Hangzhou animated Navy begins

exercises off
‘Food of the czars’
Kaluga Queen, producer of caviar,
Cartoon and Animation Festival coming to
capital of Zhejiang province LIFE, PAGE 8
Hainan sees growing market in China
CHINA, PAGE 4 BUSINESS, PAGE 16

THURSDAY, April 12, 2018 chinadailyusa.com $1

President:
Openness,
inclusion
essential
By AN BAIJIE
in Boao, Hainan
anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
Countries around the world
should hold to the principles
of openness, inclusiveness
and cooperation in dealing
with challenges like a lack of
economic demand and trade
protectionism, President Xi
Jinping said on Wednesday.
Xi made the remark in a
meeting with current and
incoming members of the
board of directors of the Boao
Forum for Asia, who gathered
in the city in Hainan province
for their annual conference.
The president hailed the
importance of the forum in
building consensus, encour-
aging cooperation and build-
ing a community with a
shared future in Asia since its
inception 17 years ago.
Established after the 1997
Asian financial crisis, the
Boao Forum for Asia reflects
the consensus of Asian coun-
tries to band together to cope
with challenges, and it aligns
with the need for integrated
development of the regional
economy, Xi told the directors.
Attendees at the conference
recognized the necessity of fol-
lowing the trend of our times
and promoting reform and
President Xi Jinping meets with current and incoming members of the board of directors of the Boao Forum for Asia on Wednesday in
Hainan province. The president had many kind words to share about the forum. XU JINGXING / CHINA DAILY
innovation as the world under-
goes a new round of develop-
ment and profound read-
justment, the president said.
In the face of challenges
posed by a lack of impetus in
economic growth and trade
protectionism, attendees said
the principles of opening up,
inclusiveness and win-win
cooperation should be upheld
and concerted efforts made to
create a better future for Asia
and the world.
Leaders of all countries
should make plans for future
generations and long-term
development, Xi said.
China will stick to its path
of peaceful development, up-
hold a mutually beneficial
and open strategy and push to
build a new type of interna-
tional relations with mutual
respect, justice and coopera-
tion, Xi said.
China will continue to
expand cooperation, push to
create a community of shared
future for mankind and build
a peaceful, safe, prosperous,
inclusive and beautiful world,
he said.
China will continue to push
forward with the Belt and
Road Initiative, establish new
platforms for international
cooperation and increase
driving forces for common
development, Xi said.
As the host country of the
Boao Forum, China will pro-
vide more space for its devel-
opment, Xi said, adding it is
hoped that the forum contin-
ues to support China’s devel-
opment and play a positive
role in promoting common
prosperity.
The conference was
themed “An Open and Inno-
vative Asia for a World of
Greater Prosperity”.
On Wednesday, Xi also met
with former Kyrgyzstan presi-
dent Almazbek Atambayev on
the conference’s sidelines.
China and Kyrgyzstan have
made some achievements in
the early period of coopera-
tion on the Belt and Road Ini-
tiative, which has great
significance for the economic
and social development of the
two countries, Xi said.
China would like to make
joint efforts with Kyrgyzstan
to build relevant projects and
upgrade their shared cooper-
ation to a higher level, he said.
Atambayev said Xi made an
excellent speech on Tuesday.
Atambayev expressed grati-
tude for China’s support of
Kyrgyzstan’s economic and
social development.
Xi outlines
climate for
investment
He explains plans to ease domestic
market access, boost world economy
By AN BAIJIE
in Boao, Hainan
anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
China will create a more
comfortable and orderly envi-
ronment for investors from
both home and abroad, Presi-
dent Xi Jinping said on
Wednesday.
Xi made the remark in a
meeting with representatives
of domestic and foreign entre-
preneurs who attended the
annual conference of the Boao
Forum for Asia 2018.
China is dedicated to build-
ing an open world economy to
contribute to the development
of Asia and the world, Xi said,
adding that the business lead-
ers are welcome to board the
fast train of China’s develop-
ment and share in the fruits of
China’s reforms, opening-up
and development.
It is hoped that entrepre-
neurs around the world can
gain from the process of China’s
reform and opening-up, Xi said.
Xi expressed optimism in the
Chinese economy, as the coun-
try works toward its two cen-
tenary goals. He said China will
Inside
Inside
• Related stories > p3, 13-14
••Editorial
Related stories
> p8 > p3, 14-15
••Comment
Editorial> >
p12
p9
• Comment > p13
China seeks no exclusionary
blocs and imposes no business
deals on others while imple-
menting the Belt and Road
Initiative, Xi said.
China is pushing to form the
blueprint of the East Asia Eco-
nomic Community to jointly
build the Asia-Pacific Free
Trade Zone, Xi said.
In the meeting, nine busi-
nesspeople from countries
including the United States,
Thailand, Japan and Britain
delivered speeches. They
spoke highly of China’s
achievements made through
reforms and opening-up and
appreciated China’s promi-
nent contribution to pushing
global economic growth.
They said the important

Changes proposed in opening-up part of long-term strategy
By ZHONG NAN
and JING SHUIYU
The new opening-up meas-
ures such as cutting Chinese
auto tariffs and better pro-
tecting intellectual property
rights are part of a long-term
economic restructuring strat-
egy and have no connection
with the ongoing trade dis-
pute with the United States,
the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs said on Wednesday.
Experts said if the adminis-
tration of US President Donald
Trump continues to wage a
trade war with China, China
should not allow US compa-
nies to have access to benefits
from China’s expansion of its
economic opening-up.
The Foreign Ministry’s com-
ments came after speculation
that the country’s announce-
ment was a conciliatory ges-
ture in the face of US pressure
to ease the ongoing trade spat.
Foreign Ministry spokes-
man Geng Shuang said Chi-
na’s new measures are based
on the country’s own tempo of
economic opening-up, adding
that the introduction of the
policies is based on “thorough
consideration and careful
arrangement”. It is impossible
for China to make these deci-
sions within a short period, he
said.
China reiterated on Tuesday
its pledge to open its markets
wider to foreign competition as
the nation continues its role as
a defender of free trade and
cooperation in contrast to
growing protectionism and
unilateralism in the United
States, manifested by the
Trump administration’s notori-
ous “America First” approach.
China had planned and
arranged a number of open-
ing-up policies to reorganize
its economic structure, as
mentioned in the report of the
19th National Congress of the
Communist Party of China in
October and the Government
Work Report in March.
In addition to encouraging
manufacturers to shift to the
central and western regions,
policy details mentioned at
those meetings also included
China expanding imports,
hosting the first China Inter-
national Import Expo in
Shanghai and lowering
import tariffs on products like
automobiles and some daily
consumer goods.
“The opening-up will
advance in line with the Chi-
nese tempo and vision ... and
will not be affected by exter-
nal pressures,” Geng said. “It
is time for the US to seriously
study the situation and make
the right decision.”
On Wednesday, central bank
Governor Yi Gang also ruled
out the possibility of China
See Changes, page 3
make great efforts to move its
economic development from
high speed to high quality.
China will stick to its path of
socialism with Chinese char-
acteristics and deepen reform
and opening-up, he said.
China’s reform will continue
and the country’s doors will
open wider, Xi said.
He pledged to improve rules
and regulations, pursue high-
quality growth, improve gov-
ernance and provide the people
with a sense of gain, happiness
and security.
Through putting forward the
Belt and Road Initiative, China
aims to share its development
with the world and pursue
common development, Xi said.
measures announced by Xi at
the forum’s opening ceremony
to boost opening-up are excit-
ing and had sent a positive sig-
nal to push forward the
process of globalization.
China has made unprece-
dented efforts to deepen
reforms and boost opening-up,
and China’s development has
provided a promising future for
foreign investment, they said.
The businesspeople ex-
pressed a willingness to partic-
ipate in China’s reform and
opening-up, jointly taking part
in the Belt and Road Initiative,
pursuing better business devel-
opment and jointly pushing
prosperity for the Asian and
world economies.

Governance II released
Opportunities for many seen in BRI Central bank follows up on pledges
in 9 languages in UK
By ZHAO HUANXIN capitalizing on China’s cen- for economic globalization,
By WANG YU
and CHEN JIA
China will
eliminate the
which announced a number
of landmark measures to be
in Washington tral location in Eurasia and Xi was smart to note that the in Boao, Hainan foreign own- launched this year to broaden
By CECILY LIU in London
huanxinzhao@chinadailyusa. lighted
the globalduring
valuethe 19th CPC
of connectiv- Belt and Road Initiative is ership limit market access in the services
cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com
com National
ity, Congress “win-win”
is a potential in October what it is: an infrastructure The governor of China’s for commer- sector, especially in the finan-
andparticipants.
for which guides China’s and investment program,” central bank, Yi Gang, cial banks cial sector.
The second
“globallyvolume of Xi Jin-
important” growth
Proposedgoingby Xiforward
in 2013,astheit
There are tremen- Taylor said. unveiled on Wednesday and financial Yi said the People’s Bank of
Belt
ping:and
na was
well
The Road
on the
Initiative
Governance
unveiled
way to bringing
of Chi-
in nine
is becomes
BRI a moderately
comprises
ous society in
Economic
the Silkprosper-
all respects.
Belt
Road
and the 21st
dous opportunities “While it may have the
effect of extending China’s
morning a slew of detailed
measures following President
Yi Gang asset invest-
ment and
China will substantially raise
the daily trading quota for
languages in London
tremendous opportunities for on Jiang Jianguo,
Century
the State
Maritimeminister
Council
Silk Road.of for US businesses
Hot off the press are nine new versions
inflof the second
uence – as isvolume
the caseof Presi-
with Xi Jinping’s request at the wealth management compa- stock connects between
Wednesday
business during
growth a major
around the The initiative aimsInforma-
to build dent Xi Jinping’s book, launched on Wednesday.
initiativesYUbyYILEI
all major
/ CHINA world
DAILY annual conference of the Boao nies by the end of this year, Yi Shanghai and Shenzhen with
book fair
world, withresearchers
several 300 political, in ation Office,
trade, said the
investment andbook is
infra- — if they are willing powers – developing a mas- Forum for Asia to further said at the forum in Hainan Hong Kong beginning on May
business,
the US and academic,
Canadaand saidpub-
on important
structure in putting
network for-
connecting sive, multinational economic open up the country’s finan- province. 1. The daily quota for the
lishing industry leaders from 14
Tuesday. wardwith
Asia a series
Europe of and
newAfrica
con- to put in the effort.” Statesbenefi
to not only visit China but learn zone startststothe
engage
world.” in pro- cial markets. Regulators will also raise northbound will be lifted to 52
countries
Speaking in attendance.
at the Boao cepts and
along concerning
beyond the theancient
future more about it,” he said. tectionist
Gordonmeasures
Houlden, anddirec-
as the The measures released by foreign ownership limits to 51 billion yuan ($8.27 billion)
The book,
Forum for Asialaunched
early onduring
Tues- and Road
Silk fate trade
of mankind
routes. in a JonThe newprofessor,
Taylor, book follows
University United
the tor Kingdom
of the Chinabattles
Instituteuncer-
at Yi, which are expected to be percent in securities, fund from 13 billion yuan and the
the publishing
day, President Xi industry’s flag-
Jinping said clear-cut
“Its verymanner
ambition and con-
makes successful
of St. Thomaspublication
in Houston of the the tainty brought onofbyAlberta,
University its deci- put in place either by the end management, futures and life southbound quota will be
shipBRI
the event,
maythe be London Book
China’s idea, tributes
full China’s solutions
implementation to
difficult, first volume, which was pro- Canada, sion to said
leavethetheBRIEuropean
is easily of June or within the year, insurance companies over raised to 42 billion yuan from
Fair,its
but offers readers around
opportunities and out-the addressing
but there couldthebe issues facing
opportuni- duced in 2014 and is available the Union.
largest international pro- include erasing the capital cap next few months, and the capi- 10.5 billion yuan.
world aare
comes valuable
goinginsight
to benefiinto the
t the mankind.
ties for US firms in such areas in 24 languages. Martin Jacques,
the University of St. Thom- gram of trade and investment author of on foreign ownership in finan- tal cap will be eliminated in Yi also said China will
thoughts
world. Xiofalso
the Chinese
said thatleader,
as a as “We should have
construction an open
equipment, as Liu Xiaoming,
in Houston, sees China’s
things in When China
the 21st Rules the World,
century. cial institutes, as well as easing three years, Yi said. launch the Shanghai-London
the country’s
new development
initiative, and
it is perfectly mind and understand
engineering and each oth-
project differently. to the UK, said the said,
ambassador He “The world
said that needs
it is a new
still in the foreign equity restrictions on The string of detailed meas- stock connect this year.
international
natural engagement.
for there to be differ- er. We should
finance,” Calder seek
toldcommon
China two volumes
“There aretogether
tremendous visionstage
form a early and sense
for of
the direction.
BRI, and In life insurance and securities ures is a timely and quick reac-
entThe collection
views of 99 of Xi’s
on cooperation. ground
Daily inwhile
email.shelving our dif- comprehensive system
opportunities for USofbusi- a remarkable support
rich international fashion, China
for it companies and funds. tion to Xi’s speech on Tuesday, See Bank, page 3
speeches
The BRI conversations
is a globally in ferences
David and work
Dollar, togetherfel-
a senior to nesses – if they are willing to would continue to increase asa
thoughts and theories has stepped forward with
important initiative that low at the John L. Thornton put in the effort,” said Taylor, foreign bidders are increas-
represents perhaps the most China Center of the Brook- who has written extensively ingly getting involved.
coherent grand strategy in ings Institution, said BRI is a on China. The BRI has gained sup- INSIDE
world affairs at the moment, global effort on China’s part Some US companies, such port from more than 100
according to Kent E. Calder, to fund infrastructure invest- as Honeywell, Chubb, Gen- countries and international
CPI notches
director of the Reischauer ment. He said currently most eral Electric and Caterpillar, organizations, with at least smaller rise in
Center for East Asian Studies projects are undertaken by all have publicly stated that 80 nations and international
at Johns Hopkins University. Chinese companies, so “there they see the Belt and Road bodies already having signed March
Calder, who is in Boao, are not a lot of business Initiative as an opportunity deals with China for coop-
Hainan province in South opportunities for US firms”. for business growth, he said. eration within the BRI frame- Business, p14
China attending the “Asian But Jon Taylor, a profes- “Given China’s history of work, according to earlier
D a v o s ”, s a i d t h e B R I , sor of political science of non-intervention and support media reports.

2 ACROSS AMERICA
Ma warns on trade war
By ZHAO HUANXIN
in Washington
huanxinzhao@chinadailyusa.
com
Protectionism will not
improve American competi-
tiveness, and a trade war will
hurt millions of small busi-
nesses and farmers in the US,
Alibaba founder Jack Ma said
in an opinion piece published
in The Wall Street Journal on
Wednesday.
In the article “Both Sides
Would Lose a US-China Trade
War”, Ma suggested that
Farmers appeal to Trump
with cable TV commercials
By AI HEPING in New York
aiheping@chinadailyusa.com
It’s well known that US Pres-
ident Donald Trump likes to
watch the “Fox and Friends”’
cable-TV news program each
day, so a lobbyist organization
for farmers is trying to reach
Trump by targeting the show
with its message: protect free
trade.
Farmers from Montana
and Indiana make personal
appeals to Trump in ads
that started running late
last month and through
part of this month on cable
news, online and in agricul-
tural communities across the
country.
Farmers for Free Trade is
paying $500,000 for the ads
that have been running on
Fox, MSNBC and CNN in mar-
kets surrounding Washington
as well as Trump’s weekend
retreat Mar-a-lago in Palm
Beach, Florida.
The ads feature Brent Bible,
an Indiana soy and corn farm-
er and former state trooper,
and Montana grain and oil-
seed farmer Michelle Erick-
son-Jones and her family.
Bible says in a 30-second
spot: “Today, we farm about
5,000 acres and raise pri-
marily corn and soybeans.
I’m supportive of the Trump
administration, but I have a
lot of concerns about current
actions that have been taken
on trade and tariffs. The fact
that China is our number one
soybean customer makes us
very vulnerable. Our farm and
many others like ours will be
one of the first casualties of a
trade war.”
Last month, a similar
ad featured Erickson-Jones
and her family in which she
explains the importance of
export markets to her farm
and the dangers of trade poli-
cies that restrict exports:
“We depend on free trade
policies to maintain our
export markets. The crops
Canadian farmers might turn
to more oilseed over tariffs
By AI HEPING in New York
While US soybean farmers
are facing possible Chinese
tariffs, farmers in Canada may
increase plantings of oilseeds to
produce more canola, accord-
ing to a market analyst.
“If anything, the China thing
encourages more canola,” Win-
nipeg, Manitoba-based David
Reimann, a market analyst at
Cargill Ltd, told Bloomberg.
“China’s country’s purchases
of Canadian oilseed shipments
could climb by several hundred
thousand tons.’’
He told Bloomberg that
farmers will probably switch
from lentils, peas and cereal
crops to canola to take advan-
tage of higher prices.
Plantings of oilseed could
reach 24 million acres in 2018,
the most ever and up 4.4 per-
cent from a year earlier, Tony
Tryhuk, branch manager of
RBC Dominion Securities office
as China, the largest poten-
tial consumer market in the
world, is open for business,
the US risks forfeiting such
an opportunity by waging a
trade war.
Ma’s comments came at a
time when the world’s top two
economies are embroiled in a
bitter trade dispute.
Before the current trade
spat, the Chinese e-commerce
giant suffered a setback in the
US in January, when the Com-
mittee on Foreign Investment
in the United States blocked
the $1.2 billion purchase of
The fact that China
is our number one
soybean customer
makes us very
vulnerable.”
Brent Bible, an Indiana soy
and corn farmer and former
state trooper
$500,000
amount Farmers for Free
Trade paid for cable ad spots
that we grow here on this
farm are exported across the
globe. Policies that restrict
trade would be devastating
for farms like ours. Someday
I’d like to pass the farm down
to my boys. Mr. President, pro-
tect free trade and keep our
agriculture economy strong.”
Farmers for Free Trade was
formed last year by several
agriculture industry groups in
response to Trump’s potential
withdrawal from NAFTA and
other administration trade
policies.
The advocacy group is led
by Max Baucus, a former US
ambassador to China during
President Barack Obama’s
administration who served as
a US senator from Montana,
and Richard Lugar, also an
ex-US senator, from Indiana.
4.8
million tons
amount of Canadian canola
imported by China in 2016
in Winnipeg, told Bloomberg.
In 2017, Canadian farmers
planted more acres of oilseed
than wheat for the first time,
while soybean plantings have
more than doubled in the last
decade, with sowings forecast
by the government to reach a
record this year.
Canola was invented by
Canadian scientists in 1974 by
breeding out undesirable traits
from the rapeseed plant. Cana-
da is the world’s top grower of
canola, which can be used as a
soybean substitute in cooking
oil and animal feed.
China is the No. 1 importer
Dallas-based US money trans-
fer company MoneyGram by
Ant Financial, an affiliate of
Alibaba.
The Trump administration
threatened to impose tariffs
on $100 billion worth of Chi-
nese products last Thursday,
in addition to a $50 billion tar-
iff package proposed two days
before, which provoked China
to slap 25 percent tariffs on
imports of US soybeans, corn,
airplanes and automobiles.
US soybeans sold to China
account for 62 percent of its
total soybean exports. A 25
The organization has also
put a “Voice of the Farmer”’
tool on its website for farm-
ers to film short messages
of support for agricultural
trade that can be shared with
lawmakers.
As for farmers, The Wall
Street Journal reported on
Tuesday that the Trump
administration is considering
putting together a relief pack-
age for farmers that could be
in the billions of dollars if Chi-
nese tariffs on US agriculture
products are implemented.
The newspaper said agri-
culture and congressio-
nal officials are examining
Depression-era programs like
the Commodity Credit Corp
(CCC), which was created in
1933 to stabilize farm incomes
and which permits borrow-
ing of as much as $30 billion
from the Treasury to finance
its activities. Using the exist-
ing CCC program would avoid
having to go to Congress for
new funding.
According to the Journal,
last month Congress lifted
years of restrictions that stood
in the way of the Agriculture
Department from supporting
farm prices or buying surplus
products. The change was
part of the $1.3 trillion spend-
ing bill.
Senator Chuck Grassley,
Republican from Iowa, told
the newspaper that the Trump
administration could rely on
the CCC and related authori-
ties to shield farmers from the
effects of any tariffs imposed
by China.
O n M o n d a y, Tr u m p
acknowledged that US farm-
ers may be hurt by Chinese
tariffs but said they will ulti-
mately “understand” why the
confrontation is necessary.
“These are great patriots.
They understand that they’re
doing this for the country,”
Trump said. “And we’ll make
it up to them. And in the end,
they’re going to be much stron-
ger than they are right now.”
of the oilseed. In 2016, China
imported 4.8 million tons of
Canadian canola, 3.5 million
tons of seed, 600,000 tons of oil
and 660,000 tons of meal, for
a total of $2.7 billion, accord-
ing to the Canola Council of
Canada.
Canola was invented by
Canadian scientists in 1974
by breeding out undesir-
able traits from the rapeseed
plant.
Chuck Penner of LeftField
Commodities said he isn’t so
sure Canadian canola is an
instant winner. “Most of the
canola meal coming out of
crush plants is already com-
mitted to US buyers, so there’s
not a whole lot of extra capac-
ity floating around,” he told
RealAgriculture.com. “To me,
the biggest opportunity (if
the proposed tariff actually
becomes reality) would be
stronger Chinese interest in
Canadian soybeans.”
percent tariff on US soybeans
into China will have a devas-
tating effect on every soybean
farmer in America, American
Soybean Association President
John Heisdorffer said earlier
last week.
“Instigating a trade war is
the wrong solution because it
will only provoke retaliation,”
Ma wrote. “The US has been
a consistent defender of free
and open markets, but this
time it is resorting to protec-
tionism that will not improve
American competitiveness.”
T he billionaire made
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg enters the room to testify in a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing regarding the company’s
use and protection of user data on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. LEAH MILLIS / REUTERS
Zuckerberg holds serve on Capitol Hill
WA S H I N G T O N / SA N
FRANCISCO — Facebook Inc
Chief Executive Mark Zuck-
erberg fielded 10 hours of
questions over two days from
nearly 100 US lawmakers and
emerged largely unscathed
and considerably richer.
Without making major
gaffe, he parried questions of
how much control people have
over their data on the world’s
largest social media network,
while avoiding being cornered
into supporting new govern-
ment regulation.
The hearings that ended on
Wednesday revealed no con-
sensus among US lawmakers
about what kind of privacy
legislation they might want to
pursue, if any, and no timeline
for action.
As he did on Tuesday before
a Senate hearing, Zuckerberg
refused during a House of
Representatives committee
Challenged artists touch US audience
By MAY ZHOU in Houston
mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com
The Lu sisters can’t hear a
thing, yet their performance of
the classic Chinese instrumen-
tal duet Spring River in Flow-
ery Moonlight touched the
audience deeply; Li Guizheng
lost a leg in an accident, but his
dance was full of power and
grace; Wang Jianhua lost both
arms, yet the calligraphy he
drew holding a brush between
his teeth was stunning.
The Tuesday night program
at Jones Hall in downtown
Houston reached a climax
when a group of performers
with impaired hearing per-
formed Thousand-Hand Bod-
hisattva to remarkable effect.
The audience gave warm
applause to the more than 40
performers from Heart Voice
Art Troupe at the China Song
Ching Ling Foundation.
Pearland Council member
Gary Moore and his wife were
among those engrossed in the
audience. “Beautiful voices and
talented dances. What I like the
most is the different costumes
and the bright colors, it was a
great show,” said Moore.
“It was quite entertaining
and they are very talented. It’s
an honor,” said Moore’s wife
Christina.
The staff at Jones Hall has
headlines at Trump Tower in
New York early last January,
when he and then president-
elect Donald Trump discussed
plans to create 1 million US
jobs by allowing small- and
medium-sized businesses to
sell to China through Alibaba’s
platforms.
But the plan seems to be hit-
ting a snag. At a discussion
on Monday night at the Boao
Forum for Asia in Hainan
province, South China, Ma
said, “If China and the US have
a good relationship, we can
not only make 1 million, we
can make 10 million or 20 mil-
lion jobs for both countries,”
according to a live stream of
the discussion.
“If they have no good trade
hearing to make any promises
to support new legislation or
change how the social network
does business.
“It is inevitable that there
will need to be some regula-
tion” of internet firms, Zucker-
berg said, but he avoided any
specifics.
Although Zuckerberg, 33,
had never testified at a con-
gressional hearing before, he
succeeded in deflecting ques-
tions like a Washington vet-
eran. Forty times the internet
mogul told lawmakers he had
no answers at hand and would
get back to them later. About
1 in 3 lawmakers got that
response over the two days.
Democratic Representa-
tive Debbie Dingell expressed
frustration with Zuckerberg’s
frequent promises to get back
to lawmakers later in writing.
“Some things are striking dur-
ing this conversation,” she said.
seen performers from all over
the world at their venue, and
they found this group especial-
ly extraordinary in displaying
both talent and indomitable
spirit, according to volunteer
Qi Dan.
Consul General of China
in Houston Li Qiangmin and
Song Ching Ling Foundation
Vice-Chairman Jin Duanquan
both expressed the sentiment
that these artists were goodwill
ambassadors for the people of
China and the US.
“They will bring the two
people closer to each other,”
said Li.
Established in 1992 by Mu
Jianzhi, the Heart Voice Art
Thursday, April 12, 2018
relationship, we are going to
destroy 10 million jobs,” he
added.
In Wednesday’s article, how-
ever, Ma said his company
is committed to supporting
small businesses. Through its
digital-commerce platforms,
where at least 500 million
Chinese consumers shop,
Alibaba will continue to help
American small businesses
and farmers access the China
market, he said.
Still, he cautioned, “This
trade war will hurt millions
of American small businesses
and farmers.”
Ma argued that US-China
trade relations in the next 20
years will look very different
from the past two decades.
“As CEO, you didn’t know some
key facts.”
On one point, Zuckerberg
undercut his consistent mes-
sage that Facebook users
have control of their data. He
said he was among the near-
ly 87 million people whose
personal information was
improperly shared with politi-
cal consultancy Cambridge
Analytica. He gave no further
details.
His admission that even the
company’s tech-savvy founder
was unable to protect his own
data underscored the problem
Facebook has in persuading
skeptical lawmakers that users
can easily safeguard their own
information and that further
legislation governing Facebook
is unnecessary.
The Cambridge Analytica
issue was the reason Zuck-
erberg was on Capitol Hill,
answering questions about
Left: Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva performed by
handicapped artists of Heart Voice Art Troupe. Above: Li
Guizheng and other members perform a dance to You Raise
Me Up. PHOTOS BY MAY ZHOU / CHINA DAILY
Troupe has made a name for
itself worldwide by encourag-
ing talented people to express
themselves through art and
creativity.
The troupe, featuring per-
forming artists, has been on
a US tour to showcase some
aspects of China’s achieve-
ments during 40 years of
opening up and reform.
The tour was sponsored by
Beijing Zhenru Investment
Management.
“The group’s first stop was
Baton Rouge at the invitation
of Louisiana Govvernor John
Edwards. Lieutenant Gover-
nor Billy Nungesser watched
the performance with us. He
C H I N A DA I LY USA
With average urban income
growing at almost double dig-
its and an emerging middle
class of 300 million, Chinese
consumers are already driving
massive demand for imports
from all over the world.
“It is therefore ironic that
the US administration is wag-
ing a trade war at a time when
the largest potential consumer
market in the world is open for
business,” Ma wrote, asking,
“Is America going to forfeit
this opportunity?”
Ma, however, remained
upbeat about the future, say-
ing that while facing setbacks
in the current protectionist
environment, “I remain con-
fident and look forward to the
next 20 years.”
how that company — which
has counted US President Don-
ald Trump’s election campaign
among its clients — got hold
of data about Facebook users.
“How can consumers have
control over their data when
Facebook does not have con-
trol over the data?” asked Rep-
resentative Frank Pallone of
New Jersey, the ranking Demo-
crat on the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, at the
beginning of Wednesday’s
hearing.
Zuckerberg said it would
take “many months” to com-
plete an audit of other apps
that might also have improp-
erly gathered or shared users’
data.
“I do imagine that we will
find some apps that were
either doing something sus-
picious or misusing people’s
data,” he said.
REU TERS
told us later that the perfor-
mances ‘touched the tender-
est part of my heart’,” said
Cindy Shao, chairwoman at
Zhenru.
In Miami, the troupe vis-
ited Bak Middle School of Art
and experienced what it’s like
to take a class in the school.
“They all enjoyed the interac-
tion and exchange immensely,”
said Shao.
In Houston, the troupe will
visit NASA and get to know
Houston better, said Shao.
“This is just part of our effort
to celebrate the 40th anni-
versary of China’s opening up
and reform. More events will
follow.”
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, April 12, 2018

