McDonald’s
Animated talk
THURSDAY, May 3, 2018
Trade discussions
to start in Beijing
By ZHONG NAN
zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn
China and the United
States will hold talks on
trade and economic issues in
Beijing on Thursday and Fri-
day, marking the first high-
level meeting since the
bilateral trade dispute esca-
lated in March.
The Ministry of Commerce
announced on Wednesday
that a US delegation led by
Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin, visiting as US Presi-
dent Donald Trump’s special
envoy, will exchange views on
China-US economic and trade
issues with Vice-Premier Liu
He, also a member of the Polit-
ical Bureau of the Communist
Party of China Central Com-
mittee.
The US delegation also
includes Commerce Secretary
Wilbur Ross, US Trade Repre-
sentative Robert Lighthizer,
Larry Kudlow, assistant to the
president for economic policy,
and Peter Navarro, assistant
to the president for trade and
manufacturing policy.
Foreign Ministry spokes-
woman Hua Chunying said
on Wednesday it is in the best
interests of the two countries
to resolve disputes and main-
tain the overall stability of
bilateral business relations
through negotiations.
Taking into account the size
of the Chinese and US econo-
mies and the complexity of the
relationship, it may not be
realistic to expect one meeting
to resolve all the problems, she
said at a news briefing.
Experts remain “cautiously
optimistic” about the trade
talks, even as the Trump
administration already threat-
DPRK visit
follows
leaders’
summit
By ZHANG YUNBI
zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn
State Councilor and Foreign
Minister Wang Yi arrived in
Pyongyang on Wednesday for
a two-day visit to the Demo-
cratic People’s Republic of
Korea.
Later on Wednesday, Wang
met with DPRK Foreign Min-
ister Ri Yong-ho.
During Wang’s stay in the
DPRK, the two sides will
embark on in-depth exchanges
of views about their relation-
ship as well as the Korean Pen-
insula situation, according to
the Foreign Ministry.
Officials and experts said the
trip, coming after Friday’s sum-
mit between DPRK leader Kim
Jong-un and Republic of Korea
President Moon Jae-in, will
boost coordination between
China and the DPRK and help
keep the thawing Korean Pen-
insula situation on track.
The trip serves as a key
measure taken by both sides to
put into action the consensus
made by the two countries’ top
leaders, reinforce high-level
exchanges and improve strate-
gic-level communication, For-
eign Ministry spokeswoman
Hua Chunying said.
China is glad to see that
the tense situation on the
peninsula is easing and
developing in a good direc-
tion, the spokeswoman
said at a news conference
An
Direc
Director of Coco discusses film
at cartoon
ca festival LIFE, PAGE 19


ened to impose tariffs on up to
$150 billion in Chinese
imports while China has
vowed to retaliate against US
exports if Washington moves
forward with that plan.
Chen Wenling, chief econ-
omist at the China Center for
International Economic
Exchanges, said the topics
under discussion surely will
not be limited to trade,
because the US also wants to
promote its “America First”
strategy by containing Chi-
na’s ability to attract foreign
direct investment.
“The US also is deeply con-
cerned about China’s indus-
trial upgrades, technology
transfers, currency rate, tal-
ent flows and intellectual
property protection. It also
wants to relieve the down-
ward pressure on its stock
market,” she said.
“China’s firm stance has
prompted Trump to send all
his top economic officials for
trade negotiations to avert fur-
ther escalation or a trade war,”
said Xue Rongjiu, deputy
director of Beijing-based Chi-
na Society for WTO Studies.
Zhang Monan, a researcher
at the China Center for Inter-
national Economic Exchanges,
said the codependency of Chi-
na and the US is a highly react-
ive relationship.
“When one country
changes the terms of the
engagement, the other, feeling
scorned, usually responds in
kind,” Zhang said.
Inside
• Related story > p3
• Editorial > p8
• Comment > p9
State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with DPRK
Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in
Pyongyang on Wednesday. AFP PHOTO
The peninsula
situation is under-
going remarkable
changes.”
Ruan Zongze,
vice-president of the China
Institute of International Stud-
ies, on the importance of Bei-
jing and Pyongyang
strengthening strategic level
communication
Inside
Related story > p3, 12
in Beijing on Wednesday.
Beijing looks forward to
working with all parties
involved to reinforce the exist-
ing positive momentum of the
situation and further contrib-
ute to fundamentally resolving
the peninsula issue, Hua said.
Hua reiterated China’s
commitment to denucleariz-
ing the peninsula, champion-
ing its peace and stability and
After life
President Xi Jinping shakes hands and is photographed with students during his visit to Peking University on Wednesday. The
president spoke about the university’s achievements over the past 120 years. WANG YE / XINHUA
Xi praises Peking University
for its top-quality education
Colleges must shape next generation to lead country with socialist values
By AN BAIJIE
anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
The goal of China’s educa-
tion is to nurture a new gen-
eration of capable young
people who are well prepared
to join the socialist cause,
President Xi Jinping said on
Wednesday.
Xi, also general secretary of
the Communist Party of Chi-
na Central Committee and
seeking solutions through
dialogue and consultation.
In March, Kim made an
unofficial visit to China.
Senior officials from both
sides including Wang and
DPRK Foreign Minister Ri
Yong-ho, have publicly pledged
to implement the consensus
reached by Kim and President
Xi Jinping, also general secre-
tary of the Communist Party of
China Central Committee.
Ruan Zongze, vice-president
of the China Institute of Inter-
national Studies, said Wang’s
trip will gear up bilateral efforts
in fulfilling the two top leaders’
consensus, including boosting
ties, pushing for the peaceful
settlement of the peninsula
nuclear issue and maintaining
high-level exchanges between
the two countries.
“It is of great importance for
Beijing and Pyongyang to
strengthen their strategic level
communication because the
peninsula situation is under-
going remarkable changes
and is developing rapidly
almost every day,” Ruan said.
Wang’s trip will also play a
key role in advancing the pen-
insula’s denuclearization proc-
ess, Ruan said.
torched in
May Day rally
WORLD, PAGE 12
chairman of the Central Mili-
tary Commission, made the
remark while talking with
students and teachers at
Peking University in Beijing.
Universities should focus
on their task of nurturing
young people and prepare
them to join the socialist
cause, uphold their proper
political direction, form a
high-standard system to cul-
tivate talent and build world-
LATE NEWS
President to speak at ceremony for Marx
President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and
chairman of the Central Military Commission, will give an address on Friday at a ceremony marking the
200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, whose work with Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto,
bolstered the worldwide communist movement. The event will be held at the Great Hall of the People on
Friday morning, according to Xinhua News Agency. •See more on our app or chinadaily.com.cn
State Council cuts bureaucratic
time to launch a new business
By XU WEI
xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn
China will further improve
its business environment by
halving the time required to
start an enterprise and
launch construction projects,
the State Council decided on
Wednesday at an executive
meeting chaired by Premier
Li Keqiang.
In one decision coming
from the meeting, the
amount of time required to
start a business in munici-
palities, sub-provincial cit-
ies and provincial capitals
will be reduced by the end of
the year from an average of
more than 20 workdays to
just over eight. This meas-
ure also will be introduced
in five cities, Dalian, Qing-
dao, Ningbo, Xiamen and
Shenzhen. Other areas also
will be required to make
progress, to be followed by
national implementation in
the first half of next year.
Measures to halve the time
required for government
approval of construction pro-
jects from the current aver-
age of more than 200
workdays to 120 workdays
will be tested this year in 15
class programs with Chinese
characteristics, Xi said.
On behalf of the CPC Cen-
tral Committee, Xi greeted
the university’s students and
teachers, the country’s youth
from all ethnic groups and
those who work for young
people.
It’s a long-term task to
uphold and develop socialism
with Chinese characteristics
and build China into a mod-
cities, including Beijing,
Shanghai and Tianjin, and in
Zhejiang province. All gov-
ernment review items and
approval processes concern-
ing home building and urban
infrastructure will be simpli-
fied, optimized and stan-
dardized. This pilot program
will be rolled out nationwide
in the first half of next year.
President Xi Jinping
emphasized that the govern-
ment must do away with reg-
ulations and practices that
impede the development of a
unified market and fair com-
petition, stimulate the vitality
of all market entities and
adopt policies to promote
high-standard liberalization
and facilitation of trade and
investments.
Li said that a good business
environment is part and par-
cel of enhancing competitive-
ness and productivity. “In
spurring economic growth,
our focus needs to shift from
investing in projects to
improving the business envi-
ronment. The key is to press
ahead with the reform of gov-
ernment functions,” he said.
An estimate by the World
Bank moved China up 65
spots between 2013 and 2017
Panda research center places
preserved animals on display
CHINA, PAGE 5
chinadaily.com.cn
ernized socialist country,
which needs continuous
efforts of numerous genera-
tions, Xi said, adding that
young people should shoul-
der the responsibility of ful-
filling national rejuvenation.
At the university, Xi talked
with some senior professors
as well as representatives of
middle-aged and young
See Education, page 3
in the ranking of ease of
starting a business, and the
amount of time required
was cut from 33 days to just
under 23 days.
Another decision made at
the meeting said the proce-
dures that a new firm needs
to go through to become ini-
tially operational will be fur-
ther streamlined. The whole
business registration process
will be conducted online.
Government approval of the
names of businesses before
registration will no longer be
needed unless specifically
required.
The record-filing proce-
dure of official seals will be
included in the reform to
integrate different certifica-
tion requirements on busi-
ness registrations. Applicants
may also choose service pro-
viders on their own.
No separate tax registra-
tion will be required and no
separate social insurance reg-
istration certificate issued for
companies that have
obtained business licenses
with unified social credit
codes. The time needed for
invoice applications and
social insurance registrations
also will be reduced.

 ¥2
Tibetan
border city
entices
industry
to go west
By DA QIONG in Lhasa
and LI LEI in Beijing
The government of Shiga-
tse, a border city in the Tibet
autonomous region, is using
multimillion yuan subsidies to
attract businesses and indus-
tries.
Subsidies up to 20 million
yuan ($3.14 million) will be
granted to industrial or busi-
ness projects that can work
within the Shigatse Economic
Development Zone, such as
high-technology industry and
modern logistics services.
Those designated by the
region’s government or central
government as key projects
could receive as much as 30
million yuan.
Enterprises also will receive
rewards for seeking financing
through stock market initial
public offerings, with the sum
ranging from 1.5 million yuan
to 7 million yuan.
The decision to provide the
subsidies was disclosed late
last month at a news confer-
ence held by the Shigatse city
government in Shanghai —
which has been paired with
the Tibetan city since 1994 in a
nationwide assistance pro-
gram to boost development in
Tibet.
N
300 km
Tibet
Lhasa
Shigatse
More than 400 top workers
from Shanghai — including
government officials and pro-
fessionals in different areas —
have been sent to Tibet in
eight groupings.
Shanghai will be a major
adviser for the upcoming
zone, which is 5 kilometers
south of the urban area of Shi-
gatse. The city was set up in
2014, bordering Nepal, Bhutan
and India.
According to the layout
unveiled at the news confer-
ence, the 36.3 sq km zone com-
prises two major functional
zones — divided by the Jiaqu
River, which flows across Shi-
gatse — and will hold as many
as 120,000 residents.
East of the river is the new
city area, where the city gov-
ernment will be seated, along
with schools, sports facilities,
business and residential areas.
West of the river is designated
as the industrial area,
equipped with logistics servi-
ces and other support facili-
ties.
The industries to be
incorporated in the zone
include logistics services,
organic farming, drinking
water industry, handicrafts,
financial services and trade
See Tibet, page 3
国内统一编号:
CN11-0091
国际标准编号:
A member of
ISSN0253-9543
the Asia News
Network 邮发代号: 1-3
©2018 China Daily,
All Rights Reserved
Vol.38 —
No. 11856
 Thursday, May 3, 2018

CHINA DAILY

2 PAGE TWO
Looking ahead
Candid camera: Emergency response
Events and stories coming up in the next few days

Foreign investors get green Epic opera Manas to be

light to trade iron-ore futures performed in Beijing
China will allow foreign investors to trade
domestic iron-ore futures, starting from
Friday. Iron ore is the second commodity
derivative available to overseas investors
after the debut of yuan-denominated crude
oil futures on March 26 in Shanghai. The
Dalian Commodity Exchange is the only
exchange offering iron-ore future contracts
in China. The futures traded on the
exchange reached 17 trillion yuan ($2.7 tril- The National Center for the Performing
lion) last year. Arts in Beijing will stage the opera Manas
on Saturday and Sunday. The opera is cen-
Latin dance championships tered on the story of Manas, his descend-
ants and his followers. His battles against
to be held in Hebei province sworn enemies form a central theme in the
The World Dance Sport Federation World opera. Musically, it not only demonstrates
Latin Championship will take place in the grandeur of the opera symphony, but
Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, from Friday to reflects the characteristics and dynamism
Sunday. of Kirgiz ethnic music.

On chinadaily.com.cn
Visit for breaking news and exclusive content
With the flood season approaching, a search and rescue drill is conducted on the Tingjiang River in Fujian province on April 25.
Photos: Stories to capture the Tianmen Mountain, Hebei province’s LI TAO / XINHUA
Hongyagu Scenic Area has the world’s
imagination of readers longest glass-bottom bridge. And what
Our
website makes a 488 meter-long glass bridge above
high-
lights
unusual
a drop of 218 meters even more scary? Its
suspension cables allow it to sway. The
bridge, made up of 1,077 glass panels,
strings together two peaks.
Well-being doesn’t have to be a dog’s life
stories
from In preparing to write a every nation, everywhere ty of Toronto. His new book, and China, too. Peterson also
around Culture: Qipao’s rich history longer story, I have recently and at all times is seeking 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote speaks out against the cod-
the goes on display in Brussels been reading psychology dominance over others. to Chaos, has been number dling, self-centeredness,
globe. An exhibition featuring a range of qipao books on the meaning of One key book on how to one on Amazon for weeks, whininess and anti-intellec-
The antigravity “Spiderman”, and an enter- (traditional Chinese women’s dresses), old happiness. Although my achieve a happy and mean- even though it is a very diffi- tual spirit that dominates
tainer spinning basketballs on toothbrush- photographs and illustrated calendars father was a psychologist, I ingful life is Martin Selig- cult book that discusses the many US and Canadian col-
es have both entered the Guinness Book of opened last week at the China Cultural had never previously paid man’s Flourish. Although the core philosophies of Fried- leges today.
World Records. Makers of organic kites, an Center in Brussels. The exhibition, From much attention to the field. book does ramble a bit too rich Nietzsche, Karl Jung, Maybe surprisingly, Peter-
eco igloo under the Northern Lights, and Shanghai to Brussels: One Hundred Years of I’ve come to analyze many much, it does a good job of Socrates and the Bible in son and the positive psychol-
dogs losing weight have also been high- Qipao History, started with a show high- things from explaining the scientific depth. ogists end up in much the
lighted in the book. Human fly Chris Shar- lighting the garment’s history and allure. the point of approach to studying happi- Peterson is certainly not a same place. They both
ma, 37, defies gravity (above) in the view of my ness, which is called positive positive psychologist. He emphasize that a human’s
mountains in Catalonia of Spain. Sharma, nearly year- psychology. Seligman, a psy- would sternly warn Feifei that life cannot be full of well-be-
of Santa Cruz, California, has been climbing
World: Proud royal parents old dog Fei- chology professor at the Uni- everyone is not her friend. ing without meaning and
from the age of 12 and won his first compe- announce new baby’s name fei. From the versity of Pennsylvania who Much of his professional achievement. Both say that
tition at the tender age of 14. The Duke first day I got is considered the father of research concentrates on taking responsibility for
and Duchess David her, I’ve tak- the field, argues that to be what Hannah Arendt, the one’s family and one’s society
of Cam- Blair en her almost fulfilled and have a feeling of great scholar of the Nazi are more important than
Rankings: Top 15 new first-tier bridge, Second every morn- well-being a person needs Holocaust, called the “banal- material goods.
cities show shifting fortunes Prince Willi- Thoughts ing to the PERMA — positive emo- ity of evil”. Peterson studied The psychologists I’ve been
Fifteen cities have joined an exclusive club am and Kate local park, tions, engagement, good the killers at Columbine reading lately are thought-
of first-tier cities, according to a report by Middleton, where she plays with other relationships, meaning, and High School as well as the provoking. They made me
the China Business Network. The ranking have named dogs and is petted by admir- achievement. Nazis and other perpetrators think through life’s lessons.
assesses the commercial attraction of 338 their new ers. She gets mopey and sad Feifei is made happy by of mass horrors. Although, sadly, it is too late
cities based on five indicators: concentra- baby Prince if she misses even a day. Fei- the R in PERMA — good He also concentrates on to talk with him about them
tion of commercial resources; their pivotal Louis Arthur Charles after keeping the fei thinks everybody is her relationships. Surely, the eld- giving tough-love advice to now, I’m going to go back and
role; citizen vitality; variety of lifestyle; and world on tenterhooks for five days. It’s no friend — person, dog or cat. erly dancers, singers, and the sad young men who hide read dad’s articles.
flexibility. Cities in Northeast China have surprise that the duke and duchess have If a dog growls at Feifei, exercisers I see in Chinese in their parents’ basements
been losing ground in the latest rankings. picked traditional names for their third, to she just wags her tail. Usual- parks are also made a lot playing video games instead Contact the writer at
Shenyang, Liaoning province, dropped one honor past monarchs and relatives. Visit ly the barking dog walks off happier by their daily rela- of pursuing the opportuni- davidblair@
place to 11th this year, while Dalian, also in our website to have a closer look at the in confusion. I’m not sure if tionships. ties of life. The Japanese chinadaily.com.cn
Liaoning, ranked 21st. Visit our website to meanings behind these names. the Feifei school of interna- The other psychologist have so many of these per-
find out more about the rankings. tional relations would work, who impressed me is Jordan petual children that they Online
but it would be a welcome Peterson, a clinical psycholo- have a special word for them, Scan the code
Society: Pork awarded to to hear an audio
change from the so-called gist — that is, a therapist — hikikomori. But, it’s a big
Travel: Outdoor attractions Chongqing students realists, who argue that who teaches at the Universi- problem in the United States version.
that require a head for heights In addition to money and certificates, a
selection of prime pork was the reward for
high-achieving students at a high school in
Chongqing. The school held an award cere-
This Day, That Year
mony last month to recognize excellence
and motivate the high- infectious diseases from 169 countries and
school juniors. Twenty entering the country. regions in 1989, while
pieces of raw pork, each years The item on May 4, 1989, the number reached
weighing 2.5 kilograms, on from China Daily shows 598 million last year.
were presented to the top foreigners present health Facing a dramatic
20 students after a recent Editor’s Note: This year documents to a border offi- surge in overseas visi-
Not content with just one glass-bottomed test ahead of the marks the 40th anniversary cer in Beijing. tors to the country,
walkway, Tianmen Mountain in Hunan approaching college of China’s reform and open- China’s continuous devel- the law was revised in
province has three. Known as Coiling entrance exam. The Scan it! ing-up policy. opment of opening up and 2010, when the cen-
Dragon Cliff Walk, one of the walkways reward was designed to Read foreign trade has brought tral government lift-
consists of 1,500 meters of 6.35 centimeter allow the joys of top- more on After coming into effect in more foreign visitors, which ed a travel ban on foreigners In 1995, HIV-positive for-
thick glass that crowns the mountain top achieving students to be chinadaily. May 1989, the Frontier also brings fresh challenges with HIV/AIDS. Foreigners eigners were first allowed to
like a halo. Having stolen the crown from shared with their families. com.cn Health and Quarantine Law in disease prevention. don’t have to claim their HIV enter China to attend the
of China has played an The number of foreign vis- status while seeking a Chi- fourth World Conference on
important role in preventing itors was 24.5 million from nese visa. Women.

