Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.63/No.20 i Beijing Review

Despite the serious impact of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), China hasn’t seen massive layoffs, and its employment situation is basically stable. According to a survey by the National Bureau of Statistics, unemployment rate in urban areas stood at 5.9 percent in March, down by 0.3 percentage point from February. The figures for April and May are expected to further decrease as resumption of work and production accelerates. In 2019, China’s monthly surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas was around 5 percent. This means that China’s job market has largely withstood the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. The employment stability is a result of a series of measures taken by the Chinese Government through multiple channels to prevent job losses. Taxation and policy support to enterprises is a key means…

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic halted many business activities and put downward pressure on the economy. Rising unemployment in hard-hit regions has become a major concern to the public and the government. However, the impact should not be exaggerated. There are also new growth opportunities in the areas of the digital economy, new technologies as well as employment-boosting information sharing and vocational training. Amid the epidemic, stabilizing the job market is a key priority. Long-term policies are key for the job market to emerge from the current difficulty and to cope with the long-term challenges such as a decline in labor force due to the aging population, a mismatch between skills of job seekers and the demand of employers, as well as short-term shocks such as uncertainties in the…

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak is a major public health crisis unseen in about 100 years. There is also a possibility that the disease may continue to exist for a long time to come. One of the most effective approaches to tackling the spread of the virus is to adopt widespread lockdowns, but this measure tends to interrupt consumption, investment, trade, logistics, the business flow, as well as industrial and supply chains. The post-pandemic world will therefore not be the same as it was before. Reshaping world order The world has been undergoing profound changes with increasing uncertainties. The Eastward shift of the world’s economic center of gravity, the decline of the West and the rise of the developing world have triggered anxiety in some. Vicious competition across scientific…

On the eve of Lunar New Year in 2020, it occurred to me that the novel coronavirus opened the Pandora’s Box and unleashed a public health crisis in Wuhan, the hardest hit Chinese city by the epidemic. A wave of extreme uneasiness wrapped everyone since the spread of the epidemic was incredibly rapid and discreet. On January 26, the first medical team of Peking University People’s Hospital rushed to Wuhan to treat patients contracted the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Their determination and bravery made my heart flutter, and then I decided to join the battle when I was informed on February 2 that another batch of medical teams would be formed soon. My wife helped me pack luggage and bought disposable items that might be useful. On February 7, I…

A model wearing a red dress restored according to the style of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 B.C.) walked onto the runway to the music of the xun, an egg-shaped aerophone and one of the oldest musical instruments in China. Her appearance kicked off a unique fashion show in early 2020 that showcased Chinese historical costumes from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The melancholy sound of the xun took people back to a distant era, making the unfamiliar clothes, hairstyles and makeup less obtrusive. However, the electronic elements of the music were a distinct reminder that they were in present-day Shanghai nearly 3,000 years later. In recent years, more and more young people have been attracted to traditional cultural and aesthetics and have participated in related…

In the early hours of the morning in Shanghai, 2004, a man pulling a three-wheel cart cycles through the streets. Hunched over his handlebars, he meanders through the jumble of alleyways crowded with furniture being sold by elderly couples, passing under clotheslines tensed between the cramped backroads of buildings. He cruises by a man cooking breakfast outside his repair shop and zigzags through the heaps of bamboo poles waiting to be fashioned into scaffolding. Using his bell often, he edges forward to the soundtrack of his loudspeaker blaring never-ending announcements too muffled to understand. If there is one sound that encapsulates my childhood, it is the cart man’s loudspeaker blaring through my neighborhood. Down the street from where I lived, there was what seemed to me Alibaba’s second cave (before…

VOLLEYBALL PLAYER RECOGNIZED Gong Xiangyu, a female Chinese volleyball player, was awarded this year’s National Outstanding Member of the Communist Youth League of China, according to a notice released on May 3. The 23-year-old Gong was born in Lianyungang in Jiangsu Province, east China. She was born to a sporting family. Her mother was a national fencing champion, while her father played with the Jiangsu under-23 basketball team. Gong plays as an opposite setter, and won an Olympic gold medal with the Chinese women’s volleyball team at the age of 19 at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Playing her position to perfection during the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Cup in Osaka, Japan, Gong’s role helped the team form a second-to-none offense and defense. She was also included in…

