty. A dream land “Zhaji is a waterfront town distinct from other typical ones in southern China. It is a water town among the hills, and a hilly town by the water,” Zha Congjian, an of- ficial with Jingxian’s Culture and Tourism Committee, told Beijing Review. In his eyes, Jingxian has exactly the right blend of water and mountains. Zha…

According to figures from the Department of Foreign Investment Administration of the Ministry of Commerce, in the first five months this year, 12,519 foreign-invested enterprises were established on the Chinese mainland, up 11.9 percent over a year ago; and the paid-in capital totaled 341.08 billion yuan ($50.01 billion), a decline of 0.7 percent compared with the same period last year. These numbers indicate that foreign investment in- flows to China have remained stable. Despite this, some have accused China of imposing discriminatory treatment on foreign investors and their projects. However, this is not true, whether from the directions of related government policies or their results. Judgments on China’s investment environment must be based on real conditions. In recent years China has made great progress in reducing restrictions on market access…

Long Xiang has been in Beijing for more than 10 years. After studying at college, he found a job and stayed in the metropo- lis. Until today, however, few of his friends and colleagues know he is a member of the Mulam ethnic minority, from south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, because nobody has ever heard Long speak his mother tongue. “In fact, I can only speak a few words of the Mulam language,” 30-year-old Long said in regret. According to him, in his hometown in Luocheng Mulam Autonomous County in the northern part of Guangxi, only elderly people use the language in their daily communication. Young people have abandoned the language in favor of Mandarin. As Long recalls, in his family, only his grandparents could speak the Mulam language…

A Choice for the Future Students and parents visit an enrollment consultation fair at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, on June 26. The results of the college entrance exam have been released and high school graduates across China are now in the crucial period of deciding which college or university they will apply for. Product Quality Chinese State Councilor Guo Shengkun said on June 24 that the Central Government will better implement the Product Quality Law to improve the manufacturing sector while answering legislators’ questions at a joint inquiry meeting. The meeting, attended by top legislator Zhang Dejiang, is part of the regular bimonthly session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee. Legislators reviewed an inspection report on the enforcement of the Product…

The oldest Chinese painting on paper, entitled Five Oxen, is one of the highlights of the art collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing. Created by Han Huang, a prime min-ister during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the art piece vividly depicts five oxen from various angles. The painting, which is over 1,200 years old, endures because it was painted on Xuan paper, a high-quality paper made in Anhui Province. Many ancient calligraphy works and paintings in China would not have survived until today if not for Xuan paper. Xuan paper is mainly made from the bark of sandalwood trees and rice straw. Its age-defying and moth-resistant characteristics allow it to be durable, and its smooth surface and superb inkabsorption capacity make it perfect for capturing the soul of traditional Chinese…

The first app edition of the Xinhua Dictionary, the Chinese reference book with the largest circulation in the world, which was launched on June 11, has spurred widespread controversy for allowing users to search only two characters for free every day. Moreover, the app charges 40 yuan ($5.8), more than double the price of a hard copy sold online, if users want to continue to use the service. The dictionary, published by the Commercial Press, was the first to use pinyin, a system for transliterating Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet. Its first edition came out in 1953, and 567 million hard copies had been sold as of July 2015. Compared with the hard copy edition, the app will be updated regularly. Li Ruiying, a former anchor for China Central…

Green Among Greens An aerial view of a photovoltaic power plant in Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, on June 27. Electricity generated by the plant has been connected to the state grid for sale. Curbing Housing Bubbles The China Banking Regulatory Commission on June 23 reiterated its determination to contain property bubbles in some regions, Securities Daily reported. Guo Shuqing, Chairman of the banking regulator, urged banks to carry out differentiated mortgage loan policies to reach this goal during a visit to the headquarters of Agricultural Bank of China in Beijing. All of the 15 first-tier and second-tier cities surveyed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) saw slower year-on-year price rises in May, and nine of them also saw month-on-month price declines or flat prices. New residential house prices in…

Although the theme of the 2017 Summer Davos, or the 11th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, focused on Achieving Inclusive Growth in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it was more than a discussion on science and technology. “It’s a dialogue of human values,” said Jane Liu, President of Xiaoju Science and Technology Ltd. which owns the Chinese leading ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing. She was one of the co-chairs of the forum held on June 27-29 in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning Province. The rapid development of artificial intel-ligence (AI) has triggered numerous debates on the impact of technology on humans. At the same time, the world has also witnessed breakthroughs in the fields of advanced ro-botics, drones, virtual, augmented and mixed reality systems, as well as biotechnology, new materials and so…

The author is an op-ed contributor to Beijing Review and a researcher at the Pangoal Institution As one of the major follow-up agendas of Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump’s April meet- ing in Mar-a-Lago, the first round of China-U.S. Diplomatic and Security Dialogue was held in Washington, D.C. on June 21. Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi and Central Military Commission Joint Staff Department Chief Fang Fenghui and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis participated in the event. At the dialogue, Yang said that the suc- cessful meeting between Xi and Trump set the course for a new era of China-U.S. rela- tions, and that new and positive progress has been made in terms of bilateral ties between the two countries.…

A bullet train ready to depart from Beijing South Railway Station for Shanghai at 11:05 a.m. on June 26 was fully packed, a rare scene for a train leaving on a Monday. But many passengers chose to take the train randomly while purchasing tickets. They had no idea that they would be on the maiden trip of China’s newest bullet train before getting on-board. G123 is the number of the train, looking no different from the other high-speed trains’ numbers, which consist of the letter “G” and three or four digits. “I felt something must be special with this train as I saw many people taking pictures and videos of the train while I came to the platform,” a passenger surnamed Du told ThePaper.cn, a Shanghai-based online news platform. “I…

Lin Hong, a 30-year-old stock investor liv- ing in Beijing, was thrilled upon hearing that Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) decided to include China’s A-shares in its indexes. He expected the long-awaited move by the leading provider of global equity indexes would be a boon for his stock assets. Lin invested roughly half a million yuan (about $75,000) in the then bullish stock mar- ket in the first half of 2015. The stock market, however, plunged just months later and has been in the doldrums ever since. Despite prolonged government efforts to lift the market, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has almost halved from a peak of over 6,000 points to the current status of around 3,100 points. “Although it may have little impact in the short run, the MSCI…

As vice president of China Alliance of Radio, Film and Television, Zhang Pimin has attended many cultural events at home and abroad, but an incident at the Second BRICS Film Festival in Chengdu in southwest China’s Sichuan Province was so unique that it caught him completely off-guard. On the penultimate leg of the five-day event, when an Indian delegation of directors, producers, actors, government officials and other film personnel were interacting with the audience on the occasion of Indian Film Day, Mohan Agashe, a veteran Indian actor, activist and producer, came down from the dais in a gesture outside the official script. Agashe went straight up to where Zhang was sitting with a Chinese delegation of senior officials and draped a traditional Indian woolen shawl around his shoulders, saying it…