THU - FRI MAY 3-4

5/23 Beijing 13/24 S 12/27 S Shanghai 15/25 C 16/25 C
8/18 7/9 Changchun 6/18 C 6/22 S Shenyang 9/20 S 6/24 S
8/20 Changsha 22/28 S 20/26 C Shenzhen 24/31 T 22/27 T
Chongqing 19/23 D 19/27 D Shijiazhuang 12/23 S 11/28 S
13/24 Dalian 10/20 S 11/22 S Suzhou 13/25 O 11/26 S
12/27 Fuzhou 18/20 D 17/24 O Taipei 21/24 D 21/27 C
7/17 Guangzhou 24/29 T 23/26 T THURSDAY
Taiyuan 4/27 S 7/29 S
8/21 Guilin 22/24 D 20/22 R Tianjin 11/24 S 13/28 S FRIDAY
18/26
17/23 Guiyang 16/17 Sh 15/22 Sh Urumqi 8/18 S 8/20 S
17/26 Haikou 25/31 T 23/32 C Wuhan 16/27 C 17/27 C
17/22 15/25
16/25 Hangzhou 15/26 S 15/27 S Xi'an 14/29 C 16/30 O
25/38 Harbin 4/17 C 5/15 C Xiamen 22/24 C 20/28 C Abu Dhabi 24/37 S 25/38 S BuenosAires 16/22 R 14/20 C
24/35 21/24 Hefei 14/28 S 14/27 C Xining 3/23 C 6/18 C
24/29 21/27 Bangkok 26/35 D 26/34 D Caracas 26/27 D 26/26 O
23/26 Hohhot 3/22 S 9/26 S Yantai 11/17 S 12/24 S Colombo 25/32 D 24/31 D Chicago 18/18 R 15/17 D
23/33 Hongkong 25/31 T 23/26 T Yinchuan 8/27 C 13/30 C Dubai 26/38 S 28/38 S Houston 23/26 D 24/25 D
25/31 Jinan 13/23 S 17/29 S Zhengzhou 13/29 S 15/29 C
23/35 23/26 Hanoi 25/27 R 22/30 D Las Vegas 14/23 S 14/23 S
Kunming 12/16 R 11/18 R Zhuhai 24/29 Sh 22/26 C Islamabad 20/31 D 19/33 S Los Angeles 13/16 S 14/20 S
Lanzhou 10/28 C 13/27 S Jakarta 24/32 C 25/31 D Mexico city 18/19 D 18/21 D
26/35 Lhasa 5/15 O 6/16 C
26/34 Karachi 27/40 S 26/37 S New York 16/22 C 20/24 D
Lijiang 10/20 Sh 10/21 D Kuala Lumpur 25/28 D 24/28 D Ottawa 13/17 D 14/17 O
23/31 Macao 24/29 Sh 22/26 C Rio De Janeiro 22/23 D 24/26 D
24/34 24/31 26/35 Manila 26/35 D 27/34 D
27/34 Nanchang 19/26 C 18/25 O Mumbai 25/34 S 25/33 D San Francisco 12/15 D 12/14 C
24/33 Nanjing 13/26 S 13/27 S Athens 16/27 C 19/26 C
Berlin 11/12 D 10/14 O New Delhi 25/38 C 24/35 C Sao Paulo 17/22 D 17/24 C
Nanning 23/29 R 23/30 Sh Pyongyang 8/18 D 6/21 C Vancouver 10/16 O 11/16 D
25/28 Qingdao 12/22 S 11/19 S Brussels 6/11 D 5/11 D
24/28 Geneva 6/11 D 5/13 D Riyadh 18/32 S 20/34 S Washington 13/25 O 18/25 O
Sanya 25/31 C 25/31 C Seoul 7/17 C 8/21 S
Istanbul 14/26 S 16/25 S
24/28 London 8/11 C 6/11 C Singapore 24/28 D 24/28 D
24/28 Madrid 0/14 C 3/16 C Sydney 15/25 O 21/24 D Cairo 25/39 C 24/34 C
Moscow 10/22 D 6/22 S Teheran 14/20 D 16/20 D CapeTown 14/22 S 13/25 S
24/32 Paris 7/13 D 6/15 C Tokyo 18/26 D 17/23 C Johannesburg 6/18 D 4/16 C
25/31 Rome 17/19 D 16/20 D Wellington 10/15 S 12/17 C Lagos 26/28 O 27/28 D
Vienna 14/17 O 14/19 D Yangon 23/33 D 23/35 D Nairobi 14/24 D 12/26 D
 CHINA DAILY Thursday, May 3, 2018
TOP NEWS
Book shows how rural life molded Xi
Liangjiahe is described as ‘quite
readable, especially for teenagers’
By HUO YAN in Xi’an and
ZHANG YI in Beijing
Liangjiahe, a book about
President Xi Jinping’s seven
years as an “educated youth”
in the small village of Liang-
jiahe in Shaanxi province, was
issued by Shaanxi People’s
Publishing House in Xi’an on
Wednesday.
From 1969 to 1975, Xi lived
and worked in the village as
part of a campaign launched
by Chairman Mao Zedong that
asked urban youth to experi-
ence life working in rural areas.
DPRK talks drive up
Dandong home costs
By REN XIAOJIN
and WU YONG
Soaring home prices in
Dandong, a city bordering the
Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea in Liaoning prov-
ince, is an irrational market
reaction based on hopes that
a continuing series of talks
will lead to increased com-
merce, according to an expert
in border studies.
Housing prices in Xincheng
district, a new housing area
on the outskirts of Dandong,
jumped 57 percent overnight,
according to a report in Secu-
rities Times. Dandong is right
across the Yalu River from
Sinuiju, DPRK.
“Hotel rooms are experi-
encing high demand and pri-
ces have gone up, though it is
hard to say whether it’s relat-
ed to visiting property hunt-
ers or seasonal travel,” said
Yuan Xiaoyu, marketing man-
ager at Friend Plaza Hotel in
Dandong. “But housing pri-
ces in Xincheng district have
indeed increased. We locals
all feel it is an unusual phe-
nomenon.”
But Lyu Chao, a researcher
of border studies at the Liao-
ning Academy of Social Scien-
ces, called the price boom an
irrational investment behav-
ior based on overoptimistic
assumptions.
“Housing prices in Dan-
dong have always been a
reflection of the China-DPRK
relationship,” Lyu said. “Peo-
ple’s confidence in future
trade is growing. It is certain
to say the trading relation-
ship will become better, but it
is still at the beginning stage,
and it is too early to say the
economy of Dandong will
soar in the short term.”
The hopes appear based on
such developments as DPRK
leader Kim Jong-un’s recent
meeting with Republic of
Korea President Moon Jae-in,
State Councilor and Foreign
Minister Wang Yi’s trip to the
DPRK, and Kim’s plans for a
Education: Research highlighted
From page 1
teachers. He praised their con-
tribution to cultivating excel-
lent students who are needed
by the Party and the people.
Xi spoke highly of the
achievements that Peking Uni-
versity has made in scientific
research and innovation. Chi-
na must rely on itself to devel-
op key technologies and boost
innovation, he said.
The president also viewed
an exhibition on Marxism, and
told foreign students that to
learn about China, they should
first learn about Chinese his-
tory, culture, development
and, especially, Marxism in
China today.
This year marks the 120th
anniversary of the founding of
Peking University. Hao Ping,
the university’s Party secre-
Xi has spoken on several
occasions about how he bene-
fited from his experiences
working in the small commu-
nity hidden among the valleys
of the Loess Plateau in Yan-
chuan county.
“Readers will know how
the young Xi Jinping grew up
in adversity in this book,
acquired knowledge in a cave
dwelling, gained spiritual
strength and gradually estab-
lished a firm belief in doing
practical work for the peo-
ple,” said Hui Xiping, presi-
dent of the publishing house.
meeting with US President
Donald Trump.
Still, Lyu said he does not
expect the current housing
price boom to last long.
“Dandong is China’s largest
border and trading city with
DPRK, with over 70 percent to
80 percent of that trade vol-
ume going through Dandong,”
Lyu said. “Diplomatic rela-
tions with the DPRK directly
affect the local economy.”
But, he said, Dandong has
previously seen similar short-
lived property price jumps.
“When the New Yalu River
Bridge was built, housing pri-
ces in Xincheng district
soared. But the bridge has not
yet been put into operation,
and prices dropped back
again,” Lyu said. Construc-
tion on the bridge started in
2011, but while it is mostly
complete, it sits unused.
Liang Qidong, assistant
dean of Liaoning Academy
of Social Sciences, said prices
in Xincheng district have
been low.
“The real estate market in
Dandong has not performed
well in recent years, especial-
ly in Xincheng district, which
is too far from the center of
town, making locals not so
interested in it. Now the
DPRK has shown optimistic
signals and the local develop-
er started to seize the oppor-
tunity,” Liang said.
“Also, the local government
should be concerned about
the irrational price increase
and take action if necessary.
After a short market spurt, I
think people will take a ration-
al attitude toward the future
relations between the two
countries and its effect on
Dandong’s property market.”
Yang Hongxu, deputy
director of E-House China, a
real estate services provider,
also warned that people need
to be cautious about buying
houses in Dandong.
Contact the writers at ren-
xiaojin@chinadaily.com.cn
tary; Wang Bo, a philosophy
professor; and Song Xi, an
undergraduate student major-
ing in psychology, reported to
Xi on their work, research and
study conditions.
Highlighting that Marxism
is the CPC’s guiding thought,
the president said students
should be taught with opin-
ions and measures of Marx-
ism.
Xi emphasized the impor-
tance of establishing a high-
quality force of teachers with
reliable political quality and
skillful abilities.
Enhancing the Party’s lead-
ership and building is an
important part of building a
high-level system to cultivate
top talents, Xi said, adding
that the Party’s leadership
over universities must be
upheld.
The book has been availa-
ble for 36 yuan ($5.65) at Xin-
hua Bookstores nationwide
since Wednesday. It will be
available through online
stores soon and will be trans-
lated into English this year,
the publisher said.
The nonfiction book, with a
total of 102,000 words and 40
pictures, is divided into four
parts.
The first part depicts Xi’s
deep feelings and concerns
for his fellow villagers in
Liangjiahe over the past 40
years, including the vivid
scenes of his two return trips
to the village.
Part two is about Xi’s con-
tribution to the village during
his seven years’ stay, includ-
Nobel winner gets permanent residency ID
Bernard L. Feringa of the Netherlands, one of three winners of the 2016 Nobel Prize in chemistry, shows his Chinese permanent resi-
dent identification card accompanied by his wife in Shanghai on Wednesday. Shanghai gave permanent IDs to seven foreigners that
day. China is pushing to attract top-quality talent from around the world. FAN JUN / XINHUA
US report says trade war would destroy jobs
By CHEN WEIHUA
in Washington
chenweihua@
chinadailyusa.com
The proposed United
States tariffs on imports from
China, and the retaliation
promised by China, would
cost up to hundreds of thou-
sands of US jobs and greatly
harm the economy, according
to a new study.
The study shows that the
proposed tariffs on $50 bil-
lion of Chinese imports
announced by the adminis-
tration of US President
Donald Trump on April 3
and the proportional retalia-
tion China announced the
following day would reduce
annual US GDP by nearly $3
billion and destroy 134,000
US jobs. US GDP in the first
quarter of 2018 was $19.97
trillion, according to the US
After hearing that Peking
University has made outstand-
ing achievements in building
itself into a world-class univer-
sity in recent years, Xi said
that only when the country
becomes world class will there
be world-class universities.
During the talks, the presi-
dent also shared with students
his experience in reading
books. Knowledge and aca-
demic research should be inte-
grated with reality, Xi said.
Xi said that through reading
books about Marxism-Lenin-
ism, he developed independ-
ent thoughts at an early age
and found that Marxism is the
truth.
The CPC’s leading status is
chosen by both the people and
history, Xi said, adding that
socialism is the only path for
China’s development.
ing how he led local villagers
in building a dam and biogas
digester and promoting the
iron industry, as well as his
hardworking attitude and
self-cultivation amid adversi-
ty.
Part three explains what
Xi’s close friends in the village
learned from him and how
that knowledge influenced
their lives.
The last part describes the
tremendous changes in
Liangjiahe in the past 40
years, especially the villagers’
happy lives in the past five
years.
Chen Li, an editor, said the
book took one and a half years
to compile and represented
the work of about 30 people.
Commerce Department.
Four jobs would be lost for
every one gained from the
tariff actions, according to the
study conducted by Washing-
ton-based consulting firm
Trade Partnership Worldwide
LLC on behalf of the National
Retail Federation and the
Consumer Technology Asso-
ciation. It was released on
Tuesday.
“As administration officials
prepare to head to China for
trade talks, the livelihoods of
American workers hang in
the balance. … We must
resolve this trade dispute
without resorting to job-kill-
ing tariffs and retaliation,”
NRF President and CEO
Matthew Shay said in a state-
ment.
The study warns that slap-
ping tariffs on an additional
$100 billion of Chinese
imports would come at an
Two for tea
Students of Shanxi Agricultural University demonstrate the art
of making tea on campus on Wednesday. The university held a
traditional cultural show to welcome China’s Youth Day on
Friday. CAO YANG / XINHUA
“We’ve done thorough
research and interview work,”
she said. “We talked to the vil-
lagers and referred to histori-
cal materials in libraries and
the newspaper at the time to
ensure an accurate, vivid and
touching story.”
“Sometimes people’s mem-
ories from 40 years ago are
not very clear, so we’ve
checked different sources to
ensure the accuracy of every
single word,” Chen said, add-
ing that the team revised the
book 45 times.
“This book is quite reada-
ble, especially for teenagers.
They’ll see the growth of a
great leader in hardship,
which is beneficial to their
future life,” she added.
even bigger cost to the US
economy, decimating 455,000
jobs and shrinking annual
GDP by $49 billion.
Trump threatened new
tariffs on an additional $100
billion in Chinese imports a
day after China announced
its retaliation proposals on
products ranging from soy-
beans to cars and planes.
China responded by pledg-
ing it will “fight back reso-
lutely”.
“Rising costs on farmers,
manufacturers and service
providers isn’t the answer; it
shows protectionism will
weaken America,” CTA Presi-
dent and CEO Gary Shapiro
said. He added that the tariffs
could wipe away the benefits
of the recent tax reform and
bring uncertainty to US busi-
nesses.
The study shows that the
tariffs’ effect would be felt
Hui, president of the pub-
lisher, said he believes the
book is of great significance
for understanding the forma-
tion of Xi Jinping Thought on
Socialism with Chinese Char-
acteristics for a New Era, and
he expects it will “arouse
widespread attention among
readers throughout the coun-
try”.
Wu Jian, a local resident in
his 50s who attended the
book’s launch on Wednesday,
said changes in the little vil-
lage of Liangjiahe also show
China's rural development in
the past 40 years of reform
and opening-up.
Contact the writers at zhang-
yi1@chinadaily.com.cn
across various sectors of the
US economy, but agriculture
would be hit especially hard.
The net income of farmers
would decline by 6.7 percent,
and 67,000 agriculture jobs
would be lost.
The hit to farmers would
more than double if the tariffs
expanded to an additional
$100 billion of products.
Farmer income would drop
by 15 percent, and jobs in the
sector would decline by
181,000.
The report says that the tar-
iffs plus retaliation would
hurt every US state, including
those in the Rust Belt, many
of which voted for Trump in
the 2016 presidential elec-
tion.
The Trump administration
has not released any research
that quantifies the impact of
the tariffs on the US economy
and jobs.
Tibet: Industries
shifting to the west
From page 1
exhibitions, according to
the Shigatse government.
By the end of next year, the
zone’s output value aims to
hit 350 million yuan,
accounting for up to 10 per-
cent of that of Shigatse.
The Shigatse zone signals
that industrial transfers are
shifting further to the west,
which benefits the whole
country, said Sang Bai-
chuan, an economics profes-
sor at the University of
International Business and
Economics in Beijing.
“East China, like Shanghai,
excels in talents and capital,
and there’s a growing trend for
the East to seek cooperation
3
Study looks
for causes
of birth
defects
By WANG XIAODONG
wangxiaodong@
chinadaily.com.cm
New research involving half a
million pregnant women across
China is expected to greatly
improve control and prevention
of risks related to birth defects,
which are likely to increase with
the adoption of the universal
second-child policy.
Based on the findings,
researchers will build China’s
first database of birth defect
risks and map out strategies for
monitoring and prevention,
according to Beijing Obstetrics
and Gynecology Hospital, Cap-
ital Medical University, which
is leading the research.
The program, launched on
April 20, will cover 33 hospitals
in 17 provinces and municipali-
ties and follow 500,000 preg-
nant women — the largest-scale
such research ever conducted in
China. Over 2,500 pregnant
women volunteered to take
part, and 4,538 samples have
been collected, including a trial
period from Nov 20 to April 20.
The samples included blood,
urine and placenta, said Yue
Wentao, chief of the science and
technology department at Bei-
jing Obstetrics and Gynecology
Hospital, which collected the
first samples.
Researchers will use the
samples to analyze risk factors
for major birth defects and use
big data technology to single
out factors that may cause
them, such as environment,
heritage and chronic diseases,
and establish a risk evaluation
system, Yue said.
“Most of the causes of birth
defects are still unknown, and
some birth defects can only be
spotted at later stages of preg-
nancy,” Yue said. “If we are clear
on the causes, we can tell preg-
nant women who may have risk
factors for such a birth at an ear-
ly stage of their pregnancy so
they can make a choice as early
as possible. We can also do better
in the prevention and control of
risks ... to reduce birth defects.”
More than one million sam-
ples will be collected, Yue said,
adding that all the samples will
be open for sharing with inter-
national communities for coop-
eration in research, control and
prevention of birth defects.
The hospital has been pro-
viding training to other hospi-
tals involved in the project so
all the samples are collected
under the same standards and
procedures, he said.
The number of babies born
with defects in China is estimat-
ed at 900,000 per year, accord-
ing to Yin Chenghong, vice-
president of the hospital and in
charge of the research program.
China adopted the universal
second-child policy at the start
of 2016. Of the 90 million wom-
en eligible to have a second
child thanks to the policy, more
than half are over 40 years old,
increasing birth defect risks.
with the West in the industrial
transfer,” he said.
Sang also noted the focus
of the national Tibet assist-
ance program is gradually
shifting to “forming blood”
rather than “getting blood
transfusions”, which is evi-
denced by the economic
development zone.
“Compared with lending
money to the underdevel-
oped region in the very
beginning, Shanghai now
cultivates clusters of indus-
tries in Shigatse, which
helps boost local economic
development in a sustaina-
ble way,” the professor said.
Contact the writers at
lilei@chinadaily.com.cn
4
CHINA
Thursday, May 3, 2018
CHINA DAILY » CHINADAILY.COM.CN/
9 guilty of rioting in
2016 HK disturbance
By ASKA CHEONG
in Hong Kong
askacheong@chinadailyhk.com
Nine people were convicted
of rioting during a disturbance
in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok dis-
trict on Lunar New Year’s eve
in 2016 — an incident in which
130 people were injured,
including 90 police officers.
All nine were taken into
police custody.
Magistrate Kwok Wai-kin
postponed sentencing until
May 23 to allow time to get
reports from the training cen-
ter, detention center and local
community service authorities.
There were 11 defendants
altogether, from age 18 to 71.
One fled to Taiwan and anoth-
er pleaded guilty and was
released on bail until sentenc-
ing. The remaining nine
defendants, who pleaded not
guilty, were convicted.
One of the defendants, Mo
Jia-tao, was also convicted of
one count of criminal damage
to a police car.
There were about 70 wit-
ness for the prosecution in the
case.
Under Hong Kong statutes,
rioting carries a maximum
sentence of 10 years imprison-
ment.
A police officer testified that
he was attacked on the way to
save injured colleagues and
Tools for teaching
Teachers check out virtual reality goggles during a VR course at Suzhou
Jinchang Experimental Primary School in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, on
Wednesday. The teachers, from the city’s Gusu district, are expected to
use the technology to enrich their teaching methods.
HUA XUEGEN / FOR CHINA DAILY
Parents get assistance
in finding right names
By ZHENG CAIXIONG
in Guangzhou
zhengcaixiong@
chinadaily.com.cn
A new service in Guang-
dong province helps parents
avoid giving their children
names that are too common.
By consulting a WeChat
account maintained by the
Guangdong Public Security
Department, you can find out
how many others have used a
particular name.
According to the household
registration department, hun-
dreds of thousands of male
Cantonese use the characters
qiang, wei and hua in their
given names, while hundreds
of thousands of females have
used ying, xin and fang.
The country’s most popu-
lous province, with a popula-
tion of more than 100 million,
has more than 100,000 people
named Li Wei and Li Qiang.
Qiang indicates “strong” while
wei means “great” in Chinese.
Huang Chunxin, a macy counter after hearing
Guangzhou mother, said she
would not have named her
daughter Chen Kexin if the ser-
vice had been introduced sev-
en years ago.
“There are two Chen Kexins
in my daughter’s grade, and
teachers have to call my
daughter Little Chen Kexin, as
she is two months younger
than the other Chen Kexin,”
was left unconscious. One of
his teeth was broken, and his
right hand and leg were
injured. A female police offi-
cer’s hand was fractured.
A chief inspector described
how bricks thrown by protest-
ers were “falling down like
rain” in Mong Kok. He was hit
in the back of his head by
bricks and needed stitches to
close the wound.
Prosecutors argued that the
defendants assembled illegal-
ly, breached the peace by burn-
ing garbage bins and beat
police officers.
The defendants’ lawyers
argued that police actions
caused the situation to deteri-
orate and provoked the
defendants’ need for self-de-
fense. Some of those found
guilty claimed that they were
there to watch the “peanut
show”, not to participate.
However, Kwok concluded
that the defendants collectively
breached the peace and used
violence. Prosecutors do not
need to prove the protesters’
motivations or goals, Kwok said.
The Mong Kok riot involved
hundreds of masked protest-
ers, some of whom hurled
bricks pried from the pave-
ment and set fires in garbage
bins in the early morning of
Feb 9, 2016. Around 70 people
were arrested in connection
with the disturbances.
There are two
Chen Kexins in my
daughter’s grade,
and teachers have
to call my daughter
Little Chen Kexin.”
Huang Chunxin, mother in
Guangzhou
Huang said. Huang’s daughter
is in second grade at a primary
school in Yuexiu district.
Wang Xuexiong, an office
worker in Guangzhou, also
regretted naming his son Wang
Jun after he met another Wang
Jun in a hospital last year.
When he and his son
approached the hospital’s phar-
someone call out the name, they
were told the medicine was not
for his 4-year-old son, who had
a cough and fever, but was hem-
orrhoid medication for another
Wang Jun in his 40s.
The special WeChat account
also provides household regis-
tration, ID applications,
online and mobile payments
and express mail services.
Volunteer doctor
A doctor from Beijing treats a Qiang ethnic woman in Wenchuan county, Sichuan province, on Tuesday. More than 600 volunteers from
the capital provided free medical services to Tibetan and Qiang ethnic people in the county during a public welfare event ahead of the
10th anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake, which falls on May 12. More than 69,000 people died in the earthquake.
CAO BOYUAN / FOR CHINA DAILY
Satellite services offered
for Earth observations
China sets up system of sharing
to help other countries spot risks
By HOU LIQIANG
houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn
China has established an
emergency mechanism
using its meteorological sat-
ellites to help countries
involved in the Belt and
Road Initiative combat
extreme weather, the China
Meteorological Administra-
tion announced at a news
conference on Wednesday.
“With the backdrop of glob-
al warming, the tendency is
for extreme weather events to
increase, both in number and
effect. This has greatly threat-
ened people’s lives and prop-
erty,” said Zhang Zuqiang,
spokesman for the top nation-
al weather authority.
He said the emergency
mechanism was established
in response to a request
from the World Meteorologi-
cal Organization in mid-
April to get more
observations of the Indian
Ocean region through Chi-
na’s geostationary satellites.
Countries along the Belt
Scientists find Roman ruins using orbiting eye
By ZHANG ZHIHAO
zhangzhihao@
chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese scientists recently
discovered 10 new archaeo-
logical sites in Tunisia dating
to ancient Rome using Chi-
nese space-based remote
sensing technology.
The archaeological sites
are located in three Tunisian
provinces — Gafsa, Tataouine
and Medenine — Tunisian
Culture Minister Mohamed
Zine El-Abidine said at a
recent news conference.