TOP NEWS 3

Changes:
Xi’s global Factors
approach to at play
in surplus
trade lauded From page 1

resorting to yuan devaluation

‘Clear message’ on multilateralism
strikes chord with international experts
By FU JING
and WEN ZONGDUO
in Boao, Hainan
President Xi Jinping clearly
laid out China’s intention to
build on the global, multilat-
eral economic structure and
international cooperation in
an interdependent world
economy, representatives of
international organizations
said on Wednesday.
Xi’s keynote speech at the
opening of the Boao Forum
for Asia on Tuesday has great
significance at a time in
which some countries are
challenging the international
economic system by resorting
to unilateralism and isola-
tionism.
“China favors multilateral-
ism, which is my interpreta-
tion of President Xi’s speech,”
said former World Trade
Organization director general
Pascal Lamy in an interview
with China Daily.
“This is a clear message,
and Europe, Africa, India and
Latin America are also in
favor of the multilateral sys-
tem.”
Lamy, one of the more than
2,000 politicians, business
leaders and scholars attending
the forum, which concluded
on Wednesday, said he lis-
tened “very carefully” to Xi’s
explanation of China’s stance
on international economic
governance.
The best means of regulat-
ing and facilitating global
trade and investment is the
multilateral system, Lamy
said, and he suggested that
China can “strengthen multi-
lateralism” in trade and “help
create a multilateral system”
in investment.
Currently, global trade is
regulated by the World Trade
Organization in the main-
stream, multilateral regime,
but investment flow protocols
are still negotiated mainly on a
bilateral level.
Lamy said the other mes-
sage he picked up from Xi’s
speech is that China, now four
decades into its reform and
opening-up, intends to keep
opening wider.
Robert Koopman, chief
economist at the Geneva-
based WTO, also noted that Xi
emphasized China’s determi-
nation to press ahead with its
opening-up policy following
its rapid integration into the
global production chain.
After hearing Xi’s an-
nouncement that China would
expand access to its market,
support imports and improve
the business environment,
Koopman said: “The presi-
dent’s messages were well
received, with the right tone,
and he has revealed a sense of
optimism about China’s open-
ing-up that will continue after
these four decades.”
Koopman said China can
play a large role in protecting
globalization, and he cited
the Belt and Road Initiative
as one such example that
benefits not only China, but
also its neighbors and other
economies while engaging in
the next phase of globaliza-
tion.
Lamy and Koopman were
both eager to hear more about
China’s timetable for easing
investment restrictions and
opening its financial indus-
tries, which Xi said in his
speech should be undertaken
as soon as possible.
On Wednesday in Boao, Chi-
na’s top monetary and finan-
cial officials disclosed more
details of measures and time-
tables for attracting more
financial investors to the Chi-
nese market.
Ivona Ladjevac, head of the
regional center for the Belt
and Road Initiative at the
Institute of International Poli-
tics and Economics in Bel-
grade, Serbia, said Xi’s
announcement on Tuesday
confirms his deep understand-
ing of the importance of coop-
eration among all countries.
“Xi truly understands the
nature of globalization, which
turns the entire world into a
global village,” Ladjevac said.
“Old or newly invented
forms of protectionism and
isolation won’t lead us any-
where. Neither will building
walls.”
Ladjevac also said that
behind the announced reform
package lies the intention of
facilitating the acceleration of
cooperation between coun-
tries as well the idea of
upgrading their economies
into more complementary
ones.
Edvard Moser, a Norwegian
neuroscientist and Nobel
Prize in physiology laureate,
said Xi’s signal of increasing
openness and globalization is
precisely the proper course of
action in a situation that could
send the world spiraling into a
trade war.
Moser also said the
enhancement of IPR protec-
tion Xi spoke of would “abso-
lutely” promote research and
development.
“It’s as important for
research and development as
for any other field, as they all
depend on exchanges of ideas
of people,” Moser said.
Contact the writers at
fujing@chinadaily.com.cn
Premier Li Keqiang visits Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries, China’s leading port machinery builder, on Tuesday. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Li stresses market vitality in Shanghai
By HU YONGQI
huyongqi@chinadaily.com.cn
Premier Li Keqiang called
for optimizing the business
environment and reducing
institutional costs in order to
boost market vitality and
people’s welfare, during a
two-day tour of Shanghai.
Li first visited the China
(Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade
Zone, where local officials
said the time needed for
enterprises to complete
administrative procedures
has been reduced by 85 per-
cent after the integration of
governmental services with
the internet.
Meanwhile, the number of
newly registered enterprises
is 50 percent higher than
before the pilot free trade
Bank: Risk controls
remain important
From page 1
While taking a firm stance
on further opening-up, Yi
noted the importance of risk
control and market regula-
tions. He reiterated the
necessity of regulating all
market players on an equal
footing, no matter if they are
local or foreign financial
firms.
Also at the forum, Yi
pledged to push forward the
yuan’s internationalization
and capital account liberali-
zation on a gradual basis,
while keeping the exchange
rate of the yuan stable.
To support the real econo-
my and fend off potential
risks, China will continue to
follow a prudent monetary
policy and at the same time
keep the interest rate rela-
tively stable at the current
level, Yi said.
The detailed opening-up
measures unveiled by Yi won
praise. Craig Meller, chief
executive of AMP Limited of
Australia, called the changes
zone was established. About
40 percent of Shanghai’s for-
eign trade was completed in
the pilot zone.
Li gave high marks to the
pilot zone’s development
over the past five years and
called for maintaining con-
certed efforts to optimize the
business environment and
reduce institutional costs to
build “an upgraded version”
of the pilot free trade zone.
The premier also called on
local officials to further pro-
mote administrative reform
under the guidance of Xi Jin-
ping Thought on Socialism
with Chinese Characteristics
for a New Era.
The Shanghai trip was Li’s
first such tour after he was
endorsed by the National
People’s Congress for a sec-
timely in putting Xi’s call
into place.
Xi’s pledge to broaden
market access in the financial
sector has won positive feed-
back, with foreign companies
looking forward for details.
Yi’s new releases are imple-
mentation details of Xi’s
landmark strategy, Meller
said.
Joe He Yizhou, managing
director and China chief
executive of Australian Capi-
tal Equity, said the new meas-
ures would inject confidence
into the market, as they are
concrete with specific time-
lines. And the easing of limits
will give more flexibility for
foreign institutions, said He.
“The opening-up of mar-
ket access will create more
possibilities for foreign insti-
tutions in the investment sec-
tor,” said He.
Yang Han contributed to this
story.
Contact the writers at
wangyu@chinadaily.com.cn
ond term last month.
In 2013, he visited Shang-
hai as his first inspection
trip after becoming premier,
and the pilot free trade zone
was established six months
later. He subsequently visit-
ed the megacity in each of
the past five years except for
2017.
Free trade zones have been
at the top of Li’s and the State
Council’s agenda. Another 10
such zones have been
approved and established
following that in Shanghai to
extend to inland areas such
as Sichuan and Shaanxi
provinces.
In March last year, the
State Council released a
guideline for the Shanghai
free trade zone to promote
reforms in key fields such as
market access, business reg-
istration, single-window cus-
toms clearance and quality
quarantine.
During his visit to the
Yangshan port, Li said Chi-
na’s iconic project of inte-
grating with the global
market is expected to further
help promote trade liberali-
zation and investment facili-
tation as a part of the
country’s opening-up with
higher-quality service.
Li also visited Shanghai
Roche Pharmaceuticals Ltd,
which focuses on anti-cancer
medicines. He said: “We wel-
come foreign companies to
invest in China and will fur-
ther open up. Opening-up is
a policy that boosts national
development and benefits
the people.”
to counter trade tensions with
the US as the yuan’s exchange
rate is based on market supply
and demand conditions.
Yi said China’s trade surplus
with the US actually repre-
sents the surplus of the entire
East Asia with the US, because
China sell imports from such
economies as Japan and South
Korea to the US, and such
transit trade with the US has
been taken as coming entirely
from China.
It’s wrong to interpret Chi-
na’s long-term strategic plan
of economic opening-up as an
expedient move to allay a
trade standoff with the US,
said Wei Jianguo, former vice-
minister of commerce.
Judging by the current situa-
tion, Wei said China’s opening-
up measures are not necessarily
applicable to US companies,
which gain handsome profits in
China, if the Trump administra-
tion continues to adopt the uni-
lateral and protective measures
to undermine World Trade
Organization rules and threat-
en to wage trade wars.
“The US, to a large extent,
will depend on China’s ever-
increasing consumer market
to support its growth, but if
the Trump administration
continues down the wrong
path, the US should not be
allowed to have access to bene-
fits from China’s further open-
ing-up,” he said.
Zhou Jin contributed to this
story.

