Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.64/No.21 i Beijing Review

AUSTRIA A meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal, in Vienna on May 19. Participants say current negotiations are generally progressing, but they are still a long way from reaching an agreement ITALY A tour guide tells the backstory of the Trevi Fountain in Rome on May 15. Italy has opened up restriction-free travel for visitors from designated countries INDIA Trees uprooted and damaged by cyclonic storm Tauktae near Una Town in Gujarat State on May 18. The storm killed at least 19 and injured many more across India’s western coast JAPAN Tokyo Olympic organizers attend a virtual meeting with officials of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from Tokyo on May 19. IOC President Thomas Bach and Japanese Prime Minister…

When talking about taking a hawkish stance against China, Australia’s Scott Morrison administration seems to have taken things slightly further than its U.S. ally. Recently, a succession of high-ranking Australian officials, including Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo and Defense Minister Peter Dutton, “warned” that as tensions with China intensified, the “drums of war” were “beating” and conflict should not be omitted from the list of potential actions. Meanwhile, Australia also continues to develop hypersonic cruise missiles together with the U.S., investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade its military bases, in a bid to “counter” China. Such rhetoric and activity have led people to feel that this big South Pacific country is under “imminent threat” from China and must expand its armaments and prepare for war to defend itself.…

When the second phase of a hydrogen energy industrial park kicked off at Yanqing, the district in Beijing that is one of the venues of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2022, it was an indication of the growing importance of the renewable energy source in China. The project will provide clean gas for the games, powering 150 vehicles during the event. “Hydrogen energy is an important direction to explore in China’s energy revolution,” Li Ye, Director for Regulation at the National Energy Administration (NEA), said at an industrial seminar in Beijing in April. “At present, 23 provincial-level regions have issued plans or guidelines for advancing the industry. Remarkable achievements have been made in key and core technologies, and the development of the entire industrial chain is in good…

Red Tourism Expo Jiangxi and Hunan provinces will jointly hold a red tourism expo in October to display the latest developments in the industry. The expo will be held in Jinggangshan in Jiangxi, which borders Hunan, Liu Qi, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Jiangxi Provincial Committee, said at a press conference on May 14. Red tourism, which refers to visiting historical sites with a modern revolutionary legacy, has gained popularity among tourists in recent years. It has been particularly brisk this year, which marks the 100th anniversary of the CPC. Jiangxi will use its abundant red tourism resources to promote high-quality development of the sector, Liu said. During this year’s week-long May Day holiday, the number of visits to such tourist attractions in Jiangxi increased threefold year…

Life in Tibet Autonomous Region is no longer remote in modern times, especially with the help of the smartphone. In Tibetan Internet celebrity Tashi Lhamo’s short videos on Douyin, also known as TikTok, you can spot some amazingly idyllic scenery, breathe in the pure smell of nature, have a taste of butter tea and enjoy a feast with a herding family. With her bright eyes and cheerful smile, the 30-year-old Tibetan became an online celebrity after a video clip featuring her charming face became popular on Douyin. Unlike her metropolitan peers who frequent trendy cafes, restaurants and shopping malls to indulge in some selfie time, Tashi Lhamo likes to set her videos in picture-perfect scenes across rural orchards, woods and plantations. Behind the scenes Tashi Lhamo was filmed by her…

Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the word “genocide” and initiated the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the first human rights treaty adopted by the UN to prevent the recurrence of the atrocities of World War II, would turn in his grave to see “genocide” being bandied around so crassly to drum up Sinophobia. Any misuse of the word “genocide” is an insult to the victims of atrocities like the Armenian massacres during World War I, the Holocaust during World War II, and the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The U.S. use of “genocide” to describe the life of the Uygur people in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China seems less motivated by compassion or concern for the protection of human rights than…