The discoveries include
two Roman forts, three giant
water basins, an irrigation
system, a cemetery and three
fortified Roman military
roads lined with walls and
watchtowers.
It is the first time Chinese
remote-sensing technology
has been used to locate
archaeological sites in other
and Road routes could apply
to tap into the mechanism
through their permanent del-
egates to the organization or
other representatives they
appoint, he said.
Once the mechanism is
activated, the China Meteoro-
logical Administration will
make frequent observations
of areas stricken by meteoro-
logical disasters — every five
to six minutes — and the
information will be offered to
the affected countries to sup-
port their disaster control
and relief efforts, Zhang said.
“The technology of China’s
Fengyun meteorological satel-
lites is mature after years of
development. They could mon-
itor emerging meteorological
and environmental disasters in
certain areas,” Zhang said.
He added that China has
gained rich experience
through intensified satellite
observations ahead of
typhoons and other heavy
storms that it can share
internationally in cases of
emergency.
countries, said Wang Xinyuan,
a researcher from the Chinese
Academy of Sciences’ Institute
of Remote Sensing and Digital
Earth.
Wang, a leader of the effort,
said a team of Chinese, Tuni-
sian, Italian and Pakistani sci-
entists found the sites under a
project called the Digital Belt
and Road.
“The project is monumen-
tal in improving coordination
and cooperation between
Chinese and foreign scientific
communities,” he said.
The new sites shed light on
how the ancient Roman mili-
tary defended its southern
borders and supported its
logistics, Wang said. Tunisia
was also part of the Maritime
Silk Road and home to many
major Roman ports, hence
the sites will allow better
understanding of ancient
trade routes and ecological
change, he said.
Remote sensing technology provides
a nonintrusive yet extremely accurate
method of examining fragile archaeological sites.”
Wang Xinyuan, researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of
Remote Sensing and Digital Earth
A model of the Fengyun IV meteorological satellite is displayed
during an exhibition in Shanghai. DING TING / XINHUA
Lin Weixia, an official at the
National Satellite Meteoro-
logical Center, said China’s
Fengyun meteorological sat-
ellites are now capable of cov-
ering central and western
Asia and the Indian Ocean
region. Services will be
extended to some countries
in East Africa after China
launches one more meteoro-
logical satellite in June.
China has launched 16
Fengyun satellites in the past
50 years. Nine of them are cur-
rently in service. The satellites
Bai Guangming, a cultural
counselor from the embassy
of the People’s Republic of
China in Tunisia, said China’s
advanced remote sensing
technologies will provide
great scientific support for
strengthening cultural
exchanges between countries
involved in the Belt and Road
Initiative.
Remote sensing refers to
photography, infrared imag-
ing, lasers and other meth-
ods to gather information
from an object or natural
phenomena without making
physical contact.
It has been widely used in
the military and most Earth
science disciplines, includ-
ing geology, hydrology and
ecology.
In 1906, Lieutenant Philip
Henry Sharpe of the British
Royal Engineers pioneered
the use of aerial photography
to study ancient monuments
now serve more than 70 coun-
tries and regions and about
2,500 domestic users, the
administration said.
Lin said China has kept
pace with international mete-
orological leaders with its
Fengyun III and Fengyun IV
series, and some applications
are world-leading. The high-
orbit detector on Fengyun IV
satellites, for example, has no
competing application.
Fengyun satellites are a
series of remote sensing mete-
orological satellites.
by taking the first aerial shots
of Stonehenge from a balloon.
“Remote sensing technolo-
gy provides a nonintrusive
yet extremely accurate meth-
od of examining fragile
archaeological sites, and it
saves time, money and man-
power because less field work
is needed,” Wang said.
Remote sensing technolo-
gies boomed in the 1960s
with the introduction of satel-
lite- and aircraft-based tech-
nologies that allow scientists
to collect even more abstract
data such as temperature,
wind speed and humidity
over a greater area.
“With these data, scientists
and preservationists can for-
mulate more accurate and
effective plans to repair or
protect archaeological sites,”
Wang said. “Remote sensing
is a unique and effective way
of finding obscured artifacts
in the wild.”
Briefly
BEIJING
1.92m visitors go to
parks over holiday
About 1.92 million people
visited Beijing’s 11 munici-
pal parks and the Museum
of Chinese Gardens and
Landscape Architecture
during the recent May Day
holiday. The top three most-
visited parks were the Sum-
mer Palace (374,000),
Beijing Zoo (293,000) and
Beihai Park (223,000),
according to the Beijing
parks administration.
Around 20 cultural events
were held in parks across
the city, and some will con-
tinue until the end of May.
Quake hits off
Taiwan’s east coast
A magnitude-5.2 earthquake
shook the ocean floor off the
eastern coast of the island’s
Hualien county at 7:47 am
on Wednesday, according to
the China Earthquake Net-
works Center. The epicenter,
at a depth of 15 km, was
monitored at about 23.97
degrees north latitude and
122.29 degrees east longi-
tude, the center said.
INNER MONGOLIA
Thieves damage
Great Wall section
Illegal excavations have left
a dozen holes under a sec-
tion of Qin Dynasty Great
Wall that was built more
than 2,000 years ago in the
Inner Mongolia autono-
mous region. Police in Guy-
ang county said on
Wednesday that they had
arrested two suspects who
allegedly dug for relics such
as coins and arrowheads
along the wall. Inner Mon-
golia boasts a 7,570-km
stretch of wall, or 35 per-
cent of the total length. The
investigation found that
the suspects had purchased
metal detectors to search
for underground relics.
HEBEI
Red tourism site
passes 1m mark
Xibaipo, a major revolu-
tionary site in North Chi-
na, received more than
1 million visitors in the
first four months of this
year, an increase of 11 per-
cent year-on-year. Xibaipo,
in Pingshan county, Hebei
province, was a revolu-
tionary base where the
leadership of the Commu-
nist Party of China was
garrisoned from May 1948
until early 1949, drawing
up the blueprint for a new
country and preparing for
the CPC’s new leading
role. More than 130,000
people visited the revolu-
tionary site during the
recent three-day holiday.
Red tourism sites have
seen growing popularity
in recent years.
GUIZHOU
6 leaf monkeys
born at reserve
Six Francois’ langurs, or leaf
monkeys, have been born in
a nature reserve in Guizhou
province since March, the
reserve administration said
on Wednesday. The new-
borns are creamy yellow
and will take a year to grow
into a medium-sized pri-
mate with black, silky hair,
said Wu Ankang, director of
the Mayanghe National
Nature Reserve. Currently
there are about 550 Fran-
cois’ langurs in the reserve,
and the number is increas-
ing, Wu said.
XINHUA
 CHINA DAILY Thursday, May 3, 2018
Railways in China
were dirty, noisy,
but not anymore
Old-timers recall evolution from
coal-fired boilers to electricity
By LYU QIUPING
Xinhua
A train loaded with 41 steel
shipping containers depart-
ed from Tangshan, Hebei
province, in late April, mark-
ing the inauguration of an
additional line of freight
between China and Europe.
The train was scheduled to
travel 11,000 kilometers in 16
days to the Belgian city of Ant-
werp through Kazakhstan,
Russia, Belarus, Poland and
Germany.
By March, freight trains
were operating between 43
Chinese cities and 41 cities in
13 European countries, becom-
ing a major means of freight
transport between them.
Tangshan, a coastal city
some 150 km from Beijing, is
known for its coal resources
and steel industry.
In 1881, a 9.7-km rail line
from Tangshan to Xuge-
zhuang, Hebei province,
opened for coal transport.
Designed by British engineer
Claude W. Kinder, it was the
first line with a global-stan-
dard track gauge of 1,435 milli-
meters in China.
As the conservative imperi-
al family of the Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911) believed noisy
moving locomotives with
steam and smoke were inaus-
picious and would disturb the
souls resting in the imperial
tombs not far away, carriages
on the line were approved
only when pulled by horses
and mules.
Coal carriers
Earlier, local coal had to be
carried out on horseback to
the seaport before it was
loaded on ships to Shandong
province for use, said Liu Fu-
zeng, deputy Party chief of
the Tangshan locomotive
operations and maintenance
section of the Beijing Railway
Bureau. The bureau manages
railway operations in Beijing,
Tianjin and Hebei.
The line was later extended
to Mukden, now called Shen-
yang, in Liaoning province,
transporting cargo and pas-
sengers.
During the extension
project, Zhan Tianyou, a Yale
graduate and designer of a
railway bridge along the line
— Luanhe Bridge — drew the
attention of the government,
Liu said.
Zhan was later appointed
as chief designer of the Bei-
jing-Zhangjiakou line, the
first railway designed and
built by China in the early
20th century. It is still in use.
“Although the design and
construction were done by
Chinese people, all parts —
including every single spike
— was brought in from
abroad,” said Gu Lin, a man-
ager at Tangshan South Sta-
tion, the starting point of the
Tangshan-Xugezhuang line.
While the line was being
Female panda is turned into plastic for museum display
By HUANG ZHILING
in Chengdu
huangzhiling@
chinadaily.com.cn
The public can expect to see
more exhibitions of pre-
served giant pandas now that
the world’s first specimens
have been converted into
plastic and put on display at
the Mystery of Life Museum
in Chengdu, Sichuan prov-
ince.
The exhibition, which
opened last week, is free until
the end of June.
The plastinated muscles,
built, a locomotive designed
by Kinder was secretly being
assembled with a second-
hand boiler and cylinders.
The locomotive, put into
use in 1881, was called “Rock-
et of China”, according to a
book by British writer Peter
Crush, Imperial Railways of
North China.
Having no idea of what a
rocket was, the “fire-breath-
ing, smoke- and steam-puff-
ing monster” was dubbed
“the dragon” by Chinese mine
workers.
Li Zhensheng, 57, joined the
locomotive’s crew as a boiler
worker after he retired from
the military in 1986. He and
the assistant driver had to
take turns stoking the fire
with coal, spade by spade. The
water they drank was filled
with coal dust.
127,000
kilometers
Total length of railway
network in China in 2017
As the boiler blocked the
drivers’ view in the front, they
had to pop their heads out of
the side window constantly
for safety checks. Many of
them developed shoulder and
neck problems.
When Li served as an assist-
ant driver of a diesel-powered
locomotive in 1989, he consid-
ered it “leapfrog progress”.
“No more dirty coal, dusty
air and constant stretching
outside, and we even had fans
and an electric stove,” he said.
When the electric locomo-
tives came to the line in 2010,
drivers even got air condition-
ing and a microwave oven.
“The trains became faster
and faster, and more and
more comfortable,” Li said.
Wang Lanbiao, a locomo-
tive maintenance worker, said
the reduced vibration of the
trains was partly attributable
to the shock-absorber tech-
nology.
“Unlike trains in the past
that had springs to reduce the
vibrations, now the trains are
equipped with hydraulic
dampeners and even shock-
absorbing air bags,” he said.
A freight train crosses a bridge in Tangshan, Hebei province,
during its 16-day journey to Antwerp, Belgium, in late April.
YANG SHIYAO / XINHUA
internal organs, skin and
skeleton of Xin Ni’er — a
female panda that died in
2016 — can last up to 1,000
years, said Wu Jun, curator of
the museum.
Plastination is a process in
which a liquid polymer is
injected into tissues. When it
hardens, the polymer pre-
serves the tissues indefinitely.
Before injecting the poly-
mer, Sui Hongjin, founder of
the museum, and his team
first dissected the panda’s
body and removed water and
fat from the muscles, internal
organs, skin and skeleton.
TRANSPORTATION
ACTION IN A NEW ERA
On a China-made high-
speed train, which runs as fast
as 350 km per hour, a coin is
able to stand on its edge.
At the new Tangshan Rail-
way Station, 71-year-old
Zhang Shuyun was waiting
for her train to Tianjin’s Bin-
hai New Area. The G1262 train
takes 20 minutes to carry her
home, a mere one-sixth of the
time she would spend 40
years ago.
It was the first time for
Zhang, a former primary
schoolteacher, to revisit Tang-
shan since her retirement 18
years ago.
Smoke and smell
Zhang recalled that in the
past, the train coaches were
full of smoke and unpleasant
odors, and the train was very
crowded, with some passen-
gers standing in lavatories or
sitting on the basins.
“When someone had to use
the toilet, those packed inside
had to get out before letting
him or her in,” she said.
Back then, Tangshan was
the only passage to reach
Northeast China by rail.
Since China began its
reform and opening-up drive
in 1978, a market economy has
resulted in increased freight
and passenger mobility.
The railway network in the
country hit 127,000 km in total
length in 2017, including
25,000 km of high-speed lines.
China also helps build rail-
ways in other countries, such
as Zambia and Kenya.
Increasingly, the railway
lines are built solely using
parts made in China.
The changes are likewise
amazing in urban construc-
tion. Zhang, who hadn’t been
to Tangshan for years, found
herself lost in the city.
“I failed to spot any former
buildings, and I knew none of
the street names mentioned
by the taxi driver,” she said,
adding that she had to call her
former students to pick her
up.
Wu Zhanguo, deputy direct-
or of the railway affairs office
of Tangshan, said construc-
tion had begun on a new sta-
tion complex that would
combine airport, railway, sub-
way and bus facilities.
“Easier traffic will surely
help attract talent here,” he
said.
500,000
yuan
Estimated commercial cost
for the plastination of a
panda. Sui Hongjin’s team
did it for free.
The specimens will also be
used for scientific research
and to enable the public to
understand more about pan-
das, according to Zhang He-
min, executive director of the
Handling the hands
A supersized puppet, controlled by a member of the Snuff Puppets theater company of Melbourne, Australia, interacts with tourists during
a parade near the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, on Tuesday. Seven giant puppets reflecting elements of Xi’an were
co-designed by 26 local artists, along with four others from the Australian troupe, to entertain the public. WEI YONGXIAN / FOR CHINA DAILY
New scrutiny aims at organized crime
By ZOU SHUO
zoushuo@chinadaily.com.cn
Aspiring officials at the
grassroots level will be more
closely scrutinized to prevent
gangsters from being elected
to public office and to prevent
officials from associating
with gangs and committing
crimes, the Ministry of Civil
Affairs said on Wednesday.
The move is part of the
country’s latest effort to crack
down on gang-related crimes.
The ministry will further
supervise election processes
and strengthen qualification
exams for grassroots officials
to prevent any gangsters or
“gangster representatives”
from becoming officials in vil-
lage committees, the ministry
said on its website.
However, local civil affairs
authorities should differenti-
ate between gang-related
crimes and less serious
wrongdoings of grassroots
officials, the statement said.
Wenchang to build supercomputing center
By MA ZHIPING in Haikou
mazhiping@chinadaily.com.cn
The city government of
Wenchang, home of China’s
first tropical and coastal space
launch center, announced
recently that it plans to build
an aerospace supercomputing
center and a big data industry
cluster project in the near
future.
A key part of Wenchang’s
program for developing a
space science and technology
city, the supercomputing
center will help promote
coordinated industrial
growth of local information
technology, aerospace equip-
ment research and design, as
well as life science research
China Conservation and
Research Center for the Giant
Panda in Wenchuan county,
Sichuan.
The province plans to cre-
ate more panda specimens
for educational purposes.
The exhibition details the
evolution of the giant panda.
For example, visitors can
clearly see the four long,
sharp teeth pandas once used
to eat meat before changes in
the environment encouraged
them to start eating bamboo.
To adjust to the change in
eating habits, pandas gradu-
ally developed a sixth finger,
This year’s campaign emphasiz-
es the root of organized crime
— which is collusion between grassroots
officials, gangsters and businessmen.”
Wang Jinxi, professor of law at China University of Political Science
and Law
Village conferences should
be organized by village com-
mittees to deal with minor
wrongdoings of grassroots
officials, so as to not dampen
their enthusiasm for work, it
said.
In January, the Communist
Party of China Central Com-
mittee and the State Council
jointly released a document
announcing the start of a new
round in the campaign
against organized crime. The
campaign targets local offi-
cials who serve as “protective
umbrellas” of criminal gangs.
through the application of
high-performance comput-
ing, cloud computing, big
data and artificial intelli-
gence, a document from the
city government said.
When completed, the super-
computing center will play an
important role in promoting
the country’s satellite applica-
tion research and develop-
ment, the application of high-
resolution data and
development of a big data
industry around spatial infor-
mation.
The city will also help build
an industrial platform for spa-
tial big data and a spatial
remote-sensing cloud big data
platform to serve countries
participating in the Belt and
or a pseudo finger — which,
when seen in the plastinated
skeleton, looks like a human
thumb. It helps the giant pan-
da hold bamboo stalks.
According to an agreement
with the center, Sui’s team
will create plastinated panda
specimens free, Wu said, add-
ing that it would normally
cost about 500,000 yuan
($78,600) to turn Xin Ni’er
into a plastinated specimen.
The Mystery of Life Muse-
um in Chengdu opened in
December 2016 and houses
plastinated human and ani-
mal bodies and organs.
In Guangdong province in
February, Liu Yongtian,
former Party secretary of Liu
village in Guangzhou, was
sentenced to 20 years in pris-
on for crimes including inten-
tional injury, bribery and
blackmail.
Police in Shanxi province
detained 59 village officials so
far this year for organized
crimes involving prostitution,
gambling and selling drugs.
Media reports showed a
so-called village tyrant slap-
ping a resident in the face in
front of a news crew, openly
Road Initiative, city officials
said.
Wenchang is on the eastern
coast of Hainan Island about
80 kilometers from Haikou,
the provincial capital.
Also included in Wen-
chang’s program for develop-
ing a space science and
technology city are an interna-
tional space launch center,
research and development
bases and platforms for inter-
national exchanges and coop-
eration. They will promote the
construction of commercial
launch stations and develop-
ment of high-end aerospace
products.
Wenchang has also includ-
ed an “aerospace plus” indus-
try demonstration park in its
A young visitor views a specimen made from panda Xin Ni’er in
Chengdu, Sichuan province, last month. It is the world’s first plasti-
nated panda specimen. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
CHINA 5
bribing villagers to vote for
them in village elections and
threatening those who
refused to obey their orders
with knives.
Wang Jinxi, a professor of
law at China University of
Political Science and Law,
said that in recent years gangs
have tried to seize political
power at the grassroots level
to monopolize resources in
rural areas.
“Some criminal gangs in
rural areas have affected
social stability and residents’
lives by illegally sabotaging
grassroots elections, monop-
olizing local markets, open-
ing underground casinos,
defrauding villagers and
organizing robberies,” Wang
said.
“Compared with previous
campaigns of this kind, this
year’s campaign emphasizes
the root of organized crime —
which is collusion between
grassroots officials, gangsters
and businessmen,” he said.
space city program. It is
expected to promote the
development of a space theme
park; applications for space
science; research in space
breeding; biological, pharma-
ceutical and aerospace medi-
cal research; and innovation
development.
Construction of the projects
will be open to social and pri-
vate funds, the city said.
With operations beginning
in 2016, the Wenchang Satel-
lite Launch Center — located
about 19 degrees north of the
equator — is suitable for
launching geosynchronous
satellites, heavyweight satel-
lites, large space station com-
ponents and lunar and
interplanetary missions.
6 CHINA
Cyberspace
Government moves to clean up internet content
Social networking and streaming
sites are coming under greater
scrutiny and regulation, as Zhang
Yi reports from Beijing with Liu
Kun in Wuhan.
T
he government is
working to eradicate
inappropriate con-
tent on the internet to
ensure that the web remains
free from obscenity and violent
imagery, and to promote a
healthy culture online.
Last month, the Cyberspace
Administration of China, the
national cyberspace regulator,
ordered online news aggrega-
tor Toutiao and Kuaishou, a
site that shares videos lasting
about 60 seconds, to remove
obscene and violent content
and to close all accounts that
uploaded such content.
The administration also
closed about 5,000 livestream-
ing accounts hosted by minors
— people younger than 18 —
and deleted about 300,000
video clips aired by lives-
treaming youngsters.
The move was aimed at clos-
ing loopholes in the operation
of some online services, which
have been criticized for
attracting viewers without
regard for rules or morality.
Recently, Kuaishou and
Huoshan, a short-video appli-
cation affiliated to Toutiao,
have been widely criticized for
allowing minors to spread
“harmful” content.
Videos of pregnant teenag-
ers or teenage mothers — usu-
ally unmarried and ages 13 to
18 — appeared on the sites,
describing their pregnancies
or their lives as young moth-
ers, and were forwarded to
other sites in an effort to gain
traffic and followers. That’s
despite the fact that sexual
activity with people ages 14 or
younger is defined as rape in
China, while the legal age for
female marriage is 20. More-
over, being a single mother
does not accord with tradi-
tional values.
Senior executives at both
companies pledged to close all
livestreaming accounts hosted
by minors within five days,
intensify regulation of content
and alter the values used to set
the algorithms that decide
which content should be pro-
moted to users.
Growing audience
By the end of last year, there
were 579 million online video
viewers and 422 million lives-
treaming viewers in the coun-
try, according to the China
Internet Network Information
Center.
Meanwhile, according to a
recent report from iiMedia
Research Group, a mobile
internet consultancy, short
videos are becoming increas-
ingly popular, with 242 million
viewers by the end of last year,
a year-on-year rise of more
than 58 percent.
Viewers’ reasons for watch-
ing the videos vary: more than
70 percent use them to kill
time and relax, while approxi-
mately 42 percent said they
also used them to obtain infor-
mation, and about 21 percent
were looking to make friends,
according to the report.
Youngsters revel in era of individuality
By ZHANG YI
Wei Jiaqi has recently taken
up a new hobby; filming and
sharing gesture-dance videos
on Douyin, a short video appli-
cation affiliated to Toutiao, an
online news and information
platform.
“I think it is a good way of
displaying my talent and
recording my life,” said the
first-grade student at Beijing
No 15 Middle School.
“I started using the app in
October after watching many
popular gesture-dance videos
— where performers use their
fingers and hands to pose in
“Cyberspace is not a lawless
place because an online
exchange is also a social rela-
tionship that must abide by the
law and regulations,” said Sun
Jin, head of the Cyberspace
Governance Research Insti-
tute at Wuhan University.
“We appeal to people to
adopt higher ethical stan-
dards, but they must adhere to
