Category: Foreign News

By Wang Di, Zhang Huizhong from People’s Daily

The rollout of a new foreign investment law declares China’s determination to optimize business environment, and underlines its efforts to further facilitate foreign investment with detailed institutional design, an expert told People’s Daily.

The new law responds to long-standing questions concerned by foreign-funded companies and other investors by giving answers on how to define, promote, protect and manage foreign investment, added Zhang Sujun, vice president of the China Law Society.

His comments came after deputies from provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities deliberated on the latest draft of the proposed law in their plenary meetings on March 10. The new draft, which would serve as China’s basic law on foreign investment if adopted, has drawn attention from both home and abroad.

Upon adoption, the unified law will replace three existing laws on Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, non-equity joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises.

The three laws have been working as the basic backup of China’s legal system for foreign investment after China embarked on the journey of reform and opening up, but now they could hardly catch up with the changing requirements in further deepening reforms and expanding opening up.

The draft further simplifies the management procedures on foreign investment and adds more service policies for foreign investors. It also requires policy-makers to collect the suggestions and opinions of foreign investors before formulating laws, rules or guidelines related to foreign investment.

The law also asks the authorities to perfect service system by providing foreign investors with consultations and other services on laws, rules, policies and project information.

“These provisions indicate that Chinese government is committed to creating a more favorable business environment by furthering its reforms in streamlining administration and delegating power, improving regulation, and upgrading services,” said Zhang.

The draft makes it clear that the state shall manage foreign investment according to the system of pre-establishment national treatment plus a negative list. In industries that are not on the negative list, domestic and foreign enterprises would be subject to a unified set of rules and compete on a level playing field.

According to the new law, foreign investors are accessed to business supporting policies rolled out by the country, exceptinga few special cases stipulated by the laws and administrative rules.

It also upgrades a series of industrial and regional policies on investment services, capital inflow and foreign investment absorbing to law provisions, so as to reassure the legal guarantee for the equal treatment of domestic and foreign investors.

The overarching law also specifies measures to protect the rights and interests of foreign investors, especially their intellectual property rights (IPR).

The state shall protect the IPR of foreign investors based on law, and encourage technology cooperation based on voluntary agreement and commercial rules, the draft said, but stressed that the cooperation details must be decided by involved sides after voluntary consultation, and forced technology transfers through administrative means is not allowed.

Stressing the importance of honoring commitment, the draft also asks government departments at all levels to keep their policy promise for foreign investors and implement the lawful contracts they signed.

Zhang added that enabling a more unified and regulated management on the foreign investment, the new law will lay a solid foundation for China’s efforts to drive economic growth, deepen reforms and expand opening up by better utilizing foreign investment.

By Huan Xiang from People’s Daily

The city of Xi’an, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, which enjoys a long history and served as capital for 13 dynasties, has made effective exploration in building modernity while preserving historical legacy.
A recent piece of news announced by Shaanxi’s cultural relic authority triggered nationwideattention, that a ruin of ancient capital dating back to Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) was unearthed during the construction of the Xi’an Metro Line 5.In order to protect the ruin and relics, the metro line may have to change its route.
It was not the first time that Xi’an found ancient ruins during subway construction. More than 200 pieces of cultural relics were unearthed during tunnel excavationof the Xi’an Metro Line 2. The route,passing through 57 cultural sites tracing from West Han Dynasty (206 BC-9 AD) to Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD), is nicknamed “the corridor of history”.
Apart from the metro, cultural relics are also discovered at many construction sites in the city.
Shaanxi is home to 49,058 immovable cultural heritages, three of which are on the UNESCO’s world cultural heritage list. In addition, 235 of them are key historical and cultural sitesprotected at the national level.
Facing the heavy and important task of protecting cultural relics while promoting urban construction, Xi’an made active attempts.
Rails of the metro system are paved 15 to 20 meters underground, in a bid to protect the ancient tombs and ruins which are usually buried in the layer within 5 meters from the surface level.
In addition, local cultural relic authority would also conduct lineside investigations and archaeological excavations before the construction of the metro lines.
Take the Xi’an Metro Line 4 as an example. Opened last year, it bypassesa number of protected historical and cultural sites, including the ruin of Daming Palace of Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), the ruin of Chang’an city of Sui (581-618 AD) and Tang Dynasties, the site of the Xi’an Incident during the Anti-Japanese War, the ancient city wall of Xi’an, and the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda.
Besides, the metro constructors have also painted the walls inside the stations of the Line 4 with historical stories happened at each station or local cultural features, presenting a visual feast for citizens.

