Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.65/No.15 i Beijing Review

The 2022 Annual Conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) will take place from April 20-22 in Boao, Hainan Province, themed The World in COVID-19 and Beyond: Working Together for Global Development and Shared Future. The annual conference will be an on-site occasion supplemented with online links. The global economy has been lifted from the pandemic-induced recession with a non-balanced recovery momentum; the economic recovery of countries largely hinges on the pandemic’s evolution. The BFA Annual Conference will probe into the trend of world economy and issues including industrial chain and inflation. Following the COVID-19-dominated narrative of the past two years, countries are shifting their focus to green, innovative and sustainable development. Peaking carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality, together with green and low-carbon economic restructuring, have become prevailing…

WOMEN’S FOOTBALLER OF THE YEAR Wang Shuang was named 2021 Chinese Women’s Footballer of the Year during a ceremony in Beijing on March 31. Last year, the Chinese midfielder and forward helped China qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in April before leading her team, Wuhan Jiangda, to victory in the Chinese Women’s Super League championships in November. Despite a disappointing performance at Tokyo 2020, China bounced back six months later, in February, winning the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Asian Cup after 16 years following consecutive comeback wins over Japan and the Republic of Korea in the semifinal and final. The occasion marked Wang’s fourth time winning the honor, making her this event’s most decorated player. Shui Qingxia, head coach of the Chinese national women’s football team, was granted the Special…

Amid the numerous challenges Shanghai residents must contend with to curb the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, the city will eventually see glimmers of hope and locals can return to business as usual. But for the moment, and likely the weeks to come, Shanghai, one of China’s most populous cities and the nation’s financial hub, still struggles under strict social distancing and quarantine procedures. According to public health figures released on April 7, the city reported 19,660 asymptomatic cases and 322 confirmed symptomatic cases within 24 hours. For the record, the medical term “asymptomatic” infers a patient tested positive for the virus, but showed no visible symptoms. Public health officials have implemented citywide measures to impose mandatory nucleic-acid testing and this could partially explain the rise in numbers. It’s…

In the last two days of March, New Delhi almost simultaneously hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss and U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh. Earlier, on March 25, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi had also visited New Delhi. In light of the current complex state of the world, India’s position has become increasingly critical. Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, India has adopted a neutral stance, abstained from almost all relevant votes in the UN, and did not join the U.S.-led sanctions against Russia. Its abstention stirred strong Western dissatisfaction. On March 21, U.S. President Joe Biden publicly stated that only India among the U.S.-Japan-India-Australia “Quad” alliance is “somewhat shaky” in acting against Russia. This time, both Singh and Truss…

With the arrival of spring, tree planting has become a common sight on the mountain slopes of Wuping, a county in Longyan City, Fujian Province in southeast China. In recent years, Longyan has put ecological conservation at the top of its agenda. At the same time, it has been committed to pursuing green development and improving living standards. In March, the State Council approved the establishment of demonstration zones featuring the high-quality development of the old revolutionary bases in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, and west Fujian Province, where Longyan lies. Longyan was part of the Communist Party of China-led revolutionary base in the 1930s, and this initiative aims to help former revolutionary base areas catch up with more developed regions by tapping into their comparative advantages. Wuping is the birthplace of…

According to the Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserve released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on March 31, in the fourth quarter of 2021, the renminbi (RMB) share in global foreign exchange reserves edged up to 2.79 percent from the third quarter’s 2.66 percent, ranking fifth among the world’s major currencies. This is also the highest share since the IMF first released its data on RMB reserve assets in 2016. The internationalization of the RMB keeps expanding. In the wake of reforms on its exchange rate formulation regime in 2005, China began pursuing a managed floating exchange rate regime based on market supply and demand. Today’s RMB status is, by all measures, quite the feat to have accomplished in under two decades. However, the U.S. dollar (USD) is…

Eight translators were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation, the top honor conferred by the Translators Association of China (TAC), for their contributions to promoting translation and cultural exchanges between China and the world at the Eighth TAC Congress in Beijing on April 1. They included Pan Yaohua, 95, who has translated over 200 English film and television series subtitles into Chinese; and Zhao Zhenjiang, 82, who has translated the Chinese literary classic A Dream of Red Mansions into Spanish. Another 117 people received the title of Veteran Translator. Seven foreign experts who work as translators and editors in China were awarded for their outstanding contributions to introducing China to the world and promoting international exchanges. The prize was awarded for the first time and aims to encourage more…

It was an opportunity to wholly immerse myself in cultural exchanges, whilst at the same time enjoying a spot of athletic competition. I arrived in China from Rwanda in 2018 to study civil engineering at the Beijing University of Science and Technology. One of the biggest things that happened to me during my stay in China was the opportunity to volunteer at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. My Olympic volunteering journey started last September through a recruitment announcement in a chat group on WeChat—one of China’s largest multipurpose social platforms. I was excited to see it as I am myself a keen sports enthusiast and my home country has not yet hosted the likes of these competitions. It was a great opportunity for me to both watch and serve…

Digital Yuan The People’s Bank of China (PBC) announced on April 2 that its digital yuan pilot program will expand to more domestic cities. The digital fiat currency, or e-CNY, will be accessible in Tianjin and Chongqing municipalities, Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, Fuzhou and Xiamen in Fujian Province, and six cities in Zhejiang Province hosting the 2022 Asian Games, a PBC statement said. The country has tested the use of the digital yuan in more than 10 locations, including Shenzhen in Guangdong, Shanghai, and Xiongan New Area in Hebei Province. Most recently, Beijing and Zhangjiakou in Hebei were included in the program following test rounds during the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. Replicable applications for the digital currency are taking shape in wholesale, retail, catering, tourism and administrative…

In this age of economic globalization, openness and integration is an unstoppable historical trend. Attempts to “erect walls” or “decouple” run counter to the law of economics and market principles. They would hurt others’ interests without benefiting oneself. The future of the world should be decided by all countries working together. We must not let the rules set by one or a few countries be imposed on others, or allow unilateralism pursued by certain countries to set the pace for the whole world. —At the BFA Annual Conference 2021 No matter how much progress China has made, it will not threaten anyone, attempt to overturn the existing international system, or seek spheres of influence. China’s door will not be closed and will only open even wider. Past events prove that…

The 2022 Annual Conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) is scheduled to take place in Boao, a resort town in the island province of Hainan, on April 20-22. In separate interviews with Beijing Review reporter Tao Xing, Leon Wang, Executive Vice President, International and China President of multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, and Elizabeth Gaines, CEO of Australia-based mining firm Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), shared their companies’ plans to expand business in China. They also applauded the BFA’s success as a platform for regional cooperation. Edited excerpts of their views follow: Leon Wang, Executive Vice President, International and China President of AstraZeneca AstraZeneca entered China in 1993 and has since invested over $1 billion in production and operation along with an additional $1.5 billion in research and development (R&D)…

For Mexican professor Gerardo del Rivero Maldonado, holding a Ph.D. in economics from the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEM), China’s unprecedented economic growth can be attributed to the large investment its government has poured into the education sector. This has allowed “Asia’s giant” to lead the world’s scientific revolution and stand at the forefront of universal exploration, he said. This is how Maldonado, a full-time academic passionate about everything that China represents, sees things. He feels this driving force every day, practically every hour, inside the classroom as a scholar, as a professor, but also as director of one of the university’s institutions where he provides students with a better understanding of the “Chinese phenomenon,” the current No.1 topic of worldwide social and economic studies. For Maldonado,…