the law. Those disseminating
videos of adolescent mothers
are suspected of abetting ille-
gal conduct and promoting
bad influences on society,” he
said.
Moreover, users who upload
“harmful” videos must assume
joint responsibility with the
sites that provide platforms
that help to spread them, he
added.
Yuan Gang, deputy CEO of
livestreaming site Douyu, said
there are rules governing the
registration of minors on the
site.
“We use facial identification
methods for account registra-
tion and users must provide
their ID cards. If they are under
18, they are not allowed to open
an account. However, they are
allowed to do so if they have
written permission from their
guardian. If the minors want to
livestream, their guardian
should aware of it,” he said.
Self-censorship
In response to the authori-
ties’ moves to straighten out
irregularities in content, lives-
treaming and video sites have
vowed to remove harmful con-
tent and increase manpower in
content review.
Zhang Yiming, CEO of Tou-
tiao, posted an apology the
same night as one of its apps
was ordered to close perma-
nently after airing illegal con-
tent. He said he had “spent a
sleepless night, feeling guilty
and blaming himself” for fail-
ing to live up to the trust and
support of the site’s users.
“We have focused on scale,
but have not improved quality
of content in a timely manner,
and we have neglected our
social responsibility to guide
users toward positive informa-
tion,” he said.
“We put a lot of energy and
resources into growing our
enterprise, but we did not take
enough measures to regulate
the platform, including effec-
tive governance of vulgar, vio-
lent, harmful content and false
advertising.”
Zhang said the company
overemphasized the role of
technology without realizing
that it must be guided by the
correct values.
Shortly before Zhang’s apol-
ogy, Su Hua, CEO of Kuaishou,
expressed regret and apolo-
gized for the presence of illegal
content — such as pornogra-
phy and footage of violent acts
— on his site.
He conceded that “the algo-
rithm used by the platform
contains certain values
because humans are responsi-
ble for programming them.
time with rhythmic music —
on it. It’s great fun to add spe-
cial effects and background
music to make the video inter-
esting,” the 13-year-old added.
“I also shoot scenic nature
videos — for example, the cher-
ry blossoms in spring — and
upload them to Douyin to
record the beautiful things in
my life. At the beginning, my
first video only had 10 ‘likes’,
but I was still happy because
someone liked it. I have already
made 95 videos and have about
2,000 followers.”
Short videos — lasting less
than 60 seconds — are gaining
popularity because of the ease
Young people livestream a musical performance from a park on March 25, illustrating the sort of content that meets ethical standards.
“The defect in the algorithm
is a defect in our values. We
neglected the problem for a
long time, but we will not
shirk responsibility or evade
supervision.”
Last month, Toutiao
removed about 10,000 video
clips and closed about 5,000
accounts, while Kuaishou
removed about 310,000 video
clips and closed 65,000
accounts.
The sites’ CEOs promised to
improve editorial responsibili-
ty, with Toutiao saying it will
increase the number of staff
members in its review team
from 6,000 to 10,000, while
Kuaishou will raise numbers
from 2,000 to 5,000.
The sites also promised to
amend their algorithms to add
“correct values”, avoid illegal
and obscene content, and
focus more on protecting
minors.
‘‘Wrong’ values
“Technology itself is neutral,
but the loophole stems from
the wrong values behind the
algorithms programmed by
humans,” said Zhang Xiaoqi-
ang, a professor of journalism
at Chongqing University.
Technically, the term “algo-
rithm” refers to a set of instruc-
tions followed in a fixed
pattern. They are mainly used
for solving math problems and
making computer programs.
“The apps have their own
algorithms, which decide the
content they push to users
based on data and their own
methods of calculation,” Zhang
Xiaoqiang said.
“Different video sites have
different algorithms, and some
are based on users’ personal
habits. For example, on Dou-
yin, a video site attached to
Toutiao, viewers will be offered
videos similar to those they
have already viewed.
“Some have algorithms that
create ‘hot’ items. For example,
when a video reaches a certain
number of views, the platform
with which they can be upload-
ed. The content ranges from
cooking and pets to dancing
and exercise.
By February, Douyin was
ranked third in China by user
numbers. It has about 96 mil-
lion regular users, and an
annual growth rate of 76 per-
cent, the highest in the country,
according to a recent report
from internet consultancy
iiMedia Research Group.
Last year, the company said
that 85 percent of its users were
ages 24 and younger, with
many born after 1995 and even
in the 2000s.
“We are in an era of displaying
Getting the picture
Number of short video sites
users in China
(Unit: million)
242
153
88
56
38
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Top five short video sites by user
numbers in February
(Unit: million)
200
109
96.5
45.3
32.6
u
in
n
pa
gu
ho
ha
uy
iao
Xi
os
ais
Do
M
Hu
Ku
Source: iiMedia Research Group
CHINA DAILY
will push it to all users, send it
to the front page or label it as
hot,” he said.
“As a result, more people will
view it, making it an extremely
popular product. However,
that popularity is man-made.
That way we often encounter
items that are seen as popular
online, but we feel unaffected
after watching them.”
He added that in an infor-
mation-overloaded world,
algorithms are essential tools.
“They are like dippers that
extract what we need from the
sea of information and put it in
front of us. It is easy for vulgar
things to become popular
because poorly educated neti-
zens find them easy to under-
stand,” he said.
“IT engineers at companies
individuality, and younger peo-
ple are eager to show their per-
sonalities,” said Sun Jin, head of
the Cyberspace Governance
Research Institute at Wuhan
University in Hebei province.
“Young people today are will-
ing to share traditionally ‘pri-
vate’ things, including their
lives, work and hobbies, with
strangers via social media.
Meanwhile, there are more
who are curious about others’
private lives. As a result, those
sites link the two sides and pro-
duce a huge market.”
Chen Rui, an associate pro-
fessor at the Institute of Com-
munication Psychology at
Yan Shuang, a school student in Shenyang, Liaoning province, performs acrobatic tricks for viewers of
his livestream on December 15. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
that pursue commercial profit
often focus on technology and
do not have any training in
media ethics, meaning they
may be led astray by video traf-
fic that generates profits.”
Supervision
Chen Rui, an associate pro-
fessor at the Institute of Com-
munication Psychology at
Communication University of
China, said, “The severe
authority order last month was
a blow to the industry. It sig-
naled that service providers
should be self-disciplined and
improve their initiative in con-
tent review.
“These sites should improve
their editorial processes and
raise the qualifications for edi-
tors. The algorithm engineers
need extra training as well,
especially in terms of commu-
nication ethics.”
Zhang Xiaoqiang said sites
must ensure that the people
posting on them are aware of
the regulations that govern
online content.
We are in an era of
displaying individ-
uality, and younger
people are eager to
show their person-
alities.
Sun Jin, head of the Cyberspace
Governance Research Institute at
Wuhan University
Communication University of
China, said, “Some videos on
Douyin are about 15 seconds
duration, so that gives people
Thursday, May 3, 2018 CHINA DAILY
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
“The sites should ensure that
livestreamers and video pro-
viders understand what they
are and are not allowed to do
before they register,” he said.
“Service providers should
not impose restrictions on reg-
istration because it is a good
way for people, especially those
from the grassroots, to gain
recognition. Instead, the sites
should adopt a credit system to
regulate users’ behavior. The
sites can take action against
those with bad credit records.
Service providers should pay
more attention to posters
whose videos attract a large
volume of traffic or those sell-
ing goods or services while
streaming, because they have
greater influence.”
He added that in addition to
guiding the industry with time-
ly policies, the regulators
should encourage the public to
report harmful content,
because the number of users is
rising so quickly that the regu-
lators are unable to keep track.
“A tip- off system could be led
the illusion that they don’t take
up much time. The algorithm
behind the site will send the
viewers more related videos, so
people become addicted
unconsciously.”
To prevent users from
becoming addicted, the plat-
form launched a new auto-lock
function last month, so that it
automatically locks itself after
two hours of use per day.
“I am a disciplined person. I
only spend 30 minutes watch-
ing videos on Douyin on school
days, and it doesn’t affect my
study,” said Wei, who is a class
monitor and a top student.
“My parents encourage me
to show myself on Douyin, but
they tell me to be careful.
Sometimes, I chat with my fans
online, but I am cautious
by social organizations, and the
public could engage with it.
The system could be more
effective if people were reward-
ed for reporting harmful con-
tent,” he said.
Pi Yong, deputy head of the
Cyberspace Governance
Research Institute at Wuhan
University, said the system has
produced a three-layer rela-
tionship: government; internet
service providers; and neti-
zens.
“Without the middle layer,
the government would be una-
ble to manage cyberspace effec-
tively. At the same time, service
providers and netizens rely on
each other, with the former
gaining huge profits from the
latter, so they must find a bal-
ance between commercial
profit and social responsibility,”
he said.
“Breaking the ecology of
cyberspace will not be good for
its operation in the long run.”
Contact the writer at
zhangyi1@chinadaily.com.cn
because they are strangers.”
Li Duojiao, Wei’s head teach-
er, said, “We call her the ‘Douyin
Princess’ in class. Sometimes I
see she has shared her videos
on WeChat, and other students
have given her ‘likes’.
“Teenagers just need a stage
to show off. Even though they
may put themselves at poten-
tial risk, we never stop them
from using the internet, which
is irresistible and part of their
lives. Someday, they will enter
society, where they will
encounter good and bad
things. It is important that they
are capable of telling right from
wrong, and choosing suitable
things for themselves.”
Liu Kun contributed to this
story.
 CHINA DAILY Thursday, May 3, 2018
Elderly experts bringing
science to the masses
Organization’s
efforts in line
with top leader’s
innovation drive
By YUAN QUAN
Many elderly Chinese spend
their retirement looking after
grandchildren or traveling the
world, but for Bai Wuming, 62,
his former career is a labor of
love and he’s helping popular-
ize science among young peo-
ple.
Bai officially retired two
years ago from a 40-year
career in geophysics with the
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
yet he continues to give lec-
tures on earth science in
schools across the country,
including in remote rural are-
as.
He likes to open his presen-
tations with the words “Sci-
ence is all around us” before
conducting small experiments
to captivate the audience’s
attention.
To demonstrate how volca-
noes erupt, Bai invites partici-
pants to come forward and
pour sugar into a bottle of
beer. The sugar produces car-
bon dioxide, which causes the
beer to immediately spray
forth in dramatic fashion.
“I remember my high school
textbook also mentioned vol-
canoes, but my teacher did not
conduct any demonstrations,”
said Zhang Hao, a Tianjin Uni-
versity graduate student who
volunteered to help at one of
Bai’s lectures.
Bai is one of 60 members of
Senior Scientists Public Lec-
tures — an organization under
the academy — having joined
in 2010.
Established in 1997, the
team of male and female
speakers is mainly comprised
of retired researchers in fields
including astronomy, physics,
chemistry and biology.
The oldest member is 90,
but their average age is 68,
with speakers receiving 1,000
yuan ($160) per lecture.
Zhong Qi, founder of the
original team of just eight, said
most of them had little previ-
ous experience in presenting
scientific concepts to the pub-
lic in laymen’s terms despite
having dedicated their careers
to their research.
“I remember my teenage
years in the 1950s, which were
a crucial time for me to devel-
op my mind and body,” Zhong
recalled.
“If we senior scientists can
communicate with people and
arouse their interest in science
and inspire them to explore
Around China
HUBEI
Thief takes phone,
fails to steal wife
A hotblooded mobile phone
thief, surnamed Zhang, was
detained after he attempted to
date the wife of his victim, sur-
named Li, in Wuhan on April
6. Zhang stole Li’s phone at a
cybercafe and then contacted
Li’s wife requesting sex after
he was attracted by photos
stored on the phone. Li’s wife
pretended to agree to meet
Zhang in a hotel, where police
were waiting to detain the
thief.
KANKANNEWS.COM
SHAANXI
Xi’an police tackle
carload of trouble
A parked sedan has been giv-
ing traffic police in Xi’an seri-
ous headaches. The vehicle
was recently parked near
train tracks and forced a pass-
ing cargo train to stop for over
30 minutes before authorities
could tow it away. The train’s
engineer had to hit the emer-
Professor Gao Dengyi, a retired researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a member of Senior Scientists Public Lectures,
takes a photo with students after lecturing at a primary school in Taizhou, Zhejiang province. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Professor Xu Muqi, another member of Senior Scientists Public
Lectures, answers a student’s question after giving a lecture on
water resource protection.
the unknown world in their
youth, I think it would be good
for them and our work.”
The elderly scientists on the
team still take a rigorous atti-
tude when selecting retirees
who apply to join their ranks.
Regardless of titles and
awards, all applicants must
submit a report and take on
gency brakes to avoid collid-
ing with the car. Police are
investigating why the car was
parked there and are seeking
its owner.
HUASHANG DAILY
JIANGSU
Man discovers his
fiancee is related
A man, surnamed Wang, is
weighing up whether to con-
tinue with his marriage plans
after learning his would-be
audition. If the audience feels
the lecture is too difficult to
understand, applications can
be declined. Those expecting
to find fame will likely be
rejected as well.
“You have to make your
lectures interesting and it
can be difficult trying to
explain a formula clearly to
bride in Nanjing is a relative.
Wang, 29, has been told by
officials in the Xuanwu district
marriage registration center
that he can still marry, as the
Marriage Law only prohibits
couples linked within three
generations. Wang’s great-
grandmother is the sister of
his fiancee’s grandmother,
which pushes them past the
legal threshold. However,
experts say the couple should
have a premarital examination
and consult a doctor to see
whether their union might
affect their children’s health.
THEPAPER.CN
SICHUAN
Boss organized
rescue, but sued
A Chengdu restaurant boss
who was praised by authori-
ties and residents three years
ago for organizing his employ-
ees to rescue an elderly wom-
an, surnamed Zhang, from
drowning in a river, said he
was shocked to learn the wom-
an’s family is taking him to
court. Li Chengwei, who runs a
the public. So I don’t think
popularizing science is easier
than doing actual research,”
said geologist Xu Wenyao.
To ignite audience interest,
Xu always makes a music anal-
ogy in his lectures.
“There are two tenors. Can
you tell which one sings bet-
ter?” Xu asked. “The vocalists
say each has his own merits,
but we scientists can use data
and equations to analyze their
voices.”
It’s a winning formula.
“Many students start nod-
ding off when it comes to sci-
ence, especially math, physics
and chemistry. So I am always
thinking how to make these
subjects more accessible and
interesting,” Xu said.
The retirees also hope to
kindle a long-term interest
among their young audiences
in pursuing further scientific
study and research.
The elderly lecturers them-
selves also keep learning,
adapting and improving.
They have mastered making
PowerPoint presentations
and videos, as well as writing
jokes, stories and lyrics that
fill lecture rooms with laugh-
ter.
By 2017, the association had
delivered 23,000 lectures,
mainly in primary and high
schools, to a total audience of
8.2 million. They also lectured
to people at community
events, in prisons, the military
and worshippers at temples.
riverside restaurant, was
thanked by Zhang’s family aft-
er the rescue and offered a
reward, which he declined.
Zhang died in hospital eight
days later, and her family sued
the city’s river management
department. They recently
decided to list Li as a second
defendant, alleging surveil-
lance video showed Zhang fell
into the river because the road
had been made slippery by
dirty water poured by employ-
ees from Li’s restaurant.
THECOVER.CN
ZHEJIANG
Accidental eyeful
at fitness center
A woman (pictured right) has
“I remember once I lectured
at a playground, because the
rural primary school did not
have an auditorium. But the
pupils listened carefully with-
out any distractions,” Xu
recalled.
Yang Xinghua, head of
Tangshan Oriental Interna-
tional School in Hebei prov-
ince, said, “It’s an opportunity
for us to communicate with
accomplished scientists.”
President Xi Jinping has
described scientific innova-
tion and popularization as
“the two wings for realizing
innovation-driven develop-
ment”.
More public figures and
organizations have emerged in
recent years, working on sci-
ence popularization through
social media. But the retired sci-
entists hope more researchers
will take up the cause.
Bai said their advantage lies
in their years of research: “The
content of our lectures is
based on the research we have
done, which is real, scientific
and proprietary. We don’t
allow our speakers to down-
load content from the inter-
net.”
Bai said the team is especial-
ly looking for experts in
emerging subjects such as
artificial intelligence and oce-
anic science. “It is a scientist’s
responsibility to popularize
science,” Bai said.
XINHUA CHINA FEATURES
demanded compensation after
a food deliveryman entered
the women’s dressing room of
a fitness center in Hangzhou
while she was naked. The
woman, surnamed Li, said the
deliveryman had looked at her
for three to four seconds
before leaving. The manager of
the fitness center said the man
had walked into the wrong
room by accident. Li reported
the incident to police, but the
deliveryman had left by the
time officers arrived at the
center. The manager apolo-
gized and offered to refund the
balance of Li’s 2,500 yuan
($400) annual membership
fee — about 1,000 yuan — but
refused to pay compensation.
THECOVER.CN
Woman making
village richer with
fruits of her labor
An enterprising young
woman in eastern China is
hoping a locally grown fruit
and its flowers will help put
her village on the national
map, and enrich its residents
in the process.
When many people from
Siyang county, Jiangsu prov-
ince, left their struggling
hometown years ago they
could little imagine that
throngs of tourists would
one day come to see peach
blossoms.
Song Shanshan, 27, an
entrepreneur known as Ms
Peach, is given credit for this
ongoing transformation.
Born and raised in Zhao-
chen village, Song refused to
believe that her hometown
would remain a “rotten
peach”, a local term for the
poorest place or people. She
returned after graduating
from university in the nearby
city of Huaiyin in 2012, and
after years of hard work now
runs a sofa factory with over
150 million yuan ($23.8 mil-
lion) in annual revenue,
which creates more than 500
jobs.
“I want my fellow villagers
to make money here, instead
of leaving their hometown,”
Song said.
Her dream is becoming a
reality, as the average month-
ly income last year stood at
6,000 yuan per villager, up
from just 1,000 yuan in 2012.
Being a successful busi-
nesswoman did not satisfy
Song’s strong will to change
her hometown, and she also
desired to become a public
servant.
Last year, the city of Suqi-
an — which administers
Siyang — started a recruit-
ment program to attract
more well-educated young
people to become grassroots
officials.
Song became the deputy
Party secretary of Zhaochen
village in August after pass-
ing several exams and per-
forming well in interviews.
Retired judge
uses mediation
to save marriages
By FENG ZHIWEI
in Changsha
and LI LEI in Beijing
A 75-year-old retired judge
in Hunan province has pre-
vented the breakup of more
than 1,000 families in the
past 14 years through his
work as a volunteer media-
tor.
Xie Maoxiang retired in
2003 as associate presiding
judge of the Dapu court in
Hunan’s Hengdong county.
But he did not leave the
court to enjoy a leisurely
retirement. Instead, he offered
to work for free as a mediator
to relieve the pressure on local
judicial resources.
The court, where Xie had
been working since 1982, has
only five employees now, but
it serves a population of
260,000. The situation was
even worse when he was
about to retire.
“There were only three
staff members at the court
then, but lots of lawsuits,” he
said, adding that his experi-
ence as a grassroots judge
was an advantage in media-
tion.
He has since devoted his
time to the mediation of mar-
ital discord to prevent it from
turning into divorce, which
would result in more court
cases. Xie, who cycles to
work on weekdays, likened
marital discord to the
mechanical problems on a
well-used bicycle and said
both can be repaired.
He Yueying, a resident of
Fengshan village, said her
family was grateful for Xie’s
CHINA 7
In China, peach blossoms
symbolize love and romance,
and Taohuayuan (Peach
Blossom Land) is the Chi-
nese term for a utopia filled
with the flowers where kind
people live in prosperity.
Farmers had been growing
peaches in Siyang for hun-
dreds of years but had never
found a way to sell the fruit in
a profitable way.
As a successful entrepre-
neur and a respected Party
official, Song rented 13.3 hec-
tares of land from villagers
and started a peach orchard
last year.
After thorough research,
Song and her team planted
over 20 different varieties of
peaches, installed an
advanced drip irrigation sys-
tem and invited agricultural
technicians to work in the
orchard.
“Of course, the orchard
will not be as profitable as
my furniture business, but
this is a project that will
bring more money to local
residents,” she said.
Song visits her orchard
daily, and has vowed never to
let the peaches rot. “I’ve
made a promise and I can’t
disappoint the villagers.”
March and April, the
peach blossom season, are
the most lively months of the
year in Siyang, as many tour-
ists visit in the county to view
the blossoms.
Garden tours are now pop-
ular among flower and
nature photography enthusi-
asts in China.
When the trees start pro-
ducing fruit in three years,
Song’s orchard will become a
producer and wholesaler of
peaches. She plans to market
and sell the fruit using Chi-
na’s booming e-commerce
industry. The orchard now
provides nearly 500 jobs and
contributes 2 million yuan in
rent to 195 families across
the county every year.
XINHUA
Xie Maoxiang, a retired asso-
ciate presiding judge in Hunan
province
hard work. Eight years ago,
she had a dispute with her
husband and almost got
divorced. Xie cycled for
almost an hour along the
muddy road to the couple’s
house to talk them out of the
decision. After several visits,
the quarreling couple were
reconciled.
“My life would be not as
blissful now were it not for
Xie,” she said.
Wen Yanping, the court’s
presiding judge, said Xie was
patient about the mediation
and his hard work had won
him esteem.
“At least a third of the
quarreling couples go home
after mediation, and many
have dropped divorce cases
after Xie’s efforts,” she said.
Even though he has been
working at the court for 35
years, Xie shows no sign of
slowing down.
“I will stick to my post as
long as my physical condi-
tion allows,” he said.
Contact the writers
at lilei@chinadaily.com.cn
8 Thursday, May 3, 2018

