Innehållsförteckning för Vol.66/No.50 från Beijing Review

The Yangtze is the longest river in China and the third largest in the world. It runs eastward from the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau in the west, through 11 provinces and municipalities, before entering the East China Sea. The regions through which the Yangtze flows cover economically developed regions in the east, but most of them are less developed areas in the country’s central and western regions. The Yangtze Economic Belt development strategy addresses the country’s overall economic imbalance, between rural and urban areas, and more importantly among different regions. In a bid to promote coordinated development, China has hammered out a series of policies targeting the northeast, the east, the central region and the west. It has also identified several priority areas including the Yangtze Economic Belt and the Yangtze River…

With the leaders of China and the United States having reached a constructive consensus at their November 15 summit in San Francisco, California, the world’s attention is turning to Europe: What will the 27-member bloc that is the European Union do next? It seems President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen may not have a direct answer to this question. After visiting Beijing in early April to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top officials, she landed in the Chinese capital again in early December, accompanied by European Council President Charles Michel, to attend the 24th China-EU Summit on December 7. This was the second time since April 2019 that this mechanism of top-level political dialogue and regular meetings between China and the European Union, which…

As a major responsible developing country, China stands ready to work with all parties to build a clean and beautiful world, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said on December 2 when addressing the World Climate Action Summit in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Ding is also Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Special Representative and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. Edited excerpts of Ding’s remarks follow: Eight years ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping worked with leaders of other countries to reach the Paris Agreement with the utmost political determination and wisdom, and embarked on a new journey of global cooperation to address climate change. China has always kept its promise and made important contributions to global climate governance.…

When Ma Xuemei first visited her husband’s hometown in Changting County, Fujian Province, in 1986, she was shocked by its barrenness. “Except for some lowlands dotted with a type of fern, the area was covered by weathered stones.” Little did she know, Changting, her new home, was once notorious for soil erosion, listed among China’s most severely affected regions. In 1942, Chinese scholar Zhang Mutao described a bleak scene in Changting: “The surrounding hills are all red… Trees are a rare sight… There are neither humming insects nor scurrying rats, let alone flying birds.” Despite early efforts in the 1940s to control soil erosion, visible changes were scarce. Remote sensing data revealed in 1985 that 31.5 percent of Changting’s land had succumbed to this environmental menace, with barren red-earth hills…

More than 300 participants from China and abroad gathered in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, on December 3 for the First Liangzhu Forum. Established to further facilitate international cultural exchange, the forum takes its name from the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City. First discovered in 1936, these ruins lie in Yuhang District of Hangzhou and date back to 4,300 to 5,300 years ago. They reveal an early regional state in late Neolithic China that prospered on rice cultivation. Discoveries at the site include nearly 200 tons of carbonized rice remains, unique jadeware, and a large-scale complex water management system, the earliest known in China. Among the jadeware found there are ritual vessels with exquisite carvings for use in ceremonies. The ruins are composed of a palace, an inner city and…

The design of gardens in ancient China incorporated many traditional arts, including poetry, calligraphy, architecture and painting. For this reason, ancient gardens are a reflection of Chinese people’s views on beauty, nature and life. As early as the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 B.C.), landscape architects were already drawing together natural elements including mountains, springs, and animals into curated gardens. These early gardens are called you, a word for an enclosed space for conserving plants, birds and other animals. The design and construction of China’s traditional gardens reached its peak during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. Ancient Chinese gardens can be divided into two categories. North China’s royal gardens, designed specifically for emperors and known for their grand scale and magnificent colors, include the Summer Palace in Beijing. South of…

RUNNER BREAKS RECORD Marathoner Yang Shaohui set a new men’s national record at the 2023 Fukuoka International Marathon in Japan on December 3. Yang clocked 2:07:09 to finish second in the race, improving his personal best by 40 seconds and lagging one second behind winner Michael Githae of Kenya. Yang broke the previous record of 2:07:30 set by He Jie at the Wuxi Marathon in Jiangsu Province in March. Born in Kunming, Yunnan Province, in July 1992, Yang began professional training after winning two county-level competitions at the age of 17. During the 19th Asian Games in October in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Yang took bronze in the men’s marathon, while He won the title, both securing a Chinese men’s marathon ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Objections to Objectification…

The 28th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP28, took place from November 30 to December 12 at Expo City, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). World leaders gathered there to negotiate on slowing down and adapting to climate change, providing financial and technical support, synergizing sustainable development and climate action, and strengthening international cooperation and partnership in an attempt to bolster worldwide efforts to tackle climate change. Global warming is one of the gravest challenges facing the world today. Global warming has led to the melting of ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic, resulting in a roughly 20-cm rise in global sea levels since the 20th century. In December 2021, the Marine Academy of Zhejiang Province…

Numbers only reveal the tip of the climate change iceberg, and the international community needs to accelerate its joint response to the crisis. With a month to go before the year wraps up, the World Meteorological Organization on November 30 labeled 2023 the hottest 12-month period in almost 175 years of collecting climate data. “The era of global warming has ended and the era of global boiling has arrived,” UN Secretary General António Guterres stated during a press conference in July after scientists had confirmed that month had then been on track to becoming the world’s hottest on record. As of late September this year, 86 days with temperatures over 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels had been recorded. September was the warmest month ever on record, with global average…

Seven years ago when Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (The Great Comet), a musical adapted from a segment of Russian literary powerhouse Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 epic novel War and Peace, was staged in New York City, Cooper Grodin, a Manhattan-born actor and musician, thought it was one of the most intelligent shows he had ever seen. Now, he has won the part of Pierre in the new rendition of the musical that will premiere in Shanghai in January 2024. “I knew I had to do it,” Grodin told Beijing Review. “And now my dream has come true.” As an exploration of global musical production, the new rendition of The Great Comet combines a creative team and cast from China, the United States and the Republic of Korea,…

In November, a friend and I made our first-ever visit to Chongqing, a city that arguably has the best cuisine in China and unique scenery once praised by Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet Li Bai. In modern times, the city receives accolades from many famous bloggers on Xiaohongshu, an app similar to Instagram, but it was the social media stylings of Chongqing’s fashionistas that most caught our attention while we were there. Seeing these young women posing for photos on the street was a turning point for me, as an Asian feminist woman, to dig and explore the changing trend of shifting beauty standards. Throughout history, Eurocentric beauty standards have exerted immense influence, particularly during epochs of European colonial hegemony. These standards have consistently exalted attributes including fair skin, narrow noses…