Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.64/No.24 i Beijing Review

In a classroom of the Lu Xun Primary School in Awat County, Aksu Prefecture in south Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a variety of 3D-printed works take shape as students are crafting their models on computers on April 20. “We are learning how to design a tripod, an ancient cooking vessel with two loop handles and three or four legs. This is much more complicated than the cups that I made before,” Umut Mahmut told Beijing Review. Students in this class are all fourth and fifth graders who have acquired basic computer skills. Umut, a fifth grader, said he is quite interested in 3D printing. “It’s amazing that I can try and turn my imagination into reality,” he added. The school is built with the assistance of Shaoxing, a city in…

For the first few years after Abudullah Urashim left his hometown in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, “2 yuan for 50 grams” was the most fluent Standard Chinese sentence that he could say. He left Xinjiang to sell raisins in east China and used this phrase to answer all questions posed by his customers. When he and his wife left Xinjiang in 1997, Abudullah could only speak his native Uygur language, but he was confident he’d be able to learn Standard Chinese in less than three years. However, as the couple moved around between cities in east China, financial burdens and unstable living arrangements did not give him the time and energy he needed to learn the language. After three years in the east, he was still unable to converse with…

What happens to cultural relics during the whole process from being unearthed to well restored? An exhibition showcasing the results of the work and devotion of specialists brings the past back to life. From Terracotta Warriors to bronzeware, silk pieces and paintings, the 50-odd cultural relics gathered inside a gallery of the Capital Museum in Beijing pay homage to those cultural relic doctors who gave them a second life in the public eye. The exhibition, running from May 18 to August 17, entitled Pursuing Eternity: Conservation of Museum Collections opened to the public on May 18. The exhibition gathers the cultural relics and related auxiliary exhibits from 10 provinces, cities and 23 cultural institutes and museums, displaying the history of cultural relic protection in China. It also serves as an…

Eighty-one-year-old Shi Huifang could never forget her life-changing decision to venture out into Xinjiang, a remote and bare land to her in northwest China, some six decades ago. She wanted to escape poverty and create a better life for herself by putting in hard work in a new place. At the same time, this was also a good chance for her to step away from a relationship with a young man who she was not fully committed to. “His shanty with thatched roofs did hold me back,” Shi said, half jokingly. However, she didn’t expect her boyfriend to find out about her decision and give up his job as a hydraulic engineer in Jiangsu, a province in east China, only to follow her to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, some 4,000…

‘When the apples in Aksu turn red, the whole country’s apples are ripe.” This is a proverb often quoted by fruit growers in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Apples in other parts of China tend to be picked in August and September, while those in Aksu Prefecture, the main apple-planting area in Xinjiang, are picked at the end of October. As the temperature there drops sharply in autumn, the sugar inside the apples condenses rapidly, forming the “crystal sugar heart” unique to Aksu apples. In 2020, apple cultivation in the prefecture reached 25,300 hectares, yielding a total annual output of 795,800 tons, and a value of more than 3 billion yuan ($468.9 million). Last year, the fruit forest area in Aksu approximated 300,000 hectares, accounting for about a quarter of the…

Kazak herder Zhalyn Rakhymzhan returned to his home in the Nalati Grassland even though this meant giving up admission to a university in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, about 10 years ago. “Life is too fast in Urumqi,” Zhalyn Rakhymzhan told Beijing Review, “I’m glad that I came back! We live a very simple life here.” The 32-year-old man now has three children, with the oldest being only 4 years old. His family follows the grazing herd in summer while spending winter in their apartment in the village. This is the typical lifestyle for most villagers in the county of Xinyuan in Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, where the grasslands roll along. The Nalati Grassland is located at an average altitude of 1,800 meters, covering an area of 1,012…

‘They (the U.S.) have been saying that for almost a year. If there is real evidence, then it’s the responsibility of the U.S. to share it,” Marion Koopmans, a top virologist, told the BBC on May 27, when asked about her opinion on a recent U.S. report claiming it was “plausible” that the coronavirus had been leaked from a Wuhan lab. “The possibility of a lab accident or even a manipulation, was discussed with colleagues, and we’ve published our findings,” Koopmans, part of the World Health Organization (WHO) field visit team to Wuhan in January and February investigating the origins of COVID-19, said. “If there is intelligence that says something different, please share it,” she stressed. However, although the U.S. intelligence report was hyped by the media, there is no…

