Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 62/No.45 i Beijing Review

FRANCE A curator refers to the painting La Belle Ferronniere, also known as Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Leonardo Da Vinci at the Louvre Museum in Paris on October 22. The Louvre held a special exhibition to commemorate the fifth centenary of the artist’s death TURKEY Military officers and their families attend a ceremony marking the 96th anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the republic, in Ankara on October 29 CHILE President Sebastian Pinera calls off the 27th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting and the UN Climate Change Conference Chile was scheduled to host due to the ongoing unrest in the country, in Santiago on October 30 UNITED KINGDOM Boris Johnson comes out of 10 Downing Street…

At Beijing Sport University, there is a well-shaded path called Champion Road. It is a walk of fame honoring Olympic champions who have graduated from this top sport academy in China, with their footprints and signatures imprinted along the way. Near the road stands a statue of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who placed great importance on sports, and a sculpture of Pierre de Coubertin, the French educator who played a central role in restoring the Olympic Games in 1896. Champion Road epitomizes the country’s glories and dreams in sports development. The first name on it is Xu Haifeng, the shooter who won the first Olympic gold for China at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Recently, recalling his first gold and sports development in China, Xu told the…

Rovaniemi, a city in Finland located at the Arctic Circle, sent its most famous resident to Beijing to attend the 2019 World Winter Sports (Beijing) Expo. Santa Claus was one of the busiest people during the event held from October 17-20. Donning his signature red cap and magnificent in his white beard, he introduced his town to visitors. “In my hometown, it is already winter. The temperature has already dropped to minus 5 degrees Celsius,” he said, “The ground is covered with snow and 2-3 cm of ice.” Rovaniemi is one of the most famous winter sports resorts in Finland and boasts a wide variety of top quality training facilities. “Santa is a big supporter of winter sports, perhaps because winter is truly his season of operation and the elves…

The 19th CPC Central Committee concluded its fourth plenary session in Beijing on October 31 with the release of a communiqué. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, made an important speech and delivered a work report. The session reviewed and adopted the CPC Central Committee’s decision on some major issues concerning how to uphold and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and advance the modernization of China’s system and capacity for governance. “The system of socialism with Chinese characteristics is a scientific system developed by the Party and the people through their long-term practices and explorations,” the communiqué read. All the work and activities of China’s national governance are carried out in accordance with the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, said the document, noting…

The Seventh International Military Sports Council (CISM) Military World Games closed in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province on October 27. After 10 days of competition, China won 239 medals, including 133 gold medals, the first time a country scooped over 100 gold medals at the games. Russia came in second with 161 medals, including 51 gold ones, followed by Brazil, the host of the 2011 Games, with 88 medals including 21 gold. France, Poland and Germany ranked fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, all three winning more than 10 gold medals. The 2019 games attracted the largest number of military athletes and presented the most sports events in its history. Nearly 10,000 soldiers from 109 nations competed in events from football, swimming and basketball to parachuting, aeronautical and naval pentathlons.…

You could have heard my pulsating heart from a mile away when I first heard of this market. No, not a wet market, nor a supermarket, nor a stock market. It’s an everything-except-for-food market. And it was smack in the heart of Beijing. In fact, I quietly kicked myself for not having noticed it months earlier, as I had passed this place on a bus before. And quite a few times after that too, I might add. No, I didn’t wait for the alarm clock to ring that morning. No, I did not waste time combing my hair that morning, and no, I did not wait for the subway escalator to bring me up to the surface. I simply bolted up the flight of steps, weaved between a sea of…

Reaching the Right Level An aerial view of the Three Gorges project in Zigui County, central China’s Hubei Province, on October 28. The experimental impoundment of the Three Gorges reservoir this year neared completion as the water level rose to 174.43 meters on October 28. Law Application China’s Supreme People’s Court has established a mechanism to resolve differences in the application of laws to standardize their application and judgment criteria and uphold its judicial authority. A guideline, which clarifies the measures for implementing the mechanism, went into effect on October 28. The new mechanism aims to prevent differences in law application among effective verdicts at the same level from the perspective of the trial mechanism in a timely manner, the apex court said in a statement. The 12 articles in…

Located right in the middle of downtown Beijing, Beijing Shichahai Sports School is quite unassuming from the outside amid bustling bars as well as imperial residences swarming with tourists. If not for a large stone with its name imprinted on it at the entrance of the school, one would easily miss it from the street. Even with its nameplate, the school is still not very familiar to many. Only if someone cares to look it up, will he or she notice that the school’s name appears in the biographies of some big names in sports. For instance, it is the alma mater of kungfu superstar Jet Li and a host of Chinese Olympic gold medalists. Since its establishment in 1958, the school has produced hundreds of national champions and over…

