Category: Foreign News

Source: Global Times/People’s Daily

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met the press on Friday, March 8, on the sidelines of the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress in Beijing. His answers to 21 questions discussed the outlook and complexity of Chinese diplomacy. As the world’s second largest economy and a rising power, China is apparently facing a growing challenge as to how to steer the ship of diplomacy.

Wang’s answers demonstrate the country’s clear-cut and confident diplomatic thinking. China’s foreign policies are consistent and work well in general, which is reflected in China’s relations with surrounding countries. For instance, the China-Russia relationship has developed at a high level without being affected by external factors. It’s very significant that their two heads of state will visit each other again this year.

The Belt and Road Initiative has been the top agenda of China’s diplomacy. The Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be held in April in Beijing is the most important diplomatic event this year. Wang said thousands of representatives from more than 100 countries will attend the conference. The popularity of the Belt and Road Initiative itself is a powerful response to the rabble-rousing of the “debt trap theory” and “geopolitical tool theory” by the US and its allies.

The trade disputes between China and the US in the past year has stirred the global market, sparking anxiety over a China-US confrontation. The foreign minister reiterated that the two countries stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation, saying it’s in both countries’ interests to expand cooperation.

China-US relations in the past few months have seen ups and downs. But after marathon negotiations, both sides are closer to reaching a trade agreement.

China has long supported the peaceful resolution of conflicts, whether it is the South China Sea disputes, or the Korean Peninsulanuclear issue, or the India-Pakistan confrontation. All these are thorny issues. But China has been able to manage differences with other South China Sea claimants and has played a crucial role in the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. China is also playing a constructive role in promoting talks between India and Pakistan.

China-Japan relations have returned to the right track. With our pragmatic diplomacy and insistence on the principle of mutual benefits, no matter how the West tries to drive a wedge, China-Africa cooperation has flourished and is unshaken. As the Venezuela situation intensifies, Wang stressed that the sovereignty and independence of Latin American countries should be respected and their right to develop normal relations with China should be respected.

Wang responded to many sensitive questions. He focused on increasing international understanding on Chinese foreign policies and showed Chinese goodwill and sincerity. The world is undergoing great changes. China is a builder of peace and development. With radical geopolitical thinking and populism prevailing in the West and some other regions, China is facing more challenges to play a constructive role. As shown in Wang’s remarks, China is embracing its responsibilities.

ByJing Yi from People’s Daily

E-commerce has driven up sales of agricultural products through deeper infiltration in the countryside of southwest China’s GuizhouProvince in recent years.

Hua Xi, an agent of China’s online marketplace Taobao, is a witness of the changes that e-commerce has brought to the countryside of Tongren inGuizhouover the past 11 years.

After college graduation in 2008, the 20-year-old of Dong ethnic group opened a shop on Taobao as a part-time job in Wenzhou, a fertile soil for small businesses.

In 2012, Hua and her husband turned the part-time job into a full-time career and the business prospered under their efforts.

“I received hundreds of orders each day, and the sales volume of one underwear product even stood among the top three of the kind on Taobao,” Hua said, attributing the achievements to the help of the booming e-commerce.

In April 2015, Hualeft Wenzhouto become an e-commerce entrepreneur under a Rural TaobaoProject in Wanshan town of Tongren, her hometown.

Thanks to the improvement of supporting policies such as e-commerce policies, logistics distribution, online payment and credit services, the Tongren site became Alibaba’s first city-level pilotRuralTaobaoProject in the country.

“I’m obsessed with selling local products to customers in other places and buying products for farmers via online platforms,” Hua said. Under her efforts, local goods, including honey, wild kudzu root powder, hand-made rice noodles, and rice wine were sold to rest of the country.

In recent years, e-commerce has acted as a pushing hand in Guizhou’s efforts to sell more local products to places out of the mountains, creating opportunities for targeted poverty alleviation, Hua said.

