Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.63/No.16 i Beijing Review

China has provided emergency assistance including medical supplies such as test reagents, face masks and protective suits to more than 120 countries and international organizations to combat the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It has also sent medical expert teams to and held technical exchanges via video calls with over 100 countries and regions. COVID-19 is a global challenge. China’s precious experience in containing the disease as well as its production capacity for medical supplies will help the international community win the battle against the virus. In addition, China has provided its epidemic control and medical plans for governments and citizens across the globe in an open and transparent way. Chinese people believe that the entire human society is one big family and all…

President Xi Jinping’s visit to Yucun in Zhejiang Province, east China, on March 30 held special significance for him, for the former mining village and for environmental protection efforts in China. It was there 15 years ago that as secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi put forward the concept that “clear waters and green mountains are as valuable as mountains of gold and silver.” The concept has become a motto for China’s green development and ecological civilization today. Green development Fifteen years ago, Yucun was known for its limestone. Back then, over half of the nearly 200 households worked in quarries, earning around 1,000 yuan ($142) per person per month on average. The first limestone mine was opened in the village in…

To quicken opening up the financial industry to foreign investors, the Chinese authorities scrapped the limits on foreign ownership in securities and fund management firms on April 1, bringing cheer to foreign companies seeking to set up wholly owned subsidiaries on the Chinese mainland. Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at French investment bank Natixis, told CGTN, “It’s very good news for the world because we are in the process of disintegration, deglobalization, which is being sped up by the coronavirus… So any measure to open up any country, especially China, is absolutely welcome.” Initially, the authorities had planned to lift foreign ownership limits on brokerages, fund management firms and futures companies in 2021 but then fastforwarded the financial opening up. Eligible foreign investors can now apply to…

When I went to my wife’s hometown in the southwestern part of Hubei Province in late January for the Spring Festival family reunion, I had never imagined I would have to remain there for two and a half months. At that time there was some news about a viral infection outbreak in Wuhan, the capital of the province, but we, like everyone else, were fully in the New Year celebration mood, visiting relatives and local holiday resorts, and thought the virus was no big deal. I began to take the novel coronavirus disease seriously only after respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan came to Wuhan to investigate the outbreak and confirmed the ability of the new coronavirus to transmit between humans. Then Hubei was put under lockdown and as control measures…

NURSE DIES AFTER MEDICAL ASSISTANCE MISSION Zhang Jingjing, a pulmonary and intensive care nurse, passed away on April 6. She was a member of the first medical team from Shandong Province in east China to Wuhan in Hubei Province, central China. During her stint in Wuhan, Zhang compiled handbooks to help medical staff overcome difficulties with regional dialects. The team returned to Jinan, Shandong’s capital, on March 21 after two months’ medical assistance. Zhang underwent 14 days of routine quarantine and tested negative for the coronavirus three times. But just before she was to return home, Zhang suffered a heart attack and passed away despite medical intervention. Her husband was working on a construction project in Sierra Leone when the news reached him. Flights between the two countries had been…

The author is former director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute and chair professor at China Agricultural University While the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic is well under control in China, it is rapidly spreading in Europe and the U.S. and has begun to affect less developed countries in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. COVID-19 is a global health crisis not seen in decades. Without proper measures, a global food crisis leading to a much larger humanitarian disaster may follow, caused not by a shortage of food, but due to panic that can lead to severe disruptions in the global supply chain. On April 3, The New York Times reported that the Eurasian Economic Commission, the supranational regulatory body of the Eurasian Economic Union, has decided to…

Crisscrossed with mountains and rivers, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture in the southwestern province of Yunnan is a sanctuary for abundant wildlife, including rare plants such as the cycad and animals such as green peafowls and geckos. The area is also rich in hydropower resources. Over the past few decades, several hydropower stations have been built there. However, the recent construction of a power station on the Jiasa River, the upper reaches of the Honghe River (Red River) that flows to Viet Nam, has pitched hydropower development against wildlife conservation because the damming of the river for electricity generation will submerge a habitat of the green peafowl, an endangered species. On March 20, the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court in Yunnan made a first-instance ruling on a public-interest litigation (PIL) regarding the…

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has lowered the world’s expectations for the global economy in 2020. Standard & Poor’s, the financial ratings agency, predicts that China’s economic growth will slip to 2.9 percent this year. The China International Capital Corporation Limited, China’s leading investment bank, places it at 2.6 percent. The World Bank has offered a more pessimistic forecast—2.3 percent—and in the worst case scenario caused by the pandemic, a plunge to 0.1 percent. China’s economic growth for 2019 was 6.1 percent, leading international institutions to hold a bleak view about the country’s economic growth in 2020. In the first two months of the year, the Chinese economy has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, even harder than the financial turmoil of 2008. Nevertheless, economic growth for the…

Twelve years ago, when an earthquake struck Wenchuan, a county in southwest China, Italy was the first country to send a medical team to support the relief work. This year again, when China fought the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in January, Italy provided urgently needed medical supplies. China reciprocated the support weeks later when Italy grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic. A charter flight carrying Chinese medical experts and supplies alighted at the Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome on March 12. “We are ready to share China’s hard-won diagnostic and treatment guidelines as well as our first-hand experience,” Lu Ming, a staff with the National Health Commission’s International Cooperation Department and a member of the team, told China National Radio. On March 18, the second team of Chinese medical…

The author is an associate researcher with the Institute of World Economic Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations The 13-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, agreed with its allies, including Russia, on April 9 that they will cut output in May and June by 10 million barrels per day in principle, the largest ever production cut in history. The move temporarily eased a month-long tension between Saudi Arabia and Russia on lowering production and keeping prices stable, but its smooth implementation is still in doubt. Negotiations over production cuts between OPEC and Russia broke down at their meeting in Vienna, Austria, on March 6. Russia rejected OPEC’s suggestion that exporters cut production by 1.5 million barrels per day on the basis…

As the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spreads around the world, the global supply chain is undergoing severe disruption with far-reaching effects. For example, when Chinese manufacturers temporarily stopped making auto parts, it affected the automobile industries in Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). Wang Xiaosong, a research fellow with the National Academy of Development and Strategy of Renmin University of China, calls it the domino effect. With globalization, if the production of an item involves multiple stages, they can be done in different countries by one or more companies. This is how a global supply chain is formed, creating more job opportunities and boosting income. “However, it also means countries no longer rise or fall alone,” Wang told Beijing Review. “The global economy becomes like a game of dominoes,…