Innholdsfortegnelse for June 30, 2016 i Beijing Review

JAPAN Residents of the island prefecture of Okinawa demonstrate in a park in Naha on June 19 to protest against the disproportionately large presence of U.S. military personnel on the island and the crimes committed by them IRAQ Government soldiers gesture in Falluja in the western province of Anbar on June 17 after the country’s security forces retook most of the city from the control of the so-called Islamic State group THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA A local resident stands in front of a big screen at a railway station in Seoul on June 22 to follow the news of a missile fired by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Yonhap News Agency, citing military authorities, reported that the test had failed MALAYSIA People attend a celebration of the International Day…

Comments to yuanyuan@bjreview.com By answering 32 questions, Wang Sicong, the son of Asia’s wealthiest man, Wang Jianlin, (according to Forbes, on March 2), collected more than 240,000 yuan ($36,930) within two weeks by responding to questions through an online Q&A platform. The platform, Fenda, which literally means “one-minute answers,” is a new hit in China. Based on the idea that users will pay for answers, Fenda operates not as an independent app, but by association with WeChat, the leading instant message app in China. On Fenda, people can introduce their area of expertise and set a price, normally between 1 yuan ($0.16) and 500 yuan ($76), for answering relevant questions. The answers are in spoken form, lasting 60 seconds or less. Launched on May 15, Fenda soon made waves, attracting…

Comments to dengyaqing@bjreview.com The global shipping industry has limped along battered and bruised since the fall out of the global financial crisis, a condition exacerbated by weakened demand and surplus supply of transport capacity. However, recent activities in China’s ongoing Belt and Road Initiative have served to mitigate the damage, offering a life-line to ailing global shipping enterprises, some of which are realigning to seize opportunities unlocked by the move. An example of this move is China COSCO Shipping Corp. Ltd., the largest ship-BUSINESS ping conglomerate born from the merger of China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co. and China Shipping (Group) Co., which has set out formulating and implementing its port layout along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. In September 2015, its Hong Kong-based…

Comments to yanwei@bjreview.com Summer in Hangzhou, the capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, is exceptionally hot and humid, owing to its geographical location and many crisscrossing lakes and rivers. The city feels even hotter this year due to the comprehensive preparation for the upcoming Group of 20 (G20) Summit to be held in early September. Roads are being rebuilt, causing dust to swirl through some communities. Public facilities and tourist sights are being renovated and repainted, while security has inevitably been tightened. Following the 2015 G20 Summit in Antalya, a Turkish city on the Mediterranean coast, China was chosen to host this year’s summit in accordance with the organization’s rotation system. China has experience in organizing large-scale international events, including two APEC economic leaders’ meetings, the Olympic Games in 2008…

Emergency Evacuation Rescuers help out a local resident who was trapped by a stormi n Duchang County, Jiangxi Province, on June 19. Heavy storms devastated 10 southern provinces including Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Hubei. Over 8 million people have been affected, with 42 losing their lives, 25 missing and around 460,000 evacuated as of June 22, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Desertification Control China has effectively contained desertification, with its desert land area shrinking continuously over the past decade, according to the State Forestry Administration. The area of formerly productive land degrading into deserts has been contracting at an annual average of 2,424 square km for over 10 consecutive years, said Zhang Jianlong, head of the administration. Expanding deserts are a global problem. It is estimated that one…

Comments to liuyunyun@bjreview.com China and the Philippines are neighbors facing each other across the sea, and the two peoples have enjoyed friendship over generations. Before the Philippines’ unilateral initiation of the South China Sea arbitration on January 22, 2013, the overall situation in the South China Sea had remained stable despite certain disputes between China and the Philippines therein. China and the Philippines carried out friendly consultations on, among other issues, establishing dialogue mechanisms and engaging in practical cooperation and joint development, and have achieved positive outcomes in these regards. However, since its initiation of the arbitration, the Philippines has unilaterally closed the door to settling the South China Sea issue with China through negotiation, and has, while turning its back on the bilateral consensus regarding managing differences, taken a…

Comments to wanghairong@bjreview.com Kimmy Cassandra Frederick, a native of Grenada, painstakingly tried to synchronize her jump with two middle-aged local women she had just met in the picturesque Zhouzhuang Town in Kunshan City, east China’s Jiangsu Province, after she had toured the iconic waterfront town. “One, two, three,” she kept on saying. After numerous attempts, the exciting moment was finally captured in a photo. Many more such moments remain imprinted on her mind. Frederick, who is enrolled in Peking Normal University’s international MBA program, visited Nanjing and Kunshan cities in Jiangsu on June 13-16 to learn about local economic and social development as well as to get a taste of the local culture. The 34 students in her class, from over 20 countries and regions, mostly worked in government departments…