In 2018, Hua set up a sales platform to boost sales of Guizhou’s agricultural products and local goods. The platform has over 110,000 members and 5,000 distributors. She believes that as e-commerce develops, more people would know about Guizhou’s local goods.

In the same year, Huawas elected as a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC), becoming the first national legislator from grass-root e-commerce entrepreneurs.

Hua, who is also deputy secretary of the Tongren Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League, said it’s her responsibility to help young people like her become rich.

“In addition to ‘business environment’, the term ‘private economy’ was mentioned for eight times, and small- and micro-sized enterprises (SMEs) for twelve timesin the government work report 2019,” Hua said, adding that she is most concerned about private economy in the report.

In Hua’s view, digital economy will drive common development of the entire industry chain, and the implementation of the digital countryside strategy will play an important role in increasing farmers’ incomes.

As China is going through consumption upgrading, rural e-commerce entrepreneurs could sell high-quality goods to a larger market via e-commerce platforms. This is the value of e-commerce to increase farmers’ income and promote consumption upgrading, Hua said.

By Shang Kaiyuan from People’s Daily

China’s Micius, the world’s first quantum communication satellite, is able to preliminarily meet the demands of secure communication of relevant departments, said Pan Jianwei, a leading Chinese quantum scientist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
He made the remarks when introducing the progress of the self-developed satellite at a press conference for the second session of the 13th National Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on March 10.
In the past two years, scientists have increased satellite-to-earth quantum key distribution by 40 times for the Micius, enabling the satellite to transmit 400,000 encryption keysjust in one second, said Pan, who is also a member of the 13th CPPCC National Committee.
Micius, also known as the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS), has two main targets, Pan introduced. It aims to realize secure quantum communications between satellite and ground stations, and verify the non-locality of quantum mechanics raised by Albert Einsteinat space scale.
“Micius outperformed our expectation, as it only took a couple of months to complete the scientific experiments that were planned to be finished in two years,” Pan said.

It allowed Pan and his team more time to improve the satellite in the past three years, and practical progress was made by the scientific experiments satellite.

At present, the Micius only functions at night due to the interference from the strong sunshine at the daytime.
According to Pan,he and his team areplanning to build a medium-high-orbit quantum communication satelliteto offer 24-hour services. The satellite will be able to generate encryptionkeys at any time, so as to fulfill the demand of information transmission in future commercial application, Pan said.
Information security is closely related with public interests, and personal privacy is not the only sector concerned, Pan said.
He took autopilot technology as an example, saying that a highly secured remote-control system is very much needed for future vehicles to prevent potential hacker attacks that might hinder driving safety.
Quantum communication,featuring theoretical unconditional security, can significantly enhance the information security, Pan noted.
“Scientists are working hard to expand the coverage of quantum communication technology, and trying to lower the cost to have the public share the benefits of the technology at an early date,”he added.

By GuZhongyang from People’s Daily

China Post issued a commemorative stamp to mark the 40th National Tree Planting Day in Beijing on March. 11, one day ahead of the country’s arbor day.
The stamp is the first one in China released to commemorate the National Tree Planting Day.
With a face value of 1.2 yuan ($0.19), the commemorative stamp bears the image of a green tree. The trunk of the tree is designed based on a pair of forearms, and the branches are embodied in palms and fingers. The stamp is designed to call for the public to plant trees and improve ecological environment.
In the center of the tree shows the figures “3.12”, the date of the National Tree Planting Day, and above the figures are leavesornamented bycityscape, rivers and mountains, as well as birds and white clouds.
The stamp carries the best wishes of building clear water and lush mountains for a beautiful China via plantation.
It is printed with special green ink, which enables the tree in the stamp to present a different look under ultraviolet, such as the number “40” signifying the 40th National Tree Planting Day, and the Chinese characters meaning “jointly building a beautiful China by performing the duty of tree planting”.
China’s National Tree Planting Day was set on March 12 on 1979 at the sixth session of the 5th Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. At that time, China’s forest coverage was only 12 percent. Now the figure has been lifted to 21.66 percent.
In addition, the forest stock volume of the country also grew from 8.656 billion to 15.137 billion cubic meters, with man-made forest area topping the world.
China has become a country of the world’s largest increase in forest resources, and the green increases in China contributed much to the global ecological governance and won high praise from the international community.

