Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 61/No. 19 i Beijing Review

SINGAPORE Leaders of the 10 ASEAN member states pose for a group photo at the opening event of the 32nd ASEAN Summit in Singapore on April 28 UNITED STATES President Donald Trump shakes hands with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, D.C. on April 27. Trump put pressure on Merkel to reduce the trade deficit with the U.S. and increase Europe’s share of spending on NATO HUNGARY Aerobatic pilot Peter Besenyei flies under the iconic Chain Bridge during an air show in downtown Budapest to celebrate International Workers’ Day on May 1 KENYA Several men attempt to push a vehicle in a deluge caused by continuous rainfall in Nairobi on April 26. Floods have hit many areas across the country, displacing…

Dawa Dorji has multiple jobs: singer, barkeeper and English tourist guide, but it is his role as the lead singer of the first folk pop band in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region that makes him most proud. In 2003, Dawa Dorji met two other big fans of Tibetan music in a musical instrument shop in the regional capital of Lhasa. The young Tibetan men became fast friends and started the Dzi Bead Band, later expanding to a total of five. A few years ago, their songs often hit number one on the local radio billboard charts and were heard in most streets and alleys in Lhasa. “The Dzi Bead Band was a household name in Lhasa,” Dawa Dorji, now 44, told Beijing Review. Each member of the band had his…

In recent years, two online service giants have emerged in China to dominate their respective industries. Meituan-Dianping has maintained a firm hold on the online food delivery sector, while Didi Chuxing retains 90 percent of the country’s ride-hailing business, having acquired Uber’s China venture back in 2016. Now, however, the two companies have each thrown down the gauntlet, challenging the other for a stake in their main business. As early as February 2017, Meituan-Dianping quietly unveiled its ride-hailing services in Nanjing. Shortly after, the online platform previously known for ordering food, buying tickets and making reservations opened a special access for this new business line on the Meituan-Dianping mobile application in targeted cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen. Meanwhile, Didi Chuxing has shown increased enthusiasm toward…

Four score and two years ago, a 31-year-old American ventured into a no-go zone in a remote part of the Loess Plateau in northwest China with many questions in mind. Who were the Chinese Communists? How did they dress, eat, play, love and work? What were the chances of the Red Army winning? What was their leader Mao Zedong like? Journalist Edgar Snow entered, stayed and reemerged from within their ranks with little doubt that the almost isolated fighting force led by the CPC would ultimately succeed. He penned a book Red Star Over China, giving a rare, detailed and at times brilliant account of the revolutionary movement the world knew so little about. The book took the West by storm and in 1938, the Chinese version hit the market.…

There are a lot of online shopping platforms across the globe, but one popular site that caught my attention after coming to China from Ghana is Taobao. China’s largest online shopping platform, Taobao is known for being very user-friendly, especially if you can read Chinese characters. I love their services as they are committed to making it a pleasurable experience for the shopper. If you cannot speak Chinese, or you have difficulties with Taobao’s English translation, ask a friend to search for your desired items, talk with the Taobao seller and provide as much detailed information as possible. As with all marketing strategies worldwide, you are enticed to buy as much as possible. One tricky thing with Taobao is that if you only want to buy based on the picture…

Affluent Colors A rural entrepreneur examines the quality of eco-friendly handbags in Nanmayi Village, Yiyuan County, east China’s Shandong Province, on April 28. Tariff-Free Drugs On May 1, import tariff exemptions went into effect on all common drugs including cancer drugs, cancer alkaloid-based drugs and imported traditional Chinese medicine. Value-added tax on the production and import of drugs will also be lowered. It is estimated that the policies will lower drug prices by at least 20 percent, said Shi Luwen, Director of the International Research Center on Medicine Management at Peking University. The measures will significantly enhance the availability of the drugs, reduce the burden on patients and their families and will help prevent poverty due to illness, he said. According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the market in…

