Indholdsfortegnelse for Vol.66/No.2 i Beijing Review

New digital business models have budded and blossomed since the early 2000s when the Internet first began permeating every sphere of life in China. Platform companies, bringing together buyers and sellers and managing their interactions online, for one, have thrived. In 2021, China’s top 100 Internet firms earned a total revenue of 4.58 trillion yuan ($664 billion), and the size of the country’s platform economy is estimated to reach 100 trillion yuan ($14.5 trillion) in 2030. The Central Economic Work Conference on December 15-16, 2022, an annual gathering outlining economic priorities for the coming year, called for greater efforts to develop the digital economy, improve supervision and provide more support to platform enterprises so as to leverage their abilities in leading development, creating jobs and competing globally. The platform economy…

A document jointly released by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on December 19, 2022, details 20 key measures to build basic systems for data management and better utilize data resources. As the foundation for digitization, networking and intelligent operations, data is an increasingly vital resource for both business and government. Production, distribution, circulation, consumption and social service management now all depend on big data, which is transforming the economy, society and governance. The volume of China’s data and the ways it is being used are increasing rapidly, so the construction of basic systems for data management is becoming increasingly important for the country’s security and overall development. Under construction are systems managing data for property rights, circulation and trading, income distribution and…

As the name suggests, Shanghai-based Egg is a small cafe that serves a mostly brunch-oriented menu: avocado toast, truffled eggs, hash browns… and sometimes China’s very own hotpot. Its owner is 30-something Camden Hauge, an American born in New Jersey. She arrived in China 10 years ago, and has since taken the Shanghai food and beverage scene by storm, opening 12 venues—cafes, restaurants and bars—in the metropolis’ colorful downtown area. Outside the box Egg is located close to the intersection of Xiangyang and Changle roads, where traditional small eateries offering homemade Shanghai noodles and Western cafes gather. Opened in 2015, it’s especially wellknown for its tasty brunch—more than a meal, it offers a social experience very popular with young Chinese people. “We offer all-day dishes, a combination of whatever people…

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has made great strides in its fight against corruption over the past decade, but there is still a long way to go, according to a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in Beijing on December 6, 2022. President Xi Jinping, also General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, presided over the meeting which stressed that Party members must always stay alert and determined to tackle the challenges unique to a big political party, remain resolute and persistent in the never-ending fight against corruption, and further strengthen the political resolve to exercise full and strict CPC governance. “Though thousands or tens of thousands may stand in my way, I will continue to forge ahead.”…

Since the rise of retail e-commerce, more and more Chinese consumers are having online retailers deliver their groceries and other daily necessities to their homes. As a result of this new competition, traditional supermarkets have been losing their edge in both price and product range, and have begun to fade from the public eye. Counter to this trend of abandoning brick-and-mortar supermarkets is a growing group of Chinese who, driven either by novelty or the pursuit of a bargain, prefer to drive to membership-only wholesalers on weekends to stock up on items for the coming week. In recent years, these wholesalers have been multiplying across China, despite the strain COVID-19 placed on in-person retail. As is the case in their U.S. counterparts, these chains offer access to an assortment of…

China’s ancient skull fossil trove got a new member after a 1-million-year-old skull was unearthed in Hubei Province on December 3, 2022. The newly discovered skull is thought to be the most intact Homo erectus skull of its age found on the Eurasian continent to date. Dubbed the “No.3 Skull of Yunxian Man,” it was found at the Xuetangliangzi site, an early Paleolithic site in Yunyang District of Shiyan City. In 1989 and 1990, two other skulls were excavated there, about 35 meters away from this newly discovered fossil. Those two were later determined to be 800,000 and 1.1 million years old. At the time, Yunyang was a county named Yunxian and the two skulls were thus named the No.1 and No.2 Skull of Yunxian Man. The cluster The skull…

NEW FOREIGN MINISTER Qin Gang has been appointed foreign minister. The appointment was made by the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee on December 30, 2022 when he was serving as Chinese ambassador to the U.S. Born in Tianjin in March 1966, Qin began his career in the Beijing Service Bureau for Diplomatic Missions, working there from 1988 to 1992. Later, he worked in what is now the Department of European Affairs of the Foreign Ministry. Qin has also worked at the Chinese Embassy in the United Kingdom and as a foreign ministry spokesperson. Qin served as vice minister of foreign affairs from 2018 to 2021. He arrived in the U.S. as Chinese ambassador in July 2021. Tradition Meets Tech Workers’ Daily December 27 In celebration of the upcoming…

China reopened its borders and removed quarantine for all inbound passengers after downgrading its COVID-19 management on January 8. International business people and overseas Chinese are not the only ones to benefit from the new policy. A large number of Chinese residents are excited too, as it means outbound tourism is once again an option. For the past three years, China has had one of the world’s strictest entry management policies. Passengers, regardless of nationality, needed to quarantine at a centralized facility for eight to 28 days after entering the country—and bear the corresponding expenses. According to the Annual Report on China’s Outbound Tourism Development (2022-23) released by the China Tourism Academy on December 11 last year, the number of outbound visits decreased by 400 million from 2020 to 2022.…

From November 10 to 18, 2022, Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark conducted its 10th overseas medical mission in Jakarta, capital of Indonesia. During the mission, the ship provided vital medical assistance in what was dubbed Mission Harmony-2022. The vessel berthed in the Southeast Asian country with 111 doctors and nurses from a naval medical university. They conducted 13,488 diagnoses and performed 37 surgeries for local residents, Chinese community members and staff members of Chinese institutions in Indonesia, the navy said in a news release. Experts also hosted online academic seminars with their counterparts from the Indonesian naval hospital and participated in online joint consultation on difficult diseases with experts from multiple countries, according to the release. This is an example of how the Chinese armed forces have contributed to…

This New Year holiday, which lasted from December 31 to January 2, was the first holiday since China optimized its COVID-19 control measures in early December last year. As a large number of people had already recovered from COVID-19 infection, they chose to travel during the holiday. In Sanya, a coastal city in the island province of Hainan renowned for its beach resorts, tourists spent their holiday swimming, eating seafood, sunbathing and visiting scenic spots. A tourist from Beijing, surnamed Wang, told China News Service that his family had recovered from COVID-19 and was enjoying the holiday in the coastal city. He said he would fly back to Beijing after the holiday but other family members would stay there for the remainder of winter. Xu Xiangyu, a senior director of…

As I sipped my morning coffee on December 27, 2022, in Chongqing Municipality, news broke that China would be downgrading its management of COVID-19 from the top-level Category A to the less strict Category B on January 8. Since early 2020, the country had classified COVID-19 as a Category B infectious disease, not necessarily life-threatening—like HIV infection, but managed it as a Category A disease, life-threatening or fatal to humans or animals when exposure occurs—like the bubonic plague or cholera. But from January 8 onward, all that changed. That means no more quarantine to enter China and no more sealing off of high-risk areas. I guess that also means I’ll be flying back to Canada for the summer to see my family, whom I haven’t seen in years. That’s a…