Animated talk

A NASA
robot to dig
After life
Panda research center places
D
Director of Coco discusses film on Mars preserved animals on display
a
at cartoon festival LIFE, PAGE 8 WORLD, PAGE 10 CHINA, PAGE 5

THURSDAY, May 3, 2018 chinadailyusa.com $1

Trade discussions Tibetan

to start in Beijing border city
By
By ZHONG
ZHONGNAN
NANin Beijing ened to impose tariffs on up to
entices
zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn
zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn

China and the United

States will hold talks on
trade and economic issues in
Beijing on Thursday and Fri-
day, marking the first high-
level meeting since the
bilateral trade dispute esca-
lated in March.
The Ministry of Commerce
announced on Wednesday
that a US delegation led by
Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin, visiting as US Presi-
dent Donald Trump’s special
envoy, will exchange views on
China-US economic and trade
issues with Vice-Premier Liu
He, also a member of the Polit-
ical Bureau of the Communist
Party of China Central Com-
mittee.
The US delegation also
includes Commerce Secretary
$150 billion in Chinese
imports while China has
vowed to retaliate against US
exports if Washington moves
forward with that plan.
Chen Wenling, chief econ-
omist at the China Center for
International Economic
Exchanges, said the topics
under discussion surely will
not be limited to trade,
because the US also wants to
promote its “America First”
strategy by containing Chi-
na’s ability to attract foreign
direct investment.
“The US also is deeply con-
cerned about China’s indus-
trial upgrades, technology
transfers, currency rate, tal-
ent flows and intellectual
property protection. It also
wants to relieve the down-
ward pressure on its stock
market,” she said.
industry
to go west
By DA QIONG in Lhasa
and LI LEI in Beijing
The government of Shiga-
tse, a border city in the Tibet
autonomous region, is using
multimillion yuan subsidies to
attract businesses and indus-
tries.
Subsidies up to 20 million
yuan ($3.14 million) will be
granted to industrial or busi-
ness projects that can work
within the Shigatse Economic
President Xi Jinping shakes hands and is photographed with students during his visit to Peking University on Wednesday. The Development Zone, such as
president spoke about the university’s achievements over the past 120 years. WANG YE / XINHUA high-technology industry and
modern logistics services.
Those designated by the

Xi praises Peking University

Wilbur Ross, US Trade Repre-
sentative Robert Lighthizer,
Larry Kudlow, assistant to the
president for economic policy,
and Peter Navarro, assistant
to the president for trade and
manufacturing policy.
Foreign Ministry spokes-
woman Hua Chunying said
on Wednesday it is in the best
interests of the two countries
to resolve disputes and main-
tain the overall stability of
bilateral business relations
through negotiations.
Taking into account the size
of the Chinese and US econo-
mies and the complexity of the
relationship, it may not be
realistic to expect one meeting
to resolve all the problems, she
said at a news briefing.
“China’s firm stance has
prompted Trump to send all
his top economic officials for
trade negotiations to avert fur-
ther escalation or a trade war,”
said Xue Rongjiu, deputy
director of Beijing-based Chi-
na Society for WTO Studies.
Zhang Monan, a researcher
at the China Center for Inter-
national Economic Exchanges,
said the codependency of Chi-
na and the US is a highly react-
ive relationship.
“When one country
changes the terms of the
engagement, the other, feeling
scorned, usually responds in
kind,” Zhang said.
Inside
Inside
for its top-quality education
Colleges must shape next generation to lead country with socialist values
ANBAIJIE
By AN BAIJIEin Beijing
anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
The goal of China’s educa-
tion is to nurture a new gen-
eration of capable young
people who are well prepared
to join the socialist cause,
President Xi Jinping said on
chairman of the Central Mili-
tary Commission, made the
remark while talking with
students and teachers at
Peking University in Beijing.
Universities should focus
on their task of nurturing
young people and prepare
them to join the socialist
class programs with Chinese
characteristics, Xi said.
On behalf of the CPC Cen-
tral Committee, Xi greeted
the university’s students and
teachers, the country’s youth
from all ethnic groups and
those who work for young
people.
ernized socialist country,
which needs continuous
efforts of numerous genera-
tions, Xi said, adding that
young people should shoul-
der the responsibility of ful-
filling national rejuvenation.
At the university, Xi talked
with some senior professors
region’s government or central
government as key projects
could receive as much as 30
million yuan.
Enterprises also will receive
rewards for seeking financing
through stock market initial
public offerings, with the sum
ranging from 1.5 million yuan
to 7 million yuan.
The decision to provide the
subsidies was disclosed late
last month at a news confer-
ence held by the Shigatse city
government in Shanghai —
which has been paired with
the Tibetan city since 1994 in a
nationwide assistance pro-
gram to boost development in
Tibet.
N

300 km
Experts remain “cautiously Wednesday. cause, uphold their proper It’s a long-term task to as well as representatives of
optimistic” about the trade •• Related
Related story
story,>page
p3 3 Xi, also general secretary of political direction, form a uphold and develop socialism middle-aged and young
talks, even as the Trump •• Editorial,
Editorial >page
p8 12 the Communist Party of Chi- high-standard system to cul- with Chinese characteristics
Tibet
administration already threat- •• Comment,
Comment >page p9 13 na Central Committee and tivate talent and build world- and build China into a mod- See Education, page 3

Lhasa

DPRK visit State Council cuts bureaucratic

LATE NEWS

President to speak at ceremony for Marx

Shigatse

follows time to launch a new business

President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and
chairman of the Central Military Commission, will give an address on Friday at a ceremony marking the More than 400 top workers
leaders’
leaders’ 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, whose work with Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto,
bolstered the worldwide communist movement. The event will be held at the Great Hall of the People on
from Shanghai — including
government officials and pro-
fessionals in different areas —
summit
summit
Friday
By XU WEImorning, according to Xinhua News Agency. •See more on our appprojects
in Beijing
xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn
to improving the
or chinadaily.com.cn
business environment. The
key is to press ahead with
have been sent to Tibet in
eight groupings.

ByZHANG
By ZHANGYUNBI
YUNBIin Beijing
zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn
zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.
State Council cuts bureaucratic
China will further
improve its business envi-
Our focus
ronment by halving the
the reform of government
functions,” he said.
An estimate by the World
Shanghai will be a major
adviser for the upcoming
zone, which is 5 kilometers
cn
State Councilor and Foreign
Minister Wang Yi
State Councilor andarrived
Foreignin
State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with DPRK
Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in
Pyongyang
State Counciloron Wednesday.
and Foreign Minister
AFP PHOTOWang Yi meets with
time to launch
needs toashift
time required to start an
new business
enterprise and launch con-
struction projects, the State
Bank moved China up 65
spots between 2013 and
2017 in the ranking of ease
south of the urban area of Shi-
gatse. The city was set up in
2014, bordering Nepal, Bhutan
Pyongyang
Minister Wangon Wednesday
Yi arrived in for DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yongho at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in Council decided on Wednes- from investing of starting a business, and and India.
a two-day on
Pyongyang visit to the Demo-
Wednesday for Pyongyang on Wednesday. AFP PHOTO dayByatXU anWEIexecutive meet- cities, including Beijing, the in amount
the rankingof time ofrequired
ease of According to the layout
a two-day visit to the Demo-of
cratic People’s Republic seeking solutions through ing chaired by Premier Li
xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn in projects
Shanghai and Tianjin, and in starting
was a business,
cut from 33 daysand the
to just unveiled at the news confer-
Korea. People’s Republic of
cratic dialogue
In March, and consultation.
Kim made an Keqiang. Zhejiang province. All gov- under amount of time required
23 days. ence, the 36.3 sq km zone com-
Later on Wednesday, Wang
Korea. unoffiIncialMarch, Kim made an
visit to China. In China will further com-
one decision to improving
improve ernment review items and was cut from
Another 33 days
decision to just
made at prises two major functional
met with
Later onDPRK Foreign
Wednesday, Min-
Wang unofficial
Senior officialsvisit tofrom
China. both ingits business
from environment
the meeting, the by approval processes concern- the under 23 days.
meeting said the proce- zones — divided by the Jiaqu
isterwith
met Ri Yong-ho.
DPRK Foreign Min- The peninsula sidesSenior
includingofficials
Wangfrom and both halving
amount of the
time time required
required
the business
to to ing home building and urban dures Another
that adecision
new firm made
needs at River, which flows across Shi-
During
ister
DPRK,
Wang’s stay in the
Ri Yong-ho. The peninsula
situation is under- sides Foreign
DPRK including WangRiand
Minister start
start an enterprise
a business
launchsub-provincial
in munici-
construction projects,
environment.”
and infrastructure will be simpli- to thegomeeting
through saidtothe proce-
become gatse — and will hold as many
as 120,000 residents.
Duringthe Wang’stwostaysidesin thewill DPRK have
Yong-ho, Foreign
publiclyMinister
pledged Ri palities, cit- fied, optimized and stan- initially dures that a new firmwill
operational needs
be
embark on
DPRK, thein-depth
two sides exchanges
will situation is under-
going remarkable toYong-ho,
implement havethe publicly pledged
consensus ies the
andState Council capitals
provincial decided on dardized.
Premier Li This pilot program further
Keqiang to go through to become ini-
streamlined. East of the river is the new
of viewsonabout
embark their
in-depth relation-
exchanges to implement
reached by Kim and thePresident
consensus willWednesday
be reducedatby antheexecutive
end will be rolled out nationwide tially Theoperational
whole business will bereg-
fur- city area, where the city gov-
ship
of as well
views aboutas the Korean
their relation-Pen- going remarkable
changes.” Xireached
Jinping,by Kim
also and President
general secre- meeting
of the chaired
year from an by Premier in the first half of next year.
average ther streamlined.
istration processThe willwhole
be ernment will be seated, along
insula
ship situation,
as well according
as the Korean Pen-to XiofJinping,
tary also general
the Communist Partysecre-
of Li Keqiang.
of more than 20 workdays to President Xi Jinping conducted business registration process
online. Govern- with schools, sports facilities,
the Foreign
insula Ministry.
situation, according to changes.”
Ruan Zongze, tary
China of the
Central Communist
Committee. Party of In one
just over eight. decision coming optimizedemphasized thatstandard-
and the govern- ment
will approval
be conducted online.
of the names business and residential areas.
theOfficials
Foreign and experts said the
Ministry. vice-president of the China China
Ruan Central
Zongze, Committee.
vice-president frommeasure
This the meeting,
also willthe ized. ment must
This doprogram
pilot away withwillreg- of
Government
businessesapproval of the
before regis- West of the river is designated
trip,
Officoming
cials and after Friday’s
experts saidsum-
the Ruan Zongze,
Institute vice-president
of International Stud- of the RuanChina Zongze,
Institutevice-president
of Inter- amount of time
be introduced in fiverequired
cities, to beulations andnationwide
rolled out practices that
in names of
tration businesses
will no longer before
be as the industrial area,
mit between
trip, coming afterDPRK leader
Friday’s sum-Kim ofies,
theon
China
the Institute
importance of of Bei- of the Studies,
national China Institute
said Wang’sof Inter- start aQingdao,
Dalian, business Ningbo,
in munici- the impede the of
first half development
next year. of a needed
registration will specifically
unless no longer be equipped with logistics servi-
Jong-un
mit betweenandDPRK
Republic
leaderof Korea
Kim International Studies, on the
jing and Pyongyang national
trip will Studies,
gear up said Wang’s
bilateral palities,and
Xiamen sub-provincial
Shenzhen.cit- unified PresidentmarketXiand fair com- required.
Jinping needed unless specifically ces and other support facili-
President Moon Jae-in,
Jong-un and Republic of Korea will importance
strengtheningof Beijing and level
strategic trip will gear up bilateral
efforts in fulfilling the two top efforts ies and
Other areas provincial
also will capitals
be petition, stimulate
emphasized the vitality
that the gov- required.
The record-filing proce- ties.
boost coordination
President Moon Jae-in, between
will Pyongyang strengthening
communication in fulfilling
leaders’ the
consensus, two top leaders’
includ- will beto
required reduced
make by the end of ernment
progress, of all market
must entities
do away and dure The record-filing
of offi cial seals willproce-
be The industries to be
Chinacoordination
boost and the DPRKbetween and help strategic level communication ingconsensus,
boosting ties, including
pushing boosting
for thefollowed
to be year frombyannational
average of withadopt policies to
regulations andpromote
prac- dure of official
included in theseals will be
reform to incorporated in the zone
keep the
China andthawing
the DPRK Korean
and help Pen- Inside theties, pushingsettlement
peaceful for the peacefulof more than 20inworkdays
implementation the first to tices
high-standard
that impedeliberalization
the devel- included diff
integrate in erent
the reform
certifica- to include logistics services,
insula
keep situation
the thawingon track.Pen-
Korean thesettlement
peninsulaofnuclear the peninsula
issue halfjust overyear.
of next eight. This meas- opment and facilitation of trade
of a unified and tion
mar- integrate different on
requirements certifica-
busi- organic farming, drinking
insula situation on track. key
The trip serves as a conference in Beijing on nuclear issue and
and maintaining high-level maintaining ure also will be introduced
Measures to halve the time investments.
ket and fair competition, tion requirements
ness registrations. Appli- on busi- water industry, handicrafts,
measure
The trip taken by both
serves as asides
keyto Related story > p3, 12
Wednesday. high-levelbetween
exchanges exchanges thebetween
two in five cities,
required Dalian, Qing- stimulate
for government Li said the
that vitality
a good business
of all ness registrations.
cants may also chooseApplicants
ser- financial services and trade
put into taken
measure actionby theboth
consensus
sides Beijing looks forward to the two countries.
countries. dao, Ningbo,
approval Xiamen and market
of construction environment
entitiesis part
and and
adoptpar- vice
mayproviders
also choose onservice pro-
their own.
made
to put by
intothe two countries’
action the consen- top in Beijing
working on Wednesday.
with all parties “It“Itisisofofgreat
great importance
importance for Shenzhen.
projects fromOther areas also policies
the current cel of enhancing
to promote competitive-
high- viders on their own.
No separate tax registra- See Tibet, page 3
leaders,
sus made by reinforce high-level
the two countries’ Beijing
involved looks forward
to reinforce the exist- to forBeijing
Beijing and and Pyongyang
Pyongyang to to will be
average of required
more than to 200
make standard
ness and productivity.and
liberalization “In tionNowill
separate tax registra-
be required and
exchanges
top leaders, and improvehigh-
reinforce strate- working
ing with all ofparties
positive momentum the strengthen
strengthen their
their strategic
strategic levellevel progress,
workdays toto 120beworkdays
followed by facilitation
spurring economic
of tradegrowth,
and tionseparate
no will be required
social andinsur-no
level exchanges and improve situation and further contrib- communication because the will be tested this year in investments. ance registration certifi-
strategic-level communication, ute to fundamentally resolving peninsula situation is undergo- 15 cities, including Beijing, Li said that a good busi- cate issued for companies
Foreign Ministry spokeswom- the peninsula issue, Hua said. ing remarkable changes and Shanghai and Tianjin, and ness environment is part that have obtained busi-
an Hua Chunying said. Hua reiterated China’s com- is developing rapidly almost in Zhejiang province. and parcel of enhanc- ness licenses with unified
China is glad to see that the mitment to denuclearizing the every day,” Ruan said. All government review ing competitiveness and social credit codes. The time
tense situation on the penin- peninsula, championing its Wang’s trip will also play a items and approval pro- productivity. needed for invoice applica-
sula is easing and develop- peace and stability and seek- key role in advancing the pen- cesses concerning home “In spurring economic tions and social insurance
ing in a good direction, the ing solutions through dialogue insula’s denuclearization pro- building and urban infra- growth, our focus needs registrations also will be
spokeswoman said at a news and consultation. cess, Ruan said. structure will be simplified, to shift from investing in reduced.

2 ACROSS AMERICAS
Ontario,
China
look to
team up
on AI
By NA LI in Toronto
renali@chinadailyusa.com
Experts from Ontario and
China are seeking more collabo-
ration in artificial intelligence
and robotics.
On Wednesday, they attend-
ed the Ontario-China AI and
Robotics Collaboration Work-
shop, co-hosted by the Ontario
Ministry of Research, Inno-
vation and Science and the
Consulate General of China in
Toronto.
Bringing together academic
and industry representatives to
share research and commer-
cial collaboration opportunities
along with the latest trends,
the workshop also attracted
delegates from leading Chinese
universities and technology
companies.
“I have a deep impression of
Canada’s AI and robotics tech-
nologies,” said Huang Tiejun,
head of the delegates and chair
of the Department of Computer
Science at Peking University.
“Canada has the world’s top
experts and technology in the
area, and we expect future
cooperation,” said Huang, who
shared a presentation on “Next
Generation AI & Brain-like Com-
puting” at the workshop.
“The event is a great oppor-
tunity for Canada and China
to collaborate and develop AI
and robotics technologies,”
said Elissa Strome, execu-
tive director of Pan-Canadian
Strategy at Canadian Institute
for Advanced Research. “There
is great research strength and
expertise in both countries and
tremendous opportunities for
us to bring these together to do
even bigger and better.”
Establishing science and
technology relationships with
China is a priority for Ontario,
Strome said. In 2008, 2013 and
2017, the Ontario provincial
government and the Ministry
of Science and Technology of
China signed three rounds of
memorandums of understand-
ing on research and innovation
for a total of 15 years.
A joint research-funding
program, the Ontario-China
Research and Innovation Fund
(OCRIF), was launched in 2011
to support bilateral strategic
research collaboration projects
by investing up to $2 million
($1 million each) to support
strategic bilateral research
collaborations.
“This year we are looking at
AI and robotics. Both the gov-
ernments of Ontario and China
have identified AI and robotics
as strategic areas of focus for
research and commercializa-
tion collaboration,” said Peter
McFadzean, manager, partner-
ships at the Ontario Centres of
Excellence.
“We’ve done energy storage
previously and also biomate-
rials previously. Over perhaps
two to three years, we look for
milestones along the way, and
we look for successful outcomes
and the commercial opportuni-
ties in both Ontario and China,”
McFadzean said.
“Here we can see great
opportunities in the collabora-
tion, but it seems that it will take
quite a long time, at least half a
year, to start up the cooperative
projects due to differences from
two sides,” said Don Qiu, direc-
tor of the Case Department at
the Institute for Data Science,
Tsinghua University.
“We are thinking of building
a communications platform to
work together to figure out the
problem and speed up the col-
laboration,” Don said.
According to Consul Gen-
eral He Wei, opening-up and
innovation are a trend in soci-
ety and the basic component
of China’s rapid development
over the past 40 years. Last year,
China released a new AI devel-
opment plan to further acceler-
ate the pace of AI research and
industrialization.
Trump-voting cities face tariffs’ brunt
Brookings: Farming, aerospace, autos
most exposed to China’s retaliation
By CHEN WEIHUA
in Washington
chenweihua@chinadailyusa.
com
US metropolitan areas that
specialize in agriculture, aero-
space and automotive manufac-
turing are most exposed to Chi-
na’s retaliatory tariffs, accord-
ing to a study by the Brookings
Institution.
The US metro areas with the
Chinese tariff-affected export
jobs include Wichita, Kansas;
Bakersfield, California; Jack-
son, Mississippi; and Stock-
ton, California, all of which
will have between 1,000 to
2,900 jobs affected, according
to the Export Monitor 2018
report released by Brookings
this week.
New secretary of state
Mike Pompeo is sworn in as US secretary of state by US Vice-President Mike Pence (right), as US President Donald Trump and Susan
Pompeo look on during a ceremony at the State Department in Washington on Wednesday. JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS
CEO: China not buying soybeans
from US but rather Brazil, Canada
By CHINA DAILY
The world’s biggest oil-
seed processor confirmed on
Wednesday that China has
essentially stopped buying US
supplies of soybeans amid the
brewing China-US trade war.
“Whatever they’re buying
is non-US,” Bunge Ltd Chief
Executive Officer Soren Sch-
roder said in an interview with
Bloomberg. “They’re buying
beans in Canada, in Brazil,
mostly Brazil, but very deliber-
ately not buying anything from
the US,” he said. “How long that
will last, who knows? But so
long as there is this big cloud
of uncertainty, that’s likely to
continue.”
Schroder told Reuters that
“nobody’s willing to take the
risk of committing to US soy-
beans to China in the current
context”.
US transfers inmate from Guantanamo
WASHINGTON — The
United States announced on
Wednesday the first transfer
of a prisoner from the Guan-
tanamo Bay detention center
under US President Donald
Trump, reducing the prisoner
population at a facility Trump
has signaled he would like to
repopulate.
The US militar y said
Ahmed Muhammed Haza
al-Darbi’s transfer to Saudi
Arabia reduced the detainee
population to 40 from 41.
He was the first prisoner to
leave the US detention cen-
ter in Cuba since Jan 19, 2017
— the day before Trump was
inaugurated.
Reuters reported in March
Seattle will have the highest
total number of jobs at risk
by far, with just above 16,000,
according to the report, which
includes the impact of tariffs
either imposed or proposed
by China on a total of 234 US
products. King County, Wash-
ington, where Seattle is locat-
ed, voted 72 percent for Hillary
Clinton in 2016.
The US placed Section 232
tariffs on steel and aluminum
imports in late March in the
name of national security.
While most US allies are
exempted, China, which is not
among the top 10 exporters to
the US, is not. In return, China
imposed retaliatory tariffs on
128 US products from wine
and fruits to pork and steel
products.
Last month, China
announced plans to impose tar-
iffs on 106 US goods that have
a combined trading value of
more than $50 billion annually,
including tariffs of 25 percent
on soybeans. They are Ameri-
ca’s top agricultural export to
China, worth more than $12
billion.
China’s action was in
response to the Trump admin-
istration’s publication of a list
of about 1,300 Chinese exports
— also worth about $50 billion
annually — that it intends to
target with 25 percent tariffs.
Schroder told Bloomberg
that his company still has been
able to meet Chinese demand
for soybeans by filling ship-
ments with supplies from out-
side the US. The White Plains,
New York-based company
has a large presence in South
America.
that al-Darbi’s transfer was
advancing.
Commander Sarah Higgins,
a Pentagon spokeswoman,
noted that the transfer was
provided under the terms
of a 2014 plea deal, which
will allow al-Darbi to serve
out the rest of his 13-year
sentence there.
“The United States coordi-
nated with the government
of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia to ensure the trans-
fer took place in accordance
with established standards
for security and humane
treatment,” Higgins said.
The prison, opened by
Republican President
George W. Bush to hold
What better way
is there to avert a
deleterious trade
war than to resolve
issues by putting
them in writing ... ?”
Daniel Ikenson, director,
Herbert A. Stiefel Center for
Trade Policy Studies
China also proposed retalia-
tory tariffs on 106 US prod-
ucts, worth $50 billion, includ-
ing soybeans, planes and cars,
after the Trump administra-
tion announced tariffs on $150
“I would rather say that we
would prefer that free trade
and no disruptions take place
because it’s not good for any-
one,” he said. “We are, by virtue
of our footprint, in a very good
position to deal with” the situa-
tion, he said.
Other agricultural prod-
ucts caught up in the dispute
include corn, pork and the feed
grain sorghum.
On Tuesday, Chicago-based
Archer Daniels Midland Co
(ADM), a major US agriculture
commodities trader, said that
the China-US trade dispute
over sorghum will cause a $30
million hit to its trading profit
in the second quarter.
The announcement by
ADM was the first confirmed
financial effect among global
grain-trading companies from
Beijing’s move on April 17 to
require hefty anti-dumping
terrorism suspects captured
overseas after the Sept 11,
2001, terrorist attacks came
to symbolize harsh deten-
tion practices that opened
the United States to accusa-
tions of torture.
US officials have not ruled
out adding to the prisoner
population again and have
acknowledged trouble repa-
triating Islamic State fighters
being held by US-backed forces
in Syria, raising the possibility
that Guantanamo Bay could be
seen as a viable option in the
future.
Trump’s Democratic prede-
cessor, Barack Obama, reduced
the inmate population to
41 from 242 but fell short of
billion in Chinese imports last
month under Section 301 of
US Trade Act of 1974.
The Brookings report also
finds that while a mix of places
will be impacted, counties that
voted for US President Don-
ald Trump in the 2016 elec-
tion are more exposed to the
Chinese tariffs, as measured
by the share of exports in tar-
iff-affected industries (3.9 per-
cent) and the direct and indi-
rect jobs those exports support
(187,600).
In counties that voted for
Clinton in 2016, only 1.7 per-
cent of exports are in tariff-
affected industries, which
support 104,000 direct and
indirect jobs.
Nick Marchio and Joseph
Parilla, the report’s two
authors, concluded that while
China and the US are not yet
in a full-fledged trade war, the
rumblings between the world’s
deposits on US sorghum
imports, according to Reuters.
ADM is one of the largest
sorghum exporters to China.
Other global commodities trad-
ers may report that they were
negatively affected by the trade
dispute later in the earnings
season, analysts said. The com-
pany reported a stronger-than-
expected first-quarter profit on
Tuesday on record soybean-
processing and higher margins.
More than 20 bulk US sor-
ghum shipments were on
their way to China when the
announcement was made,
including more than a dozen
that were loaded at ADM
export terminals in Texas. Sev-
eral of the cargoes were resold
to new buyers.
ADM on Tuesday still report-
ed a 16 percent increase in quar-
terly profit led by record vol-
umes in soybean processing,.
fulfilling his promise to close
the jail before leaving office last
year.
In contrast, Trump pledged
during his campaign to repopu-
late the prison, saying he want-
ed “to load it up with some bad
dudes”.
Trump signed an order in
January to keep the detention
center open and hinted in his
State of the Union address
to Congress this year that
Islamic State or al Qaeda
fighters could be added to
the prison population.
He also asked the Pentagon
to re-examine the US mili-
tary’s detention policy.
To that end, the Pentagon
said on Wednesday it updated
Thursday, May 3, 2018
two largest economies is yet
another signal of a new era in
US trade policy, one that local
and state leaders ought to be
watching closely.
The report comes before
US Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin will lead a US delega-
tion to Beijing for trade talks
on Thursday and Friday, a trip
many hope can de-escalate ten-
sions in the nations’ trade and
investment relationship.
Daniel Ikenson, director of
the Herbert A. Stiefel Center
for Trade Policy Studies at Cato
Institute, said a stable and
growing commercial relation-
ship between the two countries
is essential to the well-being of
the global economy.
A smarter, more durable
approach to the problems
would be for Washington and
Beijing to make lists of all of
their gripes, put them on the
table and see to what extent
Chengdu looks
to Nashville for a
‘Music City’ assist
By PAUL WELITZKIN
in New York
paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.
com
The Chinese city of Cheng-
du is looking to America’s
“Music City” to build an
entertainment and music
district to expand its tourism
economy.
Chengdu, the capital of
Sichuan province, is eager to
develop an area in the city
that will be called the Cheng-
du Musical Fun district, said
Charles Li, a native of Cheng-
du who lives in Nashville and
is a consultant to the music
industry.
“The government (munici-
pal and provincial) is play-
ing an important role in the
Chengdu Musical Fun area.
They want to develop a music
industry that includes music
education, publishing, per-
formance and licensing simi-
lar to Nashville’s Music Row,”
Li said in an interview.
Home to radio stations
and recording studios, Music
Row is considered the heart
of Nashville’s famous country
music industry. In Decem-
ber, Chengdu hosted several
music industry executives
from Nashville, including
Jeff Syracuse of BMI, a per-
forming rights organization
that collects fees on behalf of
songwriters, composers and
music publishers.
“They want to learn how
the music industry works
and how they can encourage
the development of music-
related businesses,” said Syra-
cuse who is also a member of
the Nashville Metropolitan
Council, which is the legisla-
tive authority for the city and
Davidson County, Tennessee.
“We discussed the creative
aspects of the music busi-
ness and they asked how BMI
functions to collect royalties.”
The front gate of Camp Delta is shown at the Guantanamo Bay
Naval Station in Cuba in 2007. JOE SKIPPER / REUTERS
its guidance on criteria for
transferring new detainees to
Guantanamo Bay.
“This policy provides our
warfighters guidance on
nominating detainees for
transfer to Guantanamo
C H I N A DA I LY USA
they can be resolved or miti-
gated in a bilateral trade or
investment agreement, Iken-
son wrote on Tuesday on the
China-US Focus website.
He said that the US and
China have not yet dealt seri-
ously with the prospect of a
bilateral free trade agreement,
and given the current climate,
such talks may be difficult to
commence.
“However, what better way
is there to avert a deleterious
trade war than to resolve issues
by putting them in writing and
signing the document for all
the world to see?” he said.
Economists and business
leaders such as Fred Bergsten
of Peterson Institute for Inter-
national Economics, former
AIG Chairman Maurice Green-
berg and Ikenson’s colleague
Simon Lester all have proposed
a bilateral free-trade agreement
between the two countries.
Syracuse said because
Chengdu is already a lead-
ing destination for interna-
tional high-tech companies
like Intel, the city is using
and encouraging streaming
services. “Chengdu has all
the elements to help create
a music ecosystem,” he said.
Li said that even though
Nashville is known for coun-
try and Western music, the
city has developed a scene
that features other types of
music. “We have all kinds of
music now – blues, pop and
jazz. Chengdu also wants to
develop many musical styles,”
he said.
At the heart of the Cheng-
du Musical Fund district will
be one of the campuses of
the Sichuan Conservatory of
Music, said Li. Founded in
1939, the conservatory has
its own symphony orchestra,
a Chinese traditional orches-
tra, several college choirs and
pre-college ensembles.
Chengdu has a rich his-
tory dating back more than
2,000 years. It also has a
strong tourist economy due
in part to the famous Cheng-
du Research Base of Giant
Panda Breeding, a conser-
vation center where visitors
can view endangered giant
pandas in a natural habitat.
“Chengdu now wants to
use music to promote tour-
ism,” Li said. Music is already
a big part of the area econo-
my as the city ranks among
the top three nationwide for
revenue from music shows.
Not only have Chengdu
and Nashville exchanged
visiting delegations, the two
cities are also considering
the international Sister Cit-
ies program. “It would be
wonderful to see us become
true sister cities to solidify
the relationship between
Chengdu and Nashville,” said
Syracuse.
detention should that per-
son present a continuing,
significant threat to the secu-
rity of the United States,” said
Higgins.
REUTERS
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, May 3, 2018

