Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 61/No. 35 i Beijing Review

NORTH KOREA Members of separated families from North and South Korea reunite at a hotel on Mount Kumgang, Kangwon-do, on August 20 PAKISTAN President Mamnoon Hussain (center) swears in Imran Khan (left) as prime minister in Islamabad on August 18 ITALY Rescuers search for survivors at the Raganello Gorge in Civita on August 20. At least 10 people died during floods caused by heavy rains in the southern Italian region of Calabria GREECE People withdraw money from ATMs in Athens on August 20, the same day Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced Greece’s exit from bailout programs introduced in 2010 AFGHANISTAN Smoke rises after an attack in Kabul by a group of militants who targeted government buildings and installations on August 21 UNITED NATIONS UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres signs a…

The desert once made the life of Wang Wenbiao miserable, but now, it has made him and other locals rich. Better known in China as the “Son of the Desert,” Wang lives in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region’s Kubuqi Desert, the country’s seventh largest desert, about 800 km north of Beijing. The constant expansion of the desert has forced many people to migrate, while those who stayed faced poverty and adversity. “Sand and hunger haunted my childhood,” Wang said. “Sand was everywhere. When I ate, I tasted sand. When I went to bed, I slept on sand. When I breathed, I inhaled sand.” For a long time, his dream was to leave the desert and eat a meal without sand in it. However, for the past 30 years, as chairman of…

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), a 2,000-year-old Chinese national treasure, is experiencing a recent boom thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative. Years ago, Niu Hongwei’s TCM company in Weiyuan, a county in northwest China’s Gansu Province, used to only sell herbs to domestic pharmaceutical enterprises. Among the 23 impoverished counties in Gansu, Weiyuan is known for its medicinal products, in particular astragalus root and dangshen, or codonopsis pilosula. “Our business took off in 2013 after the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed,” recalled Niu. “Foreign entrepreneurs and officials began visiting my company to seek cooperative opportunities.” The initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, was put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 in a bid to boost connectivity and seek…

Reflection of Progress Researchers check the surface of a four-meter-aperture optical mirror developed by the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in northeast China’s Jilin Province on August 21. The optical mirror is an important tool for deep space and astronomical observation. The silicon carbide aspheric optical mirror measures 1.6 tons. The silicon carbide used in production provides more stability to the surface of the mirror, allowing for greater accuracy at 20 nanometers. Publicity Work President Xi Jinping has underscored the importance of better fulfilling the tasks of publicity and ideological work. Xi, also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while addressing a national conference on publicity…

Looking into the distance from his backyard, Gao Eryun sees a view full of vitality. Herds of goats graze on the grassland and cornstalks grow as tall as a person. But over 30 years ago, his home, Guanjing Village—located on the edge of the Kubuqi Desert in Ordos, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region—was covered with sand. The person who made the transformation possible was his father, Gao Linshu. Back in the 1980s, Guanjing was plagued by frequent sandstorms, making it almost impossible to grow crops. Most of the villagers left home to earn a living. But the year 1986 was a turning point. After obtaining the land use rights to 53 hectares of sandy land, Gao Linshu decided to plant trees. Following five years of hard work by the…

World-renowned investor Jim Rogers has said that he is not in favor of the decision of U.S. President Donald Trump to raise tariffs on Chinese goods, and has appealed to both sides to stop the trade war. The United States imposed extra tariffs on another $16 billion worth of Chinese goods from August 23. This follows the move by the Trump administration to impose additional tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese products starting on July 6. In a tit-for-tat response, China imposed tariffs on the same amount of U.S. products, taking effect at the same time as the U.S. measures. Describing how the business sector would be affected, Rogers said: “The ones subject to tariffs are already seeing price hikes and slower business; but this is just starting. Higher prices,…

The 18th Asian Games opened amid a spectacular ceremony in Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, on August 18. China sent a strong delegation of 845 athletes—including 19 Olympic champions—to the quadrennial sporting event which will run until September 2. The Jakarta Asiad will host 465 events across 40 sports, among which 330 events from 32 sports will be featured at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. The Games attract more than 10,000 athletes and will showcase climbing and skateboarding, two sports being added to the 2020 Olympics. The Indonesian martial art of pencak silat will be among 10 events making their Asian Games debut, while, e-sports has joined the competition as an exhibition match project. In a highlight of the athletes’ parade, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of…

Chinese Countermeasures China’s tariffs on $16 billion worth of U.S. goods took effect at 12:01 p.m. Beijing Time, at the same time that the United States implemented additional 25-percent tariffs on a similar amount of Chinese goods at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) on August 23, according to the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council. The U.S. tariff list includes commodities such as semiconductors, electronics, plastics, chemicals and railway equipment, while China’s tariff list covers automobiles, energy and chemical raw materials. China strongly opposes the U.S. move of imposing additional tariffs on Chinese goods and is forced to fight back, according to a statement by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) on August 23. Moreover, China will file a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the U.S. tariffs…

Mengke Dalai wanted to escape from the Kubuqi Desert where ecological degradation was making his life increasingly harsh. “The grassland became sandy as the grass disappeared. After that we struggled to continue with our way of life, even though generations of herdsmen had lived on this pasture before us,” he recalled. Finally, the ethnically Mongolian herdsman in Hanggin Banner in Ordos, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, moved to a new community for herdspeople in the banner along with his fellow villagers in 2006. The relocation was part of a grassland restoration project launched by the local government. Grazing was banned on the degraded pasture in the Kubuqi, the seventh largest desert in China, in a bid to restore the land. New green industries have also been created. “Everything has…

On August 19, the first Medical Workers’ Day was observed in China, with many patients expressing their gratitude toward medical staff across the country. “You have given hope to our family,” a man with the pseudonym Yibawu told Liu Ping and Yang Zi, doctors at Peking University Third Hospital and the reproduction medical team headed by Qiao Jie, the hospital’s president. Yibawu said that six years ago, his wife was diagnosed with a chromosome abnormality, indicating that the couple had a very slim chance of having a healthy baby. “This news almost crushed us,” he said. They sought out the hospital, known for its cutting-edge reproduction technology, where the medical team helped his wife get pregnant and give birth to two healthy boys. In November 2017, China’s State Council decided…

Strolling along lanes lined with lush vegetation, decorated sporadically with clusters of sunflowers, it is hard to imagine that the surrounding land where a new energy power base stands was once ravaged by mining, left pockmarked and barren by the long-term and high-intensive extraction of coal. Datong, a city in north China’s Shanxi Province, is regarded as the country’s coal capital and has long been a crucial source of energy. However, the exploitation of the region’s natural resources has led to a 1,687-square-km area of subsidence, or unstable ground. As a result, thousands of houses have collapsed and farmland in some areas was so damaged that residents were left with no choice but to move. “Coal-mining subsidence is present in around 12 percent of Datong’s total area,” said Ma Anquan,…

Swan Lake on Ice, a show which integrates figure skating with ballet and is produced by the Imperial Ice Stars, the world’s leading theatrical ice skating company, was staged at the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center in Beijing from August 15 to 19. The Swan Lake ballet on which the show is based premiered in Moscow in 1877 and tells of a love story between Prince Siegfried and Odette. After coming under the spell of the evil sorcerer Von Rothbart, Odette appears as a swan during the day and a beautiful princess at night, and her unlikely romance with Siegfried develops into a tale of deceit, passion and sacrifice. “Everybody knows Swan Lake through the ballet, I believe. I went to watch Marius Petipa’s version in which the black swan and…