Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 61/No. 34 i Beijing Review

KAZAKHSTAN Presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan attend the Fifth Caspian Summit in Aktau on August 12, reaching an agreement on the communal use of the Caspian Sea after two decades of negotiations ITALY The collapse of a bridge in Genoa on August 14 resulted in the deaths of at least 39 people. Built in the 1960s, the Morandi Bridge was an important connector for the port city TURKEY President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech at the Turkish ambassadors’ conference in Ankara on August 13 in which he denounced the lira crisis as a U.S. plot against Turkey UNITED STATES Firefighters keep watch over a wildfire burning in the Cleveland National Forest in California on August 9. Dozens of wildfires are currently burning across the state SWITZERLAND…

Chengmanyuan, a village in Bijie City in southwest China’s Guizhou Province, has orchards brimming with orange trees that live up to its name in Chinese. Ripe oranges, like little lanterns, dangle from lush green trees flanking houses, in the valley by the Chishui River and on the slopes of surrounding hills. “We have different varieties of oranges that ripen at different times of the year,” said village head Zhang Anfu, who is in his early 50s. “Whatever day you come to the village, you will have fresh oranges to eat.” The village now boasts 500 hectares of fruit trees, with nearly half covered by orange trees and the rest with plum, peach and pear trees. Fruit trees not only make the village picturesque but also fetch an impressive income for…

No longer as rare as the term suggests, unicorns are booming and revolutionizing traditional business modes around the world. In the form of beer or bubbles, the growth of such companies is undoubtedly changing the innovation landscape of many countries. A unicorn refers to a startup valued at over $1 billion. According to a report released in early July by CB Insights, a U.S. venture capital research institute, 46 more startups joined the worldwide unicorn team in 2018, and 70 percent of them are either in China or the United States. The two countries are now the main sources of unicorns, leaving other countries far behind. The United States has long boasted the largest number of unicorns in the world, but China has seen the number of its unicorns increasing…

The second season of the cultural variety show Every Treasure Tells a Story recently aired on China Central Television (CCTV) and video streaming websites Iqiyi.com, V.qq.com and Bilibili.com. Compared with the first season which hit screens at the beginning of the year and primarily focused on pottery, jade ware and bronze vessels, the latest offering incorporates a wider variety of treasures such as bamboo and wooden slips, lacquerware, and stone carvings to reflect the development of production from the Warring States period (453-221 B.C.) to the Qin and Han dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D. 220). Lively presentation The show consists of 25 five-minute episodes, with each installment featuring an individual item of such historical import that it is considered a national treasure. In contrast to traditionally staid and protracted history-themed documentaries, Every…

Mammoth Meal Elephants enjoy a feast of fruit at the Wild Elephant Valley scenic spot in Xishuangbanna, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, on World Elephant Day on August 12. Vaccine Safety Chinese leaders have pledged concrete measures in response to a defective vaccine scandal involving Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Ltd. At a meeting on August 16, members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee heard reports on the investigation of the case. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee who presided over the meeting, stressed that those involved should be punished severely according to the law. Substandard vaccines made by Changchun Changsheng, which is based in Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, were exposed in mid-July. Participants at the meeting…

At 8 a.m. on May 23, bustling crowds fill the outpatient hall of Xiyuan Hospital in west Beijing. Outside the breast clinic, people from across the country queue up waiting to see Professor Zhang Xiaojun, hoping that his renowned skills can help relieve their pain. Inside the room, Zhang is explaining to his current patient the details of her condition. As the attending physician for breast cancer at Xiyuan Hospital, Zhang’s clinics are notoriously difficult to get into. But Zhang works overtime for patients who are unable to make an appointment, sensitive to the trouble it would cause them to make a return visit and the financial burden for those coming from outside Beijing. He usually works until 9 p.m. every workday, and even uses his lunch break to see…