Wang’s visit to rekindle Japan dialogue

By ZHANG YUNBI
zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn
Beijing and Tokyo have
agreed to end the eight-year
stall of their high-level eco-
nomic dialogue with State
Councilor and Foreign Minis-
ter Wang Yi making his first
official visit to Japan starting
on Sunday.
Since becoming foreign
minister in 2013, Wang has
yet to pay an official visit to
the country in which he once
served as China’s ambassa-
dor.
During the visit from Sun-
day to Tuesday, Wang will
co-chair the fourth China-Ja-
pan High-level Economic
Dialogue with Japanese For-
eign Minister Taro Kono, For-
eign Ministry spokesman
Geng Shuang announced on
Wednesday.
Experts said the visit and
the dialogue’s resumption
mark major progress in
improving the countries’
bilateral ties, which fell to a
record low in 2012, the year
Japan unilaterally decided to
“nationalize” China’s Diaoyu
Islands.
The dialogue, the countries’
highest-level bilateral
exchange forum in economic
affairs, saw its first three
rounds in 2007, 2009 and
2010, gathering leading offi-
cials from ministries in charge
of areas such as commerce,
foreign affairs and treasury.
The fourth dialogue will be
held in Tokyo on Monday,
and “officials in charge of rel-
evant departments under the
two governments will
attend”, the Ministry of Com-
merce said in a statement on
Wednesday.
Geng said Wang’s official
visit serves as a measure to
boost high-level exchanges
and communication.
The two sides are expected
to increase mutual trust, accu-
mulate more consensus, man-
age and control divergences
and consolidate the improving
momentum of China-Japan
ties, Geng said.
Jiang Ruiping, vice-presi-
dent of China Foreign Affairs
University and an expert on
the Japanese economy, said
Wang’s visit and the dialogue
will make it possible for the
two sides to address together a
range of key economic issues
in bilateral, regional and glob-
al contexts.
As the world’s second- and
third-largest economies, Chi-
na and Japan have both the
duty and the ability to boost
global economic governance,
stabilize world trade, curren-
cy and investment, and tack-
le the impulses that frustrate
globalization, Jiang said.
Their bilateral trade ended a
five-year decline last year as a
result of the recovery of global
trade and investment as well
as the thawing bilateral politi-
cal ties, Jiang said.
4 Thursday, April 12, 2018
CHINA CHINA DAILY USA » CHINADAILYUSA.COM
Navy begins drills to
heighten readiness
By ZHAO LEI
zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn
The Chinese Navy began a
three-day series of exercises
in the South China Sea on
Wednesday, the Maritime
Safety Administration said.
It released the coordinates
of the drill zone — a rectan-
gular area off Hainan prov-
ince’s southern coast — on its
website on Tuesday, asking
ships to stay out of the area.
The information sparked a
wave of speculation among
Chinese military enthusiasts
who, since last month, have
been talking on internet
forums about the possibility
of a large display of the
Navy’s best ships and subma-
rines in the South China Sea.
Some fans also posted what
they claimed were satellite
images of a vast armada of
Chinese ships, including the
CNS Liaoning aircraft carri-
er, gathering recently in the
South China Sea area.
The Navy said last month
that it would conduct com-
bat exercises there “in com-
ing days”, noting that the
drills are part of its annual
training regimen.
Breaking ground
China’s first female astronaut, Liu Yang of the Shenzhou IX
mission, poses for pictures after a lecture at Nanjing University of
Aeronautics and Astronautics in Jiangsu province on Wednesday.
The event featured lectures about Chinese astronauts by Liu and
three industry insiders. YANG BO / CHINA NEWS SERVICE
Murder convictions
of 5 men overturned
By CAO YIN
caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn
Five men who were con-
victed of murder in Central
China almost two decades
ago have had their names
cleared after a retrial
because of unclear facts and
insufficient evidence.
Zhou Jikun, Zhou Jiahua,
Zhou Zaichun, Zhou Zheng-
guo and Zhou Zaihua broke
down in tears upon receiving
the verdict on Wednesday,
the Anhui High People’s
Court, which heard the case,
said in a statement.
The five men are not relat-
ed, but came from a village
where everyone has the same
family name.
They were informed of their
right to apply for compensa-
tion from the State for their
wrongful convictions, which
saw them serve between nine
and 20 years behind bars.
The men were all detained
in March 1997, six months
after a brutal attack on a fam-
ily in Dazhou village, Anhui
province, which resulted in
the death of Zhou Suhua and
injuries to her parents,
brother and sister.
The case was first heard in
October 1998 in Fuyang
Intermediate People’s Court.
The defendants refused to
confess and said they had
been tortured during police
interrogations.
Yet they were convicted of
homicide based on allegations
presented by prosecutors. In
March 1999, the court handed
down a death sentence to
Whether that was a refer-
ence to the exercises that
began on Wednesday wasn’t
known. There have been no
reports of other naval opera-
tions in the South China Sea.
Navy publicity officials
reached by China Daily
declined to elaborate.
The Chinese military has
emphasized combat drills
and joint operations since
President Xi Jinping, who is
also chairman of the Central
Military Commission, took
office in late 2012.
All the Navy’s combat
ships and submarines now
spend around eight months
each year at sea, carrying
out patrols, drills and other
training operations — much
longer than before. As a
result, their operational
capabilities have improved
substantially, the Navy
said.
In 2017, the Navy commis-
sioned at least 16 ships, most-
ly large combat vessels.
China is now building its sec-
ond aircraft carrier and a
new-generation guided-mis-
sile destroyer believed to be
the most powerful of its kind
in the world.
Zhou Jikun and Zhou Jiahua;
the other three sentences
ranged from 15 years to life.
On appeal to a higher court
the following July, the case
was sent back to the interme-
diate court for retrial. Insuffi-
cient evidence was cited. The
original verdict was upheld
in February 2000, but the
court reduced the punish-
ment for Zhou Jikun and
Zhou Jiahua to a suspended
death sentence, which usual-
ly means life in prison.
Eight months later, when
the higher court upheld the
judgment, the five men
began their lengthy appeals,
and finally, in August, Anhui
High People’s Court held a
retrial in which the defend-
ants again proclaimed their
innocence.
Wednesday’s judgment
notes that the five men’s
statements about the crime
were inconsistent with testi-
mony given by several sur-
viving victims.
“The unclear facts and
insufficient evidence fail to
prove that these five people
did the killing, so their con-
victions should be removed,”
the court said. It suggested
that public security depart-
ments reinvestigate the case.
In January, Zhou Jikun was
freed from prison after almost
21 years. He had served the
longest time of the five. Zhou
Jiahua and Zhou Zaichun
completed their sentences in
2015 and 2016 respectively,
while Zhou Zaihua and Zhou
Zhengguo were released in
2008.
Gift of sight
Chen Rihong, an ophthalmologist from Zhejiang Sian International Hospital, removes an eye patch from Fan Xiaomei, 73, who received free
cataract surgery at the hospital, in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, on Wednesday. Twenty-six seniors from Haiyan county received free cataract
surgeries and recovered their eyesight. HUANG ZONGZHI / XINHUA
‘Courting foreign support’
called ‘trouble’ for Taiwan
But cross-Straits business cooperation
will bring opportunities, official says
The Chinese mainland is
warning Taiwan authorities
that “courting foreign sup-
port to build you up will only
invite trouble”, a spokesman
for the mainland said on
Wednesday.
“The Taiwan question con-
cerns China’s sovereignty, ter-
ritorial integrity and the
national feelings of the Chi-
nese people,” Ma Xiaoguang,
spokesman for the State
Council Taiwan Affairs Office,
said at a news conference.
“We will never waver in
safeguarding China’s core
interests,” Ma said.
Asked about possible visits
to Taiwan by officials from the
United States and the US
State Department’s approval
of a marketing license for
sales of military submarine
Man detained after jumping from skyscraper
By CAO YIN
caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn
Beijing police confirmed on
Wednesday that a foreigner
was placed in administrative
detention for BASE jumping
from a high building under
construction in the city’s cen-
tral business district.
Facial recognition used
to catch suspect in crowd
of 60,000 concertgoers
By WANG JIAN in Nanchang
and JIANG CHENGLONG
in Beijing
Police nabbed a crime sus-
pect at a concert in Nanchang,
Jiangxi province, thanks to a
facial recognition system.
The 31-year-old suspect, sur-
named Ao, from Zhangshu,
Jiangxi province, was wanted
by police in connection with an
economic dispute in the Guang-
xi Zhuang autonomous region.
On Friday, Ao and his wife
and several friends drove to
Nanchang for a concert by
technology to Taiwan, Ma
urged the US to abide by the
one-China policy and the
principles of the three Sino-
US Joint Communiques.
Any outside forces that
attempt to “play the Taiwan
card” will find their efforts
“futile” and will hurt them-
selves if they go “over the line”,
he said.
Asked about Taiwan’s
response to Sino-US trade dis-
putes, Ma said a few people in
Taiwan wanted to take advan-
tage of the disputes to do
things that were “not
upright”, and have lifted a
stone that will “smash their
own feet”.
“Returning to the right
track of the 1992 Consensus
and the peaceful develop-
ment of cross-Straits relations
The Beijing Public Security
Bureau said the male jumper
was detained for 10 days on a
charge of disturbing public
order. It did not release the
man’s name or nationality.
Beijing Youth Daily reported
the jumper as Alex Pykhov, an
extreme sports enthusiast, who
jumped from the 500-meter
Jacky Cheung, a well-known
Hong Kong singer, at Nan-
chang International Sports
Center.
Shortly after the concert
started on Saturday evening,
several police officers
appeared in front of Ao and
took him away.
The suspect was shocked
that he was found among tens
of thousands of people, said
Li Jin, a police officer from
Honggutan police station in
Nanchang.
“The concert attracted more
than 60,000 visitors, so we paid
China’s military has the ability and resolve to
defeat all attempts to separate our country.”
Wu Qian, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense
is the only way Taiwan can
avoid becoming a pawn of
others,” he said.
Ma also hailed the benefits
of cross-Straits economic
cooperation, promising that a
more open mainland would
create new opportunities for
compatriots and businesses
in Taiwan.
He said that the mainland’s
policy to support Taiwan
businesspeople coming to the
mainland is coherent and
clear, and that if the Taiwan
business community seizes
the opportunity, it will enjoy
better development.
“Anyone who wants to hin-
der cross-Straits economic
cooperation will fail,” he
said.
Ma reiterated that China
strongly opposes the United
States selling weapons to
Taiwan.
“We firmly oppose any offi-
cial or military connection
between the US and Taiwan,
level of Citic Tower, which is
being built in Jianguomenwai,
Chaoyang district, on April 1.
The tower will be the city’s tal-
lest building.
The jumper was detained the
next day, the police said, though
they wouldn’t confirm the
information when contacted
by China Daily on Wednesday.
Police check Ao’s identity
before arresting him at a concert
in Nanchang, Jiangxi province,
on Friday. WANG JIAN / CHINA DAILY
a lot of attention to its security,”
said Li. “We set up several cam-
eras at the ticket entrance,
which was equipped with
facial recognition technology.”
He said the system was
connected to the police data-
base. The number of people
in the audience could be cal-
culated, and identities could
be determined by making
comparisons.
and also object to any form of
weapons sale to the island,”
he said in response to a ques-
tion about a bill signed
recently by US President
Donald Trump that allows for
direct contacts between US
and Taiwan officials.
He added that the Taiwan
question is about Chinese
sovereignty and territorial
integrity.
Earlier this week, the Min-
istry of National Defense
announced its strong opposi-
tion to US weapons sales to
Taiwan.
“China’s military has the
ability and resolve to defeat
all attempts to separate our
country, and it will adopt all
necessary measures to reso-
lutely defend national sover-
eignty, security and
territorial integrity,” minis-
try spokesman Wu Qian
said.
XINHUA—CHINA DAILY
The jump apparently took
place with little fanfare.
Employees in the tower’s sales
department and in a nearby
building said they had not
heard about the incident.
Pykhov’s social media
accounts contain many pic-
tures and videos of his BASE
jumping exploits.
According to the officer, the
suspect has been transferred
to Zhangshu public security
bureau.
Facial recognition systems
have led to the capture of a
number of other suspects, as
the technology has been
adopted more widely in public
places.
In August, police in Qing-
dao, Shandong province,
arrested 25 fugitives with the
help of a facial recognition sys-
tem set up at the Qingdao
International Beer Festival.
According to Liaoshen
Evening News, three suspects
were arrested by Shenyang
police in nine days based on
facial recognition systems set
up at several subway stations.
Contact the writers at
jiangchenglong@
chinadaily.com.cn
Briefly
HUNAN
Swords bring
reward to farmer
A farmer who found and
handed over five 2,000-
year-old bronze swords was
paid a reward of 15,000
yuan ($2,400) by the city
government of Lianyuan
on Tuesday. Li Xinding, 56,
discovered the swords in
August last year when he
was herding sheep along a
river bank after a flood. He
brought them home and
reported the find to the
police. Experts spent
months examining the
swords before dating them
to the Warring States Peri-
od (475-221 BC).
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Vol. 38 — No. 11349
A member of
the Asia News Network
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, April 12, 2018
Pulmonary
disease a big
health threat
Nearly 100 million people across
country have chronic condition
By SHAN JUAN
shanjuan@chinadaily.com.cn
China has nearly 100 mil-
lion people with chronic
obstructive pulmonary dis-
ease, or COPD, placing the
respiratory condition among
the country’s biggest public
health challenges, a national
study has found.
Starting mid-2012, the
three-year nationwide study
covered nearly 51,000 partici-
pants 20 years or older. The
findings were published
recently in the international
medical journal The Lancet.
The study found that 8.6
percent of participants had
the disease, with the elderly
and smokers at higher risk.
It was led by Wang Chen, a
top respiratory disease expert
and president of both the Chi-
nese Academy of Medical Sci-
ences and Peking Union
Medical College.
People with COPD are at
increased risk of developing
heart disease, lung cancer
and a variety of other condi-
tions. It killed more than
870,000 Chinese in 2016,
roughly 9 percent of disease-
related deaths, according to
the National Health Commis-
sion.
“The study further alerts us
to the severity of COPD, an
underestimated health threat
here, and one that is expected
to rise further due to the
heavy smoking epidemic and
aging trend,” Wang said on
Wednesday.
According to the study,
Infant saved with
latest liver surgery
By TIAN XUEFEI and
ZHOU HUIYING in Harbin
A 9-month-old boy in Har-
bin, Heilongjiang province,
has become the youngest per-
son in the world to undergo an
innovative new surgery for liv-
er tumors.
Known by the acronym
ALPPS, the technique involves
the removal of a significant
part of the organ.
The child, nicknamed Lin-
lin, had two operations to
remove a tumor from his liver
at First Affiliated University of
Harbin Medical University.
Linlin’s parents took him to
the hospital in early March
when they noticed that he was
vomiting frequently after eat-
ing, had a fever and was sleep-
ing poorly.
A physical examination
revealed that most of the
child’s liver had been corroded
by a tumor and less than 23
percent of the normal liver tis-
sue remained. Removal of the
damaged tissue was required.
“That is one of the most
effective treatments for liver
tumors,” said Xu Zhilin, direct-
or of the pediatric surgery
department at the hospital,
adding that the amount
removed is “limited by the
minimum volume of the
future liver remnant, which is
required to provide sufficient
postoperative liver function”.
“It means that the baby can’t
survive if less than 30 percent
of his liver is left after surgery,”
Xu said. “But we didn’t want to
give up on him — a little life
with no chance to enjoy the
wonderful world.”
After further research and
discussions with the depart-
ment’s deputy director, Wang
Long, as well as with some oth-
er medical workers, Xu chose
ALPPS, a new surgical strategy
that unfolds in two stages.
more than 40 percent of
smokers over 60 have COPD.
Other risk factors include
poor education, long-term
exposure to air pollution, par-
ticularly PM2.5 (tiny hazard-
ous airborne particles). Risk
factors also include chronic
coughing, ultralow body
weight and a family history of
respiratory disease, the study
found.
But the study did not find a
direct causal link between
PM2.5 exposure and COPD,
just correlation, said Yang
Ting, a respiratory disease
doctor at China-Japan Friend-
ship Hospital, who participat-
ed in the study.
Wang called for more atten-
tion and grants by the govern-
ment to support related
research.
Moreover, public health
efforts should be enhanced to
better curb COPD, as public
awareness remains low, he
said.
Less than 10 percent of
respondents had ever taken a
pulmonary function test, a
tool for COPD diagnosis, and
at most 3 percent of the suf-
ferers were aware of their
condition, it found.
Wang suggested those who
are susceptible, like smokers,
be tested regularly for early
detection and treatment.
He urged health authorities
nationwide to devise public
health programs like targeted
screening methods and
health education to promote
public awareness and better
control.
Doctors operate on Linlin, a
nine-month old boy.
ZHANG XINHAO / FOR CHINA DAILY
In late March, Xu and Wang
performed the first-stage sur-
gery on Linlin with the help of
a 10-member medical team.
In the first stage, Xu said,
tying off a key vein “could
cause most of the blood to
transfer to the normal liver tis-
sue, which could help it grow
rapidly in a short time”.
“About a week later, his nor-
mal liver tissue had increased
to 40 percent, meeting the
necessary requirement for the
second-stage of treatment,” Xu
said.
In April, after a four-hour
surgery, the parents of Linlin
were told that the tumor had
been removed successfully
and the baby had received a
new life.
“We have overcome
extreme difficulties to treat
such a little baby whose dis-
ease is really complex,” Xu
said. “He is lucky to become
the beneficiary of the
advanced technique.
“It is also meaningful for us
to set a precedent in applying
the technique to an infant and
to get valuable practical expe-
rience,” he added.
Xu said Linlin’s vital signs
were stable, and the child was
expected to leave the hospital
in about a week.
Contact the writers at
zhouhuiying@
chinadaily.com.cn
Art of the mask
Students at Changxing No 4 Primary School, along with visitors from the United States and Ukraine, paint opera masks under the
guidance of a teacher in Changxing county, Zhejiang province, on Wednesday. Since opera is the school’s specialty, many foreigners
have been invited to experience the traditional art with students.
TAN YUNFENG / FOR CHINA DAILY
Overseas Beidou center set up
By ZHAO LEI
zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn
The first overseas Beidou
center of excellence, which
was established in Tunisia on
Tuesday, is expected to boost
cooperation in satellite navi-
gation between China and
Arab nations, the China Sat-
ellite Navigation Office said
on Wednesday.
An inauguration ceremony
of the China-Arab Beidou
System/Global Navigation
Satellite System Center was
held on Tuesday at the El
Ghazala Technological Park
in Tunis, capital of Tunisia.
The event was organized by
the China Satellite Naviga-
tion Office and the Arab
Information and Communi-
cation Technologies Organi-
zation, the Chinese office
said in a statement sent to
China Daily.
The statement said this is
the first time such a center
has been set up in another
country for China’s Beidou
Navigation Satellite System,
adding that the move will
gear up the expansion of Bei-
dou-based services in Arab
nations.
Hainan’s infrastructure brings prosperity
By MA ZHIPING
and LIU XIAOLI in Haikou
China’s reform and open-
ing-up have brought life and
prosperity to Hainan prov-
ince and transformed it from
a backward, remote island
into one of the country’s
most open and dynamic
regions over the 30 years
since it became a province.
Among the many changes,
the upgrading of infrastruc-
ture is something a visitor
can clearly see at every cor-
ner of the tropical island
province, whose 30th anni-
versary falls on Friday.
There were no traffic lights
in Hainan until the late
1980s, but the island has
quickly become a destination
for international tourists and
events, with convenient
transportation systems that
link the province with the
world — airports, harbors,
expressways, high-speed rail-
ways and cruise lines, in
addition to the internet,
A yacht moves past the cruise ship hub in Sanya, Hainan
province, during a nightly circuit in February.
SHA XIAOFENG / FOR CHINA DAILY
The center is jointly run by
the Chinese office and the
Arab organization, and is
tasked with demonstrating,
promoting and evaluating
Beidou’s navigation and posi-
tioning services in Arab
nations. It will also carry out
research and training on Bei-
dou, the statement said.
It added that many repre-
sentatives of Arab and Afri-
can countries expressed
“strong interest” in Beidou,
noting that five Chinese
experts would give a three-
day training session starting
on Wednesday at the center
to more than 40 satellite nav-
igation professionals from
Arab nations.
China and the League of
Arab States held the First
China-Arab States Beidou
System Cooperation Forum
in May in Shanghai. The two
sides pledged to strengthen
their communication and
collaboration in satellite nav-
igation and to bring Beidou-
based services to Arab states
to benefit social and econom-
ic development.
Beidou is one of the four
space-based navigation net-
works along with GPS from
TIDES OF with its Hawaii-like feel, has
CHANGE one 80,000-ton and two
IN HAINAN 150,000-ton berths for cruise
which connects local farmers
with far-flung markets.
Through its transportation
system, Hainan has estab-
lished trade and cooperation
links with more than 160
countries and regions
around the world.
“Hainan will further
expand its connections with
countries and regions partic-
ipating in the Belt and Road
Initiative to open itself fur-
ther,” Shen Xiaoming, gover-
nor of Hainan, said on
Monday during a panel dis-
cussion at the four-day Boao
Forum for Asia Annual Con-
ference 2018, which closed
on Wednesday.
More cruise routes will be
opened under its plan to
make Hainan a hub of inter-
national trade and shipping
in the South China Sea
region, the governor said.
Mohamed Ben Amor, secretary-general of the Arab Information
and Communication Technologies Organization (front, second
from left), tours the China-Arab Beidou System/Global Naviga-
tion Satellite System Center in Tunis, Tunisia, on Tuesday.
LIU KAI / XINHUA
the United States, GLONASS
from Russia and Galileo from
the European Union.
Since 2000, when the first
Beidou satellite was placed
into orbit, 33 satellites have
been launched for the net-
work. Beidou began provid-
ing positioning, navigation,
timing and messaging servi-
ces to civilian users in China
and parts of the Asia-Pacific
region in December 2012.
China has planned to put
18 third-generation Beidou
Phoenix Island in Sanya,
ships, while Haikou, the pro-
vincial capital, has an
80,000-ton berth. Hainan
greeted 319 cruises, includ-
ing Voyager of the Seas and
MS Europa 2 — touted as the
world’s most luxurious cruise
ship — which made port calls
in Sanya last week.
The island has received
570,000 overseas tourists on
cruises.
Another two berths, each
with a 225,000-ton capacity,
are close to being completed
on Phoenix Island, according
to local officials. The con-
struction is a testament to
Hainan’s ambition to turn
Sanya into an Asian Miami,
on par with Miami, Florida,
in the United States, which is
known as the cruise capital of
the world.
The annual tourist capaci-
ty of the terminals is expect-
ed to reach 1 million by 2020,
the governor said. He added
that international flights will
grow from the current 56 to
100 in three years as two
major airports — Haikou
Meilan International Airport
and Sanya Phoenix Interna-
tional Airport — are expand-
ing. The fifth airport on the
island is taking shape on the
western coast.
More choices are accessi-
ble on the roads. Its 653-kilo-
meter high-speed railway
around the island, the first
such railway to circle a tropi-
cal island, opened in late
2015. It links 12 cities and
counties along the coastlines,
satellites into space before
the end of 2018.
According to plans from
the China Satellite Naviga-
tion Office, the network will
be made up of 35 satellites
before the end of 2020 to
give Beidou global cover-
age. Several now in orbit
will be decommissioned by
then.
Currently, Beidou covers
nearly 30 countries, includ-
ing Pakistan, Egypt and
Indonesia, the office said.
helping people to reach every
corner on the island within
two hours.
“Thirty years ago, it took a
full day to reach Haikou from
Sanya, which lies at the
southern tip of the island, but
now it takes less than two
hours by high speed train,
and there are other choices,”
said Hua Zetian, a rice-breed-
ing expert who has worked in
Hainan for 30 years.
Construction of a sea-view
tourism road circling the
island is under way to help
people see the waves from
their own cars. More high-
speed roads will help link
every city and county in the
central areas in the near
future.
Meanwhile, the island had
also upgraded its power and
water supply systems.
For years, electricity short-
ages hindered the social and
economic development of
the province.
In 2016, the Changjiang
Nuclear Power Plant in west-
ern Hainan began full opera-
tion, with two 650,000
kilowatt-hour power genera-
tors. It became a new driver
for local development, sup-
plying 27 percent of the
island’s needs for electricity. It
has turned the province into a
leader in clean energy use.
From 2015 to 2017, Hainan
invested 13 billion yuan ($2.1
billion) to upgrade its infor-
mation service networks,
which now reach all 2,573 vil-
lages on the island.
Contact the writers at
mazhiping@
chinadaily.com.cn
C H I NA 5
Points
system for
hukou
to launch
in Beijing
By XIN WEN
xinwen@chinadaily.com.cn
Beijing will launch its points-
based application system for
household registration on
Monday, a move to meet the
demand of nonnative Beijing
residents to stabilize their liv-
ing situations in the capital, the
capital’s Human Resources
and Social Security Bureau
said on Wednesday.
The points-based system is
aimed at qualified nonnative
Beijing workers who have sta-
ble employment in the city.
Four criteria are required.
The city has not yet deter-
mined the total points required
for residency, but some qualifi-
cations — and their point val-
ues — are known. Those will be
added to a person’s point total
after Sept 5, when the overall
point total is established.
For now, an applicant must:
• have a temporary Beijing
residence permit;
• be below retirement age
(under 55 for women and 60
for men);
• have made social insurance
payments for seven consecu-
tive years;
• have no criminal record.
Applicants are graded based
on points earned from their
age, education level, living
standard, legal record and
entrepreneurial ability. There
are nine grading indicators, the
bureau said.
The system mainly
aims to meet the
household needs
of capable
non-Beijing
residents.”
Li Sufang, deputy head of the
Beijing Development and Reform
Commission
All candidates for household
status must submit their appli-
cations through their employ-
ers and undergo a series of
procedures to check their points
and review their qualifications.
“The system mainly aims to
meet the household needs of
capable non-Beijing residents
who are willing to live in the
capital long-term,” said Li
Sufang, deputy head of the Bei-
jing Development and Reform
Commission. “It applies to all
nonnative Beijing residents.”
The first round of applica-
tions will be accepted until
June 14, with applicants able to
register and fill out forms on
the bureau’s website.
After that, various govern-
ment departments will get
involved to verify points and
reach a preliminary conclusion.
The process is expected to last
about one and a half months.
After that, another review
stage will be conducted. After
Sept 5, the city will announce
the number of points appli-
cants need to establish hukou,
along with other residency
information.
“The application system for
household registration is a free
public interest service,” said Xu
Xi, director of the city’s social
security bureau.
The new system is part of the
overall reform of the house-
hold registration process. Chi-
na will gradually remove limits
on hukou registration in town-
ships and small cities.
Plans to introduce a points-
based application system in
Beijing were first announced in
August 2016 to guarantee peo-
ple’s rights and establish a sta-
ble living situation for skilled
nonnative residents.
The Shanghai municipal
government implemented the
point system in September
2013 to speed up the reforma-
tion of hukou.
6 CH INA
Justice
Protection of judges put at top of agenda
China’s top court has made courtroom
safety a priority this year, but
judges are also subject to
harassment away from work,
as Cao Yin reports.
J
udge Guo Jie said she felt
safer after China’s top
court put the protection
of judges high on its
agenda for this year.
The Supreme People’s Court’s
work report, released in March,
said 85 judges around the coun-
try had died from attacks or
overwork in the past five years,
and that steps to prevent judges
from being influenced or intimi-
dated could not be delayed. It
said safety measures need to be
strengthened in courts at all lev-
els because a safe work environ-
ment is crucial to upholding
justice.
“Protection of judicial per-
sonnel has rarely been given
such a high priority in the top
court’s work report, and that
deserves applause,” said Guo,
from Sanming Intermediate
People’s Court in Fujian prov-
ince. “The move is not only a
response to the deaths, but also
reassures us.”
Judge Gao Linlin said Chang-
ping District People’s Court in
Beijing, where she works,
increased self-defense training
for judges and improved its
security equipment after one of
her colleagues, 38-year-old Ma
Caiyun, was shot dead by two
attackers in February 2016.
An investigation found one of
the killers had been unhappy
with the division of property in
a divorce ruling by Ma. The two
attackers committed suicide aft-
er fleeing to the capital’s Yan-
qing district.
“As a judge, it’s my duty to
interpret laws to help litigants
understand my rulings,” Gao
said. “But if they disagree with
the verdicts, refuse to lodge
appeals and try to influence
judges, the court should take
the initiative to solve it. After all,
the safer a workplace is, the bet-
ter placed it is to push forward
the rule of law.”
More courts realized the need
for better protection of judges
after two attacks in less than a
month early last year.
A judge in the Guangxi Zhu-
ang autonomous region was
stabbed to death in late January,
and one in Jiangsu province
survived after being run down
by a car and stabbed in mid-Feb-
ruary.
The extremely violent attacks
gained the attention of the top
judges and in February last year
they set up a national commit-
tee to make rules to safeguard
judges. The top court ordered
courts at all levels to establish
similar committees.
They have now been set up in
15 provincial-level high people’s
courts, including Beijing,
Shanghai, Hainan and Gansu,
and are being extended to
courts at lower levels, according
to Xu Jiaxin, head of the top
court’s political department.
The committees can give sup-
port to judges and should think
of ways to ensure their workpla-
ces are safe and free of intimida-
tion, he said, adding, “The
damage to judges is harm to the
rule of law.”
Although protective policies
are being improved in more
courts, some political advisers
say more is needed, suggesting
the country solve the problem
through legislation as soon as
possible.
More security facilities
Gao said she was shocked
when she heard of Ma’s death: “I
couldn’t believe such an
extremely violent incident hap-
pened so close to me.”
She said she felt worried at
the same time, as she had also
been threatened by litigants
before. But she added that her
court’s quick response made her
feel more at ease.
As a first step, security facili-
ties at the court were improved
and patrols of its premises were
increased. Then, in March last
year, its committee to protect
judges was established, in line
with the top court’s require-
ments.
Now, people entering the
court building have to pass
through multiple security
checks, with their identity veri-
fied before they are scanned by
new detectors that can spot
dangerous fluids, the court said.
Meanwhile, every courtroom
and corridor in the court build-
ing is monitored by high-defini-
tion cameras.
“The best thing is that securi-
ty guards will arrive soon to
keep order if we press an emer-
gency button when litigants in a
courtroom become too emo-
tional or even attempt to dis-
rupt judges,” said Gao, who
specializes in civil cases.
“The upgrading of the securi-
ty facilities inside our court
makes me at least know I’m not
alone and that more security
staff are standing by if emergen-
cies occur.”
Besides the installation of
security equipment, the top
court has called for courtrooms
to be separated from judges’
offices.
Poor communication
Although security is being
improved in more courts, Guo
said she still worried about her
safety, “because much of the
intimidation and influence hap-
pens outside”.
She said judges hearing fami-
ly disputes are the major target
of intimidation, “as litigants in
such lawsuits are often emo-
tional, which makes it hard for
them to accept rulings against
them”.
For example, a female litigant
kept calling and taunting Guo —
who handles divorce and child
protection cases — after the
judge upheld an original verdict
in which the woman’s ex-hus-
band was given custody of their
son.
“There was no problem with
the ruling found in my review,”
Guo said. “The woman had an
extramarital relationship and
would have found it difficult to
afford to raise the child. I
explained the reasons to her, but
it didn’t work.
“The litigant shouted at me in
the calls, telling me female judg-
es should help women. She
changed mobile phone num-
bers many times to disturb me
in my spare time, even though I
blocked her time and again.”
But Guo said the endless call-
ing was not the worst of the har-
assment she had received.
“I broke down when I
received litigants’ text messages
saying they knew my home
address and where my son stud-
ied,” she said, adding one of her
colleagues, a young female
judge, was once followed home
by a man.
Beijing judge Gao said some
harassment could be attributed
to poor communication with lit-
igants.
“Communication must be
open between judges and liti-
gants, as the interpretation of
the law is every judge’s duty,” she
said.
She said disturbances some-
times arose because a litigant
misunderstood a verdict and
the nature of court work, and
sometimes when judges were
too impatient in their interpre-
tations.
But Gao also said communi-
cation needs to be improved
between judges and courts, sug-
gesting the committees play a
bigger role in thinking of practi-
cal ways to head off disruptions.
Courts should take more
responsibility when their judges
were being influenced, such as
increasing communication with
litigants and helping alleviate
the pressure on judges, she said.
From 2013 to 2017, Chinese
courts heard 88.97 million cas-
es, of which 85.98 million were
concluded, according to top
court’s work report. Yet while
the number of disputes around
the country is rising, the num-
ber of judges is increasing more
slowly, with just 120,138 judges
nationwide.
Li Yingxin, chief judge of the
civil tribunal at Tongzhou Dis-
trict People’s Court in Beijing,
said her court filed more than
60,000 cases last year, but it
only had 107 judges.
“I handled 464 cases in the
past two years,” she said, adding
the average number of cases a
judge concluded last year was
563.
Guo said she and other judges
at her court in Fujian were pay-
ing more attention to their
health because of increasing
work pressure.
“Working overtime in the
evening and at weekends is very
common,” she said. “Once I
didn’t return home until 11:30
pm.” The official workday for
judges ends at 5:30 pm.
She added that her court has
helped relieve some of the pres-
sure on judges by organizing
painting and calligraphy class-
es.
Gao applauded the Chang-
ping court’s reaction to the
problems, saying it began pro-
viding yoga classes for judges
last year to reduce stress levels
and also gave them self-defense
training, as well as getting other
court officials to help interpret
rulings.
The court said it had also
recruited 40 mediators last year
to help its committee improve
communication between liti-
gants and judges.
Legislation needed
Xu, from the top court, said in
March that more protective pol-
icies were being mulled with a
view to implementation this
year, “because more respect
paid to judges better maintains
justice”.
He stressed litigants whose
behavior was illegal, including
attacking judges and damaging
their property, must be pun-
ished in line with the Criminal
Law.
But Dai Hongbing, a political
adviser, said in more common
cases such as litigants frequent-
ly calling judges or following
them without violence, where
their actions do not qualify as a
crime, “we have few effective
solutions”.
During the annual sessions of
the National People’s Congress
and the National Committee of
the Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Conference in
March, Dai, also vice-president
of the high people’s court in
Guangxi, called on the country
to root out the problem by
improving legislation.
“We can make a law on court
safety or highlight contempt of
court as a new crime by revising
the Criminal Law, while design-
ing special security insurance
for judges may also be effective
in alleviating the problem,” he
said.
Li Shaoping, the top court’s
vice-president, agreed with Dai
and proposed moves to safe-
guard judges through legisla-
tion during the sessions.
He said the new committees
and current policies were not
strong enough to regulate liti-
gants’ behavior, let alone give
judges better protection.
The measures are scattered in
different rules now and each
court has different regulations
on the committee, Li said, add-
ing they urgently need to be uni-
fied and strengthened in a law.
“A series of problems should
also be clarified and regulated,
such as what judges should do
in their work time, what private
information about judges can
be disclosed, what security facil-
ities should be installed in court
and in what situations judges
can be demoted or removed,” he
said.
Contact the writer at
caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn
The upgrading
of the security
facilities inside
our court makes
me at least
know I’m not
alone.”
Gao Linlin, a judge at
Changping District People’s
Court in Beijing
“Working
overtime in the
evening and at
weekends is
very common.”
Guo Jie, a judge at Sanming
Intermediate People’s Court
in Fujian province
Thursday, April 12, 2018 C H I N A DA I LY USA
LIANG LUWEN / FOR CHINA DAILY
Timeline
• Feb 7, 2017: The China Association of Judges establishes its
judge protection committee, and the top court urges courts at all
levels to set up similar bodies.
The top court also releases a guideline ordering courts around the
country to respond quickly to courtroom disruptions.
The guideline stipulates that public security bureaus should inter-
vene promptly if litigants’ behavior breaches the law, such as by
leaking the private information of judges and their family mem-
bers.
• July 18: The association’s judge protection committee holds its
first meeting in Beijing. Zhou Qiang, president of the top court,
orders all lower courts to pay attention to the protection of judges
and the upholding of justice.
• December: China’s top court issues a notice urging courts to
beef up security and give employees self-defense training.
• Dec 20: The Supreme People’s Court holds a national seminar
in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, on the protection of judges. It says
one of its major tasks this year is to strictly punish those disturb-
ing court order.
SOURCE: THE SUPREME PEOPLE’S COURT
Cases of violence against judges
• Jiangsu: Zhou Long, a judge in Shuyang county, was run down
by a car and stabbed multiple times by Hu Xiaogan as he walked
to work on Feb 17, last year. Zhou survived after being taken to a
hospital. Hu said he attacked Zhou because he was dissatisfied
with a ruling by the judge. He was sentenced to life imprison-
ment on Nov 30 at Xuzhou Intermediate People’s Court for
attempted homicide.
• Guangxi: Fu Mingsheng, a retired judge in Luchuan county,
was stabbed to death in his home on Jan 26, last year, by Long
Jiancai, the defendant in a divorce case handled by Fu in 1994.
Long was sentenced to death for homicide on Aug 25 at Yulin
Intermediate People’s Court.
• Beijing: Ma Caiyun, a judge in the capital’s Changping district,
was shot in the stomach and face at home by two attackers on
Jan 26, 2016. An investigation found one of the killers had been
upset by the division of property in his divorce case. The two
offenders killed themselves after fleeing to Beijing’s Yanqing dis-
trict.
• Liaoning: Shahekou District People’s Court in Dalian sen-
tenced a man to eight months in prison in July 2016 for disrupt-
ing order in a court the previous year. He had torn up written
records of his case and hit a judge on Nov 18, 2015, because he
was dissatisfied with the judge’s ruling in a divorce case.
• Hunan: Zhu Jun, a security guard at a post office in Yongzhou,
shot three judges dead and injured three others on June 1, 2010,
because he believed the court had delayed his compensation
payment in a dispute. Zhu then committed suicide.
 Thursday, April 12, 2018 7

