Indholdsfortegnelse for Vol.66/No.45 i Beijing Review

Gender equality is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that the UN has vowed to accomplish by 2030. In China, it has long been a much valued concept, as evidenced by Chairman Mao Zedong’s famous statement, “Women hold up half the sky.” The role of women has recently come into the spotlight again with the convening of the 13th National Women’s Congress on October 23-26. The congress, held every five years, is the highest leading body of women’s federations together with the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) Executive Committee, which is elected by it. During a talk with the newly elected ACWF leadership following the congress, President Xi Jinping said promoting gender equality and the all-round development of women and children, and protecting their legitimate rights and interests are important…

As the world’s gaze shifts to the raging conflict in the Middle East, the prolonged war in Ukraine is entering a new phase. Behind closed doors in Malta on October 28-29, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rallied support for his 10-point peace plan during two days of talks with officials from 66 countries—the third such high-level meeting following summits in Copenhagen, Denmark and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. With the Israeli-Palestinian clashes dominating headlines, Zelensky likely hopes to take this forum as an opportunity to regain international attention on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Some Western media portrayed the talks as a test of Ukraine’s ability to keep its allies invested. The third talks on Ukraine’s “peace formula” reaffirmed calls for Russian withdrawal, ending “hostilities and reparations.” The meeting reached a principled stance, yet no…

Hospital pediatric wards are full of coughing children. It is an indicator of the current surge of pneumonia caused by mycoplasma, a microorganism that is neither a virus nor a bacterium, in China. Mycoplasma pneumonia can cause respiratory disease, especially in young children. It is also called “walking pneumonia” because it rarely requires hospitalization. It’s nothing new, with a major outbreak of the infection occurring every three to seven years. This time around, however, it seems to be breaking out with much more force and wide prevalence. Experts are currently busy making suggestions on how to prevent and treat the infection. Some primary schools have even suspended classes due to the rapid spread of the infection. A report from Xinhua News Agency revealed that the apparent increase in patients for…

Visiting Anting Old Street made me rethink the story of my journey from Türkiye to China. My major motivation for coming was to get to know China’s history and culture more intimately, and I knew that doing so would require not only reading books but also experiencing life in China’s cities and on its streets. My visit to this street, located in Anting Town, just outside the northwest border of metropolitan Shanghai, seemed to prove this. I felt as if I had been transported back hundreds of years, and as I rode my bicycle along the street, I began to feel a true sense of exploration. Exploring is a wonderful activity I picked up in Türkiye, and while I had originally planned to spend just a few hours exploring Anting…

Otempora! O mores! Like it or not, throughout the centuries, almost every civilization has had its own sensitive style issues, especially when it comes to women. Europe had the corset, a tight, structured undergarment extending from below the chest to the hips that was in vogue from ca. 1500 until the early 20th century; China had foot binding. For good measure: One story about the origins of the latter recounts how, during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 B.C.)—the earliest dynasty in Chinese history supported by archaeological evidence—a concubine named Daji suffered from clubfoot. She asked the monarch to make foot binding compulsory for all girls attending court so that her own feet would be the standard of beauty and elegance. A token of high-end social status, i.e. not needing those feet…

The Second Global Digital Trade Expo is to be held in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, from November 23 to 27. The expo will be attended by more than 30 international organizations including the World Trade Organization, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and Smart Africa, an alliance tasked with implementing Africa’s information and communications technology agenda. Dozens of leading digital trade companies at home and abroad will also attend the expo, where they plan to exhibit new products for communications, digital security, the Internet of Things (IoT), digital finance and digital healthcare, with more than 100 products to make their debut. More than 800 international purchasers will be present, according to organizers. The enthusiasm shown for this expo is a good example of the growing appeal of…

In a special afternoon match at the Hangzhou Tangqi Goalball Training Base, Hu Mingyao won his first Asian Para Athletics gold medal. Much to the crowd’s delight, the athlete then decided to propose to his longtime girlfriend, who was cheering him on from the stands. Goalball is an indoor team sport developed for blind or visually impaired players in which a 1.25-kg rubber ball containing bells that make a sound when in motion is thrown at a goal at the opposing team’s end of the court. After China defeated Japan 9-3 in the men’s goalball final on October 27, Hu, a visually impaired player, removed his blackout goggles, which are worn during the game to level the playing field and allow players with different levels of vision to compete together,…

