Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 62/No.19 i Beijing Review

Rocket Contracts Chinese private rocket company Land Space Technology has signed contracts with the UK’s Open Cosmos and Italy’s D-Orbit, totaling over 100 million yuan ($14.8 million). The Hangzhou-based company will seek cooperation with the two overseas launch service and mission management providers in the launch of CubSat, a miniaturized satellite for space research and in-orbit delivery, according to Land Space. Land Space’s strength in technology and its strong team give Open Cosmos confidence in cooperation, said Tristan Laurent, Vice President of Open Cosmos. Land Space manufactures liquid-fuel rocket engines and low-cost commercial launch vehicles. It is also seeking business partners in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. In 2020, Land Space plans to launch the Zhuque-2, a liquid-fueled medium-lift carrier rocket. With the Chinese Government encouraging the participation…

Despite some governments and people in the West conjuring up arguments of “neocolonialism” or a “debt trap” to smear the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-proposed blueprint for common development of the world is becoming increasingly welcome. The success of the second gathering of world leaders to discuss the development of the initiative in Beijing showed that. The Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) held on April 25-27 gathered some 5,000 participants from more than 150 countries and 90 international organizations, including heads of state and government and leaders from the UN and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The number was much more than the participation in the First BRF two years ago. Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the…

When she was in university, one of the research subjects of Gulnar Shaimergenova, Director of the China Studies Center (CSC) in Kazakhstan, was how to export wheat to Southeast Asia. Kazakhstan is known for its high-quality wheat, with an annual production of 20 million tons, of which two thirds is exported. However, the landlocked country struggled to find an export route to Southeast Asia. Countries such as Viet Nam, which could be export destinations, are far away, so there were no trade ties with them. The absence of sea ports also seriously impeded the development of Kazakhstan. “I was working at Nazarbayev University in 2013, so I had the privilege of witnessing Chinese President Xi Jinping propose to jointly build an economic belt along the Silk Road,” Shaimergenova said in…

In 2008, Liu Jian, Vice Dean at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, led her students on a field research trip on urban planning to Liujiadian, a town in Pinggu District in northeast Beijing. The group also visited a river flowing through the area, the Ruhe River. They were told by a local that it had water only in the rainy season. “Last year, I visited there again and found that the river had dried up all year round,” Liu said. Water shortage “Many cities developed around rivers. For Beijing, the Yongding River, the largest river in the municipality, is regarded as the mother river of the city,” Liu Jian told Beijing Review. Historically, Beijing was a city with abundant water, with five major water bodies flowing through it—the Chaobai,…

($1=6.7 yuan) 93% Year-on-year net profit growth of China Life Insurance Co., one of the country’s biggest insurers, during the first quarter of 2019, amounting to 26.03 billion yuan $900 mln Expected copper imports from Chile in 2019 by China Minmetals Corp., China’s largest metals and minerals group 927.2 bln yuan Outstanding loans extended by China’s micro-credit companies by the end of March, down 27.3 billion yuan from the end of 2018 1.89% The renminbi’s share in global payments in March, up from 1.85 percent a month ago, retaining its position as the fifth most active currency for domestic and international payments Sales of Passenger Cars in China Passenger Car Sales in China by Country of Origin Sales of Chinese-Manufactured Cars by Brand 55% Percentage of China’s 1,540 listed companies…

‘To obtain a deeper understanding of a new culture, one needs to do what the locals do, see what the locals see, and buy what the locals buy.” That’s what our marketing lecturer taught us some 30 years ago. In my years of travel, I’ve fervently applied that brand of philosophy to reap greater insights and gain richer experiences beyond the guidebooks. I’ve since added “eat what the locals eat” to the list and never looked back. It became quickly apparent that a great number of major malls in Beijing are Singapore-owned. I lived in Singapore for five years, and have seen every possible variation and incarnation of a shopping mall. Would I want to see more malls in Beijing? Not really. It was a chance discovery that I heard…

Staff members transport Dingding, a female panda born in 2017, at the Bifengxia Base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Ya’an, southwest China’s Sichuan Province, on April 29. Dingding departed for Moscow along with Ruyi, a male panda born in 2016, for a 15-year collaborative research project. The project is carried out under an agreement on the protection and research cooperation of giant pandas signed by the China Wildlife Conservation Association and the Moscow Zoo on February 28.…

BELARUS People pay tribute to the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster during a memorial service in Minsk on the 33rd anniversary on April 26 SPAIN Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez greets supporters in Madrid on April 28. The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party won the most seats in the general election on the day with 28.7 percent of the votes INDONESIA Residents wade in flood water caused by heavy rains in Bengkulu on April 28. Floods and landslides in late April led to at least 12 deaths and almost 15,000 people had to flee their homes UNITED STATES A woman lays flowers near a synagogue in Poway, California, where a shooting killed one person and injured three others on April 27 SWEDEN Stranded passengers wait in Stockholm Arlanda Airport on…

David Paull was born in Australia, got his MBA from Cornell University in New York, worked in Madagascar and Mozambique, and has made Ulan Bator, Mongolia, his current home. On April 25, Paull, Executive Chairman of Aspire Mining, which is developing coking coal deposits in Mongolia for steel producers in China and Russia, was at the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing to sign an agreement. The contract was with construction and engineering company China Gezhouba Group International and China Railway Construction Corp. to build a 550-km railway in northern Mongolia. It will connect the Ovoot coking coal mine that Aspire is developing to Mongolia’s Northern Rail Corridor going up to the Russian border. “It is the cheapest and most efficient way to transport the…

