Innehållsförteckning för Vol.66/No.4 från Beijing Review

NEPAL Crowds gather at the crash site of a passenger plane carrying 72 people in the Pokhara region on January 15. At least 69 had been killed in the accident as of January 16 CROATIA Kuna and euro banknotes are shown at a vegetable stand in Sibenik on January 14. Croatia adopted the euro as its currency on January 1, becoming the 20th member state of the eurozone. The kuna, the country’s official currency since 1994, ceased circulation on January 15 MALAYSIA A resident of Kuala Kubu Bharu follows the traditional recipe and method to make rice cakes for the Lunar New Year, which fell on January 22 this year, on January 8 LEBANON Visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (left) and his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib attend a…

To help locals prepare for the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, which fell on January 22 this year, two trains running in Guizhou Province had their carriages temporarily converted into shops selling Spring Festival merchandise to homebound travelers during the holiday travel rush. The trains run between Yuping Dong Autonomous County of Tongren and Guiyang, the provincial capital. Famous for their convenience and affordable prices, the trains usually serve locals in mountainous areas. They pass through several townships in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, connecting more than 100 ethnic minority villages along the 337-km route. Comments to dingying@cicgamericas.com…

In the sprawling Daxing International Hydrogen Energy Demonstration Zone, adjacent to the new international airport in south Beijing, a large white building resembling a spaceship is an eye-catcher. Known as Hypower, it is the world’s largest hydrogen refueling station. With eight fuel pumps and a daily hydrogenation capacity of 4.8 tons, it beats all competitors across the globe. The demonstration zone operates with the support of targeted policies and funding, and the 139 enterprises in it are provided with hydrogen testing facilities and business services as well as assistance in putting their technologies in application. Ren Juanjuan, Deputy Director of the Economic and Information Bureau of Daxing District, where the zone is located, said the enterprises include both upstream and downstream hydrogen companies, who have built their research and development…

COVID-related Deaths Medical institutions nationwide registered 59,938 deaths related to COVID-19 from December 8, 2022 to January 12, a health official said on January 14. A total of 5,503 people died of respiratory failure caused by COVID-19, and 54,435 died of underlying issues complicated by COVID-19 infection, Jiao Yahui, head of the Bureau of Medical Administration under the National Health Commission, said at a press conference held by the State Council’s joint COVID-19 prevention and control mechanism. The average age at the time of death was 80.3, with about 90.1 percent aged 65 and above, and about 56.5 percent aged 80 and above, Jiao said. More than 90 percent of the deaths involved underlying issues, including cardiovascular diseases, advanced tumors, cerebrovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, metabolic diseases and renal insufficiency. Winter…

All was dark and quiet outside, at 5 a.m. on January 13, with temperatures plummeting to 22 degrees Celsius below zero. Chen Lili, an operations director at Zhangjiakou Railway Station in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, was at home getting ready to leave for work. At 5:30 a.m., Chen arrived at the station where her morning shift would commence at 6 a.m. sharp. After changing into her work clothes, putting on anti-COVID-19 protective gear and gathering the necessary work equipment, like walkie-talkies and audio and video recorders, Chen headed over to her designated train platform. This was her 10th Spring Festival travel rush, the country’s typical 40-day transportation peak around the Chinese New Year, as a railway worker. This year’s travel rush, also known as chunyun in Chinese, started on January 7…

China is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The nation has made huge progress over the last decade in reducing poverty and becoming more open to trade and foreign investment. Emerging as a global economic superpower in recent decades, it is now not only the world’s second largest economy and the largest exporter by value, but has also been investing in overseas infrastructure and development at a rapid clip as part of the Belt and Road Initiative it proposed in 2013. A recently released Pew Research Center survey found that, particularly in emerging markets, publics largely have a positive view of China’s economic stature. Respondents to the survey generally saw China’s growing economy as a good thing for their own countries and believed China is having a…

