Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.64/No.38 i Beijing Review

The Chinese Government has launched new moves in its development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council jointly released, on September 5 and September 6 respectively, the Hengqin plan and Qianhai plan, outlining the development of the Guangdong-Macao in-depth cooperation zone in Hengqin and that of the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone. The upgraded strategies will lead the integration of the Greater Bay Area into a new phase of more in-depth and detailed practice. For both Hong Kong and Macao, geographic size is an important factor restricting their development. Consequently, the two plans will first expand the scopes of the two cooperation zones. For instance, according to the Qianhai plan, the Qianhai cooperation zone…

LAUREATE IN LIFE SCIENCES Yuen Kwok-Yung, a 65-year-old professor at the University of Hong Kong, won the Future Science Prize in life sciences on September 12 for his discovery of SARS-CoV-1 as the causative agent of the global SARS outbreak in 2003. He shares the honor with his colleague Sriyal Malik Peiris. Yuen’s team treated the first SARS patients in Hong Kong and managed to isolate SARS-CoV-1 from their clinical specimens in 2003, proving critical to the design of diagnostic tests and disease characterization. In addition, Yuen’s continued studies on SARS-like viruses predicted the potential re-emergence of a SARS-like epidemic and stressed the importance of public health preparedness. The Future Science Prize is a privately funded science prize established by a group of renowned scientists and successful entrepreneurs in 2016.…

For members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the annual China-ASEAN Expo and the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit held during the expo have evolved into a benchmark of cooperation with China since their establishment in Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in south China, in 2004. The 18th edition of the expo, running from September 10 to 13, featured the theme of Sharing the New International Land-Sea Corridor, Jointly Building the China-ASEAN Community With a Shared Future. China attached great importance to it with President Xi Jinping sending a congratulatory letter and Vice President Wang Qishan attending the opening ceremony. The country is determined to deepen cooperation in trade, economy and other fields with ASEAN, a region high on the agenda of its neighborhood diplomacy. Closer…

Metaverse has become the most recent buzzword in China’s capital market, as related stocks continue to hit daily limits. The actual term metaverse was first put forward in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, in which he described a virtual world called the Metaverse, a computer-generated 3D world that is interactive, immersive, and collaborative. The 2018 movie Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg, further clarifies the concept of the metaverse by portraying it as a virtual replica of the real world. The metaverse has been part of daily life among China’s younger generations as a gaming concept. However, a statement by ZQGame, a digital entertainment company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on September 6, completely blew up the metaverse concept. The company announced its new metaverse-based…

Cui Chengxin, head of a rural cooperative in east China, estimated his cooperative had managed to reduce its grain loss rate from 4 to 1.5 percent by using machineries to harvest the crops. He lives in Jinan, capital of Shandong Province and the host city of the first International Conference on Food Loss and Waste, held both online and offline, from September 9 to 11. The conference, proposed by China at the first session of the 15th G20 Leaders’ Summit in November 2020, centered on “reducing food loss and waste and promoting global food security.” It aimed to build a global consensus, safeguard the world’s food security and contribute to the zero hunger target the UN has included in its 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. In his congratulatory letter to the…

Buried deep in the ruins of the Shang Dynasty (about 1600-1046 B.C.), more specifically in Anyang City of Henan Province, bones of the rhino were found. A collection of archaeological evidence and references in ancient Chinese literature has verified the existence of the rhinoceros in ancient China. The animal was scattered across China’s Central Plains, where the Yellow River passes through and Chinese civilization originated. Nevertheless, the rhino was no longer roaming the region after the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-A.D. 220). Some scientists think it was the colder climate of Northeast Asia that saw the creature fade from the pages of history. Zhou Yu, a writer with National Humanity History, a Beijing-based Chinese semi-monthly magazine, offered up another explanation: the crafting of armor. Zhou’s book, The History of Chinese Armor,…

On August 30, the National Press and Publication Administration delivered new rules on online gaming. Children under the age of 18 are now allowed to play online games only between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays as well as during public holidays. This is so far the strictest regulation issued on video gaming intending to prevent the huge number of players, most of whom are under 18, from getting addicted to online gaming. By late 2018, the number of online gamers in China had reached around 484 million, the vast majority of them being children aged between 12 and 16—an age group most likely to develop gaming addiction. As for this latest rule to really help drag children away from the cliff’s edge, various efforts are in…

Getting the China-U.S. relationship right is not optional, but something both sides must do and must do well. That is a point Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed in a phone conversation on September 10 with his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, and also a premise both sides need to bear in mind when managing bilateral ties. Noting that China and the U.S. are respectively the biggest developing country and the biggest developed country, Xi pointed out that whether they can handle their relationship well bears on the future of the world, and it is a question of the century to which the two countries must provide a good answer. With the international community facing many common challenges, China and the U.S. need to show broad vision and shoulder great responsibilities, he…

The renowned American philosopher and scholar John Dewey completed a two-year sojourn to China a century ago, a critical turning point in his life at a time when China, too, stood at a crossroads. Dewey entered China in 1919, the year of the transformative May Fourth Movement, and left in 1921, coincidentally the year the Communist Party of China was founded. The May Fourth Movement started with student protests against the government’s weak response to the Treaty of Versailles that undermined China’s sovereignty following World War I. It evolved into a national campaign for new ideas, including science, democracy and Marxism. We have now encountered yet another critical turning point over the past two years. As the U.S. has arguably pursued a new cold war against China and both countries…

Economic Data China’s economy maintained its trend of recovery throughout August despite disruptions from the COVID-19 epidemic and natural disasters, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on September 15. The value-added industrial output, a key indicator reflecting industrial activities and economic prosperity, expanded 5.3 percent year on year, NBS data showed. The figure was up 11.2 percent from its August 2019 level. In the first eight months, the value-added industrial output gained 13.1 percent year on year. Output of the hi-tech manufacturing sector jumped 18.3 percent year on year, accelerating 2.7 percentage points compared with the figure in July. Retail sales of consumer goods went up 2.5 percent year on year, down 6 percentage points from the previous month. The sporadic outbreaks of COVID-19 and natural disasters such…

Before graduating from the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing in 2015, Leong Kaseng, a Macao entrepreneur, visited Hengqin Island in Guangdong Province to look for career development prospects. He finally secured a job at a company there. “My father, who later moved to Macao, participated in government-led land reclamation projects in Hengqin more than 40 years ago, along with other family members,” Leong told Beijing Review. “This is why I chose the place as the starting point of my new life after graduation, following in the footsteps of my predecessors.” Hengqin is nestled in the southern part of Zhuhai, right across the water from Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR). Development of the 106-square-km island, three times the SAR’s size, is expected to create great opportunities for Macao’s…

The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China in 2013 ushered in a new era for international development. It offers a new paradigm for mutually beneficial cooperation between participating countries based on a people-centric approach and the revolutionary idea of building a community with a shared future for humanity. In 2017, China launched the Digital Silk Road, adding a new dimension to the initiative. The program aims to boost digital connectivity among participants and provide the developing world with the necessary digital tools to foster economic development. Digital infrastructure is becoming even more essential to modern economies with the arrival of faster networks, cheaper sensors, and the proliferation of connected devices. As one of the world’s ancient civilizations, Armenia played a vital role in the functioning of the ancient Silk…