COMMENT
EDITORIAL • OPINION
China Daily
chinadaily.com.cn/opinion

EDITORIALS

Art of a deal is when all Zhao Yubao

parties are happy with it

I
f the high-profile trade negotiations between China and
the United States, scheduled for Thursday and Friday, can
produce positive outcomes, that would not only serve the
interests of both countries but also benefit global trade
and the world economy.
And there is no reason why the negotiations should be
a damp squib if the US delegation led by Treasury Secre-
tary Steven Mnuchin is willing to discuss the bones of contention
between Beijing and Washington with the genuine intent to listen
as well as talk.
Turning a deaf ear to China’s side of the story will mean the del-
egation returns home empty handed, the tit-for-tat tariff propos-
als become a reality, and the whole world, including the US, feels
the subsequent pain.
China wants the talks to produce feasible solutions to put an
end to the ongoing feud and the US’ unfair trade practices.
And it is not alone in wanting this. The US’ unilateral and pro-
tectionist moves have created worldwide uncertainty and met
opposition from an increasing number of countries.
The European Union, for instance, has said bilateral trade with
the US should be “balanced and mutually beneficial”, and stated it
“will not negotiate under threat”.
Nor will China. It will stand up to the US’ bullying as necessary.
And as a champion of globalization, free trade and multilateral-
ism, it will have strong support from the international community.
China’s resolve to fight trade protectionism is buttressed by the
consensus in the country, among both its leaders and the public,
that the achievements it has made over the last 40 years should
not be jeopardized by an outside power seeking to take advantage
of the country, as happened in the past.
But that is jumping the gun somewhat. There is no reason why
the talks should prove disappointing if both sides engage in them
with the desire to resolve their differences on trade and other
issues. Tariffs, after all, are the means to an end. And that end is
the compromises that will seal a deal.
Certainly China will engage in the talks in the right frame of
mind. Its stance remains consistent: dialogue is the way to quell
the fracas and it is willing to be reasonable, however, it will not
give in to threats.
The US wants greater access to China’s market, but it should OPINION LINE
not use trade actions as a battering ram to force China to open its
doors. It is already in the process of opening them wider. And in
doing so, it expects that action to be reciprocated and the US to
open its market to Chinese investments and competition from
Reducing tax burden on enterprises Licensed street
Chinese enterprises.
has given obvious boost to economy performers give
Visit can help promote cities character
THE VALUE ADDED TAX for manufacturing was lowered from 17 to 16 percent on Tuesday,
while the rate for transportation, construction, basic telecommunication services and farm produce CHENGDU, capital of Southwestern Chi-
positive regional trends was reduced from 11 to 10 percent. The government also unified the standard for small-scale taxpay-
ers and returned the withholdings of value added tax of some industries. Beijing News commented on
na’s Sichuan province, recently issued an
announcement for openly “auditioning”
Wednesday: street performers. Those who pass the tests

A
desirable rapprochement between Beijing and Tokyo
will not only benefit the two neighbors, but also contrib-
ute to the good momentum that has emerged in North-
east Asia of late.
So Premier Li Keqiang’s upcoming visit to Japan is a welcome sign
that the two countries are actively trying to revive their relations.
Li is scheduled to pay an official visit to Japan from May 8 to 11.
Given that this will be the first visit by a Chinese premier to Japan
in seven years, it will no doubt help break the ice between the two
neighbors and contribute to the two sides’ efforts to reanimate
their relations.
Relations between the two countries have been in suspended
animation for most of the past seven years since conservative for-
ces in Japan “nationalized” some of islands to which both coun-
tries claim sovereignty in the East China Sea. The temperature
plummeting further because of their unrepentant attitude toward
Japan’s history of aggression and the reopening of old wounds.
It is fanciful to believe the two neighbors will be able to breathe
new life into their relationship in an instant. But Beijing and
Tokyo can seize the opportunity of Li’s visit to bridge their differ-
ences and maintain the promising momentum that has emerged.
Li is also due to attend the seventh Japan-China-Republic of
Korea Trilateral Summit Meeting during his visit. The resumption
of the trilateral summit after three years shows the three neigh-
bors have a shared will to deepen their cooperation within the tri-
lateral framework.
With their economies accounting for one-fifth of the global
economy and 70 percent of the Asian economy, the three coun-
tries are positioned to promote regional and global growth by tap-
ping the potential of deeper cooperation in trade, investment and
other fields.
The resumption of the stalled China-Japan-ROK cooperation
would also accord with the current encouraging developments on
the Korean Peninsula, where the leaders of the Democratic Peo-
ple’s Republic of Korea and the ROK have just concluded a histor-
ic meeting that signaled a dramatic reconciliation between the
two neighbors as well as a hard-won opportunity for stakeholders
to push for denuclearization of the peninsula.
Under such circumstances, a détente in China-Japan ties and
resumption of China-Japan-ROK cooperation will help propel the
positive trends in the region and facilitate better communication
and coordination to address other regional issues.
The tax cuts have generated immediate effects.
The price of gasoline and diesel dropped by 75
yuan ($12) per ton and 65 yuan per ton respec-
tively, and the prices of some automobiles
dropped by tens of thousands of yuan.
The tax cuts will amount to 400 billion yuan
($64 billion) this year. This will not only directly
benefit enterprises, it will also have a chain reac-
tion that will boost consumption growth.
Reducing the tax burden on enterprises is an
important goal of the government this year, as it
targets a crucial problem hindering the develop-
ment of enterprises.
It should be regarded as part of the supply-side
Nuclear plant’s safety is built-in blessing
AN ONLINE POST showing a Taoist priest practicing “magic” at a ceremony for the laying of the
foundation stone for a nuclear power project in Minqin, Northwest China’s Gansu province, created a
stir recently. Beijing News comments:
Two co-hosts of the ceremony, the Chinese
Academy of Sciences and the Minqin authori-
ties, later confirmed the post was not fake news.
The academy has suspended two employees
who were present at the ceremony, and the
Minqin disciplinary and supervisory depart-
ments have initiated an investigation into the
involvement of seven local civil servants.
Some people say the punishment goes too far
because it was a private construction company
that invited the Taoist priest, not the nine scape-
goats, and it is a “folk custom” in Minqin.
As a matter of fact, the punishment is necessa-
ry, because these people are not permitted to take
part in superstitious activities as employees of
State-run organizations, according to the relevant
rules and regulations.
structural reform to boost production and drive
up consumption’s share in the economy.
Supply-side structural reforms have harvest-
ed obvious effects. Data from the National
Bureau of Statistics show that the total retail
sales of consumer goods hit 36.6 trillion yuan
last year, up 10.2 percent from 2016. This is the
14th year that it has grown at a double-digit
speed.
Consumption plays a fundamental role in driv-
ing economic growth. The robust growth of con-
sumption will promote the restructuring of the
national economy, and boost the development of
the service sectors.
Considering their identity as public employees
and the State ownership of the nuclear power
project, they were obliged to stop the farce. If not,
their presence suggests their support of such
superstitious prctices.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Min-
qin watchdogs have done what they should do. If
they had kept silent over it, the people would
have enough reasons to believe such “folk activi-
ties” are needed to ensure the safety of even such
a high-tech project — let alone the other public
infrastructure construction projects.
Even the “folk custom” supporters cannot deny
that what will really ensure the construction
project’s safety will be the quality of the construc-
tion, not the blessing of the Taoist priest, who is in
fact a local farmer.
will receive permits to perform. Gmw.cn com-
ments:
How to regulate street artists? That has long
been a question for local governments. On the
one hand, a modern city should accept the
presence of these street performers and allow
them to make a living. On the other hand, resi-
dents feel their normal life order is disturbed if
there are too many street artists and they are
not managed in an orderly day.
The move of the local government in
Chengdu strikes a balance between their
interests. By recruiting the street artists and
issuing permits to them based on their audi-
tions, the local government has both protect-
ed the legal rights of the street artists and
maintained the normal order of the city.
Some have claimed that the local govern-
ment’s move is because it can charge for the
permits. But the facts speak best for them-
selves. The permits are free, at least for now.
In other words, by issuing the permits, the
local government in Chengdu can better regu-
late the city order without adding any finan-
cial burden on any of the parties involved.
More important, their move recognized
street performers as part of the city’s character.
Street performers might not be as sophisticated
as their professional counterparts, but they are
the closest, as well as the most familiar, artists
to ordinary residents. By protecting their rights,
the local government in Chengdu has made a
good move to enhance the city’s cultural quality.
A look at international municipalities, from
Paris to New York, will show they all have
their own street performers.
The measure in Chengdu is not the first in
China. Shanghai has been pioneering the
practice for years, and it has already issued
120 permits. We hope more cities will follow
the example of Shanghai and Chengdu.