In the summer of 1984, a train from Beijing, with then 27-year-old Li Dongfang on board, traveled over 2,000 km to Dunhuang, a city in Gansu Province in northwest China. Before that, the farthest from home Li had ever been was the city of Tianjin—then a two-hour drive from China’s capital. When she finally arrived at her destination after days and nights of taxing travel, she was welcomed by a starlit sky that was unlike anything she’d ever seen. “The sky was like a big pot lid, and the stars covered me like a quilt,” Li recalled. But her initial excitement was soon replaced by a sense of anxiousness in the face of an unknown future. She had come to Dunhuang to visit the Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage…

Monetary Policy China’s prudent monetary policy will focus on coordinating the expansion of domestic demand and supply-side structural reform, Xuan Changneng, Vice Governor of the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, said on January 13. To increase domestic demand, measures will be taken to maintain reasonably sufficient liquidity, guide financial institutions to release credit supply reasonably and in accordance with market principles and the rule of law, Xuan told a press conference. China will actively coordinate its monetary policy with fiscal and social policies to ramp up support for enterprises and key groups, stabilizing and creating jobs and raising the incomes of urban and rural residents through multiple channels. Work should be done to ensure the monetary policy is reasonable and moderate, and to avoid flood-like stimulus, Xuan…

Wei Lili, a woman who delivers milk to households with her husband in Beijing, hadn’t been back to her hometown in Shanxi Province for three years, owing to travel restrictions imposed to control the spread of COVID-19. This year, as China has optimized its pandemic control measures and lifted travel restrictions, she booked two train tickets to her hometown well in advance for a reunion with her children and other family members to celebrate the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, which fell on January 22. Wei has two daughters: One is around 20 and the other is 5. When her younger daughter was only 6 months old, Wei came to Beijing with her husband to work and left her children in the care of her parents-in-law. Before the pandemic,…

After nearly three years of suspension since March 14, 2020 due to COVID-19, international flights began resuming operation at Beijing Daxing International Airport (BDIA) from January 17. BDIA was put into operation in September 2019 to relieve the flight pressure at Beijing Capital International Airport. But months later, the pandemic led to a sharp decline in international travel and then all international flights to and from Beijing were left to be handled only by the older airport. BDIA’s reopening to international flights is a sign indicating the recovery of the aviation industry. China has removed all quarantine requirements for inbound passengers since January 8, and introduced policies to facilitate the resumption of international flights, which is boosting demand for inbound and outbound travel. In addition, the country has also ended…

Early January 2023 saw U.S. media intensify condemnation of Iran for suspending talks in the Austrian capital, Vienna, aimed at reviving the 2015 multilateral deal on its nuclear program. On the very first day of 2023, The National Interest, a leading mainstream U.S. media outlet, carried an article titled In 2023, Washington Can’t Neglect Iran, which called for even tougher measures to prevent Iran from using its nuclear program to produce weapons. It is a pity that international efforts to address the Iran nuclear issue have stalled, but it is not fair to blame the failure solely on Iran. Actually, the U.S. should also be held responsible for the current stalemate, as much of the fault lies in its domestic politics. Progresses and setbacks There are very strong anti-Iran forces…

Hundreds of traditional lanterns featuring mythical creatures come alive at night at the Yuyuan Garden, a well-known landmark in Shanghai, in celebration of this year’s Spring Festival, which fell on January 22 and marked the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit. The lights will stay up throughout this year’s Spring Festival holiday (January 21-27). This is the 28th year the Yuyuan Lantern Festival lights up the dark of winter. Whereas many Shanghainese already consider a visit to the lantern extravaganza a staple holiday outing, this year’s edition has proven even more popular following its debut on Douyin, China’s TikTok, and Xiaohongshu, a lifestyle and e-commerce platform, on December 26 last year. Themed An Adventure Journey of Mountains and Seas, based on the ancient Chinese text Shan Hai Jing, or…