Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.63/No.49 i Beijing Review

The period from November 17 to 22 witnessed several events, including the 12th BRICS Summit, the 27th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ Meeting and the 15th Group of 20 (G20) Leaders’ Summit. These important international meetings took place against the backdrop of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) rebound in some countries, interwoven with major changes unseen in the past century, with the global economy into a severe recession and a recovery far-off. Chinese President Xi Jinping attended these meetings and delivered a series of significant speeches. In his remarks, Xi called on the international community to build consensus and carry out cooperation on major issues such as coordinated COVID-19 prevention and control, economic and social development, shaping the international order in the post-pandemic era and strengthening global economic governance, so…

This winter is going to be an extremely cold one. The United States, some European countries and a few others have encountered a third surge of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) with the scale and growth of confirmed cases and deaths exceeding the previous times. The world economy is in deep water as a result. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates in October, the global economy is expected to shrink by 4.4 percent in 2020, the worst recession since the 1930s. Despite a global recovery in the third quarter, it fell again, a double dip, due to new lockdowns. The Group of 20 (G20) comprises 20 of the world’s largest economies. As it is a premier global economic governance platform, great hopes were placed on the 15th G20 Leaders’…

In a period of only a few days, President Xi Jinping gave speeches at four international forums, the 15th Group of 20 (G20) Leaders’ Summit, the 27th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting, the 12th BRICS Summit and the 20th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The key message Xi conveyed was the same: the need for international cooperation. As long as the fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, better coordination of actions will accelerate the joint response that people around the world are desperately expecting. China has resumed its economic growth by prioritizing health. This has been the remedy for relaunching its national economy. It is aware, however, that recovery will be a long process that requires careful…

Du Zhanyuan, President of China International Publishing Group China has a great achievement in the fight against poverty. We have much to learn from this experience. One of the most notable features is to integrate economic and cultural development with digital innovation. Poverty alleviation is not limited only to resolving the problem of survival. We need to promote all-round development of poor areas, so that people there can keep pace with the latest developments. Eliminating absolute poverty proves the success of China’s development model. China has implemented targeted poverty alleviation approaches, with the government leading all walks of life to contribute their efforts. However, the country still has a long way to go as its per-capita income and other indicators are lower than those of developed countries. China remains a…

‘This week we globally race past 50 million novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases. I feel lucky to be in China,” Jorah Kai Wood, a 41-year-old writer from Canada living in Chongqing Municipality in southwest China, wrote in a blogpost in early November when containment measures against COVID-19 in the city were eased. Since the epidemic hit many regions across China months ago this year, keeping a diary has become part of his daily routine, with the stories published by New World Press as Kai’s Diary: A Canadian’s COVID-19 Days in Chongqing, China, in August. Wood settled down in Chongqing in 2014 to teach at Chongqing Foreign Language School and married a local girl named Wang Xiaolin, in 2016. He is also an assistant editor at iChongqing, a Chongqing-based English website.…

TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY OFFICIAL HEADS SUSTECH Xue Qikun, former Vice President of Tsinghua University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is now president of the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), according to the official website of the university. Xue, 58, is a prominent physicist with groundbreaking discoveries to his credit. He got his doctorate degree in 1994 and joined the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University in 2005. In 2013, he became vice president of the university. At the Shenzhen Global Innovation Talent Forum marking the Fourth Shenzhen Talent Day in Guangdong Province, south China, on November 1, Xue said the cultivation of top talent is a core mission of a university. It decides the level of the university and its goal of future development.…

The 27th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting held on November 20 via video link was significant for several reasons. This year is the target date for meeting the second objective of the APEC goals set in 1994. Known as the Bogor Goals after the city in Indonesia where APEC leaders met that year, the objective was to create a free trade and investment system for the developed member economies by 2010, and by 2020 for developing member economies. After more than two decades of efforts, APEC has made tremendous progress in achieving the goals, with more free trade and investment between member economies than before. This has helped promote regional economic growth, making the Asia-Pacific the most dynamic area in the world economy. However, 2020 has also witnessed…

During the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held on October 26-29, China proposed to further integrate an effective government and an efficient market. The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period marks the first such period for China to embark on a new journey of building a modern socialist country and marching toward the second centenary goal. During the five years, it is of great significance to bring the roles of the government and market into full play. An efficient market plays a decisive role in resource allocation and can steadily improve the efficiency of the allocation. As an invisible hand, the market enjoys remarkable advantages in efficient allocation of resources, which is why China has shifted the centrally planned economic system to…