LIFE CHINA DAILY USA » CHINADAILYUSA.COM

F
looded in a sea of
golden rape flowers,
the Qianduo scenic
area in Xinghua,
Jiangsu province, attracts mil-
lions of tourists from around
the world every year.
The scenic area, also called
the Qiandao Rape Flower Sce-
nic Area, covers an area of 4.3
square kilometers. It is reput-
ed to be one of the most beau-
tiful spots to see rape flowers
in the country.
Located in Dongwang vil-
lage in Xinghua, the scenic
area is holding its 10th Rape
Flower Festival from late
March to early May. With its
unique scenery of a sea of
golden rape flowers set amid
a network of lush green riv-
ers and lakes, it attracted
more than 2 million tourists
in 2017.
The panorama of the rivers
and waterways winding
through the fields of rape flow-
er duotian are unique in Chi-
na. Duotian, which is the local
of Xinghua. “The city and its
people have been benefiting
A patchwork of shimmering rapeseed fields spliced by a network of meandering green from the local ecology, and we
will continue to protect the
waterways presents a unique vista in Xinghua. Cang Wei reports in Nanjing. environment for sustainable
development.”
As a cultural city with a long
history, Xinghua has been
home to many famous people
over the centuries and earned
the reputation as a “city of tal-
ent” as early as the Ming
Dynasty (1368-1644).
Fan Zhongyan (989-1052), a
politician, poet and military
thinker, was once the county
magistrate in Xinghua.
Shi Naian, author of The
Water Margin, was also born
in Xinghua and returned to
his hometown to finish the
masterpiece, which is consid-
ered one of the most famous
novels of ancient China. Shi’s
tomb, located in Xinduo town-
ship, is a cultural relic under
the protection of the Jiangsu
Tourists enjoy the view of golden rape flowers by boat in the Qianduo scenic area in Xinghua, Jiangsu province. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY government.
Many novels from the Ming
and Qing (1368-1911) dynas-

SEA OF GOLD FLOODS

name for “raised field”, are ties were written by writers
small patches of fertile soil cre- born in Xinghua, making it an
ated to have easy access to important place related to the
water for growing crops. study of literature from that

‘TOWN OF A THOUSAND ISLANDS’

In ancient times, local farm-
ers living near these rivers and
lakes dug up the soil up from
the riverbeds and piled the soil
high to form farmland where
they could grow crops. Each
duotian is divided into sec-
tions by these waterways, and
farmers need to commute by
boats to tend to their crops,
without the use of agricultural
machinery.
A lack of modern machinery
and the practice of growing
rape crops turned out to be a
distinctive ecological travel
resource for the city. The thou-
sands of fields at Qiandao dif-
fer in size and shape, with the
largest ones extending to
around 2,000 square meters,
while the smallest ones cover
just 2 square meters.
Almost every raised field is
surrounded by water. The area
is also called the “Town of a
Thousand Islands”, and poets
have been writing about the
area’s outstanding beauty
since ancient times.
These days in Xinghua,
tourists can not only meander
through the vivid seas of flow-
ers by boat or go fishing, they
can also catch a glimpse of the
local lifestyle and village cul-
ture, and even get involved in
harvesting farming products.
Thanks to its clean water
and fertile environment, the
region is also famous for its
rice, crab and taro, which have
become nationwide favorites
since they were introduced in
A Bite of China, a popular Chi-
nese food documentary.
Xinghua’s duotian agrosys-
tem was selected as one of the
“globally important agricul-
tural heritage systems” by
Food and Agriculture Organi-
zation of the United Nations in
April 2004 for its splendid
landscapes and agricultural
sustainability.
“The city’s ecological advan-
tage is its precious treasure,”
said Li Weiguo, Party secretary
period.
Xinghua is also the home-
town of many famous schol-
ars, including Zheng Banqiao,
Liu Xizai and Bi Feiyu. It was
named as China’s first “Home
of Chinese Novels” in April
2012.
Bi Feiyu, a writer and pro-
fessor at the Faculty of Arts at
Nanjing University, has been
awarded both the Lu Xun Lit-
erature Prize and Mao Dun
Literature Prize, China’s top
literature awards, on several
occasions.
Several of Bi’s works have
been adapted into movies,
including Blind Massage, a
winner at Taiwan’s 2014 Gold-
en Horse Awards.
The city government has
been making efforts to build a
“cultural Xinghua”, for which
several literature prizes and
institutes have been estab-
lished and activities themed
A farmer paddles a boat in the rape flower field in the scenic area. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY on literature have been held.
There are more than 240
cultural relic and historical
sites in Xinghua. Some of the
Popular routes to Xinghua From Beijing houses of former famous res-
By rail
idents have now been pro-
Trains from Beijing South Railway Station to Zhenjiang South Railway Station take four
tected at a provincial level.
hours 40 minutes. Bus services can take passengers the rest of the way, about two hours.
By 2014, there were 74 cul-
tural relic units under pro-
By air
tection.
Flights from Beijing Capital International Airport to Nanjing Lukou International Airport
Beijing Two local customs usually
take two hours. From here, bus services to Xinghua take roughly three hours.
carried out around Tomb
Sweeping Day — Maoshan
From Nanjing haozi, a style of folk song per-
Xinghua By car
Nanjing
formed to synchronized move-
It’s about 210 km along the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway, Nanjing Ring Road, ments, with one person
Nanning-Yangzhou Expressway, Qidong-Yangzhou Expressway, Jianghai Expressway leading, and Maoshan boat
and Funing-Xinghua-Taizhou Expressway. racing, which is similar to the
Shanghai
dragon boat racing held
By rail nationwide at Duanwu Festi-
Trains from Nanjing Railway Station to Taizhou Railway Station take one hour and val, only the boats are not dec-
30 minutes. Bus services can take passengers the rest of the way, about an hour. orated as dragons — have also
been added to the national list
300 km
From Shanghai of intangible cultural heritage.
By car
It’s about 290 kilometers along the Yanjiang Expressway and
Funing-Xinghua-Taizhou Expressway. Liu Maomao contributed
to this story.
By train
Trains from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station to Zhenjiang South Railway Station take Contact the writer at
one hour and 30 minutes. From here, bus services to Xinghua take roughly two hours. cangwei@chinadaily.com.cn

Other places to visit

Luoping, Yunnan province Wuyuan, Jiangxi province Tongnan, Chongqing Guiding, Guizhou province Menyuan, Qinghai province