By Huan Xiang from People’s Daily

The enaction of the new foreign investment law would provide a stronger legal guarantee for a new round of high-level opening up, and also declare China’s determination and confidence in driving high-quality growth with high-standard opening up, deputies to the ongoing annual legislative session said after reviewing the latest draft of the proposed law.

A highlight of the draft law is to optimize business environment and build a more attractive market by managing domestic and foreign enterprises under a unified set of rules, said Wang Suilian, a deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC).

A fair market environment should be created to ensure that foreign enterprises are willing to invest inand can develop well in China, so that they could stay in China rather than leaving in days, added the national legislator, who is also deputy director of the Standing Committee of Shandong Provincial People’s Congress and chairperson of the federation of industry and commerce of Shandong province.

Upon adoption, the unified law will replace the three existing laws that have been working as China’s legal guarantee for foreign capital absorbing after China embarked on the journey of reform and opening up.

The law on equity joint ventures was put into effect in 1979, opening the door to attracting foreign investors. The ones on non-equity joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterpriseswere enacted in the 1980s responding to the different needs of foreign investors.

The three laws could hardly catch up with the changing requirements in deepening reforms, as the country’s reform has entered the deep water zone where tough challenges must be met, while opening up also faced with new updates, said Zhang Sujun, vice president of the China Law Society.

The replacement underscores China’s efforts to further facilitate foreign investment with detailed institutional design, added Zhang, also a NPC deputy.

The new law will help China attract more foreign investors, as it includes more measures to protect the foreign investment than the previous management regulations, said Feng Fan, director of Jiangxi Newstar Law Firm.

It also incorporates a series of innovative provisions on promoting, protecting and managing those investment, said the NPC deputy, adding that if the new law is adopted,supporting rules should be introduced as soon as possible.

“Equal treatment of domestic and foreign investment is high on the agenda of the draft,” said Zhou Hongjiang, president of Shandong-based wine producer Changyu.

The draft makes it clear that the state shall manage foreign investment according to the system of pre-establishment national treatment plus a negative list, added the national legislator, hailing that it also stands for progress and improvement of China’s foreign investment legal system.

Deputies also suggested providing foreign investors with national treatment on intellectual property rights (IPR) protection.

Mai Jiaomeng, NPC deputy also the director of the Market Supervision Administration of Guangdong province, advised tightened law enforcement on IPR protection in the future, citing the stepped-up efforts to crack down on IPR infringement crime, locate counterfeit sources, and punish repeating and malicious infringements.

He also suggested efforts to improve coordination mechanisms of administrative law enforcement and judicial protection, better local legislation, raise the amount of statutory compensation for IPR infringement, and accelerate the building of centers on IPR protection and guarantee.

By Cao Siqi and Wang Cong from Global Times

China has reaffirmed its determination to win the tough battle against pollution and pledged that boosting the economy will not come at the price of a degraded environment.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual legislative session on March 11, China’s Ecology and Environment Minister Li Ganjie vowed to coordinate efforts of environmental protection and economic development in 2019, ancritical year for winning the battle.

Li claimed that China has made progress in addressing the prominent problems on environmental protection, especially along the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and promised the public that the monitoring data are accurate and authentic. However, he also admitted that the battle remains an arduous task and there were huge gaps between cities and regions.

