Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 62/No.15 i Beijing Review

UKRAINE The Central Electoral Commission announces the results of the presidential election in Kiev on April 1. Actor Volodymyr Zelensky and incumbent President Petro Poroshenko will proceed to the runoff SWITZERLAND Roberto Azevedo, Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), speaks at a press conference in Geneva, on April 2. The WTO lowered its 2019 forecast for global trade growth from 3.7 percent to 2.6 percent due to economic uncertainties NEPAL Rescuers clear the debris of houses damaged by a massive storm in Purainiya Village, Bara District, on April 2. At least 25 people were killed and 400 others injured JAPAN Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga holds a framed picture of “Reiwa”, the name of Japan’s new era to start on May 1, at a press conference in Tokyo,…

Awhite paper on democratic reform and the development leap that has taken place in southwest China’s Tibet as a result was issued by China’s State Council Information Office on March 27, marking the 60th anniversary of the campaign in Tibet. Titled Democratic Reform in Tibet—Sixty Years On, the white paper lauded the drive as “the greatest and most profound social transformation in the history of Tibet.” “By abolishing serfdom, a grim and backward feudal system, Tibet was able to establish a new social system that liberated the people and made them the masters of the nation and society, thus ensuring their rights in all matters,” the document stated. Dramatic changes Tibet has changed completely, with the region becoming a beautiful home for the local people and their solidarity and enterprising…

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood next to him in the Oval Office on March 25. The Trump administration’s move reversed the position that the U.S. has held for more than 50 years after Israel seized the Golan from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Israel subsequently annexed the land in 1981, which the 15-member UN Security Council, including the U.S., declared “null and void and without international legal effect.” The U.S. move was opposed and condemned by all other 14 member countries of the Security Council at a meeting on March 27. Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Under Secretary General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, said the UN position on the territory is clear, notably…

China’s factory and service activity picked up in March, showing new evidence of stable economic fundamentals amid government measures to spur high-quality growth. The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for China’s manufacturing sector came in at 50.5 in March, up from 49.2 in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on March 31. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction. NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe attributed the monthly increase in the manufacturing PMI to accelerated production activity and improved domestic demand boosted by supporting government policies, including tax and fee cuts. The sub-index for production, a major factor used in calculating PMI, rose to a sixmonth high to 52.7 in March, up 3.2 points from February. In addition, the sub-index for new orders went up…

Green Workers Sand control workers walk toward a salix planting site in the Kubuqi Desert in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on April 1. They were part of a month-long local campaign to mitigate desertification. Narcotic Control China will add fentanyl-related substances to a supplementary list of controlled narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances with non-medical use starting May 1. The decision was announced on April 1 in a joint statement by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the National Health Commission and the National Medical Products Administration. Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, and its analogs previously included in the list of controlled narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, as well as related substances in the supplementary list, will remain controlled according to relevant regulations, the statement said. Including all fentanyl-like…

China’s Xiongan New Area, a millennium green city featuring innovative development in north China, is set to be transformed from just a blueprint to a tangible reality starting this year. On April 1, 2017, China announced plans to establish Xiongan New Area, located about 100 km southwest of Beijing in Hebei Province, in what an official statement called “a strategy that is a significant national event that will have lasting importance for the millennium to come.” Chen Gang, Vice Governor of Hebei, who also heads the management committee of Xiongan, said a large-scale building phase will start this year. In January, China’s central authorities approved the 2018-35 master plan for the area. More than 200 teams and 1,000 experts from China and abroad participated in the drafting of the plan,…

World-renowned British institution University of Cambridge admitted last month that during past years it has been considering Chinese students’ application for admission based on their scores in the college entrance examination in China, a nationwide test known locally as gaokao. A post on the university’s official Weibo account on March 25 read: “Gaokao is regarded as suitable preparation for Cambridge… Successful applicants will usually have scores in the top 0.1 percent of those taking gaokao in their province,” while also encouraging students to undertake additional studies such as relevant science Olympiads, the SAT I/II, or the Advanced Placement Tests of the United States. For years, gaokao has been censured for being too rigid and strangling students’ creativity. Usually, students have to cram more than 10 hours a day during high…

Holding a Stake China’s top securities regulator has approved J.P. Morgan and Nomura to set up securities joint ventures. Last year, the two companies applied to establish securities joint ventures, in which each will hold a 51-percent stake. The move was part of the country’s efforts to expand the opening up of its securities sector, said the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on March 29. “CSRC will actively promote the opening up of the securities market, firmly implement each opening-up policy and continue to manage the review work regarding the setting up of securities joint ventures or changing their actual controllers according to laws and regulations in an efficient way,” the commission said. J.P. Morgan said the establishment of a majority-controlled securities company in China will further strengthen its onshore…

Sonam Dorjee and his family run a furniture cooperative in Khesum Village in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. With an annual income of more than 600,000 yuan ($89,300) from the cooperative, he is now living a well-off life. But such a comfortable life would have been unheard of only 60 years ago when the village, along with all of Tibet, stood under the dark cloud of feudal serfdom. At that time, people like Sonam Dorjee, now 72, were exploited by local administrative officials, nobles and upper-ranking lamas known as the three major estate-holders. But it all changed in 1959 when the Chinese Central Government dissolved the aristocratic government of Tibet, the feudal theocracy was completely abolished and more than 1 million serfs were liberated. To mark the freeing of such…

The coastal town of Boao in Hainan Province is blessed with all the necessary elements for a popular tropical resort. Yet, with a name which means abundant fat fish, it remained an obscure fishing village until it was inaugurated as the permanent venue of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference in 2002. From March 26 to 29, it was again host to the yearly gathering, with more than 2,000 participants from home and abroad, under the theme Shared Future, Concerted Action, Common Development. “Strong support for multilateralism and globalization is the most important outcome and most encouraging message of this year’s annual meeting,” said Li Baodong, Secretary General of the BFA, at a press conference concluding the forum. “The message this conference wishes to convey is unequivocal: We…

Rick Dunham, a former correspondent for BusinessWeek, has been working as a U.S. visiting professor of journalism at Beijing-based Tsinghua University since 2012. He found a big difference between Chinese and U.S. students: Chinese students usually study with an international view, while most of their U.S. peers don’t. “Chinese students are much more focused on the entire world and have much more understanding of the world beyond China than U.S. students do beyond the United States,” Dunham told Beijing Review. Zhang Rui is one of those Chinese students. Amid tightened restrictions that made it harder for Chinese students to get U.S. visas, Zhang successfully got to study for a master’s degree in statistics at Columbia University in New York in 2017. “With such an alien cultural context, I was able…

I don’t know exactly when my love affair with qipaos, or cheongsams, started. I just know that when I saw Zhao Wei (Vicki Zhao) and her costars wearing qipaos in Romance in the Rain TV series, which is set in Shanghai in the 1930s, I was smitten. Whereas Chinese ladies like to wear qipaos for special events, e.g. red ones for weddings, I wear them more frequently, both for parties and sometimes even in the office. I have accumulated several qipaos, some of them bought at a store in one of Beijing’s historical neighborhoods. The woman who works there has also patched up my canary yellow qipao with a modern paisley design—I had burnt a hole in the buttocks area while ironing it, which would have made it unwearable if…