Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.63/No.8 i Beijing Review

More than 20 days have passed since the Chinese Government launched an all-out battle against the novel coronavirus pneumonia on January 20, and the campaign has now entered a critical stage. Since February 8, the number of recovered patients discharged from the hospital has been rising rapidly. The government is doing its best to hospitalize all suspected cases and put all close contacts in isolation for observation. The spread of the virus is being contained, making massive infection in the future unlikely. Victory is on the horizon, as long as the anti-virus measures continue to be well implemented. Great institutional advantages have emerged during this battle. After President Xi Jinping urged resolute efforts to contain the epidemic, the entire country has been strategizing as in a chess game, with all…

As a big data engineer based in Beijing, Li Kun got into telecommuting as early as 2013, but he said that today, during the novel coronavirus outbreak, he has seen it grow like never before. To reduce face-to-face contact and prevent the spread of the epidemic, China has promoted telecommuting and online education through emerging Internet platforms. Data from DingTalk, a mobile office tool developed by China’s Internet giant Alibaba, showed that nearly 200 million people across the country started working online on February 3, the first work day after the Spring Festival holiday. As a flexible way of working, telecommuting is expected to offer more choices to domestic enterprises. “It may become a new trend in some industries, such as technological research and development, where offline communication is not…

Does the novel coronavirus outbreak mean economic opportunities for the U.S. that wouldn’t have been possible under normal circumstances? Some U.S. media and officials seem to hold that unkind hope. However, it is unlikely as the impact of the virus on China’s economy will be temporary and limited. Economic opportunities should be seized by fair competition. The U.S., whenever it loses chances in international economic activities due to reasons of its own making, tends to blame others. It has blamed Japan, the EU and especially China, after the latter’s rapid economic growth, to the extent of slandering it and starting a trade war. Now with China engaged in fighting an epidemic, some in the U.S. pin their hope on extracting economic mileage from the virus. They forget the H1N1 influenza…

In response to a question on the U.S.-proposed Middle East peace plan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the following remarks on January 29: We believe the Palestine issue should be resolved on the basis of relevant UN resolutions, the principles of a “two-state solution” and “land for peace” and other international consensus, which should all be observed. To make any plan on the Palestine issue, it is important to heed the views of parties concerned, especially the Palestinian side. Agreements in this process should be reached through equal-footed dialogue and negotiation. Any plan should help resolve the issue as soon as possible in a comprehensive, fair and lasting way. (Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs)…

As the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia is brought under control, China’s economic activity will recover to normal levels, notwithstanding that it has been severely affected in the short run, especially after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a public health emergency of international concern on January 31. In the meantime, against the current cyclical fluctuation and economic downturn, China should intensify counter-cyclical adjustments, and use a basket of macro-economic control tools in a timely manner to iron out economic cycles and ensure stable economic growth. Based on current figures, the virus has a lower fatality rate than the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, but has a longer incubation period and stronger transmissibility. The good news is that the country’s medical resources are being concentrated…

($1 = 7 yuan) China’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) Growth China’s CPI Growth by Type China’s Producer Price Index Growth (Source: National Bureau of Statistics) Overseas investors held more Chinese yuan-denominated bonds at the end of January as China opens up its bond market wider to the world. The total amount of yuan bonds owned by overseas institutions under the depository of the China Central Depository & Clearing Co. Ltd. rose 25.04 percent from a year earlier to 1.89 trillion yuan China’s central bank issued 30 billion yuan of bills in Hong Kong on February 13. The move aims to enrich yuan-investment products with high credit ratings in Hong Kong and improve the yield curve of yuan bonds Imported food value exceeded 84 billion yuan in Tianjin Municipality, north China,…

For almost a month, China has been engaged in a heroic fight against the novel coronavirus. While the problem is principally in Hubei Province in central China with most cases, other provinces such as Guangdong in the south, Zhejiang in the east, and Henan in central China, have also been affected, though to a much smaller extent. In other countries, hundreds of cases in total have been reported by then. These countries include Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Thailand, the U.S., France and Germany. Although the novel coronavirus is not the same virus that caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, it has drawn some parallels in analysis because both epidemics broke out in the same country. Effective measures While China has been significantly transformed in these past…

Before January, Lu Sa, a professor at China Jiliang University in Zhejiang Province in east China, had never heard of Zeng Heqiong, who lives and works in central China. But the novel coronavirus outbreak has brought the two women together as collaborators in education. Zeng is the director of the micro electronics department of the Wuhan Technology and Business University (WTBU) in Wuhan, the city that was hardest hit by the epidemic and put on lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus. Subsequently, the Ministry of Education (MOE) notified schools at all levels nationwide to delay the upcoming spring semester to ensure the safety of students and teachers. To deal with school closures, the WTBU planned to offer online courses. While looking for online teaching resources, Zeng came across…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s supremely confident State of the Union address on February 4, his third, was more campaign rhetoric as he seeks reelection. Trump officially announced his candidacy in Pennsylvania on March 10, 2019, with the campaign slogan Keep America Great, a modification of his first election slogan. In the same way, his 2020 election manifesto doesn’t have any major surprises, continuing and re-emphasizing his 2016 program. As the last address before the presidential campaign, the main theme of the State of the Union was trumpeting what he deems the achievements of his term and reiterating his political beliefs. Tooting his own horn Trump bragged about the U.S. economy being “the best it’s ever been” and the U.S. being stronger than at any other time in history, with more…