Chinese analysts said that although previous practices in dealing with environmental problems have led to the shutdown of factories and a decline in local fiscal revenue, in the long run, the battle against pollution will bring a new economic growth point and help China switch from high-speed growth to high-quality growth.

No crossing red line

In 2018, the proportion of blue-sky days in 338 cities at or above the prefectural level increased by 1.3 percentage points to 79.3 percent, with PM 2.5 concentrations dropping 9.3 percent year-on-year, Li said.

Meanwhile, to fight smog, China has expanded its coal-to-gas and coal-to-electricity projects to 35 cities in 2018 from 12 cities the previous year, Li noted.

As for protecting the Yangtze River, Li said 99.9 percent of the 1,474 drinking water sources in cities above county-level along the Yangtze River Economic Belt, stringing up 11 provinces and municipalities from west to east, have had their problems resolved.

Li added that over 90 percent of the 12 “black and malodorous water bodies” in provincial capital cities have been cleaned up, while prefecture-level cities are catching up.

Li also reiterated what President Xi Jinping had said when he attended a panel discussion with deputies to the National People’s Congress from Inner Mongolia on March 5: Local governments should not pursue economic growth at the cost of the environment when economic development encounters difficulties. Li marked it as a key guide for the future battle against pollution.

At the panel discussion, Xi stressed efforts to maintain strategic resolve in enhancing the building of an ecological civilization and to protect the country’s beautiful scenery in the northern border areas.

Xi warned local governments against launching new projects to boost economic growth by sacrificing the environment when its economic growth encounters difficulties, and not to even consider trying to cross the ecological red line.

Xi underlined a resolute and effective fight to prevent and control pollution, saying prominent environmental issues the people are strongly concerned about must be addressed properly.

New growth point

There has been a misunderstanding that green development will restrain economic growth. In fact, environmental protection itself can be a very promising field for investment, XuHongcai, assistant minister at the Ministry of Finance, told the Global Times.

The governments have discarded their previous simple approach and are trying to find a balance between fighting pollution and stabilizing growth, Xu said.

For example, instead of shutting factories down, local governments are supporting companies which upgrade facilities, increasing investment to them and helping laid-off employees find new jobs, he said.

The green industry is also a new economic growth point. Some companies which invested in pollution treatment facilities now experience record high profits, Xu said.

The city of Hengshui in North China’s Hebei Province is one example. The Hengshui government provides environment management guidance to help enterprises achieve green development.

Thanks to the environment protection upgrade, HengshuiBaili Rubber Products Co. bid farewell to its previously disheveled factory area, meeting the requirements of the European market, media reports said.

By Shang Kaiyuan from People’s Daily

Last year, Chinese made more than 5.5 billion domestic trips, with an average of four trips per person, which suggests that China has entered the era of mass tourism, said the country’s minister of tourism and culture LuoShugang.

Luo made the remarks during a passage interview on the sidelines of the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) on March 8.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in February, Chinese nationals made 5.54 billion domestic trips and the number of inbound and outbound tourists totaled 291 million in 2018, marking a year-on-year increase of 10.8 percent and 7.8 percentrespectively.

Preliminary calculations indicated that the aggregate contribution of tourism to China’s GDP was 9.94 trillion-yuan last year, accounting for 11.04 percent of the GDP. The sector created 79.91 million direct and indirect jobs, contributing 10.29 percent of the country’s total employment.

The rapid development of the domestic tourism market is attributable to the development of cultural resources, said the minster.

As an important cultural resource, museums have become popular tourist destinations, Luo said. By the end of 2018, the number of museums in China had exceeded 5,000, nearly 90 percent of which are free and open to the public.

The commemorative exhibition of the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up being held at National Museum of China has received more than 3 million visitors since its opening, setting records of daily visitors to the museum time and again.

The rapidly increasing tourist number also puts a higher demand on tourism environment. Reports confirm that last year, relevant departments built and renovated about 30,000 restrooms in scenic areas, and they will solve the restroom shortage and improve sanitation of toilets in two or more years.