C O N TA C T U S
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 CHINA DAILY Thursday, May 3, 2018
Yu Yongding
Talks can silence the drums of trade war
L
ast month, the United
States administration
fired the opening salvo
in what could lead to a
full-blown trade war. While trade
frictions have long been an issue
in China-US relations, few
expected such an escalation, not
least because economists widely
view trade wars as damaging to
all parties. So how did we get to
this point, and can we turn back
before it’s too late?
First and foremost, US Presi-
dent Donald Trump does not
seem to understand how trade
works. He thinks the US’ $500
billion trade deficit with China
($337.2 billion in 2017 according
to China’s calculation) amounts
to a loss, the result of “incompe-
tent” US administrations allow-
ing their Chinese counterparts to
take advantage of them. In fact,
according to Trump, the US
already lost a “trade war” with
China years ago.
But trade balances are far
more complex than what Trump
makes them out to be. For start-
ers, much of what China exports
includes components manufac-
tured elsewhere, meaning Chi-
na’s trade surplus actually
includes the trade surpluses of
many other countries.
China’s external account
is basically balanced
Moreover, China runs large
deficits against Japan and South-
east Asian economies, even as it
runs a large surplus against the
US. China’s overall trade surplus
as a share of GDP has fallen
steadily over the last decade —
Zhang Yongjun
US must act constructively to seek trade relief
I
n an article in the Financial
Times on April 9, White
House Trade Advisor Peter
Navarro claimed the trade
deficit with China since 2001
caused the loss of millions of
manufacturing jobs in the Unit-
ed States during the George W.
Bush and Barack Obama admin-
istrations.
Navarro seems to be influ-
enced by a report prepared by
Robert E. Scott, senior economist
at the Economic Policy Institute,
and some other assessments.
Due to the trade deficit with Chi-
na, 3.4 million jobs were lost
between 2001 and 2015, nearly
three-fourths of which were in
manufacturing, Scott wrote in
the report issued in January 2017.
But Scott measures only the
influence of the import-export
balance on the total demand
without taking into account the
role imports and exports play in
improving resource distribution
efficiency, especially the role of
imports in improving supply and
increasing employment. His
flawed methodology therefore
makes his conclusion untenable.
Trade helps give full play to a
country’s comparative advanta-
ges and offsets its resource short-
from nearly 10 percent in 2007 to
just above 1 percent in 2017 —
meaning the country’s external
account is basically balanced.
And then there is the US’ cur-
rent-account deficit, which is
not necessarily a bad thing, as it
implies the acquisition of large
amounts of foreign capital. This
has benefited the US over the
years, by strengthening its
financial system and currency.
While the US external deficit
could stand to be reduced, as it
partly reflects its own lack of
savings, trade policy alone
would not be sufficient to
achieve that goal.
None of this is to say the US
does not have any legitimate
grievances about China’s trade
practices. But those must be
viewed as issues of China’s com-
pliance with the World Trade
Organization rules.
As former WTO director-gen-
eral Pascal Lamy once acknowl-
edged, while China has done
“really well” in implementing its
long list of WTO commitments,
“no country is above criticism”. In
particular, Lamy noted, certain
services sectors may not be suffi-
ciently open and protection of
intellectual property rights
should be strengthened.
These are fair criticisms.
Indeed, the Chinese government
itself hoped to open up the finan-
cial-services sectors more quickly,
but financial fragility demanded
a gradualist approach.
As for the US, its Trade Repre-
sentative has closely monitored
China’s WTO compliance since
the country joined it in 2001. The
USTR’s 2016 report on the topic
age. This is an important reason
why trade is beneficial to all the
parties involved.
In his report, Scott assumes
foreign trade does not have any
positive effects on employment
in the US’ wholesale, retail and
advertising sectors, because mar-
keting means are needed to sell
all the products, whether they
are made in the US or imported.
In so saying, Scott ignores the
fact that a large number of labor-
ers are required to provide the
follow-up services needed for the
distribution of the imported
products.
Owing to their strong employ-
ment generation capacity, the
wholesale and retail sectors
account for nearly one-eighth of
the private sector jobs in the US.
For instance, Wal-Mart employs
hundreds of thousands of people
in the US for selling large quanti-
ties of the goods imported from
developing countries, including
China. In fact, the retail sector
already employs more people
than the manufacturing sector. It
is only for political reasons,
therefore, that Scott said whole-
sale and retail, which are closely
related to the US’ import and
export sectors, have “zero” influ-
acknowledged the complexity of
the picture presented by China’s
WTO membership at the time,
but took an overall positive tone,
highlighting the expansion of
mutually beneficial trade and
investment.
USTR’s focus is on
wrong aspects
Yet the USTR report for 2017 —
Trump’s first year in office —
mentioned no positive results.
Instead, asserting that the US
had “erred in supporting China’s
entry into the WTO on terms that
have proven to be ineffective in
securing China’s embrace of an
open, market-oriented trade
regime”, the USTR focused on
complaints about Chinese indus-
trial policy, which is largely
beyond the WTO’s scope.
In particular, the Trump
administration has taken issue
with the Made in China 2025
plan, introduced by the State
Council, China’s Cabinet, in 2015
with the aim of boosting 10 stra-
tegic industries, including
advanced information technolo-
gy, automated machine tools and
robotics, aviation and space-
flight equipment, and electric
vehicles. The USTR report warns
that the strategy’s “final goal” is
to “capture much larger world-
wide market shares” in the tar-
geted industries.
In reality, the Made in China
2025 plan — which, incidentally,
is inspired partly by the US gov-
ernment’s own massive invest-
ment in research and
development — seeks to raise
China’s manufacturing ability
Trade helps give
full play to a coun-
try’s comparative
advantages and
offsets its resource
shortage. This is
an important rea-
son why trade is
beneficial to all
the parties
involved.
ence on employment expansion.
Besides, Scott distributes the
job losses allegedly caused by the
trade deficit with China to differ-
ent states. This methodology is
unscientific, because compared
with the overall industrial sys-
tem of the US, some of its states
don’t have a comprehensive
industrial setup and their pro-
duction capacity in certain fields
only to the average level of the
world’s major manufacturing
powers by 2035 (not 2025), a
rather modest goal. But even if
China wants to set more ambi-
tious goals, by what right can the
US — which has much larger
market shares in the targeted
industries — block it from
attempting to do so?
According to the USTR report,
the problem is that the policy
tools the Chinese government is
using to achieve the goals of
Made in China 2025 “are largely
unprecedented, as other WTO
members do not use them”.
Besides, they “include a wide
array of state intervention and
support designed to promote the
development of Chinese industry
in large part by restricting, tak-
ing advantage of, discriminating
against, or otherwise creating
disadvantages for foreign enter-
prises and their technologies,
products, and services”.
Yet the report fails to identify
those interventions, which is not
surprising, given that the State
Council has not yet specified the
policy tools it will use. And even if
the US’ grievances over IPR issues
are understandable, they could be
addressed through the WTO. The
fact that the Trump administration
has taken the approach it has sug-
gests it does not merely want to
ensure that China complies with
existing rules; it also wants to pre-
vent China from catching up to the
US technologically. This is obvious-
ly not acceptable to China.
Fueling the risk of
Thucydides’ trap
is rather weak, which means the
import of some Chinese products
don’t cause any jobs losses or dis-
placements at the local level.
As such, there are not many
correlations between the US’ job-
less rate and its foreign trade def-
icit. For instance, in 2006, the US’
current account deficit was
$805.9 billion, the biggest in its
history, and the ratio of its cur-
rent account deficit to GDP was
5.8 percent, a record high. But
the US’ jobless rate that year was
4.6 percent, much lower than its
average long-term 5.6 percent
jobless rate. And although this
ratio gradually declined from
2007 to 2009, the jobless rate
showed a rising trend.
The extension of Scott’s meth-
odology would also lead to anoth-
er incredible conclusion. For
argument’s sake, let us assume
his estimation of the influences of
the US’ total trade flow on its
employment rate is correct. In
that case, the use of the same
methodology and parameters to
calculate the influences of the US’
total trade deficit on its employ-
ment rate from 2001 in 2015 will
show that in some specific years
during this period, the number of
lost or displaced jobs due to the
SHI YU / CHINA DAILY
This reading is reinforced by
the National Security Strategy
report that the Trump adminis-
tration issued in December,
which asserted that the US
would “respond to the growing
political, economic, and military
competitions we face around the
world”. China was cited as the
main challenger to “American
power, influence, and interests”,
an adversary that is “attempting
to erode American security and
prosperity”. This perspective
fuels the risk of the so-called
Thucydides’ trap, in which an
established power’s fear of a ris-
ing power leads to conflict.
We may yet avoid a trade war.
President Xi Jinping seems eager
to ease tensions, exemplified by
his recent pledge to lower tariffs
on imported US cars “significant-
ly” and further open up China’s
financial-services sector.
One hopes the trade talks
between China and the US sched-
uled for Thursday and Friday will
silence the war drums through
negotiation and mutual conces-
sions. US and Chinese leaders could
then turn their attention to the
broader problem of avoiding the
Thucydides’ trap, thereby prevent-
ing a clash with consequences that
would dwarf those of a trade war.
The author is former president of
the China Society of World Eco-
nomics, director of the Institute
of World Economics and Politics
at the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, and served on the Mon-
etary Policy Committee of the
People’s Bank of China from
2004 to 2006.
Project Syndicate
trade deficit was larger than the
total number of jobless people in
the US.
This means that if the US had
struck a trade balance during
those years, it would have not
only eliminated unemployment,
but also faced a labor shortage.
Such a conclusion would be con-
trary to the fact that quite a large
number of people in the US
remained jobless even when the
US managed to strike a trade bal-
ance or had a trade surplus.
Given the flaws in Scott’s
methodology, any conclusion
based on it would be unscientific,
and thus mislead the US Con-
gress, administration and public.
This is why many research insti-
tutes and agencies have criticized
his report. But pretending that
Scott’s report is flawless, the US
government still uses it as an
excuse to launch trade protec-
tionist measures against China.
Such actions will not only harm
Sino-US trade relations but also
hinder the development of the
very US economy that the Trump
administration wants to protect.
The author is a researcher at the
China Center for International
Economic Exchanges.
VIEWS 9
Zhao Huanxin
The author is deputy editor-in-chief
of China Daily USA.
huanxinzhao@chinadailyusa.com
US no longer
‘confident,
optimistic
and open’
C
ui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the
US, is puzzled by the change in a
country where he has lived and
worked for many years. “Is the Ameri-
ca I used to know — an open, confident, opti-
mistic America — still there?” he said in a
speech at Harvard University’s Fairbank Cen-
ter for Chinese Studies on April 17.
What perplexes Cui also seems to be con-
founding many others, especially those who
plan to visit the US, or study or do business
there.
As China’s longest-serving ambassador to
the US, where he was once a student and UN
employee, Cui is puzzled by Washington’s anti-
globalization moves — from pulling out of
global agreements such as the Paris climate
pact to imposing steep tariffs on imports —
which many deem as the US administration’s
disdain for multilateralism.
Addressing a gathering in Chicago that a
day after his Harvard speech, Cui said in
today’s globalized world, no country alone can
seize all the global opportunities and meet all
the global challenges. Nor can a country pros-
per in isolation.
“But now we see policies that attempt to close
the door and resort to unilateralism,” he said.
“And to succeed in today’s world, the best choice
is to take a win-win approach. But now we see
policies that are so strongly influenced by the
zero-sum mentality as well as policies that
regard other people’s success as their losses.”
Cui came to the US in 1981 to serve as an
interpreter at the UN Secretariat and pursued
postgraduate studies at Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity in 1986. China’s ambassador to the US
since 2013, Cui has also served as the ambassa-
dor to Japan and China’s vice-foreign minister,
according to the Chinese embassy’s website.
“I wonder … why some
fear the influence of Chi-
nese students in the US
while China is not worried
that these students may be
subject to the impact of the
US society,” Cui said.
“What I (have) learned in the US has
changed my life, my work and my perception
of the world to a great extent,” he said. “And
the influence has been quite positive.” Many in
the media based in Washington agree that Cui
is a no-nonsense diplomat, never skirting
questions from reporters.
Partly because of his experience at Johns
Hopkins University, Cui refuted some US poli-
ticians’ allegations that Chinese students and
scholars, as well as the Confucius Institutes
that teach Chinese and culture, posed a threat
to US national security.
More than 350,000 Chinese students were
studying in the US in the 2016-17 academic
year, according to the latest figures of Project
Atlas, a global research initiative on student
mobility.
Cui said Chinese students come to the US to
learn from its universities, teachers, and local
classmates. “I wonder … why some fear the
influence of Chinese students in the US while
China is not worried that these students may
be subject to the impact of the US society,” Cui
said. “Why some US politicians are … lacking
confidence?”
John Delaney, president of the University of
North Florida in Jacksonville, had a similar
view on the influence of college campus.
But in early February, US Senator Marco
Rubio sent an open letter to the UNF and sev-
eral other Florida schools, saying Confucius
Institutes use the teaching of Chinese lan-
guage and culture as a tool to spread China’s
political influence, and asking them to sever
their ties with the institutes.
However, Delaney said the Confucius Insti-
tute on the UNF campus has prompted no
complaints, so he sees no reason to discontinue
it, the Florida Times-Union reported on Feb 6.
“The institutes’ two Chinese instructors do not
teach political science; they teach Chinese lan-
guages and without them, the university would
offer fewer Chinese language courses,’’ Delaney
said. “Frankly, I think Jacksonville and Ameri-
ca have a bigger influence on them (the Chi-
nese instructors) now that they are here.”
Since mutual understanding and friendship
between the two peoples, especially the young-
er generation, will determine the future of Chi-
na-US relations, let us hope newcomers to the
US are not puzzled like Cui as the US changes
for the better and becomes “an open, confident,
optimistic” country again in the future.
10 WORLD
Survivors seek return to normal life
Restaurant pledges donations to
the families of shooting victims
NASHVILLE, Tennessee —
At 3:25 am on April 22, a Waf-
fle House in Nashville joined
the growing list of cherished
US citizen places morphed
into the site of a massacre. And
Chuck Cordero, a regular cus-
tomer, joined the growing list
of survivors left traumatized
and struggling with how to
move on.
Children often have little
choice but to return to their
schools after a mass shooting
and employees must return to
their offices. But 51-year-old
Cordero thought at first he’d
never come back here. Then
he found himself again and
again back at his Waffle House
No 2,267 in the ubiquitous
chain of yellow and black
storefronts that are open
Women taxi
drivers hit
Nairobi’s roads
NAIROBI — With their
manicured nails, immaculate
makeup and matching hand-
bags and stilettos, you would
be forgiven for mistaking the
five women seated in the cafe
of the upscale Nairobi hotel
for a group of senior female
executives.
But these Kenyan women
aren’t company directors,
finance professionals or cor-
porate lawyers — they are part
of a new breed of women who
are breaking into the male-
dominated taxi sector and hit-
ting Nairobi’s roads as e-
cabbies.
“Taxi driving is not some-
thing I would have considered
before, but after driving for a
taxi app service, I think it’s a
really good job for women,”
said Lydia Muchiri, 29, in a
knee-length fitted white dress
with floral print.
“It’s convenient, easy and
safe — much better than sit-
ting at home and depending
on handouts,” she said, as the
other women, in their 20s
and 30s, nodded in agree-
ment.
As taxi-hailing apps mush-
room to fill a hole in Nairobi’s
poor public transport system,
rising numbers of women are
taking up jobs as drivers — cit-
ing benefits such as flexible
working hours, the ability to
select passengers, and guaran-
teed payment.
Online women cabbies cur-
rently only make up around 3
percent of city’s estimated
12,000 e-taxi drivers — but
Faridah Khamis, 36, a single mother of five children, drives her
cab through the streets of Nairobi on April 19.
NITA BHALLA / REUTERS
West’s wild words stir again: US rapper Kanye calls slavery a ‘choice’
LOS ANGELES — Before
the last one had a chance to
simmer down, Kanye West
caused another stir, calling US
slavery a “choice” in an inter-
view on Tuesday.
“When you hear about slav-
ery for 400 years, for 400
years, that sounds like choice,”
West said on “TMZ Live” after
questions on his pro-President
Donald Trump posts and pic-
24/7, 365 days a year.
The eateries are so
ingrained in US culture the
federal government uses them
after hurricanes to help gauge
suffering: An open Waffle
House signals hope for recov-
ery; a closed one means disas-
ter. Cordero’s Waffle House
was closed for three days.
Four young people died, the
oldest of them a 29-year-old
cook, Taurean Sanderlin,
whom Cordero had always
called “T”. He saw the gunman
shoot him in the parking lot,
and now he feels compelled to
come back, multiple times a
day, desperate to cling to a
community he never realized
he was so attached to until a
man with a gun threatened to
destroy it.
industry officials say their
numbers are growing expo-
nentially.
Little Cabs — one of Nairo-
bi’s popular ride-sharing plat-
forms, and the only app
offering riders the choice of a
male or female driver — has
witnessed a 13-fold increase in
the number of women drivers
over the last two years.
“There were 27 women
drivers registered with Little
Cabs when we first started in
June 2016, now there are 381.
We aim to have 1,000 women
drivers by the end of this
year,” said Jefferson Aluda,
operations manager for Little
Cabs.
But it’s not always a smooth
ride for Kenya’s female e-cab-
bies. They occasionally face
discrimination and abuse —
from difficulties renting cars
due to biased perceptions that
women are bad drivers, to
fending off drunken male pas-
sengers.
But such instances are rare,
say the women drivers, and
working in the taxi sector has
inspired some of them to one
day have their own fleet of tax-
is — for women driven by
women.
“We take pride in ourselves
and in our job. We are no less
than someone who works in
an office. We see our car as our
office and believe that once we
are in the car, we must behave
like a professional,” said
Muchiri.
REUTERS
tures that caused a dust-up
last week. “You was there for
400 years, and it’s all of y’all?”
“Do you feel like I’m think-
ing free and feeling free?” West
asked the TMZ employees in
the room.
“I actually don’t think you’re
thinking anything,” TMZ’s Van
Lathan quickly cracked back
at West, as many would in the
ensuing hours.
Chuck Cordero stands at the Waffle House where four people were
shot and killed last month, on Saturday, in Nashville, Tennessee.
WADE PAYNE / ASSOCIATED PRESS
“I don’t know why I’m doing
it,” Cordero says. “Maybe I
want to make sure my friends
are OK. Maybe I want to know
that I’m OK. Maybe I don’t
want to let the bad people win.
I just don’t know.”
Air guitars
More than 7,411 guitarists play Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix to set a Guinness World Record at the Market Square in Wroclaw, Poland, on
Tuesday. AGENCJA GAZETA / KRZYSZTOF CWIK VIA REUTERS
9 out of 10 people worldwide
breathing polluted air, says WHO
GENEVA — Though more
countries are taking action,
still nine out of 10 people
worldwide are breathing air
containing high levels of pol-
lutants, with millions of
deaths every year caused by
outdoor and household air
pollution, the World Health
Organization (WHO) warned
on Tuesday.
In WHO’s latest estimates,
around 7 million people die
every year from exposure to
fine particles in polluted air.
These particles are capable of
penetrating deep into the
lungs and cardiovascular sys-
tem, causing diseases includ-
ing stroke, heart disease,
lung cancer, chronic obstruc-
tive pulmonary diseases and
respiratory infections,
including pneumonia, the
WHO said.
In 2016 alone, outdoor, or
ambient, air pollution caused
about 4.2 million deaths,
while household air pollution
from cooking with polluting
fuels and technologies caused
an estimated 3.8 million
Lathan said while West gets
to live the elite artist’s life, “the
rest of us in society have to
deal with these threats in our
lives. We have to deal with the
marginalization that has come
from the 400 years of slavery
that you said for our people
was our choice”.
Symone D. Sanders, politi-
cal commentator and CNN
contributor, led the anti-West
Dozens of others feel it, too.
The restaurant has been
packed after the company
pledged to donate a month’s
worth of profits to the families
of the victims, and people have
come from hours away, insist-
deaths in the same period.
More than 90 percent of air
pollution-related deaths
occur in low- and middle-in-
come countries, mainly in
Asia and Africa, followed by
low- and middle-income
countries of the Eastern Med-
iterranean region, Europe
and the Americas.
WHO figures show that the
highest ambient air pollution
levels are in the Eastern
Mediterranean Region and in
Southeast Asia, with annual
mean levels often exceeding
more than five times WHO
limits, followed by low and
middle-income cities in Afri-
ca and the Western Pacific.
In general, ambient air pol-
lution levels are lowest in
high-income countries, par-
ticularly in Europe, the
Americas and the Western
Pacific.
The good news is that more
countries taking action. More
than 4,300 cities in 108 coun-
tries are now included in
WHO’s ambient air quality
database, making it the
Kanye West,
US rapper
and song-
writer
chorus on Twitter.
“Kanye is a dangerous cari-
cature of a ‘free-thinking’ black
person in America,” Sanders
ing on buying strangers’ meals.
Cordero is grateful but also
eager for this to be his normal
Waffle House again, the place
where his favorite waitress
always had his coffee ready
just how he likes it, with
cream and three packets of
Splenda. On the night of the
shooting, her fiance, a cook,
threw her to the ground and
laid on top of her as bullets
whizzed by.
Devastating
Before all of this, Cordero
had thought of the restaurant
as a utilitarian stop, a place to
pass the time between calls on
his overnight shift with a road-
side assistance company.
Though he’s not crazy about
the greasy food, Cordero likes
the people who cook and serve
it, and the familiarity of the
jukebox and the bright fluo-
rescent lights in the middle of
the night.
world’s most comprehensive
database on ambient air pol-
lution.
Since 2016, more than
1,000 additional cities have
been added to WHO’s data-
base, which shows that more
countries are measuring and
taking action to reduce air
pollution than ever before.
Political interest
According to Maria Neira,
director of the Department of
Public Health, Social and
Environmental Determi-
nants of Health at the WHO,
there’s an acceleration of
political interest in this global
public health challenge, par-
ticularly in high-income
countries, as many of the
world’s megacities exceed
WHO’s guideline levels for air
quality by more than five
times
Major sources of air pollu-
tion are from, for example,
inefficient use of energy by
households, industry, the
agriculture and transport
sectors, and coal-fired power
tweeted. “Frankly, I am dis-
gusted and I’m over it. Also (I
can’t believe I have to say this):
Slavery was far from a choice.”
Others put it more briefly.
“Slavery wasn’t a choice,”
Russ Bengtson tweeted, “but
listening to Kanye is.”
West also told TMZ that he
became addicted to opioids
that doctors prescribed after
he had liposuction surgery in
Thursday, May 3, 2018 CHINA DAILY
Now, people on the street
recognize Cordero from the
news, and he knows they
mean well when they stop
him. “They say, ‘God bless you.
Nice to see you,’ and then I
start thinking to myself, ‘It’s
nice to be here.’ And then I get
all emotional about how close
it came.”
Cordero had, for a week,
struggled to find the right
adjectives to convey what had
happened to them. Scary. Hor-
rible. Devastating. None
seemed big enough to describe
it: the first glimpse of the gun,
the blood, what it feels like to
consider that inches or sec-
onds separated those who
lived from those who didn’t.
But sitting with others who
had experienced it all, too: “I
don’t have to say that I was
scared,” he says. “They were
there. They know that.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
plants. In some regions, sand
and desert dust, waste burn-
ing and deforestation are
additional sources of air pol-
lution.
“Air pollution threatens us
all, but the poorest and most
marginalized people bear the
brunt of the burden,” says
WHO Director-General Ted-
ros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“If we don’t take urgent
action on air pollution, we
will never come close to
achieving sustainable devel-
opment.”
The WHO urges countries
to work together on solutions
for sustainable transport,
more efficient and renewable
energy production and use
and waste management.
It plans to convene the first
Global Conference on Air Pol-
lution and Health in late
October to bring govern-
ments and partners together
in a global effort to improve
air quality and combat cli-
mate change.
XINHUA
2016. He was hospitalized for a
week and had to cut short his
“Pablo” tour. West said the
painkillers drove him to a
“breakdown”, which became a
“breakthrough” when he
found himself again.
West also doubled down on
his love of the president,
which Trump has been return-
ing in tweets.
“I just love Trump,” West
Home
for the
final
days
TOKYO — Doctor Bunyu
Ogasawara, 69, who oper-
ates the Ogasawara Clinic
in Gifu, fulfills the wishes
of patients who want to
spend their final days in
their own home. Last year,
the clinic where Ogasaw-
ara is director cared for 88
patients at home, includ-
ing people with terminal
cancer, when they died.
But what is the best way
for people to spend the end
of their life so they are hap-
py in their final moments?
Ogasawara rarely wears
his white coat on house
calls to his patients. He just
knocks at the door, with a
stethoscope in one hand,
and calls out, “It’s Ogasaw-
ara Clinic”, before entering
the patient’s home togeth-
er with a nurse. It is Oga-
sawara’s style to listen to
his patients for as long as
time permits.
In January 2012, 72-year-
old Yasuko Murase was
suspected of having uter-
ine cancer. The doctor at
the hospital she was
brought to informed her
that she had about a
month to live if she was
hospitalized, or five days if
she was discharged.
Murase sought house
calls from Ogasawara’s
clinic because she had a
son with a visual disability
waiting at home.
When people are
on the brink,
they get
determined.”
Bunyu Ogasawara, operator