The Yangtze, the world’s third-longest river, runs through 11 Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, covering 1.8 million square km. The Yangtze River Economic Belt, which accounts for more than 40 percent of China’s population and GDP, is a new growth engine for the country, reducing the development gap between eastern, central and western regions, while pursuing ecological sustainability at the same time.…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a vision for the future since technology has already been introduced to consumers in the form of virtual assistants in our smartphones, tablets, speakers and computers. But how does it fit into the Industry 4.0 concept? During the Hanover Fair 2018 held from April 23 to 27 in Germany, IT companies and robotic equipment producers were keen to paint a picture of future factories where AI will play a key role. Two branches of AI—machine learning and deep learning—are seen as having the capability of building on the strength of big data to optimize processes, find new solutions and gain new insights. Machine learning, in particular, enables predictions to be made based on large amounts of data. This branch of AI is built on…

Dressed in a blue Han Dynasty (202 B.C.- A.D. 263)-style uniform and black hat, 6-year-old Xu Ruibin chants ancient Chinese masterpieces with his classmates at the Jinglu Academy in Beijing, a classical training institute. In recent years, old-style private institutes have emerged in many cities across China, steadily gaining in popularity. Instead of sending children to attend after-school English or dance classes, many parents are choosing to instill the traditions of Chinese culture in their children through the study of ancient literature. Along with the youth, adults are also rekindling their awareness of classical culture, with poetry, ancient clothing, calligraphy and tai chi all back in vogue. Starting young “First, obey and care for your parents, and then practice true brotherhood. “Learn to be careful and honest, and cherish all…

Positive PMI China’s manufacturing sector expanded at a slightly slower pace in April than the previous month, but still maintained a “momentum of steady growth,” the latest data showed on April 30. The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the sector came in at 51.4 in April, down from 51.5 in March, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction. Despite the slight decline, the April figure was still higher than the average of 51 for the first three months of the year and 51.2 for April 2017. Production saw steady expansion and demand was “generally stable,” according to senior NBS statistician Zhao Qinghe, as the sub-index for production held steady at 53.1 and the new order sub-index dropped slightly…

The Yangtze River, winding through 11 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities from east to west, is China’s golden waterway. Protecting and improving the environment along the major waterway while developing the economy has been one of the top priorities of China. “The Yangtze River is China’s mother river, and we must protect it,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said during an inspection tour in Hubei and Hunan provinces in late April. Xi called for achieving high-quality economic growth through developing the Yangtze River Economic Belt, which covers nine provinces and two municipalities and boasts a population of roughly 600 million that generate 40 percent of China’s GDP. He made the remarks at a symposium on promoting the development of the economic belt in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, during…

When Indian troops trespassed into China’s Donglang area last June, it was almost impossible to imagine that several months later Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be having a one-on-one meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping while walking by a Chinese lake in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Modi was warmly welcomed to Wuhan, a city along the Yangtze River in central China’s Hubei Province, on April 27-28. Since the end of the border standoff in August 2017, the two countries have been hoping to thaw strained relations and enhance mutual trust. Unconventional visit This is Modi’s fourth visit to China since becoming prime minister in 2014. He is due to return to China in June to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit to be held in Qingdao, China’s eastern…

Phuntsok, a 70-year-old family inn owner in Nyingchi City, southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, is remarkably web savvy. On his business card, there is a QR code for tourists to scan to see the virtual reality (VR) panorama of his guesthouse in Tashi Gang Village, Lhulang Town. “Many tourists decide to stay at my inn when they see the VR presentation,” he said proudly. The veteran-turned-entrepreneur was the first Tibetan to offer accommodations to tourists in Lhulang starting in 1998. Along with VR, Phuntsok also promotes his guesthouse on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, and WeChat, China’s most popular messaging app; and through live streaming. He has more than 1,780 contacts on his WeChat account, most of whom were previous guests. Whenever a newcomer asks him about the specific…

To curb speculation in the housing market aroused by the recent decision taken by the Central Government to build Hainan Island into a free trade port, the province announced an island-wide quota policy on housing purchases on the night of April 22. According to the rules, non-Hainan residents who want to buy houses in areas now covered by the purchase restrictions have to provide the tax or social security records of at least one family member in Hainan covering a period of 24 months or longer. To buy houses in Haikou, Sanya and Qionghai, which are already subject to purchase restrictions, buyers need to provide tax or social security payment records of 60 months or longer from at least one family member. In the four central ecological areas, namely Wuzhishan,…