Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 62/No.28 i Beijing Review

REPUBLIC OF KOREA People in Seoul watch a live TV broadcast showing Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and U.S. President Donald Trump meeting on June 30 AFGHANISTAN Afghan security forces stand guard near a blast site in Kabul on July 1. Thirty-four people have been confirmed dead and 68 injured victims have been taken to hospital after a powerful blast rocked Kabul during morning rush hour INDIA Rescue workers and residents gather at the site of a collapsed wall in Mumbai on July 2. At least 16 people were killed in the financial capital due to two separate walls collapsing after torrential monsoon downpours BELARUS Dancers in folk costumes perform in celebration of Independence Day in Minsk on July 3 FRANCE The first…

Hu Xiaofei, a moral education teacher in Binjiang Middle School in Fengdu County, southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, established a special educational institute in Daxi Village in Fengdu in 2018, where his role changed from educating children to teaching their parents. The idea of a parent school may sound strange, but the reason becomes clearer after one gets a picture of Daxi. Located in a mountainous area, the village is nearly three hours’ drive from the urban area of Chongqing. Like its backward economy, its education system has also lagged behind. Taking responsibility “Unlike parents in big cities who invest abundant energy and money into their children’s education, most villagers here don’t pay attention to the importance of education,” Hu told Beijing Review. Hu was temporarily transferred to Daxi last year…

Checkbooks can be called the dinosaurs of banking. Once essential for transactions, especially those involving large sums of money, they became virtually extinct with the arrival of ATM cards. Now, as technology continues to evolve, it could be time to say goodbye to the handy little bankcards as well. “These days, most transactions can be done using mobile apps,” Zhao Jingyi, a Beijing resident who has an account with China Merchants Bank (CMB), said. Zhao hardly needs to take her bankcard with her when she goes to a CMB branch these days. “Customers can make an appointment in advance through the CMB’s app so that they don’t have to wait on-site,” she said. “Or they can use the app to get their number in the queue of customers and instead…

($1=6.9 yuan) 1.57 tln yuan Total income of China’s international goods and services trade in May 23.41 mln tons China’s production of 10 major non-ferrous metals, up 4 percent year on year in the first five months of 2019 10% Year-on-year growth of China’s crude steel output in May 35.15 tln yuan Outstanding loans by Chinese financial institutions to small and micro businesses at the end of May 2.3% Year-on-year decline of profits of China’s major industrial firms in the January-May period 2.34 tln yuan Total retail sales in China’s rural areas in the first five months of the year $660.6 bln Total value of exports of Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces and Shanghai in the first five months of the year 35.52 bln yuan China’s lottery sales in…

Up, Up and Away People attend a hot air balloon festival in Taitung, southeast China’s Taiwan Province, on June 29. Hong Kong Affairs On July 3, China expressed strong dissatisfaction with and firm opposition to the recent comments on Hong Kong Special Administrative Region made by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, urging him to stop wanton interference in Hong Kong affairs. “He seems to be fantasizing about the faded glory of British colonialism and is obsessed with the bad habit of criticizing and lecturing on other countries’ affairs in a condescending manner,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a daily press briefing. Geng said China has lodged stern representations with the UK over Hunt’s comments. According toThe Times, Hunt said that he expects China to honor the Sino-British Joint…

The author is an op-ed contributor to Beijing Review and a researcher with the Pangoal Institution A mid China-U.S. trade tensions, the bilateral meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Osaka was the cynosure of all eyes and the two leaders’ agreement that the two countries would jointly advance a relationship featuring “coordination, cooperation and stability” has injected optimism into their domestic as well as the international market. The Osaka meeting did not come easily. In 2017, the Trump administration started a trade war, in the name of promoting “fair trade” and protecting intellectual property worldwide, targeting China in particular. Though China readily sat for negotiations and implemented new domestic policies for further reform…