By Wang Hailin from People’s Daily

With continuously optimized structure and better quality of consumption, China is already a major consumption country, Chinese Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan said on March 9, pledging a slew of measures to further encourage consumption in 2019.

His remarks also came after a narrowed growth rate in retail sales of consumer goods drew more global attention. China registered a total retail sale of 38.1 trillion yuan ($5.67 trillion) in 2018, with the year-on-year growth dropping 1.2 percentage points from a year ago to 9 percent.

Despite a narrowed growth rate in China’s total retail sales last year, the increment amounted to 3.2 trillion yuan, equivalent to the annual retail sales in 1998, Zhong told a news conference on the sidelines of the annual legislative session.

More importantly, the structure of China’s consumption has kept improving, the minister said, illustrating that consumption of services grew faster than that of goods, with its share rising to 49.5 percent last year.

The growth of rural consumption was 1.3 percentage points higher than that of urban consumption, he added.

The quality of consumption has been further improved, with personalized, diversified and customized consumption burgeoning, he said.

Stressing the greater weight of consumption to GDP, Zhong said that consumption contributed 76.2 percent to China’s economic growth last year, remaining the primary driver of economic growth.

He concluded that the growth of the total retail sales was in line with China’s current stage of development, and also met the requirements posed by a high-quality development.

China is about to further leverage consumption this year, Zhong vowed, expounding measures in unleashing the potential of both urban and rural consumption and promoting spending on services.

In order to upgrade consumption in urban areas, the country will update a number of pedestrian streets into platforms based on which the consumption can be better structured for high-quality growth, he said.

China will also optimize the layout of convenience stores, and encourage their brand development and franchising, the minister added, believing that such measures will reassure consumers by offering them more convenience.

It will also expand rural consumption by encouraging flow of agricultural products to the cities, and sale of industrial products in the countryside, said Zhong.
He elaborated that such measures will enable farmers to gain access to cost-effective industrial products, while facilitating the connection of urban and rural markets by introducing e-commerce platforms to countryside.
Online retail sales soared to 1.37 trillion yuan in rural areas in 2018, up 30.4 percent year on year.
The nation will also further stimulate service consumption by optimizing supply, said the minister, who described service consumption as a new economic growth driver with some short boards.
Efforts will be made to tap the full potential of fronts driving growth of service consumption, according to him, elaborating that culture, tourism and sports have grown into key drivers, while customized services and online shopping are emerging ones with great possibility.