With the ambition of delivering enhanced cross-device experiences to consumers, Chinese tech company Huawei launched the second version of its open-source operating system, HarmonyOS 2, on June 2. The system is able to connect a variety of devices to smartphones, including wearables, tablets and even vehicles. However, Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, said HarmonyOS, or Hongmeng in Chinese, is not a substitute for Google’s Android or Apple’s exclusive iOS as many had predicated, but has instead been developed to power the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. The first version of HarmonyOS was introduced in August 2019. Prior to the rollout of HarmonyOS 2, it had already been used in Huawei’s smart TVs and in home appliances produced by other brands, such as microwave ovens. Huawei undertook the…

Trade Growth Foreign trade maintained its upward momentum in the first five months of the year amid steady economic operation and external demand. Total imports and exports expanded 28.2 percent year on year, up to 14.76 trillion yuan ($2.3 trillion) during the period, the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) said on June 7. It marked an increase of 21.6 percent from the same period in 2019, data from the GACC showed. Trade surplus increased 56.2 percent year on year, reaching 1.32 trillion yuan ($206 billion). Foreign trade of private enterprises improved 38.1 percent, up to 7.02 trillion yuan ($1.09 trillion), over the January-May period, making up 47.6 percent of the national total. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations remained China’s largest trading partner, followed by the EU and…

Before she graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, one of the leading art institutions in the U.S., Xinjiangborn photographer Hailun Ma gained a new awareness of her hometown in northwest China. “So-called ‘high fashion’ is far removed from my own life. I want to rebuild my connection with fashion photography,” Ma said. In 2018, Ma returned to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. In addition to two suitcases stuffed with luxury clothing she’d brought from New York for her shooting project, she also brought with her a broader vision to trace her childhood memories. She hopes to equip people with new perspectives on what Xinjiang really is, aiming for those both in and outside the know. “Xinjiang is developing. It’s not just an online search result when…

On May 30, a consortium of major European media outlets brought to light yet another spying scandal involving the United States’ systematic and longterm espionage campaign against its closest European allies. According to a report following an internal investigation of the Danish Defense Intelligence Services (FE) completed in 2015, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), notorious for its mass global signals intelligence collection, had eavesdropped on the top leaders and highranking officials of Germany, Sweden, Norway and France through cooperation with the FE. Role of Denmark Faced with fierce criticism from these countries, the Danish Government claimed that the U.S. already ceased carrying out wiretapping activities against European leaders in 2014. However, only the most naive would believe that the United States would cancel its spying network in Europe. Startlingly,…

Song Zihan, a mother of two living in Beijing’s Fengtai District, remembers that years ago she had to clean the kettle on a regular basis because of the thick incrustation hiding inside, formed from boiling water in it. Also, the rice she cooked with tap water always tasted a bit “off.” “After the South-to-North Water Diversion Project went into operation, I have witnessed the changes in water quality. I bought a new kettle when the water from down south came all the way up to Beijing; a year later, it still looked brand new,” Song told Beijing Review. Beijing is among those northern cities plagued by water shortage. In 2014, the water diversion project started to supply water to the capital. According to the Beijing Water Authority, by mid-May, over…

Longyan, located in west Fujian Province, was one of the starting points of the Long March of the Red Army led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) between 1934 and 1936. It was also an essential part of the central revolutionary base area in the early 1930s, one of the earliest revolutionary bases of the CPC, and is home to the site of the Gutian Conference in 1929 that established the CPC’s absolute leadership over the army. Its abundance of CPC-related historical resources makes the city a popular tourist destination today. Red memories As the CPC prepares to celebrate its centenary on July 1, enthusiasm for learning the Party’s history is high among those interested in its revolutionary culture. In March 1929, the Fourth Army of the Chinese Workers’…