The International Horticultural Exhibition 2019 lifted its veil and opened its door to visitors in Beijing on April 29. Launched with a breathtaking evening gala the night before, the expo site was filled with lights that lined tree canopies and building contours, while songs and dances embodying green ideas and the cultures of China and other participating countries fascinated the audience. The performance, staged on a gigantic LED waterside arena, culminated with a dazzling fireworks show. Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony, delivering a speech and declaring the expo’s opening. The 162-day Beijing expo is the world’s largest international horticultural exhibition, drawing participants from 110 countries and international organizations. It brings together more countries from the horticultural industry than any past expo, said Bernard Oosterom, President of the…

Air purifiers, body fat scales and water filters seem to be the modern bywords of citizens pursuing a high-quality life. Once exclusively possessions of the young, they are now used across the age spectrum. Data released by Fanli.com, a Chinese online shopping discounts site, shows that purchases of these goods by those over 50 have significantly increased. As China sees a rising elderly population with demands of a healthier and higher-quality life, the potential of the silver economy is ready to be unleashed. Ranging from medical facilities to diet products and even smart devices, their needs are creating a blue ocean market. According to a report released by the China National Commission on Aging, China’s senior market will be worth 3.79 trillion yuan ($566.2 billion) by 2020. However, products and…

When Wang Guandi’s first film Champion in Village was released last year, he was thankful for the new genre of movies that has made it possible for newcomers like him to realize their dream of making films. Wang, who worked with an ad agency in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province, made his film exclusively for the Internet, a variety that has a lower threshold than big screen releases. Web movies are a new and upcoming genre made solely for the Internet. However, they are not shorts and need to be over 60 minutes and have a complete storyline like mainstream feature films. The concept came from China’s online video platform iQiyi.com in March 2014. Wang came to know about Web films in 2017 and realized such a genre provided him…

Racing to the Future People admire a race car during the Second 2050 Conference in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, on April 26. The conference, a platform for young tech enthusiasts to communicate and brainstorm on innovations, kicked off that day and lasted three days. Development Plans Chinese authorities are looking to renew regional development plans for the country’s less developed western and northeastern regions to bolster broader growth, according to a report by the China Securities Journal. New guidelines on advancing western development in the new era are set to be released soon, which will focus more on environmental protection and implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, said the paper. Supply-side structural reform will be deepened, and technology innovation will be encouraged in the west to foster high-quality…

During his world exploration voyages in the 14th century, China’s Admiral Zheng He led fleets of thousands of ships and tens of thousands of people to the Red Sea, establishing cultural exchanges between China and countries along the route, including Saudi Arabia. Centuries later, a joint China-Saudi Arabia archaeological exploration team from the National Cultural Heritage Administration and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) followed Zheng’s footsteps to the Al-Serrian site in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qunfudah to carry out archaeological work to find imprints of ancient maritime trade. “The Belt and Road Initiative enables such archaeological cooperation projects to bring together the peoples from our two countries, which both have long civilizations and rich cultures,” Dr. Abdullah Al-Zahrani, General Director of the Archaeological Research Studies at SCTH and…

Historically, Tibet in southwest China was an important gateway and hub of trade and cultural exchanges between China and South Asian countries. However, the crossborder trade gradually dwindled to Tibetan livestock products, agricultural products such as rice, tea and byproducts, and other commodities like silk, ceramics, spices and handicraft items. To give greater momentum to the economy of Tibet Autonomous Region, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued a white paper in 2015, Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, detailing how to integrate the southwestern region of China with the Belt and Road Initiative and make full of the former’s geographic and resource advantages. The white paper suggested that trade,…

The General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the General Office of the State Council, China’s cabinet, recently issued a guideline on the reform of the property rights system for natural resource assets. The reform aims to establish a management framework featuring clear ownership, clarified rights and responsibilities, strict protection, smooth transfer and effective supervision by 2020. According to the document, the system should serve an essential role in protecting natural resources and promoting ecological functions. In addition, it will play a key part in optimizing resource allocation, raising the efficiency of resource development and use, and pushing forward high-quality development. Under the current system, natural resources are owned by the state and various collectives, while different types of natural resources are managed…

The Chinese economy has shown more signs of robust health, with its major industrial firms posting a 13.9-percent growth in profits in March, compared to the previous year. The figure marked a drastic rebound from the 14-percent decline in the January-February period, according to data released on April 27 by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Thanks to the improving performance in March, these firms posted a 3.3-percent decline in aggregate profit for the first quarter, 10.7 percentage points less than that in the January-February period. In March, the total profit of these firms stood at 589.52 billion yuan ($88 billion). For the first three months, the figure was 1.29 trillion yuan ($191.7 billion). The rebound in industrial profit growth was mainly driven by expanding production and sales. In March,…

Online survey platform Wenjuan.com and the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily recently conducted a joint survey of families where 77.3 percent of the respondents said they know of adults who live with their elderly parents and depend on the latter for daily expenses even though they have a decent income. Over 63 percent of those surveyed said adults who live off their parents pretending to keep them company are unfilial, instead of practicing filial piety as they claim. Such people are also known as NEETs, acronym for people who are not in education, employment or training, a term coined in the UK. Some elderly people do need to have their children live with them, since they know their health and habits better than hired nurses, who are also…