Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.63/No.18 i Beijing Review

The Chinese economy recorded a 6.8-percent drop in GDP in the first quarter over the same period last year, the first since 1992, when the GDP began to be accounted. Though a drop was anticipated, still the growth rate figure issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has triggered excessive concern and pessimism. While concerns about the economic conditions are understandable, exaggerated dismay serves no purpose. For starters, the figure is actually better than expected. Many international institutions had forecast that the Chinese economy would decline 8-10 percent year on year in the first quarter, which makes the 6.8-percent fall better than what was anticipated. Also, the economy performed differently in the first three months. The GDP fell steeply in January and February but rebounded in March. It reflects…

Despite media reports about the Japanese Government’s new economic stimulus package to help Japanese companies move back home from China and U.S. President Donald Trump’s Chief Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow saying similar things about U.S. companies in China, there has been no large-scale withdrawal of foreign investment, the Chinese authorities said. “Foreign investors remain optimistic about China and they stay confident and determined to seek long-term operation and development in China,” Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) spokesperson Gao Feng said at an online regular press conference on April 16. Still a honey pot According to Gao, monitoring shows that the number of foreign-funded enterprises resuming production is steadily increasing. A survey covering 8,700-plus key foreign-funded enterprises showed that by April 14, 72.8 percent of them had resumed over 70 percent of…

‘We have met the enemy and he is ours.” This is how U.S. Commander Oliver Hazard Perry famously reported defeating and capturing British Royal Navy vessels in the Battle of Lake Erie, fought along the coast of Ohio, in one of the most important engagements in the War of 1812. Celebrated U.S. cartoonist Walt Kelly, creator of the comic strip Pogo, would later parody this quote twice, first in 1953, in his attacks on the anti-Communist hysterics of McCarthyism: “There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may…

Located in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in south China and bordering Viet Nam, the city of Baise has a special place in Chinese history. It was here that late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping mobilized the Zhuangs, the ethnic minority after whom the region is named, to stage an uprising against the Kuomintang authority in 1929 and built the Youjiang revolutionary base, a bastion of the Communist Party of China. The city has a martyrs’ monument and a museum to commemorate the uprising while the local Zhuang Opera has created a drama on the uprising. This month, the city of over 4 million people was given a special place in national development as well, with the State Council, the cabinet, approving Baise’s designation as a new pilot zone for furthering China’s…

What can make you decide to change your life? For Yu Huanshui, it comes after he is misdiagnosed with cancer. During a midlife crisis, he faces a divorce, unemployment and many other issues. But the misdiagnosis gives him a chance to see the people around him more clearly and through the ups and downs, he develops a better sense of himself, and finds the courage to start over. That is the plot of a popular online drama, If There Is No Tomorrow, which premiered on April 6. Thanks to its storyline, featuring comedic elements and gifted actors, the well-crafted drama ranks third on a chart released by Douban, a TV series review website, which includes Internet dramas. Since people have been encouraged to minimize outdoor activities due to the coronavirus…

JD FOUNDER RESIGNS Founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD Liu Qiangdong, also known as Richard Liu, has resigned as the legal representative, executive director and general manager of Beijing Jingdong Century Trading Co. Ltd., the chief operating entity of JD. JD downplayed the change and described it as a “fairly normal management move.” Beginning this year, 47-year-old Liu has stepped down from the top management positions of 46 other JD subsidiaries, including JD Digits, JD Logistics and JD Cloud. But experts said the move does not mean that Liu will depart from the company as he still has absolute control over JD. Liu holds about 16 percent of JD stock and is the second largest shareholder, controlling nearly 80 percent of the company’s voting rights. Xu Lei, Chief Executive Officer…

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is raging around the world, with over 2.6 million confirmed cases in more than 200 countries and regions as of April 23. More than 170 countries have announced epidemic control measures, including travel restrictions, border controls and national lockdowns, to prevent wider infections. But this has also limited the flow of goods and people, while production and trade activities in many countries have slowed or stagnated, striking a further blow to the already fragile global economy. Following the Great Depression of the 1930s and the 2008 global financial crisis, the looming recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic might become the third major economic shock across the world in a century. The economic impact of the previous two crises was mainly on the demand side. But…

