Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 62 / No.6-7 i Beijing Review

BRAZIL Rescuers work at the site of a collapsed dam in Brumadinho Municipality on January 25. At least 65 people were killed with many more reported missing INDIA Motorcycle riders perform stunts as they pass through Rajpath, a ceremonial boulevard, during the 70th Republic Day parade in New Delhi on January 26 SINGAPORE The Ministry of Health in Singapore, the office of Health Minister Gan Kim Yon who apologized on January 28 for a data leak which exposed details of 14,200 Singaporeans and foreigners diagnosed with HIV NEW ZEALAND Musicians perform on the stage at the Gardens Magic in Wellington on January 27. Gardens Magic hosts a free outdoor concert series to entertain local people in Summer POLAND Members of the Polish scouting organization attend commemorative events in Warsaw on…

More than 10 million railway trips take place each day in China these days, equaling the total population of Portugal. About 15,600 flights take off daily with a total of 2.25 million seats, enough to hold all the people in Rome, Italy. This phenomenon, which began on January 21, will last for 40 days until March 1. The rail and flights are just two of the slices that form part of the entire migration rush, which expects to see about 3 billion trips in total, including by road, train, plane and sea. The migration that takes place around February every year in China is called the Spring Festival travel rush, a term that was first coined in 1954, a year when the total number of trips taking place during the…

($1=6.7 yuan) 10.3% Year-on-year growth in profits of China’s major industrial firms in 2018 113 points China’s consumer trend index, a gauge of consumer confidence, in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 1 point from the previous quarter 16 bln yuan China’s outstanding loans for pro-poor tourism as of the end of 2018, up 141.6 percent from the beginning of the year 4 tln yuan Combined total assets of China Life Insurance (Group) Co., the country’s largest life insurer, at the end of 2018, soaring 10.85 percent from the beginning of the year Merger and Acquisition Market December 2018 Top Five Sectors in Merger and Acquisition Cases December 2018 Top Five Sectors in Merger and Acquisition Value December 2018 12.78 tln yuan Total value of privately offered funds in China…

For many years, people living and working in large and medium-sized cities returned to their hometowns, usually in small cities and rural areas, for family reunion during the holiday of the Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival. Normally, family visitors constitute the majority of the huge traffic flow through the Spring Festival travel rush, which is known as the largest annual human migration on earth. This picture has been changing in recent years, particularly prior to the 2019 Spring Festival, which fell on February 5. Instead of trying to grab a train or flight ticket home, a growing number of young migrants choose to spend the Spring Festival in the cities where they work and reside and have their parents visit them instead. This trend, popularly…

Playing With Ice Visitors play a game with water in Beiji Village, Mohe City of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, on January 24. With temperature approaching minus 30 degrees Celsius, visitors in Mohe experienced the phenomenon of water instantly turning into ice when exposed to the freezing temperatures. Sky Net 2019 China has launched a new campaign to capture corrupt officials who have fled abroad. The campaign, codenamed Sky Net 2019, will detain more suspects and prevent corrupt officials from fleeing, according to a meeting held on January 28 by the office in charge of pursuing fugitives and stolen assets in foreign countries, under the central anti-graft coordination group. The campaign will be executed by several organs and overseen by the National Supervisory Commission (NSC) who will be in charge of…

Dressed up with a blue floral messenger bag and a brown polka dot tie, a pair of pink toy pigs sits quietly under a verdant Christmas tree on Pamela Tobey’s table. The two stuffed pigs were nakedly placed at a stall in a commodity market before Tobey brought them home several days ahead of the Spring Festival. But they weren’t to be left out of the celebrations for long. By morning they were donned in their best outfits for the Spring Festival. This year marks the Year of the Pig. According to the Chinese zodiac, each year relates to an animal and there are 12 animals in total. Born in 1959, Tobey welcomes her birth year animal in 2019. “American people see pigs as smart and cute,” Tobey said. She…

The 2019 World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting was held in Davos, Switzerland on January 22-25, with Globalization 4.0 as its theme, as risks hang over global growth from rising nationalism, protectionism and political uncertainties emanating from some developed countries. World political and business elites concluded their brainstorming sessions on the future of a new wave of globalization. The following is an edited excerpt of a Xinhua News Agency report on the meeting: The 2019 WEF Annual Meeting wrapped up on January 25 in the snow-covered town of Davos, Switzerland after four days of packed sessions. Attended by hundreds of world leaders from all walks of life, the meeting discussed topics such as current global challenges, the future of Europe, saving the world’s oceans and setting rules for the artificial…