The golden rape flowers in Luoping county
are the first to blossom in China, and usually
begin to bloom shortly after Spring Festival
in February.
About 240 kilometers east of Kunming, the
capital of Yunnan province, Luoping has rape-
seed flowers covering an area of nearly 540
square kilometers, where its flowering period
varies depending on the weather.
The Jinji mountains, Jiulong town and the
Shiwanda mountains are the top three recom-
mended viewing places.
Wuyuan county has long been renowned for
its sprawl of golden rape flowers that covers
its plains and terraced hillsides over an area
of nearly 70 square kilometers.
The flowering phase this year is estimated to
last for at least 30 days, from March 15 to April
15, while the best time to appreciate them is
between March 15 and April 10.
Rape flowers in tourism resorts such as
Sixiyan village and Rainbow Bridge in eastern
Wuyuan are in full blossom from March 5
thanks to the warmer climate there.
Rape flowers in Tongnan county, Chongqing
city, is renowned for its flower field shaped
like a taijitu — the “supreme ultimate” repre-
sented by the ying and yang symbol in Chinese
philosophy — which attracts millions of visits
every year.
Intermingled with wheat plants, the flower
field measures 236 meters in diameter, and
highlights the Taoist symbol with splendid
blossoms.
The rape flowers in Tongnan bloom in late
February.
The rape flowers in Guiding county, Gui-
zhou province, shine among the blossoms of
pear flowers, which take on a breathtaking
variety of colors ranging from lily-white to
golden yellow.
Blooming in early March with a flowering
phase lasting about 30 days, the rape flowers
can be seen spreading over the plain in full
blossom set against the backdrop of moun-
tains covered with pear flowers.
Guiding was named one of the top 10 rape
flower travel destinations in the province.
The golden flowers in the Menyuan Hui
autonomous county provide a panoramic vista
different from the views of blossoms seen in
other provinces, thanks to the unique climate
of the Qinghai plateau.
Covering an area of more than 300 square
kilometers, the rape flower fields border the
Qilian Mountain range to the north and Daban
Mountain to the south, and is often referred to
as the “golden ocean on the plateau” by locals
and visitors alike.
The flowers usually bloom in early July.
8 L I FE | Culture
ANIMATION SENSATION
Hangzhou will soon host this year’s China International Cartoon and Animation Festival, an annual event
that has become the largest of its kind in the country. Xu Fan and Ma Zhenhuan report.
W
ith rapeseed flowers
blooming in vast
fields and mountains
covered by lush trees,
the village of Xiajiang in East Chi-
na’s Zhejiang province looks like an
exquisite scroll eulogizing the beau-
ty of spring in the eyes of cartoonist
Murong Yindao.
But the artist, who shot to fame
with his iconic comic puppet Daod-
ao (knife), met with a pleasant sur-
prise during his visit there on
March 24.
A young girl from a local ele-
mentary school cautiously pre-
sented him with a cup of green tea,
a traditional ceremony in China to
establish a master-apprentice rela-
tionship.
Two other top Chinese cartoon-
ists joined the ceremony to accept
two other apprentices, which acted
as a warm-up event to promote the
upcoming 14th China International
Cartoon and Animation Festival.
The ceremony also marked the
launch of a government-backed
project to promote cartoon and ani-
mation culture in the province’s
rural areas.
As a frequent participant in the
festival, the leading one of its kind
in China, Murong says he has seen it
change quite substantially over the
past decade.
“The festival is becoming more
relevant to local people. I always
believe the best comic works come
from life and should return to life,”
he says.
“The festival is also a precious
opportunity for local fans to see
prestigious animators from around
the world,” adds Murong.
As one of the largest festivals for
fans of animation, the event will be
held from April 26 to May 1 in
Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang.
And the event has attracted a
large number of participants from
85 countries and regions, including
the United States, Japan, South
Korea, France, the United Kingdom
and the Czech Republic.
“The annual festival is now the
largest and most popular exposi-
tion about cartoon and animation
in China,” says Zhuo Chao, secre-
tary general of the festival commit-
tee.
Culture gives new meaning to life in city
By FANG AIQING
fangaiqing@chinadaily.com.cn
Culture is helping Hangzhou,
the provincial capital of East Chi-
na’s Zhejiang province, improve its
residents’ lives.
In 2014, Hangzhou’s public
library system joined a model
scheme to reach out to people. For
almost a decade, Hangzhou
Library has been allowing ragpick-
ers and wanderers to stop by with
their belongings, read in the air-
conditioned rooms, charge their
mobile phones and get drinking
water.
Hangzhou Grand Theater,
another example of using culture
to improve quality of life, has had
thousands of shows from around
the globe going on stage, including
the Broadway classic The Sound of
Music and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road
Project.
And among the around 200 per-
formances the theater hosts annu-
ally, half are public service
performances that are dedicated
to cultivating arts appreciation
among ordinary people.
Now, with a series of modern
facilities, the residents of
Hangzhou have libraries, muse-
ums, youth or senior citizen cen-
ters within walking distance from
home.
Next to the Gongchen Bridge on
the Grand Canal, a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, is the Qiaoxi block,
where the largest number of muse-
ums in Hangzhou is located.
The block has museums for craft
arts such as umbrellas, fans,
knives, scissors and swords.
The museums were built on the
sites of old factories to meet the
need for space, says Yan Jianqiang,
the director of the cultural heri-
tage and museology department of
Zhejiang University.
This is just one of the many
examples of striking a balance
between preserving the old town
and building the new city. Also, by
Left: Performers dress as characters fromThe Smurfs in a parade on the Southern Song Imperial Street in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, during the 13th China International Cartoon and
Animation Festival in 2017. The city will host this year’s festival from April 26 to May 1. HAN CHUANHAO / XINHUA Right: Posters of Loving Vincent and Coco, whose major creators will participate in this
year’s festival. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Last year, the fes- Inspired by the Mexican Day of two animators behind Loving Vin-
tival attracted more the Dead festival, Coco crushed Pix- cent will create a painting of 4
than 15 million visi- ar Animation’s previous box-office meters long by 2 meters wide for
tors, around 1.5 records to become the studio’s top- local people.
times the residen- grossing movie in China. Hiroyuki Ito, the creator of
tial population of The animated biography examin- Japan’s digital pop idol Hatsune
Hangzhou. Besides, ing Vincent van Gogh’s complex life Miku and chief executive officer of
the contracts and and his unusual death, Loving Vin- Crypton Future Media will also join
Lee Unkrich,
intentions for coop- cent, was nominated for best ani- the festival.
US director of
Oscar-winning eration signed dur- mated feature both at the Golden A barometer of the festival’s pop-
animation film ing the festival had Globe Awards and the Academy ularity, the Golden Monkey King
Coco an estimated total Awards this year. Award — the festival’s top honor —
value of 128.5 bil- Blade Runner 2049, an acclaimed has so far received more than 600
lion yuan ($20.4 sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi submissions, including the Irish
billion). masterpiece, won the best cinema- animated hit The Breadwinner,
“The 14th event will be at a high- tography award at the year’s Oscars. which was nominated for best ani-
er-level, more international and The movie’s visual effects creator mated feature at this year’s Oscars,
more fun,” says Zhuo. Mike Stillwell will also be attending and the Chinese blockbuster Boonie
Lee Unkrich, the US director of the festival, according to Zhu Xiaot- Bears: The Big Shrink, which
this year’s Oscar-winning best ani- ing, an international liaison officer grossed more than 600 million
mated feature award, Coco, will take with the festival’s exhibition office. yuan earlier this year.
part in the festival, and will be joined She says the filmmakers will For domestic animation produc-
by other creators behind Loving share their experience in master ers, the Hangzhou festival is also
Vincent and Blade Runner 2049. classes on April 27 and 28, and the a good platform to meet with
Hangzhou has seen growth in val-
ue addition in the cultural and cre-
ative sectors, from 43.28 billion
yuan ($6.87 billion) to 304.1 billion
yuan. And the contribution of
these sectors to the city’s GDP has
grown from 10.5 percent to 24.2
percent.
One of the highlights of the cul-
tural sector is the emerging digi-
tal content industry, which
contributed 187 billion yuan in
2017 to the total output from the
cultural and creative sectors, an
increase of 28.5 percent year-on-
year, accounting for 14.9 percent
of the city’s GDP.
Separately, the Hangzhou Con-
temporary Theatre Festival has
Visitors look at a statue in the European art center of Hangzhou Library. The brought in 59 popular plays from
venue is open to the public for free. SHI JIANXUE / XINHUA around the world in the past six
years, including ones from the Avi-
gnon Festival of France, the Edin-
burgh Festival from the United
Kingdom, the Holland Festival and
Japan’s BeSeTo Theatre Festival.
Hangzhou’s cultural events have
also made their way to the coun-
tryside.
Du Chuanfu, in his 70s, uses
Xiao Re Hun, a folk rap that mixes
speech and song, to tell stories
every Wednesday in the communi-
ty he lives in.
Xiao Re Hun is one among 44
items on the national intangible
cultural heritage list from Zheji-
ang province. There are another
167 items on the provincial intan-
gible cultural heritage list.
Besides there are three items
from the province on the UNESCO
Night view of the Hangzhou Grand Theater, an example of the city’s effort to world intangible cultural heritage
use culture to improve residents’ quality of life. XU YU / XINHUA list.
Among the other activities in
the province are Spring Festival
developing the block, the water- events have led to increased citizen activities which have been going
scape, local opera sites, traditional participation, too. on for the past decade.
markets and temple fairs are being Festivals inspired by the culture This is when art troupes from
preserved. of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127- Hangzhou give performances at
Such protection measures have 1279) and the Qiantang River have rural venues, based on local
also helped the restoration of more integrated traditional activities requests. As a result, these galas of
than 100 natural and cultural fea- including tea competitions, arts singing, dancing, local operas and
tures around the West Lake. exhibitions and poetry recitation. short comic dramas have become
Hangzhou’s many cultural Between 2007 and 2017, a custom in these areas.
Thursday, April 12, 2018
overseas industry players.
More than 80 broadcasters and
distributors, as well as around 1,500
companies with nearly 170 fran-
chises of animated productions or
games, have submitted to join the
festival’s trade market.
Such franchises include French
video game publisher Ubi-
soft’s Assassin’s Creed, which fic-
tionalizes the rivalry between two
ancient secret societies, and The
King’s Avatar, a popular Chinese
online comic series about a group of
genius game players.
A summit will also be held to dis-
cuss how to build the brand of an
influential animation event, gather-
ing together the heads of more than
10 top animation festivals, such as
the Annecy International Animated
Film Festival in France, and the
Ottawa International Animation
Festival.
An employee of a publishing house recommends the company’s digital reading
app to consumers at the Digital Reading Conference China 2016 in Hangzhou.
HUANG ZONGZHI / XINHUA
Digital reading conference
to focus on developments
By FANG AIQING
fangaiqing@chinadaily.com.cn
The Digital Reading Conference
China 2018 will be held in April in
Hangzhou, the capital of East China’s
Zhejiang province.
At the conference, announce-
ments will include names of the top
10 digital works and projects of 2017
as well as the 10 cities with the most
number of digital readers and high-
est number of reading activities for
last year.
Around 1,200 people from the pub-
lishing world, business leaders, writ-
ers and scholars are expected to
attend the opening ceremony on
April 13. At the event, issues, includ-
ing the fusion of paper and digital
publishing and the application of
artificial intelligence in digital pub-
lishing, will be discussed.
An exposition featuring digital
reading development and technolo-
gy will open to the public, with more
C H I N A DA I LY USA
Coinciding with the Xiajiang vil-
lage event on March 24, the China
Comic and Animation Museum in
Hangzhou has unveiled its collec-
tion of historical animation and
cartoon pieces gathered from all
around the world toward the end of
the festival.
So far, the 30,000-square-meter
museum nestled in Baima Lake
Animation Square, the main venue
for the festival, has received more
than 1,600 display submissions,
including a monkey-themed paint-
ing by the pioneering animator
Wan Laiming, the set drafts of 1937
Disney movie Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs and some celluloid
sheets of the iconic Mickey Mouse
and Donald Duck animated series
produced in the 1950s.
Contact the writers at xufan@
chinadaily.com.cn
than 100 enterprises from digital
publishing, online literature, audio
reading and allied industries like
smart hardware and artificial intelli-
gence in attendance.
In addition, a summit on copyright
will feature a list of works that are
perceived as having market potential
for film and TV productions.
The Digital Reading Conference
China 2018, themed New Era, New
Reading, New Expectations, is
co-hosted by the China Audio-Video
and Digital Publishing Association
and the local government of
Hangzhou.
The conference is dedicated to
building up platforms for communi-
cation between the government,
industry and users, to promote digi-
tal reading and the fusion of paper
and digital publishing.
Hundreds of volunteers and servi-
ces, including shuttle buses and live
streaming, are expected to be availa-
ble for the conference.
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, April 12, 2018
MARTIAL ARTS IMPROVING
THE WELFARE OF STUDENTS
Students of the Chinese Wushu School in Monrovia, Liberia, stretch during daily practice. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
By ALPHA DAFFAE
SENKPENI
in Monrovia, Liberia
For China Daily
I
t’s a little over two
months since the Chi-
nese Wushu School was
officially opened in
Monrovia, capital of the West
African nation of Liberia, and
its impact is already becom-
ing apparent.
Several students, mostly
from high schools, have already
signed up to learn Chinese mar-
tial arts as the school seeks to
share both the physical and cul-
tural aspects of wushu.
Headmaster Pewee Rus-
sian says he is proud of the
school, which is teaching dis-
cipline and hard work, steer-
ing youngsters away from
delinquency.
“There’s lot of challenges out
there, especially for kids grow-
ing up in homes with a single
parent, either their mother or
father. It’s a traumatic situa-
tion and a burden on them,”
says Russian, a former wushu
champion.
“I do a lot of talking after
training to give them cour-
age, because most of them
don’t have courage or self-es-
teem.
“Most of the parents who
bring their children to the
school tell me that wushu is
actually helping their child —
Striking a blow for martial arts
No history of wushu in the
West African state of Liberia
would be complete without
mentioning one man. He has
devoted his life to Chinese
martial arts.
As a young man and a mar-
tial arts fanatic, Pewee Rus-
sian was determined to
change his country’s percep-
tion of Chinese martial arts,
seen by many as a violent for-
eign culture.
Against all odds, Russian
dedicated his life to learning
wushu and by the late 1990s he
was becoming an expert. At
that time, fewer than five peo-
ple in the entire country were
taking an interest in wushu, he
says.
As a boy, Russian lived with
his foster parents, who
Chinese discipline of wushu bringing hope and happiness, as well as greater
self-confidence, to some of Liberia’s most troubled youngsters
based on the fact that their
son or daughter wakes up in
the morning and does house-
hold chores.”
The value of wushu lies in
the discipline it offers, which
serves as a way of humbling
those who learn it. A lot of
benefit comes from physical
training and discipline, build-
ing self-confidence and self-
esteem, says Russian.
Introduced to Liberia in
2011, wushu has taken its
place among several martial
arts in the country. The new
school, funded by the Confu-
cius Institute and the Chi-
nese embassy in Monrovia,
trains and recruits young
Liberians.
Liberia’s Ministry of Youth
and Sports believes the
establishment of the school
has strengthened cultural
exchanges between the peo-
ple of Liberia and China.
“The intention here is to
bring our two countries clos-
er together. Wushu is a major
part of Chinese culture. The
Confucius Institute is also
helping to teach the lan-
guage and culture of the Chi-
nese people,” former
Liberian sports minister
Saah N’tow said at the open-
ing of the school in Monrovia
in early January.
So far, the school has
enrolled more than 30 stu-
dents. Although a few are
attempted to distract him
from martial arts. He found it
“tedious and challenging” to
keep his mind on wushu.
They told him that learning
martial arts was a dead end,
but nevertheless he persisted.
When civil war began ravag-
ing the country at the end of
1990, it proved a setback for
his wushu studies.
“We had a Chinese master
in Liberia who didn’t stay too
long in the country and when
we started learning wushu we
couldn’t go too far because of
the war,” he recalls.
When the war was over, aft-
er more than 15 years, wushu
was almost extinct. However, a
resilient Russian still carried
the passion in his heart.
“One of the things that real-
Young students of the Chinese Wushu School in Monrovia prepare for a show piece.
irregular attendees, many
are showing commitment to
learning the sport.
Euphemia Deemi, a 16-year-
old college student, has been
attending wushu classes since
the school opened its doors.
She came to love Chinese mar-
tial arts through watching
movies from the age of 10.
ly drew me closer to Chinese
martial arts is the discipline,
the culture – it makes your
mind disciplined. I think
wushu is my calling,” he says.
In 2010, the Chinese embas-
sy in Monrovia awarded him a
short-term study course at the
Shaolin Temple in China. That
was the beginning of a come-
back for the sport in his life.
When he returned to his
country in 2011, Russian led
efforts to establish the Liberia
National Wushu Association.
His persistence continued to
attract interest from the Chi-
nese embassy after he won an
international medal on behalf
of his country in 2016 at the
Zhengzhou International
Shaolin Wushu Festival.
Since then, as a master, he
“When I came to this school
and started learning wushu, I
became happy and every time
I came for practice I saw the
real me,” she says.
“The reason I decided to
join and practice wushu is
because females need protec-
tion and learning wushu will
make me be able to defend
has been inspiring others to
share his enthusiasm. But he
continues to have difficulties,
including his non-stop search
for more support for the sport
and his mission to inspire his
compatriots who might be
interested in Shaolin kung fu.
Russian is now the face of
martial arts in Liberia.
Every weekend morning,
Russian trains over 100 people
and his open gym is a magnet
for those seeking physical fit-
ness. His wushu school is
teaching several children.
“I can assure you that in the
next five years, wushu is going
to be different,” he says. “You
are going to be seeing Chinese
martial arts in all of the coun-
ties; you are going to be seeing
wushu all over this country.”
myself — not to physically
harass people, but to be able
to defend myself from bad
people.”
Another student, John
Dehwen, 27, is upbeat that
the school is helping him to
adopt a healthy and disci-
plined lifestyle.
Dehwen recalls how
In fact, martial arts is the
only individual sport that has
won an international a cco-
lade for Liberia and Russian is
confident that, once the sport
gains more support from Libe-
rians, it will thrive even more.
However, Russian still
regrets failing to attend the
Beijing Olympics in 2008. He
was the third best martial art-
ist on the African continent
that year but lack of finance
kept him away from the
games.
To compensate for this lost
opportunity, he is working dil-
igently to train the next gener-
ation of champions, ensuring
that he keeps the spirit of
wushu alive in the country.
— ALPHA DAFFAE SENKPENI
Read | LI F E 9
watching Chinese movies arts taught at schools across
inspired him to learn mar- the country as a part of physi-
tial arts. Although he already cal education.
has a black belt in taekwon- Many Liberians will devel-
do, enrolling at the wushu op an interest in learning
school is a dream come true wushu if the sport is taken to
for him. high schools across the coun-
“My love for Chinese mar- try, they say.
tial arts is just exceptional But the school does face
and I have always wished that challenges, including fund-
I could learn the Chinese cul- ing, before it can extend the
ture and language,” he says. program across the country.
“One thing about learning “Thank God we have our
wushu is the discipline that new president who is a
comes with it, because it sportsman. I am looking for-
encourages you to be non-vio- ward to him using sports to
lent, builds your confidence develop our kids,” says head-
and makes you healthy.” master Russian, who is strug-
Amos Sawyer, 20, started gling to spread the word
learning wushu in 2012, long across the country due to a
before the new school tight budget.
opened. He’s now preparing He is optimistic that cultur-
to graduate in March 2018. al exchanges will play a crucial
In 2016, he represented role in advancing ties between
Liberia in China at a major West Africa and the world’s
wushu competition and most populous nation.
brought back two bronze “Chinese martial arts make
medals. you disciplined, helping you
“Wushu has taught me how value yourself and other peo-
to cultivate hard work and ple. It is so peaceful and con-
discipline and has made me a nects you with others, and I
leader and a popular person,” think it is helping Liberians
Sawyer says. understand China better,” he
“I usually encourage people says.
to join the class. I sometimes He considers himself a “liv-
show them the photos I took ing example of China’s contri-
in China and explain the bution to Liberia” after
importance of Chinese mar- having studied at Henan Uni-
tial arts. Then they come to versity of Technology and
the school and join.” Shandong Sports University
Sawyer and his friends are and having visited the Shao-
determined to see martial lin Temple.
I do a lot of talking after training to give
them courage, because most of them
don’t have courage or self-esteem”
Pewee Russian, headmaster of the Chinese Wushu School in Mon-
rovia, capital of the West African nation of Liberia
10 S P O RTS | Running Thursday, April 12, 2018 C H I N A DA I LY USA

MARATHON
Number of full marathon finishers

Gender 2014 110,000

Male distribution 2015 146,690
72.84% of runners 2016 243,100
in 2017 2017 268,900

CRAZE GAINING Female 27.16%

Top five provincial and municipal
race hosts in 2017

MORE MILEAGE
Focus shifts to improving race-day experience, Sun Xiaochen reports
Cross-
country
race 28.3%
Proportion
of different
races
Half
marathon
22.0%

Full
Beijing 69

Jiangsu 149
Shanghai 63
in 2017 Zhejiang 152
marathon
15.7%

C
Guangdong 103
hina’s marathon boom shows no
Shorter-distance
sign of abating but, spurred by Source: Chinese Athletics Association
The increase in number of road race 34.0%
new government guidelines, the TIAN CHI / CHINA DAILY
industry’s focus is now on provid- races (including full marathons
ing runners with an improved race-day and shorter-distance races)
experience. and participants
Even with a spring chill and intermit-
= ten thousand
tent smog in the air, Beijing’s dedicated
army of runners pack the tracks and trails

2013
of Olympic Forest Park on weekends.
“It’s been part of my weekend routine,”
said Hao Liang, a regular runner at the
park, where a 10 km plastic runway encir-
cles a lake, a legacy of the 2008 Olympics.
“If I missed the running exercise with 39
my fellow club mates on Saturday, I would races
feel like I’ve missed the whole weekend.
750,000
“It’s not just about staying fit, it’s more participants
important to hang out with same-minded
guys to escape from your life pressure at
least for a while. It’s addictive,” said Hao,
who has completed 22 marathons and is a
co-founder of Beijing-based Maker Run
club.
Hao is typical of the health-conscious 2014
urbanites who have caught the running
bug in major cities such as Beijing, Shang-
2017
hai and Guangzhou.
According to the Chinese Athletics 51
races
Association (CAA), nearly 5 million peo-
ple took part in 1,102 registered running 900,000 1,102
events in China last year, almost 20 times participants races
the 2014 number.
This Sunday, at least 40 races across the
country will start at roughly the same
time, indicating that the marathon calen- 5,000,000
dar is becoming increasingly crowded. participants

Numbers game
Meeting the demand for race spots can
be an issue, with online lotteries often
used to determine the starting lists.
For the March 25 Wuxi Marathon in
Wuxi, Jiangsu province, 91,000 runners
2015
had signed up for the 30,000 spots two 134
months before the starting gun. races
Shui Tao, director of the CAA’s mara-
thon management office, hopes new races 1,500,000
can help soak up the soaring demand. participants
“I don’t think it’s time to cool it off,” Shui
told China Daily at the launch of the Fairy
Coast International Marathon, which will
be held on July 1 in Haiyang, Shandong 2016
province.
“All the events we are overseeing now
only cover half of the cities in the country.
We still have new territories to explore on
328
races 2020(expected)
the country’s running map.”
Figures in China still pale in compari- 2,800,000
participants
son to participation levels in countries
such as the United States, however.
According to Running USA’s annual
report, 1,100 marathons were held in the
US in 2016, finished by 507,600 runners. 1,900
The respective figures in China were only races
173 and 268,900 last year.
The central government’s call to
expand its mass fitness campaign has
simplified the approval procedure for
hosting grassroots sporting events, allow-
ing more diversified races to be organized
10,000,000
participants
at regional level, said Shui.

