Innehållsförteckning för Vol.66/No.12 från Beijing Review

The First Session of the 14th National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, concluded in Beijing on March 13, with leading members of state institutions elected and endorsed. Xi Jinping was unanimously elected president of the People’s Republic of China and chairman of the Central Military Commission. “The people’s trust is my biggest motivation moving forward and is also a weighty responsibility on my shoulders,” Xi said in his speech at the closing meeting of the session. He further expressed he will continue to take the needs of the country as his mission and the people’s interests as the yardstick to follow, be committed and honest in his duties and devote himself to his work without reserve. Upon nomination by President Xi, Li Qiang was endorsed as Chinese premier. When meeting…

Brendan Ahern is chief investment officer at KraneShares, a U.S. exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider. He is an expert in global financial markets with a particular focus on China and actively maintains daily contact with an extensive local research network comprised of investment banks, brokers, as well as regional and boutique research firms. In an exclusive interview with Beijing Review reporter Zhang Shasha, he shared his views on the prospects of China’s stock market, China-U.S. cooperation in the economic and financial sectors and China’s economic development in 2023. Beijing Review: Global investors have added more than $2 billion on a net basis this year to U.S.-based mutual and ETFs that buy Chinese equities, according to the latest data from Refinitiv Lipper, a provider of financial market data and infrastructure. Nevertheless, some…

During his first press conference as Chinese premier on March 13, right after the closing of the First Session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s top legislature, Li Qiang stressed that opening up is “a basic state policy for China. No matter how the external situation may evolve, we will stay firmly committed to pursuing this policy.” The country intends to further expand opening up this year in alignment with high-standard international trade rules and by continuously improving both its business environment and services will open its door wider to the world. One important proposed government undertaking for 2023, as stated in this year’s government work report, is to “intensify efforts to attract and utilize foreign investment.” This task includes expanding market access, continuing to open up…

International Women’s Day comes on March 8 every year when China’s Two Sessions, the country’s major annual political meetings, are usually in full swing. The term Two Sessions refers to the gatherings of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, the country’s top political advisory body. Female NPC deputies and CPPCC National Committee members spend the day of celebration attending the sessions in Beijing, which ran from March 4 to 13 this year. The 14th NPC has 790 female deputies, accounting for 26.54 percent of the total. Women make up 22.4 percent of the 14th CPPCC National Committee membership, totaling 487. Among them are three ethnic minority teachers from the country’s northwestern region. Promoting the preservation and inheritance of…

The recently concluded First Session of the 14th National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, and the First Session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body, offered a window into China’s model of democracy. Ong Tee Keat, Chairman of the Center for New Inclusive Asia in Malaysia, shared his observations of the most important annual political meetings in China with Beijing Review reporter Ma Miaomiao. Edited excerpts from the interview follow: Beijing Review: How do you see China’s whole-process people’s democracy? Ong Tee Keat: Whole-process people’s democracy provides a distinctive alternative to Western liberal democracy. While China’s modernization has proven it’s not synonymous to Westernization, whole-process people’s democracy, too, is another testament to the plurality of democratic models. Western democracy…

Terry Junior Auchland Andrew, a reporter and anchor for government-owned Antigua and Barbuda Broadcasting Services, has recently gained a deeper understanding of China. “That’s one thing I picked up in all the speeches [from the Chinese leadership]—world peace,” he said as he recalled his attending the press conferences on the sidelines of China’s most important annual political gatherings that concluded on March 11 and 13, respectively. The annual gatherings of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country’s top political advisory body, are commonly known as the Two Sessions. As an international journalist, Andrew was invited to cover the events, enabling him to gain a better, firsthand understanding of China and its domestic and overseas policies.…

ASTROPHYSICIST APPOINTED ICRA PRESIDENT Scientist Wang Yu has been appointed as the new president of the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (ICRA), making him the first Chinese citizen to hold the position at the center, which was founded in 1985. With a research focus on high-energy astrophysics, Wang has contributed a lot to machine learning for astrophysics as well as promoted international scientific exchanges, including cooperation between Chinese universities and the center. Born in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, in 1985, Wang holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Southeast University, a master’s in astrophysics from the Purple Mountain Observatory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Rome in Italy. He has been working in astrophysics at the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network,…

Twenty years ago, on March 20, 2003, a U.S.-led international coalition force bypassed the UN Security Council and launched large-scale strikes against Iraq. Then U.S. President George W. Bush and senior administration officials had repeatedly told the U.S. population that the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein was armed with weapons of mass destruction and that Hussein himself was in league with Al Qaeda, the terrorist network founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s, to bolster public support. And so, the Iraq War (2003-11), also called the Second Persian Gulf War, became a fact. For the record, the UN Charter forbids military aggression and allows war only in self-defense or if the Security Council authorizes it. Some say that the Iraq War was the first war in human history…

‘The friendship between China and Mexico, which has grown from generation to generation, has been strong and vibrant for more than 50 years. Both countries, as major developing countries and important emerging economies, are also at a critical stage of national development and rejuvenation, facing similar tasks and challenges, and offering each other development opportunities,” Gao Anming, Vice President and Editor in Chief of China International Communications Group (CICG), said in his opening speech at the China-Mexico Cooperation and Development Forum on March 10. The forum, hosted by the CICG Center for the Americas under the theme Sharing Opportunities and Building the Future Together, took place both online and offline. “This year is the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Mexico, and the…

‘The China Development Forum [in Beijing] and the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference [in Hainan Province] will soon get underway, as will the Summer Davos, or the World Economic Forum’s global meeting on innovation, science and technology, in Tianjin. I have learned many foreign business leaders have applied to participate,” Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said at a press conference on the sidelines of the First Session of the 14th National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, on March 7, where he answered questions about the country’s foreign policy and external relations. The BFA, sometimes referred to as the “Asian Davos,” takes its name from the town of Boao, once just a small fishing village in China’s southern island province of Hainan, which has been the permanent venue for…

Let’s face it: it’s a cliché. A foreigner in Beijing who visits the Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum today, and snaps a couple of pictures to post on Instagram is a cliché. My own experience, nevertheless, has been anything but. I must’ve been 5 or 6 when I first saw a photograph of it. I remember flipping through a colorful kids’ magazine and stumbling upon a double-spread that depicted the Chinese wonder in impressive detail. I turned to my father, who didn’t look as impressed, and asked why this stunning place was forbidden. It would take me 30 more years to find out the answer. After taking the renowned A Crash Course to the Forbidden City courtesy of Beijing Postcards, a small, history-focused company in Beijing, paying…