In an exhibition area of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meeting of the New Champions in China’s northeastern coastal city of Dalian, a robot was performing a surgical operation on a rose. The volunteers in the booth invited visitors to have a go at running the machine, which was developed by U.S. company Intuitive Surgical and has been used in 6 million successful surgeries worldwide. Over 110,000 of these were done in China, which has around 80 such robots in use in hospitals. “The robot is precise and alleviates the workload of surgeons,” a volunteer at the Hospital of the Future booth said. Not only foreign companies but domestic ones are also developing and applying new technologies and devices. Dorabot, a Chinese robotics company founded in 2014, was among…

Thanks to the development of technology and official recognition, today a new band of “athletes” are flexing their muscles. The computer screen is their stadium where they take on the persona of heroes and vie with one another in a virtual world. For many, these on-screen matches are just as mesmerizing and full of nail-biting suspense as any conventional sport, be it tennis or soccer. These are the e-sports gamers who, before 2018, were little known to the public even though, in their own way, they worked as hard as conventional athletes. Worse, some even regarded them as computer game addicts. Things changed last year when the Chinese delegation won two golds and a silver at the six e-sports demonstration events in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, including…

As an all-male dance troupe from the Philippines did backflips and splits in stilettos on stage, the four judges and audience members cheered and applauded, giving them a standing ovation. It’s become a common scene on the new TV program World’s Got Talent (WGT) on Hunan TV. The 63 teams of contestants from 49 countries and territories are mostly winners from Got Talent shows across the globe, now competing on the world stage in a crowd of winners. Originating in the UK in 2007, Britain’s Got Talent has spawned spin-offs in over 70 countries. Co-owned by Fremantle and Syco Entertainment, the show has versions across Europe, the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Simon Cowell, who created the Got Talent format and worked as a judge for…

Digital Airports China’s burgeoning civil airports are eyeing digital and intelligent technologies to sustain continuous growth. The mega airports in major cities are reaching or are close to their capacity saturation points, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The probelm is severe even in airports with an annual passenger throughput of around 10 million, greatly affecting service efficiency and flight comfort. “Digital and intelligent technologies are of great importance for major airports, creating greater space for development and sustaining the safety operation of the industry,” Zhang Rui, Deputy Director of CAAC’s airport department, said. CAAC is focusing on creating safe, green and smart airports. In 2018, the total annual passenger throughput and flight movements of China’s civil airports reached 1.26 billion and 11.08 million respectively, growing at…

With growing uncertainties in world trade, the economy, climate change and many other issues, the leaders of 19 countries and the European Union as members of the Group of 20 (G20), as well as 17 guest countries and international organizations met in Osaka, Japan, for two days to seek possible solutions. The G20 Summit 2019, held on June 28-29, is the 14th of its kind covering themes such as the world economic situation, trade, investment, innovation, climate change, World Trade Organization (WTO) reform, an aging society, health, women’s empowerment and the digital economy. Many leaders expressed their concerns over serious hazards brought about by unilateralism and protectionism, and agreed that all sides should strengthen communication and dialogue, and maintain unity and cooperation. China’s stance Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the…

Every year, when summer arrives, Fengdu, a county in Chongqing Municipality in southwest China, astonishes visitors with its stunning scenery: a vibrant leafy blanket of trees covers the surrounding mountains while sparkling rivers run through deep ravines under the canopy of a clear blue sky flecked with white clouds. When the rains arrive, a fine mist of spray covers the landscape, which looks like a traditional Chinese painting. Ironically, in the past, the breathtaking scenery added to the local people’s woes. The towering mountains and steep gorges made the county difficult to reach, and lack of roads and transport led to a dearth of businesses and factories, which meant there were very limited employment opportunities. The lack of cultivatable land meant the farmers could not feed themselves by relying solely…

The recent years have seen Chinese universities, including prestigious ones, using various questionable tactics to attract top students after the college entrance examination. Large scholarships are one of them. This year, Zhejiang University in east China’s Zhejiang Province, one of China’s top universities, dangled a tempting carrot before 100 students in the province who topped the exam. It said if any of them took admission in the university, they would be given a scholarship of 500,000 yuan ($72,664). However, the university was prevented from putting its offer into action by the Ministry of Education (MOE). Zhejiang University is not the only university that made tempting scholarship offers to grab the best students. This year, several universities in south China’s Guangdong Province conducted the same practice. For example, Guangzhou University offered…