Accessible addiction
Running’s accessibility, affordability
and sociability are key to its popularity,
according to experts.
“No other sport has a lower entry
requirement than running,” said Shi
Chunjian, a former CAA official and now a
race organizing consultant.
“All you need is a pair of running shoes
and you can go hit the road, regardless of
age or gender.
“There’s a strong sense of accomplish-
ment after finishing a run, whether it’s a 5
km or a marathon, and that’s proving
highly contagious thanks to social media.
Once you take up running, it’s easy to con-
tact like-minded enthusiasts on social
networking platforms such as WeChat or
Weibo.”
Bragging about your latest marathon
feat has become a thing on social media,
as evidenced by the 100 million-plus
views of photos and posts bearing the
hashtag #Wuxi Marathon# on Weibo on
the day of this year’s race.
Meanwhile, local governments are
using races, especially televised ones, to
promote tourism in their respective areas.
“Nothing compares to a marathon in
terms of showcasing local landscape for
as long as three hours on national TV, so
no wonder more and more second- or
third-tier cities are keen to land races,”
said Wu Hongtao, a senior executive at
Infront China, a major sports organizing
and promoting agency.
Challenges ahead
A number of embarrassing, and even
deadly, incidents have underlined the
importance of quality control.
After last year’s Beijing Marathon, a
photo of three runners with the same bib
number went viral, exposing long-existing
issues of people fabricating IDs or trading
entry spots illegally to run without regis-
tration. All three runners have been
banned from signing up for the race again.
Cheating can also have serious conse-
quences.
During a half-marathon in Xiamen,
Fujian province in December 2015, a run-
ner who was later found to be competing
under someone else’s name, died of a
heart attack after medical treatment
based on the original participant’s infor-
mation failed to revive him.
Fearing a repeat incident, some elite
races are now using face and fingerprint
recognition technology to stamp out iden-
tity cheats.
Lax management and poor services can
also pose problems.
During the 2013 Beijing Marathon,
photos of competitors urinating on the
walls of the Palace Museum (aka Forbid-
den City) sparked online furor.
The following year organizers added
another 160 mobile toilets around the
start and finish areas to prevent a repeat.
Providing proper services, such as suffi-
cient hydration, energy supplies and toi-
let facilities, is just as important as course
design and traffic control, according to
race consultant Shi.
In January, the General Administration
of Sport of China, with support from 10
other ministries, issued a long-term
guideline for marathon development,
aimed at raising standards of race organi-
All you need is a pair of
running shoes and you
can go hit the road,
regardless of age or
gender.”
Shi Chunjian, race organizer and consultant
zation, services, security, medical support
and logistics.
“We are still in the early stage of devel-
opment. The lack of awareness and edu-
cation in running and organizing races is
still an issue to be addressed,” said the
CAA’s Shui.
The CAA has worked with Shanghai
University of Sport to offer training pro-
grams and certificates for domestic orga-
nizers.
This year’s first three-day workshop for
marathon management and organization
opened at the university on Monday.
The guideline report forecasts that by
2020, around 1,900 races will attract 10
million runners annually, while the dis-
tance-running industry is expected to
generate revenue of 120 billion yuan
(about $19 billion) from running gear
sales, training, broadcasting, endorse-
ment and tourism.
Off the beaten track
Marathons are synonymous with cities, but more and
more races are now being staged away from concrete
jungles as natural beauty and remote cultural attrac-
tions increasingly become selling points for events.
From scenic beaches on China’s eastern coast to eth-
nic villages near Lhasa on the country’s southwestern
Tibetan plateau, unique courses and local tourist attrac-
tions are helping events stand out from the competition.
“As marathon becomes much more accessible, it’s up
to the diverse attractions of races to cater to specific
demographics and earn positive feedback,” said Shi
Chunjian, a marathon organizer and consultant with the
Chinese Athletics Association.
“Distance, volunteers, rewards ... standard protocols
are all the same for a certain type of race. What leaves a
deep impression on participants will be what they see,
experience and even eat in the host areas.”
The Fairy Coast Haiyang International Marathon, held
in Shandong province’s coastal city Haiyang, is a case in
point.
The annual race, which will kick off its third edition on
July 1, features a back-and-forth route along 20 km of
coastline.
“Not necessarily every runner has to be a serious
contender pushing for a personal best. Our race will
appeal greatly to those who want to enjoy some sun-
shine and breeze on the beach while running for fun,”
said Lin Yutao, major of Haiyang.
Meanwhile, the Huangyaguan Great Wall Marathon is
extremely popular with overseas runners, who are pre-
pared to endure the pain of an undulating route along
the Huangyaguan section of the wall in Jixian, Tianjin, to
take in views of one of the wonders of the world and the
breathtaking vistas of the surrounding landscape.
“At the end of the day, what runners tell each other
and what keeps them returning to a race matter a lot for
an event’s reputation,” said Shi. “Diversity is the key.”
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, April 12, 2018
Lagarde warns against protectionism
IMF chief’s remarks come as US
moves trigger trade war worries
By CHEN WEIHUA
in Washington
chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
The head of the Internation-
al Monetary Fund is calling on
countries to steer clear of pro-
tectionism in order to sustain
global growth.
The speech by Christine
Lagarde, the IMF managing
director, at the University of
Hong Kong on Wednesday
came amid growing tension
between the United States and
China and many other coun-
tries after US President
Donald Trump imposed tariffs
on steel and aluminum
imports in the name of nation-
Hundreds of flights
canceled in Germany
as airports hit by strikes
FRANKFURT — Thousands
of passengers were left strand-
ed at German airports on Tues-
day as more than 60,000
ground staff and other public
sector workers staged walkouts
across the country to increase
the pressure in a pay dispute.
Lufthansa had said it was
canceling more than 800 of its
planned 1,600 flights on Tues-
day and Frankfurt airport
operator Fraport had warned
of disruption.
As well as Frankfurt, Germa-
ny’s busiest hub for airlines,
the strikes hit airports in
Munich, Cologne and Bremen.
The industrial action also
affected nurseries, rubbish col-
lection services and swimming
pools in several German states.
German union Verdi wants
a 6 percent pay rise for its 2.3
million public sector employ-
ees at the federal and local
level. Germany’s federal gov-
ernment and municipalities
have rejected that, saying such
a rise would force them to out-
source jobs.
The union said more than
60,000 workers in eight Ger-
man states took part in the
strikes, and further walkouts
were planned across the coun-
try in coming days.
Verdi said it was asking
15,000 employees at Deutsche
Telekom to join the strikes on
Wednesday, mostly in the ser-
vices and technical sectors.
Some air passengers
expressed frustration over the
delays.
“I’m upset. I’m affected by
these strikes too often,” said
Roswitha Karl, who was at
Frankfurt airport waiting to
board a flight to Moldova for a
holiday.
“First, there was the pilots’
strike, then the ground staff
and then the security staff, it’s
German public sector workers stage a strike at the airport in
Frankfurt on Tuesday. KAI PFAFFENBACH / REUTERS
Police: Indonesia bootleg alcohol deaths exceed 100
JAKARTA, Indonesia —
Deaths from drinking toxic
bootleg alcohol in Indonesia
have exceeded 100 this
month, police said on
Wednesday as they vowed a
“scorched-earth” crackdown
on the makers and distribu-
tors of black-market liquor.
Deputy National Police
Chief Muhammad Syafrud-
din said the deaths this
month have been concentrat-
al security and threatened to
impose tariffs on $150 billion
worth of imports from China.
Both moves have triggered
concerns of a trade war.
“Governments need to steer
clear of protectionism in all its
forms, and history shows that
import restrictions hurt every-
one, especially poorer consum-
ers,” Lagarde said in a prepared
speech released to the press.
Import restrictions not only
lead to more expensive prod-
ucts and more limited choices,
but also prevent trade from
playing its essential role in
boosting productivity and
spreading new technologies,
according to Lagarde.
a matter of luck,” said Karl.
Airline rebooking counters
had a long queue of passen-
gers, while other stranded
travelers were waiting in the
terminal. While some franti-
cally tried to change their res-
ervations, others took the
delays in their stride.
Jana Glaeser had arrived in
Frankfurt from Miami and her
flight to Berlin was canceled.
“Now we’re getting a train tick-
et instead. Hopefully every-
thing works out,” she said.
Action in France
Neighboring France has
also faced industrial action in
the last few weeks in protests
against President Emmanuel
Macron’s planned reforms.
France’s seven main public
sector trade unions have
called for a one-day strike next
month.
It will be the third daylong
walk out by teachers, creche
workers, civil servants and
other public sector employees
since October, in protest at
Macron’s plans to cut more
than 100,000 public sector
jobs and tie pay awards to per-
formance.
“Our organizations do not
share the objectives pursued by
the government, which involve
reducing the scope of the pub-
lic sector with a view to aban-
doning or even privatizing
departments,” the unions said
in a statement late on Tuesday.
The Finance Ministry
announced France’s budget
deficit would fall faster than
expected over Macron’s five-
year term as growth proves
stronger than previously esti-
mated, but the government
said there would be no let up
in cuts to public expenditure.
REUTERS
ed in populous West Java and
Jakarta, the capital, but there
were also cases in South Kali-
mantan and other regions
that bring fatalities to more
than 100.
Indonesian TV has broad-
cast images of distraught rela-
tives in several cities and lines
of gurneys bearing dead bod-
ies in hospital hallways as the
death toll relentlessly climbed
since late last week. There
The IMF chief said even pro-
tected industries eventually
suffer as they become less
dynamic than their foreign
competitors.
She noted that discussions
about trade restrictions are
often bound up with the con-
cept of trade deficits and sur-
pluses, adding that some
people argue that these imbal-
ances indicate unfair trade
practices.
Trump has often described
trade deficits as a loss for the
US and a win for its trading
partners, such as China, Mexi-
co, Japan and Germany, a view
that is dismissed by most econ-
omists.
“Yes, there are unfair prac-
tices — which must be elimi-
nated — and which can leave
their mark on trade balances
Public pull
Devotees pull a wooden chariot through crowds during the Bisket Jatra festival, held to mark the Nepalese New Year in Bhaktapur,
Nepal, on Tuesday. The festival, which begins on Tuesday, is celebrated for nine days by the ethnic Newar community.
PRAKASH MATHEMA/ AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
In aging Thailand, developers race
to supply locals and elderly expats
BANGKOK — At 79, Thai
businessman Boon Vasin’s
latest $500 million venture is
a bet on a market he knows
well — looking after Thai-
land’s rapidly growing popu-
lation of old people.
Not only is Thailand aging
faster than its neighbors, but
it is also becoming an increas-
ingly popular retirement
option for foreigners attract-
ed by its agreeable climate,
low living and health costs
and culture of service.
“We will look after them
from their waking hours until
they go to sleep,” said Boon,
chairman of the Thonburi
Healthcare Group Pcl.
His Jin Wellbeing County is
a ‘medical city’ for Thai and
foreign retirees being built
across more than 2 hectares
on the outskirts of Bangkok.
The first of nearly 500
housing units being sold in an
initial phase are being mar-
keted for nearly $130,000,
plus additional fees of
7,000-8,000 baht ($224-$385)
a month for meals and servi-
ces ranging from fitness ses-
sions to excursions.
Boon predicts care servi-
were 31 deaths in Jakarta and
satellite cities at the beginning
of the month followed by a
dramatic surge in hospitaliza-
tions and deaths in West Java.
“This is a crazy phenome-
non,” Syafruddin said. “If we
let it continue, it will harm the
nation,” he said.
“I have ordered all the police
chiefs in Indonesia to make
these cases stop, zero victims,
meaning to reveal the roots
Christine Lagarde,
managing director of the IMF
between two countries,”
Lagarde said.
“But in general, these bilat-
eral imbalances are a snapshot
of the division of labor across
economies, including global
value chains.”
Lagarde cited the example
of how a country that focuses
on assembling smartphones
will tend to have bilateral
trade deficits with countries
that produce the components,
and surpluses with countries
ces will yield recurring prof-
its of up to 240 million baht
each year from the project,
plus unit sales and medical
services.
Together with China, Thai-
land is aging much faster
than its regional neighbors.
By 2040 it is expected to have
the highest share of elderly
people of any developing
country in East Asia, accord-
ing to the World Bank.
Thailand has 7.5 million
people aged 65 and over, a
figure projected to swell to 17
million by 2040 — more than
a quarter of the expected
population.
That’s partly due to
improving medical care
extending life expectancies,
but also a fall in birthrates
from an average of more than
six children per woman in
1960 to 1.5 in 2015.
In the past, generations of
the same Thai family lived
together and elderly were
cared for by their offspring.
But the changing population
balance as well as a shift from
the countryside to towns
means that’s impractical.
For his care home, Boon is
ranging from the producers,
distributors, sellers to those
who have the idea of mixing
alcohol with fatal chemicals,”
Syafruddin said.
Police displayed huge quan-
tities of suspect confiscated
alcohol at their news confer-
ence, some of it in the small
clear plastic bags that it’s sold
in as well as professionally
labeled bottles purporting to
be whiskey or wine.
that buy the finished devices.
She was clearly referring to
the iPhone chain. The phones
are assembled in China with
parts from the US, Japan,
South Korea, Germany and
other places. But when they’re
exported to the US, the total
value, rather than the $10 add-
ed in China, is counted, thus
inflating the US trade deficit.
Lagarde emphasized that
unfair trade practices have lit-
tle impact on a country’s over-
all trade deficit with the rest of
the world. “That imbalance is
driven by the fact that a coun-
try spends above its income,”
she said.
These words were also seen
as directed at the US, which has
long been running a fiscal defi-
cit and a low savings rate, in
contrast to the high savings rate
A retired woman is helped by a nurse, while staying at the Care
Resort in Chiang Mai, Thailand, on April 6. JORGE SILVA / REUTERS
focusing on people with an
income of more than 100,000
baht a month — and not just
Thais. The aim is to sell at
least 20 percent of the project
to foreigners, who are target-
ed along with locals in mar-
keting materials.
“We have Chinese and Jap-
anese buyers who are inter-
ested,” he said, adding that he
has partnered with a Chinese
agent to sell 90 units worth
671 million baht to Chinese.
Thailand did not make the
top 10 list of International
Syafruddin said production
of illegal alcohol must be erad-
icated completely with a
scorched-earth campaign and
called for the cooperation of
Cabinet and government
agencies.
It’s unclear how effective the
crackdown will be. Curbs on
sales of legal alcohol in Mus-
lim-majority Indonesia,
including a ban on sales from
tens of thousands of conve-
in China and other countries.
“The best way to address
these macroeconomic imbal-
ances is not to impose tariffs,
but to use policies that affect
the economy as a whole, such
as fiscal tools or structural
reforms,” Lagarde said.
The US could help tackle
excessive global imbalances by
curbing gradually the dynam-
ics of public spending and by
increasing revenue — which
would help reduce future fiscal
deficits, according to Lagarde.
The IMF and the World
Bank Group will hold their
annual spring conference in
Washington later this month,
with central bank governors
and finance ministers from
member economies discuss-
ing key issues facing global
and regional economies.
Living’s 2018 index for the
best places to retire for US
expats. Costa Rica was at
number one and neighboring
Malaysia at number five.
International Living
described Malaysia as “easy
and English-speaking”.
English is still not widely spo-
ken in Thailand, particularly
outside of the major cities.
The state has tried to
address this by promoting
English as a second language.
REUTERS
nience stores, have created a
significant black market for
bootleg liquor among the
country’s poor.
Potentially lethal methanol
can be a byproduct of bootleg
distilling and the tainted alco-
hol is also sometimes mixed
with soft drinks. In the recent
spate of deaths, police said
pure alcohol was sometimes
combined with ingredients
such as cough mixture and
insect repellent.
Syafruddin said laboratory
testing of black-market alco-
hol sized by police in several
WO RLD 11
Abe sticks
to denials
on school
scandal
TOKYO — Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe denied
on Wednesday that he had
intervened to secure preferen-
tial treatment for a friend’s
plan to set up a veterinary
school despite new reports he
had discussed the matter with
the friend.
Abe’s ratings have taken a
hit because of several scandals
over suspected cronyism and
cover-ups, with a steady
stream of new allegations rais-
ing doubts about how long he
can stay in power.
One of the scandals involves
suspicion Abe helped a friend,
Kotaro Kake, director of
school operator Kake Gakuen,
set up a veterinary school in a
special economic zone exempt
from a rule limiting the num-
ber of such schools.
Abe has denied that he ever
instructed officials to give
preferential treatment for the
establishment of Japan’s first
new veterinary school in more
than 50 years.
Abe repeated to a parlia-
mentary panel on Wednesday
his assertion that he only
became aware of Kake’s pro-
posal when it was approved in
January last year.
His was replying to ques-
tions after media this week cit-
ed an April 2015 memo from
an official in Ehime prefec-
ture, where the school ulti-
mately opened in the special
government-designated
deregulation zone, that said
Kake and Abe had discussed
the proposal while sharing a
meal.
“No one received instruc-
tions from me. There was no
problem with the (approval)
process,” Abe told the parlia-
mentary panel in response to a
question about the memo.
Asked repeatedly whether
he had at least had casual talks
about the plan with Kake, Abe
said his friend had neither
consulted him nor asked for
favors.
“He said he wanted to take
on a new challenge, but we
never discussed specifics,” Abe
said.
The veterinary schools
affair, which emerged last
year, is one of several suspect-
ed cronyism scandals and cov-
er-ups eroding Abe’s support
as he eyes a third term as rul-
ing Liberal Democratic Party
leader in a September vote.
Victory in the party poll
would set Abe, who took office
in 2012, on track to become
Japan’s longest-serving pre-
mier.
Abe has also denied that he
or his wife intervened in the
heavily discounted sale of
state-owned land to another
school operator, Moritomo
Gakuen, which had ties to
Abe’s wife, Akie.
The finance ministry has
admitted doctoring docu-
ments related to the murky
deal.
Separately, Defence Minis-
ter Itsunori Onodera apolo-
gized again on Wednesday
after the military found miss-
ing troop activity logs.
Among recently lost-and-
found records are those from a
controversial 2004-06 deploy-
ment to Iraq. The logs could
shed light on whether the dis-
patch was to a “noncombat”
zone as asserted by the govern-
ment at the time, in line with
constitutional limits on mili-
tary activities abroad.
REUTERS
raids in Jakarta showed it con-
tained methanol.
Deaths from toxic alcohol
are common in Indonesia and
foreigners are occasionally
among the victims. Some gov-
ernments warn travelers to
the Indonesian islands of Bali
and Lombok to be cautious
about consuming local spirits
and alcoholic beverages.
The Kompas newspaper
said there were 32 deaths last
year from drinking bootleg
liquor.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12 Thursday, April 12, 2018

COMMENT
EDITORIAL • OPINION
China Daily USA
chinadailyusa.com

EDITORIALS Jiang Jianguo

US should not force

China to shut door to it
Insights into Xi’s thoughts on

I governance for the new era

n an opinion piece for the Financial Times this week, US
President Donald Trump’s top trade adviser Peter Navarro
accused Beijing of building “a Great Wall of denial” about
what he alleged was its “illicit and protectionist” behavior.

I
Well-known for his extremely hawkish views on China,
such allegations roll lightly off his tongue, but when he am very pleased to come to
went on to spin the suggestion that the Trump adminis- London to host together with
tration is acting to realize its vision of a “global trading system all of you the launch ceremo-
free of the imbalances and unfair practices”, even he must have ny for the multilingual ver-
found it hard to get the words out. sions of the second volume of
Not only has the Trump administration been acting like a child Xi Jinping: The Governance of Chi-
na, during the London Books Fair,
in a playpen coveting the other kids’ toys by withdrawing or
threatening to withdraw from previously agreed deals, it has also the most important spring pageant
been threatening to build a Great Wall of tariffs if it doesn’t get of the global publication industry.
the favorable treatment to which it believes it is entitled. On behalf of the State Council
Navarro made it clear why the United States has been picking Information Office of the People’s
on China with its tariff threats by noting that since China joined Republic of China, I warmly wel-
come the friends who have come
the global trading system in 2001, its GDP has expanded from
$1.3 trillion to $11.2 trillion. The US’ envy of a rival with such here to attend the launch event and
express my heartfelt thanks to vari-
prowess risks breeding divisions that may be damaging to the
ous circles who have made great
global trading system if it does not keep it in check.
For Beijing has already made it clear that it is not going to jump efforts for the preparatory work of
the event. I would like to extend my
through hoops for Washington.
Which should come as no surprise, since China is no longer a
particular thanks to Prince
Andrew, Duke of York, an old
gauche newcomer to international trade etiquette and it is quite
capable of standing up to the US’ attempts to browbeat it.
friend of the Chinese people, for
your attendance at today’s launch
Although President Xi Jinping vowed to further open up the
world’s second-largest economy in his speech at the Boao Forum
event given your tight schedule.
The second volume of Xi Jinping:
for Asia on Tuesday, that should not be misinterpreted as China The Governance of China has been
caving in to US pressure. The moves, which the White House has jointly compiled by China’s State
called an encouraging step forward, were already on the cards Council Information Office and the
before the current frictions started rubbing the two countries the China International Publishing
wrong way. The measures are being rolled out on China’s sched-
Group, containing 99 speeches, talks,
ule to meet its development needs, they are not being introduced
instructions or congratulatory mes-
overnight to satisfy the US administration’s demands. sages made by President Xi Jinping
But that is not to say the moves won’t benefit the US, they will, from August 18, 2014, to Sept 29,
but only if stops trying to force China to do its bidding. If it per- 2017, as well as 29 photographs from
sists with applying a zero-sum mentality to trade with China, it is
unlikely they will be able to make “great progress together” as it
will probably not be welcome to step through the door being
this time. In September 2014, the
first volume of Xi Jinping: The Gov-
ernance of China was published,
opened to China’s financial services sector, for instance. which received wide attention and
The trade and investment liberalization heralded by Xi will praise from both Chinese and for-
present many opportunities from which the US can benefit, but eign readers. The first and second
only when it realizes it is folly to try and punish your neighbor by volumes of the book, which are a
fire for an imagined slight when you live next door. holistic entirety, constitute the main
content and the basic structure of
Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism
respects people’s innovative spirit,
and consistently speaks for the peo-
ple. The simplest emotional impres-
sion harbored in Xi Jinping: The
Governance of China is the warm
feelings for all people. We can see
throughout the book phases and
sentences that warm people’s hearts
such as “we should create for ordi-
nary people a better life”, “we should
take the path of common prosperity
and no single person should be left
behind on our road to building a
well-off society”, and “people’s pur-
suit of a better life is the goal of our
struggle”, which demonstrate the
fundamental value orientation of
the CPC’s governance of China.
Under such kind of ideological gui-
dance, a large number of measures
benefiting people have been taken
since the 18th National Congress of
the CPC in late 2012, lifting more
than 60 million impoverished peo-
ple out of poverty, and annually cre-
ating more than 13 million new
urban jobs. The income of urban
and rural residents has grown faster
than that of the country’s economic
growth over the past years, and peo-
ple’s sense of gain, happiness and
security has improved greatly.
Therefore, it is not difficult to
understand why President Xi has
become a people’s leader sincerely
supported by people if one under-
stands Xi Jinping: The Governance
of China after reading it.
Third, it is a thought that takes
aim at the future of humankind.
The current world is at a cross-
roads of its development, and many
countries are now at a loss over
the authorities not long ago on
reforming Party and government
institutions is aimed at promoting
the modernization of China’s
national governance, with a view to
All the continuously improving its govern-
ance system and mechanism
CPC has through scientific installation of
institutions so that the market can
done, as play a decisive role in resources
distribution, the government can
President Xi has better play its role and people’s
ever-growing desire for better lives
promised, is to can be satisfied. This year marks
the 40th anniversary of China’s
seek happiness reform and opening-up and China
for people, believes the best way to celebrate
the milestone initiative is to make
seek national new progresses on the road of
reform and opening-up and carry
rejuvenation, out reforms to the end in the spirit
of “cutting a path through the
and seek greater mountain and building a bridge
across the river”.
harmony for the
Advancing higher-level
world.” opening-up
Jiang Jianguo, minister of State
China adheres to the basic State
Council Information Office.
policy of opening-up, and will open
wider to the outside world for
domestic economic construction,
further expand market access, and
1,200+ create a more attractive investment
environment. It will strengthen
reform measures intellectual property rights protec-
tion, and take initiatives to expand
The Chinese government has imports so as to share opportuni-
rolled out over the past five years. ties and interests with other coun-
tries and realize win-win
cooperation with them in the proc-
ess of expanding China’s opening-
82 trillion yuan up. China will continue to

Looted cultural heritage with Chinese Characteristics for a

New Era.
To my knowledge, quite a few for-
such governance issues as “what is
wrong with the world” and “where
is the world going”. President Xi,
China’s economic output last
vigorously advance the Belt and
Road Initiative, pursue synergy
with other countries’ development
year, when the Chinese economy
ought to be restituted eign friends are studying Xi Jinping
Thought on Socialism with Chinese
with a broad field of vision and
strategic thinking as a great states-
grew by 6.9 percent strategies, and uphold the “consul-
tation, co-building and sharing”

