Innehållsförteckning för Vol.66/No.28 från Beijing Review

After a three-year suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Summer Davos made its return. Officially known as the 14th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, the forum, hosted by the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum (WEF) in China, took place in Tianjin Municipality on June 27-29. Davos is the Swiss resort town where the WEF Annual Meeting takes place in winter. In his opening ceremony address, Premier Li Qiang emphasized that China will continue to inject strong dynamism into global economic recovery and growth. Themed Entrepreneurship: The Driving Force of the Global Economy, this year’s meeting welcomed some 1,500 representatives from the business sectors, governments, international organizations and academia of more than 90 countries. They shared their opinions and suggestions as well as contributed their acumen on core subjects such…

‘You land a job yet?” is the most dreaded question awaiting Chinese college grads in July. That’s because, in China, this sultry summer month is when fresh graduates leave behind the security blanket that is campus life and venture out into the real world—of work life. This year saw a record 11.58 million students graduate from college, 820,000 more than last year. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), more than 33 million people aged 16 to 24 were seeking jobs in May, 18 percent of whom did not secure a position. High unemployment among this age group has sparked widespread concern. According to a survey on the employ-ability of college students by Chinese online recruitment platform Zhaopin Ltd., conducted from mid-March to mid-April, this year’s proportion of college…

Hope for the best but prepare for the worst—that pretty much sums up the recent scholarly consensus regarding the future of China-U.S. relations at the 11th World Peace Forum, a high-level seminar on international security hosted by Tsinghua University in Beijing on July 1-3. Over the past few years, the Sino-American bilateral relationship has reached a low point with growing tensions over issues ranging from trade and tariffs to technology competition. This was especially the case following former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s provocative visit to China’s Taiwan region last August. During last year’s meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden in Bali, Indonesia, in the leadup to the Group of 20 Summit there, both sides voiced their commitment to stabilizing bilateral ties, agreeing to create…

Chen Miaoxi encounters many inconveniences as she moves about in her home city. The 33-year-old from Zunyi in Guizhou Province lost both legs in a traffic accident when she was 2. Chen told Beijing Review that the pedestrian overpasses don’t have elevators and she often has to take many detours to reach destinations in her wheelchair. Also, the entries of many of the city’s buildings are not equipped with wheelchair ramps. These inconveniences have reduced her inclination to go out. Pan Haixiao, a professor at the Urban Mobility Institute at Tongji University in Shanghai, recently led research on the barrier-free facilities at the university’s campuses. “Through our research, we found that the seemingly barrier-free campuses have many barriers, not only for older people or pregnant women among faculty and staff…

The Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, on June 28 passed a new foreign relations law outlining the country’s aims and policies in foreign affairs and protecting its right to impose “counter and restrictive measures” against acts that “harm its sovereignty, national security and development interests,” an official with the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee told Xinhua News Agency when answering key questions about the law on June 30. The new law became effective on July 1. Why the law is necessary We live in a new era of increasing geopolitical tensions that have continuously undermined an already weak “soft law” phenomenon that has become increasingly common in international relations in recent years. “Soft law” emerged as it became more and…

In late June, the government of the Republic of Korea (ROK) completed and approved its environmental impact assessment of the U.S. base of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang Province, clearing the way for the system’s permanent deployment at the American military base on the narrow Korean Peninsula. On July 8, 2016, the U.S. and the ROK issued a joint statement saying that due to “growing threats posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) military provocations,” they decided to deploy the THAAD system in Seongju. One of the most advanced anti-missile systems currently in military use, THAAD can intercept ballistic missiles at an altitude of 40 to 180 km, with a defense radius of 200 km. The system’s primary radar—the AN/TPY-2…

All civilizations have certain characteristics, ranging from large population centers, monumental architecture and unique art styles to shared communication strategies, systems for administering territories, the division of people into social and economic classes, and even a common belief in a supernatural or higher being. “Civilizations are beautiful in their own ways and we can learn from each other on an equal basis,” Duan Peng, President of Beijing Language and Culture University, told Beijing Review at the Third Dialogue on Exchanges and Mutual Learning Among Civilizations and the First World Conference of Sinologists in Beijing on July 3-4. Following one online edition amid the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s dialogue took place on site, with the participation of about 400 guests, including diplomats, former officials and scholars. Many of the event’s participants…

