Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.63/No.45 i Beijing Review

With the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period ending next month, China will primarily realize the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, which is the first of the two centenary goals laid down to mark the centenary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee convened in Beijing during October 26-29 was therefore a milestone meeting that took decisions on the next five-year plan for economic and social development and also set more long-distance targets till 2035. The blueprint of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) decided on at the plenum sets forth the concepts, principles and tasks to guide the country’s economic and social development in the next five years. Additionally, it will pave the way for the…

The author is an op-ed contributor to Beijing Review and a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation The Chinese economy, which plays a key role in driving global economic growth in the era of globalization, has seen steady progress during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period. Despite worldwide economic slowdown and volatility during the period, China’s growth has brought it to the forefront of the world’s major economies and made it a key driving force of the global economy. After bringing the novel coronavirus disease epidemic under control domestically, China has resumed economic and social activities. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China’s economy has faced severe domestic and external challenges. The global economy has entered a phase of economic slowdown and volatility in the…

The author is editor in chief of the Daily Mail, Pakistan Many foreign sinologists often suffer from misconception and confusion about China, its governance, society and culture. The three volumes of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, published in many languages, address the predicament of foreigners wanting to know about China. For me, these books have been the best source to learn about contemporary China, its people, society, foreign policy and the driving spirit behind the country’s remarkable success. Volume III, a collection of President Xi’s writings, speeches, policy pronouncements and directions between the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October 2017 to January 13 this year, provides a comprehensive understanding of China’s priorities for internal reform, development and governance as well as its quest…

Nowadays, smartphone app Health Kit has become a must-have “passport” for people to go anywhere in China due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). However, though the app is handy for identifying those at risk of being infected through a color-coded system, it has left some people, mostly senior citizens who are relatively new to smartphones, in an awkward situation. Yu Bin, who works at the Temple of Heaven, a famous park in Beijing, checks the health code of every visitor at the entrance. Green means a person is healthy, whereas yellow and red respectively mean a person should self-isolate and go to a doctor. “We can’t allow them in if they cannot show us their green code,” Yu told Beijing Daily. The Temple of Heaven is a place where…

The author is an associate researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation Despite the global economic slowdown and the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the Third China International Import Expo (CIIE) kicking off in Shanghai on November 5 remains an attraction to global traders. With the planned exhibition area for enterprises totaling 360,000 square meters, the event has four themes: technologies and equipment, consumer goods and smart lifestyles, food and agricultural products, and services and health. The six exhibition areas are on trade in services, automobiles, consumer goods, technical equipment, medical devices and healthcare products, and food and agricultural products. The CIIE was initiated in 2018 by the Chinese Government to boost high-level opening up. In recent years, the anti-globalization trend as well as…

The author is the first deputy president of the Central Institute of Socialism Ancient Greek civilization is considered the cradle of modern Western civilizations, and Chinese civilization experienced crucial evolution around the same time during the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.). In fact, both civilizations faced similar historical situations from 500 to 300 B.C. Great minds in the East Over the last five decades in the Warring States Period, strategists and advisers were divided into two factions. The Qin State inside Hangu Pass, one of the most important passes 2100 years ago in China, was heavy with legalists and political strategists. Opposite it, the six allies outside Hangu Pass developed a spirituality led by Xuncius, the last Confucian master of the Warring States Period, who presided over Jixia Academy for…

SCIENCE PROFESSOR WINS NATIONAL AWARD Sun Zhimei, a professor and PhD supervisor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, has received the National March 8 Red-Banner Holder award for her contribution to scientific research. The news was announced on October 24. The National March 8 Red-Banner Pacesetters, Holders and Collectives awards, instituted by the All-China Women’s Federation, are titles given to individual women or organizations for outstanding contributions. The annual winners are from all walks of life, from athletes who have won some major events, to women who saved lives or public property and entrepreneurs. Born in Shandong Province in east China in 1970, Sun is also a winner of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and a distinguished professor of the Chang Jiang Scholars…