Doing almost nothing to prevent the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) from spreading in the U.S. in the early days. Then panicking when it spread rapidly and passing the buck to China and eventually, to the World Health Organization (WHO). This sums up U.S. President Donald Trump’s “efforts” in the past months to cope with the pandemic. WHO’s efforts to apprise the world of the dangers ahead by sending an expert group to China to learn about the outbreak, announcing a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, training medical staff and health workers and preparing medical supplies for vulnerable countries—all this work was summarily dismissed by the U.S. president, who also announced suspension of U.S. funding for WHO on April 14. Unsurprisingly, this move has been widely opposed.…

Previously known as One-Way Street, OWSpace is a bookstore chain whose sprawling stores in Beijing are among the city’s cultural hubs. To celebrate World Book Day, April 23, it started a novel 360-hour live-streaming program on April 14 on four platforms, including Douyin, the popular video-sharing app known as TikTok overseas. Through the program, viewers can learn about the bookstores, their products and activities on offer while writers can introduce their new books and tell their personal stories. This is not the first time that OWSpace has resorted to the online technology to appeal to readers. On March 9, Xu Zhiyuan, a cofounder of the bookstore and a celebrity author, had an online surprise for book lovers. With the founders of five other bookstores and Weiya, a popular live-streaming star…

($1=7 yuan) Fixed Assets Investment Growth in China (% y.o.y.) Fixed Assets Investment Growth in China by Sector January-March (% y.o.y.) Primary industry: Agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery Secondary industry: Mining, manufacturing, construction, and electricity, thermal, fuel gas and water production and supply Tertiary industry: Services Fixed Assets Investment Growth in China by Region January-March (% y.o.y.) (Source: National Bureau of Statistics) China-Europe freight trains made 1,941 trips in the first quarter, up 15 percent from the same period last year. By April 18, all Chinese cities operating the trains had resumed outbound transport. Crude steel production reached 78.98 million tons in March, down 1.7 percent year on year. The epidemic has impacted the steel sector, driving up inventories and dampening demand at home and abroad. The revenue of…

Local authorities in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, east China, among others, have started a campaign to promote the use of serving chopsticks and spoons. These campaigns have been well received thus far, with wide public support, given that dining tables, particularly in China’s food-sharing culture, are a channel through which diseases can spread. Traditionally, Chinese people use their own chopsticks to take food from shared dishes and on occasions, even serve others using their own chopsticks in a show of hospitality or intimacy. In China it is generally deemed impolite to dine separately or use serving chopsticks. Surveys show that only a quarter of Chinese realize the importance of dining separately or using serving chopsticks, and in most cases individuals state that to do so at gatherings…

Online shopping has become an important part of life during lockdowns to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). A range of e-commerce platforms have made it possible for people to get whatever they need from home, and this shopping model has contributed to China’s consumption growth significantly. At a time when international trade is being restricted by the COVID-19 pandemic, online shopping is a good alternative to other traditional forms of trade, able to stimulate global logistics and maintain supply chains. The 127th China Import and Export Fair (CIEF), or Canton Fair, which is to be held online for the first time in late June, will be based on this logic. The CIEF, which originated in 1957, takes place biannually in Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province…

As most areas in China started to lift lockdowns and incrementally resume normal life, Suifenhe, a sleepy border city in the northeast of the country, was put on the map by a surging number of imported coronavirus cases. The inconspicuous county-level city in Heilongjiang Province has received an influx of Chinese nationals from Russia since late March, of whom hundreds have later tested positive for the coronavirus. This has brought the town, with a population of about 70,000, into the spotlight. Li Entai, a 76-year-old who has lived in the area his entire life, remembered the last time the city got national attention was in 1987 when it bartered apples and thermal flasks for flatfish and walleye pollock with the neighboring city of Pogranichny in Russia. It was the first…