Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.64/No.30 i Beijing Review

The 44th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is currently underway in Fuzhou, Fujian Province. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this is the first time for UNESCO to review World Heritage applications online. A series of operational norms for online review were established and adopted at this session and will become an important reference for the combination of online and offline platforms in the World Heritage field. This year’s event has been postponed and extended to cover the agendas of both 2020 and 2021, with 45 nominations under consideration to be added to the 258 sites already inscribed on the World Heritage List. The session also passed the Fuzhou Declaration that reiterates the significance of World Heritage protection and international cooperation. Since ratifying the Convention Concerning the Protection of the…

Fiscal Revenue China’s fiscal revenue saw a year-on-year increase of 21.8 percent in the first six months of the year to exceed 11.7 trillion yuan ($1.8 trillion), official data showed on July 20. It rose 8.6 percent from the corresponding pre-pandemic level in 2019, according to the Ministry of Finance. Fiscal expenditure went up 4.5 percent in the first six months from a year earlier to 12.17 trillion yuan ($1.9 trillion). Trade Corridor A China-Singapore land-sea trade corridor has expanded its reach to 304 ports in 106 countries and regions worldwide. The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor is a trade and logistics passage jointly constructed by Singapore and provincial-level regions of west China. Chongqing is the center of operation. Goods are transported via various modes including railways, highways and water…

Liu Zaiye, a freelance photographer, recently received several orders to take photos at Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou, a coastal city in Fujian Province. With its buildings featuring exquisite carvings first constructed more than 1,300 years ago, the place is a stunning example of Chinese architecture and art. “In the past, the temple was mostly only known by locals like me. But with the influence of social media, many tourists now come to check it out,” Liu told Beijing Review, adding historical sites in Quanzhou could hopefully be recognized internationally as the city is applying for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The 44th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee kicked off on July 16 in the provincial capital Fuzhou, and will see a total of 45 candidates reviewed…

Making my way slowly along the cliff face, I gazed at the ornate facades of each temple I passed on my way to the upper-tier caves. As I entered the first cave and stared up at the swirling feitian—the flying Apsaras of Buddhist art, I wondered how many hundreds of thousands of others, from near and far, have stared at the same lavishly decorated paintings and sculptural works. The elaborately painted cave temples at Mogao, an ancient Silk Road site on the edge of the Gobi Desert, were well worth the trek, and in 1998 it was a very remote place. Sometime between the fourth and 14th century, Mogao bustled as a thriving Buddhist center connecting East Asia and South Asia. Some 25 km southeast of the oasis town of…

An international academic conference on The Communist Party of China (CPC) Governing the Country: Experience and Enlightenment was held in Shanghai, birthplace of the CPC, on July 20. The event was jointly organized by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, China International Publishing Group and Fudan University. More than 200 academics and experts from home and abroad gathered for exchange and research discussions. Edited excerpts of the experts’ views follow: Du Zhanyuan, President of China International Publishing Group Facing the impact of COVID-19, compounded with major changes unseen in a century, hegemony and power politics, as well as insufficient economic growth, more and more countries and political parties want to learn about the practices of the CPC in governing the country. Four points can summarize the Experience CPC’s…

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council on July 15 jointly released a guideline to uphold high-level reform and opening up in Pudong New Area in Shanghai, proposing to turn Pudong into an attractive district boasting creativity, competitiveness, and influence by 2050. The area is going to act as a global example in terms of high-quality and high-efficiency urban management. This guideline signals that the second centenary goal of the CPC, which aims to forge a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by the middle of the century, is being taken from blueprint to reality. The perks of Pudong Located in the east of Shanghai and at the eastern edges of the Yangtze River Delta, Pudong is…

This summer serves up a long-awaited sports spread for Chinese football lovers. As international matches were postponed or canceled one by one due to the outbreak of COVID-19, they had no ways of releasing their passion for the game. Subsequently, they are more than happy to see the UEFA European Championship and Copa América 2021 take place at roughly the same time after the lifting of various restrictions. Together with football fans worldwide, Chinese aficionados relished in the two major events. They gathered with friends in bars or restaurants, and talked about football and life over some barbecue and beer. Chinese audiences tuned into the Copa América 2021 final on July 11 either on TV or online. The final, once again pitting arch rivals Argentina and Brazil against each other,…