The author is professor of politics at East China Normal University in Shanghai A key focus of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, held in Beijing from October 26 to 29, was the blueprint of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), which will be a key guide for Chinese development for years to come. This plan is a set of major adjustments as China continues to pivot away from export-led growth and implements the dual-circulation strategy—which consists of making the country more self-sufficient, increasing domestic demand, and simultaneously maintaining opening up and Chinese exports, for the near-long-term at least. This adjustment arrives with the convergence of three factors—longstanding needs, new pressures associated with Washington’s China containment efforts and threats of decoupling, and a…

The author is director of the Shenzhen-based 21st Century Education Research Institute To establish an up-to-date and world-class evaluation system by 2035, an overall plan on educational evaluation reform was issued on October 13, which proposes a four-pronged evaluation approach to be followed in a coordinated manner. In addition, the plan calls for making good use of information technology to make evaluation more effective and objective. The four-pronged approach refers to improving outcome evaluation, strengthening process evaluation, exploring value-added evaluation and enhancing comprehensive evaluation. This approach addresses a longstanding problem plaguing the evaluation system, colloquially referred to as the “five-only” malady. The malady is an overemphasis on test scores, admission into higher-level education institutions, diplomas, number of published papers and similar credentials when evaluating students, teachers and schools. The purpose…

The author is a finance professional at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Beijing and a member of the China Task Force at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development Different from the common practice in Western economies where governments adopt a short-term vision and prediction of future events, China relies on a tradition that started in 1953, when the country began to adopt medium-term plans covering half a decade and touching upon almost every major aspect of the nation’s economic and social spheres. This year marks the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) that, presented in 2015, introduced very detailed economic development guidelines and important reforms that have been instrumental in shaping the economy for the next decades to come. Innovation-driven China today is recognized as an…

Although it’s autumn, the trees in the Yuquan Mountain Forest Park in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province in north China, are still green and the park is full of people taking a walk in the woods. The park is a green miracle created on a deserted mountain scarred by abandoned mines. Shanxi is China’s second largest coal producer after Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and its capital Taiyuan is at the heart of the coal-producing area. Ten years ago, the Yuquan Mountain, rich in coal, was covered by open coal pits and the area was choked by coal dust. When it rained, black water ran down the mountain, polluting the fields. The Yuquan had become a major source of pollution for the city. In 2009, the local government decided to improve the area…

For museum enthusiasts who love to know more about China’s history and culture through, well, museums, a hidden gem awaits their discovery—in a rather unexpected place. This September, we went to a picturesque mountain county that despite being only three hours away from Beijing by car is almost on no general tourist’s radar. I came to know about Laiyuan, located in the city of Baoding in Hebei, the province adjoining Beijing, only at the fag-end of my decade-long stay in China. It is there that an experiment in education started, an initiative that is probably to rural education in China what the reform and opening up was for the Chinese economy in 1978. The school we visited in Laiyuan, previously known as Taomugeda Primary School, back in the 1980s was…

($1=6.7 yuan) China now has 509 general aviation enterprises and 2,913 general aircraft. The general aviation industry has made headway in recent years as one of China’s strategic emerging industries. The China Transportation Services Index stood at 168.4 points in September, down by 4.2 percent year on year, narrowing by 4.7 percentage points from that in August. The transport industry has further recovered as economic rebounds continue. China’s telecom industry registered steady growth in the first three quarters. The combined industrial revenue surpassed 1.02 trillion yuan during the period, up 3.2 percent year on year.…

Educational systems vary from country to country and culture to culture; the educational means with which we teach the next generation have arguably one of the greatest sociological influences on culture as a whole. Nowhere is this influence on societal structures more obvious than on the contemporary generation of youth in China. Education has played a vital role in China’s history since ancient times. To name but a few landmarks in the history of education in China, for example, Confucian teachings; the Tang Dynasty (618-907) imperial civil service examination; and also the imperial college started in the third century. Despite dualities in the concepts of education, a constant from ancient to contemporary times is the interrelationship between learning and societal development. Spending nine months as a teacher at Suzhou No.10…