‘How China got Sri Lanka to cough up a port,” was the headline of a widely quoted article published by The New York Times on June 25, 2018. The paper asserted that Sri Lanka said, “Yes, though feasibility studies said the port wouldn’t work. Yes, though other frequent lenders like India had refused. Yes, though Sri Lanka’s debt was ballooning rapidly under Mr. Rajapaksa.” But are these allegations true and fair? Feasibility and vision The Sri Lankan Government had long wanted to build a seaport at Hambantota, and two feasibility studies were undertaken before it embarked on the ambitious port project. The first study was completed in 2003 by Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin. However, it was rejected by the ministerial task force on the grounds that it was not bankable…

Bach’s Bakery on Xiangchun Road in Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan Province, opens at eight o’clock in the morning every day and provides customers with German bread straight from the oven. The modest bakery looks similar to other shops on the winding lane; however, the Brutzers, who own the store, are well known as “the good Samaritans from Germany” in the neighborhood. Uwe Brutzer opened the bakery in 2011 with the intent of furthering the couple’s work helping hearing-impaired people in China. Of the 12 employees, seven have a hearing impairment, with two apprenticeships offered every year. Many of those who once worked in the bakery have gone on to start their own businesses. Since 2002, the couple have traveled around the province, helping hearing-impaired people, especially children. Rehabilitation…

Stable Home Prices Home prices in major Chinese cities remained stable in July as the government continued to step up property curbs, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on August 15. Four first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, saw new home prices rise 0.2 percent in July from a month ago, 0.4 percentage points lower than that reported in June, according to the NBS. New home prices in Shanghai fell while prices in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen rose 0.2 percent, 0.6 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively. In addition, new home prices in 31 second-tier cities rose 1.1 percent in July, 0.1 percentage point lower than that reported in June. Year on year, first-tier cities reported a 0.2-percent increase in new home prices. Existing home prices rose 0.5…

The International Army Games 2018 were held from July 28 to August 11 in seven different countries. Initiated by the Russian Ministry of Defense, the event was co-organized by Russia, China, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Iran this year. Some 207 teams from 33 nations took part in the games. Soldiers participated in a variety of contests including Open Water, Sniper Frontier, Seaborne Assault, Army Scout Masters, Safe Route, Clear Sky for air-defense missile units and Tank Biathlon. Since 2014, the International Army Games have been successfully held five times. Currently, the games cover over 20 professional areas of the army, navy and air force. Comments to yulintao@bjreview.com…

How has China’s foreign trade been affected one month after the start of the trade war waged by the United States? According to the latest figures released by the General Administration of Customs (GAC) on August 8, China’s imports and exports totaled 2.6 trillion yuan ($379 billion) in July, with growth rising to 12.5 percent from 4.3 percent a month before, indicating that China’s foreign trade is yet to feel any serious effects from the trade war. Trade between China and the United States stood at 354.72 billion yuan ($51.71 billion) in July, an increase of 5.2 percent, remaining stable as the previous three months. Analysts attributed the sound trade growth in July to measures aimed at stabilizing trade, the recovering global economy, diversification of China’s export destinations and the…

A report recently released by the Research Institute of the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE) showed that China’s household debt is growing rapidly. By the end of 2017, the ratio of China’s household debt to disposable income had reached 107.2 percent, higher than that in the United States and approaching the U.S. peak level before the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2008. The report said that authorities should pay more attention to the problem of high household debt and regard household deleveraging as important as the deleveraging of corporates and local governments so as to push relevant efforts ahead with practical results and ensure the economy performs in a balanced manner. In other words, China’s deleveraging drive may falter if the focus is limited to corporates and…

This summer I had the pleasure of visiting the city of Quzhou in east China’s Zhejiang Province to watch my Chinese boyfriend act in Gu Cheng Qiu Yuan, or Les As de la Pétanque. Zhejiang is well-known for Chinese filmmaking and home to Hengdian, China’s Hollywood. The movie is about a French sports teacher named Anthony who comes to a local Quzhou school as part of an exchange program. During his stint at the school, he befriends the local Chinese staff, among them a Chinese sports teacher named Jackie, played by my boyfriend. Anthony introduces the French sport of pétanque to Jackie and the whole school and gets his Chinese hosts excited about the sport, which involves throwing metal balls toward a target ball on a court. The film is…