Despite having visited more than 50 Chinese cities, Serik Korzhumbayev says he doesn’t see himself as an old China hand. Korzhumbayev’s first encounter with China was in 2001 when he was invited to visit Beijing, Urumqi in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Lanzhou in Gansu Province. From then on, he began visiting China several times each year. “I love Beijing and have witnessed its rapid development. There have been new skyscrapers every time I visit,” Korzhumbayev, who is editor in chief of Kazakh business newspaper Delovoy Kazakhstan, told Beijing Review. “I also enjoy the modernity of Shanghai and the natural environment of Sichuan Province.” Book about Xinjiang Korzhumbayev has been to Xinjiang many times and knows the region intimately. During a trip in 2019, he and several journalists from Southeast…

On September 1, the Republic of Uzbekistan will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its independence. Today, Uzbekistan is a stable, dynamically developing state that confidently follows its own path of development and conducts an independent foreign policy. After being elected President of Uzbekistan in December 2016, Shavkat Mirziyoyev identified the main tasks for the long-term development of the country. They formed the basis of a comprehensive program of large-scale reforms, which were formulated in the Action Strategy for the five priority areas of development of Uzbekistan in the period spanning 2017 to 2021. The goal of implementing the principles of “human interests are above all” and “not the people serve the state bodies, but the state bodies serve the people” lies at the center of deep, systemic transformations in Uzbekistan.…

Retail Sales National retail sales of consumer goods went up 29.6 percent year on year in the first four months of the year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on May 17. The growth reversed from the declines witnessed in the first four months of last year, when consumer spending was disrupted by the COVID-19 epidemic. The average January-April growth for the past two years stood at 4.2 percent. In April, retail sales surged 17.7 percent year on year and came in 8.8 percent above the 2019 level. The two-year average growth was 4.3 percent. Most categories saw positive growth in sales. Of the total, the two-year average growth of 10 categories, including sports and recreational goods, gold, silver and jewelry, and telecommunications equipment, exceeded 10 percent. In April,…

Renowned Italian Tibetologist and explorer Giuseppe Tucci (1894-1984) might have rescheduled his first journey to Tibet if he had known that then the only road out of Diyag, a border township located at the west gate of the region, would be blocked by snow for nearly half a year. He managed to arrive at Diyag on October 2, 1931 after years of preparation, only to find that due to heavy snow, he could not go a step further toward Ngari, his planned destination. After a short stay, he had to go back to Nepal and wait for another time. Diyag, China’s most-difficult-to-access township, lies in a river valley 20 km east of the China-India border, and 2,000 km west of Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region. Eight mountains towering above…

On a cold winter night five years ago, Yu Jiang became a tree of Tibetan hadas. He was surrounded by the troupe of actors he had been working with and they draped dozens of the ceremonial scarfs around his neck as a token of their gratitude and blessing. “All the actors brought hadas for me, and there were tears in their eyes. It was like a dream, a very, very nice one,” Yu, now Deputy Curator of Ngari Museum in Tibet Autonomous Region, told Beijing Review. It happened two days after a performance in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province on January 29, 2016 and remains one of the warmest moments in the 54-year-old’s life. Initially, Yu was a teacher and researcher in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province in north China, far from…

When Li Bingjian went to work in Fujian, he was struck by the prosperity of the coastal province. He was from Sichuan, a mountainous province where the rural areas were still underdeveloped, and for years he had worked in different industries as an unskilled laborer without much success. So after stints in the construction industry and at a salt factory, he went to Fujian to work on a chicken farm. That was back in the 1990s. The farm brought stability in his wandering life and taught him skills. He learned how to raise chickens using modern technology and was eventually promoted as a manager at the farm. By that time, he had been away from home for nearly two decades and he longed to go back. Then he learned a…

Beijing has long been hailed as one of the oldest cities in the world—up to 3,000 years old. Controversies have lingered regarding the origins of this capital city. However, once people see the archaeological evidence in Liulihe with their own eyes, they will never have another doubt about this long history. More than three decades ago, a batch of bronze ware bearing invaluable inscriptions from the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 B.C.) was unearthed at Liulihe in Fangshan District, some 43 km southwest of downtown Beijing. The archaeological discovery proved Beijing had been the capital of the ancient Yan State 3,000 years ago. Archaeological research also identified Liulihe as the earliest traceable source of ubran civilization in Beijing, and the site has since been hailed as the origin of Beijing. New…