Engaged in original research on life science-related subjects, the Beijing-based National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS) has adopted a management system compliant with international conventions. Each of the institute’s 28 laboratories is overseen by a director who has final say on research topics and is hired through a global recruitment process. The directors are required to submit work reports every five years in the first decade after they assumed office, which will go through an international peer review process. Only those directors whose projects are recognized as “internationally renowned” in the first stage and “internationally advanced” in the second stage will receive tenure. The way in which NIBS laboratories operate, including their abandoning of awards-oriented assessment standards, is typical of the reforms within China’s scientific and research system. Authorities hope…

Tracking Progress China has launched performance verification tests on an even faster high-speed train, according to China State Railway Group Co. Ltd., the country’s railway operator, on July 1. The tests were conducted separately on June 28 and 29 in Fujian Province, demonstrating how the CR450 bullet train’s development has achieved initial results. During the June 28 test, the bullet train operated at a speed of 453 km per hour, the railway operator said. China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) outlines the CR450 technological innovation project, an official with the railway operator further said. The CR450 bullet train is a new model of the Fuxing, China’s most advanced bullet train series, and is safer, greener, smarter and able to run with higher energy efficiency. Tourism Consumption The national summer cultural and…

NOBEL LAUREATE PUBLISHES NEW DRAMA China’s first Laureate of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Mo Yan, 68, has published his latest drama, Crocodile. Divided into four acts and nine scenes, the drama revolves around protagonist Shan Wudan and a crocodile he receives as a gift for his birthday. Shan continuously replaces the aquarium over the following 10 years, giving the reptile more space to grow until it becomes a four-meter-long behemoth. The renowned Chinese novelist and short story writer is famous for his imaginative and humanistic fiction. He started writing in the 1970s and rose to prominence in the 1980s. In 2012, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The new drama is seen as a big step in Mo’s transition from novelist to playwright. Utopian University Rednet.cn June…

The tragedy of a youth identified as Nahel M., a teenager of North African descent who was shot dead due to traffic violations after being stopped by traffic police in a Paris suburb on June 27, sparked a week of chaos in France. According to official figures, at the time of writing on July 5, the riots had put almost 4,000 people in police custody, including 1,124 minors. This has become one of the most serious riots in France, topping the 2005 riots caused by the death of two teenagers of African descent who were accidentally electrocuted during a police chase, according to Xinhua News Agency. The United Nations asked France on June 30 to “seriously address the deep issues of racism and discrimination in its law enforcement.” Many European…

When discussing peace, Liu Jianchao, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, believes it is an eternal topic of human society and a common aspiration shared by people around the world. “But ever since the forming of human society, war has been used as a means to extract and protect interests, bringing disasters to the world,” he said. Unfortunately, over 14,500 wars have been waged over the past 5,000-plus years of recorded human history, claiming as many as 3.6 billion lives, the veteran diplomat said, adding, “If our 5,000-year history were condensed into 24 hours, war would have consumed about 23 hours.” Particularly amid mounting global instability and uncertainty, growing mistrust and the rise of deglobalization, what is needed for pursuing peace and security?…

When a running stream showed up over a video call from China, centenarian Len Billing in the United States raised his voice with excitement. “Oh, I remember this stream,” he said over the phone. “John once fell down in there!” The 103-year-old can hardly speak articulately most of the time, but his memory of his childhood home in China is quite clear, even though he has never returned after leaving there at 16. Guling, or Kuliang in local dialect, is a mountainous area in the suburbs of Fuzhou, Fujian Province in southeast China. Since the first house was built there by a British doctor in 1886, hundreds of foreigners had built their summer houses there in the following half a century. During its peak, the town boasted over 300 villas.…

Two years ago on July 20, a maglev train with a designed speed of 600 km per hour—the fastest land vehicle available globally—rolled off the production line and made its public debut in the coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong Province. The achievement raises the bar for China’s railway manufacturing industry, according to China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. (CRRC), the country’s largest railway vehicle manufacturer. The Qingdao-based CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of the CRRC and the developer of the maglev train, has also been playing a part in the design and manufacturing of the high-speed electric passenger trains to be used in the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway in Indonesia, the first project of its kind in Southeast Asia. With a total length of 142 km, the line built with…

I am a lover of all things historical and ancient. Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Leifeng Pagoda in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, with a history traversing thousands of years. Visitors can still see the original bricks laid down in 975 inside the tower. On September 5, 1924, the octagonal, five-storied structure built of brick and wood collapsed, without warning. In 2002, the pagoda was rebuilt. The view from the top was breathtaking and is sure to earn the distinguished trip from my phone gallery into picture frames back home. But it wasn’t just the view that gave me a reason to reflect and write. The impression it left on me after reading Lu Xun’s works on the train ride back to campus in Shanghai also helped…