Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol.65/No.20 i Beijing Review

John Lee Ka-chiu was elected as the sixth-term chief executive designate of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) on May 8. This was the first such election after Hong Kong implemented its new electoral system, designed to ensure the SAR is governed by Hong Kong patriots, while enjoying autonomy under the policy of One Country, Two Systems. After Hong Kong returned to the motherland in 1997, the One Country, Two Systems policy helped maintain its international status. However, many anti-China agitators who held public office exploited their elected positions to openly challenge the rule of law in Hong Kong. They carried out activities detrimental to China’s national security and Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability. In March 2021, the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, adopted a decision on improving the…

The 2022 Hong Kong chief executive election was held on May 8 for the sixth term of the highest office of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). John Lee Ka-chiu was elected as HKSAR’s sixth-term chief executive designate, and is awaiting the Central Government’s official appointment. He is expected to take over the city’s top job from incumbent Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, who has been in office since 2017. This was the first chief executive election since the improved electoral system was adopted in HKSAR last year to ensure Hong Kong patriots govern Hong Kong. Residents now have high hopes for Lee and expect that he can get the region back on track and truly integrate it into China’s overall development. It’s not often that one city’s election attracts international…

The U.S.-based Pew Research Center in late April released polling data that demonstrate the increasing negativity Americans feel toward China. The results, based on a survey of 3,581 U.S. adults from March 21 to 27, should come as no surprise. America’s political and media elites, on a daily basis, loudly bang the drum that “China is a nation that cannot be trusted.” Just think about it: If you heard the same message day after day after day, you, too, would start believing it. According to the Pew report, the number of Americans who have unfavorable views of China increased 6 percentage points over 2021 to 82 percent, a new high. Perhaps even more important is: Two thirds of the surveyed described China as a major threat—up 5 percentage points since…

Many Chinese primary and middle-school students are not competent in housework today and do not take such work seriously, due to long-term negligence of housework education by both schools and families. Consequently, some arrive at college unable to cook or wash their own clothes. The Ministry of Education has recently released the new curriculum standard for housework education in compulsory education (Grade 1-9), making housework education an independent course that students must take at least once a week, beginning from the upcoming autumn semester. The new standard requires primary students in Grade 1-2 to learn to sweep the floor, Grade 3-4 to learn to plant cabbages, and Grade 5-6 to master the skills of cooking two to three dishes. Students in junior middle schools will learn to repair simple electrical…

Railway Maintenance Workers replace rails on the line between Datong in Shanxi Province and Qinhuangdao in Hebei Province on May 10. A 20-day overhaul of the railway is being carried out to ensure transportation efficiency and improve safety. Rising Sea Level China’s sea levels reached their highest on record in 2021, according to a bulletin released by the Ministry of Natural Resources, Xinhua News Agency reported on May 9. Over the past year, the sea levels overall were 84 mm higher than the average between 1993 and 2011, according to the report. The rising sea level is largely due to global warming, which has led to the expansion of seawater, and the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps. In China, land subsidence also makes the land lower, and sea…

VETERAN ACTRESS DIES AT 100 Actress and recipient of the national honorary title “People’s Artist” Qin Yi passed away on May 9 at the age of 100. Qin, born in Shanghai in 1922, grew up a cinema buff and turned her passion for the silver screen into a lifelong career, making her film debut in the 1939 flick Hao Zhangfu (A Good Husband). After 1949, Qin played leading roles in many films, including Song of the Youth and Loyal Overseas Chinese. She remained one of the most popular film actresses in China throughout the 1950s and 1960s. With the rise of television in China in the 1980s, Qin appeared in several TV dramas, such as the 1982 hit Under the Roofs of Shanghai, for which she won Best Actress at…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not deliver his “long-anticipated” speech on America’s China policy on May 5 due to his testing positive for COVID-19 and having to quarantine. All public statements aside, the Joe Biden administration’s adjustment to the China policy is a predictable one: to ensure American interests always prevail. The current U.S. administration sees the tough policy toward China as one of former President Donald Trump’s biggest political legacies; that includes the ongoing trade war since 2018. Four years on, higher tariffs on Chinese imports and more trade restrictions targeting the world’s second largest economy don’t appear to have been the most strategic of moves. On April 29, Qin Gang, Chinese ambassador to the U.S., sat down for an interview with Forbes’ Russell Flannery. Qin in…

Who is eligible to be a chief executive candidate? To be eligible for nomination as a candidate, a person must: • Be a permanent resident of HKSAR and a Chinese citizen • Have no right to reside in any foreign country • Have reached 40 years of age • Have resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of no fewer than 20 years on the day when the vacancy in the office of the chief executive is due to arise At an online press conference on April 9, former HKSAR Chief Secretary for Administration John Lee Ka-chiu announced his candidacy for the Sixth-Term Chief Executive Election. How are candidates nominated? Election Committee members are responsible for nominating chief executive candidates. The candidates shall be nominated by no fewer than…

CPI and PPI China’s consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.1 percent year on year in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on May 11. On a monthly basis, the CPI inched up 0.4 percent partly due to the domestic resurgence of COVID-19 and the continuous rise of bulk commodity prices worldwide, according to Dong Lijuan, a senior statistician with the NBS. Food prices went up 0.9 percent from the previous month, driving up the monthly consumer inflation by about 0.17 of a percentage point, according to the data. Non-food prices rose 2.2 percent from a year earlier, the same growth recorded the previous month. The prices of gasoline, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas went up 29 percent, 31.7 percent and 26.9 percent year…

‘Comprehensively advancing law-based governance is an essential requirement and important guarantee for socialism with Chinese characteristics,” reads the Resolution of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party Over the Past Century, which was adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in November 2021. Solid progress has been made in advancing the rule of law in China since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012. Top-level designs and major plans have been put forward to ensure sound legislation, strict law enforcement, impartial administration of justice, and observance of the law by all. Overarching guidelines Advancing the rule of law has been incorporated into the Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy for the country’s development, put forth by President…