TOP NEWS 3

Book shows how rural life molded Xi
Liangjiahe is described as ‘quite
readable, especially for teenagers’
By HUO YAN in Xi’an and
ZHANG YI in Beijing
Liangjiahe, a book about
President Xi Jinping’s seven
years as an “educated youth”
in the small village of Liang-
jiahe in Shaanxi province, was
issued by Shaanxi People’s
Publishing House in Xi’an on
Wednesday.
From 1969 to 1975, Xi lived
and worked in the village as
part of a campaign launched
by Chairman Mao Zedong that
asked urban youth to experi-
ence life working in rural areas.
Xi has spoken on several
occasions about how he bene-
fited from his experiences
working in the small commu-
nity hidden among the valleys
of the Loess Plateau in Yan-
chuan county.
“Readers will know how
the young Xi Jinping grew up
in adversity in this book,
acquired knowledge in a cave
dwelling, gained spiritual
strength and gradually estab-
lished a firm belief in doing
practical work for the peo-
ple,” said Hui Xiping, presi-
dent of the publishing house.
The book has been availa-
ble for 36 yuan ($5.65) at Xin-
hua Bookstores nationwide
since Wednesday. It will be
available through online
stores soon and will be trans-
lated into English this year,
the publisher said.
The nonfiction book, with a
total of 102,000 words and 40
pictures, is divided into four
parts.
The first part depicts Xi’s
deep feelings and concerns
for his fellow villagers in
Liangjiahe over the past 40
years, including the vivid
scenes of his two return trips
to the village.
Part two is about Xi’s con-
tribution to the village during
his seven years’ stay, includ-
ing how he led local villagers
in building a dam and biogas
digester and promoting the
iron industry, as well as his
hardworking attitude and
self-cultivation amid adversi-
ty.
Part three explains what
Xi’s close friends in the village
learned from him and how
that knowledge influenced
their lives.
The last part describes the
tremendous changes in
Liangjiahe in the past 40
years, especially the villagers’
happy lives in the past five
years.
Chen Li, an editor, said the
book took one and a half years
to compile and represented
the work of about 30 people.
“We’ve done thorough
research and interview work,”
she said. “We talked to the vil-
lagers and referred to histori-
cal materials in libraries and
the newspaper at the time to
ensure an accurate, vivid and
touching story.”
“Sometimes people’s mem-
ories from 40 years ago are
not very clear, so we’ve
checked different sources to
ensure the accuracy of every
single word,” Chen said, add-
ing that the team revised the
book 45 times.
“This book is quite reada-
ble, especially for teenagers.
They’ll see the growth of a
great leader in hardship,
which is beneficial to their
future life,” she added.
Hui, president of the pub-
lisher, said he believes the
book is of great significance
for understanding the forma-
tion of Xi Jinping Thought on
Socialism with Chinese Char-
acteristics for a New Era, and
he expects it will “arouse
widespread attention among
readers throughout the coun-
try”.
Wu Jian, a local resident in
his 50s who attended the
book’s launch on Wednesday,
said changes in the little vil-
lage of Liangjiahe also show
China's rural development in
the past 40 years of reform
and opening-up.
Contact the writers at zhang-
yi1@chinadaily.com.cn
Study looks
for causes
of birth
defects
By WANG XIAODONG
wangxiaodong@
chinadaily.com.cm
New research involving half a
million pregnant women across
China is expected to greatly
improve control and prevention
of risks related to birth defects,
which are likely to increase with
the adoption of the universal
second-child policy.
Based on the findings,
researchers will build China’s
first database of birth defect
risks and map out strategies for
monitoring and prevention,
according to Beijing Obstetrics
and Gynecology Hospital, Cap-

DPRK talks drive up Nobel winner gets permanent residency ID ital Medical University, which
is leading the research.
The program, launched on

Dandong home costs April 20, will cover 33 hospitals

in 17 provinces and municipali-
ties and follow 500,000 preg-
nant women — the largest-scale
By REN XIAOJIN meeting with US President such research ever conducted in
and WU YONG Donald Trump. China. Over 2,500 pregnant
Still, Lyu said he does not women volunteered to take
Soaring home prices in expect the current housing part, and 4,538 samples have
Dandong, a city bordering the price boom to last long. been collected, including a trial
Democratic People’s Republic “Dandong is China’s largest period from Nov 20 to April 20.
of Korea in Liaoning prov- border and trading city with The samples included blood,
ince, is an irrational market DPRK, with over 70 percent to urine and placenta, said Yue
reaction based on hopes that 80 percent of that trade vol- Wentao, chief of the science and
a continuing series of talks ume going through Dandong,” technology department at Bei-
will lead to increased com- Lyu said. “Diplomatic rela- jing Obstetrics and Gynecology
merce, according to an expert tions with the DPRK directly Hospital, which collected the
in border studies. affect the local economy.” first samples.
Housing prices in Xincheng But, he said, Dandong has Researchers will use the
district, a new housing area previously seen similar short- samples to analyze risk factors
on the outskirts of Dandong, lived property price jumps. for major birth defects and use
jumped 57 percent overnight, “When the New Yalu River big data technology to single
according to a report in Secu- Bridge was built, housing pri- out factors that may cause
rities Times. Dandong is right ces in Xincheng district them, such as environment,
across the Yalu River from soared. But the bridge has not heritage and chronic diseases,
Sinuiju, DPRK. yet been put into operation, and establish a risk evaluation
“Hotel rooms are experi- and prices dropped back system, Yue said.
encing high demand and pri- again,” Lyu said. Construc- “Most of the causes of birth
ces have gone up, though it is tion on the bridge started in defects are still unknown, and
hard to say whether it’s relat- 2011, but while it is mostly Bernard L. Feringa of the Netherlands, one of three winners of the 2016 Nobel Prize in chemistry, shows his Chinese permanent resi- some birth defects can only be
ed to visiting property hunt- complete, it sits unused. dent identification card accompanied by his wife in Shanghai on Wednesday. Shanghai gave permanent IDs to seven foreigners that spotted at later stages of preg-
ers or seasonal travel,” said Liang Qidong, assistant day. China is pushing to attract top-quality talent from around the world. FAN JUN / XINHUA nancy,” Yue said. “If we are clear
Yuan Xiaoyu, marketing man- dean of Liaoning Academy on the causes, we can tell preg-
ager at Friend Plaza Hotel in of Social Sciences, said prices nant women who may have risk
Dandong. “But housing pri- in Xincheng district have factors for such a birth at an ear-
ces in Xincheng district have
indeed increased. We locals
all feel it is an unusual phe-
nomenon.”
been low.
“The real estate market in
Dandong has not performed
well in recent years, especial-
Quota
US reportexpansion gets
says trade war slow
would start
destroy jobs ly stage of their pregnancy so
they can make a choice as early
as possible. We can also do better
in the prevention and control of
But Lyu Chao, a researcher ly in Xincheng district, which By CHEN WEIHUA Commerce Department. even bigger cost to the US across various sectors of the risks ... to reduce birth defects.”
of border studies at the Liao- is too far from the center of By OSWALD CHAN
in Washington market links,
Four jobs wouldthebeutilized
lost for quota is being
economy, increased
decimating from
455,000 nexteconomy,
US month. but agriculture More than one million sam-
ning Academy of Social Scien- town, making locals not so in Hong Kong
chenweihua@ quota
every wasone 12.15
gainedbillion
fromyuan,the 13 billion
jobs and yuan for eachannual
shrinking of the Starting
would be hitin June, index
especially hard. ples will be collected, Yue said,
ces, called the price boom an interested in it. Now the oswald@chinadailyhk.com
chinadailyusa.com only
tariff actions, accordingof
about 29 percent to the
the Shanghai-Hong
GDP by $49 billion. Kong Stock provider
The net income Morgan of Stanley
farmers adding that all the samples will
irrational investment behav- DPRK has shown optimistic increased quota, the
study conducted by Washing- web- Connect
Trump and the Shenzhen-
threatened new Capital international
would decline by 6.7 percent, (MSCI) be open for sharing with inter-
ior based on overoptimistic signals and the local develop- The
The first trading dayUnited
proposed of the site of the Hong
ton-based Kong Stock
consulting firm Hong Kong
tariffs on anStock Connect
additional $100to will include
and 67,000 about 236 large-
agriculture jobs national communities for coop-
assumptions. er started to seize the oppor- Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock
States tariffs on imports from Exchange revealed.
Trade Partnership Worldwide 52 billion
billion yuan. Inimports
in Chinese addition, a cap A shares
would be lost. in its emerging eration in research, control and
“Housing prices in Dan- tunity,” Liang said. Connect
China, and and the
the Shenzhen-
retaliation LLCPatrick Shum
on behalf Hing-hung,
of the National the southbound
day after China daily quota
announced markets
The hitindex, a move
to farmers that
would prevention of birth defects.
dong have always been a “Also, the local government Hong Kong Stock
promised by China, would Connect’s investment manager
Retail Federation and at Ten-
the is being increased from
its retaliation proposals on 10.5 analysts
more than said
double could bring
if the tariffs The hospital has been pro-
reflection of the China-DPRK should be concerned about trading
cost up to quota expansion
hundreds got
of thou- gard Fund Management,
Consumer Technology Asso- billion yuan
products for each
ranging fromofsoy-
the large inflows
expanded to an additional of foreign viding training to other hospi-
relationship,” Lyu said. “Peo- the irrational price increase asands
lukewarm
of US market
jobs and response
greatly said:
ciation.“The
It was capital flows
released on Shanghai-Hong
beans to cars and Kongplanes.
Stock funds billion
$100 to boostoftheproducts.value of tals involved in the project so
ple’s confidence in future and take action if necessary. as
harmfinancial analysts
the economy, argued
according depends
Tuesday. on whether equity Connect
China and the Shenzhen-
responded by pledg- those shares.
Farmer income would drop all the samples are collected
trade is growing. It is certain After a short market spurt, I that bilateral
to a new study.capital inflows investments are profi
“As administration table.
officials Hong
ing it Kong Stock Connect
will “fight back reso- to by“Financial
15 percent, and institutions
jobs in the under the same standards and
to say the trading relation- think people will take a ration- will depend on
The study shows that the long-
the Therefore,
prepare to head just toexpanding
China for 42 billion
lutely”. yuan. will issue
sector would more A-share
decline by procedures, he said.
ship will become better, but it al attitude toward the future term attractiveness
proposed tariffs onof$50 equity
bil- the
trade talks, the livelihoodsnot
trading quota should of The Shanghai and
“Rising costs on farmers, Shen- e xc h a
181,000. n g e - t r a d e d funds The number of babies born
is still at the beginning stage, relations between the two markets.
lion of Chinese imports immediately
American workers uplift the
hang local
in zhen equity market
manufacturers trad-
and service (ETFs) to attract
The report says that overseas
the tar- with defects in China is estimat-
and it is too early to say the countries and its effect on On Wednesday,
announced by thetheadminis-
utilized and
the mainland
balance. stock
… We market.”
must ing links isn’t
providers withtheHong Kong
answer; it capital
iffs plusinflretaliation
ows into thewould coun- ed at 900,000 per year, accord-
economy of Dandong will Dandong’s property market.” quota
trationof of northbound
US President trad- People’sthis
resolve Banktrade
of China Gov-
dispute were established
shows protectionism in 2014
will try’s every
hurt stockUS market. Wheth-
state, including ing to Yin Chenghong, vice-
soar in the short term.” Yang Hongxu, deputy ing of the Shanghai-Hong
Donald Trump on April 3 ernor
without Yi resorting
Gang announced
to job-kill-at weaken America,” CTA Presi-a
and 2016 respectively in er capital
those in theinflows
Rust Belt, into the
many president of the hospital and in
The hopes appear based on director of E-House China, a Kong Stock Connect and
and the proportional retalia- the the Boao Forum in Hainan
ing tariffs and retaliation,” in bid toand
dent cement
CEO further finan-
Gary Shapiro A-share
of which market
voted for can be sus-
Trump in charge of the research program.
such developments as DPRK real estate services provider, Shenzhen-Hong
tion China announced Kong Stock the April
NRF that the daily
President andtrading
CEO cial He
said. integration
added that with the
the tariffs tained depends on
the 2016 presidential elec- the per- China adopted the universal
leader Kim Jong-un’s recent also warned that people need Connect
followingamounted
day would to 22.9
reduce quota
Matthew of the
Shay two
saidequity mar-
in a state- mainland.
could wipe away the benefits formance of these A-share
tion. second-child policy at the start
meeting with Republic of to be cautious about buying billion
annual US yuan GDP ($3.6 billion),
by nearly $3 ket
ment.trading links with Hong of Shum
the recent saidtaxthe central
reform and ETFs
The based
Trump own the stock
administration of 2016. Of the 90 million wom-
Korea President Moon Jae-in, houses in Dandong. representing only 44 134,000
billion and destroy percent Kong
Thewould be expanded
study warns that slap-by bank’suncertainty
bring move is to prepare
to US busi-for valuation
has level, and
not released any the mar-
research en eligible to have a second
State Councilor and Foreign of the enlarged quota.
US jobs. US GDP in the first four
ping times
tariffs starting after the
on an additional the inclusion
nesses. of A-share Chi- ket dynamics of
that quantifies the impactthe A-shareof child thanks to the policy, more
Minister Wang Yi’s trip to the Contact the writers at ren- For theofsouthbound
quarter 2018 was $19.97 trad- May Day holiday.
$100 billion of Chinese naThecompanies in the
study shows that the MSCI market,” Shum told
the tariffs on the US economy China than half are over 40 years old,
DPRK, and Kim’s plans for a xiaojin@chinadaily.com.cn ing of the
trillion, two direct
according equity
to the US The northbound
imports would come at dailyan Emerging
tariffs’ effectMarkets
would be Index
felt Daily.
and jobs. increasing birth defect risks.

Education: Research highlighted Two for tea

From page 1
teachers. He praised their con-
tribution to cultivating excel-
lent students who are needed
by the Party and the people.
Xi spoke highly of the
achievements that Peking Uni-
versity has made in scientific
research and innovation. Chi-
na must rely on itself to devel-
op key technologies and boost
innovation, he said.
The president also viewed
an exhibition on Marxism, and
told foreign students that to
learn about China, they should
first learn about Chinese his-
tory, culture, development
and, especially, Marxism in
China today.
This year marks the 120th
anniversary of the founding of
Peking University. Hao Ping,
the university’s Party secre-
tary; Wang Bo, a philosophy
professor; and Song Xi, an
undergraduate student major-
ing in psychology, reported to
Xi on their work, research and
study conditions.
Highlighting that Marxism
is the CPC’s guiding thought,
the president said students
should be taught with opin-
ions and measures of Marx-
ism.
Xi emphasized the impor-
tance of establishing a high-
quality force of teachers with
reliable political quality and
skillful abilities.
Enhancing the Party’s lead-
ership and building is an
important part of building a
high-level system to cultivate
top talents, Xi said, adding
that the Party’s leadership
over universities must be
upheld.
After hearing that Peking
University has made outstand-
ing achievements in building
itself into a world-class univer-
sity in recent years, Xi said
that only when the country
becomes world class will there
be world-class universities.
During the talks, the presi-
dent also shared with students
his experience in reading
books. Knowledge and aca-
demic research should be inte-
grated with reality, Xi said.
Xi said that through reading
books about Marxism-Lenin-
ism, he developed independ-
ent thoughts at an early age
and found that Marxism is the
truth.
The CPC’s leading status is
chosen by both the people and
history, Xi said, adding that
socialism is the only path for
China’s development.
Tibet: Industries
shifting to the west
From page 1
exhibitions, according to
the Shigatse government.
By the end of next year, the
zone’s output value aims to
hit 350 million yuan,
accounting for up to 10 per-
cent of that of Shigatse.
The Shigatse zone signals
that industrial transfers are
shifting further to the west,
which benefits the whole
country, said Sang Bai-
chuan, an economics profes-
sor at the University of
International Business and
Economics in Beijing.
Students of Shanxi Agricultural University demonstrate the art “East China, like Shanghai,
of making tea on campus on Wednesday. The university held a excels in talents and capital,
traditional cultural show to welcome China’s Youth Day on and there’s a growing trend for
Friday. CAO YANG / XINHUA the East to seek cooperation
with the West in the industrial
transfer,” he said.
Sang also noted the focus
of the national Tibet assist-
ance program is gradually
shifting to “forming blood”
rather than “getting blood
transfusions”, which is evi-
denced by the economic
development zone.
“Compared with lending
money to the underdevel-
oped region in the very
beginning, Shanghai now
cultivates clusters of indus-
tries in Shigatse, which
helps boost local economic
development in a sustaina-
ble way,” the professor said.
Contact the writers at
lilei@chinadaily.com.cn
4

CHINA
Thursday, May 3, 2018

CHINA DAILY USA » CHINADAILYUSA.COM

9 guilty of rioting in Volunteer doctor Briefly

2016 HK disturbance BEIJING

By ASKA CHEONG
in Hong Kong
askacheong@chinadailyhk.com
Nine people were convicted
of rioting during a disturbance
in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok dis-
trict on Lunar New Year’s eve
in 2016 — an incident in which
130 people were injured,
including 90 police officers.
All nine were taken into
police custody.
Magistrate Kwok Wai-kin
postponed sentencing until
May 23 to allow time to get
reports from the training cen-
ter, detention center and local
community service authorities.
There were 11 defendants
altogether, from age 18 to 71.
One fled to Taiwan and anoth-
er pleaded guilty and was
released on bail until sentenc-
ing. The remaining nine
defendants, who pleaded not
guilty, were convicted.
One of the defendants, Mo
Jia-tao, was also convicted of
one count of criminal damage
to a police car.
There were about 70 wit-
ness for the prosecution in the
case.
Under Hong Kong statutes,
was left unconscious. One of
his teeth was broken, and his
right hand and leg were
injured. A female police offi-
cer’s hand was fractured.
A chief inspector described
how bricks thrown by protest-
ers were “falling down like
rain” in Mong Kok. He was hit
in the back of his head by
bricks and needed stitches to
close the wound.
Prosecutors argued that the
defendants assembled illegal-
ly, breached the peace by burn-
ing garbage bins and beat
police officers.
The defendants’ lawyers
argued that police actions
caused the situation to deteri-
orate and provoked the
defendants’ need for self-de-
fense. Some of those found
guilty claimed that they were
there to watch the “peanut
show”, not to participate.
However, Kwok concluded
that the defendants collectively
breached the peace and used
violence. Prosecutors do not
need to prove the protesters’
motivations or goals, Kwok said.
The Mong Kok riot involved
hundreds of masked protest-
ers, some of whom hurled
1.92m visitors go to
parks over holiday
About 1.92 million people
visited Beijing’s 11 munici-
pal parks and the Museum
of Chinese Gardens and
Landscape Architecture
during the recent May Day
holiday. The top three most-
visited parks were the Sum-
mer Palace (374,000),
Beijing Zoo (293,000) and
Beihai Park (223,000),
according to the Beijing
parks administration.
Around 20 cultural events
were held in parks across
the city, and some will con-
tinue until the end of May.
Quake hits off
Taiwan’s east coast
A magnitude-5.2 earthquake
shook the ocean floor off the
eastern coast of the island’s
Hualien county at 7:47 am
on Wednesday, according to
the China Earthquake Net-
works Center. The epicenter,
A doctor from Beijing treats a Qiang ethnic woman in Wenchuan county, Sichuan province, on Tuesday. More than 600 volunteers from at a depth of 15 km, was
the capital provided free medical services to Tibetan and Qiang ethnic people in the county during a public welfare event ahead of the monitored at about 23.97
10th anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake, which falls on May 12. More than 69,000 people died in the earthquake. degrees north latitude and
CAO BOYUAN / FOR CHINA DAILY 122.29 degrees east longi-
tude, the center said.
INNER MONGOLIA

