Indholdsfortegnelse for Vol.66/No.43 i Beijing Review

Removing all restrictions on foreign investment in manufacturing. Building a new Eurasian logistics corridor. Providing 100,000 training opportunities for partner countries by 2030. These are among a series of steps President Xi Jinping said China will take to build stronger Belt and Road cooperation. In his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing on October 18, President Xi promised to usher the 10-year-old initiative into a new stage of higher-quality development. During his visit to Kazakhstan in September 2013, President Xi put forward the initiative of jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt, which, together with the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road he proposed the following month in Indonesia, constitutes the Belt and Road Initiative. The BRF’s first two…

In his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on October 18, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced eight major steps China will take to support the joint pursuit of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation: First, building a multidimensional Belt and Road connectivity network. China will speed up high-quality development of the China-Europe Railway Express, participate in the Trans-Caspian International Transportation Corridor, host the China-Europe Railway Express Cooperation Forum, and make joint efforts to build a new logistics corridor across the Eurasian continent, linked by direct railway and road transportation. We will vigorously integrate ports, shipping and trading services under the Silk Road Maritime, and accelerate the building of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor and the Air Silk Road.…

It was wonderful to be back in China in June for the Third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo (CAETE) in the city of Changsha, Hunan Province. Since its inauguration in 2019, the CAETE has become an important platform for expanding the China-Africa relationship, of which agricultural cooperation is an increasingly significant element. The scale of the activities in Changsha was testament to the scope and ambition of all those involved in China-Africa exchanges. On the same trip, I was also able to visit several leading agricultural research institutes in Beijing that our foundation (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) has been working with to form partnerships with their African counterparts. Even as someone familiar with this field, I was struck by the seriousness of the commitment I saw among Chinese scientists…

Shangying Village in Henan Province is also called “Taiwan Village.” More than 300 years ago, soldiers of the Gaoshan ethnic minority, known as the “aborigines of Taiwan,” left their home turf to make a living on the mainland and eventually settled in Shangying. In August 2005, with the help of Wu Tianxi, a businesswoman who hails from Taiwan but resides on the mainland, the Gaoshan people in Shangying Village were reunited with their “ancestral kin” after more than three centuries. “They were born and raised in Henan, but their ancestors were originally from Taiwan. I was born and raised in Taiwan, but my ancestors were originally from Henan,” Wu told Beijing Review, adding that this was what motivated her to help Shangyingers reunite with their ethnic kinsfolk in Taiwan. Wu’s…

BEST ACTRESS AWARD WINNER Lu Xingchen won the best actress award at the Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival on October 16. She won the honor for her performance in Carefree Days, a drama about the life of a woman who suffers from uremia, a condition involving abnormally high levels of waste products in the blood. Graduating from the Beijing Dance Academy and majoring in musical theater, Lu has starred in many Chinese films and dramas since 2010. She has won several awards for acting, including the best actress award at the 14th Shanghai International Film Festival in 2011. Founded in 2017, the festival, named after eminent director Ang Lee’s masterpiece, is held annually in Pingyao, an ancient city on the UNESCO World Heritage List in Shanxi Province.…

The Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF), held in Beijing on October 17-18, took place at a critical juncture for world affairs. Peace and stability are no longer taken for granted in a world full of tension and hostility. Along with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, a new round of violence in the Middle East is causing additional uncertainty and fear. The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is naturally affected by this global backdrop. When armed conflict occurs, the initiative’s main element of interconnectivity suffers disruption. China is now the second biggest economy in the world and a rising geopolitical power. Its clout in international affairs is gradually becoming bigger. It is not a coincidence that, for example, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last year…

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the No.1 powder keg in the Middle East, has once again exploded in a most tragic way. Facing a potentially out-of-control situation, United States President Joe Biden paid an emergency visit to Israel on October 18 at the invitation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Prior to his trip, Biden had reiterated the American support for Israel, its most important ally in the region. He further emphasized in an interview that the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as Hamas, the Sunni Islamist political and military organization that governs the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories, should be completely eliminated. Biden, however, did add that “it would be a mistake for Israel to reoccupy Gaza” and denied that the U.S. plans to start a new war in…