By Bai Yang from People’s Daily

The preparation of the Beijing 2022Winter Olympic Games has become a hot topic among national legislators and top political advisors during China’s ongoing “”two sessions”, as China steps up efforts to present the world a feast of winter sports.
The Beijing Winter Olympic Games, scheduled to take place from 4 to 20 February, 2022in Beijing and its neighboring Zhangjiakou, will be the first Winter Olympic Games ever held by China.
“We divided the preparation work in five phases, and are currently going through the second one –individual program planning,” said Wang Yanxia, member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), at a group meeting of the second session of the country’s top political advisory body. The preparation will move on to the third phase of testing events this year, she added.
Wang, who is also the deputy director of the Sports Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games,detailed the preparations of the Games at the meeting, introducing that they are making steady progress in venue construction, personnel training, technology support, market development, meteorological guarantee, and volunteer services.
The Organizing Committee has subdivided 55 items of all preparation work into 3,158 specific tasks. So far, the venue constructionhas been fully started, andmost of the venues will meet the requirements of the testing events thenext year.
The Alpine Skiing World Cup, as the first test match for the 2022 Winter Olympics, will be held in Yanqing in February 2020, said Shen Jin, member of the CPPCCand deputy director of the Venue Planning and Construction Department of the Organising Committee. “It’ll be an arduous task as the championship is about to kick off in less than a year,” Shen noted.
Shen said that the National Alpine Skiing Center is set to meet the trial event requirements by the end of October this year and all the other competition venues will be completed and ready for trial events next year.
The Beijing-Zhangjiakou High Speed Railway and Yanchong Expressway linking Yanqing District and Chongli District of Zhangjiakou are also expected to open this year, she added.
The wide application of smart and intelligent technologies in the venues will be a major highlight. The National Speed Skating Oval, the only new venue built in Beijing for the event, will provide athletes with a digital system for timing and speed measurement, and provide spectators with intelligent seat guidance and analysis for real-time event.
Telecom giant and internet service provider of the Games China Unicom announced last December that it would invest over 1.5 billion yuan ($217 million) to upgrade its communicating services and build a 5G-based broadband network, in a bid to create a smart operation guarantee system, provide ultimate user experience, high-quality event services and intelligent venue operations.
Competitions are a key factor for the success of the Winter Olympic Games, and snow events are full of uncertainties due to the weathers. In order to ensure meteorological guarantee, the Organizing Committee signed an agreement with China Meteorological Administration(CMA) to set up a meteorological service center.
A chief meteorological officer was appointed and 52 weather forecasterswere transferred from the CMA to establish a forecasting team. Every venue of the Games will be stationed with one full-time forecaster.
The weather forecast during the Games will be accurate to every 100 meters, which will also be updated in minutes, said Zhang Jiandong, vicemayor of Beijing and executive vicepresident of theOrganizing Committee.
According to Zhang, also a deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC), the CMA’s meteorological forecasting team is conducting drills and tests in accordance with the requirements of the International Olympic Committeeto update meteorological informationof every 100 meters inevery 10 minutes.

Source: Global Times/People’s Daily

A deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress and chief designer of the space program of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said that China will realize frequent launch of manned spacecraft like flights after the country establishes its space station around 2022.

The country will realize bulk production of manned spacecraft in the future instead of today’s customization, Zhang Bonan was quoted as saying by the Science and Technology Daily report on March 9.

China’s space station will be completed around 2022. The number of personnel and the volume of goods that transport between the ground and the space station will increase dramatically, Zhang noted.

He said that to meet the space station’s demands at that time, the country has to prepare enough spacecrafts in advance.

They will be launched based on the needs of the replacement of astronauts and the freight, “just like air flights,” Zhang said.

” China aerospace manufacturing industry has gained the ability to do small volume production through improved digitization and automation technology,” Zhang said.

China mastered mature manned spacecraft manufacturing technology after the Shenzhou-10 spacecraft. The country now has the ability to produce manned spacecrafts in quantity, according to Zhang.

In 1992, China launched its manned space flight program. The success of Shenzhou-5 in 2003 made China the third country to acquire manned space travel technology on its own. From Shenzhou-5 to Shenzhou-11, China has sent 11 astronauts into space.

By Cao Siqi

Chinese lawmakers and political advisors hailed the country’s progress in protecting women’s rights on March 8, which was International Women’s Day, as the number of women holding seats at the ongoing two sessions continues to climb.

The two sessions refer to the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which is China’s top political advisory body.

Among the 2,975 deputies to the 13th NPC, there are 2,233 men and 742 women who account for 24.94 percent of the total, an increase of 1.5 percent from the 12th NPC.

Moreover, a Global Times reporter found that there are more women than men NPC deputies born in the 1990s, creating a more balanced gender ratio at this year’s two sessions.

In addition, there are 440 women who are members of the 13th National Committee of the CPPCC, accounting for 20.3 percent of members, an increase from 17.8 percent from the 12th NPC, news site womenofchina.cn reported.

Among the 438 ethnic minority deputies to the 13th NPC, 184, or 42 percent, are women, said the report.

