Innholdsfortegnelse for January 14, 2016 i Beijing Review

Railway Investment The China Railway Engineering Corp. (CREC) has signed an agreement to invest in a mega infrastructure project in Malaysia. CREC entered a purchase agreement with its local partner to buy 60-percent equity in the Bandar Malaysia project from state investment firm 1MDB for 7.41 billion Ringgit ($1.72 billion) on December 29, 2015. The company will own 24 percent of the project’s equity under the deal. Located about 7 km from the Kuala Lumpur city center, Bandar Malaysia will serve as the terminal of the proposed high-speed railway between the Malaysian capital and Singapore. It will also serve as the city’s central transport hub, linking to other rail lines and new highways. CREC is one of the world’s largest engineering and construc-tion firms, and also owns a variety of…

Comments to yulintao@bjreview.com On December 16, 2015, the State Council authorized the construction of two nuclear power projects—a pilot proj-ect of China’s third-generation nuclear power technology at the Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Plant in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the expansion of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in Lianyungang, east China’s Jiangsu Province. Statistics from the China Nuclear Energy Association show that eight nuclear power generating units in 2015 were ratified for construction, setting a new record. According to Liu Baohua, director of the nuclear power department under China’s National Energy Administration, by the end of 2015, there were 30 nuclear power reactors in operation in China, with an additional 24 under construction. China’s breakthroughs in nuclear power technology coincide with the need for eco-nomic restructuring and environmental protection.…

Chinese President Xi Jinping Paying State Visit to the United States In September, President Xi paid his first official visit to the United States since taking office, which received attention around the world as the leaders of two largest economies met to discuss a wide range of economic, security and geopolitical topics. During the seven-day visit, from Seattle, Washington to Washington D.C., and then to New York to address the United Nations, Xi stressed that building a new model for major-country relationships is a prior-ity of China’s diplomacy and that the two sides should ensure that China-U.S. relations continue to sail along the right course. The two sides reached 49 important consensus points and outcomes during the visit and a series of wide-ranging commercial contracts were signed between business leaders.…

Entering 2016, the global economy is confronted with a number of risks. This has resulted in projections made by dif-ferent economic institutions being at odds with each other. Recently, the Financial Times collected the views and opinions of investors and strategists, and presented a selection of seven possible—though not probable—tail risks that the global economy may confront this year. Tail risk is defined as blows to investments that may occur, though are not necessarily likely to happen. Such risks include inflation in the United States, Europe’s economic growth exceeding the U.S.’, the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, etc. Among these seven risks, the Chinese economy was the source of two, naming the prospect of a hard landing and a currency collapse. The message being sent is that it would…

Dear Readers, Forum is a column that provides a space for varying perspectives on contemporary Chinese society. We invite you to submit personal viewpoints on past and current topics (in either English or Chinese). yanwei@bjreview.com Please provide your name and address along with your comments Chinese author Feng Tang sparked a con-troversy among China’s literary circles for his vulgar and racy translation of Stray Birds, a collection of poems by Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). The controversy developed into a heated de-bate about today’s translation standards. In one of the most controversial lines, Feng translated “The world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover. It becomes small as one song, as one kiss of the eternal” into Chinese sentences which literally mean “The wide world unzipped its…

Chinese President Xi Jinping confers the military flag to Wei Fenghe, Commander of the Rocket Force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with Wang Jiasheng (far right), Political Commissar of the Rocket Force, looking on at a ceremony in Beijing on December 31, 2015. The General Command of the PLA Army, the PLA Rocket Force and the PLA Strategic Support Force were inaugurated at the event as part of China’s ongoing military reform. The PLA Rocket Force, renamed from the PLA Second Artillery Force, was founded in 1966 as China’s core strategic deterrent force. The newly established Strategic Support Force is a combination of all support forces with strong strategic, fundamental and supportive importance, said Yang Yujun, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense.…