Luo said in order to create a better tourism market, the ministry will strengthen management, such as tightening supervision over hotels, restaurants, tour guides and the shopping sector, and resolutely cracking down on bad conducts such as fraud, swindling money out of customers, unreasonable low-cost travel products, and forcing tourists into shopping.

China has also brought a significant number of tourists to foreign destinations. The number of outbound Chinese tourists reached 150 million in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 14.7 percent. The countryhas become the world’s biggest source of tourists.

ByHeXinyu and Wang Hailin from People’s Daily

China will strengthen R&D and the application of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, foster clusters of emerging industries like next-generation information technology, high-end equipment, biomedicine, new-energy automobiles, and new materials, and expand the digital economy, according to the Government Work Report 2019.

It has been the third time that AI was included into the government work report since its first appearance in the report in 2017, demonstrating great importance the Chinese government lays on AI development

China has entered the first echelon around the world inAI development,a report indicates.The country’s booming AI development has attracted worldwide attention.

China has become the most attractive country for AI investment and financing, with the number of AI enterprises ranking the second in the world. The market value of the country’s AI industry reached 23.74 billion yuan in 2017, up 67 percent year on year, according to the report.

Nowadays, AI application is no longer limited to the fields of science and technology. More AI products related to daily life have been launched in recent years, bringing convenience to people in terms ofclothing, food, housing and transportation.

The Xiongan New Area in north China’sHebei provincehas opened its first unmanned supermarket.Customers can enter the store by scanning their faces and complete automatic settlementin their own because the digital price tags are backed by electronic chips, which can be automatically identified by mobile phones. The technologies of facial recognition and motion captureenablehuman-free and effective checkout.

TheBeijing International Book City hosts Beijing’s first unattended smart bookstore, which opens 24 hours a day. The bookstore covers 30 square meters and all the procedures, including entering the store through facial recognition, selecting books, automatic settlement and checkout,are unattended here.

The world’s first driverless street sweepermade its debut in Songjiang of Shanghai. The machine is not much different from an ordinary street sweeperat a first glance. Butit will automatically “wake up”every morning, and then leave the parking place to start the day’s work. A number of sensors are placed at the head and body parts of the vehicle so that it can sense its location, recognize traffic lights andautomatically bypass obstacles or passers-by during operation.

China should vigorously promote AI development and application, and strengthen prevention and guidanceto ensure that they are safe and controllable, Zhang Yesui, spokesperson of the secondsession of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC), told a press conference.

The NPC Standing Committee has included in its legislative plan a number of laws related to AI, such as the digital security law, the personal information protection law and the revision to the law on scientific and technological progress.Meanwhile, it will include AI-related legislation into its research, in a bid to provide a strong legal guarantee for AI innovation.

By Liu Jieyan, Yang Mu, Jia Wenting from People’s Daily Online

The development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will inject new energy into the Hong Kong economy, and provide more and greater future opportunities for businesses and elites, especially the young people, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, chief executive of the Hong Kongspecial administrative region (HKSAR) said in an interview with People’s Daily Online on March 4.

Her remarks came as Hong Kong has, in recent years, sped up its steps to integrate into the big pic-ture of national development and gained advantageous opportunity in the national drive to build the bay area and expand opening up.

Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was written into China’s government work report for the first time in March 2017. Chinese authorities unveiled the outline development plan for the cluster on February 18this year, with an aim to develop the region into “a role model of high-quality development”.

The greater bay area will add more impetus to the economic growth of Hong Kong by bringing its advantages into full play, said the chief executive.

Hong Kong, an economy backed up by service industry rather than manufacturing, needs both scientific, technological innovation and advanced manufacturing industry to support its reindustria-lization and “Industry 4.0” vision, according to the chief executive.

She added that with a sound coordinated development of the region and mainland cities, Hong Kong can focus more on research, transformation and incubation of scientific technologies, while setting production bases in mainland cities encompassed by the bay area.

