Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.63/No.46 i Beijing Review

China’s model of poverty reduction includes a partnership assistance program in which a poverty-stricken area is paired with more developed places, government agencies, public institutions and state-owned enterprises to assist it with their skills and resources. All the 592 key impoverished counties have designated partners. Altogether 310 agencies affiliated to the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council have participated in such partnership assistance. The China International Publishing Group (CIPG) is one of the public institutions incorporated in this model. Since 2002, the veteran media house has partnered with Zuoquan, a county in Shanxi Province, north China, helping it shake off poverty through educational programs, special livelihood projects and funding infrastructure. CIPG sent 27 of its employees to Zuoquan in 11 batches. There, they have served in…

The Golden Valley is a dazzling 48-km belt in Zuoquan County in Shanxi Province, north China, named so after its variety of trees with bright yellow leaves that look like gold. They include the fast-growing Siberian elm, the Chinese scholar tree that is used in herbal medicine, and the evergreen golden euonymus. The adult trees were planted along the belt since the beginning of this year as part of the afforestation drive that has now created a uniquely enchanting scenery to boost the local tourism industry. According to Zheng Rui, an official from the forestry bureau of Zuoquan, afforestation has been carried out in wasteland, on barren mountain slopes, and in ravines for ecological restoration. The afforestation project, covering over 65 hectares, has been implemented by 27 poverty alleviation afforestation…

The assembly line of Chengdu Huachuan Electric Parts Co. in Chengdu, Sichuan Province in southwest China, presents a busy sight with robotic arms and intelligent devices operating in tandem with human workers to assemble various sophisticated components into alternators. The five-decade-old firm, a leading manufacturer of electrical parts for the auto industry, is anticipating even better business thanks to a new national strategy announced in January, the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle. The city cluster around Chengdu and Chongqing is a new growth driver for coordinated regional development as well as opening up west China. It is a win-win for Huachuan as the auto industry is a focus in the fast-growing economic circle. The two places will pool in their strengths to develop an auto industry cluster. According to Wan Bin, Executive…

($1=6.7 yuan) China’s Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) China’s Non-Manufacturing PMI China’s Comprehensive PMI (Source: National Bureau of Statistics) The services trade volume of Hainan Province in south China reached 2.49 billion yuan in September, up 31.43 percent year on year. The emerging sectors in service trade, which include insurance, finance, telecommunications and business, all registered positive growth in the first three quarters of the year. China’s tax and fee cuts totaled 2.09 trillion yuan in the first three quarters this year. Of this, 1.37 trillion yuan was credited to the measures to support economic development amid novel coronavirus disease containment. Ningbo Zhoushan Port, China’s busiest port in the eastern province of Zhejiang, saw its container throughput in sea-rail transport increase 22.9 percent year on year in the first 10…

FATHER OF HYBRID RICE MAKES NEW BREAKTHROUGH Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice, and his team have set a new record with the yield of their third-generation hybrid rice variety reaching 911.7 kg per mu (about 667 square meters) in an experiment in Hunan Province, central China. Plus an early season rice yield of 619.06 kg, the same plot in Qingzhu Village, Hengnan County, produced 1,530.76 kg per mu in a year. The output is equivalent to 22.96 tons per hectare. Last year, the same hybrid rice variety, Sanyou No.1, gave a single-cropping yield of 1,046.3 kg per mu from the same plot. Yuan said he wants to ensure the variety can promote greener and more sustainable development of China’s rice production with higher quality. The 90-year-old, who developed…

With the National Day holiday in October showing a remarkable surge in domestic travels, a sign of the revival of the tourism industry, Zhao Xia is looking forward to having lots of guests at her homestay. Zhao’s old house in Zecheng, a village in Zuoquan County, Shanxi Province in north China, has recently been refurbished, funded mostly by the local government. Two rooms have been modified into guest rooms and the kitchen and toilet have been renovated. It’s part of the drive to develop tourism in the village. So far, 37 of the 400-odd houses have been converted into homestays and two into restaurants. A reception center for tourists has come up and the streets have been beautified. A training center has just been built where people from other parts…