INDIA Local residents escape to the streets following a strong earthquake that hit Leimakhong of Manipur on January 4, killing at least six people MALAYSIA A ferry carrying 158 passengers capsizes in Sabah State before arriving onshore on January 6. Fortunately, all passengers were safe SOUTH KOREA South Koreans protest against the country’s agreement with Japan on wartime sex slavery outside Japan’s embassy in Seoul on January 6 GERMANY Irish dancers perform a traditional musical drama at the Old Opera House in Frankfurt on January 5 THE UNITED STATES President Barack Obama speaks during a press conference where he unveiled a series of executive actions on gun control at the White House in Washington, D.C. on January 5 FRANCE A cyclist stops at the site of the Charlie Hebdo office…

Comments to yulintao@bjreview.com Pyongyang once again shocked the world with its earthquake-triggering nuclear test. China’s earthquake-monitoring agency reported that the nuclear test con-ducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on January 6 even shook some places in northeast China which border the DPRK. Shortly after DPRK’s announcement of the success of its first hydrogen bomb test, China declared that it “firmly opposes” the nuclear test, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry released on its website on January 6. At a Foreign Ministry press briefing, spokeswoman Hua Chunying announced, “China is steadfast in its position that the Korean Peninsula should be denuclearized and nuclear proliferation should be pre-vented to maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia.” “We strongly urge the DPRK to honor its commitment to…

Comments to baishi@bjreview.com ‘My days here are quiet and well orga-nized. I read books and newspapers every day. In spare time, I play cards with other roommates. I feel good here,” the 50-year-old man surnamed Li told Beijing Review. He has been a drug addict for many years. “My family is always worried about me. Several months later, my son will take me home when I finish compulsory drug rehabilita-tion. I have sworn to him that I won’t take drugs anymore,” Li said with tears streaming down his face. Li was receiving addiction treatment on December 20, 2015, at a hospital in Zhongshan, south China’s Guangdong Province, when he agreed to be interviewed by Beijing Review. Unlike other medical facilities, the South Region Hospital of Zhongshan specializes in offering treatment…

Flight Trials A civilian aircraft lands on the airfield atop Nansha Islands’ Yongshu Reef on the South China Sea on January 6. It was one of the two test flights of civilian aircraft of the newly-built airfield on that day. The Chinese Government used civilian aircraft to test whether the airfield’s facilities meet civil aviation stan-dards, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. PM2.5 in Beijing Beijing’s average PM2.5 density in 2015 was more than double the official level targeted nationwide, an official said on January 4. Despite the city’s attempts to limit air pollution, the average PM2.5 reading stood at 80.6 micrograms per cubic meter, 1.3 times more than the national standard, Zhang Dawei, Director of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center (BMEMC), said at a news conference. Beijing…

Comments to tangyuankai@bjreview.com Thirty-year old Yu Zhichen, founder and CEO of Beijing Guangnian Wuxian Technology Co. Ltd., named his com-pany’s products after Alan Mathison Turing, the father of modern computer science and artifi-cial intelligence (AI). Established in 2010, Yu’s company of-ficially launched their Turing robots in 2014. According to the company, the robots are the most intelligent ones in the Chinese language environment. The company also delivers technical services; over the past year, it has answered more than 130 billion requests for services related to robots, smart homes and intelligent vehicle software as well as hardware. Yu launched Turing OS (operating system) for second-generation Turing robots on November 16, 2015. The upgraded robots can be used in a wider range of scenarios offering education, financial and medical services, as well…

Comments to yuanyuan@bjreview.com Every morning 54-year-old Qi Guilan goes to a pavilion in the Purple Bamboo Park in west Beijing’s Haidian District with her daughter’s profile written on palm-sized paper. She pastes the paper on a small wood board and sits in the pavilion with the sign beside her. Normally, there are about 10 people of Qi’s age who gather at the pavilion with profiles of their children. On weekends, there are more. They form part of a growing phenome-non—parents hoping to find a spouse for their unmarried children. Qi’s daughter, 30, just returned to China from the United States with a master’s degree and works for a state-owned company in Beijing. “I came across this pavilion while doing morning exercises in the park,” Qi told Beijing Review. “It is…