Hong Kong, as a global financial center, can offer funding platforms for tech and other innovation-oriented firms, she said, adding that a strong financing capacity is a premise for scientific and tech-nological innovations.

After the Hong Kong section of an express rail link connecting the region with Guangzhou and Shenzhen and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge opened to traffic last year, they also create favorable opportunities for the development of the bay area, Lam noted.

An “one hour living circle” –whereby travelling to and from Hong Kong will only cost an hour, has taken shape, she said, explaining that locals can arrive in Guangzhou in 45 minutes and Shenzhen in even less time if taking a high-speed train.

Thanks to the bridge, the travel between Hong Kong International Airport and Zhuhai has been shortened from 4 hours to about 45 minutes, she said, adding that ship is no longer a must-to-be choice for those heading for Macao.

The interconnected infrastructure facilitates the development of the cluster, and many businessmen are considering to live in Hong Kong but find a job in other cities within the bay area, said Lam.

Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng, when presiding over a meeting on the greater bay area’s devel-opment on March 1, clarified the prior tasks and major policies for 2019.

Han, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, promised to roll out more favorable policies on personal income tax.

For the Hong Kong and Macao residents who stay in mainland cities, the days of departure and re-turn will be no longer calculated as residing time, according to Han, also head of the leading group for the development of the greater bay area, the nation’s top decision-making unit for the national strategy.

The measure is most popular in Hong Kong, as it is the good news for those traveling between Hong Kong and other parts of China, Lamsaid.

When talking about the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be held this April, Lam hoped that representatives attending the forum could discuss how Hong Kong can con-tribute to Belt and Road construction and how the greater bay area can be better integrated into the Belt and Road Initiative.

The bay area consists of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Special Admin-istrative Region, as well as nine cities in Guangdong Province — Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing.

Covering 56,000 square kilometers, the bay area had a combined population of about 70 million at the end of 2017 and its GDP reached around 10 trillion yuan in 2017.

Source:Global Times/People’s Daily

The first batch of students majoring in crayfish studies at a vocational college have secured employment before their graduation, Gong Dingrong, deputy of the National People’s Congress and mayor of Qianjiang, Central China’s Hubei Province, told the Beijing Youth Daily on March 10 after reading the 2019 Government Work Report.

The Government Work Report said the country should focus on modern vocational education, which will help to boost employment and solve the shortage of high-skilled talents. One million students will be recruited to vocational colleges this year.

The two-year crayfish studies major was established in 2017, offering three courses of crayfish marketing, cooking and restaurant management.

All the 130 students studying the major have been “ordered,” said Gong, adding that the “crayfish school” is a result of the development of related industries.

“No students from crayfish school can be unemployed,” said Gong. The school will expand its admissions scale and more majors will be set up.

Gong said that according to incomplete statistics, a total of 130,000 to 150,000 people are employed in crayfish-related industries in Qianjiang, which makes up half of the city’s jobs.

In addition to academic education, the school has provided short-term training for more than 6,000 people.

These people can enjoy an annual salary as high as 120,000 yuan ($18,000), and chefs with three years of working experience are paid 30,000 to 50,000 yuan monthly.

According to a report released by the China Society of Fisheries, China produced 1.12 million tons of crayfish in 2017, creating a gross output worth 268.5 billion yuan.
 

By Cao Siqi

Source:Global Times/People’s Daily

Officials from Northwest China’s Gansu Province vowed to accelerate its plan to build a giant panda national park to protect pandas and other endangered animals.

According to a Gansu regional government work plan in 2019 obtained by the Global Times, the local government will continue strengthening its anti-pollution campaign and accelerate its plan to build a giant panda national park.

The local forestry bureau said it has formed a special team to survey the park’s boundary and promised to control human activities in the park.

The team is accelerating the construction of a giant panda rescue center, public education center, and will install video surveillance cameras in the wild and a monitoring system for the panda’s habitat.