In the past, football fan Zhang Chengyuan had to cycle quite a distance to the nearest football field from his home. But since the construction of a football field in his neighborhood in Chaoyang District in Beijing three years ago, it takes him only 10 minutes to go kick a ball around. This football field used to be undeveloped land littered with the neighborhood’s waste. “Every time I walked past this area before the renovation, I just couldn’t stand the sight of it and would walk faster, whereas now it has become one of my favorite places in the community,” Zhang told China Sports Daily. In 2017, a local sports bureau, the sub-district office and a property developer joined forces to add free sports and recreational facilities for residents including…

China’s economic recovery is stronger than expected, predicted to grow by 1.9 percent in 2020, according to the latest World Economic Outlook report released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on October 13. Compared with the earlier IMF report in June, this forecast on China’s economic performance is up by 0.9 percentage point, indicating accelerating recovery and a growth rate for the entire year might be higher than the IMF prediction. The IMF has also assessed that the world economy is showing a positive tendency, and revised the recession rate from its earlier 4.9-percent estimate to 4.4 percent. But according to its projection, most developed and emerging economies will still be in recession, with China the only major economy to register growth. Policy priorities The key to the Chinese economy…

When I close my eyes,I see green wind.Its touch turns the woods green,gilds my calf gold,kisses the white walls of the house,dyes dad’s corns yellow.But I won’t tell the secret why the wind changes color. This is the first poem written by Shi Yingsuo, a 12-year-old in Yunnan Province, southwest China. Last year, Shi became a first grader at the Mangshui Middle School in a remote town in the province. The school has a compulsory poetry class. Like Shi, its students are mostly left-behind children—children of migrant workers who have been left home in the care of grandparents, other relatives or even on their own while their parents work elsewhere. These children are more sensitive than others of the same age. Lacking parental presence, they tend to be introverts but…

According to a recent release by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of people over the age of 60 in China is set to surpass 300 million during the period of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), indicating that China will fall into the category of a moderately aging society. As a consequence of the one child policy, China’s population growth is currently slowing, and the elderly are making up an increasing proportion of the population. At the same time, government statistics indicate China’s working-age population has been shrinking since 2012. In five to 10 years’ time, the parents of those born in the 1980s will gradually pass the threshold of 70, and an increasing number of elderly people requiring extra nursing and care will be a tough test for…

On October 22, a ceremony was held to hand over the first 4,000 of the 30,000 sheep gifted by Mongolia to China at the border region of Zamiin-Uud-Erlian. They entered China eight months after Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga announced the measure to help China fight the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic during his visit to Beijing in February. Following the visit, the two countries agreed to have the delivery after the epidemic receded and the sheep gained weight in autumn. During the ceremony, Tumen Tegshjargal, Foreign Policy Advisor to the Mongolian President, said, “It is an event that expresses the warmth of the Mongolian people to the Chinese people and brings a positive atmosphere to the relations between the two peoples.” Chai Wenrui, Chinese Ambassador to Mongolia, responded, saying “Chinese…

As policymakers outlined the development roadmap for the next five years, a look at China’s key projects over the past half decade may offer a hint at why the country has made tremendous advancement in economic and social development. During the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period, China implemented 165 major projects, highlighting progress in technological advancement, infrastructure development as well as social and cultural improvement. These initiatives helped drive economic growth and brought tangible benefits to the people. The last satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System was launched in June, marking the completion of the deployment of China’s own global navigation satellite system. As one of the four global navigation satellite systems in the world, BeiDou provides users with a range of services, including global short-message communication, basic navigation…

The United States’ October 21 announcement of three arms sale deals with Taiwan, together worth over $1.8 billion, has stirred up strong sentiments in China. While expressing its objection to the deal, the Chinese Government announced sanctions against individuals, firms and entities involved in the arms sales, including Boeing. The announcement of these three deals was followed by the announcement of a fourth on October 27: sales to Taiwan of Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems worth approximately $2.4 billion. This frequency of arms sales to Taiwan is sure to push China-U.S. relations further on a downward spiral. That Taiwan is part of China is a fact recognized by the international community, including the United States. For historical reasons, the reunification is yet to take place. The one-China principle and the three…