Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.63/No.9 i Beijing Review

JAPAN A bus leaves with passengers who had disembarked from the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship which had been quarantined for 14 days in the port of Yokohama, on February 19. There had been more than 600 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection on the ship, which initially carried around 3,700 passengers and crew from more than 50 countries and regions PAKISTAN A health worker gives a polio vaccine to a child in Peshawar on February 18 as the country commenced a nationwide vaccination campaign, targeting some 39.6 million children under the age of 5 CROATIA President Zoran Milanovic (right) and his predecessor Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic are seen together after Milanovic’s swearing-in ceremony in the capital city of Zagreb on February 18 AFGHANISTAN Hawa Alam Nuristani, head of the National…

When Raz Gal Or was waiting at the Beijing Capital International Airport to board a flight to Tel Aviv ahead of the Spring Festival, both the 26-year-old entrepreneur and his friend Brian O’Shea were struck by the number of people wearing masks in the airport. Having been pre-occupied with their businesses, they were not aware that an epidemic was spreading in Wuhan, Hubei Province in central China. Several days later, they collected 229 boxes of medical supplies in Israel in a day, and donated them to Huanggang, east Hubei, on February 9 to assist the fight against the epidemic. The whole donation process of 384 hours, is recorded in a book, China, We Got Your Back, published in Chinese and English by New Star Press, a Beijing-based publishing house under…

When I began teaching at the Armed Forces Engineering Institute of the People’s Liberation Army of China in 2001, one of my subjects was The Art of War, a military treatise written by Sun Tzu (545-470 B.C.), a famous militarist and strategist in Chinese history. Since 2003, foreign officers from Asian and African countries began coming to the institute every year to study Chinese military enterprise and culture, and I taught them The Art of War, a favorite course with foreign military officers. In 2016, a team under a senior professor began to offer this course at Peking University. It is very popular with the students there as well, including foreign students. This little preamble is to show how this treatise, regarded as a military classic, has remained popular—and relevant—despite…

Hi-Tech Prevention A medical worker uses a food delivery robot in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province in south China, on February 7. Hi-tech has been introduced in many cities in the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus. Two Sessions Face Postponement The annual sessions of China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), and the top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), dubbed the Two Sessions, are likely to be postponed due to the current epidemic in China. In December 2019, it was agreed that the NPC’s annual gathering would start on March 5. Customarily, the CPPCC annual session starts on March 3. However, the authorities are now mulling postponing the sessions as it is now at a crucial moment for the prevention and control of the…

Imagine the U.S. Government shutting down almost all forms of public transportation, a substantial number of international airline flights, all schools and many businesses during the period between Thanksgiving through the end of the Christmas season and beyond. That is what is currently going on in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, with what has become possibly the largest quarantine in human history. Faced with a spreading epidemic, China’s Central Government responded with greater speed and transparency than during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003. Unlike the SARS epidemic, when the nation was criticized for with-holding early warning information that delayed effective response efforts, the central authorities have handled the novel coronavirus emergency in a much more systematically effective manner. Transparent efforts Some claim that…

Newly elected Chairperson of the African Union (AU), South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, outlined key priority areas that will drive Africa’s growth within the framework of Agenda 2063 while addressing the 33rd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the AU. Speaking at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on February 9, Ramaphosa focused on deepening unity in Africa, economic and financial inclusion for women and mainstreaming the interests of women, conflict resolution, and championing the position of Africa as a strong and influential player in the global arena. What stood out was the unprecedented attention on conflict resolution that resonated with this year’s theme Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions for Africa’s Development. Ramaphosa noted that Africa must take charge of its peace…

Yang Nan, who was a KTV operation manager in Hangzhou, east China, has recently gained a new identity. With the company closing temporarily since the novel coronavirus outbreak, he has become a temporary worker at a local Hema Fresh, Alibaba’s New Retail grocery chain, in what has become a new trend: worker sharing among companies to offset both the layoffs and labor shortages caused by disruptions in the market. “Before working in Hema, I was at home for almost 20 days from January 25 doing nothing,” Yang told Hangzhou Daily. “Temping helps cover my living costs and has greatly relieved my anxiety.” With the help of the experienced staff at the store, Yang has become increasingly at home in his new job. At the Hema outlets in Hangzhou, employees like…

Support From Stock Exchange The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) stepped up efforts to support China’s fight against the novel coronavirus epidemic. The SSE encouraged enterprises in the field of technological innovation related to epidemic prevention and control to be listed on the domestic sci-tech innovation board (STAR), according to a statement on its website. Firms are encouraged to conduct roadshows through the Internet and phone calls, make timely adjustments to their offering schedules and hold listing ceremonies online, said the exchange. Noting firms’ difficulties in completing auditing work and disclosing their 2019 annual report and 2020 first-quarter report on time amid the epidemic, the exchange postponed the disclosure of annual reports for more than 70 firms and extended the time limit on mergers and acquisitions. The SSE also granted special…

Zhu Haixiu is a nurse from the intensive care unit of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province in south China. The 22-year-old left for Wuhan in the central province of Hubei, the city hit the hardest by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), as part of a medical team on January 24, the Chinese New Year’s Eve. The dark circles around her eyes from fatigue were captured by the lens of China Central Television during an interview with patients and medical staff on February 11 at Hankou Hospital, where Zhu was working. Asked whether she was afraid, she said she was at the beginning but after seeing the situation in the city, she no longer is. When reporters asked her to talk to her parents…

When Yang Mei was unable to continue working as a construction worker after her back was severely hurt in an accident 10 years ago, she didn’t expect a skill she had learnt as a kid to offer her another chance to earn a living. Yang, now 46, is leading a wax painting collective involving over 300 women in her hometown, Zhongying Village in Bijie, Guizhou Province in southwest China. She is also running her own wax painting company. “Wax painting is a skill that every woman of the Miao ethnic group can gain,” Yang said. “It has been passed down for generations. The wax knives we use are the smallest ones in the world and can make very thin lines on wax.” Reviving skills With a history of more than…

Beyond zoos, museums and games, virtual reality (VR) technologies are wooing a more unexpected sector in China: the real estate industry, which is using it to keep itself afloat during the novel coronavirus outbreak. VR salesrooms and livestreams are gaining popularity among property developers and agents to pitch their projects to potential house buyers. The proportion of online VR house visitors surged 57.7 percent month on month in January, according to online marketplace 58.com and housing information platform Anjuke.com. Data from another online housing platform Beike showed that over 1.24 million VR visits were made between February 1-9, skyrocketing almost 60 times year on year. On February 17, official data showed that home prices in 70 major Chinese cities remained generally stable in January, with 47 reporting month-on-month gains, down…