Innholdsfortegnelse for 12/29/2017 i Beijing Review

Reviving the Northeast China vowed to improve reform efforts and encourage innova-tion in the northeastern region to bolster the region’s economy during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period, according to a plan issued on December 19 by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The northeast should accelerate the reform of its traditional industries, the development of emerging industries and its service sector to improve the region’s economic structure, said the NDRC. The country plans to increase the region’s investment in research and development to 2.1 percent of local GDP and make the service sector contribute 47.4 percent of GDP by 2020. The northeast, an old industrial base, has faced more difficulties than the rest of China amid economic slowdown over the last two years. The region relies largely…

Comments to linan@bjreview.com ‘Seeking progress while maintaining stability.” This is going to be the key principle of China’s governance in 2017, especially for the economy. The Central Economic Work Conference, the major annual policy-making meeting to map out economic priorities and reform plans for the coming year, was held in Beijing from December 14 to 16, 2016. With the economy entering a new normal of medium-to-high-speed growth after decades of double-digit rises and also keeping in mind the complex economic environment abroad, the meeting focused on deepening supply- side structural reform, stabilizing the real estate market, structural adjustment and risk prevention. It also indicated reforms in taxa-tion, finance and social security. Wang Yiming, a policy advisor with the State Council Development Research Center, said the central authorities’ pledge to…

A flag-raising ceremony is held in Golden Lotus Square of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) on December 20 as part of activities to celebrate the 17th anniversary of Macao’s return to China. At a celebration reception on the same day, SAR Chief Executive Chui Sai On said that the 17 years of experience since Macao’s return have proved that the region’s prosperity and stability are closely related to its participation in the overall development of the nation. Macao was under Portuguese rule for over 400 years before its return to China in 1999.…

JAPAN People protest in Tokyo on December 20 outside the Supreme Court against the court’s decision to uphold a lower court’s ruling in favor of the government’s plan to relocate a U.S. Marine Corps air base within the island prefecture of Okinawa UNITED STATES Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen speaks during a news conference in Washington, D.C. on December 14. The Fed decided to raise the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points that day, the first and only rise in 2016 CANADA Houses jazzed up with Christmas lights and decorations on December 16 in Vancouver in preparation for Christmas celebrations MEXICO Smoke rises after a blast at the San Pablito fireworks market in Tultepec City on December 20. At least 31 people were killed in the explosion TURKEY Members…

1. Running a Tight Ship in the CPC The Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, held in Beijing on October 24-27, approved new regulations to improve discipline in the Party and root out corruption. Two documents approved at the session, the Norms of Political Life Within the Party Under the New Situation and the Provisional Intra-Party Supervision Regulation, detail the conduct expected of Party members. Stressing the importance of adhering to the collective leadership system, the session urged all Party members to “closely unite” around the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping as its core. It also endorsed prior decisions to expel four former senior officials from the Party and agreed to prevent vote rigging and buying and selling of official posts. The…

Comments to zhouxiaoyan@bjreview.com 1. Supply-Side Structural Reform As more policies and measures are rolled out throughout China, the country’s supply-side structural reform has been gaining momentum, with solid economic figures being posted. In recent years, the international community has been concerned about problems in the Chinese economy such as overcapacity, high debt-to-assets ratios in industrial enterprises and high operation costs. To address these issues, the Chinese Government has deployed supply-side structural reform featuring five major tasks—cutting overcapacity, destocking inventory, deleveraging, cutting costs and strength-ening weak links in the economy. The National Bureau of Statistics has revealed that for 2016, the overcapacity-reduction targets for coal and steel are 250 million tons and 45 million tons, respectively. The whole-year target has been accomplished ahead of schedule, with more being cut than what…

A guideline on better protection of prop-erty rights was jointly issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council in late November 2016. As the first state-level document regarding the issue, it particularly emphasizes equal protection of all kinds of property rights in accordance with the law. Hopefully, it will serve to fuel the ongoing mixed ownership reform of state-owned en-terprises (SOEs). The new property rights protection rules have come at the right time, as pilot pro-grams for mixed ownership reform of SOEs are reportedly to be issued by the central authorities soon. During the previous round of SOE reforms, some enterprises success-fully diversified their ownership structure. However, the government didn’t do enough to protect property rights, resulting in some prominent problems. First,…

City in Smog A view of Beijing on December 19. Severe smog continued to prevail in north China, disrupting life in dozens of cities. Tackling Poverty China has made huge strides in poverty reduction, achieving the government’s target of lifting 10 million people out of poverty in 2016. The country’s financial input for poverty reduction hit a record high in 2016, with that from the central and provincial governments exceeding 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) for the first time, Liu Yongfu, head of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, told a conference on December 20. Breakdown figures showed the central budget allocated 66.7 bil-lion yuan ($9.6 billion) for poverty reduction in 2016, up 43.4 percent year on year, while that allocated by provincial governments rose…

Comments to zhouxiaoyan@bjreview.com Hugo Shong has been founding gen-eral partner of IDG Capital Partners, a Chinese investment firm active in the technology sector, since 1993. He also has been founding general partner of the IDG-Accel China Growth Fund since 2005 and the IDG-Accel Capital Fund since 2008. A legendary private equity (PE) investor, Shong has invested in more than 500 Chinese com-panies, of which over 100 have been listed on the stock market or merged or acquired. But the investment that he is proudest of took him only two hours to decide. “Five years ago, I had a stopover in Los Angeles during which I visited a media com-pany in Burbank called Legendary Pictures,” Shong said on the sidelines of the Eighth Global PE Beijing Forum held on December 10,…

Comments to jijing@bjreview.com The traditional Chinese solar calendar, composed of 24 periods or terms, joined the UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage on November 30, 2016. In tandem with the early development of civilization along the Yellow River in present-day north China, the 24-period calendar and associated social practices arose through obser-vations of both the Sun’s movement relative to the horizon and of other natural phenomena, especially the weather and the reactions of plants and behavior of animals as the seasons changed throughout the year. The 24 solar terms embody one com-plete orbit of the Sun by the Earth, and the dates in the modern Gregorian calendar corresponding to each solar term essentially remain static, differing to minor degrees by just one or two days. A guide to agriculture The…

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 The Supreme People’s Court recently is-sued a regulation forbidding employers from unilaterally ending labor contracts for the purpose of laying off employees graded last in performance evaluations or in other kinds of competition for positions. In such cases, workers now have the right to demand that their employer continue the contract or offer compensation. The practice of eliminating those who come last—widely referred to as the “worst will be eliminated” mechanism—has sparked heat-ed debate. Supporters claim that this incentive helps strengthen employees’ sense of competi-tion…