Gansu is one of the three natural habitats of giant pandas, with the number of giant pandas reaching 132.

The giant panda habitat covered an area of 188,800 hectares and their potential habitat area could cover 255,300 hectares, involving 21 towns and villages in four counties.

The giant panda national park will be established in Longnan, a city in southeast Gansu that borders Sichuan Province on its south and Shaanxi Province on its east. Around 111 giant pandas are living in the area.

The giant panda national park is part of China’s blueprint to construct 10 pilot national parks. Another Qilian Mountains national park, also in Gansu Province, was inaugurated in 2018.

The general plan for the Northeast China tiger and leopard national park was completed, a plan for the three-river source national park was approved, and the proposal for the Hainan tropical rainforest national park has been submitted for approval, the Xinhua News Agency reported in January.

By Zhong Sheng
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Over the past seven decades, China’s diplomacy has forged ahead through various difficulties and hardships. The country has amazed the world as it is moving closer to the center stage.
Such point can be further illustrated by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s remarks at a press conference on the sidelines of the national legislature’s annual session.
He noted that China’s diplomacy has established a fine tradition with distinctive features, including independence as the cornerstone of China’s foreign policy, concern for the common good of humanity, pursuit of equity and justice, commitment to win-win outcomes, the mission of facilitating domestic development, and dedication to serving the Chinese people.
What he said drew an outline of and presented the world with the core values ofChina’s diplomacy.
Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy is the fundamental guideline of China’s diplomatic work in the new era, and it points the way for navigating through a complex array of issues in today’s world.
China firmly safeguards national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and devotes itself to the joint construction of a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind with other countries. It is creating beautiful scenery of the modern world.
China’s effortsto inject certainties to the world are obvious to all. Spanish newspaper La Vanguardiarecently hailed the importance of China when reviewing the post-crisis situation of the world. It said that China stood out as a stabilizer when the world was facing huge uncertainties.
The world is experiencingprofound changes unseen in a century, as unilateralism impacts global systems, protectionism threatens world economy, and populism hinders national governance.
Stability is necessary for the future peaceful development of the world. The more changes the world goes through, the more stabilizing factors are needed.
Working together with global partners, China firmly protectsthe international systems with the United Nations (UN) as the core, defends the international rules based on international law, and builds an open world economy under the concept of multilateralism.These endeavors are no doubt precious contributions to the stability and development of the world.
China’s efforts to inject new energy to the common development of the world are universally recognized.
Thesecond Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), to be held under the theme of “Belt and Road Cooperation, Shaping a Brighter Shared Future”, is expected to boost high-quality development of the Belt and Road cooperation and mark the beginning of a new round of common development of China and related countries.
The cooperation documents signed between China and 123 countries, as well as 29 international organizations on the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) demonstrate the support and confidence of the international communityforthe Chinese scheme.
“China always practices what it plans.” That is a compliment paid by the people from the Belt and Road countries.
Against the backdrop of the global economic slowdown and the drop in the growth of international trade and investment, to broaden the BRI cooperation has become a common aspiration of more countries, as it will bring tangible benefits to the people.
China is playing an increasingly prominent role in providing constructive solutions to the resolving of international hotspot issues.
It has always adhered to equity and justice on international hotspot issues, and committed to the settlement of issues through peaceful dialogues and consultation, gainingwide trust of the world.
Besides, China is also making efforts to create possibilities of and conditions for consensus expansion, playing a constructive role in promoting peace through talks.
According to an investigation carried out in 133 countries and regions by American analytics and advisory company Gallup from March to December last year, international community has become more positive toward China.The public opinionexactly demonstrates the charm of China’s diplomacy in the new era.
Holding high the banner of building a community with a shared future for mankind, China is standing on the right side of history, and is standing by the common interests of the majority of the countries in the world.
The major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics showcases China’s generosityand responsibility, indicating that the country will make more and greater contributions to the world peace and development.
(Source: People’s Daily)