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rioting carries a maximum
sentence of 10 years imprison-
ment.
A police officer testified that
he was attacked on the way to
save injured colleagues and
bricks pried from the pave- Thieves damage
ment and set fires in garbage CHINAWall
Great DAILY USA
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bins in the early morning of
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to help other countries spot risks
By HOU LIQIANG
houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn
China has established an
emergency mechanism
using its meteorological sat-
ellites to help countries
involved in the Belt and
Road Initiative combat
Teachers check out virtual reality goggles during a VR course at Suzhou extreme weather, the China
Jinchang Experimental Primary School in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, on Meteorological Administra-
Wednesday. The teachers, from the city’s Gusu district, are expected to tion announced at a news
use the technology to enrich their teaching methods. conference on Wednesday.
HUA XUEGEN / FOR CHINA DAILY “With the backdrop of glob-
al warming, the tendency is
for extreme weather events to
increase, both in number and
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suspects who
for relics such
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total length. The
to tap into the mechanism
through their permanent del- investigation found that
These materials are distributed
egates to the organization or the suspects had purchased
by China Daily Distribution Corp.
other representatives they metal detectors to search
on behalf of China Daily Beijing,
appoint, he said. for underground relics.
China. Additional information is
Once the mechanism is
on file with the Department of
activated, the China Meteoro- HEBEI
Justice, Washington, DC.
logical Administration will Red tourism site
make frequent observations
of areas stricken by meteoro-
passes 1m mark
WASHINGTON
logical disasters — every five Xibaipo, a major
National Press revolu-
Bldg, Suite 1108
529 14th site
tionary Street
inNW
North Chi-
to six minutes — and the A model of the Fengyun IV meteorological satellite is displayed
Washington,
na, receivedDCmore
20045 than
information will be offered to during an exhibition in Shanghai. DING TING / XINHUA
the affected countries to sup- 1Tel: 202-662-7249
million visitors in the
Fax: 202-662-7247
first four months of this
port their disaster control
and relief efforts, Zhang said. Lin Weixia, an official at the now serve more than 70 coun- year, an increase of 11 per-
SANyear-on-year.
FRANCISCO Xibaipo,

Parents get assistance effect. This has greatly threat-

ened people’s lives and prop-
erty,” said Zhang Zuqiang,
“The technology of China’s
Fengyun meteorological satel-
lites is mature after years of
National Satellite Meteoro-
logical Center, said China’s
Fengyun meteorological sat-
tries and regions and about
2,500 domestic users, the
administration said.
cent
in Pingshan
575
San Francisco,
province,
Tel:
was
county,
Market Street, Suite Hebei
CAa94105
415-348-8288
1875
revolu-