the Ogasawara Clinic
She recalled: “Everyone
around me thought it was
the end and nothing more
could be done.”
However, when the dos-
age of the intravenous drip
that was providing her
with fluids and calories in
the hospital was reduced
significantly, she started
feeling hungry again, and
soon became able to take
food orally once more.
The inflammation in her
body subsided, and her
smile returned. Two
months later, she was able
to resume working in the
fields, which she loves.
Ogasawara said: “When
people are on the brink,
they get determined.”
He also believes that as a
final resting place, the
familiar surroundings of
one’s own home help bring
a person peace. That hap-
piness gives the patient a
longer life.
Ogasawara’s clinic has
191 home patients, of
whom 34 suffer cancer as
of March.
Having cared for many
patients at home over the
years, Ogasawara is firm in
his beliefs. “If patients are
able to live their limited
lives to the fullest and in a
lively way, it will be a very
happy end of their lives,” he
said.
THE JAPAN NEWS/ANN
said, adding that most in hip-
hop agreed with him before
Trump became president.
“Trump is one of rap’s favorite
people.”
Last week, Kanye West tweet-
ed a picture of himself wearing
a “Make America Great Again”
hat and criticizing former Presi-
dent Barack Obama.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
 CHINA DAILY Thursday, May 3, 2018
Firefighters attend the scene after a major fire caused the collapse of a 22-story building in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, on
Tuesday. CRIS FAGA / NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Firemen lament loss of life
in Brazil building collapse
SAO PAULO — A 22-story
abandoned office building
occupied by hundreds of
squatters was engulfed in
flames and collapsed in the
center of Sao Paulo early on
Tuesday, shooting a massive
black cloud of smoke into the
sky and red-hot chunks of
debris into nearby structures.
At least one person died
and three others were miss-
ing, a fire department spokes-
man said. According to
authorities, 400 people were
registered as living in the
building, which belonged to
the government.
The cause of the fire was
not known.
Live television images in the
early morning hours showed a
Close shave
Novice monks who had their heads shaved pose for photographs
with Buddhist monks during an event to celebrate the upcoming
Vesak Day, the birthday of Buddha, at Jogye temple in Seoul,
South Korea, on Wednesday. KIM HONG-JI / REUTERS
Dozens killed in
double mosque blast
YOLA, Nigeria — A pair of
explosions killed at least 28
worshippers at a mosque in
northeastern Nigeria and
wounded at least 56 others,
with many of the victims
caught in the second blast
while trying to flee, police
said on Tuesday.
Some reports put the
death toll at more than 60.
The attack in Mubi town
came a day after President
Muhammadu Buhari met
with US President Donald
Trump at the White House
and discussed the threat
from the Nigeria-based Boko
Haram extremist group. Its
fighters were quickly blamed
for Tuesday’s blasts.
This is the second time in
six months that dozens have
been killed in an attack on a
Mubi mosque. In November,
a teenage suicide bomber
attacked worshippers as they
gathered for morning
prayers, killing at least 50
people in one of the region’s
deadliest assaults in years.
Resident Isa Danladi said
he had been about to leave
firefighter on an adjacent
rooftop talking to a man cling-
ing to a rescue rope and trying
to escape from the upper part
of the burning building.
Suddenly, the structure col-
lapsed and the man disap-
peared into the rubble.
Authorities said he likely
died. In the afternoon, fire-
fighters continued searching
for additional victims amid
concrete chunks and twisted
metal pipes.
A firefighter told the media
that they would only have
needed 30 more seconds to
save the man.
The sergeant described
how he and his team climbed
onto the roof of a neighboring
building — using axes to gain
his house near the mosque
when he heard the blast.
“The mosque roof was
blown off and the prayer was
midway when the bomber,
who was obviously in the
congregation, detonated his
explosives,” Danladi said.
“This is obviously the work
of Boko Haram.”
Haruna Hamman Furo, the
head of the state emergency
management agency, called
the attack “devastating”.
In recent months, Boko
Haram activity has been con-
centrated in the far north of
Adamawa state, around
Madagali, near the border
with Borno state. That area is
not far from the Sambisa
Forest area where the
extremists had a stronghold.
Boko Haram fighters are
also said to be hiding in the
Mandara mountains to the
east near Cameroon.
The United Nations says
the terror group has killed
more than 20,000 people
since 2009.
AP—XINHUA
access. He said he urged the
man to be calm, to look only
at the firefighters, to try to
ignore the blazing heat com-
ing from the fire.
“He was secured, he was
ready,” Diego Pereira da Silva
Santos said. “The problem
was the building collapsed
and the amount of rubble and
hot embers that fell on him.”
The abandoned former
office building had 22 stories,
according to the fire depart-
ment and not 26 stories as
reported by some media. It
once housed a branch of Bra-
zil’s federal police and had
been occupied by squatters
for the past seven years.
Sao Paulo state Governor
Marcio Franca, at the scene,
Macron in the dark over Trump’s plan for deal
By CHINA DAILY
French President Emmanu-
el Macron on Wednesday said
he did not know whether US
President Donald Trump
would stick to the 2015 Iran
nuclear deal that many in the
West see as the best hope of
preventing Teheran from get-
ting a nuclear bomb.
Macron, followed by Ger-
man Chancellor Angela
Merkel, visited Washington
last week in the hope of per-
suading Trump not to reim-
pose sanctions on Iran before
a May 12 deadline and imperil
the 2015 deal but the White
House has sounded uncon-
vinced.
Under the accord, Teheran
agreed to limit its nuclear pro-
gram in return for relief from
US and other economic sanc-
tions. The deal was struck by
Britain, China, France, Germa-
ny, Russia, the United States
and Iran.
NASA sends robotic geologist to Mars for deep dig
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida
— Six years after last landing
on Mars, NASA is sending a
robotic geologist to dig deeper
than ever before to take the
planet’s temperature.
The Mars InSight space-
craft, set to launch this week-
end, will also take the planet’s
pulse by making the first
measurements of “mar-
squakes”.
And to check its reflexes,
scientists will track the wobbly
rotation of Mars on its axis to
better understand the size and
makeup of its core.
The lander’s instruments
will allow scientists “to stare
down deep into the planet”,
said the mission’s chief scien-
tist, Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Beauty’s not just skin deep
here,” he said.
The $1 billion United States-
European mission is the first
said it was a tragedy waiting
to happen.
The city and state govern-
ments have been working for
years to forcibly remove
squatters from buildings in
central Sao Paulo, with plans
for revitalizing the area.
Franca said about 150
buildings in the region were
occupied by organized
groups of squatters, who have
pressured the government
for years to provide housing
for the city’s homeless.
“There is not even a mini-
mal condition for people to
live in there,” Franca said. “Peo-
ple live there in desperation.
This was a tragedy foretold.”
The mayor of Sao Paulo,
Bruno Covas, said that the
state government had offered
to provide housing for the
displaced families, and Bra-
zil’s president, Michel Temer,
also offered federal assist-
ance during a visit to the site.
REUTERS—AP
“I don’t know what the US
president will decide on May
12,” Macron told reporters in
Sydney after meeting Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
The White House said on
Tuesday that the Iran deal was
made on “false pretense” in
2015, Xinhua News Agency
reported.
“Iran’s nuclear capability
were far more advanced and
far further along than they
ever indicated,” said White
House Press Secretary Sarah
Sanders at a daily briefing.
“The deal that was made on
things that weren’t accurate.
And we have a big problem
with that,” Sanders added.
Macron said he had pushed
the idea of a much broader
Iran agreement with Trump,
which was received “very posi-
tively”.
“I just want to say whatever
the decision will be, we will
have to prepare such a broader
negotiation and a broader deal
dedicated to studying the
innards of Mars, with scien-
tists hoping to better under-
stand how the red planet —
any rocky planet, including
our own — formed 4.5 billion
years ago.
Mars is smaller and geologi-
cally less active than its neigh-
bor Earth, where plate
tectonics and other processes
have obscured our planet’s
original makeup. As a result,
Mars has retained the “finger-
prints” of early evolution, said
Banerdt.
In another first for the mis-
sion, a pair of briefcase-size
satellites will launch aboard
InSight, break free after liftoff,
then follow the spacecraft for
six months all the way to Mars.
They won’t stop at Mars,
just fly past. The point is to test
the two CubeSats as a poten-
tial communication link with
InSight as it descends to the
Brexiteers deny
move against May
Hard-liners stand firm over issue of customs partnership
By JULIAN SHEA in London
julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com
Leading Conservative Brex-
iteer, MP Jacob Rees-Mogg,
has rejected claims that he
and fellow Brexit supporters
are threatening to bring down
Theresa May’s government in
the ongoing disagreement
over Britain’s future trade rela-
tionship with Europe.
All European Union mem-
ber states are currently part of
a customs union, which
means a common tariff is
agreed on goods coming into
the union from the outside,
and that there are no taxes on
goods transported between
them.
With May insisting Britain
will leave the customs union
post-Brexit, one of the challen-
ges facing the government is
to agree on what arrangement
should replace it.
The BBC reports that Chan-
cellor Philip Hammond is
believed to favor a partnership
replicating the EU’s existing
arrangements at its own bor-
ders, collecting tariffs on
behalf of Brussels, which
would also have the advantage
of helping resolve the Irish
border problem, as there
would be no hard border
between the UK and the EU.
But ahead of a meeting of
senior cabinet ministers on
Wednesday to discuss the
issue, the BBC reported it had
seen a copy of a 30 page docu-
ment put together by the
European Research Group,
known as the ERG, a pro-Brex-
it group of Conservative MPs
led by Rees-Mogg.
The document says a cus-
I just want to say whatever the
decision will be, we will have to
prepare such a broader negotiation and
a broader deal because I think nobody
wants a war in the region ...”
Emmanuel Macron, French President
because I think nobody wants
a war in the region, and
nobody wants an escalation in
terms of tension in the region,”
Macron added.
China reiterated on
Wednesday that all sides
should continue to uphold the
Iran nuclear agreement, and
that the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) has
said many times Iran is in
compliance with the deal.
Foreign Ministry spokes-
woman Hua Chunying said
NASA’s InSight lander undergoes its final checks in California
before it leaves for Mars on Saturday. ASSOCIATED PRESS
red planet on Nov 26.
These Mars-bound cubes
are nicknamed WALL-E and
EVE after the animated movie
characters. That’s because
Once we have left
our alliance with
the EU, the United
States will be even
more central to
our foreign policy
than it currently is,
especially as we
are unlikely to be
flavor of the month
with the EU after
our departure.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP
toms partnership would make
international trade deals
“impossible” to secure, and
demands that the suggestion
be thrown out altogether.
Rees-Mogg has denied
reports that the group has
issued an ultimatum to May,
but said the proposal for a cus-
toms partnership was “deeply
unsatisfactory” and would
“not get us out of the Europe-
an Union, which is what peo-
ple voted for”.
Another prominent Brexit-
eer, former Conservative lead-
er Iain Duncan Smith, was
quoted by the Daily Telegraph
newspaper as saying that the
ERG report had killed the
the IAEA is the only interna-
tional body with the right to
supervise the agreement and
make judgments about it, and
China has noted that the agen-
cy has said several times Iran
is in compliance.
Meanwhile, the Iranian For-
eign Ministry on Tuesday dis-
missed recent allegations by
Israeli Prime Minister Benja-
min Netanyahu as lies aimed
at influencing Trump’s upcom-
ing decision on the deal.
Foreign Ministry Spokes-
they’re equipped with the
same type of propulsion used
in fire extinguishers to expel
foam. In the 2008 movie,
WALL-E used a fire extin-
WORLD 11
argument for the customs
partnership “stone dead”,
while former Brexit minister
David Jones told the BBC that
“certainly there would be a lot
of very disappointed Brexit-
eers if we were to end up in a
customs partnership”.
Rees-Mogg, 48, is widely
regarded as a potential future
leader of the Conservative Par-
ty, although two current Tory
MPs have publicly stated they
would leave the party if he
took over.
Last year he had meetings
with controversial US right
wing political strategist Steve
Bannon, who guided Presi-
dent Donald Trump to the
White House, and this week
Rees-Mogg wrote an article for
the Times newspaper welcom-
ing the prospect of Trump’s
summer visit to the UK, and
the president’s importance for
Britain’s political future post-
Brexit.
“Once we have left our alli-
ance with the EU, the United
States will be even more cen-
tral to our foreign policy than
it currently is, especially as we
are unlikely to be flavor of the
month with the EU after our
departure,” he wrote.
“It is our national good for-
tune that the president with
whom we will develop this
new arrangement is Mr
Trump. His election depended
upon similar factors to those
that led to Brexit.
“He appealed to voters left
behind by the metropolitan
elite and he exudes confidence
about his own nation and a
determination not to be a
manager of decline, which
also inspires the Brexiteers.”
man Bahram Qasemi said in a
statement that “the ridiculous
propagandist presentations of
the premier of the Zionist
regime (of Israel) is one of the
latest shameful and worthless
shows about Iran’s nuclear
program”.
In a televised presentation
on Monday, Netanyahu dis-
closed files allegedly obtained
by Israel’s intelligence agency
from Iran’s “secret nuclear
archive”, saying the files prove
Iran has secretly worked on
nuclear weapons.
In another development,
Morocco announced on Tues-
day that it is severing ties with
Iran, only a few years after
normalizing their diplomatic
relationship, over Iran’s
alleged backing of Western
Sahara’s separatist movement
the Polisario Front, Xinhua
reported.
Xinhua and Reuters
contributed to this story.
guisher to propel through
space.
InSight is scheduled to rock-
et away from central Califor-
nia’s Vandenberg Air Force
Base early on Saturday. It will
be NASA’s first interplanetary
mission launched from some-
where other than Florida’s
Cape Canaveral. Californians
along the coast down to Baja
will have front-row seats for
the pre-dawn flight.
No matter the launching
point, getting to Mars is hard.
The success rate, counting
orbiters and landers by NASA
and others, is only about 40
percent. The US is the only
country to have successfully
landed and operated space-
craft on Mars. The 1976
Vikings were the first landing
successes. The most recent
was the 2012 Curiosity rover.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12
WORLD
Thursday, May 3, 2018
CHINA DAILY » CHINADAILY.COM.CN/WORLD
Mueller team
floated idea
of subpoena
Trump’s former lawyer said possibility
was raised at meeting in early March
NEW YORK — Special
Counsel Robert Mueller, in a
meeting with US President
Donald Trump’s lawyers in
March, raised the possibility of
issuing a subpoena for Trump
if he declines to talk to investi-
gators in the Russia probe, a
former lawyer for the presi-
dent said on Tuesday.
John Dowd told Reuters that
Mueller mentioned the possi-
bility of a subpoena in the early
March meeting. Mueller’s sub-
poena warning was first
reported by the Washington
Post, which cited four people
familiar with the encounter.
“This isn’t some game. You
are screwing with the work of
the president of the United
States,” Dowd said he told the
investigators, who are probing
possible collusion between the
Trump campaign and Russia.
The Post said Mueller had
raised the possibility of a sub-
poena after Trump’s lawyers
said the president had no obli-
gation to talk with federal inves-
tigators involved in the probe.
After the March meeting,
Mueller’s team agreed to pro-
vide the president’s lawyers
with more specific information
about the subjects they wished
to ask Trump, the Post reported.
That list, first reported by the
New York Times on Monday,
includes questions on Trump’s
ties to Russia and others to
determine whether the presi-
dent may have unlawfully tried
to obstruct the investigation.
Russia has denied interfer-
ing in the 2016 US presidential
election, as US intelligence
agencies allege, and Trump
has denied there was any col-
lusion between his campaign
and Moscow.
Dowd’s comments come
more than a month after he
resigned from the legal team,
and they provide a new window
into the nature of the Trump
lawyers’ interactions with
Mueller, whom the president
has increasingly tried to under-
mine through public attacks.
On Tuesday, Trump tweet-
Riders left hanging
Passengers are guided off the Flying Dinosaur rollercoaster at
Universal Studios Japan in Osaka on Tuesday after the ride stalled
and left more than 60 riders hanging upside down.
KYODO NEWS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Oh, I see ... you
have a made up,
phony crime, Col-
lusion, that never
existed ... Nice!”
Donald Trump, US president on
Twitter
ed: “Oh, I see ... you have a
made up, phony crime, Collu-
sion, that never existed, and
an investigation begun with
illegally leaked classified
information. Nice!”
A person familiar with the
matter, who insisted on ano-
nymity to discuss ongoing
negotiations, told the Associ-
ated Press that the president’s
lawyers extrapolated the list of
expected questions based off
conversations with Mueller’s
team about the topics prosecu-
tors wanted to cover in a
potential sit down with
Trump. The questions reflect-
ed what the defense lawyers
anticipated Trump would be
asked, rather than verbatim
queries that Mueller’s team
provided, the person said.
According to the list, the
questions range from Trump’s
motivations for firing FBI
Director James Comey a year
ago to contacts Trump’s cam-
paign had with Russians.
Although Mueller’s team
has indicated to Trump’s law-
yers that he’s not considered a
target, investigators remain
interested in whether the
president’s actions constitute
obstruction of justice and
want to interview him about
several episodes in office. They
have not yet made a decision
about an interview.
A spokesman for Mueller
declined to comment.
REUTERS—AP
Students and workers take part in the traditional May Day rally in Marseille, southern France, on Tuesday.
McDonald’s torched and hundreds
arrested in French May Day protests
PARIS — Nearly 300 protest-
ers were arrested on Tuesday
after May Day riots in central
Paris, where hooded youths
torched a McDonald’s restau-
rant and several vehicles dur-
ing a march against President
Emmanuel Macron’s public
sector reforms.
Shouting “Rise up, Paris”
and “Everyone hates the
police”, around 1,200 people in
black jackets and face masks
joined the traditional May 1
union-led demonstration for
workers’ rights, according to a
count by Paris police.
After trying to hold up the
march a group of protesters
ran amok along the route,
destroying a McDonald’s res-
taurant near Austerlitz sta-
tion, east of the city center,
and setting it ablaze.
They also torched vehicles at
a car dealership, along with a
ROK plans to keep contingent of US troops
By PAN MENGQI
panmengqi@chinadaily.com.cn
The Republic of Korea’s
presidential Blue House on
Wednesday dismissed claims
that US troops stationed in
the country would have to
leave if a peace treaty was
signed with the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea.
A Chinese expert said the
ROK dismissal may increase
uncertainty in the peace proc-
ess in the Korean Peninsula.
ROK President Moon Jae-
in said: “US Forces Korea is a
matter of the South Korea-US
alliance. It has nothing to do
with signing a peace treaty.”
Moon made the remarks
after one of his presidential
advisers publicly suggested
the presence of United States
soldiers, sailors and airmen
Facebook to play cupid in dating debut
SAN JOSE, California —
Facebook is entering the dat-
ing game, Chief Executive
Mark Zuckerberg said on
Tuesday, planning a service to
matchmake millions of peo-
ple on the world’s largest
online social network and
nudge them into spending
more time there.
The service, which Face-
book had considered offering
for over a decade and will
launch soon, could help
rebuild its popularity among
younger consumers and
make people visit the site
more often, two key challen-
ges for the business.
“There are 200 million peo-
ple on Facebook that list
mechanical digger and a scoot-
er, leaving a trail of destruction
and plumes of dark smoke bil-
lowing into the air.
The worst unrest in
months in Paris comes at a
time of heightened tensions
over Macron’s reform of the
public sector and follows a
showdown between police
and anti-capitalist squatters
at a sprawling commune in
western France.
The police used tear gas
and water cannon to disperse
the demonstrators.
On Tuesday night, 102 peo-
ple remained in custody out
of 276 who were arrested,
police said, adding: “31 busi-
nesses were damaged, of
which two were burned, 6
vehicles were burned and 10
others damaged”.
“These individuals were
motivated by the desire to dis-
would be called into question
if a peace treaty were to be
agreed with Pyongyang.
The adviser, Moon Chung-
in, published an article in For-
eign Affairs magazine, saying
it would be “difficult to justify
(US forces) continuing pres-
ence in South Korea after the
adoption of a peace treaty”.
The Blue House warned the
adviser “not to cause any
more confusion” with such
comments, Moon’s spokes-
man Kim Eui-kyeom said.
Seoul and Pyongyang have
remained technically at war
since the 1950s but Moon and
the top DPRK leader Kim Jong-
un agreed at a historic summit
last week to work toward a per-
manent peace treaty this year
to replace a 65-year-old armi-
stice agreement.
According to the Agence
themselves as single, so clear-
ly there’s something to do
here,” Zuckerberg told soft-
ware developers at Facebook’s
annual F8 conference.
Zuckerberg said Facebook
was building the dating ser-
vice with an emphasis on pri-
vacy, a sensitive subject for
people who use dating web-
sites and for Facebook as the
company reels from a scandal
over its handling of personal
information.
Zuckerberg also pledged
that the company will build
its way out of its worst-ever
privacy debacle.
For the first time in several
weeks, Zuckerberg went
before a public audience and
102 people
remained in custody of the
276 who were arrested, as
of Tuesday, according to
police
rupt the union meeting, to
derail the day,” Paris police
chief Michel Delpuech said.
“When we saw this violence
and the attackers’ determina-
tion, I immediately gave an
order to stop the march.”
Macron condemned the
violence, posting on Twitter
during his trip to Australia:
“Everything will be done so
that the perpetrators are
identified and held responsi-
ble for their actions.”
The looting and destruction
France-Presse news agency,
Seoul’s Defense Ministry con-
firmed that eight US F-22 fight-
er jets had arrived at an airbase
in the southern city of Gwang-
ju on Sunday, to take part in a
regular joint exercise named
“Max Thunder”, which will kick
off on May 11 for two weeks.
“Max Thunder is a regular
exercise that has been on the
docket long before a planned
US-North Korea summit,” the
ROK’s Defense Ministry said
in a statement.
ROK newspaper Chosun
Ilbo said the aircraft deploy-
ment could be intended to
heap pressure on Pyongyang
ahead of a planned summit
between Kim and US Presi-
dent Donald Trump. The
newspaper also suggested the
arrival of F-22 jets could also
be aimed at bolstering security
didn’t apologize for the Cam-
bridge Analytica scandal, in
which a political data-mining
firm accessed data from as
many as 87 million Facebook
accounts for the purpose of
influencing elections. Or for a
deluge of fake news and
alleged Russian election
interference.
Instead, Zuckerberg sought
to project a “we’re all in this
together” mood that was
markedly different from his
demeanor during 10 hours of
congressional testimony just
a few weeks ago and reiterat-
ed that Facebook is investing
a lot in security and in
strengthening its systems so
they can’t be exploited.
AFP
overshadowed the march,
which drew between 20,000
and 55,000 peaceful protest-
ers according to estimates.
Other May Day protests
were largely peaceful in
French cities, where hun-
dreds of thousands of work-
ers and students gathered.
Polls show the French sup-
porting Macron’s reforms but
being more critical of his fis-
cal policy, seen as favoring the
wealthy.
But Macron, who vowed
during his election campaign
to make France more compet-
itive, has insisted he will not
budge from his course.
“I’m doing what I said I
would,” he said during a
recent television interview to
mark the anniversary of his
election on May 7.
AFP—XINHUA
in case the DPRK-US summit
takes place at Panmunjom.
Fang Xiaozhi, a researcher
at Fudan University, said that
the Panmunjom Declaration
has laid the foundation for
achieving peace in the Kore-
an Peninsula, yet to achieve a
permanent peace requires
both the DPRK and the US
should make concessions
rather than confrontations.
Fang said the deployment
of US troops in the ROK may
stimulate hostility. He said
Pyongyang had previously
reacted with anger to the
deployment of US troops in
the peninsula over fears the
drills could be used to prepare
for surgical strikes against it.
Fang added that a US mili-
tary withdrawal from the
ROK will be a key issue in the
Kim-Trump summit.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at Facebook’s annual F8
conference in San Jose, California, on Tuesday. REUTERS
Dan Goldstein, president of
digital marketing agency
Page 1 Solutions, said Zucker-
berg’s speech suggested the
company “is getting the mes-
sage” about privacy.
Briefly
ARMENIA
Parliament fails
to elect new PM
Armenia’s National Assem-
bly on Tuesday did not suc-
ceed in electing a new
prime minister. The only
candidate, the opposition
leader and head of Civil
Contract Party, Nikol Pash-
inyan, got 45 votes with 56
against his candidacy. He
had to get at least 53 votes
in the 105-seat parliament.
A new vote was scheduled
for next week. The vote
came after previous prime
minister Serzh Sargsyan
stepped down on April 23
amid mass protests over
constitutional reforms.
UNITED KINGDOM
Man killed in
London shootings
A man died and another
was seriously wounded on
Tuesday night in shootings
in northwestern London,
local news reports said ear-
ly on Wednesday. He died
at the scene about an hour
after police and medical
workers arrived at Cumber-
land Road, where the
shootings took place. The
injured man, in his 20s,
was sent to a hospital in
northern London. He
remained in a stable condi-
tion, Sky News said. Police
have launched an investiga-
tion into the incident.
UNITED NATIONS
Report: 54 claims
in three months
The United Nations said on
Tuesday it received 54 alle-
gations of sexual abuse and
exploitation against peace-
keepers and civilian staff
and groups implementing
programs in the first three
months of 2018, including
one involving an 11-year-old
girl. UN deputy spokesman
Farhan Haq told reporters
that 14 allegations involved
peacekeeping operations,
18 involved UN agencies,
funds and programs, and 21
were related to UN partner
organizations. He said the
allegations involved 66 vic-
tims, including 13 girls
under age 18.
AUSTRALIA
Kangaroo attacks
fuel warning calls
Attacks by kangaroos in
Australia’s New South
Wales have fueled calls for
more warnings about feed-
ing or approaching the ani-
mals, local media reported
on Wednesday. The marsu-
pials on the grounds of
Morisset Hospital in the
Lake Macquarie area draw
thousands of visitors a
week but tourists have
been injured trying to feed
the animals. Politician Greg
Piper has called for author-
ities to put up warning
signs.
XINHUA—AP
“Time will tell, but this may
help Facebook overcome the
shadow of the Cambridge
Analytica scandal,” he said.
REUTERS—AP
 BIG MONEY China helps developers finance rental projects p14 WEAK