“The increasing number of female NPC deputies and CPPCC National Committee members in the two sessions indicates that more women are participating in the country’s political affairs and exercising their ability in discussions of state affairs,” Ran Hui, an NPC deputy from the Tujia minority group in Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, told the Global Times.

Ran said that the government is paying more attention to women’s roles and influence in the country.

He Fei, an NPC deputy from Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, told the Global Times that women are being treated more fairly in political elections which shows progress in the gender equality.

In the Government Work Report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang at the second session of the 13th NPC on March 5, China vowed to stop gender and identity discrimination in employment.
Source: Global Times/People’s Daily

By Zhao Cheng from People’s Daily

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets the press on the sidelines of the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress, March 8, 2019. Wang takes questions regarding China’s foreign policy and diplomatic relations. (Photo from People’s Daily Online)

“The key to solving the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula lies in not being a prisoner of history and breaking the cycle of mistrust.” Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a press conference on China’s foreign policy and relations on the sidelines of the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress in Beijing.

He said it would be useful to jointly work out a general roadmap for denuclearization and the establishment of a peace regime.

Wang added that the Hanoi summit was an important step toward a political settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. The fact that DPRK and US leaders overcame obstacles to meet again for a candid, face-to-face discussion itself represents a positive development that must be applauded. The international community should encourage both sides to have patience and keep moving toward the goal of denuclearizing the peninsula and establishing a peace regime.

“If the parties continue their dialogue and stay the course, the day will come when the denuclearization of the peninsula will become a reality.” Wang Yi said.

The minister pointed out that as the nuclear issue has dragged on for decades and complicated factors are at play, one cannot expect it to be solved overnight. All parties need to have reasonable expectations. One shouldn’t set the bar too high at the outset or make unilateral, unrealistic demands.

Wang Yi stressed that China’s position on the issue has been consistent.

“We are committed to achieving the denuclearization of the peninsula, to solving the issue through dialogue and to maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula. We have been working for these goals for over 20 years and our role has been irreplaceable. China will, along with the other parties, continue to contribute to meeting these goals.” He stressed.

By Jing Yi from People’s Daily

The rollout of a new foreign investment law will definitely uplift China’s opening up to a new high, a senior legislator said on March 9, as the latest draft of the proposed law has been submitted to the nation’s lawmakers for deliberation.

The updated one will give fullbring to the role of law in consolidating foundations, stabilizing expectations and bringing long-term benefits, Liu Junchen, vice chairman of Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, told a press conference on the sidelines of the annual legislative session.

The review on the new foreign investment law by China’s top legislature is of great and far-reaching importance, as it signifies China’s determination and resolution to push ahead with the reforms and opening up, Liu said, adding that the rule of law serves as the best guarantee to business investment.

If adopted, the new law will replace three existing laws on Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, non-equity joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises to serve as China’s basic law on foreign investment.

The legislator explained that the three laws, which were formulated in the early days after China launched its reform and opening up policy, have provided an important legal guarantee for investment inflow, but they could hardly catch up with the changing requirements brought by new updates.

To meet the demands to build an open economy in the new era, it is imperative to enact a new unified basic law on foreign investment, Liu further explained.

The decision, according to the deputy, is also an inescapable choice for further opening up, building a new foreign capital management system, and unifying regulations on domestic and foreign investments.

Defined as a basic law on foreign investment, it prioritizes in making clear the basic framework, rules and norms of the new legal system for foreign investment, and also clarifying the framework guideline of the system to manage that investment, said Liu.

If the law is adopted, supporting rules and regulations will be formulated to ensure an open, transparent and predictable environment for law-based management, he added.

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, which means that foreign investors and their investment will be subject to a national treatment during the entry stage rather than after their accession.

Such an adjustment represents a high-level facilitation and liberalization for investment, Liu elaborated.

With an aim to facilitate and protect foreign investment, the new law sets its key tune as expanding opening up and promoting foreign investment inflow, Liu said, adding that the draft also addresses the detailed agendas concerned by foreign investors.