in finding right names spokesman for the top nation-

By ZHENG CAIXIONG
in Guangzhou
zhengcaixiong@
chinadaily.com.cn
A new service in Guang-
dong province helps parents
avoid giving their children
names that are too common.
By consulting a WeChat
account maintained by the
Guangdong Public Security
Department, you can find out
how many others have used a
particular name.
According to the household
registration department, hun-
dreds of thousands of male
Cantonese use the characters
qiang, wei and hua in their
given names, while hundreds
of thousands of females have
used ying, xin and fang.
The country’s most popu-
lous province, with a popula-
tion of more than 100 million,
has more than 100,000 people
named Li Wei and Li Qiang.
Qiang indicates “strong” while
wei means “great” in Chinese.
Huang Chunxin, a macy counter after hearing
Guangzhou mother, said she
would not have named her
daughter Chen Kexin if the ser-
vice had been introduced sev-
en years ago.
“There are two Chen Kexins
in my daughter’s grade, and
teachers have to call my
daughter Little Chen Kexin, as
she is two months younger
than the other Chen Kexin,”
There are two
Chen Kexins in my
daughter’s grade,
and teachers have
to call my daughter
Little Chen Kexin.”
Huang Chunxin, mother in
Guangzhou
Huang said. Huang’s daughter
is in second grade at a primary
school in Yuexiu district.
Wang Xuexiong, an office
worker in Guangzhou, also
regretted naming his son Wang
Jun after he met another Wang
Jun in a hospital last year.
When he and his son
approached the hospital’s phar-
someone call out the name, they
were told the medicine was not
for his 4-year-old son, who had
a cough and fever, but was hem-
orrhoid medication for another
Wang Jun in his 40s.
The special WeChat account
also provides household regis-
tration, ID applications,
online and mobile payments
and express mail services.
al weather authority.
He said the emergency
mechanism was established
in response to a request
from the World Meteorologi-
cal Organization in mid-
April to get more
observations of the Indian
Ocean region through Chi-
na’s geostationary satellites.
Countries along the Belt
Scientists find Roman ruins using orbiting eye
By ZHANG ZHIHAO
zhangzhihao@
chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese scientists recently
discovered 10 new archaeo-
logical sites in Tunisia dating
to ancient Rome using Chi-
nese space-based remote
sensing technology.
The archaeological sites
are located in three Tunisian
provinces — Gafsa, Tataouine
and Medenine — Tunisian
Culture Minister Mohamed
Zine El-Abidine said at a
recent news conference.
The discoveries include
two Roman forts, three giant
water basins, an irrigation
system, a cemetery and three
fortified Roman military
roads lined with walls and
watchtowers.
It is the first time Chinese
remote-sensing technology
has been used to locate
archaeological sites in other
development. They could mon-
itor emerging meteorological
and environmental disasters in
certain areas,” Zhang said.
He added that China has
gained rich experience
through intensified satellite
observations ahead of
typhoons and other heavy
storms that it can share
internationally in cases of
emergency.
countries, said Wang Xinyuan,
a researcher from the Chinese
Academy of Sciences’ Institute
of Remote Sensing and Digital
Earth.
Wang, a leader of the effort,
said a team of Chinese, Tuni-
sian, Italian and Pakistani sci-
entists found the sites under a
project called the Digital Belt
and Road.
“The project is monumen-
tal in improving coordination
and cooperation between
Chinese and foreign scientific
communities,” he said.
The new sites shed light on
how the ancient Roman mili-
tary defended its southern
borders and supported its
logistics, Wang said. Tunisia
was also part of the Maritime
Silk Road and home to many
major Roman ports, hence
the sites will allow better
understanding of ancient
trade routes and ecological
change, he said.
ellites are now capable of cov-
ering central and western
Asia and the Indian Ocean
region. Services will be
extended to some countries
in East Africa after China
launches one more meteoro-
logical satellite in June.
China has launched 16
Fengyun satellites in the past
50 years. Nine of them are cur-
rently in service. The satellites
Bai Guangming, a cultural
counselor from the embassy
of the People’s Republic of
China in Tunisia, said China’s
advanced remote sensing
technologies will provide
great scientific support for
strengthening cultural
exchanges between countries
involved in the Belt and Road
Initiative.
Remote sensing refers to
photography, infrared imag-
ing, lasers and other meth-
ods to gather information
from an object or natural
phenomena without making
physical contact.
It has been widely used in
the military and most Earth
science disciplines, includ-
ing geology, hydrology and
ecology.
In 1906, Lieutenant Philip
Henry Sharpe of the British
Royal Engineers pioneered
the use of aerial photography
to study ancient monuments
Lin said China has kept
pace with international mete-
orological leaders with its
tionary base where the
Fax: 415-348-8388
leadership of the Commu-
nist Party of China was
SEATTLE from May 1948
Fengyun III and Fengyun IV garrisoned
800 Fifth
until Ave,1949,
early Suite 4100
drawing
series, and some applications Seattle, WA 98104
are world-leading. The high- up the blueprint for a new
Tel:206-922-2868
orbit detector on Fengyun IV country and preparing for
satellites, for example, has no the CPC’s new leading
HOUSTON
competing application. role. More than 130,000
Fengyun satellites are a
1001 South Dairy
people visited
Ashford Suite 100 the revolu-
tionary
Houston,site during the
series of remote sensing mete-
orological satellites. recent
TX 77077
three-day holiday.
Tel: 713-595-7660
Red tourism sites have
CANADA
seen growing popularity
in recent years.
TORONTO
4711 Yonge Street, 10th Floor
GUIZHOU
Toronto, Ontario, M2N 6K8
Tel: 416-481-5706
by taking the first aerial shots
of Stonehenge from a balloon.
“Remote sensing technolo-
gy provides a nonintrusive
yet extremely accurate meth-
od of examining fragile CHINA DAILY (ISSN 0748-
archaeological sites, and it 66154)
leaf is published
monkeys daily
saves time, money and man- except weekends by China
power because less field work born at reserve
Daily USA, 1500 Broadway,
is needed,” Wang said. Six Francois’
Suite 2800, Newlangurs, or leaf
York, NY
Remote sensing technolo- monkeys, have been
10036. Periodical born in
postage
gies boomed in the 1960s apaid
nature
at Newreserve
York, in
NYGuizhou
and
with the introduction of satel- province since March, the
additional mailing offices.
lite- and aircraft-based tech- reserve administration said
POSTMASTER: Send address
nologies that allow scientists on Wednesday. The new-
changes
borns aretocreamy
CHINA yellow
DAILY USA,
to collect even more abstract
data such as temperature, 1500will
and Broadway, Suiteto2800,
take a year grow
wind speed and humidity NewaYork,
into NY 10036. pri-
medium-sized
over a greater area. mate with black, silky hair,
© 2018 China Daily
“With these data, scientists said Wu Ankang, director of
All Rights Reserved
and preservationists can for- the Mayanghe National
Vol. 37 — No. 11074
mulate more accurate and Nature Reserve. Currently
effective plans to repair or there are about 550 Fran-
protect archaeological sites,” cois’ langurs in the reserve,
Wang said. “Remote sensing and the number is increas-
A member of
is a unique and effective way ing, Wu said.
the Asia News Network
of finding obscured artifacts
in the wild.” XINHUA
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, May 3, 2018
Railways in China
were dirty, noisy,
but not anymore
Old-timers recall evolution from
coal-fired boilers to electricity
By LYU QIUPING
Xinhua
A train loaded with 41 steel
shipping containers depart-
ed from Tangshan, Hebei
province, in late April, mark-
ing the inauguration of an
additional line of freight
between China and Europe.
The train was scheduled to
travel 11,000 kilometers in 16
days to the Belgian city of Ant-
werp through Kazakhstan,
Russia, Belarus, Poland and
Germany.
By March, freight trains
were operating between 43
Chinese cities and 41 cities in
13 European countries, becom-
ing a major means of freight
transport between them.
Tangshan, a coastal city
some 150 km from Beijing, is
known for its coal resources
and steel industry.
In 1881, a 9.7-km rail line
from Tangshan to Xuge-
zhuang, Hebei province,
opened for coal transport.
Designed by British engineer
Claude W. Kinder, it was the
first line with a global-stan-
dard track gauge of 1,435 milli-
meters in China.
As the conservative imperi-
al family of the Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911) believed noisy
moving locomotives with
steam and smoke were inaus-
picious and would disturb the
souls resting in the imperial
tombs not far away, carriages
on the line were approved
only when pulled by horses
and mules.
Coal carriers
Earlier, local coal had to be
carried out on horseback to
the seaport before it was
loaded on ships to Shandong
province for use, said Liu Fu-
zeng, deputy Party chief of
the Tangshan locomotive
operations and maintenance
section of the Beijing Railway
Bureau. The bureau manages
railway operations in Beijing,
Tianjin and Hebei.
The line was later extended
to Mukden, now called Shen-
yang, in Liaoning province,
transporting cargo and pas-
sengers.
During the extension
project, Zhan Tianyou, a Yale
graduate and designer of a
railway bridge along the line
— Luanhe Bridge — drew the
attention of the government,
Liu said.
Zhan was later appointed
as chief designer of the Bei-
jing-Zhangjiakou line, the
first railway designed and
built by China in the early
20th century. It is still in use.
“Although the design and
construction were done by
Chinese people, all parts —
including every single spike
— was brought in from
abroad,” said Gu Lin, a man-
ager at Tangshan South Sta-
tion, the starting point of the
Tangshan-Xugezhuang line.
While the line was being
Female panda is turned into plastic for museum display
By HUANG ZHILING
in Chengdu
huangzhiling@
chinadaily.com.cn
The public can expect to see
more exhibitions of pre-
served giant pandas now that
the world’s first specimens
have been converted into
plastic and put on display at
the Mystery of Life Museum
in Chengdu, Sichuan prov-
ince.
The exhibition, which
opened last week, is free until
the end of June.
The plastinated muscles,
built, a locomotive designed
by Kinder was secretly being
assembled with a second-
hand boiler and cylinders.
The locomotive, put into
use in 1881, was called “Rock-
et of China”, according to a
book by British writer Peter
Crush, Imperial Railways of
North China.
Having no idea of what a
rocket was, the “fire-breath-
ing, smoke- and steam-puff-
ing monster” was dubbed
“the dragon” by Chinese mine
workers.
Li Zhensheng, 57, joined the
locomotive’s crew as a boiler
worker after he retired from
the military in 1986. He and
the assistant driver had to
take turns stoking the fire
with coal, spade by spade. The
water they drank was filled
with coal dust.
127,000
kilometers
Total length of railway
network in China in 2017
As the boiler blocked the
drivers’ view in the front, they
had to pop their heads out of
the side window constantly
for safety checks. Many of
them developed shoulder and
neck problems.
When Li served as an assist-
ant driver of a diesel-powered
locomotive in 1989, he consid-
ered it “leapfrog progress”.
“No more dirty coal, dusty
air and constant stretching
outside, and we even had fans
and an electric stove,” he said.
When the electric locomo-
tives came to the line in 2010,
drivers even got air condition-
ing and a microwave oven.
“The trains became faster
and faster, and more and
more comfortable,” Li said.
Wang Lanbiao, a locomo-
tive maintenance worker, said
the reduced vibration of the
trains was partly attributable
to the shock-absorber tech-
nology.
“Unlike trains in the past
that had springs to reduce the
vibrations, now the trains are
equipped with hydraulic
dampeners and even shock-
absorbing air bags,” he said.
A freight train crosses a bridge in Tangshan, Hebei province,
during its 16-day journey to Antwerp, Belgium, in late April.
YANG SHIYAO / XINHUA
internal organs, skin and
skeleton of Xin Ni’er — a
female panda that died in
2016 — can last up to 1,000
years, said Wu Jun, curator of
the museum.
Plastination is a process in
which a liquid polymer is
injected into tissues. When it
hardens, the polymer pre-
serves the tissues indefinitely.
Before injecting the poly-
mer, Sui Hongjin, founder of
the museum, and his team
first dissected the panda’s
body and removed water and
fat from the muscles, internal
organs, skin and skeleton.
TRANSPORTATION
ACTION IN A NEW ERA
On a China-made high-
speed train, which runs as fast
as 350 km per hour, a coin is
able to stand on its edge.
At the new Tangshan Rail-
way Station, 71-year-old
Zhang Shuyun was waiting
for her train to Tianjin’s Bin-
hai New Area. The G1262 train
takes 20 minutes to carry her
home, a mere one-sixth of the
time she would spend 40
years ago.
It was the first time for
Zhang, a former primary
schoolteacher, to revisit Tang-
shan since her retirement 18
years ago.
Smoke and smell
Zhang recalled that in the
past, the train coaches were
full of smoke and unpleasant
odors, and the train was very
crowded, with some passen-
gers standing in lavatories or
sitting on the basins.
“When someone had to use
the toilet, those packed inside
had to get out before letting
him or her in,” she said.
Back then, Tangshan was
the only passage to reach
Northeast China by rail.
Since China began its
reform and opening-up drive
in 1978, a market economy has
resulted in increased freight
and passenger mobility.
The railway network in the
country hit 127,000 km in total
length in 2017, including
25,000 km of high-speed lines.
China also helps build rail-
ways in other countries, such
as Zambia and Kenya.
Increasingly, the railway
lines are built solely using
parts made in China.
The changes are likewise
amazing in urban construc-
tion. Zhang, who hadn’t been
to Tangshan for years, found
herself lost in the city.
“I failed to spot any former
buildings, and I knew none of
the street names mentioned
by the taxi driver,” she said,
adding that she had to call her
former students to pick her
up.
Wu Zhanguo, deputy direct-
or of the railway affairs office
of Tangshan, said construc-
tion had begun on a new sta-
tion complex that would
combine airport, railway, sub-
way and bus facilities.
“Easier traffic will surely
help attract talent here,” he
said.
500,000
yuan
Estimated commercial cost
for the plastination of a
panda. Sui Hongjin’s team
did it for free.
The specimens will also be
used for scientific research
and to enable the public to
understand more about pan-
das, according to Zhang He-
min, executive director of the
Handling the hands
A supersized puppet, controlled by a member of the Snuff Puppets theater company of Melbourne, Australia, interacts with tourists during
a parade near the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, on Tuesday. Seven giant puppets reflecting elements of Xi’an were
co-designed by 26 local artists, along with four others from the Australian troupe, to entertain the public. WEI YONGXIAN / FOR CHINA DAILY
New scrutiny aims at organized crime
By ZOU SHUO
zoushuo@chinadaily.com.cn
Aspiring officials at the
grassroots level will be more
closely scrutinized to prevent
gangsters from being elected
to public office and to prevent
officials from associating
with gangs and committing
crimes, the Ministry of Civil
Affairs said on Wednesday.
The move is part of the
country’s latest effort to crack
down on gang-related crimes.
The ministry will further
supervise election processes
and strengthen qualification
exams for grassroots officials
to prevent any gangsters or
“gangster representatives”
from becoming officials in vil-
lage committees, the ministry
said on its website.
However, local civil affairs
authorities should differenti-
ate between gang-related
crimes and less serious
wrongdoings of grassroots
officials, the statement said.
Wenchang to build supercomputing center
By MA ZHIPING in Haikou
mazhiping@chinadaily.com.cn
The city government of
Wenchang, home of China’s
first tropical and coastal space
launch center, announced
recently that it plans to build
an aerospace supercomputing
center and a big data industry
cluster project in the near
future.
A key part of Wenchang’s
program for developing a
space science and technology
city, the supercomputing
center will help promote
coordinated industrial
growth of local information
technology, aerospace equip-
ment research and design, as
well as life science research
China Conservation and
Research Center for the Giant
Panda in Wenchuan county,
Sichuan.
The province plans to cre-
ate more panda specimens
for educational purposes.
The exhibition details the
evolution of the giant panda.
For example, visitors can
clearly see the four long,
sharp teeth pandas once used
to eat meat before changes in
the environment encouraged
them to start eating bamboo.
To adjust to the change in
eating habits, pandas gradu-
ally developed a sixth finger,
This year’s campaign emphasiz-
es the root of organized crime
— which is collusion between grassroots
officials, gangsters and businessmen.”
Wang Jinxi, professor of law at China University of Political Science
and Law
Village conferences should
be organized by village com-
mittees to deal with minor
wrongdoings of grassroots
officials, so as to not dampen
their enthusiasm for work, it
said.
In January, the Communist
Party of China Central Com-
mittee and the State Council
jointly released a document
announcing the start of a new
round in the campaign
against organized crime. The
campaign targets local offi-
cials who serve as “protective
umbrellas” of criminal gangs.
through the application of
high-performance comput-
ing, cloud computing, big
data and artificial intelli-
gence, a document from the
city government said.
When completed, the super-
computing center will play an
important role in promoting
the country’s satellite applica-
tion research and develop-
ment, the application of high-
resolution data and
development of a big data
industry around spatial infor-
mation.
The city will also help build
an industrial platform for spa-
tial big data and a spatial
remote-sensing cloud big data
platform to serve countries
participating in the Belt and
or a pseudo finger — which,
when seen in the plastinated
skeleton, looks like a human
thumb. It helps the giant pan-
da hold bamboo stalks.
According to an agreement
with the center, Sui’s team
will create plastinated panda
specimens free, Wu said, add-
ing that it would normally
cost about 500,000 yuan
($78,600) to turn Xin Ni’er
into a plastinated specimen.
The Mystery of Life Muse-
um in Chengdu opened in
December 2016 and houses
plastinated human and ani-
mal bodies and organs.
In Guangdong province in
February, Liu Yongtian,
former Party secretary of Liu
village in Guangzhou, was
sentenced to 20 years in pris-
on for crimes including inten-
tional injury, bribery and
blackmail.
Police in Shanxi province
detained 59 village officials so
far this year for organized
crimes involving prostitution,
gambling and selling drugs.
Media reports showed a
so-called village tyrant slap-
ping a resident in the face in
front of a news crew, openly
Road Initiative, city officials
said.
Wenchang is on the eastern
coast of Hainan Island about
80 kilometers from Haikou,
the provincial capital.
Also included in Wen-
chang’s program for develop-
ing a space science and
technology city are an interna-
tional space launch center,
research and development
bases and platforms for inter-
national exchanges and coop-
eration. They will promote the
construction of commercial
launch stations and develop-
ment of high-end aerospace
products.
Wenchang has also includ-
ed an “aerospace plus” indus-
try demonstration park in its
A young visitor views a specimen made from panda Xin Ni’er in
Chengdu, Sichuan province, last month. It is the world’s first plasti-
nated panda specimen. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
C H I NA 5
bribing villagers to vote for
them in village elections and
threatening those who
refused to obey their orders
with knives.
Wang Jinxi, a professor of
law at China University of
Political Science and Law,
said that in recent years gangs
have tried to seize political
power at the grassroots level
to monopolize resources in
rural areas.
“Some criminal gangs in
rural areas have affected
social stability and residents’
lives by illegally sabotaging
grassroots elections, monop-
olizing local markets, open-
ing underground casinos,
defrauding villagers and
organizing robberies,” Wang
said.
“Compared with previous
campaigns of this kind, this
year’s campaign emphasizes
the root of organized crime —
which is collusion between
grassroots officials, gangsters
and businessmen,” he said.
space city program. It is
expected to promote the
development of a space theme
park; applications for space
science; research in space
breeding; biological, pharma-
ceutical and aerospace medi-
cal research; and innovation
development.
Construction of the projects
will be open to social and pri-
vate funds, the city said.
With operations beginning
in 2016, the Wenchang Satel-
lite Launch Center — located
about 19 degrees north of the
equator — is suitable for
launching geosynchronous
satellites, heavyweight satel-
lites, large space station com-
ponents and lunar and
interplanetary missions.
6 CH INA
Cyberspace
Government moves to clean up internet content
Social networking and streaming
sites are coming under greater
scrutiny and regulation, as Zhang
Yi reports from Beijing with Liu
Kun in Wuhan.
T
he government is
working to eradicate
inappropriate con-
tent on the internet to
ensure that the web remains
free from obscenity and violent
imagery, and to promote a
healthy culture online.
Last month, the Cyberspace
Administration of China, the
national cyberspace regulator,
ordered online news aggrega-
tor Toutiao and Kuaishou, a
site that shares videos lasting
about 60 seconds, to remove
obscene and violent content
and to close all accounts that
uploaded such content.
The administration also
closed about 5,000 livestream-
ing accounts hosted by minors
— people younger than 18 —
and deleted about 300,000
video clips aired by lives-
treaming youngsters.
The move was aimed at clos-
ing loopholes in the operation
of some online services, which
have been criticized for
attracting viewers without
regard for rules or morality.
Recently, Kuaishou and
Huoshan, a short-video appli-
cation affiliated to Toutiao,
have been widely criticized for
allowing minors to spread
“harmful” content.
Videos of pregnant teenag-
ers or teenage mothers — usu-
ally unmarried and ages 13 to
18 — appeared on the sites,
describing their pregnancies
or their lives as young moth-
ers, and were forwarded to
other sites in an effort to gain
traffic and followers. That’s
despite the fact that sexual
activity with people ages 14 or
younger is defined as rape in
China, while the legal age for
female marriage is 20. More-
over, being a single mother
does not accord with tradi-
tional values.
Senior executives at both
companies pledged to close all
livestreaming accounts hosted
by minors within five days,
intensify regulation of content
and alter the values used to set
the algorithms that decide
which content should be pro-
moted to users.
Growing audience
By the end of last year, there
were 579 million online video
viewers and 422 million lives-
treaming viewers in the coun-
try, according to the China
Internet Network Information
Center.
Meanwhile, according to a
recent report from iiMedia
Research Group, a mobile
internet consultancy, short
videos are becoming increas-
ingly popular, with 242 million
viewers by the end of last year,
a year-on-year rise of more
than 58 percent.
Viewers’ reasons for watch-
ing the videos vary: more than
70 percent use them to kill
time and relax, while approxi-
mately 42 percent said they
also used them to obtain infor-
mation, and about 21 percent
were looking to make friends,
according to the report.
Youngsters revel in era of individuality
By ZHANG YI
Wei Jiaqi has recently taken
up a new hobby; filming and
sharing gesture-dance videos
on Douyin, a short video appli-
cation affiliated to Toutiao, an
online news and information
platform.
“I think it is a good way of
displaying my talent and
recording my life,” said the
first-grade student at Beijing
No 15 Middle School.
“I started using the app in
October after watching many
popular gesture-dance videos
— where performers use their
fingers and hands to pose in
“Cyberspace is not a lawless
place because an online
exchange is also a social rela-
tionship that must abide by the
law and regulations,” said Sun
Jin, head of the Cyberspace
Governance Research Insti-
tute at Wuhan University.
“We appeal to people to
adopt higher ethical stan-
dards, but they must adhere to
the law. Those disseminating
videos of adolescent mothers
are suspected of abetting ille-
gal conduct and promoting
bad influences on society,” he
said.
Moreover, users who upload
“harmful” videos must assume
joint responsibility with the
sites that provide platforms
that help to spread them, he
added.
Yuan Gang, deputy CEO of
livestreaming site Douyu, said
there are rules governing the
registration of minors on the
site.
“We use facial identification
methods for account registra-
tion and users must provide
their ID cards. If they are under
18, they are not allowed to open
an account. However, they are
allowed to do so if they have
written permission from their
guardian. If the minors want to
livestream, their guardian
should aware of it,” he said.
Self-censorship
In response to the authori-
ties’ moves to straighten out
irregularities in content, lives-
treaming and video sites have
vowed to remove harmful con-
tent and increase manpower in
content review.
Zhang Yiming, CEO of Tou-
tiao, posted an apology the
same night as one of its apps
was ordered to close perma-
nently after airing illegal con-
tent. He said he had “spent a
sleepless night, feeling guilty
and blaming himself” for fail-
ing to live up to the trust and
support of the site’s users.
“We have focused on scale,
but have not improved quality
of content in a timely manner,
and we have neglected our
social responsibility to guide
users toward positive informa-
tion,” he said.
“We put a lot of energy and
resources into growing our
enterprise, but we did not take
enough measures to regulate
the platform, including effec-
tive governance of vulgar, vio-
lent, harmful content and false
advertising.”
Zhang said the company
overemphasized the role of
technology without realizing
that it must be guided by the
correct values.
Shortly before Zhang’s apol-
ogy, Su Hua, CEO of Kuaishou,
expressed regret and apolo-
gized for the presence of illegal
content — such as pornogra-
phy and footage of violent acts
— on his site.
He conceded that “the algo-
rithm used by the platform
contains certain values
because humans are responsi-
ble for programming them.
time with rhythmic music —
on it. It’s great fun to add spe-
cial effects and background
music to make the video inter-
esting,” the 13-year-old added.
“I also shoot scenic nature
videos — for example, the cher-
ry blossoms in spring — and
upload them to Douyin to
record the beautiful things in
my life. At the beginning, my
first video only had 10 ‘likes’,
but I was still happy because
someone liked it. I have already
made 95 videos and have about
2,000 followers.”
Short videos — lasting less
than 60 seconds — are gaining
popularity because of the ease
Young people livestream a musical performance from a park on March 25, illustrating the sort of content that meets ethical standards.
“The defect in the algorithm
is a defect in our values. We
neglected the problem for a
long time, but we will not
shirk responsibility or evade
supervision.”
Last month, Toutiao
removed about 10,000 video
clips and closed about 5,000
accounts, while Kuaishou
removed about 310,000 video
clips and closed 65,000
accounts.
The sites’ CEOs promised to
improve editorial responsibili-
ty, with Toutiao saying it will
increase the number of staff
members in its review team
from 6,000 to 10,000, while
Kuaishou will raise numbers
from 2,000 to 5,000.
The sites also promised to
amend their algorithms to add
“correct values”, avoid illegal
and obscene content, and
focus more on protecting
minors.
‘‘Wrong’ values
“Technology itself is neutral,
but the loophole stems from
the wrong values behind the
algorithms programmed by
humans,” said Zhang Xiaoqi-
ang, a professor of journalism
at Chongqing University.
Technically, the term “algo-
rithm” refers to a set of instruc-
tions followed in a fixed
pattern. They are mainly used
for solving math problems and
making computer programs.
“The apps have their own
algorithms, which decide the
content they push to users
based on data and their own
methods of calculation,” Zhang
Xiaoqiang said.
“Different video sites have
different algorithms, and some
are based on users’ personal
habits. For example, on Dou-
yin, a video site attached to
Toutiao, viewers will be offered
videos similar to those they
have already viewed.
“Some have algorithms that
create ‘hot’ items. For example,
when a video reaches a certain
number of views, the platform
with which they can be upload-
ed. The content ranges from
cooking and pets to dancing
and exercise.
By February, Douyin was
ranked third in China by user
numbers. It has about 96 mil-
lion regular users, and an
annual growth rate of 76 per-
cent, the highest in the country,
according to a recent report
from internet consultancy
iiMedia Research Group.
Last year, the company said
that 85 percent of its users were
ages 24 and younger, with
many born after 1995 and even
in the 2000s.
“We are in an era of displaying
Getting the picture
Number of short video sites
users in China
(Unit: million)
242
153
88
56
38
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Top five short video sites by user
numbers in February
(Unit: million)
200
109
96.5
45.3
32.6
u
in
n
pa
gu
ho
ha
uy
iao
Xi
os
ais
Do
M
Hu
Ku
Source: iiMedia Research Group
CHINA DAILY
will push it to all users, send it
to the front page or label it as
hot,” he said.
“As a result, more people will
view it, making it an extremely
popular product. However,
that popularity is man-made.
That way we often encounter
items that are seen as popular
online, but we feel unaffected
after watching them.”
He added that in an infor-
mation-overloaded world,
algorithms are essential tools.
“They are like dippers that
extract what we need from the
sea of information and put it in
front of us. It is easy for vulgar
things to become popular
because poorly educated neti-
zens find them easy to under-
stand,” he said.
“IT engineers at companies
individuality, and younger peo-
ple are eager to show their per-
sonalities,” said Sun Jin, head of
the Cyberspace Governance
Research Institute at Wuhan
University in Hebei province.
“Young people today are will-
ing to share traditionally ‘pri-
vate’ things, including their
lives, work and hobbies, with
strangers via social media.
Meanwhile, there are more
who are curious about others’
private lives. As a result, those
sites link the two sides and pro-
duce a huge market.”
Chen Rui, an associate pro-
fessor at the Institute of Com-
munication Psychology at
Yan Shuang, a school student in Shenyang, Liaoning province, performs acrobatic tricks for viewers of
his livestream on December 15. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
that pursue commercial profit
often focus on technology and
do not have any training in
media ethics, meaning they
may be led astray by video traf-
fic that generates profits.”
Supervision
Chen Rui, an associate pro-
fessor at the Institute of Com-
munication Psychology at
Communication University of
China, said, “The severe
authority order last month was
a blow to the industry. It sig-
naled that service providers
should be self-disciplined and
improve their initiative in con-
tent review.
“These sites should improve
their editorial processes and
raise the qualifications for edi-
tors. The algorithm engineers
need extra training as well,
especially in terms of commu-
nication ethics.”
Zhang Xiaoqiang said sites
must ensure that the people
posting on them are aware of
the regulations that govern
online content.
We are in an era of
displaying individ-
uality, and younger
people are eager to
show their person-
alities.
Sun Jin, head of the Cyberspace
Governance Research Institute at
Wuhan University
Communication University of
China, said, “Some videos on
Douyin are about 15 seconds
duration, so that gives people
Thursday, May 3, 2018
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
“The sites should ensure that
livestreamers and video pro-
viders understand what they
are and are not allowed to do
before they register,” he said.
“Service providers should
not impose restrictions on reg-
istration because it is a good
way for people, especially those
from the grassroots, to gain
recognition. Instead, the sites
should adopt a credit system to
regulate users’ behavior. The
sites can take action against
those with bad credit records.
Service providers should pay
more attention to posters
whose videos attract a large
volume of traffic or those sell-
ing goods or services while
streaming, because they have
greater influence.”
He added that in addition to
guiding the industry with time-
ly policies, the regulators
should encourage the public to
report harmful content,
because the number of users is
rising so quickly that the regu-
lators are unable to keep track.
“A tip- off system could be led
the illusion that they don’t take
up much time. The algorithm
behind the site will send the
viewers more related videos, so
people become addicted
unconsciously.”
To prevent users from
becoming addicted, the plat-
form launched a new auto-lock
function last month, so that it
automatically locks itself after
two hours of use per day.
“I am a disciplined person. I
only spend 30 minutes watch-
ing videos on Douyin on school
days, and it doesn’t affect my
study,” said Wei, who is a class
monitor and a top student.
“My parents encourage me
to show myself on Douyin, but
they tell me to be careful.
Sometimes, I chat with my fans
online, but I am cautious
C H I N A DA I LY USA
by social organizations, and the
public could engage with it.
The system could be more
effective if people were reward-
ed for reporting harmful con-
tent,” he said.
Pi Yong, deputy head of the
Cyberspace Governance
Research Institute at Wuhan
University, said the system has
produced a three-layer rela-
tionship: government; internet
service providers; and neti-
zens.
“Without the middle layer,
the government would be una-
ble to manage cyberspace effec-
tively. At the same time, service
providers and netizens rely on
each other, with the former
gaining huge profits from the
latter, so they must find a bal-
ance between commercial
profit and social responsibility,”
he said.
“Breaking the ecology of
cyberspace will not be good for
its operation in the long run.”
Contact the writer at
zhangyi1@chinadaily.com.cn
because they are strangers.”
Li Duojiao, Wei’s head teach-
er, said, “We call her the ‘Douyin
Princess’ in class. Sometimes I
see she has shared her videos
on WeChat, and other students
have given her ‘likes’.
“Teenagers just need a stage
to show off. Even though they
may put themselves at poten-
tial risk, we never stop them
from using the internet, which
is irresistible and part of their
lives. Someday, they will enter
society, where they will
encounter good and bad
things. It is important that they
are capable of telling right from
wrong, and choosing suitable
things for themselves.”
Liu Kun contributed to this
story.
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, May 3, 2018
Elderly experts bringing
science to the masses
Organization’s
efforts in line
with top leader’s
innovation drive
By YUAN QUAN
Many elderly Chinese spend
their retirement looking after
grandchildren or traveling the
world, but for Bai Wuming, 62,
his former career is a labor of
love and he’s helping popular-
ize science among young peo-
ple.
Bai officially retired two
years ago from a 40-year
career in geophysics with the
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
yet he continues to give lec-
tures on earth science in
schools across the country,
including in remote rural are-
as.
He likes to open his presen-
tations with the words “Sci-
ence is all around us” before
conducting small experiments
to captivate the audience’s
attention.
To demonstrate how volca-
noes erupt, Bai invites partici-
pants to come forward and
pour sugar into a bottle of
beer. The sugar produces car-
bon dioxide, which causes the
beer to immediately spray
forth in dramatic fashion.
“I remember my high school
textbook also mentioned vol-
canoes, but my teacher did not
conduct any demonstrations,”
said Zhang Hao, a Tianjin Uni-
versity graduate student who
volunteered to help at one of
Bai’s lectures.
Bai is one of 60 members of
Senior Scientists Public Lec-
tures — an organization under
the academy — having joined
in 2010.
Established in 1997, the
team of male and female
speakers is mainly comprised
of retired researchers in fields
including astronomy, physics,
chemistry and biology.
The oldest member is 90,
but their average age is 68,
with speakers receiving 1,000
yuan ($160) per lecture.
Zhong Qi, founder of the
original team of just eight, said
most of them had little previ-
ous experience in presenting
scientific concepts to the pub-
lic in laymen’s terms despite
having dedicated their careers
to their research.
“I remember my teenage
years in the 1950s, which were
a crucial time for me to devel-
op my mind and body,” Zhong
recalled.
“If we senior scientists can
communicate with people and
arouse their interest in science
and inspire them to explore
Around China
HUBEI
Thief takes phone,
fails to steal wife
A hotblooded mobile phone
thief, surnamed Zhang, was
detained after he attempted to
date the wife of his victim, sur-
named Li, in Wuhan on April
6. Zhang stole Li’s phone at a
cybercafe and then contacted
Li’s wife requesting sex after
he was attracted by photos
stored on the phone. Li’s wife
pretended to agree to meet
Zhang in a hotel, where police
were waiting to detain the
thief.
KANKANNEWS.COM
SHAANXI
Xi’an police tackle
carload of trouble
A parked sedan has been giv-
ing traffic police in Xi’an seri-
ous headaches. The vehicle
was recently parked near
train tracks and forced a pass-
ing cargo train to stop for over
30 minutes before authorities
could tow it away. The train’s
engineer had to hit the emer-
Professor Gao Dengyi, a retired researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a member of Senior Scientists Public Lectures,
takes a photo with students after lecturing at a primary school in Taizhou, Zhejiang province. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Professor Xu Muqi, another member of Senior Scientists Public
Lectures, answers a student’s question after giving a lecture on
water resource protection.
the unknown world in their
youth, I think it would be good
for them and our work.”
The elderly scientists on the
team still take a rigorous atti-
tude when selecting retirees
who apply to join their ranks.
Regardless of titles and
awards, all applicants must
submit a report and take on
gency brakes to avoid collid-
ing with the car. Police are
investigating why the car was
parked there and are seeking
its owner.
HUASHANG DAILY
JIANGSU
Man discovers his
fiancee is related
A man, surnamed Wang, is
weighing up whether to con-
tinue with his marriage plans
after learning his would-be
audition. If the audience feels
the lecture is too difficult to
understand, applications can
be declined. Those expecting
to find fame will likely be
rejected as well.
“You have to make your
lectures interesting and it
can be difficult trying to
explain a formula clearly to
bride in Nanjing is a relative.
Wang, 29, has been told by
officials in the Xuanwu district
marriage registration center
that he can still marry, as the
Marriage Law only prohibits
couples linked within three
generations. Wang’s great-
grandmother is the sister of
his fiancee’s grandmother,
which pushes them past the
legal threshold. However,
experts say the couple should
have a premarital examination
and consult a doctor to see
whether their union might
affect their children’s health.
THEPAPER.CN
SICHUAN
Boss organized
rescue, but sued
A Chengdu restaurant boss
who was praised by authori-
ties and residents three years
ago for organizing his employ-
ees to rescue an elderly wom-
an, surnamed Zhang, from
drowning in a river, said he
was shocked to learn the wom-
an’s family is taking him to
court. Li Chengwei, who runs a
the public. So I don’t think
popularizing science is easier
than doing actual research,”
said geologist Xu Wenyao.
To ignite audience interest,
Xu always makes a music anal-
ogy in his lectures.
“There are two tenors. Can
you tell which one sings bet-
ter?” Xu asked. “The vocalists
say each has his own merits,
but we scientists can use data
and equations to analyze their
voices.”
It’s a winning formula.
“Many students start nod-
ding off when it comes to sci-
ence, especially math, physics
and chemistry. So I am always
thinking how to make these
subjects more accessible and
interesting,” Xu said.
The retirees also hope to
kindle a long-term interest
among their young audiences
in pursuing further scientific
study and research.
The elderly lecturers them-
selves also keep learning,
adapting and improving.
They have mastered making
PowerPoint presentations
and videos, as well as writing
jokes, stories and lyrics that
fill lecture rooms with laugh-
ter.
By 2017, the association had
delivered 23,000 lectures,
mainly in primary and high
schools, to a total audience of
8.2 million. They also lectured
to people at community
events, in prisons, the military
and worshippers at temples.
riverside restaurant, was
thanked by Zhang’s family aft-
er the rescue and offered a
reward, which he declined.
Zhang died in hospital eight
days later, and her family sued
the city’s river management
department. They recently
decided to list Li as a second
defendant, alleging surveil-
lance video showed Zhang fell
into the river because the road
had been made slippery by
dirty water poured by employ-
ees from Li’s restaurant.
THECOVER.CN
ZHEJIANG
Accidental eyeful
at fitness center
A woman (pictured right) has
“I remember once I lectured
at a playground, because the
rural primary school did not
have an auditorium. But the
pupils listened carefully with-
out any distractions,” Xu
recalled.
Yang Xinghua, head of
Tangshan Oriental Interna-
tional School in Hebei prov-
ince, said, “It’s an opportunity
for us to communicate with
accomplished scientists.”
President Xi Jinping has
described scientific innova-
tion and popularization as
“the two wings for realizing
innovation-driven develop-
ment”.
More public figures and
organizations have emerged in
recent years, working on sci-
ence popularization through
social media. But the retired sci-
entists hope more researchers
will take up the cause.
Bai said their advantage lies
in their years of research: “The
content of our lectures is
based on the research we have
done, which is real, scientific
and proprietary. We don’t
allow our speakers to down-
load content from the inter-
net.”
Bai said the team is especial-
ly looking for experts in
emerging subjects such as
artificial intelligence and oce-
anic science. “It is a scientist’s
responsibility to popularize
science,” Bai said.
XINHUA CHINA FEATURES
demanded compensation after
a food deliveryman entered
the women’s dressing room of
a fitness center in Hangzhou
while she was naked. The
woman, surnamed Li, said the
deliveryman had looked at her
for three to four seconds
before leaving. The manager of
the fitness center said the man
had walked into the wrong
room by accident. Li reported
the incident to police, but the
deliveryman had left by the
time officers arrived at the
center. The manager apolo-
gized and offered to refund the
balance of Li’s 2,500 yuan
($400) annual membership
fee — about 1,000 yuan — but
refused to pay compensation.
THECOVER.CN
Woman making
village richer with
fruits of her labor
An enterprising young
woman in eastern China is
hoping a locally grown fruit
and its flowers will help put
her village on the national
map, and enrich its residents
in the process.
When many people from
Siyang county, Jiangsu prov-
ince, left their struggling
hometown years ago they
could little imagine that
throngs of tourists would
one day come to see peach
blossoms.
Song Shanshan, 27, an
entrepreneur known as Ms
Peach, is given credit for this
ongoing transformation.
Born and raised in Zhao-
chen village, Song refused to
believe that her hometown
would remain a “rotten
peach”, a local term for the
poorest place or people. She
returned after graduating
from university in the nearby
city of Huaiyin in 2012, and
after years of hard work now
runs a sofa factory with over
150 million yuan ($23.8 mil-
lion) in annual revenue,
which creates more than 500
jobs.
“I want my fellow villagers
to make money here, instead
of leaving their hometown,”
Song said.
Her dream is becoming a
reality, as the average month-
ly income last year stood at
6,000 yuan per villager, up
from just 1,000 yuan in 2012.
Being a successful busi-
nesswoman did not satisfy
Song’s strong will to change
her hometown, and she also
desired to become a public
servant.
Last year, the city of Suqi-
an — which administers
Siyang — started a recruit-
ment program to attract
more well-educated young
people to become grassroots
officials.
Song became the deputy
Party secretary of Zhaochen
village in August after pass-
ing several exams and per-
forming well in interviews.
Retired judge
uses mediation
to save marriages
By FENG ZHIWEI
in Changsha
and LI LEI in Beijing
A 75-year-old retired judge
in Hunan province has pre-
vented the breakup of more
than 1,000 families in the
past 14 years through his
work as a volunteer media-
tor.
Xie Maoxiang retired in
2003 as associate presiding
judge of the Dapu court in
Hunan’s Hengdong county.
But he did not leave the
court to enjoy a leisurely
retirement. Instead, he offered
to work for free as a mediator
to relieve the pressure on local
judicial resources.
The court, where Xie had
been working since 1982, has
only five employees now, but
it serves a population of
260,000. The situation was
even worse when he was
about to retire.
“There were only three
staff members at the court
then, but lots of lawsuits,” he
said, adding that his experi-
ence as a grassroots judge
was an advantage in media-
tion.
He has since devoted his
time to the mediation of mar-
ital discord to prevent it from
turning into divorce, which
would result in more court
cases. Xie, who cycles to
work on weekdays, likened
marital discord to the
mechanical problems on a
well-used bicycle and said
both can be repaired.
He Yueying, a resident of
Fengshan village, said her
family was grateful for Xie’s
C H I NA 7
In China, peach blossoms
symbolize love and romance,
and Taohuayuan (Peach
Blossom Land) is the Chi-
nese term for a utopia filled
with the flowers where kind
people live in prosperity.
Farmers had been growing
peaches in Siyang for hun-
dreds of years but had never
found a way to sell the fruit in
a profitable way.
As a successful entrepre-
neur and a respected Party
official, Song rented 13.3 hec-
tares of land from villagers
and started a peach orchard
last year.
After thorough research,
Song and her team planted
over 20 different varieties of
peaches, installed an
advanced drip irrigation sys-
tem and invited agricultural
technicians to work in the
orchard.
“Of course, the orchard
will not be as profitable as
my furniture business, but
this is a project that will
bring more money to local
residents,” she said.
Song visits her orchard
daily, and has vowed never to
let the peaches rot. “I’ve
made a promise and I can’t
disappoint the villagers.”
March and April, the
peach blossom season, are
the most lively months of the
year in Siyang, as many tour-
ists visit in the county to view
the blossoms.
Garden tours are now pop-
ular among flower and
nature photography enthusi-
asts in China.
When the trees start pro-
ducing fruit in three years,
Song’s orchard will become a
producer and wholesaler of
peaches. She plans to market
and sell the fruit using Chi-
na’s booming e-commerce
industry. The orchard now
provides nearly 500 jobs and
contributes 2 million yuan in
rent to 195 families across
the county every year.
XINHUA
Xie Maoxiang, a retired asso-
ciate presiding judge in Hunan
province
hard work. Eight years ago,
she had a dispute with her
husband and almost got
divorced. Xie cycled for
almost an hour along the
muddy road to the couple’s
house to talk them out of the
decision. After several visits,
the quarreling couple were
reconciled.
“My life would be not as
blissful now were it not for
Xie,” she said.
Wen Yanping, the court’s
presiding judge, said Xie was
patient about the mediation
and his hard work had won
him esteem.
“At least a third of the
quarreling couples go home
