Innehållsförteckning för Vol.66/No.47 från Beijing Review

More passenger flights. Intergovernmental discussions on artificial intelligence. Resumption of high-level military communication. These are among the initiatives to strengthen bilateral exchanges agreed upon by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Joe Biden during their recent meeting in San Francisco. President Xi traveled to the U.S. from November 14 to 17 for this summit as well as the 30th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting. The visit attracted much attention against the backdrop of rising regional conflicts and sluggish economic growth. During the summit, the leaders of the world’s two largest economies charted the course for the sustainable development of China-United States relations, building on the consensus reached when they met in Bali, Indonesia, a year ago. China is committed to a stable and healthy relationship with…

China feeds a fifth of the world’s population from only less than one tenth of the arable land across the globe. The need to feed its population has always been a concern of China’s rulers. As early as the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, the imperial government was encouraging people to expand food production beyond the fertile lowlands into the mountains. Time-honored paddies For areas growing rice, a semi-aquatic plant needing rooting in clear water, the technical challenges were formidable. However, by the time of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), there is documentary evidence of well-watered rice fields that were carved in a step-like fashion into mountain slopes as steep as 40 degrees. The spectacular rice terraces of Ziquejie in Hunan Province from this era are known to date.…

For science fiction aficionados, driverless cars have long been one of the most iconic and recognizable motifs of the future. From Herbie, the adorable Volkswagen Beetle in The Love Bug (1969), to the vengeful Plymouth Fury in Christine (1983), to the Batmobile roaring through the streets of Gotham City, autonomous driving has long captured the human imagination with its ability to redefine people’s relationship with vehicles, as well as its terrifying potential to spin out of control. This longstanding fantasy has recently become a reality in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, a suburb commonly known as Yizhuang in southeast Beijing. Once a quiet rural town covered in farmland, Yizhuang has transformed into a real-life cyberpunk tech hub where swarms of driverless robotaxis gingerly roam. These robotaxis offer an experience that…

Zhao Chuang is a 43-year-old science artist working in Beijing. The illustrator’s job bridges science and art by painting and sculpting ancient extinct species based on information collected from fossils. Zhao reproduces each element described in paleontological papers in an artistic way, and the blanks in scientific research are filled by his logic and imagination. Zhao is a dream collaborator for many paleontologists, museums and publishing houses. His painting of a prehistoric flying mammal became the cover of prominent British scientific journal Nature in 2006, a highlight in his career as a science artist. Ten years later, he worked with the American Museum of Natural History on its exhibition focusing on the links between dinosaurs and birds. The paleo-artist, who has painted over thousands prehistoric animals, is used to creating…

MOST GENEROUS INDIVIDUALS Yang Guoqiang and his daughter Yang Huiyan have been named China’s most generous people for the first time. Their charitable donations amounted to $820 million from September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2023, according to the recently released Hurun China Philanthropy List, a ranking of Chinese philanthropists. Yang Guoqiang is founder of Country Garden Group, one of China’s largest private real estate developers based in Guangdong Province. In March, Yang Huiyan became chairperson, replacing her father. The company’s market value is HK$21.27 billion ($2.72 billion). Now in its 20th year, the list, compiled by Hurun Research Institute, includes 34 philanthropists from 17 cities, who donated over 100 million yuan ($13.7 million) each over the one-year period. Education continued to be the biggest destination for donations made by…

Eighty-one years ago, American sci-fi novelist Isaac Asimov came up with the famous Three Laws of Robotics in his novel Runaround, revealing humans’ vigilance against the future development of science. When I, Robot was released in 2004, people still treated the theme of artificial intelligence (AI) safety as a science fiction topic. Now, that fiction is becoming reality. The question is: Who should be the rule-makers of the future AI world in real life? On November 1, representatives from 28 countries met at Bletchley Manor in Milton Keynes, the United Kingdom, and jointly reached the Bletchley Declaration, which aims to lay the foundation for global AI cooperation by establishing jointly agreed-upon methods of supervision. The release signaled not only the need to urgently evolve principles into functional policies and governance,…