C
Characteristics for a New Era, in an man, has put forward a series of principles, to work hand in hand
anterbury Auction Galleries in the United Kingdom has effort to understand Xi’s thought new concepts concerning the with the rest of the world to weave
turned a deaf ear to the State Administration of Cultural and find clues on where the future and fate of mankind in a a new historical picture scroll for
Heritage’s urging that it cancel the auction of a rare Chi- thought, which has already been clear-cut manner, and contributed shining economic performance has common development. In his
nese bronze water vessel looted by a British soldier from written into China’s Constitution Chinese solutions to addressing the caused some international organi- speech delivered to the opening of
Beijing’s Old Summer Palace in 1860. and the Constitution of the Com- issues facing mankind and to zations to rate China as the world’s the Boao Forum for Asia, President
It may think it has done nothing wrong in proceeding to auc- munist Party of China, will lead the building a beautiful world. He has “best-performing major economy of Xi clearly told the world that the
tion the item on Wednesday. world’s most populous nation. Here presented to the rest of the world the year”. This is an achievement door of China’s opening-up will not
It is true, as the British auction house reportedly argued, that I want to tell you that all the CPC Chinese proposals on building a that is good-looking not only on the close, but will only open wider. Chi-
there is no law in the United Kingdom preventing it from doing has done, as President Xi has prom- new type of international relations surface but also in substance, one na’s opening-up is sure to achieve
so, and that a UNESCO convention, adopted in 1970, to prohibit ised, is to seek happiness for the and constructing a community of that shows the Chinese economy all-new scenarios.
the illicit import, export and transfer of cultural relics, to which people, seek national rejuvenation, shared future for mankind, and has taken an important step toward
the UK became a party in 2002, is not retroactive. and seek greater harmony for the expounded on China’s perspectives higher-quality development. Adher- Golden era of China-UK ties
But auctioning such spoils not only disregards the feelings of world. With such kind of knowl- on security, development, interests, ing to the new development con-
the Chinese people, it is also tantamount to giving connivance to edge and perception, we can globalization and global govern- cepts and continuously pursuing China and the United Kingdom
an appalling act of cultural theft. acquire the key code to the ideologi- ance. People all over the world live good and steady progress will be the are both influential countries in the
The ransacking of the Old Summer Palace by the French and cal treasure house of Xi Jinping: under the same blue sky and own main theme of China’s economic world. President Xi Jinping’s suc-
British troops during the Second Opium War (1856-60), one of the The Governance of China. The the same homeland and thus they development. China’s economy will cessful state visit to the UK in 2015
most infamous chapters in Chinese history, resulted in the loss of charm of Xi Jinping Thought on should live like the members of the continuously act as a major stabiliz- ushered in the prelude for a “gold-
many cultural treasures, which China has been trying to recover. Socialism with Chinese Character- same family. We should have an er and ballast of the world economy. en era” of China-UK relations and
Yuanmingyuan, Garden of Perfect Brightness, once had the istics for a New Era is mainly open mind and understand each promoted in-depth development of
most fabulous collection of cultural treasures in the country and reflected in the following aspects: other. We should seek common Promoting more energetic bilateral ties in various fields. Dur-
its looting and ruin is a unhealed historical wound cut deep into First, it is a thought rooted in ground while shelving our differen- innovation ing his meeting with visiting UK
the nation’s psyche. The auctioning of the vessel, which dates fertile humanistic soil. Xi Jinping ces and work together to build a Prime Minister Theresa May in
back to the Western Zhou Dynasty (c. 11th century-771 BC) has Thought on Socialism with Chi- community of shared future for the China takes innovation as the February, President Xi pointed out
thus sparked fierce public indignation. nese Characteristics for a New Era mankind. Therefore, it is not diffi- driving force for its development. that China and the UK should fol-
The repatriation of looted cultural heritage to the country of has a profound humanistic and cult to understand why President As a strategic supporter for the low the tide of the times, and,
origin has increasingly become accepted as an obligation by peo- historical background. Xi Jinping: Xi as a leader of a big country har- construction of a modern economic based on their respective develop-
ple around the world. Yet those that benefit from stolen or illegal- The Governance of China moves bors sagacious thinking and system, China adheres to the devel- ment stages and cooperation
ly exported cultural objects, whether as sellers, buyers or people most because it is full of unique views on the future devel- opment of an innovation-driven demands, endow the “golden era”
facilitators, still resist this legitimate consensus. profound humanistic feelings and opment of mankind if one under- and energetic growth model. China of China-UK relations with new
The Chinese Cultural Relics Society has estimated that China historical and cultural gems. Presi- stands Xi Jinping: The Governance has achieved a series of innovative historical connotations. We believe
lost more than 10 million antiques since 1840 because of wartime dent Xi is good at absorbing ideo- of China after reading it. developments in recent years, from that as long as our two sides work
looting and illegal excavations, and the Chinese government is logical wisdom on State Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism manned spaceflight and deep-sea together, the future of the “golden
making great efforts to restitute these items and put an end to the governance from China’s tradition- with Chinese Characteristics for a exploration to quantum communi- era” of China-UK relations is worth
illicit trade in them. al culture and philosophies such as New Era will lead socialism with cations and large aircraft. “Internet looking forward to, and the “golden
Other countries can play their part by recognizing the funda- “man is an integral part of nature”, Chinese characteristics as it enters Plus” has extensively been applied fruits” of bilateral ties that benefit
mental importance of the protection of cultural heritage and effec- “harmony but not sameness”, “gov- a new era, opens a new chapter for to all walks of life and the “innova- the peoples of the two countries
tively combating the trade in illicitly acquired cultural objects. erning a big country is like cooking the great rejuvenation of the Chi- tive economy” represented by high- and even the world are worth look-
Compensation to the present owners may be needed to effect a delicious fish”. Being good at nese nation, and draws a new pic- speed trains, Alipay, sharing bikes ing forward to.
restitution and return, but intervention is needed to curb sales of grasping the development direc- ture scroll for China’s strengthened and e-shopping is leading the trend A good book is like a good friend,
cultural objects that were acquired illicitly. tion of contemporary China from integration with the world. Accord- of the times. In less than 10 years, as a British proverb puts it. I have
the Chinese nation’s pursuit of ing to the arrangement of the 19th the number of patents granted to worked in the field of books pub-
“peace”, “amity” and “harmony”, CPC National Congress and the key- Chinese companies in the US has lishing for many years, and I also
President Xi has drawn references note speech delivered to the open- increased tenfold. The innovation- view good books as good friends. I
C O N TA C T U S If you want to get even from other world civilizations,
combined the Party’s missions
ing of the Boao Forum for Asia, a
China that has entered the new era
driven model is reshaping China’s have made many good friends in
the publishing field because of
economic landscape, which will not
China Daily UK
closer, follow
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15 Huixin Dongjie, Chaoyang, Beijing with the country’s future and the
nation’s fate, and made integrated
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only inject a powerful impetus into
China’s development, but also help
good books. Facts prove that peo-
ple need and also look forward to
on Facebook
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editor@mail.chinadailyuk.com China Daily Hong Kong where it will go tomorrow after the stage of high-speed growth to The author is minister of State
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 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, April 12, 2018
Xi clears doubts over further reform
Editor’s note: In his keynote speech at the Boao Forum for Asia on
Tuesday, President Xi Jinping vowed to safeguard economic globaliza-
tion and deepen reform and opening-up. Four experts share their views
with China Daily on the possible impact of the speech.
China will further open up
but not due to US pressure
China will take measures to
further open up to the outside
world, Xi said in his highly-antici-
pated keynote address at the
Boao Forum for Asia. But amid
the escalating China-US trade
conflict, some people have
wrongly assumed Xi made the
remarks with the Trump admin-
istration’s accusations in mind.
But a review of China’s policies
shows the country will deepen
reform and opening-up because
of its development needs, not
because of any other country’s
demand or coercion.
And more important, if the US
insists on starting a trade war,
China’s further opening-up poli-
cies will not apply to any US
enterprises.
To people concerned about
China’s development, Xi’s speech
must have sounded inspiring, but
not surprising, as opening-up has
been a development theme for
China for the past 40 years.
The measures Xi mentioned
can be seen as a natural exten-
sion of previous policies and
efforts. For instance, the past few
years have seen the introduction
of pre-establishment national
treatment with a negative list for
foreign capital in pilot free trade
zones — while its all-round
implementation, as Xi said, is
only a matter of time. And in
terms of IPR protection, Xi
underlined in his report to the
19th National Congress of the
Communist Party of China in
October that China should devel-
op an innovation-friendly culture
and strengthen intellectual prop-
erty rights protection.
Dong Yan, direct-
or of the Office of
International
Trade, Institute
of World Eco-
nomics and Poli-
tics, Chinese
Academy of
Social Sciences.
This is an
excerpt from her
interview with
China Daily’s
Liu Jianna.
As for the expansion of
imports, China shifted its focus
from exports to striking the right
balance between imports and
exports long ago, because the
increase in imports will offer
more choices to Chinese consum-
ers and help improve their living
standards, aside from giving for-
eign companies easier access to
the Chinese market.
In other words, Xi’s speech is
in line with China’s develop-
ment philosophy, and the meas-
ures introduced show the new
pattern of reform and opening-
up which he put forward in his
report to the 19th CPC National
Congress. These facts should be
enough to make it clear the deci-
sions were not taken under any
external pressure.
Xi’s speech not only demon-
strates Chinese people’s open-
ness toward the outside world
but also is a potent reply to the
Trump administration’s unilater-
al and protectionist moves. It
will also strengthen globaliza-
tion, and inject much-needed
confidence into the international
community to build an open
global economy that would bene-
fit people across the world in the
long term.
40th anniversary will
usher in deeper reform
Li Yiping, a pro-
fessor of econom-
ics at Renmin
University of
China. This is an
excerpt from his
interview with
China Daily’s
Wang Yiqing.
Delivering his keynote speech
at the Boao Forum for Asia, Presi-
dent Xi Jinping elaborated the
significance and changes of the
four decades of reform and open-
ing-up, and emphasized that
reform and opening-up constitute
China’s “second revolution”
because they have not only
changed the country but also sig-
nificantly influenced the world.
No wonder the 40th anniversa-
ry of reform and opening-up is
seen as a milestone in China’s his-
tory.
As Xi’s report to the 19th
National Congress of the CPC
said, China’s principal contradic-
tion has evolved into one
between the unbalanced and
inadequate development and
people’s ever-growing needs for a
better life, which is the result of
China’s economic development
propelled by reform and open-
ing-up.
The success of reform and
opening-up is not only embodied
in economic development and
the improvement of people’s
livelihoods, but also in the
change of China’s status in the
world. And it is because of the
success of reform and opening-
up that China has stuck to the
path of socialist market econo-
my, which integrates the advan-
tages of socialism with market
economy.
China should not follow West-
ern market economy, because it is
incompatible with China’s history
and actual situation. Socialist
market economy, on the other
hand, enables the Chinese gov-
ernment to achieve high-quality
development. It also helps the
government to devise industrial
and other policies that support
infrastructure construction and
other key areas related to people’s
livelihoods.
Just as the Third Plenary Ses-
sion of the 18th CPC Central Com-
... Xi’s speech is in
line with China’s
development phi-
losophy, and the
measures intro-
duced show the
new pattern of
reform and open-
ing-up which he
put forward in his
report to the 19th
CPC National
Congress.
mittee pointed out, only if the
relationship between the govern-
ment and the market is well
defined can the market play the
decisive role in resource distribu-
tion and the government better
perform its duties.
China’s successful development
experience shows how a big
developing country can rapidly
transform itself into an economic
powerhouse through rational
development, which is China’s
greatest contribution to develop-
ment economics and develop-
ment model.
China will deepen reform and
opening-up not only to meet its
domestic demand, but also as a
response to the call of its trade
partners. And measures such as
easing market access for both
domestic and foreign players, and
strengthened IPR protection
reflect China’s sincere efforts to
build a community of shared
future. To achieve success in this
endeavor, China should enhance
economic communication with
Asian countries through channels
such as the Belt and Road Initia-
tive and other cooperation mech-
anisms.
Cooperation best way to
build bright future for all
Chen Qi, director
of the Center for
Sino-US Rela-
tions, Tsinghua
University. This
is an excerpt
from his inter-
view with China
Daily’s Pan Yix-
uan.
China will never be a threat to
any country, and not try to over-
throw the world order; instead it
is determined to safeguard peace
and order, and contribute more to
global development, Xi said in his
keynote speech at the Boao
Forum for Asia.
China’s rapid development
over the past four decades has
earned the recognition of the
international community as well
as raised doubts among some,
because a few Western powers
are not ready to accept the rise of
a country that has an economic
model, culture and institutions
different from theirs. Some West-
ern powers, especially the United
States, have even said China’s
influence will have a negative
impact on the world in the
future.
By withdrawing from multilat-
eral mechanisms, such as the
2015 Paris Agreement, and taking
anti-globalization measures, the
US is destabilizing global free
trade and the world order. On the
contrary, China has long adhered
to regional and global coopera-
tion mechanisms and followed
international rules, with Xi reiter-
ating at multiple forums the
importance of bilateral and mul-
tilateral cooperation in trade and
security, and responsible leader-
ship in matters of global signifi-
cance.
To facilitate China’s economic
structural upgrading and deep-
en win-win cooperation with
other countries and regions, as
well as to strengthen globaliza-
tion, Xi promised to ease access
to the Chinese market, improve
the investment environment,
enhance IPR protection, and
deepen opening-up.
A country does not have to
resort to a beggar-thy-neighbor
policy to achieve economic gains.
Instead, through deeper coopera-
tion, all countries can share the
benefits of globalization.
Despite still being a superpow-
er, the US has been losing its glob-
al leadership role thanks to its
unilateral and selfish policies. But
instead of self-introspection, it
sees China’s peaceful rise as pos-
ing a threat to its global leader-
ship.
Although the Sino-US trade
conflict may eventually be
resolved with the two countries
striking a new balance in their
relations — China increasing
imports and lowering tariffs, and
the US easing restrictions on the
export of high-tech products —
China will face more severe chal-
lenges in the future, particularly
from those countries playing
important roles in the post-Cold
War world order. So it should be
prepared to deal with such even-
tualities. Perhaps it can prevent
such situations from arising by
involving more and more coun-
tries in the Belt and Road Initia-
tive, in order to make concerted
efforts to build a community of
shared future for humankind and
make greater contributions to
global development.
Belt and Road will clear
all misunderstandings
Xi said at the Boao Forum for
Asia on Tuesday that he is confi-
dent that China will deepen coop-
eration and resolve differences
with other economies through
the Belt and Road Initiative,
while clearing doubts over the
initiative’s intents and purposes.
There are two kinds of misun-
derstandings over the Belt and
SHI YU / CHINA DAILY
Zhang Yao, a
researcher at
Shanghai Insti-
tutes for Interna-
tional Studies.
This is an excerpt
from his inter-
view with China
Daily’s Zhang
Zhouxiang.
Road Initiative. The first is inten-
tional and biased: Certain West-
ern “scholars” and media outlets
hype up the “China threat” theory
in Western countries, and exag-
gerate the level of China’s compe-
tition with them to create such a
misunderstanding.
The second “misunderstand-
ing” is based on a lack of informa-
tion. Many economies involved in
the Belt and Road Initiative are in
Central Asia and Eastern Europe
with rich natural resources, such
as minerals and gas and oil
reserves. So some people worry
that China’s influence may out-
balance the West’s influence in
these regions and make it incon-
venient for other economies to
obtain natural resources, includ-
ing gas and oil.
To clear the first kind of “mis-
understanding”, which actually is
rumor, there is no better way than
to firmly fight back. Those trying
to arouse anti-Belt and Road sen-
timents still suffer from a Cold
War mentality, and they can be
made to see reality only through
appropriate action.
And to remove the second
kind of “misunderstanding”, Chi-
na needs to more clearly explain
the purpose of the Belt and Road
Initiative to convince the coun-
tries with rich resources that the
initiative will yield win-win
results — China buys the resour-
ces at the market price, while
these countries get the funds
necessary to intensify their eco-
nomic development. That China
co-works with these countries to
help them improve their infra-
structure should also be empha-
sized.
The Belt and Road Initiative
has three obvious characteristics
that distinguish it from the previ-
ous and current development
plans of the West. First, the initia-
tive is open to all — all countries
can work with China under its
framework.
Second, it is mutually benefi-
cial. Both China and its partner
countries benefit from the initia-
tive.
And third, it does not come
with any political conditions
attached. When doing business
with its partners, China has been
strictly following international
business rules and has never
imposed any political conditions
on them.
The fact that forums held in
China, including the Boao Forum
for Asia, have attracted so many
participants from across the
world is proof of the Belt and
Road Initiative gaining trust. And
with projects under its frame-
work increasing, hopefully all
misunderstandings over the Belt
and Road Initiative will be
cleared.
V I E WS 13
Wang Hui
The author is a senior writer with
China Daily.
wanghui@chinadaily.com.cn
Trump will realize
folly after tasting
bitter fruit of the
seed he has sown
I
n recent years, some observers have
hyped up the possibility of a head-on
confrontation between China and the
United States. With the shadow of a
trade war growing darker and the tensions
between the two countries in the South
China Sea escalating, these observers
believe their prediction is about to come
true.
After Donald Trump won the US presi-
dential election in 2016, a trade war
between the world’s largest and second-
largest economies seemed likely. Since tak-
ing office in January last year, Trump has
been brazenly pushing ahead his “America
First” policy, by finding faults with almost
all bilateral and multilateral trade deals
that previous US administrations entered
into, and ultimately pulling out of them.
On April 5, the Trump administration
threatened to slap tariffs on $100 billion
worth of Chinese imports. The move came
just days after the US Trade Representative
proposed to levy additional 25 percent tar-
iffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods.
In response to the US move, China was
forced to adopt countermeasures. But con-
sidering the interdependence of the two
economies and their significance to global
trade, if a full-fledged trade war does break
out, neither side will emerge a winner.
To a great extent, the
Trump administration’s
outdated protectionist
policies and its percep-
tion of China as a rival,
instead of a competitive
partner, have widened
the trust deficit between
the two sides.
Admittedly, Beijing and Washington
have tried to avoid such a bitter scenario.
Last year, negotiators found some useful
ways to reduce the US’ trade deficit, such as
allowing exports of US beef to China. How-
ever, Trump’s unilateral moves show
patience is not his forte — he cannot wait
for such efforts to yield the desired results.
In this era of globalization, trade deficit
is a complicated issue resulting from both
external and internal factors. And history
tells us the best way to resolve disputes
over trade deficits is through dialogue and
negotiation.
China-US relations, including bilateral
trade ties, are the result of the willingness
and incessant efforts of both sides to nego-
tiate. But now that the Trump administra-
tion is desperate to ignite an all-out trade
war with China, a full-blown confrontation
between the two countries, as the reigning
superpower and a rising power, appears
imminent.
Yet it seems trade is not the only area in
which the Trump administration intends
to pick a fight with China. Apparently, the
US military has increased the frequency of
the so-called freedom of navigation opera-
tions in the South China Sea, a practice
that China sees as a blatant threat to its
maritime territorial interests.
Last week, the US Navy’s USS Roosevelt
Carrier Strike Group entered the South
China Sea and, according to media reports,
two other US aircraft strike groups, too,
have entered China’s surrounding waters.
The large presence of the US navy coin-
cides with the ongoing combat exercises
staged by the People’s Liberation Army
Navy in the South China Sea, and the par-
ticipation of the PLA Navy’s CNS Liaoning
aircraft carrier has even aroused concerns
over a possible China-US aircraft carrier
face-off in the sensitive waters.
These developments show that tensions
between the world’s two largest economies
have risen to an unusually high level. To a
great extent, the Trump administration’s
outdated protectionist policies and its per-
ception of China as a rival, instead of a
competitive partner, have widened the
trust deficit between the two sides. Still,
there are no signs of Trump realizing he
has created a volatile atmosphere.
As you sow, so shall you reap, goes a Chi-
nese saying. It is likely therefore that the
US will realize that protectionism and con-
frontation cannot “make America great
again” after swallowing the bitter fruit of
the seed it has sowed, especially because
China has made it clear it will not back off
from a US-orchestrated trade war.
14 Thursday, April 12, 2018
BUSINESS CHINA DAILY USA » CHINADAILYUSA.COM
BOAO FORUM FOR ASIA
Wu Xiaoqiu, vice-president of Renmin University of China, delivers a speech during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2018 on
Wednesday. ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY
Further opening-up to
attract more investment
New reform measures will help widen
access to country’s financial market
By LI XIANG in Boao, Hainan
lixiang@chinadaily.com.cn
The liberalization of China’s
financial service industry and
capital market will draw more
investment from overseas
institutional investors and will
help boost the global profile of
the Chinese currency, interna-
tional financial experts said on
Wednesday.
They were commenting on
the landmark announcement
on Tuesday by President Xi Jin-
ping at the Boao Forum for Asia
to grant foreign companies
greater access to the country’s
financial service sector and fur-
ther reduce restrictions on for-
eign ownership in the industry.
Tariff, tax cuts to boost real economy
By CHEN JIA in Boao, Hainan
chenjia@chinadaily.com.cn
The nation will cut import
tariffs on automobiles and
other products as early as pos-
sible, as part of the country’s
initiative to further open up,
Vice-Minister of Finance
Cheng Lihua said on Wednes-
day.
“We are now working on
detailed plans for the tariff
cuts, and will implement the
policies as soon as they are
approved,” Cheng said.
“The new policies are based
on China’s own need for fur-
ther development and on Chi-
na’s own timetable,” Cheng
added.
Key inflation gauge edges down on monthly basis
By ZHENG XIN
zhengxin@chinadaily.com.cn
The country’s consumer
price index, a main gauge of
inflation, rose 2.1 percent year-
on-year in March, compared
with 2.9 percent for February,
the National Bureau of Statis-
tics said on Wednesday. Ana-
lysts said the month-on-
month decline indicates that
high inflation may be unlikely
this year, which will prevent
policymakers from tightening
their monetary policy stance.
On a month-on-month
basis, CPI declined 1.1 percent,
according to NBS data.
Chinese central bank gover-
nor Yi Gang also announced a
string of detailed opening-up
measures covering the coun-
try’s banking, insurance, secu-
rities and wealth management
sectors.
“The opening-up is very
welcomed by international
financial institutions, includ-
ing Japanese firms who were
among the first to set up offi-
ces in China in the 1980s,” said
Satoru Shibata, deputy com-
missioner for international
affairs at the Financial Servi-
ces Agency of Japan.
“The potential demand of
international institutional
investors to invest in the Chi-
nese bond and equity markets
800
billion yuan
projected tax reduction
in 2018
She made the remarks at the
Boao Forum for Asia Annual
Conference 2018, echoing
President Xi Jinping’s promise
on Tuesday to expand imports
by “significantly lowering the
import tariffs for automobiles
and reducing import tariffs for
some other products”.
“China will further cut tax,
especially to support medium
The month-on-month drop
was due to the ebb of holiday
factors, which pushed up
demand in February, said
Sheng Guoqing, a senior stat-
istician of the NBS, in a state-
ment.
The moderation was nor-
mal, considering a high com-
parison base, he said.
Analysts believe the month-
on-month slowdown, which
was due to the high base from
February, proved the fact that
high inflation is highly unlike-
ly this year and China’s pru-
dent monetary policy will
continue this year.
is huge,” Shibata said.
Tony Sacre, chief executive
of the Sydney Stock Exchange,
said that it is a necessary step
for China to fully embark on
the internationalization of the
renminbi.
The Belt and Road Initiative
could lead to further issuance
of renminbi-denominated
bonds in overseas markets to
finance large infrastructure
projects that could not solely
rely on bank loans, Sacre said.
“The renminbi bonds asso-
ciated with the Belt and Road
Initiative will not only drive
economic development but
will also keep the yuan leap
ahead of the US dollar poten-
tially from a world currency
perspective,” he said.
In addition to financial lib-
eralization, Chinese experts
also called for deepening the
and small-sized enterprises,”