after mediation, and many
have dropped divorce cases
after Xie’s efforts,” she said.
Even though he has been
working at the court for 35
years, Xie shows no sign of
slowing down.
“I will stick to my post as
long as my physical condi-
tion allows,” he said.
Contact the writers
at lilei@chinadaily.com.cn
8
LIFE
Thursday, May 3, 2018
CHINA DAILY USA » CHINADAILYUSA.COM
DEATH BECOMES HIM
Film director Lee Unkrich waxes lyrical about his award-winning Day of the Dead romp,
W
hen award-win-
ning American
director Lee
U n k r i c h
addressed the 14th China
International Cartoon & Ani-
mation Festival in Hangzhou
on Friday, the hall was so full
that some of the attendees
were forced to sit on the floor.
With his directorial hits Toy
Story 3 and Coco, both win-
ning best animated feature
Oscars in 2010 and 2017,
respectively, Unkrich’s speech
was one of the hottest tickets
at the annual festival.
With 1.2 billion yuan ($190
million) in box office earn-
ings, Coco became the high-
est-grossing Pixar film in
China, making four times
more than second-placed
Finding Dory.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the
105-minute fantasy film about
a Mexican boy’s adventure
through a colorful Land of the
Dead racked up a score of 9.1
points out of 10 on Douban, a
popular Chinese film-rating
platform.
The movie follows 12-year-
old Miguel, who dreams of
becoming a musician but is
discouraged by his parents,
who despise music since
Miguel’s great-great grandfa-
ther abandoned the family in
pursuit of his own tilt at star-
dom decades earlier. His
desire to emulate his musical
idol, and a magic guitar,
thrusts Miguel into an adven-
turous romp accompanied
Qingdao Movie Metropolis opens with a splash
By XU FAN
Inside a soundstage in west-
ern Qingdao, Shandong prov-
ince, actors from the action-
thriller The Teacher are
performing a series of chase-
and-combat sequences for a
group of onlookers.
Transfixed by the perform-
ance, the audience members —
mainly a mix of movie-industry
insiders and reporters — give
the actors a round of applause
after the scenes.
The demonstration was
part of a string of events held
on Saturday to celebrate the
opening of the Qingdao Movie
Metropolis, which is said to be
the largest film-studio com-
plex in the world.
As China’s answer to Holly-
wood, the new “film kingdom”
backed by investment from
the conglomerate Dalian Wan-
da Group is a 50 billion yuan
($7.9 billion) project that has
taken more than four and a
Coco, at China’s premier animation festival. Xu Fan reports.
only by his faithful pet, a Xolo
dog named Dante.
Talking to China Daily, the
50-year-old filmmaker admits
that he was surprised at the
level of success Coco has
achieved in the world’s sec-
ond-largest movie market.
“Initially, we were worried
that we wouldn’t even be
allowed to release (the film) in
China, due to the regulations,”
he says. “But, it did get
released and it did well, and
we are happy about that.”
Touching on the reason for
the film’s unexpected popu-
larity, Unkrich believes the
similarity between the Mexi-
can and Chinese traditions
about the deceased makes the
movie relatable to local audi-
ences.
“Part of my goal in making
the film was to share the Mexi-
can culture with people
around the world, but I also
wanted to tell a story which
would be universal,” the veter-
an filmmaker notes. “The fact
that the movie did so well in
China shows that we were
right.”
Since graduating from the
University of Southern Cali-
fornia’s School of Cinematic
Arts in 1990, Unkrich has
been fascinated with Latino
culture, especially the
unlikely juxtapositions sur-
rounding death, such as that
of morbid, skeletal imagery
set against bright colors and
the festival feeling of celebra-
tion.
half years to construct.
Spanning 166 hectares, the
sprawling complex will
include 52 state-of-the-art stu-
dios, with 30 completed in the
first phase and 10 more cur-
rently under construction for
the second phase.
Besides the studios, the
complex is home to a film-set
street lined with European
and Shanghai-style architec-
ture, a shopping mall with a
theme park, several luxury
hotels, a yacht club, a hospital
and an international school. It
also includes a 30-theater,
5,000-seat multiplex cinema,
the largest in China.
Wang Jianlin, chairman of
Dalian Wanda, says the mas-
sive film complex marks a
milestone for the industriali-
zation of Chinese cinema, and
will help to promote Chinese
films in foreign countries.
Speaking at the inaugura-
tion ceremony, Wang said the
facility will firmly place Qing-
Lee Unkrich, the Pixar director behind the Oscar-winning animated hits Toy Story 3 and Coco, gives a
speech at the 14th China International Cartoon & Animation Festival in Hangzhou recently.
However, the original inspi-
ration for the film came one
year after the release of Toy
Story 3, during a family vaca-
tion to Disney World in Flori-
da. While visiting the Mexico
pavilion at the Epcot theme
park in 2011, Unkrich spotted
four papier-mache skeletons
dressed like a mariachi band.
Two things immediately
crossed his mind.
“I first thought, it would be
really fun to see them being
animated,” he says, adding
that this is a world he hadn’t
seen explored in film before.
Qingdao Movie Metropolis, said to be the world’s largest film-studio complex, opens in Qingdao, the
seaside city in Shandong province, on April 28. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
dao on the international cine-
matic circuit and turn the
eastern coastal city into a glob-
al movie hub.
With a long history connect-
ed to cinema — the first docu-
mentary shot in China was
made in Qingdao in 1898 and
China’s first movie with sound,
“It can be a dangerous
thing: telling a story about cul-
ture that is different from your
own,” he says. “For Coco, I
knew I had to really deeply
understand the culture of
Mexico.”
After deciding to set a fable
against the Mexican holiday,
Dia de los Muertos, or the Day
of the Dead, Unkrich and his
Pixar creation team did a lot of
research, including visits to
Mexico, where the team spent
time with local families,
watching documentaries and
even inviting some Xolo dog
Sing-song Girl Red Peony, was
made there in 1931 — the city
was named by UNESCO as a
“city of film” in November, the
first of its kind in China.
To date, the fantasy epic
The Great Wall, starring Matt
Damon, and sci-fi film Pacific
Rim: Uprising, headlined by
breeders and their charges to
the Pixar studio to study the
symbolic animals.
Xolo canines are a hairless
breed with a 3,500-year histo-
ry in Mexico, where locals
believe the dogs possess a
supernatural power to ward
off evil spirits.
It took hundreds of anima-
tors six years to create the
vibrant world of Coco, during
which time they had a major
creative obstacle to overcome
— skeletons are usually con-
sidered scary to most people.
“When we first announced
John Boyega, used the Qing-
dao studios to shoot some
special-effects sequences.
For US director Jeremy
Weiss, the convenience and
diversity of the film sets at
the Qingdao facility were the
major inspiration for The
Teacher, a 20-minute short
that we would make a movie
set against Day of the Dead,
people thought Pixar was
making a horror movie,” notes
Unkrich. “Of course, we knew
it wasn’t. We were going to
make a comedy about family
and love.
“In my mind, a skeleton is
just another form of regular
people.”
In order to make the skele-
ton characters appealing, Coco
animators made them with
eyeballs, lips and vivid facial
expressions, even taking inspi-
ration from some of Pixar’s
most famous characters by
digitally transforming them
into skeletons to study the
movements of their bones.
Speaking about the key to
the enduring success of Pixar,
the animation giant that now
has 19 feature films to its
name, and for which Unkrich
has worked for the best part of
two decades, he believes it’s
the animators’ understanding
about life that makes it work.
“Sometimes the story might
be fantastical, and might not
seem like being about us, but
most of the time, underneath,
it’s often about things that are
important to us as people or a
society,” he explains.
Recently embarking on a
whirlwind tour of China —
taking in Beijing, Shanghai
and Hangzhou — Unkrich says
he has accumulated plenty of
significant experiences of local
life, which may inspire his
future works.
film about a German assas-
sin’s hunt for a Chinese
teacher.
Featuring exotic scenes set
in a German prison and a tra-
ditional Japanese hall, the
movie was actually shot in one
of the Wanda soundstages in
six days.
“We find it interesting that
we can just as easily shoot a
movie in Qingdao as we do
elsewhere around the world,”
says Weiss.
And the fact that the loca-
tions are just a few minutes’
walk from each other also
saves the crew a lot of time, he
says.
Jia Hao, a veteran director
specializing in water sequen-
ces, thinks the state-of-the-art
tanks at the Qingdao facility
will help stars feel safer and
more comfortable in water.
The filmmaker behind the
water scenes of Painted Skin:
The Resurrection and Wolf
Warrior 2 recently shot an
Coco, about a Mexican boy’s
adventure through a colorful
Land of the Dead, grabs $190
million at the Chinese box office,
becoming the highest-grossing
Pixar film in the country.
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
In my mind, a
skeleton is just
another form of
regular people.”
Lee Unkrich, director
“As we have traveled a lot,
we discovered a lot of things
and asked many questions,
which has been similar to
the journey that I undertook
while making Coco,” he
notes.
However, Chinese audien-
ces won’t have to wait too long
for a Pixar film rooted in Chi-
nese culture, with Unkrich
revealing that Domee Shi, a
Chinese-Canadian, is about to
become the first female direct-
or in the studio’s 32-year histo-
ry when she releases her film
Bao (Steamed Bread).
The animated short centers
around a mother whose chil-
dren have all left home and
who gets another chance at
parenting when the epony-
mous dish comes to life.
Bao is set for a summer
release alongside Pixar’s much
anticipated superhero sequel,
Incredibles 2.
Contact the writer at
xufan@chinadaily.com.cn
underwater scene in one of
the two huge tanks in the stu-
dios.
One is an indoor tank with
the temperature maintained
at around 32 C. The other, with
a storage capacity of up to
10,000 cubic meters, has
tracks to allow heavy cameras
to operate underwater and a
dedicated room for directors
to guide the action at the bot-
tom of the tank.
“In the past, there were only
a few tanks in China and they
were mostly unheated. Stars
were reluctant to stay in the
water for a long time. The
Wanda tanks have raised the
bar for filming water sequen-
ces,” says Jia.
Operators from Wanda esti-
mate that more than 500 film
and television companies in
China will move into the com-
plex over the next three years,
and will shoot or produce
around 100 movies and televi-
sion series every year.
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, May 3, 2018
Star power sees Youku pack a punch
Chinese video giant is pulling out all stops with a host of new-format shows featuring
big names in a bid to tap the diverse youth market. Wang Kaihao reports.
W
hen long-run-
ning Taiwan
variety talk
show Kangsi
Coming aired its final episode
in 2016, fans on both sides of
the Straits bid an emotional
farewell to its host duo — Kev-
in Tsai and Dee Hsu — who
finally answered the curtain
call after 12 years of bringing
laughter to their viewers.
But the good news is that
fans won’t have to wait much
longer for the pair to make a
comeback.
Youku Inc announced
recently that the duo are set to
return as hosts of a new talk
show for the on-demand vid-
eo giant, one of China’s lead-
ing streaming platforms.
“I didn’t expect to host a
show with Little S (Dee Hsu)
again,” Tsai tells a news con-
ference in Beijing. “We
thought we had covered every
interesting angle, so we decid-
ed to leave Kangsi Coming
while people still had a good
feeling for the show.”
However, when it comes to
variety shows, there is always
something new around the
corner.
According to Tsai, the new
series will feature the original
production team behind
Kangsi Coming and has been
tentatively titled Tan Bai Ba,
Hua Hua Shi Jie (Confess for
a Colorful World). The show
will explore stars’ shopping
habits by asking them to
share their shopping lists and
bills.
“You are what you buy,” Tsai
says. “And this also reveals a
celebrity’s desires and atti-
tudes toward life. Through
this, viewers will be able to
gain a better understanding
of them.”
Tsai adds that unlike Kang-
si Coming, the new show will
use big data analysis of con-
sumer patterns as its founda-
tion, which he hopes will give
it added resonance with ordi-
nary shoppers.
After all, Alibaba, which
runs China’s biggest online
shopping platform Taobao, is
Youku’s mother company.
The reunion between Tsai
and Hsu is just one of a raft of
new-format variety shows
due to be aired by Youku this
year.
Dunk Boys, a new basket-
ball-themed show starring
Taiwan singing star Jay Chou,
will see the idol for a genera-
tion of pop fans team up with
Jeremy Lin, the Chinese-
American NBA star with the
Brooklyn Nets, and Stephon
Marbury, a former NBA star
who has also enjoyed huge
career success in China by
helping the Beijing Ducks win
three national champion-
ships.
Known for being a die-
hard basketball fan, Chou
often shows off his hoop
Documentaries add sparkle to country’s film industry, says report
By XU FAN
xufan@chinadaily.com.cn
With the unexpected suc-
cess of Twenty Two, which
topped the global documenta-
ry box-office charts in 2017,
Chinese producers who make
such films are on a roll, says a
report recently released by
Beijing Normal University.
The report shows that 16
documentaries were screened
in Chinese theaters in 2017,
grossing 269 million yuan ($
43 million), a year-on-year rev-
enue growth of 237 percent.
Twenty Two, a film about
sexual slavery during World
War II, made a record 170 mil-
lion yuan, making it the first
documentary in Chinese cine-
matic history to surpass the
100-million-yuan mark.
The other documentaries
that did well include Sino-UK
production Earth: One Amaz-
ing Day and Return to the
Wolves, a 98-minute film
about a Chinese painter work-
The Taiwan hosting duo of Kevin Tsai (right) and Dee Hsu will reunite for an upcoming variety show for Youku.
Left: Variety show We’re From Earth, featuring one of the first Chinese astronauts, Li Qinglong, will showcase trainings of China’s space
program. Right: Former NBA star Stephon Marbury will appear on the talent show Dunk Boys on Youku.
This era calls for
young idols who
are full of
positive energy
and possess a
strong spirit.”
Yi Hua, producer of Dunk Boys
ing to return an orphan wolf
back to the wild, grossing 47.78
million yuan and 33 million
yuan, respectively, to take the
second and third slots.
In 2017, China invested
nearly 4 billion yuan in total to
produce movie and television
documentaries, which grossed
more than 6 billion yuan.
The two figures are an
increase of 14 and 15 percent,
respectively, year on year.
“In China, there is sufficient
market space for high-quality
documentary films,” says
Zhang Tongdao, who headed
the team that wrote the
report.
Zhang, who is also the
director of the Documentary
Center at Beijing Normal Uni-
versity, says that Chinese view-
ers’ diverse tastes in film also
bodes well for the documenta-
ry sector.
For Guo Ke, the 38-year-old
director of Twenty Two, the
crowd-funding campaign to
raise money for the film shows
skills in music videos.
The new show will see the
three stars help recruit young
players from around China to
team up for 3x3 basketball
events, with the storyline
developing along with the
selection process.
According to Yi Hua, the
producer of Dunk Boys, the
upcoming show will pay hom-
age to Slam Dunk, a Japanese
animation that influenced
generations of young people
in China. And, since 3x3 bas-
ketball is also one of the
sports featuring in the 2020
Summer Olympic Games, Yi
thinks the show will help
warm up audiences ahead of
the competition.
Left: An image of the Chinese documentary Twenty Two, which topped global documentary charts last year.
Right: Director Guo Ke (right) and his filming crew shooting the same documentary. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
that a quality documentary
can work with Chinese audi-
ences, who were seen earlier
to prefer only action-studded
films or slapstick comedies .
The crew of Twenty Two
contacted more than 32,000
people through WeChat mes-
sage groups across 50 cities,
and their enthusiasm helped
Nevertheless, she says that
the theme of basketball was
simply chosen as a vehicle to
allow the producers to take a
closer look at popular youth
culture.
“Young Chinese people’s
aspirations and struggles will
be on display,” she says. “This
era calls for young idols who
are full of positive energy and
possess a strong spirit, and
the basketball pitch is an ideal
place to demonstrate this.”
However, this year’s batch
of idols will not only be drawn
from the circles of entertain-
ment and sport. Efforts taken
by behind-the-scenes national
heroes will also have a chance
to reach younger audiences,
boost the documentary’s pop-
ularity online.
Guo says that his next film
will also be a documentary, as
“the power of truth in docu-
mentaries is overwhelming”.
Another industry highlight
last year was the global out-
reach of Chinese documenta-
ries.
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
thanks to another new Youku
program We’re From Earth.
Li Qinglong, deputy direct-
or of the Shenzhen-based
Space Institute of Southern
China, is taking part in a new
reality show centered around
the training program of Chi-
nese astronauts.
Li was among the first
astronauts to be trained in
China. Although he coached
Yang Liwei, the first Chinese
astronaut to be sent into
space, he unfortunately never
made it there himself.
In We’re From Earth, six
guests — a mix of celebrities
and ordinary people — will
spend 30 days in the training
center used by China’s space
In 2017, Chinese documen-
tary makers continued to
team up with global partners
to reinvent the style and sub-
stance of documentary story-
telling.
China: Time of Xi, a three-
episode television series on
China’s policies and their
impact over the past five
Film & TV | LI F E 9
program, where they will
undergo the same arduous
training regime as the astro-
nauts, including one that mim-
ics the environment of Mars.
It is the first time a reality
show has revealed the rigor-
ous training process that Chi-
nese astronauts have to
endure.
“We’re witnessing historical
stages in the development of
China’s space program,” Li
says. “This time we want to
tell the lesser-known stories
behind the program and show
how we have attained the
achievements of today.”
According to Yang Wei-
dong, head of Youku, the wide
spectrum of variety shows
offered by the platform this
year echoes the diverse needs
of the contemporary Chinese
audience.
“It’s getting more and more
difficult to make one program
that will suit everyone’s taste,”
Yang says. “A show that proves
popular with one group of
people, might hardly be
noticed by another.”
Users now pay more atten-
tion to what interests them
most, he adds.
“We have to develop tai-
lored plans for different social
circles and not just cater to
loyal fans.”
Contact the writer at
wangkaihao@
chinadaily.com.cn
years, is a case in point.
The series, co-produced by
China Intercontinental Com-
munication Center, Discov-
ery Networks Asia-Pacific
and Meridian Line Films,
was aired across around 30
countries and regions in
October.
On CGTN’s YouTube chan-
Chilean
filmmaker
seeks links
with China
BEIJING — Chilean film-
maker Silvio Caiozzi says he
did not expect that his work
would be cheered and under-
stood as it was in Beijing
recently.
His latest feature film And
Suddenly the Dawn was well
received at the Beijing Inter-
national Film Festival.
The three-hour movie,
crowned Best Film at the Mon-
treal World Film Festival in
September, is set in Patagonia
in Chile, where a man who has
escaped from his native land
out of fear as a young boy,
returns in search of what he
had left behind.
“I intended to explore the
complexity and depth of
human nature,” Caiozzi said
after the movie’s premiere in
Beijing.
The audience did not leave
the cinema until after mid-
night, and posed a variety of
questions on specific filming
techniques.
“I am surprised by their
knowledge and enthusiasm
for cinema. They were intelli-
gent questions,” says the film-
maker on his first contact with
the Chinese public.
“If one’s work is able to
reach out to so many people,
regardless of where they come
from, or what language they
speak, it is a wonderful gift,”
Caiozzi says.
Since his last film Cachimba
(2004), the filmmaker says he
took his time to fall in love
with the new story. What Cai-
ozzi was looking for is the
complexity of human nature.
“Such complexity is what we
have in common as human
beings,” he says. “The most
wonderful thing about cinema
happens when the viewer for-
gets that he is a spectator, and
he becomes another character
and gets emotionally engaged
in the movie. That means the
movie is well done.”
Given that in China there
are millions of movie lovers
with a fervent thirst for better
films, and Latin America pro-
duces works that continue to
impress the world, Caiozzi
says a wider collaboration
between the two sides seems
logical and natural.
“China is opening up to the
world and eager to see how
things are done everywhere
else,” Caiozzi says. “So, there is
a possibility for coproduc-
tions, talent encounters and
film exchanges.”
He sees the likelihood of a
“swap” mechanism to show-
case a certain amount of each
other’s films every year.
“I’m going to try to push for
the idea to get going,” he says.
“In a globalized world where
the human being is becoming
more and more isolated, cine-
ma is what brings us closer.”
XINHUA
nel, the documentary received
more than 274,000 hits and
770 comments.
The television series fea-
tures President Xi Jinping’s
undertakings and philoso-
phies, such as targeted pover-
ty alleviation, supply-side
structural reform and the Belt
and Road Initiative.
Speaking about the series,
Vikram Channa, the vice-
president of Production and
Development at Discovery
Networks Asia-Pacific, says:
“The challenge (when it
comes to such a documenta-
ry) is how to make policy into
a story.”
Calling the series “a chore-
ography of multiple opin-
ions”, Channa, who is also the
producer of China: Time of Xi,
says the hope is that “it (the
series) can communicate hard
policies in an intimate and
personal way”.
Liu Yinglun contributed to
the story.
10 WO RLD
Firefighters attend the scene after a major fire caused the collapse of a 22-story building in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, on
Tuesday. CRIS FAGA / NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Firemen lament loss of life
in Brazil building collapse
SAO PAULO — A 22-story
abandoned office building
occupied by hundreds of
squatters was engulfed in
flames and collapsed in the
center of Sao Paulo early on
Tuesday, shooting a massive
black cloud of smoke into the
sky and red-hot chunks of
debris into nearby structures.
At least one person died
and three others were miss-
ing, a fire department spokes-
man said. According to
authorities, 400 people were
registered as living in the
building, which belonged to
the government.
The cause of the fire was
not known.
Live television images in the
early morning hours showed a
Close shave
Novice monks who had their heads shaved pose for photographs
with Buddhist monks during an event to celebrate the upcoming
Vesak Day, the birthday of Buddha, at Jogye temple in Seoul,
South Korea, on Wednesday. KIM HONG-JI / REUTERS
Dozens killed in
double mosque blast
YOLA, Nigeria — A pair of
explosions killed at least 28
worshippers at a mosque in
northeastern Nigeria and
wounded at least 56 others,
with many of the victims
caught in the second blast
while trying to flee, police
said on Tuesday.
Some reports put the
death toll at more than 60.
The attack in Mubi town
came a day after President
Muhammadu Buhari met
with US President Donald
Trump at the White House
and discussed the threat
from the Nigeria-based Boko
Haram extremist group. Its
fighters were quickly blamed
for Tuesday’s blasts.
This is the second time in
six months that dozens have
been killed in an attack on a
Mubi mosque. In November,
a teenage suicide bomber
attacked worshippers as they
gathered for morning
prayers, killing at least 50
people in one of the region’s
deadliest assaults in years.
Resident Isa Danladi said
he had been about to leave
firefighter on an adjacent
rooftop talking to a man cling-
ing to a rescue rope and trying
to escape from the upper part
of the burning building.
Suddenly, the structure col-
lapsed and the man disap-
peared into the rubble.
Authorities said he likely
died. In the afternoon, fire-
fighters continued searching
for additional victims amid
concrete chunks and twisted
metal pipes.
A firefighter told the media
that they would only have
needed 30 more seconds to
save the man.
The sergeant described
how he and his team climbed
onto the roof of a neighboring
building — using axes to gain
his house near the mosque
when he heard the blast.
“The mosque roof was
blown off and the prayer was
midway when the bomber,
who was obviously in the
congregation, detonated his
explosives,” Danladi said.
“This is obviously the work
of Boko Haram.”
Haruna Hamman Furo, the
head of the state emergency
management agency, called
the attack “devastating”.
In recent months, Boko
Haram activity has been con-
centrated in the far north of
Adamawa state, around
Madagali, near the border
with Borno state. That area is
not far from the Sambisa
Forest area where the
extremists had a stronghold.
Boko Haram fighters are
also said to be hiding in the
Mandara mountains to the
east near Cameroon.
The United Nations says
the terror group has killed
more than 20,000 people
since 2009.
AP—XINHUA
access. He said he urged the
man to be calm, to look only
at the firefighters, to try to
ignore the blazing heat com-
ing from the fire.
“He was secured, he was
ready,” Diego Pereira da Silva
Santos said. “The problem
was the building collapsed
and the amount of rubble and
hot embers that fell on him.”
The abandoned former
office building had 22 stories,
according to the fire depart-
ment and not 26 stories as
reported by some media. It
once housed a branch of Bra-
zil’s federal police and had
been occupied by squatters
for the past seven years.
Sao Paulo state Governor
Marcio Franca, at the scene,
Macron in the dark over Trump’s plan for deal
By CHINA DAILY
French President Emmanu-
el Macron on Wednesday said
he did not know whether US
President Donald Trump
would stick to the 2015 Iran
nuclear deal that many in the
West see as the best hope of
preventing Teheran from get-
ting a nuclear bomb.
Macron, followed by Ger-
man Chancellor Angela
Merkel, visited Washington
last week in the hope of per-
suading Trump not to reim-
pose sanctions on Iran before
a May 12 deadline and imperil
the 2015 deal but the White
House has sounded uncon-
vinced.
Under the accord, Teheran
agreed to limit its nuclear pro-
gram in return for relief from
US and other economic sanc-
tions. The deal was struck by
Britain, China, France, Germa-
ny, Russia, the United States
and Iran.
NASA sends robotic geologist to Mars for deep dig
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida
— Six years after last landing
on Mars, NASA is sending a
robotic geologist to dig deeper
than ever before to take the
planet’s temperature.
The Mars InSight space-
craft, set to launch this week-
end, will also take the planet’s
pulse by making the first
measurements of “mar-
squakes”.
And to check its reflexes,
scientists will track the wobbly
rotation of Mars on its axis to
better understand the size and
makeup of its core.
The lander’s instruments
will allow scientists “to stare
down deep into the planet”,
said the mission’s chief scien-
tist, Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Beauty’s not just skin deep
here,” he said.
The $1 billion United States-
European mission is the first
said it was a tragedy waiting
to happen.
The city and state govern-
ments have been working for
years to forcibly remove
squatters from buildings in
central Sao Paulo, with plans
for revitalizing the area.
Franca said about 150
buildings in the region were
occupied by organized
groups of squatters, who have
pressured the government
for years to provide housing
for the city’s homeless.
“There is not even a mini-
mal condition for people to
live in there,” Franca said. “Peo-
ple live there in desperation.
This was a tragedy foretold.”
The mayor of Sao Paulo,
Bruno Covas, said that the
state government had offered
to provide housing for the
displaced families, and Bra-
zil’s president, Michel Temer,
also offered federal assist-
ance during a visit to the site.
REUTERS—AP
“I don’t know what the US
president will decide on May
12,” Macron told reporters in
Sydney after meeting Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
The White House said on
Tuesday that the Iran deal was
made on “false pretense” in
2015, Xinhua News Agency
reported.
“Iran’s nuclear capability
were far more advanced and
far further along than they
ever indicated,” said White
House Press Secretary Sarah
Sanders at a daily briefing.
“The deal that was made on
things that weren’t accurate.
And we have a big problem
with that,” Sanders added.
Macron said he had pushed
the idea of a much broader
Iran agreement with Trump,
which was received “very posi-
tively”.
“I just want to say whatever
the decision will be, we will
have to prepare such a broader
negotiation and a broader deal
dedicated to studying the
innards of Mars, with scien-
tists hoping to better under-
stand how the red planet —
any rocky planet, including
our own — formed 4.5 billion
years ago.
Mars is smaller and geologi-
cally less active than its neigh-
bor Earth, where plate
tectonics and other processes
have obscured our planet’s
original makeup. As a result,
Mars has retained the “finger-
prints” of early evolution, said
Banerdt.
In another first for the mis-
sion, a pair of briefcase-size
satellites will launch aboard
InSight, break free after liftoff,
then follow the spacecraft for
six months all the way to Mars.
They won’t stop at Mars,
just fly past. The point is to test
the two CubeSats as a poten-
tial communication link with
InSight as it descends to the
Brexiteers deny
move against May
Hard-liners stand firm over issue of customs partnership
By JULIAN SHEA in London
julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com
Leading Conservative Brex-
iteer, MP Jacob Rees-Mogg,
has rejected claims that he
and fellow Brexit supporters
are threatening to bring down
Theresa May’s government in
the ongoing disagreement
over Britain’s future trade rela-
tionship with Europe.
All European Union mem-
ber states are currently part of
a customs union, which
means a common tariff is
agreed on goods coming into
the union from the outside,
and that there are no taxes on
goods transported between
them.
With May insisting Britain
will leave the customs union
post-Brexit, one of the challen-
ges facing the government is
to agree on what arrangement
should replace it.
The BBC reports that Chan-
cellor Philip Hammond is
believed to favor a partnership
replicating the EU’s existing
arrangements at its own bor-
ders, collecting tariffs on
behalf of Brussels, which
would also have the advantage
of helping resolve the Irish
border problem, as there
would be no hard border
between the UK and the EU.
But ahead of a meeting of
senior cabinet ministers on
Wednesday to discuss the
issue, the BBC reported it had
seen a copy of a 30 page docu-
ment put together by the
European Research Group,
known as the ERG, a pro-Brex-
it group of Conservative MPs
led by Rees-Mogg.
The document says a cus-
I just want to say whatever the
decision will be, we will have to
prepare such a broader negotiation and
a broader deal because I think nobody
wants a war in the region ...”
Emmanuel Macron, French President
because I think nobody wants
a war in the region, and
nobody wants an escalation in
terms of tension in the region,”
Macron added.
China reiterated on
Wednesday that all sides
should continue to uphold the
Iran nuclear agreement, and
that the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) has
said many times Iran is in
compliance with the deal.
Foreign Ministry spokes-
woman Hua Chunying said
NASA’s InSight lander undergoes its final checks in California
before it leaves for Mars on Saturday. ASSOCIATED PRESS
red planet on Nov 26.
These Mars-bound cubes
are nicknamed WALL-E and
EVE after the animated movie
characters. That’s because
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Once we have left
our alliance with
the EU, the United
States will be even
more central to
our foreign policy
than it currently is,
especially as we
are unlikely to be
flavor of the month
with the EU after
our departure.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP
toms partnership would make
international trade deals
“impossible” to secure, and
demands that the suggestion
be thrown out altogether.
Rees-Mogg has denied
reports that the group has
issued an ultimatum to May,
but said the proposal for a cus-
toms partnership was “deeply
unsatisfactory” and would
“not get us out of the Europe-
an Union, which is what peo-
ple voted for”.
Another prominent Brexit-
eer, former Conservative lead-
er Iain Duncan Smith, was
quoted by the Daily Telegraph
newspaper as saying that the
ERG report had killed the
the IAEA is the only interna-
tional body with the right to
supervise the agreement and
make judgments about it, and
China has noted that the agen-
cy has said several times Iran
is in compliance.
Meanwhile, the Iranian For-
eign Ministry on Tuesday dis-
missed recent allegations by
Israeli Prime Minister Benja-
min Netanyahu as lies aimed
at influencing Trump’s upcom-
ing decision on the deal.
Foreign Ministry Spokes-
they’re equipped with the
same type of propulsion used
in fire extinguishers to expel
foam. In the 2008 movie,
WALL-E used a fire extin-
C H I N A DA I LY USA
argument for the customs
partnership “stone dead”,
while former Brexit minister
David Jones told the BBC that
“certainly there would be a lot
of very disappointed Brexit-
eers if we were to end up in a
customs partnership”.
Rees-Mogg, 48, is widely
regarded as a potential future
leader of the Conservative Par-
ty, although two current Tory
MPs have publicly stated they
would leave the party if he
took over.
Last year he had meetings
with controversial US right
wing political strategist Steve
Bannon, who guided Presi-
dent Donald Trump to the
White House, and this week
Rees-Mogg wrote an article for
the Times newspaper welcom-
ing the prospect of Trump’s
summer visit to the UK, and
the president’s importance for
Britain’s political future post-
Brexit.
“Once we have left our alli-
ance with the EU, the United
States will be even more cen-
tral to our foreign policy than
it currently is, especially as we
are unlikely to be flavor of the
month with the EU after our
departure,” he wrote.
“It is our national good for-
tune that the president with
whom we will develop this
new arrangement is Mr
Trump. His election depended
upon similar factors to those
that led to Brexit.
“He appealed to voters left
behind by the metropolitan
elite and he exudes confidence
about his own nation and a
determination not to be a
manager of decline, which
also inspires the Brexiteers.”
man Bahram Qasemi said in a
statement that “the ridiculous
propagandist presentations of
the premier of the Zionist
regime (of Israel) is one of the
latest shameful and worthless
shows about Iran’s nuclear
program”.
In a televised presentation
on Monday, Netanyahu dis-
closed files allegedly obtained
by Israel’s intelligence agency
from Iran’s “secret nuclear
archive”, saying the files prove
Iran has secretly worked on
nuclear weapons.
In another development,
Morocco announced on Tues-
day that it is severing ties with
Iran, only a few years after
normalizing their diplomatic
relationship, over Iran’s
alleged backing of Western
Sahara’s separatist movement
the Polisario Front, Xinhua
reported.
Xinhua and Reuters
contributed to this story.
guisher to propel through
space.
InSight is scheduled to rock-
et away from central Califor-
nia’s Vandenberg Air Force
Base early on Saturday. It will
be NASA’s first interplanetary
mission launched from some-
where other than Florida’s
Cape Canaveral. Californians
along the coast down to Baja
will have front-row seats for
the pre-dawn flight.
No matter the launching
point, getting to Mars is hard.
The success rate, counting
orbiters and landers by NASA
and others, is only about 40
percent. The US is the only
country to have successfully
landed and operated space-
craft on Mars. The 1976
Vikings were the first landing
successes. The most recent
was the 2012 Curiosity rover.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, May 3, 2018
EQUESTRIAN
Alex Hua Tian made history when he became China’s first Olympic equestrian athlete at the 2008 Beijing Games. He still proudly represents the country.
Never alone on road to glory
Pioneering Alex Hua Tian appreciates nation’s unbridled support, writes Shi Futian
E
ven though he’s been
hailed as China’s lone
ranger of equestrian-
ism, Alex Hua Tian,
the nation’s first Olympian in
the sport, has never felt alone.
Last week in Beijing, Hua
announced his preparations
for the 2018 Asian Games,
unveiling his new slogan —
“I’m not alone” — at a media
conference at the Hong Kong
Jockey Club.
“I have been China’s sole
representative at the Olympics
in my sport for ten years,” he
said in an exclusive interview
with China Daily.
“But I have been anything
but lonely, thanks to tremen-
dous support from the Gener-
al Administration of Sport of
China, the Chinese Equestri-
an Association (CEA), my fam-
ily, horse owners and, of
course, everyone who’s fol-
lowed my story since I was 18
years old at the 2008 Beijing
Olympics.
“Without them, I would not
have had the opportunities
and drive to achieve my ambi-
tions. I am so looking forward
to joining our national team
once again for this year’s Asian
Games in Indonesia.”
Hua represented China at
the Beijing and Rio Olympic
Games in three-day eventing.
“We have been paying close
attention and supporting Alex
Hua Tian since the 2008 Sum-
mer Games,” said Zheng Guo-
wei, deputy secretary-general
of the CEA. “We are very
delighted that he will compete
SOCCER
CSL mulling introduction of salary cap
By SUN XIAOCHEN
sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn
Plans are reportedly under-
way to introduce a salary cap
to the Chinese Super League
as authorities strive to
improve its financial health.
In a meeting convened by
the Chinese Football Associa-
tion last week, executives from
CSL and second-tier League
One clubs discussed possible
wage-control measures,
including setting a spending
ceiling of 75 percent of a club’s
annual income, sina.com
in the 2018 Asian Games rep-
resenting China, and we will
support him as always.”
With all the support he has
received and with five alterna-
tive mounts being prepared
for future challenges, Hua,
who won silver at the 2014
Asian Games, remains cau-
tiously optimistic.
“Most of the five horses are
new to my team, so these are
very new partnerships,” he said.
“It’s really difficult for me to
evaluate exactly where I am in
this process at this moment —
and the process between now
and the Asian Games is really
interesting because I will
develop a relationship with
them.
“It won’t be a linear process.
There will be ups and there
will be downs. Over any period
of time, things can go right or,
more often, things can go
wrong.
“So, until the week before
the Asian Games when I pick
the horse I want to take to
Indonesia and I start to get the
feel of how that preparation is
coming together, I won’t really
have much of an idea. But this
is the strongest team of horses
I’ve ever had.”
A sport for everyone
Hua’s international profile
has helped dramatically accel-
erate equestrian development
in China.
According to the annual
report on Chinese Equestrian
Market Development released
by Horsemanship magazine,
reported on Wednesday.
The exact percentage has yet
to be finalized but the cap is
expected to kick in from 2021,
leaving clubs two seasons to
prepare for the new rules, said
Yuan Ye, a soccer commentator
with Sina Sports.
“This is going to be a regula-
tion that will raise both hands
to support its implementa-
tion,” Yuan said.
“The investment in player
salaries, especially the increas-
ing sums paid for foreign
imports, has been a serious
issue for the league’s long-
Alex Hua Tian speaks at a media conference at the Hong Kong
Jockey Club in Beijing last week. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
there were 37 registered
equestrian competitions in
China in 2017, including show
jumping, dressage and event-
ing.
There were about 906
equestrian clubs around Chi-
na in 2016. A year and a half
later, that number had jumped
to 1,452 and membership in
China’s equestrian clubs now
tops one million.
Still, the stereotype that
equestrian is a sport only for
the rich remains an obstacle.
Although Hua was born in
London and attended prestig-
ious Eton College, he is the
antithesis of the stereotypical
equestrian athlete.
“The problem that equestri-
anism has is that the public
sees the top level of the sport
as the whole pyramid, and this
is what I want to reposition in
China,” he said.
term development.”
The proposals are believed
to be the result of pressure
from the General Administra-
tion of Sport of China, the
country’s top sports governing
body, which last year urged
clubs to get their finances in
order.
A string of high-profile play-
er transfers, including Shang-
hai SIPG’s $72 million signing
of Brazilian midfielder Oscar
from English Premier League
side Chelsea in December
2016, and Argentine veteran
Carlos Tevez’s reported $45
“Of course the top level of
equestrian sport is expensive,
but at the bottom level, more
and more families in China are
able to be involved. It is acces-
sible and it is growing.”
To battle the stereotype,
Hua has struck a strategic
partnership with Sina Sports
that will see a series of unique
documentaries, behind-the-
scenes videos, photos, info-
graphics and quizzes about
him and his horses posted on
Weibo.
“Millions of Chinese neti-
zens are behind Alex when he
competes in the Asian Games,”
said Arthur Wei, vice-presi-
dent of Sina and general man-
ager of Sina Sports.
“As the ambassador of Sina’s
Future Star Equestrian Com-
petition, his story will inspire
young riders to actively partic-
ipate in the sport and earn
million annual salary with
Shanghai Greenland Shen-
hua, had triggered concerns
that CSL spending was getting
out of hand.
The accounts of reigning
CSL champion Guangzhou
Evergrande are typical of the
problem.
The two-time AFC Champi-
ons League winner’s latest
financial report, published
last month, showed it generat-
ed revenue of $83 million last
season but was running a $155
million loss due to transfer
fees and salaries.
HAN YAN / XINHUA
Of course, the top
level of the sport is
expensive, but at
the bottom, more
and more families
are involved.”
Alex Hua Tian
pride for the country.”
Hua offered his own per-
spective, saying: “China’s bud-
ding young riders don’t have
to be me. I have been extreme-
ly lucky, and it all came togeth-
er to give me a wonderful
opportunity. That’s very rare,
and to benchmark my journey
with anybody else would be
very unfair.
“What you have to be is
somebody who loves being
around horses, loves the part-
nership between yourself and
the horse.
“The most important thing
is what my mom taught me
when I was young: When you
finish riding, it’s your respon-
sibility to make sure your
horse is comfortable before
you are.
“As long as you do that, your
horse will appreciate it and
always have your back.”
Tan Jianxiang, a sports soci-
ology professor with South
China Normal University, said
sports clubs here need tougher
regulations to keep on a stead-
ier financial footing.
“Although the league has
independent operational
rights, it’s necessary to have
the administrative power to
resolve some critical issues,”
said Tan.
Some observers fear, howev-
er, that a salary cap could dam-
age the CSL’s pulling power
and result in a decline in popu-
larity.
SP O RTS 11
BASKETBALL
No rust on Curry
in dominant return
to center spotlight
OAKLAND, California —
Long before Tuesday’s tipoff,
Stephen Curry swished his
routine tunnel shot on the
second try.
Once the game began, the
two-time NBA MVP stood at
the bench anxiously waiting
for his turn, shaking his legs
and clapping his hands with
nervous energy.
Then — mouthpiece dan-
gling, of course — Curry
finally entered at the 4:20
mark of the first quarter to a
roaring ovation from the
Oracle Arena crowd and
immediately went to work.
He knocked down a
3-pointer from the left wing
11 seconds later and was off
and running in Golden
State’s 121-116 victory over
the New Orleans Pelicans.
“It felt like an eternity, for
sure,” Curry said. “When the
lights come back on after the
starting lineups you’re usu-
ally in the ‘go’ kind of mind
frame.
“I had to kind of pace
myself and be patient with it.
It seemed like it took forever,
but it was a good feeling to
get back out on the floor and
just let loose and have fun.”
Curry came off the bench
to score 28 points in a trium-
phant return from a knee
injury and nearly six weeks
off, and the Warriors held off
Anthony Davis and the pes-
ky Pelicans to go up 2-0 in
their Western Conference
semifinal.
All is right with the Warri-
ors again now that their star
No 30 is back on the floor —
even as a backup.
“It brought a lot of life to
the building, a lot of life to
our team’s spirit. Pretty fit-
ting for sure,” Draymond
Green said of Curry’s imme-
diate 3-pointer.
Kevin Durant scored 29
points with a huge 3 with
3:10 to play, to go with seven
assists and six rebounds in
ICE HOCKEY
Cool and calm Jets
rebound from 3 down
WINNIPEG, Canada —
Down 3-0 after a disastrous
opening 20 minutes on Tues-
day, there was no flipping of
tables or peeling of paint off
the walls in the Winnipeg
Jets’ locker room.
Instead, Canada’s last
hope in these Stanley Cup
playoffs spent the first inter-
mission calmly trying to fig-
ure a way out of that deficit.
“We got kicked in the teeth
a little bit,” Jets captain Blake
Wheeler said.
“Our goal was just to win
the second period and give
ourselves a chance.”
They did that — and a
whole lot more.
Winnipeg dug itself out of
a deep hole to stun the Nash-
ville Predators 7-4 and grab a
2-1 lead in their Western
Conference semifinal.
“It’s definitely not how you
draw up a first period, but
nobody panicked,” said Jets
defenseman Jacob Trouba,
who finished with a goal and
an assist.
“We just regrouped. It
wasn’t really any different in
here than if it was a tie game
or if we were winning.
“We just went out there
and played a little bit faster
and played with a little bit
more confidence.”
Dustin Byfuglien had two
goals and an assist for Winn-
ipeg, and Paul Stastny added
a goal and two assists.
Stephen Curry of the Golden
State Warriors reacts to
draining a 3-pointer against
the New Orleans Pelicans on
Tuesday night in Oakland.
EZRA SHAW / GETTY IMAGES / AFP
Golden State’s franchise-
record 14th consecutive
postseason victory at Oracle
Arena.
Green contributed 20
points, 12 assists and nine
rebounds while battling
Davis on both ends all night.
Davis finished with 25
points and 15 rebounds, and
Jrue Holiday had 24 points,
eight rebounds and eight
assists for the Pelicans, who
also got 22 points and 12
assists from Rajon Rondo.
“It was tough,” Davis said.
“We were in it the whole
game.”
Andre Iguodala converted
a snazzy three-point play
with 6:41 left when he
flipped the ball up and it
came back down and
through the net as he was
fouled by Rondo, then Gold-
en State pulled away.
The best-of-seven series
resumes with Game 3 on Fri-
day at New Orleans.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wheeler, who also had an
assist, scored the first of two
empty-net goals in the final
minute, with Brandon Tanev
getting the other.
Mark Scheifele added two
assists to become the first
player since Sidney Crosby
in 2010 to have five consecu-
tive multi-point games in the
postseason.
Connor Hellebuyck made
26 stops in the Winnipeg net.
Filip Forsberg and PK Sub-
ban each had a goal and an
assist for Nashville, while
Mike Fisher and Austin Wat-
son also scored.
Mattias Ekholm and Ryan
Johansen both added two
assists for the Predators,
who got 38 saves from Pekka
Rinne.
“We just stopped skating,”
Nashville defenseman Ryan
Ellis said. “You can’t win hock-
ey when you stop skating and
stop playing.”
Johansen said the Preda-
tors stopped skating after
blowing the lead.
“We stopped moving our
legs,” Johansen said. “We did
a lot of things poorly and
they got better. Momentum
swings in playoffs, they can
be deadly.”
Game 4 is on Thursday
night in Winnipeg before the
series shifts back to Nash-
ville for Game 5 on Saturday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12 Thursday, May 3, 2018

