Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 62/No.16 i Beijing Review

Financial Court The Shanghai Financial Court has accepted nearly 2,900 cases since its establishment in August 2018, with the total amount of claims surpassing 40 billion yuan ($6 billion). Xiao Kai, the court’s vice president, revealed the figure on April 7, at a symposium on globalization, peaceful development of China and major transnational litigation in Shanghai. The court is the country’s first to specialize in handling finance-related cases. Xiao said the main types of cases accepted by the court were disputes involving securities, financial borrowing contracts, corporate bond trading, financial lease contracts and business trust. “On the one hand, the court needs to resolve a large number of cases involving financial disputes; on the other hand, it needs to truly play the role of financial judge by making ‘great judgments’…

In May 2017, China hosted the First Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF). The Second BRF, to be held in Beijing in late April under the theme Belt and Road Cooperation: Shaping a Brighter Shared Future, is expected to send a message of further strengthening international economic cooperation, promoting global growth and building an open global economy. Ahead of the event, Beijing Review presents a cover story package, including experts’ observations as well as reports from companies on the ground, to demonstrate how this initiative has gained traction over the years. The author is deputy director of the Center for the Belt and Road Initiative, China Institute of International Studies When the Belt and Road Initiative was first put forward in 2013, few might have imagined that it…

After being blacklisted by a seller on WeChat, China’s largest multi-purpose messaging and social media app, James, a businessman from Nigeria in China who declined to give his full name, was unable to contact the seller and did not receive the goods he expected. He had purchased a batch of electronic components from the seller in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province, in 2014. The goods were delivered in two separate shipments. After receiving the first batch, he found some items were substandard. He contacted the seller to ask that he replaced the bad ones and sent them together with the second batch, which would total 2,000 pieces. However, the second batch of goods he received in 2015 did not amount to that quantity. Plagued by the case for three years,…

Niyaz studied in China and now works as the assistant manager of the business planning department at CNPC International (Turkmenistan), the biggest gas company overseas of the energy giant China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), in his home country of Turkmenistan. Since he started at the company in 2008, Niyaz has grown from a layman to an expert, who has been chosen as the company’s outstanding employee nine times. “I’m proud to be a CNPC employee,” he said, noting that since natural gas cooperation between China and Turkmenistan began, his country’s capital Ashkhabad has become increasingly beautiful with new buildings, roads and parks. Lebap Region, in northeast Turkmenistan, is also benefiting greatly from the cooperation; families that were previously struggling to make ends meet can now afford to buy cars. CNPC…

Till last year, Dorjee, a shepherd living in Shuanghu County, Tibet Autonomous Region in southwest China, could see his young son only every one or two months because the boy had been sent away for his education. Their hut was halfway up a mountain and the nearest school was 22 km away. But things changed last year when the local government built 315 new houses in Shuanghu County to relocate poverty-stricken families living in the inhospitable terrain. The houses were given to the families free and the Dorjee family was one of the beneficiaries. Their new house is less than 1 km from the boy’s school and the 11-year-old can go there walking. “Seeing my son and his educational progress every day brings me the utmost happiness,” Dorjee told Beijing…

The first-ever image of a supermassive black hole at the heart of the distant galaxy Messier 87 is unveiled during a press conference held by the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory on April 10. The image, based on observations from the Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes created by international collaboration of over 200 scientists for years, was released during coordinated press conferences across the globe at 9:00 p.m., Beijing time. The landmark result offers scientists a new way to study the most distant and volatile objects in the universe and helped confirm Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.…

BELGIUM Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (center), Donald Tusk (left), President of the European Council, and Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, meet in Brussels for the 21st China-EU Summit on April 9 IRAN A boy pushes a motorcycle through flood waters in a village in Khuzestan Province on April 8. Unprecedented floods killed at least 70 people DPRK The 30th Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon is held in Pyongyang with the participation of over 1,800 people from more than 40 countries, the largest scale in its history ISRAEL Supporters of the Likud Party celebrate in Tel Aviv on April 10. Though the rival alliance was neck and neck, Likud is set to claim majority with its allies UNITED STATES David Malpass, who was appointed president of the World Bank on…

Sheng Mubao was driving his Tiggo 5, the model introduced by Chinese automaker Chery in 2013, in Moscow when he was stopped by a traffic warden at a crossing. A nervous Sheng quickly fished out his driving license, thinking he might have broken some rule. But to his amazement, the police officer’s granite face split into a grin. Instead of writing out a ticket, he asked Sheng the name of his car model, its price and finally, his phone number. Several days later, the man actually called and bought the same model. This was a shot in the arm for Sheng, who has been working for the Russian subsidiary of Chery since 2009, four years after the unit was established. Making global tracks Russia is one of the major markets…