In October in Heihe, a city bordering Russia in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China, the temperature already dipped to around 0 degrees Celsius in the mornings. However, the cold weather hasn’t stopped Russians from the other side of the border coming to the city to visit its morning market for breakfast. At the morning market in Heihe, Russians line up to buy traditional Chinese foods such as baozi (steamed stuffed buns) and youtiao (deep-fried dough sticks) at small food stalls. Short videos of Russians having breakfast in the morning market have gone viral on social media platforms, and there is even a video of a Russian man washing down his baozi with vodka. Some market vendors have learned some basic Russian to communicate with Russian customers, and netizens have commented that…

Arriving in Beijing less than two months ago was a dream come true for Rocío Elías. After having previously lived in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, in 2017, this is the second time living in China for the young Mexican, who used to work for Chinese technology giant Huawei and who is a graduate of the College of Mexico (Colmex). The affection Elías feels for China has grown over time as she has gotten to know aspects of its traditions and way of life in greater depth. China’s influence in Mexico has been increasing for more than 10 years, especially in commerce, according to Elías. “I had the opportunity to work for an import company and therefore was able to have firsthand experience of the growth of bilateral trade in…

SCI-FI WRITER WINS TOP AWARD Chinese author Hai Ya took home the Best Novelette award of the 2023 Hugo Awards, the world’s top prize for science fiction literature, at the 81st World Science Fiction Convention in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, on October 21. Hai won the award for The Space-Time Painter, inspired by Song Dynasty (960-1279) landscape painting masterpiece A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains by Wang Ximeng. Hai wove the story of Wang’s life into a thriller that combines elements of traditional Chinese culture and history with sci-fi and detective genres. Beginning his career in the financial industry, Hai started writing sci-fi stories in 2016 and published his first work in 2019. He is the third Chinese writer to win a Hugo Award after Liu Cixin in 2015 and Hao…

Among the eight major steps China announced at the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, the cancelation of all restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector is the most striking measure, or at least one of the most eye-catching. The measure is a testament to China’s ongoing commitment to opening up and a major step forward for China in key areas of its development, namely, entering a new stage of fostering internationally competitive manufacturing within an open environment; responding to attempts to decouple from China; and assuming a role as a global flagbearer for free trade. Sustaining a high-level openness demands unwavering efforts to fortify the efficiency and dynamism of China’s manufacturing sector over the long term. Manufacturing matters…

Over the past three years, the world has undergone an unprecedented period of turbulence: the COVID-19 pandemic, problems in the post-pandemic era, tense relations between major powers like China and the United States, the Ukraine crisis, the conflicts in the Middle East… These factors prompt questions about the global order and the trajectory of global governance as 2024 is approaching. From October 23 to 24, scholars from some 50 think tanks around the world gathered in Beijing for the Eighth China Global Think Tank Innovation Forum, co-organized by the Center for China and Globalization and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship With Foreign Countries. “Think tanks are creators of ideas, producers of knowledge, and advocates of policies. They serve as guiding compasses, leading the way in shaping the trends and…

When traveling in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China, you might sometimes see vast fields of white, even though the winter snow has not yet come. These fields are saline-alkaline lands, where crops and other plants are almost totally unable to grow. Xinjiang’s climate is arid and the annual rate of evaporation in the region can be more than 10 times the annual rainfall. Evaporation draws water, which contains dissolved salts and other chemicals, from deeper in the soil to the soil surface and, without sufficient rainfall to wash these salts back down, the salinity and alkalinity of the soil’s surface layer continue to increase. Xinjiang has more saline-alkaline lands than any other provincial-level region in China, accounting for 36.8 percent of the nation’s total. Today, science is turning…

What did Chinese characters look like more than 3,000 years ago? An ongoing exhibition at the National Museum of Classic Books in Beijing has piqued public interest in oracle bone inscriptions, the earliest known form of Chinese writing. First discovered in Yinxu, the ruins of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 B.C.) in Anyang, Henan Province, the script was carved into cattle scapulas and tortoise shells in the process of divination. As such, the surviving inscriptions provide a record of many aspects of Shang life, including sacrifices, weather and military affairs. The oracle bone script is among the world’s best known historical writing systems, together with the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt and Mayan glyphs of Mesoamerica. It is also the oldest writing system that still survives, as it has evolved over millennia…