Two years after the normalization of bilateral ties, China and Japan signed an agreement on civil aviation in 1974, which has led today to 1,000 direct flights between the two neighbors per week. In addition, China has ranked No.1 among the major sources of tourists to Japan since 2015, with 9.06 million visits in 2018, as Chinese tourists have become the most lavish visitors in Japan. These are all signs of a thaw in the bilateral relations that hit a low point several years ago due to their territorial disputes and Japan’s revisionist attitude toward its past war crimes. China-Japan relations have undergone important and positive changes. Against this promising backdrop, the 15th Beijing-Tokyo Forum, co-organized by the China International Publishing Group and the non-profit Japanese think tank Genron NPO,…

Last year, when the organizers of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) unveiled the mascot of the expo, a giant panda looking dapper with a stylish scarf draped round its neck, people agreed that it was delectable. This year, when it made its appearance at a matchmaking event ahead of the Second CIIE, it was actually edible. A baking feat, the bread panda was part of the Bread of Jinbao collection, an assortment of breads also shaped like the CIIE logo and the four-leaf clover, which is the shape of the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai where the Second CIIE opened on November 5. The collection was the handiwork of three master bakers, the national team of China, who are competing with four other teams in the Louis…

($1=7 yuan) 1.23 tln yuan Loans issued by the China Development Bank since 2016 to support poverty relief efforts 8.9% Year-on-year growth of China’s iron and steel industry revenue in the first eight months of the year 491.14 bln yuan Money raised by the National Equities Exchange and Quotations, or the New Third Board, since its establishment in 2013 35 Number of fixed assets investment projects approved in Q3 with combined investment totaling 317.2 billion yuan 2.72 tln yuan Profits of Chinese state-owned enterprises in the first nine months of the year, up 6.6 percent year on year 37,794 Number of travel agencies China had by the end of June 2019, handling over 8.56 million inbound trips 5.8% Year-on-year rise in Q3 net profit of the Industrial and Commercial Bank…

Tax and Fee Cuts China’s tax and fee reductions have boosted the performance of public firms by continuously injecting impetus into them, China Securities Journal reported on October 28. Companies in traditional cyclical industries such as power and nonferrous metals, manufacturing and consumer sectors have received more benefits from the cuts, said the report. The Yunnan Aluminum Co. Ltd., a leading enterprise in the industry, expected its net profit for shareholders of the parent company in the first three quarters to rise 163.25 percent to 291 million yuan ($41.1 million). The company has seized the opportunity from the stable domestic and international aluminum markets to expand its production and sales and effectively lower the purchasing costs of bulk raw materials, the report said. “The benefits brought about by tax and…

When 18-year-old Lang Ping made her debut as a volleyball player at the Asian Games in Bangkok in 1978 and her team won the silver for China, her fierce spiking caught people’s attention. Still, no one could imagine at that time how far she would go one day, becoming a national icon who would help China’s national women’s volleyball team become legendary. Lang became a star striker soon after her debut, famous for her precise and powerful spikes characterized by high jumps, brisk and forceful downward punches and varied tactics. Her hammer-like smashes earned her the nickname “Iron Hammer,” making her one of the three ace spikers in the world. The Chinese women’s volleyball team made groundbreaking achievements in the 1980s, winning five major world titles successively and inspiring the…

Had the time machine been invented, the Tang Dynasty (618-907) would be a perfect choice for time travelers who want to experience history. It’s a period full of energy, openness and creativity. Chang’an (today’s Xi’an in Shaanxi Province in northwest China), the capital of the great empire, used to be an international metropolis. Merchants from different regions arrived with exotic goods; foreigners became officials and generals because of their extraordinary ability; and the most talented poets, singers, dancers, artists and craftspeople gathered there, creating a splendid civilization. Now history and culture buffs can get a closer glimpse of the Tang Dynasty without a time machine by visiting the Meet the Tang Dynasty Again calligraphy and painting exhibition in the Liaoning Provincial Museum in Shenyang City in northeast China. They will…

Nowadays, more and more Chinese families are keeping pets and people’s attitude toward pets is changing. In the past, dogs were generally kept to guard homes. Today, however, they are increasingly seen as family members and companions. With the living conditions and status of pets rising, when a beloved pet dies, its owner is often plunged into grief. A Chinese biotech company saw potential in this sense of loss and launched commercial pet cloning services in 2017. In August this year, it announced at a press conference in Beijing that it had cloned a cat, Garlic, on the request of a pet owner who lost the original Garlic due to an infection. Sinogene, the biotech company, is said to charge around 250,000 yuan ($35,500) to clone a cat though it…