Holding the title of one of the biggest cities in the world, the densely populated Shanghai certainly isn’t shy of apartments; homes in different shapes and sizes stretch far (and high) all across its iconic skyline. What makes Shanghai unique to me, is the presence of the old, charismatic lane houses. These lane houses, called shikumen, are a traditional Shanghainese architectural style combining Western and Chinese elements that first appeared in the 1860s. Shikumen are arranged into dense and often maze-like alleys, called nongtang. This traditional style of accommodation once housed over 60 percent of Shanghai’s downtown population and now act as an insight into traditional Chinese culture. I found myself particularly drawn to the lanes when I first arrived in Shanghai in 2017. Tucked away from the hustle and…

CHINESE FLAG BEARER FOR TOKYO OLYMPICS The Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) announced late on July 17 that it has selected China’s first-ever Olympic gold medalist in taekwondo, Zhao Shuai, as one of the two national flag-bearers for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Summer Games. Born in 1995, Zhao began training in taekwondo at the age of 9. Today he is one of China’s top taekwondo athletes. At the Rio Olympics in 2016, Zhao made history by winning China’s first Olympic gold medal in men’s taekwondo when he triumphed in the 58kg category. Later he won gold medals at the 2017 World Championships. In addition to Zhao, volleyball star Zhu Ting has also been named as a flag-bearer for the Chinese delegation, becoming the country’s first female flag-bearer…

The Great Wall was at the top of my must-see list on my first trip to China as a tourist in May 2014. Over the past seven years, this wondrous engineering miracle and historical landmark has become my most frequently visited treasure on China’s long list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. For my introduction to this world marvel of engineering, I traveled out several hours from downtown Beijing in a hired car with my husband. We parked in a small, paved lot on the edge of Mutianyu Village in the capital city’s northeastern suburban district of Huairou, where we were dropped off to walk up a path lined with food and souvenir stalls, to get to the ticket booth and then to find the aerial tramway that would transport us…

The actual site of Xanadu can be found a hop, a skip, a train ride or a 5.5-hour-long northbound car journey from Beijing, in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Xanadu was the first capital of Mongol ruler Kublai Khan, Emperor Shizu of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and grandson of Genghis Khan. Later he began construction of a second capital on the site we now know as Beijing. Built upon the rubble of the former Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) capital, the new city became Kublai’s primary capital, and Xanadu his summer retreat. In June 2012, Xanadu was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List for its historical importance and its unique blend of Mongolian and Han Chinese cultural elements. The ruins and remains of palaces, temples, walls, tombs, a canal, and nomadic encampments…

What comes to mind when you think of Chinese animation? For many Chinese born in the 1980s and 1990s, animation was an after-school staple. At that time, young Chinese children did not have too many recreational options at their disposal, so watching animation on TV was the general form of entertainment. For Zhao Yuqing, creating her own animation was a teenage dream. It took her 10 years to finally realize it. Despite the solid storyline of The Island of Siliang, Zhao knew that any type of animation, i.e. an original work without a famous online literary work, would face risks in the current market. The 3D-cartoon series tells about the adventures of two young people living in a fantasy world, coexisting with celestial beings, people and gods. The brand-new story…

In March 1974, Yang Zhifa, his five brothers, and their neighbor Wang Puzhi set out to dig a well near the Lishan Mountain in Lintong, east of Xi’an. Lintong was an area full of underwater springs and water courses, so they knew that they wouldn’t have to dig far before finding water. What they discovered instead that day led to one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in Chinese history—the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qinshihuang (259-210 B.C.) of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.). Since their discovery and subsequent uncovering, the Terracotta Army has become the most famous tourist site in Shaanxi Province, and the image of the terracotta warriors has become synonymous with the capital city of Xi’an itself. The vast collection of more than 8,000 statues is just part of…

I have been living in Xiamen for more than six years, but every time I visit Kulangsu, it feels special. When I first visited the island, it felt like stepping back in time, right into an era when people were closer to one another. Casually strolling through the isle streets, bumping into an old friend, sharing a few words with another visitor who crosses your path… Seemingly trivial things but such precious experiences in our hurried modern paces of life. Kulangsu offers us those involvements on a daily basis. The island, aka Gulangyu, is Xiamen’s most famous tourist spot. Its historical settlement has been listed as UNESCO World Cultural Heritage since 2017. Kulangsu is the place where the 19th-century traders from abroad and China alike built their mansions, after Western…