The unstoppable growth of the Internet has helped create a global knowledge-based society, the very existence of which depends fundamentally on the provision and use of information. Data, the elementary building blocks of the world of information, are therefore increasingly being recognized and valued for the constitutive role that they play. But their dynamic nature and massive volume make the creation and collection of data extremely difficult to properly categorize as an intellectual property right (IPR). According to Shen Changyu, head of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), China is now speeding up the formulation of data IPR protection rules. Four basic rules for data IPR protection have now been formulated. They are: to protect data security, public interests and individual privacy; to grasp the unique properties of data…

At the Sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE), held in Shanghai on November 5-10, woolen needlepoint tapestry, a national-level intangible cultural heritage, found an international platform. Also known as “woolen embroidery,” woolen needle-point tapestry is a handicraft that uses colored woolen threads to embroider patterns on specially made linen mesh. Li Qiang, an inheritor of the skill, attended the expo on November 9 and displayed the expo’s mascot Jinbao created with tapestry and taught basic embroidering skills to visitors. A master of the skill, Li is now the chief craftsperson at the wool embroidery studio of Hengyuanxiang, or HYX Group, a time-honored company founded in 1927 and a leading manufacturer of wool products in China. In the early 1990s, the former president of the group Liu Ruiqi began to gather…

VEX Robotics, an educational program aimed at teaching young people robotics, has won widespread support from scientific institutions and corporations in its native United States and is becoming increasingly popular in China. Xu Haoxuan, a 13-year-old middle school student in Beijing, said participating in the program has led him to think about his future career. “I want to become an excellent programmer in the future,” he told Beijing Review. VEX Robotics is the brainchild of Innovation First International, a hi-tech company in the U.S. In cooperation with Carnegie Mellon University, the company runs international robotics competitions for primary and secondary school, as well as university students. Xu was a member of his school’s team, which won third place at the 15th VEX Asian Robotics Championship 2022. The robotics kits used…

As global peace and development faces various challenges, all countries should commit to a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security, and put equal emphasis on development and security. Countries should build consensus through dialogue and cooperation, and develop open, fair, and efficient governing mechanisms, in a bid to promote AI technologies to benefit humanity and contribute to building a community with a shared future for mankind. To make this happen, we would like to suggest the following: We should uphold a people-centered approach in developing AI, with the goal of increasing the wellbeing of humanity and on the premise of ensuring social security and respecting the rights and interests of humanity, so that AI always develops in a way that is beneficial to human civilization. We should respect…

In 2019, Mexican entrepreneur Andrés Díaz Bedolla visited a small village in east China as part of a program of the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP), which was launched in 2016 by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to support small businesses around the world. Residents of Bainiu Village in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, once relied on making the long trek out of their mountain home to sell their local specialty goods at fairs. However, e-commerce industrial chains became an economic pillar in the village around a decade ago and have changed their lives for the better. Bedolla found Bainiu different from the Chinese villages he had imagined as its houses are well-built and many young people have returned to start e-commerce businesses, which inspired him to promote the model in rural areas…

Recently, Zhong Xiaoli, a 29-year-old white-collar in Beijing, sold her 35th item on Xianyu (literally translated as Idle Fish), an online platform for secondhand items owned by Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group. Since she first started using the app seven years ago, she has earned more than 3,500 yuan ($479) from the sale of items she had used or left unused, ranging from cosmetics and clothing to electronic devices and home appliances. The most expensive item she ever sold was a camera—which she’d originally purchased on the app. “I had bought it for 800 yuan ($109) and sold it for more than 900 yuan ($123) more than a year later,” Zhong told Beijing Review. “The ‘trade’ was both a surprise and a lot of fun.” To date, Xianyu has more…

China never ceases to amaze me. It is an ancient nation with a rich history and culture that has undergone an unprecedented transformation in recent decades and boasts a cuisine so varied that you can enjoy a different dish every day of the year. In September 2022, I started my master’s studies at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), also known as the cradle of China’s electronic technology industry. At this academic institution, I focus on digital governance, a crucial field today that merges public administration with cutting-edge technology. My decision to study at the UESTC has provided me with a unique opportunity to explore how technological innovations can transform public administration and improve the efficiency of government services. This experience represents not only an exciting…