• Chang’e-1 China’s first lunar probe, Chang’e-1, was launched on October 24, 2007, making China the fifth country to develop and launch a lunar probe on its own. Orbiting 200 km above Moon, it mapped 3D images of the lunar surface, analyzed the distribution of elements, measured the depth of lunar soil, and explored the environment between Earth and Moon. Chinese scientists acquired the first complete map of Moon’s surface, thanks to Chang’e-1. • Chang’e-2 Chang’e-2, blasting off on October 1, 2010, gained a full lunar map with a spatial resolution of 7 meters, showing more details of the lunar surface than Chang’e-1, which had a resolution of 120 meters. It also took pictures of the Sinus Iridum, or the Bay of Rainbows, proposed landing site of Chang’e-3. After accomplishing…

When the news came on November 23 that absolute poverty had been eradicated in China with the nine last-mile impoverished counties almost tripling their income from the national poverty line, there was a sense of achievement in the country. As for me, I have a personal angle in this. You see, these nine counties are in Guizhou, the province in southwest China that struggled with the largest indigent population. I was scheduled to go there in October as part of a team to look at the remarkable institutions and individuals there that had helped ferry over 9 million people in the province to stable incomes since 2012. One of our destinations was the Jishikang Hospital, a private healthcare institution in a once deeply impoverished village. I was told it gets…

($1=6.6 yuan) Production and Sales of Passenger Cars in China October Market Share of Chinese Brand Passenger Cars October Exports of Automobile Enterprises October (Source: China Association of Automobile Manufacturers) Chinese firms inked service outsourcing contracts worth about 1.1 trillion yuan in the January-October period, up 9.3 percent year on year. In China, service outsourcing falls into three sub-sectors covering information technology, business process and knowledge process. Shandong Province in east China saw its paid-in foreign investment grow 30.2 percent year on year in the first 10 months this year. The growth was 95.1 percent for its hi-tech service industry, with the volume reaching $1.56 billion. China’s imports of steel hit a new high of 2.89 million tons in September. The import price averaged $689 per ton. (Source: Xinhua News…

Being invited to a traditional Chinese tea ceremony on the lunar calendar’s first day of autumn was the perfect way to celebrate a long-anticipated reunion. Chen Wei runs a jade and tea shop near Beijing’s Fragrant Hill Park. The first thing I noticed about her was the giant jade Buddha pendant she was wearing. “Perfect!” I thought to myself. This would be a quintessentially “Chinese” afternoon that would see me steeping myself in China’s ancient tea traditions. Chen’s shop looked like a laboratory where Harry Potter took his potion classes. It was a very atmospheric shop, featuring the occasional green space here and there. There was the traditional stringed plucked musical instrument guzheng in a corner, a money tree in another, discs of pu’er tea, a kind of black tea…

Recognizing the unprecedented challenges the region’s economies face amid the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, APEC leaders pledged to work together to support the following priorities: • Combating and mitigating the impacts of COVID-19• Improving the narrative of trade and investment• Inclusive economic participation through the digital economy and technology• Driving innovative and inclusive sustainability• Strengthening stakeholder engagement (Source: www.apec.org)…

On May 7, Lai Wenyu received an electronic card and a thank you letter from the China Organ Donation Administrative Center (CODAC), saying he had become the 1,185,092nd person to register on the platform and thus become an organ donor. “When I’m dead, my organs can still help other people, isn’t it a good thing?” Lai told Beijing Review. Believing that donating one’s organs and body to science after death can benefit medical study and research, the senior college student has registered to offer his whole body when he dies. It has been a decade since voluntary donation was introduced in China. By mid-November, the number of registered organ donors like Lai in the country had exceeded 2.58 million, according to CODAC. Gradual progress On March 1, 2010, the Red…

As the impacts of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) gradually ease in China, the tide is turning for foreign trade, with production rebounding and work resumption accelerating in recent months. According to data released by the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC), foreign trade in goods totaled 25.95 trillion yuan ($3.91 trillion) in the first 10 months of the year. This represented a year-on-year increase of 1.1 percent, compared with 0.7 percent in the first three quarters. The recovery was the result of a portfolio of new measures to support foreign trade firms, including enhanced credit services, simplified customs clearance procedures for cross-border e-commerce imports and exports, and eased market access for foreign investment. Many foreign trade enterprises, especially small and medium-sized ones, were hampered by a shortage of…