A parcel delivered from Wugong, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, to Beijing on December 28, 2018 became the 50 billionth parcel handled by China’s express delivery sector that year, said Feng Lihu, spokesperson of the State Post Bureau (SPB). According to SPB figures, throughout 2018, the sector handled 50.5 billion parcels, an increase of 25.8 percent. In 2019, the sector is expected to handle 60 billion parcels, an increase of 20 percent compared to 2018. Feng said China’s express delivery sector has maintained high-speed growth of 10 billion parcels a year since 2016. Seven firms have gone public, with one of them achieving annual sales revenue of over 100 billion yuan ($14.73 billion) and as many as five gaining over 50 billion yuan ($7.36 billion) annually. China’s express delivery industry has…

How did ancient emperors celebrate the Spring Festival? An ongoing exhibition at the Forbidden City may provide a clue. The Beijing landmark, which houses the Palace Museum, was the former Chinese imperial palace for the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. The exhibition, titled Celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year and Ushering in Auspiciousness, is being held from January 8 to April 7 on the second floor of the Forbidden City’s Meridian Gate (Wumen). A total of 885 artifacts are on display, the largest number of antiques showcased in one exhibition in the Palace Museum since 1993. “We want to show more antiques regarding the Spring Festival customs to audiences… We welcome them to celebrate the Lunar New Year in the Forbidden City,” Shan Jixiang, President of the Palace Museum,…

The start of the Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival, on February 5 this year, marked the world’s largest annual human migration. In Beijing, days before the actual festival, many Chinese either leave or arrive in the capital to celebrate with family. However, weeks before this year’s festival, the Chinese and I started to get into the spirit of the Year of the Pig, which is the last of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac in a 12-year cycle. Shops were selling duilian (couplets written vertically and hung down the sides of a doorway) and decorations featuring pigs. Goods with a pig motif popped up in shops, on the streets and subways, and my Chinese boyfriend was even gifted a glittery golden stuffed pig with the Chinese character…

Forestry Loans China’s rural policy bank has issued loans of 40.5 billion yuan ($6 billion) to help the country’s forestry sector. Since the start of such loan services in 2016, the Agricultural Development Bank of China (ADBC) has launched 184 loan projects to protect and develop forestry resources. In 2018, the bank lent 14.4 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) to boost forestry ecosystem development. While upgrading the term structure of loans for the sector, the ADBC has also expanded its service to 25 provincial-level regions. Moreover, the ADBC has developed a series of sustainable projects for the sector, including PPP project financing, poverty alleviation and coastal ecological management, according to the bank. Established in 1994, the ADBC raises funds through a national credit-based market to support the development of agriculture, rural…

The overture to the 2019 Chinese Lunar New Year—the Year of the Pig—flowed into Beijing weeks before the actual holiday, which falls on February 5 this year, the first day of the New Year according to the lunar calendar. Strings of red lanterns hang from the sides of light poles, brightening up the otherwise drab winter scene and igniting the holiday spirit, while shops are all festooned with elaborate holiday decorations, either for adornment or sale. On January 20, the Beijing Municipal Government kicked off colorful holiday cultural activities with a skating performance at the Summer Palace ice rink. Despite this enticement, many people residing in the capital are anxious—like migrating birds pending their annual journey—eager to rush back to their hometowns, even if it means enduring extra hassles such…

The Chinese Lunar New Year, which is also called the Spring Festival, is the most important Chinese festival and is marked by family reunions. Millions of Chinese travel home and celebrate the festival with their families. Some go to the countryside—regardless of distance—while others even travel across the world to spend festival days with their families. It’s like a combination of Christmas and New Year in the West. The Spring Festival falls on the first day of the first lunar month, thus, the date changes every year since it is based on the lunar calendar. In 2019, it fell on February 5, and Chinese people are enjoying a seven-day holiday which started on the last day of the previous year. According to legend, the origin of the Spring Festival comes…

On aerospace engineer Wen Bo’s cellphone, there are four photos of herself in the same pose and against the same backdrop, but taken at four different junctures marking milestones in her career as well as China’s lunar probe program. The first photo was taken in 2007, the year she started working at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) in Beijing upon graduating from university and also the year China launched Chang’e-1, its first lunar probe. The second, third and fourth photos were taken right after the launches of the country’s second lunar probe in 2010, the third in 2013, and the most recent one in December 2018, respectively. “More than 10 years have flown by in the blink of an eye,” she remarked while flipping through the photos taken…

China’s catering industry posted a record high 4.27 trillion yuan ($633 billion) in revenue in 2018, coupled with encouraging trends. The figure marked an increase of 9.5 percent from the previous year, accounting for 11.2 percent of the country’s total retail sales of consumer goods, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Driven by the consumption upgrade, the industry is heading into “a new era of innovation and high-quality development with supply-side reform as its mainstay,” said Han Ming, Director of the China Hospitality Association (CHA). Eco-friendly catering, or green catering, was a highlight of China’s catering industry in 2018. In June 2018, the Chinese Government issued a guideline on advancing green catering, seeking to open 5,000 green restaurants and cut kitchen waste and energy consumption per 10,000 yuan ($1,480)…