said Cheng. “We will continue
to promote property tax legis-
lation and implementation,
and reform the personal
income tax system,” she added.
Those measures will be part
of China’s first full-scale tax
reform since 1994, to match
the real situation when the
country’s economic growth is
shifting to a quality-driven
model, according to Cheng.
This year, to support the
development of the real econ-
omy, the Chinese government
has set the goal of reducing
taxes by as much as 800 billion
yuan ($127 billion) and admin-
istrative fees by 300 billion
yuan.
With holiday factors ebbing,
the March CPI seeing less
increase is reasonable and the
annual inflation is expected to
be around 2 percent, said
Deng Haiqing, chief econo-
mist of JZ Securities, in a
research note.
The 2.9 percent CPI increase
in February “will surely be the
highest of the whole year,” he
said. China set a CPI growth
control target of 3 percent for
this year in March.
According to the NBS, food
prices dropped 4.2 percent in
March compared with Februa-
ry, contributing 0.86 percent-
reform of the fundamental
mechanisms of the domestic
capital market.
Wu Xiaoqiu, vice-president
of Renmin University of China,
said the nation needs to fur-
ther reform rules for initial
public offerings, delisting, and
mergers and acquisitions, and
strengthen regulation on
authentic and full information
disclosure by listed companies.
Wu pointed out that China,
as a major economy in the
world, needs to develop
Shanghai and Shenzhen into
global financial centers that
could match the status
enjoyed by cities such as New
York and London.
“Shanghai and Shenzhen
should become major market-
places of renminbi-denomi-
nated assets for global
investors,” he said.
According to the ministry’s
tax reform plan, the value-
added tax rate for manufactur-
ing will be lowered from 17 to
16 percent, and for transporta-
tion, construction, basic tele-
communications services and
farm produce from 11 to 10
percent. These measures
could ease businesses’ tax bur-
den by almost 400 billion
yuan.
Jia Kang, former director of
the Research Institute for Fis-
cal Science at the Ministry of
Finance, said that the total
amount of tax cuts this year
“is really large”, and is an
important measure to push
forward supply-side structur-
al reform.
2.9 percent
China’s CPI increase in
February
age point to the month-on-
month decline in CPI.
With demand for travel eas-
ing after the Spring Festival,
prices of air tickets dropped by
18.7 percent compared with
February, while travel agency
charges dropped 11.7 percent
and long-distance bus tickets
dropped by 4.7 percent.
Caps on foreign ownership
eased in life insurance JVs
By HU YUANYUAN
huyuanyuan
@chinadaily.com.cn
China will lift foreign
ownership restrictions in
the life insurance sector in
three years and raise foreign
ownership limits to 51 per-
cent in joint-venture life
insurance firms by the end
of June, a top regulatory
official said.
Speaking at a panel discus-
sion during the Boao Forum
for Asia on Wednesday, Yi
Gang, the governor of the
People’s Bank of China, the
central bank, said the new
measures will form part of
the broader package of poli-
cies that will further open up
the country’s financial sector.
Industry insiders said the
new measures will instill
market vitality and create
new development opportuni-
ties.
By June 30 this year, most
of the measures will be in
place, Yi said, the first time
that China has provided a
clear timeline on its financial
market opening-up plans
since the 19th National Con-
gress of the Communist Party
of China last October.
Wang Guojun, an insur-
ance professor at the Univer-
sity of International Business
and Economics in Beijing,
said the new measures are
well within expectations.
“The change in the foreign
ownership ceiling in a joint
Mainland-HK stock connects
to see hectic trading activity
By LUO WEITENG
in Hong Kong
sophia@chinadailyhk.com
A bold move to quadruple
the daily quota of the two
stock connects between the
Chinese mainland and Hong
Kong could essentially set the
stage for a historic opening of
the mainland’s financial sec-
tor, but a higher level of regu-
lation is required, said
experts.
“The move, poised to
increase integration of the
mainland’s onshore and off-
shore stock market trading,
could make a big difference
for years to come, if not
immediately,” said Fielding
Chen Shiyuan, a Hong Kong-
based Asia economist at
Bloomberg Intelligence.
The daily northbound quo-
tas for each of the Shanghai
and Shenzhen stock connect
schemes will be expanded
fourfold to 52 billion yuan
($8.27 billion) from 13 billion
yuan starting from May 1,
People’s Bank of China Gov-
ernor Yi Gang told a panel
discussion at the Boao Forum
China’s producer price
index, which measures costs
for goods at the factory gate,
rose 3.1 percent year-on-year
in March, down from a rise of
3.7 percent recorded in Febru-
ary, as growth in factory prices
of production materials and
consumer goods both moder-
ated, said Sheng.
On a month-on-month
basis, PPI dropped 0.2 percent
in March.
Factory prices in the gas
production and supply sector
saw a drop of 1.7 percent com-
pared with February, while
factory prices in the automo-
The change in the
foreign ownership
ceiling ... is very
important.”
Wang Guojun, an insurance
professor at the University of
International Business and
Economics
venture life insurer from the
previous 50 percent to 51 per-
cent is very important and
can help reduce internal
rivalries,” said Wang.
Chen Liang, CEO of Allianz
China Life, welcomed the lat-
est round of opening-up
measures.
“The central government’s
latest efforts will benefit the
whole insurance industry. A
more open and fully-competi-
tive market will not only bring
new development opportuni-
ties for Allianz and other for-
eign insurers, but also bring
lots of benefits for Chinese
customers,” said Chen.
Being the first European
insurer entering the Chinese
market, Allianz has been
operating in the country for
19 years and has developed a
full line of businesses includ-
ing life insurance, property
and casualty insurance and
asset management.
for Asia on Wednesday.
The daily quota for south-
bound trading, which allows
investors in the Chinese
mainland to buy Hong Kong
stocks, will be boosted to 42
billion yuan from 10.5 billion
yuan.
Currently, the daily trading
quotas under the two stock
connects account for 20 per-
cent of Hong Kong stock
turnover and 5 percent of the
trading volume in the Chi-
nese mainland stock mar-
kets, Chen noted.
The fourfold expansion
would send the proportions
to 80 percent and 20 percent,
respectively, making the
Hong Kong stock market
almost totally open to main-
land investors, and opening
the door of the mainland
equity market much wider to
overseas investors, Chen
reckoned.
Echoing remarks from
Norman Chan Tak-lam,
chief executive of the Hong
Kong Monetary Authority,
who said the expansion
would help ensure the immi-
nent inclusion of domestic
Consumers buy vegetables at a market in Qingdao, Shandong
province. YU FANGPING / FOR CHINA DAILY
bile manufacturing industry
decreased by 0.2 percent.
Paper-making and paper
products sector factory prices
“We believe we can play a
bigger role in better serving
Chinese customers, especial-
ly in the fields of pension
business and health insur-
ance sectors,” Chen added.
“And we are looking forward
to more supportive regulato-
ry policies that encourage
product innovation.”
Statistics from the banking
and insurance regulator
showed that foreign life
insurers’ market share in Chi-
na stood at around 5.8 per-
cent by the end of last year.
But their market share in the
country’s metropolitan cities
such as Beijing, Shanghai and
Guangzhou has been close to
20 percent.
Besides, qualified foreign
investors are also allowed to
run insurance agencies and
survey and loss adjustment
businesses in China. Foreign
brokers will also enjoy the
same business scope like
their Chinese counterparts.
Shen Kaitao, chairman of
Jiang Tai Insurance Brokers
Co Ltd, one of the country’s
largest insurance brokers,
said such measures will help
to improve the efficiency of
the whole industry with more
competition in the market.
“With years of develop-
ment, Chinese insurance bro-
kers have gained rich
experience in dealing with
SMEs and individuals. So, the
latest efforts in opening up
are not likely to deal a blow to
domestic players,” said Shen.
A-shares in the MSCI
Emerging Markets index
proceeded smoothly, Sally
Wong, chief executive of the
Hong Kong Investment
Funds Association, said the
move comes as a “much-
needed booster” for overseas
investors, who have long
been held at arm’s length
from the financial sector in
the Chinese mainland.
“What matters is not a large
increase in sheer numerical
terms. Instead, the move sent
a clear message that Chinese
mainland policymakers
attach great significance to
overseas institutional inves-
tors,” Wong said.
On Wednesday, Yi also
vowed to speed up work on a
stock trading tie-up between
Shanghai and London, and is
looking to get the mega
project off the ground within
the year.
Chen said the stock trading
scheme, the third of its kind
giving foreign investors
access to mainland equity
markets, would win the
mainland bourse a world-
wide reputation.
witnessed an increase of 1.3
percent compared with Febru-
ary, a rise of 9.2 percent year-
on-year, it said.
 C H I N A DA I LY USA Thursday, April 12, 2018
Reforms to make SOEs stronger
State-owned firms
will be urged to
join hands with
foreign companies
for greater reach
in global markets
By LI XIANG in Boao, Hainan
lixiang@chinadaily.com.cn
China will boost the effi-
ciency of its State-owned
enterprises with market-ori-
ented principles in the next
round of the nation’s opening-
up so they can better compete
in overseas markets, the head
of the State-owned assets reg-
ulator said on Wednesday.
Xiao Yaqing, chairman of
the State-owned Assets
Supervision and Administra-
tion Commission, said that
China will continue to opti-
mize the operation of SOEs,
boost their strength, and
encourage them to enhance
their cooperation with for-
eign firms in the global mar-
ketplace.
Xiao made the remarks at a
panel discussion at the annu-
al conference at Boao Forum
for Asia, responding to points
raised by some participants
about the size of China’s State-
owned enterprises and their
core competitiveness.
He said that President Xi
Jinping’s pledge that China
would pursue further reform
and opening-up heralded a
“new journey” for Chinese
companies in their integra-
tion with the global econo-
my.
Xiao said that, to further
meet domestic demand, SOEs
will continue to improve their
Xiao Yaqing, chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, preparing to address the panel
discussion at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2018 in Boao, Hainan province, on Wednesday. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
The participation of
Chinese SOEs will
inject vitality into
international mar-
kets and result in
more opportunities
for cooperation ...”
Xiao Yaqing, chairman of the
State-owned Assets Supervision
and Administration Commission
capacity in terms of supply, as
well as innovative and
research capability, in sectors
including telecommunica-
tions, power, transportation
and aviation.
Meanwhile, China’s SOEs
will seek greater cooperation
with foreign firms in the oil,
mining and energy sectors,
according to Xiao.
“Competition will create
new markets and provide
more services. The participa-
tion of Chinese SOEs will
inject vitality into interna-
tional markets and result in
more opportunities for coop-
eration with world-class
international firms,” he said.
BOAO FORUM
Zhu Min, an economist and
former deputy managing
director of the International
Monetary Fund, said that
boosting competitiveness is
the key to China’s SOE
reform.
“It doesn’t really matter
whether the representation of
SOEs in the Chinese economy
expands or not. That should
be a result of market competi-
tion. The key is whether they
are getting more efficient and
are globally competitive,” Zhu
said.
Hans-Paul Buerkner, chair-
man of Boston Consulting
Group, said that China’s con-
tinuous reform and opening-
up will help create a level
playing field for fair competi-
tion among companies and
will also help China accelerate
the process of becoming a
high-income country.
“We should get away from
the idea they (the SOEs) are
weak and need protection. In
fact they are very strong com-
panies,” Buerkner said.
“It would be a mistake to
protect uncompetitive com-
panies. The key is providing a
level playing field and making
sure they stay competitive
and move forward with tech-
nology and innovation to
ensure resources are well
used and managed,” he added.
‘New Retail’ experience set
to boost cross-border trade
By HE WEI in Boao, Hainan
hewei@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese companies can lev-
erage their expertise in merg-
ing online and offline
commerce to prompt cross-
border trade in economies
related to the Belt and Road
Initiative, according to indus-
try experts.
The combination of big
data, blockchain technologies
and local supply chains will
result in a so-called “New
Retail” world in which prod-
ucts are designed based on the
analysis of customer behavior
and are created before people
even realize they have such
needs, said Yi Qing, executive
president of Osell, a cross-bor-
der e-commerce site.
“Many countries and
regions (participating in the
initiative) still lack mobile
payment and logistics capabil-
ities that are essential to a
seamless O2O (online-to-off-
line) shopping experience,” Yi
said during a New Retail-
themed discussion during the
Boao Forum for Asia Annual
Conference 2018 on Wednes-
day.
Used-car sector may
see stiff competition
By MA SI in Boao, Hainan
masi@chinadaily.com.cn
CARS, China’s largest online
used-car dealer, will build
more brick-and-mortar stores
to attract consumers, after the
company raised $818 million
in its latest round of financing
led by Tencent Holdings Ltd,
said Yang Haoyong, CEO of
CARS.
The move comes as compe-
tition intensifies in the coun-
try’s used-car sector after
favorable government policies
were announced to allow
cross-region movement of
such vehicles for sales.
“Offline experience is
important to help consumers
make the final decisions.
Brick-and-mortar stores can
also help us offer better after-
sales services,” said Yang on
the sidelines of the ongoing
Boao Forum for Asia Annual
Conference 2018 on Tuesday.
According to him, the three-
year-old company already has
opened more than 27 offline
stores, and a large number of
new outlets will come on the
way.
In March, the central gov-
ernment said more efforts
would be made this year to
scrap any limits on cross-re-
gion flow of used cars, as part
of the country’s broader push
to make the automobile indus-
try globally competitive.
The move signals a huge
opportunity for China’s used-
car sector because it will great-
ly boost the circulation of such
vehicles. Currently, the coun-
try has about 217 million cars
on the road, official data show.
Most of them are owned by
residents in first and second-
tier cities. But demand for
used vehicles chiefly comes
“Chinese companies can dip
their toes in bridging local
needs with tailored manufac-
turing at home, based on their
successful New Retail
attempts,” he said.
A term increasingly used by
analysts, New Retail features
the use of technologies,
upgraded manufacturing,
novel financial tools and data-
backed logistics to fundamen-
tally change the interplay
between consumers, mer-
chandise and the retail space.
According to Yi, insights
about consumer needs via the
internet will remove much of
the guesswork in the retail
world and pinpoint needs,
thus boosting cross-border
trade.
“Through the internet, busi-
nesses can see the potential
needs of customers by study-
ing consumer behavior data,
and then design, market, sell
and serve in order to satisfy
them,” he said.
For instance, data generated
through e-commerce plat-
forms suggested that residents
in Bahrain prefer artificial
lawns to natural lawns. This
finding would in turn reshape
15
from consumers in small cit-
ies, resulting in huge demand-
supply imbalances
geographically.
The prospect is luring a
number of players to march
into the sector, including Didi
Chuxing, China’s largest ride-
hailing platform. As part of its
broader push to outcompete
rivals, Yang said his company
would spend 2 billion yuan
($318 million) on marketing in
the future to build up brand
appeal to consumers.
“The auto industry is a tril-
lion-dollar market. Even
though we write big checks on
marketing, we can keep a
healthy cash flow. Building up
brand attractiveness is impor-
tant for us to flourish in the
sector,” Yang added.
In 2017, 12 million used cars
were sold across China, up 19
percent year-on-year, the lat-
est data from the China Auto
Dealers Association showed.
Overall sales hit 809.2 billion
yuan last year, marking a stel-
lar growth of 34 percent.
Last year, CARS integrated
its used-car and new-car busi-
nesses — Guazi and Maodou
— to offer better services amid
mounting competition. Guazi
offers one-stop services for
used cars — buying, selling,
renting, fixing and insuring —
thereby meeting almost any
need of customers for such
vehicles, while Maodou focus-
es on the leasing and renting
of new cars.
Yu Mu, senior analyst from
Beijing-based internet con-
sultancy Analysys, said adver-
tising plays a big role in
boosting sales in the car sector.
But strong efforts are also
needed to ensure that online
and offline services are well-
connected.
the production side, conse-
quently boosting sales in a
local marketplace by 2.5 times
in just one year’s time, he said.
According to Yi, Belt and
Road-related economies are
more likely to embrace
emerging technologies such
as blockchain, which can
facilitate point-to-point
transaction with enhanced
security and at substantially
lower costs than previous
transaction modes.
Chinese tech majors and
numerous startups are all
riding on the New Retail
wave. Two-year-old e-com-
merce site Reflower sold 300
million flowers last year by
utilizing customer purchase
history as a guidance for
flower planting to peasants,
said the company’s founder
Zhu Yueyi.
“The key to the future
retail is to really know your
customers and create an
experience beyond just pur-
chasing. This requires con-
stant experiment by mining
and working on data,” said
Hans-Paul Burkner, chair-
man of Boston Consulting
Group.
Time for
serious
business
Lin Yifu (right), director of
the Center for New Structural
Economics at Peking University,
and Li Dongsheng, chairman
and CEO of TCL Corp, arrive
for a panel discussion at the
Boao Forum for Asia Annual
Conference 2018 in Boao,
Hainan province, on
Wednesday.
ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY
16 BUS IN E S S
Caviar producer has a ‘China Dream’
Kaluga Queen
predicts domestic
sales increase as
‘food of the czars’
is now becoming
more popular
By XU JUNQIAN in Shanghai
xujunqian@chinadaily.com.cn
Spring has come. The 700
metric tons of sturgeon
farmed in East China’s Qian-
daohu Lake by Kaluga Queen
are expected to spawn and
produce one of the world’s
most expensive gourmet deli-
cacies — caviar.
Weighing 10 to 12 percent of
a fully mature sturgeon, which
is usually 7 to 15 years old
depending on the species,
these unfertilized roe are to be
retailed at a maximum of 180
yuan ($28.6) per gram, more
than half of the price of gold.
Kaluga Queen is the world’s
largest caviar producer, breed-
ing sturgeon in the 573-
square-kilometer lake in
Zhejiang province. Though
most of its caviar products are
for export, the company is try-
ing to whet the appetite of 1.4
billion Chinese for the “food of
the czars” in the coming years.
Founded in 2003 by several
former aquaculture research-
ers from Beijing, Kaluga
Queen, named after the stur-
geon species dwelling in
Northeast China’s Heilongji-
ang province, surpassed Italy’s
Agroittica Lombarda SpA as
the world’s biggest producer of
caviar in 2015 with its produc-
tion reaching 45 tons.
Over the years, its caviar has
found its way into the first-
class cabins of Lufthansa and
22 of the 28 Michelin three-
star restaurants in France. In
2016, it was served at the ban-
quet for world leaders at the
G20 Summit in Hangzhou,
capital of Zhejiang province.
In 2017, the Quzhou-based
company’s output reached 70
tons, representing around
one-third of the global total
and consolidated sales of 207
million yuan. Almost 90 per-
cent of its output is exported to
Europe, the Middle East and
the United States.
But the company hopes that
over the next five years, the sit-
uation will reverse, with Chi-
nese citizens consuming up to
90 percent of the total, said
Xia Yongtao, deputy general
manager of Kaluga Queen,
who admitted it might be “an
unreachable dream”.
If the “dream” is realized,
however, the company’s reve-
nue and profit will surge, as
selling domestically means cut-
ting out middlemen and bene-
fiting directly from consumers.
“Unlike wine or other indus-
tries that are seeing stagnant if
not negative growth in West-
ern markets today, the supply
of caviar is largely outnum-
bered by demand globally. But
we still believe the mine of the
black gold lies in China,” said
Xia, who has been with the
company since its founding.
Xia and Wang Bing, founder
of the company, were part of a
research team funded by the
Chinese Academy of Fishery
Sciences that helped make
sturgeon farming possible in
the late 1990s.
Li Jun, director of the China
Sturgeon Association, gave a
more modest prediction. He
estimates that by 2020, China
will consume 100 tons of cavi-
ar every year, accounting for
one-third of the world’s total.
Caviar will be an accessible
treat for not only the wealthy,
but also the middle-income
group, he added.
The association is formed
by dozens of companies
involved in the business,
including sturgeon farming,
processing and feed manufac-
turing. Li noted that there are
no more than five companies
in China capable of managing
a complete supply chain of
caviar, which starts from stur-
geon breeding and concludes
with the final packaging of
the delicate roe.
The consumption of caviar
Pan-fried scallops topped with caviar from the Ritz Carlton Pudong hotel in Shanghai, one of the largest hospitality clients of Kaluga Queen in China.
began to pick up in China
around 2012, but the bud was
nipped the next year due to the
anti-graft campaign intro-
duced by the central authori-
ties, which prohibits luxury
dining and gift giving with
public money.
In 2016, as the fine dining
scene gradually revived and
Michelin launched its first res-
taurant review on the Chinese
mainland, piquing keen inter-
est in restaurants at an aver-
age cost of 300 yuan and
above, caviar consumption
started to gain momentum
and soared at a growth rate of
50 percent annually, accord-
ing to the association.
Traditionally, caviar produc-
tion depends mostly on wild
fishing by countries surround-
ing the Caspian Sea, primarily
Iran and Russia. According to
a report by the Food and Agri-
culture Organization of the
United Nations, the world-
wide catch of sturgeon
reached its peak in 1977 at
32,078 tons, which translated
into 2,000 tons of caviar.
Since the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in 1991, howev-
er, global caviar supply has
undergone a drastic decline.
The long-established stur-
geon and caviar management
system gradually weakened,
resulting in rampant illegal
fishing and habitat degrada-
tion.
Today, global caviar produc-
tion remains steady at around
200 tons a year and largely
comes from artificial breed-
ing, as several sturgeon spe-
cies have been classified as
endangered since 2000. The
classification resulted in a ban
on wild fishing and at the
same time triggered commer-
cial breeding to boom.
“It’s a lucrative business, but
also one that poor people can-
not afford to start and rich
people disdain to join, consid-
ering the investment time
required for the fish’s maturity
and egg production,” Xia said.
With an initial investment
of around 6 million yuan,
mainly from several founding
partners, Kaluga Queen har-
vested its first batch of caviar
in 2006 and started to widely
Above: Employees sort caviar
at the factory of Kaluga Queen
in Quzhou, Zhejiang province.
Left: A beluga raised at the
Qiandaohu Lake fishing farm of
Kaluga Queen.
GAO ERQIANG / CHINA DAILY
But we still believe
the mine of the
black gold lies in
China.”
Xia Yongtao, deputy general
manager of Kaluga Queen
market it the following year,
when China’s food-safety
problem was at its peak.
“At first, we were treated
with such bias that once they
heard it’s ‘Made-in-China’,
people would turn us down
immediately without opening
the can and having a taste,”
Xia recalled.
After attaining several top
winner titles at caviar blind
tasting events and exhibitions
with its high quality, Kaluga
Queen had its first break-
through, becoming the suppli-
er of Lufthansa’s first-class
cabins in 2011.
Today, the company is
expected to keep a double-dig-
it growth rate, with produc-
tion reaching 100 tons in 2019.
Thursday, April 12, 2018
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
More Western food being made at home
Just one decade ago, Chi-
nese consumers were stocking
imported food and formula milk
powders amid the country’s
incessant food-safety issues.
However, the past decade has
also witnessed a growing num-
ber of premium Western food
producers from both China and
abroad locating their manufac-
turing bases in the country, and
labeling their pricey products
“Made in China”, in an attempt
to feed the increasing appetite
for a taste of luxury.
Foie gras
French group Euralis, which
produces nearly a quarter of
the foie gras consumed in
France, first entered the Chi-
nese mainland in 2007, setting
up a farm in Beijing. Late in
2012, the farm was destroyed in
a snowstorm. In 2014, the com-
pany announced a new plan to
rebuild a rearing farm together
with a processing plant and
commercial structure in Lian-
yungang, Jiangsu province, at a
cost of 15 million euros ($18.4
million).
The facility is expected to
raise one million geese by
2020, and supply mainly to lux-
ury hotels and restaurants in
Shanghai and Beijing.
“This is a market that is
experiencing strong growth. In
China, foie gras is cropping up
more and more in the fine-din-
ing industry and we firmly
believe that it will become an
ingredient in Chinese cuisine,”
said Guy de Saint Laurent,
director of Rougié China, Eural-
is’ subsidiary.
Black truffles
Southwest China’s Yunnan
province is known as the home
While the growth is seen even-
ly in both retail and partner-
ship with fine dining
restaurants and luxury hotels,
Xia thinks there will be grow-
ing potential in retail as more
Chinese consumers get their
first bite of the roe.
“Our strategy is to work
with as many restaurants as
possible in China, turning
them into our tasting rooms to
deliver our roes as extensively
as possible. Once the founda-
tion is built, we will reduce the
retail price, say by 5 percent, to
get millions of consumers
hooked,” he said.
Kaluga Queen is now the
exclusive supplier of caviar
for around 500 restaurants
and hotels in China, but most
C H I N A DA I LY USA
to more than 250 types of
mushrooms. Black truffle is one
of the most expensive varieties
that is sold for 130 yuan ($20.7)
to 1,300 yuan per kilogram.
Production is estimated at
around 200 metric tons every
year, with the majority being
exported overseas.
A highly fragmented industry
supported mainly by individual
farmers and wholesalers, the
black truffles harvested in Yun-
nan are generally considered to
be of lower quality than their
peers from Périgord — the finest
in France — mainly because they
are usually picked hastily before
they are fully matured. But their
much lower price, often just a
fraction of the European varie-
ties, has led to them being used
more practically and widely by
chefs and cooks.
Artisan cheese
Liu Yang, 44, is known as Mr
Cheese among expats and
gourmands in Beijing. Having
studied international trade in
France for a couple of years, the
former information technology
engineer started his own
cheese factory in Beijing in
2009, as he had a personal
penchant for the dairy product
and found a wide supply-de-
mand gap in the local market.
Branded as Le Fromager de
Pekin, his business today pro-
vides a variety of 20 or so
cheeses. The skills and equip-
ment to make cheese are
imported from France, but Liu
uses locally produced milk for
his cheese, which has found its
way into the fridges at the
French embassy in the capital.
CHINA DAILY
of them are Western-style
restaurants.
“The way and amount of
caviar being used in Chinese
cuisines currently only repre-
sent a tip of the iceberg,” said
Xia, whose team is now work-
ing closely with Chinese fine
dining restaurants including
Da Dong, the roast duck chain,
and Xin Rong Ji, the seafood
chain, to develop new dishes
using caviar.
Meanwhile, the company’s
research and development
team is also working to use
other parts of the fish, includ-
ing sturgeon fillets, marrows
and skin for leather products,
though caviar will remain the
chief money-spinner for the
company, Xia added.