COMMENT
EDITORIAL • OPINION
China Daily USA
chinadailyusa.com

EDITORIALS

Art of a deal is when all Zhao Yubao

parties are happy with it

I
f the high-profile trade negotiations between China and
the United States, scheduled for Thursday and Friday, can
produce positive outcomes, that would not only serve the
interests of both countries but also benefit global trade
and the world economy.
And there is no reason why the negotiations should be
a damp squib if the US delegation led by Treasury Secre-
tary Steven Mnuchin is willing to discuss the bones of contention
between Beijing and Washington with the genuine intent to listen
as well as talk.
Turning a deaf ear to China’s side of the story will mean the del-
egation returns home empty handed, the tit-for-tat tariff propos-
als become a reality, and the whole world, including the US, feels
the subsequent pain.
China wants the talks to produce feasible solutions to put an
end to the ongoing feud and the US’ unfair trade practices.
And it is not alone in wanting this. The US’ unilateral and pro-
tectionist moves have created worldwide uncertainty and met
opposition from an increasing number of countries.
The European Union, for instance, has said bilateral trade with
the US should be “balanced and mutually beneficial”, and stated it
“will not negotiate under threat”.
Nor will China. It will stand up to the US’ bullying as necessary.
And as a champion of globalization, free trade and multilateral-
ism, it will have strong support from the international community.
China’s resolve to fight trade protectionism is buttressed by the
consensus in the country, among both its leaders and the public,
that the achievements it has made over the last 40 years should
not be jeopardized by an outside power seeking to take advantage
of the country, as happened in the past.
But that is jumping the gun somewhat. There is no reason why
the talks should prove disappointing if both sides engage in them
with the desire to resolve their differences on trade and other
issues. Tariffs, after all, are the means to an end. And that end is
the compromises that will seal a deal.
Certainly China will engage in the talks in the right frame of
mind. Its stance remains consistent: dialogue is the way to quell
the fracas and it is willing to be reasonable, however, it will not
give in to threats.
The US wants greater access to China’s market, but it should OPINION LINE
not use trade actions as a battering ram to force China to open its
doors. It is already in the process of opening them wider. And in
doing so, it expects that action to be reciprocated and the US to
open its market to Chinese investments and competition from
Reducing tax burden on enterprises Licensed street
Chinese enterprises.
has given obvious boost to economy performers give
Visit can help promote cities character
THE VALUE ADDED TAX for manufacturing was lowered from 17 to 16 percent on Tuesday,
while the rate for transportation, construction, basic telecommunication services and farm produce CHENGDU, capital of Southwest China’s
positive regional trends was reduced from 11 to 10 percent. The government also unified the standard for small-scale taxpay-
ers and returned the withholdings of value added tax of some industries. Beijing News commented on
Sichuan province, recently issued an
announcement for openly “auditioning”

A
desirable rapprochement between Beijing and Tokyo
will not only benefit the two neighbors, but also contrib-
ute to the good momentum that has emerged in North-
east Asia of late.
So Premier Li Keqiang’s upcoming visit to Japan is a welcome sign
that the two countries are actively trying to revive their relations.
Li is scheduled to pay an official visit to Japan from May 8 to 11.
Given that this will be the first visit by a Chinese premier to Japan
in seven years, it will no doubt help break the ice between the two
neighbors and contribute to the two sides’ efforts to reanimate
their relations.
Relations between the two countries have been in suspended
animation for most of the past seven years since conservative for-
ces in Japan “nationalized” some of islands to which both coun-
tries claim sovereignty in the East China Sea. The temperature
plummeting further because of their unrepentant attitude toward
Japan’s history of aggression and the reopening of old wounds.
It is fanciful to believe the two neighbors will be able to breathe
new life into their relationship in an instant. But Beijing and
Tokyo can seize the opportunity of Li’s visit to bridge their differ-
ences and maintain the promising momentum that has emerged.
Li is also due to attend the seventh Japan-China-Republic of
Korea Trilateral Summit Meeting during his visit. The resumption
of the trilateral summit after three years shows the three neigh-
bors have a shared will to deepen their cooperation within the tri-
lateral framework.
With their economies accounting for one-fifth of the global
economy and 70 percent of the Asian economy, the three coun-
tries are positioned to promote regional and global growth by tap-
ping the potential of deeper cooperation in trade, investment and
other fields.
The resumption of the stalled China-Japan-ROK cooperation
would also accord with the current encouraging developments on
the Korean Peninsula, where the leaders of the Democratic Peo-
ple’s Republic of Korea and the ROK have just concluded a histor-
ic meeting that signaled a dramatic reconciliation between the
two neighbors as well as a hard-won opportunity for stakeholders
to push for denuclearization of the peninsula.
Under such circumstances, a détente in China-Japan ties and
resumption of China-Japan-ROK cooperation will help propel the
positive trends in the region and facilitate better communication
and coordination to address other regional issues.
Wednesday:
The tax cuts have generated immediate effects.
The price of gasoline and diesel dropped by 75
yuan ($12) per ton and 65 yuan per ton respec-
tively, and the prices of some automobiles
dropped by tens of thousands of yuan.
The tax cuts will amount to 400 billion yuan
($64 billion) this year. This will not only directly
benefit enterprises, it also has a chain reaction
that will boost consumption growth.
Reducing the tax burden on enterprises is an
important goal of the government this year, as it
targets a crucial problem hindering the develop-
ment of enterprises.
It should be regarded as part of the supply-side
Nuclear plant’s safety is built-in blessing
AN ONLINE POST showing a Taoist priest practicing “magic” at a ceremony for the laying of the
foundation stone for a nuclear power project in Minqin, Northwest China’s Gansu province, created a
stir recently. Beijing News comments:
Two co-hosts of the ceremony, the Chinese
Academy of Sciences and the Minqin authori-
ties, later confirmed the post was not fake news.
The academy has suspended two employees
who were present at the ceremony, and the
Minqin disciplinary and supervisory depart-
ments have initiated an investigation into the
involvement of seven local civil servants.
Some people say the punishment goes too far
because it was a private construction company
that invited the Taoist priest, not the nine scape-
goats, and it is a “folk custom” in Minqin.
As a matter of fact, the punishment is necessa-
ry, because these people are not permitted to take
part in superstitious activities as employees of
State-run organizations, according to the relevant
rules and regulations.
structural reform to boost production and drive
up consumption’s share in the economy.
Supply-side structural reforms have harvest-
ed obvious effects. Data from the National
Bureau of Statistics show that the total retail
sales of consumer goods hit 36.6 trillion yuan
last year, up 10.2 percent from 2016. This is the
14th year that it has grown at a double-digit
speed.
Consumption plays a fundamental role in driv-
ing economic growth. The robust growth of con-
sumption will promote the restructuring of the
national economy, and boost the development of
the service sectors.
Considering their identity as public employees
and the State ownership of the nuclear power
project, they were obliged to stop the farce. If not,
their presence suggests their support of such
superstitious prctices.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Min-
qin watchdogs have done what they should do. If
they had kept silent over it, the people would
have enough reasons to believe such “folk activi-
ties” are needed to ensure the safety of even such
a high-tech project — let alone the other public
infrastructure construction projects.
Even the “folk custom” supporters cannot deny
that what will really ensure the construction
project’s safety will be the quality of the construc-
tion, not the blessing of the Taoist priest, who is in
fact a local farmer.
street performers. Those who pass the tests
will receive permits to perform. Gmw.cn com-
ments:
How to regulate street artists? That has long
been a question for local governments. On the
one hand, a modern city should accept the
presence of these street performers and allow
them to make a living. On the other hand, resi-
dents feel their normal life order is disturbed if
there are too many street artists and they are
not managed in an orderly day.
The move of the local government in
Chengdu strikes a balance between their
interests. By recruiting the street artists and
issuing permits to them based on their audi-
tions, the local government has both protect-
ed the legal rights of the street artists and
maintained the normal order of the city.
Some have claimed that the local govern-
ment’s move is because it can charge for the
permits. But the facts speak best for them-
selves. The permits are free, at least for now.
In other words, by issuing the permits, the
local government in Chengdu can better regu-
late the city order without adding any finan-
cial burden on any of the parties involved.
More important, their move recognized
street performers as part of the city’s character.
Street performers might not be as sophisticated
as their professional counterparts, but they are
the closest, as well as the most familiar, artists
to ordinary residents. By protecting their rights,
the local government in Chengdu has made a
good move to enhance the city’s cultural quality.
A look at international municipalities, from
Paris to New York, will show they all have
their own street performers.
The measure in Chengdu is not the first in
China. Shanghai has been pioneering the
practice for years, and it has already issued
120 permits. We hope more cities will follow
the example of Shanghai and Chengdu.