Since it was founded in 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been seeking to build a fair and equitable international economic and political order. For that, in 1953, China proposed the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which have been acknowledged by the rest of the world as the basis for international relations. This year marks the 65th anniversary of the five principles that have withstood the Cold War and the turbulent period which followed. In the 21st century, they have become more vital to preserve the stability of the international order and promote peace and development. The genesis After the PRC was founded, other newly independent countries such as India and Myanmar, then called Burma, although following a social system different from China’s, did not want to follow…

The Ministry of Finance (MOF) has approved the sale of local government bonds directly to individuals as well as small and medium-sized institutional investors at commercial bank counters, triggering massive investor enthusiasm. Following the reform, Zhejiang Province and Ningbo City issued the bonds on March 25, followed by Sichuan, Shaanxi and Shandong provinces as well as Beijing Municipality, becoming the first places to pilot the issuance of over-the-counter local government bonds. By April 3, several banks announced the first batch of local government bonds had been snapped up entirely. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) said its quota of the bonds issued by Ningbo, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shandong and Beijing, worth 1.77 billion yuan ($263.39 million), had sold out. Indeed, its quota of the bonds issued by Ningbo,…

In a hall of the Potala Palace, a treasure trove of Tibetan history and culture in Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in southwest China, a 7-meter high book shelf is stacked with priceless ancient documents, including one written in the 17th century. Documents are part of the amazing collections in the palace and have survived hundreds of years. In recent years, they became better protected as the palace upgraded its fire-fighting facilities. However, dust, mice and natural aging still remain grave problems that need to be addressed urgently. Now there’s good news for conservationists and culture lovers. Over the next 10 years, the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage will run a project for preventive protection, repair, protection through digitalization and display of the documents. The project will also inventorize…

Home, Smart Home A visitor tests a smart home system during the Seventh China Information Technology Expo in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province, on April 9. China-Africa Ties Experts and scholars from Africa lauded the great importance Chinese President Xi Jinping attaches to China’s ties with the continent, saying a newly established institute will contribute greatly to the development of bilateral ties. At the inauguration of the China-Africa Institute on April 9, Xi reiterated in a congratulatory letter the time-honored friendship between China and Africa and the global significance of their relations. He urged the institute to draw on academic resources from both sides, enhance mutual understanding and friendship, and provide ideas and advice for China-Africa cooperation. Hoze Riruako, a political analyst and lecturer in political science at the University…

For the Istanbul-based Omer Atici, a new door of opportunities opened when he received his first order on DHgate.com, a Beijing-headquartered e-commerce platform for business-to-business (B2B) sales, shortly after he started selling electric devices there in December 2018. Atici, among the first batch of Turkish sellers to join the online wholesale marketplace, became the first overseas seller to receive an order even without an advertising campaign. “I never expected to get an order that soon or export my products so easily,” he said. “I used to focus on the offline market in Turkey, but DHgate.com has made exporting possible.” Next he plans to expand his range of products into distinctive Turkish personal care and household products. Founded in 2004, DHgate.com is the leading one-stop trade and service platform, connecting micro,…

By simply changing a water tap you can save 50 percent of water. This is a water-saving tip shared by Wei Shanzhong, Vice Minister of Water Resources, at a press conference held in Beijing to commemorate World Water Day on March 22. “The structure of the faucet is not complicated. A simple device is added to it, so water released from the faucet is filled with air, creating bubbles. When you use the water, you feel the flow as almost the same, but in fact, it is much smaller. The amount of water flowing out of the tap is less than half of the amount out of a regular tap during the same time period,” he explained. Because of the bubbles, “when you wash your hands, you won’t splash water…

Chinese entrepreneurs from all walks of life are feeling upbeat following the government’s sustained efforts to lower the corporate burden. “The implementation of larger-scale tax and fee cuts help improve enterprise profits, alleviate capital pressure, and solidify our confidence in business development,” said Dai Jishuang, Chairman of the Shenyang Blower Works Group Corp., at a symposium hosted by the State Taxation Administration in April. Following colossal tax and fee cuts of around 1.3 trillion yuan ($194 billion) in 2018, China will further reduce the tax burden and the social insurance contributions of enterprises by nearly 2 trillion yuan ($298 billion) in 2019. On April 1, the country started to reduce the value-added tax (VAT) rate of 16 percent for manufacturing and other industries to 13 percent. Starting from May 1,…

In recent years, more and more single women are buying their own apartments. China’s largest property listing website Ke.com analyzed second-hand apartment sales in 12 big cities for several years and found 47.9 percent of the recent buyers are women, the highest proportion in the past seven years. In 2014, the figure was 30 percent. Of these women, 74.2 percent said they did not receive any financial support from their partners, 45.2 percent were helped out by their parents, and only 29 percent bought their properties on their own. The rising trend of single women buying their apartments is now a much-discussed topic, especially on some online real estate platforms. Some believe it’s a sign that women are becoming more financially capable and independent, and their attitude toward marriage is…