At the age of 18, Michael Hermann from Dortmund, then part of the Federal Republic of Germany, decided to become an international volunteer. Since 2005, he has worked in China on poverty alleviation and disease control in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, as well as Chongqing Municipality in southwest China, as the representative of the Federation for Associations Connected to the International Humana People-to-People Movement (FAIHPP) in China. He has no plan to ever leave. Through the years, Hermann has popularized planting technologies among Chinese farmers, spread knowledge on preventing HIV/AIDS and raised funds to help impoverished children in rural areas access preschool education. He has learned Mandarin and can speak it fluently now. Chinese people nicknamed him “the foolish charity man,” alluding to the ancient Chinese fable in which an…

ChiNext, China’s Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, will replace its approval-based initial public offering (IPO) system with a registration-based one to better cultivate new industry startups and bolster the real economy, in the latest leg of the country’s capital market reform. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on May 4 proposed the reform of ChiNext, a decade-old board of 807 listed companies and more than 45 million investors, with a focus on information disclosure and transparency. The reform also includes a series of specific rules in the areas of corporate governance, equity-based incentives and reduction of holding stocks. The goals of the reform include garnering experience for the broader application of the registration-based system and enhancing the capital market’s inclusiveness to innovation and startup firms,…

While the prevalence of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is putting significant downward pressure on the world economy and reshaping global supply chains, it has also given a strong push to the digital economy based on the Internet, e-commerce services and cloud computing, and fueled the digitalization of traditional industries. According to a report released by the UN Conference on Trade and Development on April 6, the development of digital technologies will enhance the risk-response capacity of global economies, while more people will enjoy the dividends brought about by bridging the digital gap. Economic transformation The program of the Digital Belt and Road was initially proposed at the First Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing in 2017 as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. The 2013-born…

Hu Pingyu, co-founder of an electronics group in Zhejiang Province in east China, decided with his partners to switch their business to face mask production in early March in light of a sharp decline of orders for electronics amid the epidemic. So his company invested about 60 million yuan ($8.4 million) and 40 days to build a brand new plant for medical masks. By the middle of April, the mask production line was put into operation. “Quite a few companies I know, no matter what they made before, have shifted to face mask production,” Hu told Beijing Review. “My company was late to come around, but our investment was large.” Hu didn’t need to do any marketing since orders from existing clients kept the company working around the clock. “Medical…

In late April, the workshop of Huaibei Laibote Photo Frame Manufacturing Co. Ltd. hummed with the sound of machines from time to time as dozens of staff worked on the assembly lines. However, it was much quieter compared to March and April in previous years when workers had to work overtime to catch up on orders. “Most of our orders were from Europe, the United States and Australia, and 98 percent of our products are exported to overseas markets. After the virus spread globally, the production of our company grounded to a halt,” said Zhang Defeng, head of Laibote. As the domestic situation of epidemic improves, some businesses are feeling somewhat relieved and getting fully prepared to resume production and develop new markets. But most of China’s export-oriented enterprises had…

($1=7 yuan) China’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) China’s Non-Manufacturing PMI China’s Comprehensive PMI (Source: National Bureau of Statistics) China’s major Internet and related services companies have maintained business revenue growth in the first quarter (Q1) of this year amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic. The total revenue of the companies reached 215.3 billion yuan ($30.5 billion) during the January-March period, up 1.5 percent year on year. China’s natural gas consumption edged up year on year in Q1 amid efforts to fight air pollution. Apparent consumption of natural gas increased 1.6 percent year on year to 78.5 billion cubic meters in the January-March period. The number of trips made by China-Europe freight trains hit a record monthly high of 979 in April, up 46 percent year on year. China-Europe cargo train…