C O N TA C T U S
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HOT WORDS
Law on the protection of
heroes and martyrs
英雄烈士保护法
A law to protect the reputation and honor
of heroes and martyrs was approved recently,
and the law came into effect on Tuesday.
The law has been introduced so the
country and the people forever remember
the sacrifices made by the nation’s heroes
and martyrs for the good of the country. porated into the national education system.
The whole of society is required to learn
from and defend the nation’s heroes and
Governments above county level are
required to incorporate
martyrs. the construction and
It bans the defamation of heroes and protection of memorial
martyrs, and any distorting or diminishing facilities into local eco-
of their deeds. According to the law, people nomic and social devel-
who defame the country’s heroes and mar- opment planning. And
tyrs, or sully their reputations and honor legal entities that
will face administrative or criminal punish- donate property for the
ments. protection of heroes
The law also stipulates that publicity and and martyrs will enjoy Online
education about the deeds and spirit of the preferential tax. Scan it for
nation’s heroes and martyrs should be incor- according to the law. more hot words.
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, May 3, 2018
Yu Yongding
Talks can silence the drums of trade war
L
ast month, the United
States administration
fired the opening salvo
in what could lead to a
full-blown trade war. While trade
frictions have long been an issue
in China-US relations, few
expected such an escalation, not
least because economists widely
view trade wars as damaging to
all parties. So how did we get to
this point, and can we turn back
before it is too late?
First and foremost, US Presi-
dent Donald Trump does not
seem to understand how trade
works. He thinks the US’ $500
billion trade deficit with China
($337.2 billion in 2017 according
to China’s calculation) amounts
to a loss, the result of “incompe-
tent” US administrations allow-
ing their Chinese counterparts to
take advantage of them. Accord-
ing to Trump, the US already lost
a “trade war” with China years
ago.
But trade balances are far
more complex than Trump
makes them out to be. For start-
ers, much of what China exports
includes components manufac-
tured elsewhere, meaning Chi-
na’s trade surplus actually
includes the trade surpluses of
many other countries.
China’s external account
is basically balanced
Moreover, China runs large
deficits against Japan and South-
east Asian economies, even as it
runs a large surplus against the
US. China’s overall trade surplus
as a share of GDP has fallen
steadily over the past decade —
Zhang Yongjun
US must act constructively to seek trade relief
I
n an article in the Financial
Times on April 9, White
House Trade Adviser Peter
Navarro claimed the trade
deficit with China since 2001
caused the loss of millions of
manufacturing jobs in the Unit-
ed States during the George W.
Bush and Barack Obama admin-
istrations.
Navarro seems to be influ-
enced by a report prepared by
Robert E. Scott, senior economist
at the Economic Policy Institute,
and some other assessments.
Due to the trade deficit with Chi-
na, 3.4 million jobs were lost
between 2001 and 2015, nearly
three-fourths of which were in
manufacturing, Scott wrote in
the report issued in January last
year.
But Scott measures only the
influence of the import-export
balance on the total demand
without taking into account the
role imports and exports play in
improving resource distribution
efficiency, especially the role of
imports in improving supply and
increasing employment. His
flawed methodology therefore
makes his conclusion untenable.
Trade helps give full play to a
country’s comparative advanta-
from nearly 10 percent last year
to just above 1 percent in 2017 —
meaning the country’s external
account is basically balanced.
And then there is the US’ cur-
rent-account deficit, which is
not necessarily a bad thing, as it
implies the acquisition of large
amounts of foreign capital. This
has benefited the US over the
years, by strengthening its
financial system and currency.
While the US external deficit
could stand to be reduced, as it
partly reflects its own lack of
savings, trade policy alone
would not be sufficient to
achieve that goal.
None of this is to say the US
does not have any legitimate
grievances about China’s trade
practices. But those must be
viewed as issues of China’s com-
pliance with the World Trade
Organization rules.
As former WTO director-gen-
eral Pascal Lamy once acknowl-
edged, while China has done
“really well” in implementing its
long list of WTO commitments,
“no country is above criticism”. In
particular, Lamy noted, certain
services sectors may not be suffi-
ciently open and protection of
intellectual property rights
should be strengthened.
These are fair criticisms.
Indeed, the Chinese government
itself hoped to open up the
financial-services sectors more
quickly, but financial fragility
demanded a gradual approach.
As for the US, its Trade Repre-
sentative has closely monitored
China’s WTO compliance since
the country joined it in 2001.
The USTR’s 2016 report on the
ges and offsets its resource short-
age. This is an important reason
why trade is a beneficial to all the
parties involved.
In his report, Scott assumes
foreign trade does not have any
positive effects on employment
in the US’ wholesale, retail and
advertising sectors, because mar-
keting means are needed to sell
all the products, whether they
are made in the US or imported.
In so saying, Scott ignores the
fact that a large number of labor-
ers are required to provide the
follow-up services needed for the
distribution of the imported
products.
Owing to their strong employ-
ment generation capacity, the
wholesale and retail sectors
account for nearly one-eighth of
the private-sector jobs in the US.
For instance, Wal-Mart employs
hundreds of thousands of people
in the US for selling large quanti-
ties of the goods imported from
developing countries, including
China. The retail sector already
employs more people than the
manufacturing sector. It is only
for political reasons, therefore,
that Scott said wholesale and
retail, which are closely related
to the US’ import and export sec-
topic acknowledged the com-
plexity of the picture presented
by China’s WTO membership at
the time, but took an overall pos-
itive tone, highlighting the
expansion of mutually beneficial
trade and investment.
USTR’s focus is on
wrong aspects
Yet the USTR report for 2017 —
Trump’s first year in office —
mentioned no positive results.
Instead, asserting that the US
had “erred in supporting China’s
entry into the WTO on terms that
have proven to be ineffective in
securing China’s embrace of an
open, market-oriented trade
regime”, the USTR focused on
complaints about Chinese indus-
trial policy, which is largely
beyond the WTO’s scope.
In particular, the Trump
administration has taken issue
with the Made in China 2025
plan, introduced by the State
Council, China’s Cabinet, in 2015
with the aim of boosting 10 strate-
gic industries, including
advanced information technolo-
gy, automated machine tools and
robotics, aviation and space-flight
equipment, and electric vehicles.
The USTR report warns that the
strategy’s “final goal” is to “cap-
ture much larger worldwide mar-
ket shares” in the targeted
industries.
In reality, the Made in China
2025 plan — which, incidentally,
is inspired partly by the US gov-
ernment’s own massive invest-
ment in research and
development — seeks to raise
China’s manufacturing ability
Trade helps give
full play to a coun-
try’s comparative
advantages and
offsets its resource
shortage. This is
an important rea-
son why trade is
beneficial to all
the parties
involved.
tors, have “zero” influence on
employment expansion.
Besides, Scott distributes the
job losses allegedly caused by the
trade deficit with China to differ-
ent states. This methodology is
unscientific, because compared
with the overall industrial sys-
tem of the US, some of its states
do not have a comprehensive
industrial setup and their pro-
only to the average level of the
world’s major manufacturing
powers by 2035 (not 2025), a
rather modest goal. But even if
China wants to set more ambi-
tious goals, by what right can the
US — which has much larger
market shares in the targeted
industries — block it from
attempting to do so?
According to the USTR report,
the problem is that the policy
tools the Chinese government is
using to achieve the goals of
Made in China 2025 “are largely
unprecedented, as other WTO
members do not use them”.
Besides, they “include a wide
array of state intervention and
support designed to promote the
development of Chinese industry
in large part by restricting, tak-
ing advantage of, discriminating
against, or otherwise creating
disadvantages for foreign enter-
prises and their technologies,
products, and services”.
Yet the report fails to identify
those interventions, which is not
surprising, given that the State
Council has not yet specified the
policy tools it will use. And even if
the US’ grievances over IPR issues
are understandable, they could be
addressed through the WTO. The
fact that the Trump administration
has taken the approach it has sug-
gests it does not merely want to
ensure that China complies with
existing rules; it also wants to pre-
vent China from catching up with
the US technologically. This is obvi-
ously not acceptable to China.
Fueling the risk of
Thucydides’ trap
duction capacity in certain fields
is rather weak, which means the
import of some Chinese products
do not cause any jobs losses or
displacements at the local level.
As such, there are not many
correlations between the US’ job-
less rate and its foreign trade def-
icit. For instance, in 2006, the US’
current account deficit was
$805.9 billion, the biggest in its
history, and the ratio of its cur-
rent account deficit to GDP was
5.8 percent, a record high. But
the US’ jobless rate that year was
4.6 percent, much lower than its
average long-term 5.6 percent
jobless rate. And although this
ratio gradually declined from
2007 to 2009, the jobless rate
showed a rising trend.
The extension of Scott’s meth-
odology would also lead to anoth-
er incredible conclusion. For
argument’s sake, let us assume his
estimation of the influences of the
US’ total trade flow on its employ-
ment rate is correct. In that case,
the use of the same methodology
and parameters to calculate the
influences of the US’ total trade
deficit on its employment rate
from 2001 in 2015 will show that
in some specific years during this
period, the number of lost or dis-
SHI YU / CHINA DAILY
This reading is reinforced by
the National Security Strategy
report that the Trump adminis-
tration issued in December,
which asserted that the US
would “respond to the growing
political, economic, and military
competitions we face around the
world”. China was cited as the
main challenger to “American
power, influence, and interests”,
an adversary that is “attempting
to erode American security and
prosperity”. This perspective
fuels the risk of the so-called
Thucydides’ trap, in which an
established power’s fear of a ris-
ing power leads to conflict.
We may yet avoid a trade war.
President Xi Jinping seems eager
to ease tensions, exemplified by
his recent pledge to lower tariffs
on imported US cars “significant-
ly” and further open up China’s
financial services sector.
One hopes the trade talks
between China and the US sched-
uled for Thursday and Friday will
silence the war drums through
negotiation and mutual conces-
sions. US and Chinese leaders could
then turn their attention to the
broader problem of avoiding the
Thucydides’ trap, thereby prevent-
ing a clash with consequences that
would dwarf those of a trade war.
The author is former president of
the China Society of World Eco-
nomics, director of the Institute
of World Economics and Politics
at the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, and served on the Mon-
etary Policy Committee of the
People’s Bank of China from
2004 to 2006.
Project Syndicate
placed jobs due to the trade deficit
was larger than the total number
of jobless people in the US.
This means that if the US had
struck a trade balance during
those years, it would have not
only eliminated unemployment,
but also faced a labor shortage.
Such a conclusion would be con-
trary to the fact that quite a large
number of people in the US
remained jobless even when the
US managed to strike a trade bal-
ance or had a trade surplus.
Given the flaws in Scott’s
methodology, any conclusion
based on it would be unscientific,
and thus mislead the US Con-
gress, administration and public.
This is why many research insti-
tutes and agencies have criticized
his report. But pretending that
Scott’s report is flawless, the US
government still uses it as an
excuse to launch trade protec-
tionist measures against China.
Such actions will not only harm
Sino-US trade relations but also
hinder the development of the
very US economy that the Trump
administration wants to protect.
The author is a researcher at the
China Center for International
Economic Exchanges.
V I E WS 13
Closer talks
can resolve
THAAD issue
Solving THAAD problem
will take a long time
The deployment of THAAD
in the ROK is a hard-to-remove
wedge in Beijing-Seoul relations.
China has firmly opposed the
deployment of THAAD right
from the beginning because the
system could harm its national
Shen Haitao security interests, by restraining
its defense power. But it is hard
for ROK President Moon Jae-
in to repeal the agreement to deploy THAAD
because of Washington’s pressure on Seoul and
the shadow of potential conflict between the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the
United States.
In fact, the solution to the Beijing-Seoul
deadlock over THAAD depends on the US and
its Asia-Pacific strategy, as well as on China-US
relations. The US installed the THAAD system
to strengthen its presence in the Asia-Pacific
and guard against a possible DPRK attack on
the ROK, and US military sites in that country.
So, despite attaching great importance to
cooperation, Beijing and Seoul cannot find a
solution to the THAAD problem in the short
term. To solve the problem, China needs to seek
common grounds with both the ROK and the
US, including promoting the peace process on
the Korean Peninsula and deepening communi-
cation in other fields based on cooperation.
With ROK and DPRK agreeing to hold talks
(on April 27), and the breaking of ice in US-
DPRK relations, THAAD became an issue of
lesser importance for both Washington and
Seoul. But now President Moon has the oppor-
tunity to slow down THAAD’s deployment,
which has drawn criticism from home and
abroad alike ever since former ROK president
Park Geun-hye agreed to install it.
Shen Haitao, a professor at Northeast Asian
Studies College, Jilin University
No big development
in the short term
Even though China has been
strongly opposing the instal-
lation of THAAD, the ROK is
not likely to completely remove
the anti-missile system. But the
THAAD deployment process will
not proceed easily either. The
Wu Jingjing resistance of the ROK people,
particularly Seongju residents, to
THAAD has become the biggest
problem for the ROK government. The Seongju
residents are worried that the system would
damage the environment and raise the risk of
war. The talks between the ROK Defense Min-
istry and the resident-protesters broke down
on April 11 delaying the construction work.
The fact is that not only ROK citizens but also
members of the international community have
criticized Seoul for THAAD’s deployment.
THAAD has also compromised the DPRK’s
national security. In agreeing to install THAAD,
Park Geun-hye ignored the people’s will. And
since Moon won the people’s support by
doubting the legitimacy of THAAD, he should
take measures to at least delay THAAD’s
deployment.
Seoul and Beijing should work together to
delay, if not stop, the deployment of THAAD
for mutual interest and, more importantly, for
restoring peace on the peninsula. Besides, the
Moon administration should try to honor the
decision of the National Assembly that ROK-
DPRK talks be made regular to raise the chanc-
es of slowing down THAAD’s deployment.
Wu Jingjing, an associate researcher in
Asia-Pacific studies at the China Institute of
International Studies
Economic loss has limited impact
The sales of ROK products
in China reportedly declined
after Seoul agreed to install
the THAAD system. In 2017,
Hyundai Group’s second quarter
sales in China fell by 64 percent,
and that of Lotte Group by 95
Jin Meihua percent.
Still, the ROK media might
have exaggerated the overall loss
suffered by the ROK economy.
According to the ROK Ministry of Commerce,
last year ROK-China trade increased by 10.9
percent to $280.26 billion. There was a sharp
drop in the export of many ROK products to
China, but the general trend was one of ascent
— a few companies might have suffered big
losses, though. For example, a Korea Interna-
tional Trade Association report said export of
ROK-made cosmetics to China grew by about
50 percent in 2014 and 2015, but in 2016, thanks
to the impact of the THAAD issue, the growth
rate dropped to about 42 percent.
The China-ROK trade structure is highly
complementary, which is conducive to stable
economic development. But the US is not only a
security ally of the ROK, but also one of its most
important trade partners. Therefore, Seoul may
attach greater importance to its ties with Wash-
ington, which means it is very difficult for the
ROK to annul the THAAD agreement.
Jin Meihua, a researcher at Northeast Asia
Studies Institute, Jilin Academy of Social Sciences
14

BUSINESS
Thursday, May 3, 2018

CHINA DAILY USA » CHINADAILYUSA.COM

Papua New Guinea,

PMI edges up to 51.1 in April
Manufacturing
improves for
11th consecutive
month, driven by
stronger output
By CHEN JIA
chenjia@chinadaily.com.cn
China’s manufacturing sec-
tor showed a further margin-
al improvement in operating
conditions last month, driven
by accelerated output,
although weaker demand in
international markets stag-
nated exports, according to
an unofficial leading econom-
ic indicator released on
Wednesday.
The manufacturing Pur-
chasing Managers’ Index
(PMI), jointly issued by Caix-
in Insight Group and global
marketing information com-
pany IHS Markit, edged up
to 51.1 in April from 51.0 in
March, marking the 11th
consecutive month of the
strengthening of operating
conditions, although the
rate of improvement was
modest.
The official manufacturing
PMI, released by the National
Bureau of Statistics two days
earlier, slightly weakened by
0.1 percentage points to 51.4
in April, but stronger than
market expectations, mainly
led by the dips of new orders
and the trade-related sub-in-
dices.
Both gauges remained
above 50 — the threshold
between expansion and con-
traction, indicating that the
manufacturing sector main-
tained stable growth momen-
AVIATION
An employee does soldering work at an auto manufacturing company in Shandong province.
tum, said analysts.
Output increased at a faster
rate last month than in
March, while the contraction
in employment narrowed.
However, growth of new busi-
ness moderated for the sec-
ond straight month,
reflecting weakening demand
across the manufacturing sec-
tor, said a Caixin/Markit
research note.
“Overall, operating condi-
tions across China’s manufac-
turing sector continued to
improve in April. But uncer-
tainty in exports has
increased significantly, and
the dependence of the Chi-
nese economy on domestic
demand is rising,” said Zhong
Zhengsheng, director of Mac-
roeconomic Analysis at
CEBM Group.
Data from the Caixin/
Markit PMI survey showed
that April’s new export sales
declined for the first time
since November 2016, due to
weaker demand in interna-
tional markets that had
partly weighed on overall
growth.
Concerning future market
conditions and the strength
of global demand, some man-
ufacturers expressed weaken-
ed confidence toward the year
WANG JILIN / FOR CHINA DAILY
ahead, reflected by a Caixin/ country’s non-manufacturing
Markit PMI sub-index that sector expanded at a faster
dipped to a four-month low pace for a second consecutive
last month. month in April, rising from
Zhao Qinghe, an economist 54.6 in March to 54.8. The
with the NBS, said that as the pace of expansion was also
nation’s manufacturing sec- higher than 54 in April 2017.
tor maintains stable growth, Some economists predicted
especially among high-quali- a gradual slowdown of Chi-
ty and high-tech companies, nese economic growth
the profitability of manufac- throughout 2018, although
turers improved during the the 6.8 percent year-on-year
past month. GDP growth was unchanged
“Besides, the non-manufac- in the first quarter compared
turing sector also showed fast with that in the last three
expansion which contributed months in 2017, with invest-
more to the overall economic ment growth in manufactur-
growth,” said Zhao. ing and infrastructure both
According to the NBS, the moderating.
Kenya to join AIIB
as new members
By JIANG XUEQING
jiangxueqing@
chinadaily.com.cn
The Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank announced
on Wednesday its board of
governors has approved appli-
cations from Papua New Guin-
ea and Kenya to join the bank,
thus increasing its approved
membership to 86.
The two prospective mem-
bers, one regional and one
non-regional, will go through
the required domestic proce-
dures and deposit the first
installment of capital with
the bank before they become
its members officially. They
will obtain shares in the bank
from its existing pool of unal-
located shares, according to
the Beijing-headquartered
AIIB.
“We’re very happy to wel-
come Papua New Guinea and
Kenya as prospective mem-
bers of AIIB,” said Danny Alex-
ander, vice-president and
corporate secretary of the
bank.
“AIIB now has 86 approved
members from six continents.
This shows a strong commit-
ment to promoting infrastruc-
ture development through
rules-based multilateral coop-
eration with high standards of
governance.”
Headquartered in Beijing,
AIIB is a multilateral develop-
ment bank with a mission to
improve socioeconomic out-
comes in Asia and beyond by
investing in sustainable infra-
structure and other produc-
tive sectors.
At its launch in January
2016, a total of 57 members
signed AIIB’s Articles of
Agreement. In 2017, the bank
announced the approval of
another 27 prospective mem-
bers, and it expects to contin-
ue welcoming new members.
“AIIB is not subject to politi-
cal interference, nor does the
bank get involved in political
conflicts internationally or
between its members. It focus-
es on promoting regional eco-
nomic and social development
and improving the welfare of
the people in participating
countries and regions,” AIIB
President Jin Liqun was quot-
ed as saying in an interview
with Xinhua News Agency in
January.
Two years after it was
launched, AIIB had granted
loans totaling more than $4.2
billion, leveraging over $20
billion in funds from the pub-
lic and private sectors.
On April 11, the bank
announced its approval of a
$140 million loan to a project,
co-financed with the World
Bank, to improve rural road
connectivity and manage-
ment that will benefit
approximately 1.5 million
rural residents in Madhya
Pradesh in India.
“This project will provide
sustainable and safe last-mile
connectivity to small villages
and improve mobility of the
rural population of Madhya
Pradesh ... It is a typical reflec-
tion of our priorities of
enhancing economic growth
and sustainability through
infrastructure investment,”
said Supee Teravaninthorn,
director-general of investment
operations at AIIB.
The bank has been seeking
cooperation with strong insti-
tutional partners.