Comments to yushujun@bjreview.com Investors are pumping Chinese capital into the U.S. real estate market, which totaled a whopping $350 billion in U.S. commercial and residential investments by 2015, according to a new report by Asia Society and the Rosen Consulting Group (RCG). “This wave of investment is coming from diverse sources in China,” said Arthur Margon, a partner at RCG and one of the authors of the report. “But that’s really a small piece of the potential investor universe.” The report, named Breaking Ground: Chinese Investment in U.S. Real Estate, shows that Chinese investors bought at least $17.1 billion worth of existing commercial property space from 2010 to 2015 at an annual growth rate of 70 percent. Investors spent at least $93 billion on residential real estate in those five…

Wal-Mart’s New Alliance JD.com, China’s second largest e-commerce platform, partnered with global retail giant Wal-Mart with the latter trading its China online unit for JD.com’s stakes, a strategic step expected to expand Wal-Mart’s reach to more Chinese customers. Under the deal, JD will take ownership of Wal-Mart Stores under the Yihaodian brand, website and app. JD will give a 5-percent equity stake to Wal-Mart, worth about $1.5 billion at JD’s current valuation, the company announced on June 20. The deal is expected to give Wal-Mart access to JD’s online traffic and bolster its presence in the extraordinarily lucrative, but increasingly competitive, online Chinese marketplace. Wal-Mart’s retail warehouse chain, Sam’s Club, will open a flagship section in China on JD.com, and both companies will leverage their supply chains and broaden the…

Comments to yulintao@bjreview.com Though Chinese President Xi Jinping had many issues on the agenda during his latest overseas trip on June 17-24, his first priority was to advance the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. The Belt and Road Initiative dominated the interaction between Xi and his hosts in Serbia and Poland in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as well as Uzbekistan in Central Asia. “The visits instill new vitality in the Belt and Road Initiative,” said Li Zuguo, a researcher on Central Asian and CEE studies at the China Institute of International Studies. Both CEE and Central Asia are essential components of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which was proposed by Xi in 2013 to promote common prosperity across more than 60…

Comments to yinpumin@bjreview.com AIDS, terrorism and the illegal drug trade are some of the biggest threats facing the world. China today faces more challenges in combating drug-related crimes, due to the spurt in the number of drug abusers, products as well as routes. “Influenced by both domestic and international factors, drug-related problems have spread rapidly, involving more people and sectors,” Tao Jing, Vice Director of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau (BMPSB), told a press conference in Beijing on June 21, ahead of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, which fell on June 26. “With the involvement of more youths, our task has become tougher and more urgent. It needs cooperation between different departments, regions, social groups and countries.” A complex scenario According to a report by…

Comments to wanghairong@bjreview.com Gazing at her own image projected onto a big screen the size of a fitting room mirror, Kyalisiima Prisca from Uganda could hardly believe her eyes. Simply by pointing her fingers at the small images of clothing items displayed at the sides of the screen in front of her, she could see herself in the “mirror” dressed in the selected clothes. She was amazed at the technology, which allowed her to see the visual effect of various outfits without the trouble of putting them on. Prisca is a student in the international MBA program of Peking Normal University. She experienced the technology during a visit with classmates on June 14 to the headquarters of leading electronic appliance retailer Suning Commerce Group in Nanjing City, capital of east…

Comments to yushujun@bjreview.com What is the most important lesson that China should learn from the recent termination of its U.S. rail deal? It is not that the overseas markets are complicated or that trade protectionism threats are lurking. What it demonstrates is that the United States cannot keep up with the times, and its public cannot rid themselves of vested interests, breaking the hope that the United States would enter an era of high-speed rail transport. It is true that trade protectionism exists in America, since some forces in the United States regard China as their largest international rival. Nonetheless, trade protectionism seems not to have been a major reason for XpressWest’s unilateral termination of its deal with China Railway International Group to build a high-speed rail line from Los…

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 China’s urban management officers are responsible for keeping public spaces clear of unlicensed traders and in orderly condition for the traffic and public hygiene. In recent years, however, clashes between these officers and vendors in cities across China have been widely reported, and the law enforcers have earned themselves a negative image overall for sometimes acting violently when performing their duties. This state of affairs, however, could take a turn for the better. In Zhengzhou, capital of central China’s Henan Province, the urban management authority…