Although schedules have been disrupted and programs postponed by the novel coronavirus outbreak, the release of the Central Government’s first policy statement of the year—the No.1 Central Document—on February 5 showed that China remains resolute in eradicating absolute poverty by the end of 2020. Agriculture, rural areas and farmers’ issues remained the focus of the document for the 17th consecutive year. Experts said with all the stops pulled out to fight the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia, the release of the document on schedule is of special significance. “I think this is a very important signal. It shows that even as we are hit by the novel coronavirus, we still need to win the battle against poverty,” said Zhang Hongyu, Deputy Director of the China Institute for Rural Studies…

The growth, scale and scope of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China has become one of the most talked about global subjects. The virus is first and foremost a domestic health issue for China, with an increasing international potential. President Xi Jinping is leading a national effort to contain the outbreak while scientists and doctors in China and around the world are working to find a vaccine and/or cure. The first order of business is to ensure the health and wellbeing of Chinese citizens and to prevent the virus from spreading further outside of China. Provincial and lower-level governments are coordinating with Beijing, citizen volunteers are doing heroic work in supporting the effort and each other, and the country has taken on a war footing to battle the virus. Xi…

I was in Thailand during the Lunar New Year holiday when the news of the spread of the novel coronavirus in China really started heating up. I still had another week of travel before heading home to Beijing on February 1, and the rising number of text messages and calls from family and friends was really starting to make me nervous. Even though several Chinese friends and colleagues stayed in steady contact with me, keeping me up to date on developments, the headlines about the virus’ spread and ensuing panic were taking their toll on me. By the time I was ready to leave for Beijing, I was sure it was a big mistake. My airline posted mixed messages about whether I would be quarantined, detained or refused boarding. I…

TOP EPIDEMIOLOGIST ON DUTY Li Lanjuan, a famous epidemiologist and member of the expert panel appointed by the Chinese Government, has made great progress in helping prevent and control the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia. Recently, her team succeeded in the treatment of critical patients in Wuhan, Hubei Province in central China. Born in 1947, Li has been engaged in clinical teaching and research of infectious disease for nearly four decades. She also focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of liver failure and the development of an artificial liver. In 2003, during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, she minimized losses as the director of the health department of Zhejiang Province in east China by adopting effective measures such as self-monitored quarantine. At the same time, she successfully…

When the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus struck 17 years ago, China was inching its way toward the information era. Alibaba was building the online shopping platform Taobao and developing its payment service Alipay, and the number of registered users of Tencent’s instant messaging service QQ had just exceeded 100 million. “TV news programs were a major source of information for people like me to find out what was going on,” said Sunny Jiang to Pandaily.com about his experience in 2003. “My entire family freaked out when my dad got a fever, but we were too afraid to go to the hospital.” Luckily, his father only had the common flu. Today, those startups from 2003 have grown into tech giants and have paved the way for the country to…

While the current novel coronavirus outbreak continues to affect many in China, looming questions remain regarding global impacts related to health, economics and geopolitics. Given current scientific understandings of the disease, including its transmission rates and associated morbidity and mortality (and despite multiple studies indicating a relatively low fatality rate), the costs for China and in particular, Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicenter, continue to be substantial. National and international containment strategies have unfolded quickly—some quite reasonable, others less so, but all fundamentally reactionary—and the economic costs to China and the rest of the world are still unknown but a cause for serious concern. For these reasons and others, the geopolitical knock-on effects likewise are matters that require sober reflection. Simplistic thinking While some economic analysts optimistically point to mid-March as a…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, called by some the “deal of the century,” is an important step—to win the support of Jewish voters in this year’s presidential election. Given the complexities of the situation in the Middle East and the failure of negotiations between Israel and Palestine, the plan is unlikely to take the peace process between the two key actors forward. The Israeli scenario It is obvious that the plan was driven by the political circumstances in both the U.S. and Israel. Trump invited not only Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close friend, to Washington to be briefed on the plan before it was partially announced, but also Benjamin Gantz, Netanyahu’s competitor and leader of the Blue and White Party. The plan calls for a…

From the onset of the pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, Hubei Province in central China, in late 2019, people have been trying to unravel a mystery: Where did the virus come from, and how was it first passed to humans? Although definite answers seem elusive, China has nevertheless taken unequivocally resolute measures to block the transmission of the virus and ensure the safety and health of the public. Several deadly and contagious diseases relatively new to humans are known to be caused by pathogens originating with wild animals. Recently Chinese researchers unveiled that the natural host of the virus could be bats and its intermediate host possibly pangolins. Regulatory authorities first issued a document on January 21 to tighten supervision and inspection of physical markets, eateries and…

Strategic emerging industries are flourishing as China advances economic transformation and upgrading, injecting new impetus into high-quality development. The country’s GDP grew to 99.09 trillion yuan ($14.38 trillion) last year, with percapita GDP topping $10,000, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The Chinese economy has been moving from a phase of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development, said Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS. In 2019, the value-added industrial output expanded 5.7 percent year on year, with production in hi-tech manufacturing and strategic emerging industries increasing 8.8 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively. As strategic emerging industries, hi-tech manufacturing and modern services expand in the economy, China’s economic structure is continuing to be optimized, with improved quality and resilience, noted Liu Zhe, a researcher with the think…