Opening-up to benefit local, foreign companies Mobile payments

By WANG YU
and ZHU WENQIAN
zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn
China’s drive to further
open up its aircraft manufac-
turing sector will be a shot in
the arm for both the local
industry and foreign compa-
nies planning to increase their
investments, said the newly
appointed China CEO of Euro-
pean aircraft manufacturer
Airbus SE.
“It is significant positive
news. It will be mutually bene-
ficial for the local manufactur-
ing industry and high-tech
aviation companies to expand
their investments in China. It
will surely help to deepen the
cooperation between foreign
manufacturers and their Chi-
nese counterparts,” George
Xu, CEO of Airbus China, told
China Daily.
“Airbus values the impor-
tance of the China market, and
it also recognizes the manufac-
turing and innovation ability
of the country. We hope to
achieve a win-win situation
US firms to see boost as China’s aviation industry takes off
BEIJING — China’s surging
aviation industry has been cre-
ating great opportunities for
global companies, especially US
giants and many enterprises on
the extensive industrial chain.
China has not only devel-
oped a massive civil aviation
market with huge potential, but
has also become a major player
in aircraft manufacturing.
At the end of 2017, China had
a civil fleet of 3,296 aircraft,
according to the Civil Aviation
Administration of China.
Boeing predicted that Chi-
na will need 7,240 new air-
together with China,” he said.
As part of the country’s
broader opening-up push, the
National Development and
Reform Commission said ear-
lier that China will phase out
the 50 percent equity cap this
year for foreign aircraft manu-
facturers in joint ventures in
China.
The manufacturing of trunk
planes, regional planes, gener-
al aviation aircraft, helicop-
ters, unmanned aerial vehicles
and aerostatics will benefit
from the relaxation in the
equity cap restrictions, accord-
ing to the statement. Before,
China’s aviation industry had
a high threshold for foreign
investment access.
Xu pointed out that the eas-
ing of foreign equity restric-
tions will allow domestic
companies to better interact
with foreign firms and help
Chinese companies to
improve. The Chinese aviation
market witnesses huge growth
every year, and the incremen-
tal quantity is big enough to
welcome competition
craft over the next 20 years,
valued at nearly $1.1 trillion.
Boeing delivered a record
high of 202 new aircraft to
China last year, representing
26 percent of its global deliv-
eries and its sixth consecutive
year of more than 140 deliver-
ies to China.
More than 9,000 Boeing
in-service civil aircraft have
components made in China,
according to Boeing. For exam-
ple, all rudders for the entire 787
family come from the Aviation
Industry Corporation of China,
the nation’s largest State-owned
An employee works at the A320 family final assembly line of the
Airbus factory in Tianjin. REUTERS
between different firms.
This year, 10 years after it
was established, the Airbus
Tianjin A320 family final
assembly line, a major indus-
trial base for Airbus in Asia,
will deliver the 400th A320
family aircraft.
Meanwhile, China has
become Airbus Helicopters’
biggest civilian market in
terms of annual orders,
exceeding the United States.
aircraft manufacturer.
Boeing is not the only US
aviation company that bene-
fits from the Chinese market.
Texas-based Bell Helicopter
also achieved great success in
the Chinese market, said Pat-
rick Moulay, the company’s
executive vice-president for
global sales and marketing.
In 2017, Bell Helicopter
signed a deal for 100 Bell
407GXP single-engine heli-
copters with its Chinese part-
ner, Shaanxi Helicopter.
The company also received
110 orders from Beijing-based
To meet that demand, Airbus
Helicopters has started build-
ing a final assembly plant in
Qingdao, Shandong province.
The factory, which will
assemble H135 aircraft — a
light, twin-engine helicopter
— is expected to come online
and roll off the first aircraft in
the second half of the year.
“We are also researching
and discussing the feasibility
of other in-depth coopera-
Reignwood Group for Bell
505 single-engine helicopters
in the same year.
“We take more orders from
the Asia-Pacific region than
the combination of other
markets,” Moulay said in an
interview in February.
With its enhanced manu-
facturing capabilities, China
is now a big player in the glob-
al aviation industry, purchas-
ing more aircraft from
manufacturers worldwide in
a more integrated global avia-
tion industry chain of manu-
facturers and suppliers.
George Xu,
CEO of Airbus China
tions. We don’t rule out any
possibilities,” Xu said.
“Besides industrial coopera-
tion with Chinese firms, we
would also like to expand
cooperation with Chinese air-
lines in terms of training,
spare parts maintenance and
other digital collaborations.”
Airbus’ US rival Boeing has
a B737MAX completion and
delivery center in Zhoushan,
Zhejiang province, and it is
expected to go into operation
in May. By the end of this year,
Boeing plans to deliver the
first B737MAX plane directly
from Zhoushan to a domestic
airline.
“Aviation is a crucial high-
end and high-value industry. It
has an extremely long industri-
al chain and strong economic
radiation capacity,” said Jason
Liao, CEO of the China Busi-
ness Aviation Group.
As the world’s leading avia-
tion power, the United States
not only has manufacturing
giants such as Boeing, Gulf-
stream Aerospace, Textron
Aviation and Bell Helicopter,
but also has many major avia-
tion system suppliers.
XINHUA
prove a holiday hit
By HE WEI in Shanghai
hewei@chinadaily.com.cn
Mobile payment was the
most popular way China’s out-
bound tourists chose to spend
their cash during the recent
May Day holiday, according to
a report from the nation’s lead-
ing mobile payment service.
China’s Hong Kong and
Macao, as well as Japan, topped
the mobile payment chart by
user number among mainland
visitors during the three-day
holiday, Alipay revealed in a
report on Wednesday.
They were followed by Thai-
land, the United States and
South Korea, sought-after des-
tinations where Chinese use
their smartphones to pay for
meals, order taxis and get their
consumption tax refunded.
A greater number of such
consumers come from the rel-
atively affluent coastal areas,
with Shanghai, Guangzhou
and Beijing being the top three
sources of origin, the report
said, based on an analysis of
user demographics.
Nearly two-thirds of out-
bound payments were made
by women, the report said.
Meanwhile, those born in
the 1990s constitute the single
largest age group for shopping
overseas, surpassing the older
generation for the first time.
The study also found that
international retail chains are
now well equipped with Chi-
nese payment tools and Chi-
nese-language guides in order
to serve these digital-savvy
tourists.
During the three-day holi-
day, the food and beverage
chains handling the most
transactions via Alipay were
Top 5 overseas
destinations among
mainland tourists
1,Hong Kong
2,Macao
3,Japan
4,Thailand
5,United States
Source: Alipay CHINA DAILY
McDonald’s, Hong Kong’s Tsui
Wah Restaurant and Star-
bucks. More travelers used Ali-
pay at tourist attractions such
as Hong Kong Ocean Park,
Hong Kong Disneyland and
Taipei’s iconic skyscraper Tai-
pei 101.
Taxi customers in Australia
even benefited from a 10 per-
cent discount for payments
conducted via Alipay during
the holiday.
Using Alipay to get tax
refunds now takes only a blink
of an eye, circumventing the
trouble of filling in lengthy
forms containing billing
details, and the subsequent
months of waiting.
During the three-day vaca-
tion, South Korea, France and
Germany witnessed the high-
est number of tax refunds
being conducted among the
29 economies where such a
service is available.
“China has embraced
mobile payments faster than
any other country, and will
continue to lead the global
charge in this regard,” said Vis-
hal Bali, managing director of
Nielsen China.
The Alipay survey echoed a
study by Nielsen in February,
which showed that more than
90 percent of Chinese tourists
would use mobile payment
overseas given the option.
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, May 3, 2018
What’s news
GOVT AND POLICIES
Biz environment
improving: Survey
A recent survey shows that the
business environment in Bei-
jing has been improving. The
Survey Office of the National
Bureau of Statistics in Beijing
surveyed 132 sci-tech or cultur-
al firms about streamlining
administration and optimizing
services. Its official website did
not specify when the survey
was conducted. Three out of
four, or 75.7 percent, of the com-
panies surveyed thought the
business environment had
improved because fewer items
were required for administra-
tive review, and the review pro-
cedure had been simplified.
Meanwhile, 81.5 percent of
those polled had accessed the
online qualification verification
system and other public servi-
ces. At least two out of three, or
67.3 percent, agreed that their
users’ experiences were good.
COMPANIES AND MARKETS
Public companies
posting better profits
More than 60 percent of Chi-
nese public companies reported
profit growth in the first quarter
of this year partly due to a recov-
ery in commodity prices amid
the ongoing economic restruc-
turing. Around 3,500 firms list-
ed on the Shanghai or Shenzhen
exchanges posted combined net
profits of almost 850 billion
yuan ($130 billion) in the Janu-
ary-March period, according to
financial information provider
Wind. More than 2,200 compa-
nies managed to increase their
profits year-on-year, with 576
doubling their growth rates.
Construction material produc-
ers saw the most rapid profit
growth of 182.58 percent, fol-
lowed by iron and steel plants
and defense companies. Busi-
nesses in nonferrous metals and
telecommunication also logged
profit increases of more than 50
percent.
Fewer lockup
shares eligible
Lockup shares worth around
41.19 billion yuan ($6.5 billion)
are eligible for trading on the
Shanghai and Shenzhen stock
exchanges this week. The value
was substantially down from
nearly 75 billion yuan of shares
unlocked last week. A total of
5.21 billion shares from 35 listed
firms will become tradable.
Jiangsu Broadcasting Cable
Information Network Corpora-
tion will see 16.72 billion yuan of
shares become tradable, the
largest number to hit the mar-
ket. Under China’s market rules,
major shareholders must wait
one to two years before they are
permitted to sell their shares.
Home-made jet
makes first flight
The ARJ21, China’s first
domestically made regional
passenger jetliner, made its
first flight to Heilongjiang
province in Northeast China on
Wednesday, signifying that
Harbin will become one of the
aviation hubs for the aircraft.
“The new flight indicates that a
new operation model, which
takes Harbin as a hub and
develops regional operation,
has officially started,” said a
statement by Commercial Air-
craft Corp of China, the manu-
facturer of the ARJ21.
Ford US sales down,
Fiat Chrysler up
Ford Motor Co reported on
Tuesday a 4.7 percent decline in
its US sales for April, while Fiat
Chrysler saw a 5 percent
Oh boy,
Oh boy, what
what a service!
a service!
Two female consumers scan a quick-response or QR code to hire a boyfriend for 20 minutes at a mall in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province,
Two female
during consumers
the May scanThe
Day holiday. a quick-response or QR female
during the
pictures forMay Day
them, holiday.
carry theirThe servicebags
shopping
pictures for them, carry their shopping bags and so on. WEI DONGSHENG / FOR CHINA DAILY
increase year-on-year. Ford sold
a total of 204,651 vehicles on the
US market, with its fleet per-
formance falling 8.6 percent due
to order timing, said the compa-
ny. Fiat Chrysler US on Tuesday
reported sales of 184,149 vehi-
cles, a 5 percent increase com-
pared with sales in April 2017 of
176,176 vehicles. The company
said its overall sales were push-
ed by the Jeep brand, which
reported record sales of 82,641
vehicles for April, up 20 percent.
Boeing to buy
aviation parts firm
Top US aircraft manufacturer
Boeing Co announced on Tues-
day that it will pay a total of
$4.25 billion to acquire leading
aviation parts and service dis-
tributor KLX Inc to tap the
lucrative aviation service mar-
service empowered code toconsumers
hire a boyfriend
empowered female
and so on. consumers/ to
WEI DONGSHENG
ket. Boeing said the acquisition
is contingent on the spin-off of
KLX Inc’s energy business,
which will be sold to share-
holders. The deal includes an
all-cash transaction for $63 per
share and the assumption of
approximately $1 billion in net
debt when it acquires KLX Inc
to grow the aviation service
business, Boeing said.
AROUND THE WORLD
EU urges steel
tariff exemption
In response to the White
to askforthe
20hired
minutes at a malltoinchat
“boyfriend”
FORask theDAILY
CHINA hired “boyfriend” to chat with them, take
House announcement to
extend until June 1 the Europe-
an Union’s exemption from US
steel and aluminium tariffs,
the EU on Tuesday demanded
that Washington grant it per-
manent exemption, saying that
it won’t negotiate under pres-
sure. “The US decision pro-
longs market uncertainty,
which is already affecting busi-
ness decisions. The EU should
be fully and permanently
exempted from these meas-
ures, as they cannot be justi-
fied on the grounds of national
security,” said the European
Commission in a statement
shortly after the temporary
extension. “As a longstanding
partner and friend of the US,
we will not negotiate under
threat. Any future transatlantic
work program has to be bal-
anced and mutually benefi-
cial,” said the statement.
EIA says crude oil
efficiency improves
The increasing productivity of
new oil wells accounted for ris-
ing crude oil production in the
United States in recent years,
the US Energy Information
Administration said in a report
China helps developers
finance rental projects
BEIJING — China has
moved to support the issuance
of rental property-backed
securities to help finance a
burgeoning rental housing
market, a crucial part of its
planned policy package that
aims to stabilize the real estate
sector.
The real estate investment
trust, a means of property
asset securitization, will be
piloted for developers to raise
funds, according to a Ministry
of Housing and Urban-Rural
Development and China Secu-
rities Regulatory Commission
document.
The program will enable
companies to reduce their lev-
erage ratio and diversify
investment options. Large and
mid-tier cities, the Xiongan
New Area and some other cit-
ies will be the first to get the
green light under the pilot
program.
It is the latest move in a gov-
ernment-led campaign to foster
the home rental market as part
of a long-term solution to an
overheated real estate market.
Developers have been
encouraged to launch rental-
only projects but many have
hesitated, afraid of an unaf-
fordable impact on their capi-
tal chain. While monthly rents
are far from enough to replen-
ish cash flows, one-off pay-
ment plans are unattractive to
tenants.
China Vanke, one of the
country’s top property devel-
opers, has created discontent
as the minimum rent of its
long-term leasing apartments
BUSI NE S S 15
Jiujiang,
withJiangxi province,
them, take
published on Tuesday. Accord-
ing to the EIA, since 2007, the
average first full month of oil
production from new wells has
generally increased. These
growing initial production
rates have helped tight oil pro-
duction to increase despite
slowdowns in drilling activity
when oil prices fell. The EIA
said that the average new well
in 2017 produced more oil than
wells drilled in previous years,
a trend that has persisted for
nearly 10 consecutive years.
Greece exiting
bailout in summer
Greece is exiting painful bail-
out programs this summer aft-
er eight difficult years of acute
debt crisis, with good
prospects for the future which
can be constructed on the
foundations of a new growth
model, Greek Economy and
Development Deputy Minister
Stergios Pitsiorlas said on
Monday. After an unprecedent-
ed fiscal adjustment and much
needed reforms to fix structur-
al problems, economic indexes
in Greece improved in recent
months. The nation posted
impressive growth rates last
still under construction in Bei-
jing are reported to be triple
the district average.
The project is designed to
offer more than 1,000 rental
housing units in 2020, with
the rent for a three-room
apartment of 90 square
meters set at 15,000 yuan
($2,370) to 18,000 yuan a
month.
Analysts believe govern-
ment support of property asset
securitization like the REIT
will ease developer concerns
over cash flow and significant-
ly widen financing channels
for the rental market.
“More businesses will be
motivated to build up a pres-
ence in the home rental mar-
ket,” said Zhang Dawei, a
Centaline Property analyst.
Funds raised through rental
property-backed securities
totaled more than 50 billion
yuan by March, and will likely
grow more rapidly with the
new favorable policies.
For a long time, soaring
property prices have put
urban residents under pres-
sure, making housing afforda-
bility a growing problem for
policy makers. Now the gov-
ernment wants to further tap
the rental market to stabilize
home prices and curb specula-
tion, moving to provide ten-
ants with the same public
services that owners enjoy to
encourage more people to rent
rather than buy.
Beijing municipal govern-
ment has published a pro-
rental policy that will
guarantee the education
year, and the outlook was more
positive.
Irish manufacturing
growth picks up
The growth rate of Ireland’s
manufacturing sector picked
up in April after it fell to a
12-month low in March due to
the serious disruptions of a
massive snowstorm that hit
the country at the start of last
month, revealed a survey pub-
lished on Tuesday. The Invest-
ec’s Manufacturing Purchasing
Managers’ Index (PMI), an
index widely used for measur-
ing Irish manufacturing activi-
ties, showed that Ireland’s
manufacturing sector for April
grew at a rate of 55.3, an
increase of 1.2 points from
March’s reading. A reading of
50 or above marks expansion
while that below 50 indicates
contraction.
Treasurer expects
‘heads to roll’
The board of one of Australia’s
leading four banks has been
put on notice by Treasurer
Scott Morrison following a
report which found it had
become complacent and unac-
countable. The Common-
wealth Bank’s “continued
financial success dulled the
senses of the institution,”
according to a “damning”
eight-month investigation by
the country’s leading financial
regulator, Australian Pruden-
tial Regulatory Authority. The
report, which centered on the
CBA’s governance, and
accountability, identified wide-
spread complacency and a lack
of incentives to improve cus-
tomer outcomes.
Vietnam auto
imports decline
Vietnam imported completely
built automobiles and compo-
nents for assembly worth near-
ly $1.2 billion in the first four
months of this year, a decline
of 32.2 percent year-on-year.
Specifically, the nation import-
ed over 6,700 completely built
automobiles worth $198 mil-
lion, posting respective
decreases of 79.8 percent and
69.8 percent, according to the
Ministry of Industry and
Trade. In April, Vietnam spent
$80 million importing 2,500
automobiles.
CHINA DAILY — AGENCIES
rights of tenants’ children.
With more favorable polices
in the pipeline, the home rent-
al market boasts huge poten-
tial. The number of Chinese
who rent will reach nearly 300
million people in 2030, up
from 190 million at present,
and total rents will more than
quadruple to 4.6 trillion yuan,
according to a report by the
Guanghua School of Manage-
ment with Peking University.
A robust rental market will
“avert drastic ups and downs
in the property market and
reduce irrational demand,”
Zhang said.
Partly by promoting home-
leasing, the government is
working on a long-term mech-
anism for property regulation
that will ensure sustainable
and steady development of the
real estate market, which has
stayed tame largely due to pro-
visional purchase restrictions.
Hainan province on Sunday
imposed tougher rules to frus-
trate speculation.
New house prices in the
first-tier cities declined 0.6
percent year-on-year in
March, while prices of existing
houses inched down 0.1 per-
cent, data from the National
Bureau of Statistics showed.
The property market in the
second-tier cities also saw
slower price growth.
“Housing prices were gen-
erally stable as market con-
trols have continued to take
effect,” said NBS statistician
Liu Jianwei.
XINHUA
16 BUS IN E S S | CSR
Sinopec
adds fuel to
poverty fight
Energy giant plans to sell agricultural
products from impoverished areas
By ZHENG XIN
zhengxin@chinadaily.com.cn
China Petroleum & Chemi-
cal Corp, also known as Sino-
pec, will start selling apples,
kiwi fruits and goat milk from
Shaanxi province at its Easy
Joy convenience stores inside
gas stations nationwide, coop-
erating with the Shaanxi gov-
ernment in an attempt to
alleviate local poverty.
The company, which is also
the nation’s largest oil refiner,
signed a cooperation frame-
work agreement in April on
industrial poverty alleviation
with Shaanxi province, aiming
to help poverty-stricken areas
of the region sell more agricul-
tural products through its
sales channels.
25,000
number of Easy Joy conve-
nience stores owned by
Sinopec
Sinopec currently owns
25,000 Easy Joy convenience
stores, which serve more than
20 million customers each
day.
These outlets scattered
around the country will ena-
ble local agricultural produc-
ers to further expand their
sales channels and reach more
corners of the nation, said the
company.
Sinopec started its non-fuel
businesses, including conve-
nience stores and auto servi-
ces, in 2008. Its non-fuel
business has seen rapid growth
with increased scale and prof-
its. The profit of non-fuel busi-
ness in 2017 was 2.2 billion
yuan ($346 million), an
Founder Group sponsors world-class contest
in programming to cultivate more talents
By REN XIAOJIN
renxiaojin@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese technology con-
glomerate Founder Group
stepped forward to serve as
the diamond sponsor of a
world-class programming
contest held in Beijing last
month as part of the compa-
ny’s vision to cultivate more
talents in the computing sci-
ence field.
The 42nd Association for
Computing Machinery-Inter-
national Collegiate Program-
ming Contest, or ACM-ICPC, is
one of the world’s most influ-
ential annual college student
computer competitions. It
aims to give college students a
stage to demonstrate their
innovation and ability, and to
learn teamwork and problem-
solving skills.
The New York-headquar-
tered ACM, its organizer, is the
world’s largest educational
and scientific computing soci-
ety, delivering resources that
advance computing as a sci-
ence and a profession. It pro-
vides the computing field’s
premier digital library and
serves its members and the
computing profession with
leading-edge publications,
conferences and career
resources.
Since the yearly contest
began in 1970, the sponsors
have been global computing
science monopolies such as
IBM.
Eager to further deepen its
influence in this field,
Founder Group took over the
sponsorship this year as a
strong gesture to show the
company’s support to the
increase of 700 million yuan
compared with 2016.
China’s northwestern
Shaanxi province, known for
apples and kiwis, is one of the
country’s biggest fruit produc-
tion areas in terms of both
acreage and output. It’s also
one of the biggest apple pro-
ducing regions in the world,
with a production area of
more than 700,000 hectares.
Production output accounts
for some one sixth of global
volume.
However, Shaanxi apples
have been under tremendous
pressure in recent years, partly
due to the increased number of
imported apples on the market.
On the other hand, in the
province, the main production
area for kiwis, millions of
pounds of kiwis are facing
sales difficulties, while the
world’s largest kiwis exporter,
New Zealand’s Zespri Interna-
tional Ltd, is selling around 20
percent of its output to China
and also preparing to start
producing in the country to
cut costs.
Other agricultural products
in the province, including tea,
beef and goat milk, face simi-
lar situations.
The company signed an
agreement with Tibet High-
land Natural Water Ltd in
2014 to sell glacier water at
its Easy Joy convenience
stores.
In 2010, Sinopec’s subsidi-
ary in the Ningxia Hui auton-
omous region in
northwestern China entered
into the medlar or Chinese
wolfberry industry by estab-
lishing a new brand and sell-
ing it at more than 10,000 gas
service stations.
The cooperation will be a
win-win for both sides, Sino-
pec said.
ambitious students and the
country’s growing education
sector.
It was also a gift to the
Peking University, the host of
the event during the universi-
ty’s 120th anniversary, as
Founder Group was founded
by the university in 1986.
After more than three dec-
ades of development, the Bei-
jing-headquartered Founder
Group has evolved into a
diversified business structure
maximizing industry synergy,
with the core business seg-
ments of IT, healthcare, indus-
try finance and an innovation
center as its pillars. It current-
ly has more than 35,000
employees.
“ACM-ICPC started in 1970
and has been hailed as the
Olympics of computing sci-
ence ever since,” said Wang
Yanglin, vice-president of
Peking University. “The year of
2018 marks the 120th anniver-
sary of Peking University and
the event to be held in the uni-
versity aims to promote the
computing science education
in China, inspire more stu-
dents to get involved in the
fields and provide the country
with more talents under the
country’s call to develop artifi-
cial intelligence.”
Wang also expressed his
gratitude to Founder Group
for the group’s generosity in
education.
“In recent years, the group
has been actively practicing its
social responsibility to boost
the education development,”
said Sheng Yuhai, chairman of
Founder Group. “Founder
Group will, as it always does,
make persistent efforts in
An employee from GoalBlue (Shenzhen) Low Carbon Development & Promotion Centre hands out wristbands showing support for the I CARE program during the recent
Midi Music Festival at the Suzhou Taihu Midi Camp. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
GoalBlue launches project for sustainable lifestyle
By ZHENG YIRAN
zhengyiran@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese public service orga-
nization GoalBlue (Shenzhen)
Low Carbon Development &
Promotion Centre is leading
an effort to heighten public
interest in embracing a sus-
tainable lifestyle.
In celebration of the 49th
Earth Day on April 22, 2018,
the Shenzhen-based organi-
zation launched a project
called “I CARE”, aiming at
coordinating efforts from
enterprises nationwide to
make commitments to
responsible consumerism,
building an ecosystem that
connects consumers and
responsible environmental
business solutions.
Specifically, the program
unites enterprises from the
catering, transportation,
chemical, agriculture and
Contestants at the Association for Computing Machinery-Interna-
tional Collegiate Programming Contest. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
pushing education forward
and facilitating the integra-
tion of companies and educa-
tion institutions.”
“The university has been
participating in the contest
since 2010 with students
from the department of
mathematics and informa-
tion science,” said Huang Ru,
an academician at the Chi-
nese Academy of Sciences.
“The event provided a stage
for the world’s top program-
mers to showcase their skills
in a fairground.”
She said the contest plays a
significant role in the progress
of computing program teach-
ing in recent years.
“Founder sponsored our
first few contests within the
university and two regional
contests in Asia in 2004 and
2005, which has laid a solid
ground for the university to be
the host of this world-class
contest,” said Huang, who also
fishery industries, to offer
low-carbon food and trans-
portation solutions, sustaina-
ble agriculture and fisheries,
as well as biodegradable
materials.
As many as 20 enterprises
have already vowed to join I
CARE, such as Beijing Midi
Music School, Moka Bros,
Hatsune restaurant, Panda
Brew, Xiao Heng Dumplings
and REmakeHub.
May Mei, founder and exec-
utive director of GoalBlue,
said that “we only have one
earth to live on, and protect-
ing the environment requires
actions from public interest
organizations, commercial
institutions and consumers”.
“Through the I CARE
project, we aim to get more
people to realize that our con-
sumption behavior can make
a positive change to the envi-
ronment that we live in. If you
is dean of the School of Elec-
tronic Engineering and Com-
puter Science of Peking
University
“When the university decid-
ed to host this year’s ACM-
ICPC final contest, Founder
Group again stepped in to be
the diamond sponsor,” Huang
said. “We hope this joint effort
made between the Peking Uni-
versity and Founder Group
will make this contest a suc-
cessful one.”
“The contest has a historical
significance and is a milestone
in the development of infor-
mation science and comput-
ing science of Peking
University,” said Li Wenxin,
vice-dean of the EECS school
at Peking University.
“The fact that a Chinese
company is sponsoring such
an event is a reflection of the
rapid development of the
country’s information indus-
try,” Li commented.
We are grateful to
see those enter-
prises make a
change.”
May Mei, founder and executive
director of GoalBlue (Shenzhen)
Low Carbon Development & Pro-
motion Centre
care about it, then take
action,” she said.
Xiao Heng Dumplings, a
leading Chinese dumpling
chain restaurant famous for its
take-out service, is among the
first batch of enterprises that
have made a commitment to
use biodegradable meal boxes.
Briefly
Auction supports
kids with leukemia
A charity auction was held
in Beijing on April 15 — the
second anniversary of the
Summer Fund, which helps
children with leukemia — to
raise funds and public
awareness about the group.
Established by China Chil-
dren and Teenagers’ Fund
and its Beijing partner,
Langyuan Boundaryless
Charity, a platform coordi-
nating online charity
efforts, Summer Fund has
offered financial assistance
to 33 young people whose
families couldn’t otherwise
afford the treatment to fight
leukemia, and provided
relief goods to an additional
600 children in China.
“Thanks to the support
from all the kindhearted
people in our society, the
fund is becoming a stronger
power in helping Chinese
kids fight this severe dis-
ease,” Zhu Xisheng, secre-
tary-general of the CCTF
said at the opening of the
event.
Didi builds charity
library via high-tech
Didi Chuxing, one of the top
ride-hailing companies in
China, has teamed up with
the Stars Youth Develop-
ment Center, an education
institute focusing on pro-
moting reading in remote
areas, to launch a library in
Songgui county, Guangdong
province. With Didi’s previ-
ous effort — putting QR
codes for donations on the
books provided for custom-
ers using the app — the firm
managed to collect more
than 130,000 yuan
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Ji Weijia, senior vice-presi-
dent of Xiao Heng Dumplings,
noted that “previously, the vol-
ume of plastic lunch boxes
that we delivered each day
reached beyond 10,000. Now,
as awareness of environmen-
tal protection rises, we regard
using environmentally friend-
ly packing material as a com-
mon practice.”
“Through our commit-
ment, we hope to devote our
own effort to make the earth
cleaner, and get other enter-
prises involved into building
a better planet,” he said.
Apart from enterprises, con-
sumers can also join the I
CARE program through Goal-
Blue’s official website and its
official WeChat account, to
take part in or even launch a
challenge match, such as
refusing plastic straws or eat-
ing vegetarian meals once a
week.
($20,440) to purchase
books for children in the
county. “Technology acts as
one of the most efficient
way of promoting reading
in rural areas, and is play-
ing an increasingly impor-
tant role in charity affairs,”
said Yao Song, a representa-
tive from Stars Youth Devel-
opment Center, at the
launch event of the library.
“We believe Didi’s efforts
will attract more attention
and engagement from the
tech sector.”
Fund set to provide
healthcare for poor
Transfar Foundation, a char-
ity fund established by Zhe-
jiang-based chemical firm
Transfar Group, has
announced the launch of its
new charity healthcare
project in Nanchang, capital
of Jiangxi province. Accord-
ing to Transfar, the firm will
invest up to 200 million
yuan ($31.5 million) to set
up medical stations in 1,000
poverty-stricken villages
across the country in the
next three years. The project
will first be set up in Jiang-
xi, Guizhou and Yunnan
provinces, helping 350 villa-
ges in the areas. “We appre-
ciate the help from
Transfar,” Hu Qiang, vice-
governor of Jiangxi prov-
ince, said at the April 25
launch ceremony. “We
believe the move will be of
great help in the course of
development in the rural
areas.”
Rural students’
artworks displayed
A series of artworks from
students in rural areas can
C H I N A DA I LY USA
Apart from the first batch of
enterprises, GoalBlue will con-
tinue to invite companies from
across the nation, and even
globally, to join the program.
“I want the world to be
immortal. I care about our
earth. I care about you, and I
care about me, but what I care
most about, is what I can do
to build a better future,” said
American actor Ian Joseph
Somerhalder, founder of the
Ian Somerhalder Foundation,
in regards to his motivation to
join I CARE.
“For catering enterprises,
they choose to offer a vegetari-
an menu, and biodegradable
packages; while for clothing
companies, they recycle clothes
and produce new ones. We are
grateful to see those enterpris-
es make a change,” Mei said.
Fan Hang contributed to the
story.
be seen at this year’s Shang-
hai Education Expo — a
project sponsored by Huji-
ang EdTech, a Shanghai-
based online learning
service provider — due to its
poverty-alleviation Hu+
Project. Launched in 2015,
the project offers online
classes to assist students in
rural areas, and provides
them platforms to have
group discussion. “Through
the project, we aim to
address educational prob-
lems in China’s remote are-
as, as well as to provide a
model for educating urban
migrant children,” said Fu
Cairui, CEO of the company.
“Using the internet, our
Hu+ Project breaks through
the limits of space and time,
setting up links between
thousands of rural schools
and offering excellent edu-
cation resources nation-
wide, and even around the
globe.”
UNEP, Weibo award
youth for green effort
The United Nations Envi-
ronment Programme, in
conjunction with Chinese
social network platform
Sina Weibo, launched the
Young Champions of the
Earth in China award on
April 18, for those aged 18 to
30 engaged in environmen-
tal protection efforts. The
organizing committee will
pick three candidates with
creative ideas regarding
environmental protection
after an online poll and
experts’ review, and then
provide financial help and
training to help them real-
ize their ideas.
CHINA DAILY