China and Panama are some 15,000 km apart, equal to a little more than one third the circumference of the Earth. However, the close connection between these two countries stretches not only a vast geographical distance, but also a long way back in time. Friendship and bilateral exchange between them has been growing since Chinese people first set foot in the Central American country more than 160 years ago. Since the two countries established diplomatic relations in June 2017, bilateral cooperation in trade, infrastructure and other fields, as well as people-to-people exchange, have advanced at an increased rate. China has been Panama’s largest trading partner since 2019 and, at present, is the second largest user of the Panama Canal, after the United States. Every year, a variety of events are…

The hot, hip and happening razzmatazz of Shanghai Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2024 was a wrap on October 16. Starting from October 8, the couture concoctions of more than 100 (mostly Chinese) creative minds took to the catwalks from the city’s Xintiandi shopping district to its famous Bund waterfront area, satisfying the ravenous appetites of fashion aficionados, editors and buyers alike in a post-pandemic, boisterous blaze of light and lacy luminosity. From the catwalk to just, well, a “walk,” a 2.5-hour flight north, Beijingers at the same time enjoyed a front-row seat to another flashy form of art—arboreal art, that is. Residents were soaking up the (short-lived) splendor that is fall in the capital, a place surrounded by thousands of acres of fall foliage ranging from canary yellow to flaming red,…

Change is the only constant in life and it’s particularly pronounced in the vibrant city of Beijing. Having been a resident of China since 1993 and calling Beijing home since 1996, I have witnessed firsthand the city’s remarkable evolution. Every time I return after an extended absence, I am struck by the profound changes in the surrounding areas. This time, my return comes after a four-year hiatus. I found myself stuck in Pakistan due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Yet this extended absence provided me with a unique perspective on the transformations taking place in Beijing. One of the most noteworthy achievements in Beijing’s recent history is the significant improvement in air quality. For years, the city struggled with severe air pollution, often making headlines as one of the world’s most…

Economic Growth The Chinese economy grew 5.2 percent year on year in the first three quarters of this year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. China’s GDP reached over 91.3 trillion yuan ($12.7 trillion) during that period, the NBS data revealed. GDP represents the total market value of the final goods and services produced in a country during a given period of time, usually a year or a quarter. In this sense, it’s a measure of domestic production and can be an indicator of a country’s economic health. In the third quarter alone, the country’s GDP expanded 4.9 percent year on year, according to the NBS. Market demand kept expanding, production and supply increased steadily, and economic performance continued to improve, the NBS said. Retail sales of…

As part of its efforts to improve environmental governance, China is shifting its focus from controlling energy consumption to controlling carbon emissions. Over the past decade, the Central Government has set binding targets for provincial-level authorities on total energy consumption and energy intensity, or the amount of energy consumed per unit of GDP. Since China first announced its goals in 2020 to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, the flaws in this system have become apparent. For example, total energy consumption includes not only fossil fuels, but also non-fossil fuels such as nuclear and renewable energy. Limiting the total amount of energy consumed may discourage the development and use of renewable energy, which in turn slows economic growth in areas rich in such energy…

If you look at the map of China, you will see that almost all major rivers in the country flow from west to east. There is only one long river that flows from south to north. And this is not a natural stream, but an artificial one that stretches along nearly 1,800 km. It’s the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. Located at the northernmost point of the Grand Canal, Beijing has been the capital of China for most time since the 1270s. In October, when the cooler temperatures of fall descend on the Chinese capital, Beijing’s Tongzhou Grand Canal Forest Park offers some breathtaking golden-hued views. Tongzhou, a district in modern Beijing’s eastern part, has been the doorway connecting the city with northeastern, eastern and southern regions of the country for almost…