Innholdsfortegnelse for February 26, 2015 i Beijing Review

On February 1, the Fourth Migrant Workers’ Spring Festival Gala was held and recorded at the Nine Theater in Beijing’s Chaoyang District. The gala hosted performances by some 100 factory workers from Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Taiwan. The more than 30 children who participated in the show were all offspring of migrant workers. The gala was originally scheduled to run for three hours, but took over four hours to finish, as the amateur actors involved lacked experience in performing. However, their performances won thunderous applause from the audience. When the final performance— the yearly staged choral piece A Hymn to Laborers—started, the audience stood up and sang along in solidarity with the actors on stage. “The gala aims to review developments in the workers’ community over the past year and…

Xu, head of the Great Wall Circus in Suzhou, east China’s Anhui Province, was beginning to worry. Usually, business would pick up around the Chinese Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival, but not this year. “This is the most sluggish Spring Festival season I have ever seen,” he said. So far, he had not managed to land a single booking for the holiday season. He blamed the recent slowdown in business on the stampede in Shanghai that left 36 dead on the evening of December 31, 2014, and a tiger escaping from an unlocked cage after circus performance, injuring a 12-year-old boy in Putian of Fujian Province on January 20. In addition to these tragedies, he suggested the stronger policies on animal protection have caused an overall downturn in…

Two Mongolian horses, Altay (left) and Cherlen, arrive at the border city of Erenhot, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on February 12. The horses are a gift by Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj to Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan in honor of their visit to Mongolia last August. The names of the horses were chosen by Xi. Hi-Tech Farming Huayang Star Space Farm is open to visitors in early February in Tiantai County, Zhejiang Province. Covering an area of 17.5 hectares, the phase-one project of the farm has nine star greenhouses, all equipped with advanced agricultural technologies. Low Inflation China’s consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, grew 0.8 percent year on year in January, the lowest rise in more than five years, the…

Thanks to the mediation and shuttle diplomacy of European leaders—German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande—four-party peace talks between Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine were resumed in the Belarusian capital Minsk on February 12 and produced an anticipated yet joyless ceasefire deal after intense negotiations. Though observers were affirmative that the new truce deal was to be honored by all parties, the temporary progress would not ensure the settlement of the crisis. Due to the complexity of the situation, the ultimate solution lies in a strategic compromise between Russia and the United States. A year after the crisis broke out, the U.S.-led economic sanctions against Russia have failed to turn the Ukrainian situation around. Latest UN statistics showed that the civil conflict in Ukraine had claimed more than…

Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute will be bringing its worldrenowned Alaska seafood to the Monsoon Restaurant at Intercontinental Beijing Financial Street in 2015! To kick off the new year, Alaskan seafood including snow crab, cod, yellow fin sole, rockfish and renowned Alaskan salmon, all delicate and nutritious, will be available to diners in the capital. Visit Intercontinental Beijing Financial Street in March and enjoy the taste of authentic Alaskan seafood.…

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced on February 10 that American company Qualcomm Inc., the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC or “chip”) maker, will be fined 6.09 billion yuan ($975 million) after a 14-month investigation. The fine amounts to 8 percent of Qualcomm’s sales revenue in China in 2013. One of the key reasons for the penalty is the unfair and excessively high royalties Qualcomm collected from Chinese smartphone makers. “Qualcomm refused to provide a patent list to its customers in China and out-of-date patents were included in the licensing package and charged,” the NDRC said in the statement on February 10. Other major breaches of the Chinese anti-monopoly law include product bundling and adding unreasonable conditions to the sale of baseband chips. “Qualcomm’s actions have precluded and…

In 2009, Texas State Representative Betty Brown shocked the world after she suggested that voters with Chinese names should change them to make them “easier for Americans to deal with.” Her words were immediately criticized as thinly veiled racism and soon after, she apologized for the offence caused. Six years have passed since then, and while Brown has presumably moved on to bigger and better things outside the world of politics, it seems her battle for renaming Chinese citizens has strangely re-emerged … in China. When I arrived in Beijing, I presumed my name would be the odd one out. So when the first local I met greeted me with a cheerful “Hi, my name is Jennifer,” I was more than a little surprised. It soon became evident that Jennifer…

BELGIUM European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (left) speaks during a joint press conference with European Council President Donald Tusk after the EU summit in Brussels on February 12, which failed to produce an agreement addressing the Greek debt crisis NAMIBIA A worker takes photos of the fire-hit Rössing Uranium mine near the town of Arandis on February 12. Over 1,000 miners were evacuated after flames broke out INDIA A worker counts stacked bunches of roses at an auction center in Bangalore on February 12 in preparation for Valentine’s Day ITALY Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship that capsized in 2012 and killed 32 people, arrives at the courthouse for his final declaration on February 11 in Grosseto. He is charged with multiple manslaughter and causing a shipwreck…

The swivel bridge stretching across the Beijing-Shanghai rail lines in Zoucheng, east China’s Shandong Province, which spans 198 meters and weighs 22,400 tons, rotated over an angle of 97.3 degrees and joined with the approach bridge on each side. It has been the heaviest swivel bridge in the world, marking China’s swing method of bridge construction has taken a leading role on the international stage. As its general contractor, Liuzhou OVM Machinery Co. Ltd. provided the swivel technology. As a bridge construction giant, OVM not only specializes in the manufacturing of prestressed anchorage devices, bridge cables and rubber bearings, but also provides comprehensive services encompassing design, construction and detection. Further, the antenna post of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower in Shanghai, which weighs 450 tons and extends as long as…

Back in 2008, French director Jean-Jacques Annaud returned to his home in France after wrapping up shooting in the Sahara. There, from a large number of books his friends had mailed to him, Annaud picked up Wolf Totem, a novel by a Chinese author, and was immediately drawn in. Soon after, Annaud unexpectedly received a phone call from China inviting him to direct a film adapted from the novel. Though at the same time he was also among the candidates for the big-budget Hollywood production Life of Pi, Annaud, who is known for making films with animals such as The Bear (1988) and Two Brothers (2004), decided to take up the offer from China. After almost six years of shooting and production, Wolf Totem started to be screened throughout China…