Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 60/No. 31 i Beijing Review

PAKISTAN Security officers inspect a blast site in Lahore on July 24 after a suicide bomb attack killed at least 15 people IRAQ A soldier stands guard in front of a damaged government building in Mosul on July 24 as Iraqi forces continued their cleanup operation against terrorists in the city INDIA Newly elected President Ram Nath Kovind arrives at the presidential palace after his swearingin ceremony in New Delhi on July 25 UNITED STATES House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on July 25 after the House of Representatives approved a bill to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea ROMANIA The Romanian Aerobatics Yakers team performs during the Bucharest International Air Show on July 22 MIDDLE EAST Palestinian…

Groups of school teenagers smiling ra-diantly under the yellow sandy sky— this is the impression of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region that Xue Xianjun, a middle school teacher from Beijing, will al-ways remember. Sand storms that hit Beijing every spring were the only extreme weather phenom- enon Xue had experienced before going to Hotan, a prefecture in Xinjiang bordering the Taklimakan Desert. But in Hotan, it is just a regular occurrence—such storms batter the locality for at least 280 days a year. And if not for a pairing assistance program between Beijing and Hotan, Xue might have never had a lasting connection with Xinjiang. The vast region that covers one sixth of China’s total area was just a remote, mysterious world for her. Hello Hotan As China’s westernmost region, where more…

Statistics from the Ministry of Public Security show that the past three years have seen 14,000 traffic accidents involving motor vehicles and pedestrians at zebra crossings around the country, leading to 3,898 deaths. Of the accidents, 90 percent were caused by vehicles breaching traffic rules and not giving way to pedestrians. Drivers in Beijing may now find zebra stripes that seem to be protruding on two busy roa ds—one in Fengtai District and the other in Haidian District. This is not an illusion. Painted in yellow, white and blue, the three-dimensional (3D) zebra crossings have been installed to impose a strong visual im- pact on drivers so that they will slow down when approaching the crossings. According to Beijing’s traffic manage ment bureau, the 3D stripes can be seen by…

Handiwork Lesson A student from Britain’s Prince’s School of Traditional Arts learns woodblock printing from Wei Lizhong, an inheritor of the centuries-old technique, at a training session in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, on July 25. Woodblock printing has been listed as an intangible cultural heritage by the Chinese Government. Disaster Recovery The Chinese Government has increased the recovery fund for natural disasters this year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on July 25. The recovery fund is currently almost twice as large as before, said Pang Chenmin, head of the ministry’s Disaster Relief Bureau, at a press conference. In 2017, the Chinese Government spent nearly 1.2 billion yuan ($177 million) on recovery work after natural disasters. In an executive meeting in May, the State Council, China’s cabinet, decided to…

The inaugural session of the China-U.S. Comprehensive Economic Dialogue (CED) in Washington, D.C. on July 19 has charted the course for economic cooperation between the world’s two largest economies with a one-year plan to deepen pragmatic co-operation and resolve outstanding problems. “The two sides shared the view that the most important outcome of this round of dialogue is that it has charted the course for China-U.S. economic cooperation,” the Chinese delegation attending the dialogue said in a statement after the conclusion of the talks. The two sides agreed to take “win-win cooperation” as the basic principle for developing bilateral economic relations, “dialogue and consultation” as the basic means to tackle differences, and “regular communication on major economic policies” as the basic way of dialogue and cooperation, the statement said. Although…

Kashgar City in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was once a prosperous trading hub on the ancient Silk Road that linked China, the Middle East and Europe. But today, the entire Kashgar Prefecture, including the city, is one of the least developed localities in Xinjiang. In 2010, the Central Government launched a renewed pairing assistance program partnering Kashgar City with Shenzhen in south China’s Guangdong Province. Since then, with Shenzhen’s support, Kashgar City’s GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 13.19 percent. The Shenzhen Industrial Park in Kashgar City is a signature project of the partnership. By the end of 2016, the park had housed 58 enterprises with a combined investment of 4.2 billion yuan ($623 million), creating 7,800 jobs for local residents. By 2020, Shenzhen plans…

The concept of “Made in Internet” was introduced by Jack Ma, Chairman of Alibaba Group, at the 2017 Global Netrepreneur Conference held in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, on July 11. “Made in Internet,” according to Ma, is the overall progress in technologies, operations, products and services that industries and companies of all types can realize in the new retail era by using the Internet, and thereby ultimately reach out to consumers across the world. It is a significant step forward by the manufacturing industry during the upsurge in consump-tion upgrading and supply-side structural reform. If “Made in China” built the first stage for the Chinese manufacturing industry to go global, “Made in Internet” will push it forward to a new level of “intelligent manufacturing” and make significant…

Forecast Revised The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on July 24 revised up its growth forecasts for China in 2017 and 2018 to 6.7 percent and 6.4 percent respectively. The updated World Economic Outlook report, which came days after China posted a stronger-than-expected second quarterly performance, was a reflection of a solid first quarter underpinned by previous policy easing and supply-side reforms, including efforts to reduce excess capacity in the indus-trial sector, the IMF said. But the IMF also warned against strong credit growth that may come with rising downside risks to medium-term growth. Maurice Obstfeld, chief econo-mist of the IMF, recommended China go through a rebalancing process, which will inevitably entail a slowed growth path. He said China’s recent moves to redress non-performing loans and a coordi-nated financial oversight overhaul…

China’s mobile payment providers are working to kickstart cashless societies around the world. Riding on the back of the growing numbers of Chinese tour-ists abroad, companies such as Ant Financial Services Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay are developing new ways for consumers to spend their money while traveling without hav-ing to carry cash or credit. In doing so, these enterprises seek to gain a foothold in countries that lack traditional credit card infrastructure, and grab hold of a nascent market that may fundamentally change how people interact with money. In China, electronic wallets are ubiquitous, used for transactions both small and large. Last year, Chinese consumers made 35.3 trillion yuan ($5.2 trillion) worth of payments via mobile devices—around half the nation’s GDP, accord-ing to Internet consulting firm Analysys. By…

‘We are waiting here to be the first passengers after this expressway is open to traffic,” an unnamed truck driver from north China’s Hebei Province told China Business News at a toll station on the Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway on July 15. “After this expressway is open, we can save one or two days and more than 1,000 yuan ($148.37) for every one-way trip to Xinjiang.” On July 15, the Ministry of Transport (MOT) and the governments of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Gansu Province and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region jointly announced that the 2,768- km Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway had become fully operational, with three final sections along risky terrain opened to traffic. The new sections have a combined length of more than 1,200 km—the 930-km Linhe-Baigeda section in Inner Mongolia, the 134-km Baigeda-Mingshui…