BUSINESS
ROBUST MODEL A good story for countries to reflect on p15 RESPONSE
Trading quota
expansion wins
tepid initial
reaction
p16
CHINA DAILY » CHINADAILY.COM.CN/BUSINESS Thursday, May 3, 2018

PMI edges up to 51.1 in April Papua New Guinea,

Manufacturing
improves for
11th consecutive
month, driven by
stronger output
By CHEN JIA
chenjia@chinadaily.com.cn
China’s manufacturing sec-
tor showed a further margin-
al improvement in operating
conditions last month, driven
by accelerated output,
although weaker demand in
international markets stag-
nated exports, according to
an unofficial leading econom-
ic indicator released on
Wednesday.
The manufacturing Pur-
chasing Managers’ Index
(PMI), jointly issued by Caix-
in Insight Group and global
marketing information com-
pany IHS Markit, edged up
to 51.1 in April from 51.0 in
March, marking the 11th
consecutive month of the
strengthening of operating
conditions, although the
rate of improvement was
modest.
The official manufacturing
PMI, released by the National
Bureau of Statistics two days
earlier, slightly weakened by
0.1 percentage points to 51.4
in April, but stronger than
market expectations, mainly
led by the dips of new orders
and the trade-related sub-in-
dices.
Both gauges remained
above 50 — the threshold
between expansion and con-
traction, indicating that the
manufacturing sector main-
tained stable growth momen-
AVIATION
An employee does soldering work at an auto manufacturing company in Shandong province.
tum, said analysts.
Output increased at a faster
rate last month than in
March, while the contraction
in employment narrowed.
However, growth of new busi-
ness moderated for the sec-
ond straight month,
reflecting weakening demand
across the manufacturing sec-
tor, said a Caixin/Markit
research note.
“Overall, operating condi-
tions across China’s manufac-
turing sector continued to
improve in April. But uncer-
tainty in exports has
increased significantly, and
the dependence of the Chi-
nese economy on domestic
demand is rising,” said Zhong
Zhengsheng, director of Mac-
roeconomic Analysis at
CEBM Group.
Data from the Caixin/
Markit PMI survey showed
that April’s new export sales
declined for the first time
since November 2016, due to
weaker demand in interna-
tional markets that had
partly weighed on overall
growth.
Concerning future market
conditions and the strength
of global demand, some man-
ufacturers expressed weaken-
ed confidence toward the year
WANG JILIN / FOR CHINA DAILY
ahead, reflected by a Caixin/ country’s non-manufacturing
Markit PMI sub-index that sector expanded at a faster
dipped to a four-month low pace for a second consecutive
last month. month in April, rising from
Zhao Qinghe, an economist 54.6 in March to 54.8. The
with the NBS, said that as the pace of expansion was also
nation’s manufacturing sec- higher than 54 in April 2017.
tor maintains stable growth, Some economists predicted
especially among high-quali- a gradual slowdown of Chi-
ty and high-tech companies, nese economic growth
the profitability of manufac- throughout 2018, although
turers improved during the the 6.8 percent year-on-year
past month. GDP growth was unchanged
“Besides, the non-manufac- in the first quarter compared
turing sector also showed fast with that in the last three
expansion which contributed months in 2017, with invest-
more to the overall economic ment growth in manufactur-
growth,” said Zhao. ing and infrastructure both
According to the NBS, the moderating.
Kenya to join AIIB
as new members
By JIANG XUEQING
jiangxueqing@
chinadaily.com.cn
The Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank announced
on Wednesday its board of
governors has approved appli-
cations from Papua New Guin-
ea and Kenya to join the bank,
thus increasing its approved
membership to 86.
The two prospective mem-
bers, one regional and one
non-regional, will go through
the required domestic proce-
dures and deposit the first
installment of capital with
the bank before they become
its members officially. They
will obtain shares in the bank
from its existing pool of unal-
located shares, according to
the Beijing-headquartered
AIIB.
“We’re very happy to wel-
come Papua New Guinea and
Kenya as prospective mem-
bers of AIIB,” said Danny Alex-
ander, vice-president and
corporate secretary of the
bank.
“AIIB now has 86 approved
members from six continents.
This shows a strong commit-
ment to promoting infrastruc-
ture development through
rules-based multilateral coop-
eration with high standards of
governance.”
Headquartered in Beijing,
AIIB is a multilateral develop-
ment bank with a mission to
improve socioeconomic out-
comes in Asia and beyond by
investing in sustainable infra-
structure and other produc-
tive sectors.
At its launch in January
2016, a total of 57 members
signed AIIB’s Articles of
Agreement. In 2017, the bank
announced the approval of
another 27 prospective mem-
bers, and it expects to contin-
ue welcoming new members.
“AIIB is not subject to politi-
cal interference, nor does the
bank get involved in political
conflicts internationally or
between its members. It focus-
es on promoting regional eco-
nomic and social development
and improving the welfare of
the people in participating
countries and regions,” AIIB
President Jin Liqun was quot-
ed as saying in an interview
with Xinhua News Agency in
January.
Two years after it was
launched, AIIB had granted
loans totaling more than $4.2
billion, leveraging over $20
billion in funds from the pub-
lic and private sectors.
On April 11, the bank
announced its approval of a
$140 million loan to a project,
co-financed with the World
Bank, to improve rural road
connectivity and manage-
ment that will benefit
approximately 1.5 million
rural residents in Madhya
Pradesh in India.
“This project will provide
sustainable and safe last-mile
connectivity to small villages
and improve mobility of the
rural population of Madhya
Pradesh ... It is a typical reflec-
tion of our priorities of
enhancing economic growth
and sustainability through
infrastructure investment,”
said Supee Teravaninthorn,
director-general of investment
operations at AIIB.
The bank has been seeking
cooperation with strong insti-
tutional partners.

Opening-up to benefit local, foreign companies Mobile payments

By WANG YU
and ZHU WENQIAN
zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn
China’s drive to further
open up its aircraft manufac-
turing sector will be a shot in
the arm for both the local
industry and foreign compa-
nies planning to increase their
investments, said the newly
appointed China CEO of Euro-
pean aircraft manufacturer
Airbus SE.
“It is significant positive
news. It will be mutually bene-
ficial for the local manufactur-
ing industry and high-tech
aviation companies to expand
their investments in China. It
will surely help to deepen the
cooperation between foreign
manufacturers and their Chi-
nese counterparts,” George
Xu, CEO of Airbus China, told
China Daily.
“Airbus values the impor-
tance of the China market, and
it also recognizes the manufac-
turing and innovation ability
of the country. We hope to
achieve a win-win situation
US firms to see boost as China’s aviation industry takes off
BEIJING — China’s surging
aviation industry has been cre-
ating great opportunities for
global companies, especially US
giants and many enterprises on
the extensive industrial chain.
China has not only devel-
oped a massive civil aviation
market with huge potential, but
has also become a major player
in aircraft manufacturing.
At the end of 2017, China had
a civil fleet of 3,296 aircraft,
according to the Civil Aviation
Administration of China.
Boeing predicted that Chi-
na will need 7,240 new air-
together with China,” he said.
As part of the country’s
broader opening-up push, the
National Development and
Reform Commission said ear-
lier that China will phase out
the 50 percent equity cap this
year for foreign aircraft manu-
facturers in joint ventures in
China.
The manufacturing of trunk
planes, regional planes, gener-
al aviation aircraft, helicop-
ters, unmanned aerial vehicles
and aerostatics will benefit
from the relaxation in the
equity cap restrictions, accord-
ing to the statement. Before,
China’s aviation industry had
a high threshold for foreign
investment access.
Xu pointed out that the eas-
ing of foreign equity restric-
tions will allow domestic
companies to better interact
with foreign firms and help
Chinese companies to
improve. The Chinese aviation
market witnesses huge growth
every year, and the incremen-
tal quantity is big enough to
welcome competition
craft over the next 20 years,
valued at nearly $1.1 trillion.
Boeing delivered a record
high of 202 new aircraft to
China last year, representing
26 percent of its global deliv-
eries and its sixth consecutive
year of more than 140 deliver-
ies to China.
More than 9,000 Boeing
in-service civil aircraft have
components made in China,
according to Boeing. For exam-
ple, all rudders for the entire 787
family come from the Aviation
Industry Corporation of China,
the nation’s largest State-owned
An employee works at the A320 family final assembly line of the
Airbus factory in Tianjin. REUTERS
between different firms.
This year, 10 years after it
was established, the Airbus
Tianjin A320 family final
assembly line, a major indus-
trial base for Airbus in Asia,
will deliver the 400th A320
family aircraft.
Meanwhile, China has
become Airbus Helicopters’
biggest civilian market in
terms of annual orders,
exceeding the United States.
aircraft manufacturer.
Boeing is not the only US
aviation company that bene-
fits from the Chinese market.
Texas-based Bell Helicopter
also achieved great success in
the Chinese market, said Pat-
rick Moulay, the company’s
executive vice-president for
global sales and marketing.
In 2017, Bell Helicopter
signed a deal for 100 Bell
407GXP single-engine heli-
copters with its Chinese part-
ner, Shaanxi Helicopter.
The company also received
110 orders from Beijing-based
To meet that demand, Airbus
Helicopters has started build-
ing a final assembly plant in
Qingdao, Shandong province.
The factory, which will
assemble H135 aircraft — a
light, twin-engine helicopter
— is expected to come online
and roll off the first aircraft in
the second half of the year.
“We are also researching
and discussing the feasibility
of other in-depth coopera-
Reignwood Group for Bell
505 single-engine helicopters
in the same year.
“We take more orders from
the Asia-Pacific region than
the combination of other
markets,” Moulay said in an
interview in February.
With its enhanced manu-
facturing capabilities, China
is now a big player in the glob-
al aviation industry, purchas-
ing more aircraft from
manufacturers worldwide in
a more integrated global avia-
tion industry chain of manu-
facturers and suppliers.
George Xu,
CEO of Airbus China
tions. We don’t rule out any
possibilities,” Xu said.
“Besides industrial coopera-
tion with Chinese firms, we
would also like to expand
cooperation with Chinese air-
lines in terms of training,
spare parts maintenance and
other digital collaborations.”
Airbus’ US rival Boeing has
a B737MAX completion and
delivery center in Zhoushan,
Zhejiang province, and it is
expected to go into operation
in May. By the end of this year,
Boeing plans to deliver the
first B737MAX plane directly
from Zhoushan to a domestic
airline.
“Aviation is a crucial high-
end and high-value industry. It
has an extremely long industri-
al chain and strong economic
radiation capacity,” said Jason
Liao, CEO of the China Busi-
ness Aviation Group.
As the world’s leading avia-
tion power, the United States
not only has manufacturing
giants such as Boeing, Gulf-
stream Aerospace, Textron
Aviation and Bell Helicopter,
but also has many major avia-
tion system suppliers.
XINHUA
prove a holiday hit
By HE WEI in Shanghai
hewei@chinadaily.com.cn
Mobile payment was the
most popular way China’s out-
bound tourists chose to spend
their cash during the recent
May Day holiday, according to
a report from the nation’s lead-
ing mobile payment service.
China’s Hong Kong and
Macao, as well as Japan, topped
the mobile payment chart by
user number among mainland
visitors during the three-day
holiday, Alipay revealed in a
report on Wednesday.
They were followed by Thai-
land, the United States and
South Korea, sought-after des-
tinations where Chinese use
their smartphones to pay for
meals, order taxis and get their
consumption tax refunded.
A greater number of such
consumers come from the rel-
atively affluent coastal areas,
with Shanghai, Guangzhou
and Beijing being the top three
sources of origin, the report
said, based on an analysis of
user demographics.
Nearly two-thirds of out-
bound payments were made
by women, the report said.
Meanwhile, those born in
the 1990s constitute the single
largest age group for shopping
overseas, surpassing the older
generation for the first time.
The study also found that
international retail chains are
now well equipped with Chi-
nese payment tools and Chi-
nese-language guides in order
to serve these digital-savvy
tourists.
During the three-day holi-
day, the food and beverage
chains handling the most
transactions via Alipay were
Top 5 overseas
destinations among
mainland tourists
1,Hong Kong
2,Macao
3,Japan
4,Thailand
5,United States
Source: Alipay CHINA DAILY
McDonald’s, Hong Kong’s Tsui
Wah Restaurant and Star-
bucks. More travelers used Ali-
pay at tourist attractions such
as Hong Kong Ocean Park,
Hong Kong Disneyland and
Taipei’s iconic skyscraper Tai-
pei 101.
Taxi customers in Australia
even benefited from a 10 per-
cent discount for payments
conducted via Alipay during
the holiday.
Using Alipay to get tax
refunds now takes only a blink
of an eye, circumventing the
trouble of filling in lengthy
forms containing billing
details, and the subsequent
months of waiting.
During the three-day vaca-
tion, South Korea, France and
Germany witnessed the high-
est number of tax refunds
being conducted among the
29 economies where such a
service is available.
“China has embraced
mobile payments faster than
any other country, and will
continue to lead the global
charge in this regard,” said Vis-
hal Bali, managing director of
Nielsen China.
The Alipay survey echoed a
study by Nielsen in February,
which showed that more than
90 percent of Chinese tourists
would use mobile payment
overseas given the option.
14 BUSINESS
What’s news
GOVT AND POLICIES
Biz environment
improving: Survey
A recent survey shows that the
business environment in Bei-
jing has been improving. The
Survey Office of the National
Bureau of Statistics in Beijing
surveyed 132 sci-tech or cultur-
al firms about streamlining
administration and optimizing
services. Its official website did
not specify when the survey
was conducted. Three out of
four, or 75.7 percent, of the com-
panies surveyed thought the
business environment had
improved because fewer items
were required for administra-
tive review, and the review pro-
cedure had been simplified.
Meanwhile, 81.5 percent of
those polled had accessed the
online qualification verification
system and other public servi-
ces. At least two out of three, or
67.3 percent, agreed that their
users’ experiences were good.
COMPANIES AND MARKETS
Public companies
posting better profits
More than 60 percent of Chi-
nese public companies reported
profit growth in the first quarter
of this year partly due to a recov-
ery in commodity prices amid
the ongoing economic restruc-
turing. Around 3,500 firms list-
ed on the Shanghai or Shenzhen
exchanges posted combined net
profits of almost 850 billion
yuan ($130 billion) in the Janu-
ary-March period, according to
financial information provider
Wind. More than 2,200 compa-
nies managed to increase their
profits year-on-year, with 576
doubling their growth rates.
Construction material produc-
ers saw the most rapid profit
growth of 182.58 percent, fol-
lowed by iron and steel plants
and defense companies. Busi-
nesses in nonferrous metals and
telecommunication also logged
profit increases of more than 50
percent.
Fewer lockup
shares eligible
Lockup shares worth around
41.19 billion yuan ($6.5 billion)
are eligible for trading on the
Shanghai and Shenzhen stock
exchanges this week. The value
was substantially down from
nearly 75 billion yuan of shares
unlocked last week. A total of
5.21 billion shares from 35 listed
firms will become tradable.
Jiangsu Broadcasting Cable
Information Network Corpora-
tion will see 16.72 billion yuan of
shares become tradable, the
largest number to hit the mar-
ket. Under China’s market rules,
major shareholders must wait
one to two years before they are
permitted to sell their shares.
Home-made jet
makes first flight
The ARJ21, China’s first
domestically made regional
passenger jetliner, made its
first flight to Heilongjiang
province in Northeast China on
Wednesday, signifying that
Harbin will become one of the
aviation hubs for the aircraft.
“The new flight indicates that a
new operation model, which
takes Harbin as a hub and
develops regional operation,
has officially started,” said a
statement by Commercial Air-
craft Corp of China, the manu-
facturer of the ARJ21.
Ford US sales down,
Fiat Chrysler up
Ford Motor Co reported on
Tuesday a 4.7 percent decline in
its US sales for April, while Fiat
Chrysler saw a 5 percent
Oh boy, what a service!
Two female consumers scan a quick-response or QR code to hire a boyfriend for 20 minutes at a mall in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province,
during the May Day holiday. The service empowered female consumers to ask the hired “boyfriend” to chat with them, take
pictures for them, carry their shopping bags and so on. WEI DONGSHENG / FOR CHINA DAILY
increase year-on-year. Ford sold
a total of 204,651 vehicles on the
US market, with its fleet per-
formance falling 8.6 percent due
to order timing, said the compa-
ny. Fiat Chrysler US on Tuesday
reported sales of 184,149 vehi-
cles, a 5 percent increase com-
pared with sales in April 2017 of
176,176 vehicles. The company
said its overall sales were push-
ed by the Jeep brand, which
reported record sales of 82,641
vehicles for April, up 20 percent.
Boeing to buy
aviation parts firm
Top US aircraft manufacturer
Boeing Co announced on Tues-
day that it will pay a total of
$4.25 billion to acquire leading
aviation parts and service dis-
tributor KLX Inc to tap the
lucrative aviation service mar-
ket. Boeing said the acquisition
is contingent on the spin-off of
KLX Inc’s energy business,
which will be sold to share-
holders. The deal includes an
all-cash transaction for $63 per
share and the assumption of
approximately $1 billion in net
debt when it acquires KLX Inc
to grow the aviation service
business, Boeing said.
AROUND THE WORLD
EU urges steel
tariff exemption
In response to the White
House announcement to
extend until June 1 the Europe-
an Union’s exemption from US
steel and aluminium tariffs,
the EU on Tuesday demanded
that Washington grant it per-
manent exemption, saying that
it won’t negotiate under pres-
sure. “The US decision pro-
longs market uncertainty,
which is already affecting busi-
ness decisions. The EU should
be fully and permanently
exempted from these meas-
ures, as they cannot be justi-
fied on the grounds of national
security,” said the European
Commission in a statement
shortly after the temporary
extension. “As a longstanding
partner and friend of the US,
we will not negotiate under
threat. Any future transatlantic
work program has to be bal-
anced and mutually benefi-
cial,” said the statement.
EIA says crude oil
efficiency improves
The increasing productivity of
new oil wells accounted for ris-
ing crude oil production in the
United States in recent years,
the US Energy Information
Administration said in a report
China helps developers
finance rental projects
BEIJING — China has
moved to support the issuance
of rental property-backed
securities to help finance a
burgeoning rental housing
market, a crucial part of its
planned policy package that
aims to stabilize the real estate
sector.
The real estate investment
trust, a means of property
asset securitization, will be
piloted for developers to raise
funds, according to a Ministry
of Housing and Urban-Rural
Development and China Secu-
rities Regulatory Commission
document.
The program will enable
companies to reduce their lev-
erage ratio and diversify
investment options. Large and
mid-tier cities, the Xiongan
New Area and some other cit-
ies will be the first to get the
green light under the pilot
program.
It is the latest move in a gov-
ernment-led campaign to foster
the home rental market as part
of a long-term solution to an
overheated real estate market.
Developers have been
encouraged to launch rental-
only projects but many have
hesitated, afraid of an unaf-
fordable impact on their capi-
tal chain. While monthly rents
are far from enough to replen-
ish cash flows, one-off pay-
ment plans are unattractive to
tenants.
China Vanke, one of the
country’s top property devel-
opers, has created discontent
as the minimum rent of its
long-term leasing apartments
Thursday, May 3, 2018 CHINA DAILY
published on Tuesday. Accord-
ing to the EIA, since 2007, the
average first full month of oil
production from new wells has
generally increased. These
growing initial production
rates have helped tight oil pro-
duction to increase despite
slowdowns in drilling activity
when oil prices fell. The EIA
said that the average new well
in 2017 produced more oil than
wells drilled in previous years,
a trend that has persisted for
nearly 10 consecutive years.
Greece exiting
bailout in summer
Greece is exiting painful bail-
out programs this summer aft-
er eight difficult years of acute
debt crisis, with good
prospects for the future which
can be constructed on the
foundations of a new growth
model, Greek Economy and
Development Deputy Minister
Stergios Pitsiorlas said on
Monday. After an unprecedent-
ed fiscal adjustment and much
needed reforms to fix structur-
al problems, economic indexes
in Greece improved in recent
months. The nation posted
impressive growth rates last
still under construction in Bei-
jing are reported to be triple
the district average.
The project is designed to
offer more than 1,000 rental
housing units in 2020, with
the rent for a three-room
apartment of 90 square
meters set at 15,000 yuan
($2,370) to 18,000 yuan a
month.
Analysts believe govern-
ment support of property asset
securitization like the REIT
will ease developer concerns
over cash flow and significant-
ly widen financing channels
for the rental market.
“More businesses will be
motivated to build up a pres-
ence in the home rental mar-
ket,” said Zhang Dawei, a
Centaline Property analyst.
Funds raised through rental
property-backed securities
totaled more than 50 billion
yuan by March, and will likely
grow more rapidly with the
new favorable policies.
For a long time, soaring
property prices have put
urban residents under pres-
sure, making housing afforda-
bility a growing problem for
policy makers. Now the gov-
ernment wants to further tap
the rental market to stabilize
home prices and curb specula-
tion, moving to provide ten-
ants with the same public
services that owners enjoy to
encourage more people to rent
rather than buy.
Beijing municipal govern-
ment has published a pro-
rental policy that will
guarantee the education
year, and the outlook was more
positive.
Irish manufacturing
growth picks up
The growth rate of Ireland’s
manufacturing sector picked
up in April after it fell to a
12-month low in March due to
the serious disruptions of a
massive snowstorm that hit
the country at the start of last
month, revealed a survey pub-
lished on Tuesday. The Invest-
ec’s Manufacturing Purchasing
Managers’ Index (PMI), an
index widely used for measur-
ing Irish manufacturing activi-
ties, showed that Ireland’s
manufacturing sector for April
grew at a rate of 55.3, an
increase of 1.2 points from
March’s reading. A reading of
50 or above marks expansion
while that below 50 indicates
contraction.
Treasurer expects
‘heads to roll’
The board of one of Australia’s
leading four banks has been
put on notice by Treasurer
Scott Morrison following a
report which found it had
become complacent and unac-
countable. The Common-
wealth Bank’s “continued
financial success dulled the
senses of the institution,”
according to a “damning”
eight-month investigation by
the country’s leading financial
regulator, Australian Pruden-
tial Regulatory Authority. The
report, which centered on the
CBA’s governance, and
accountability, identified wide-
spread complacency and a lack
of incentives to improve cus-
tomer outcomes.
Vietnam auto
imports decline
Vietnam imported completely
built automobiles and compo-
nents for assembly worth near-
ly $1.2 billion in the first four
months of this year, a decline
of 32.2 percent year-on-year.
Specifically, the nation import-
ed over 6,700 completely built
automobiles worth $198 mil-
lion, posting respective
decreases of 79.8 percent and
69.8 percent, according to the
Ministry of Industry and
Trade. In April, Vietnam spent
$80 million importing 2,500
automobiles.
CHINA DAILY — AGENCIES
rights of tenants’ children.
With more favorable polices
in the pipeline, the home rent-
al market boasts huge poten-
tial. The number of Chinese
who rent will reach nearly 300
million people in 2030, up
from 190 million at present,
and total rents will more than
quadruple to 4.6 trillion yuan,
according to a report by the
Guanghua School of Manage-
ment with Peking University.
A robust rental market will
“avert drastic ups and downs
in the property market and
reduce irrational demand,”
Zhang said.
Partly by promoting home-
leasing, the government is
working on a long-term mech-
anism for property regulation
that will ensure sustainable
and steady development of the
real estate market, which has
stayed tame largely due to pro-
visional purchase restrictions.
Hainan province on Sunday
imposed tougher rules to frus-
trate speculation.
New house prices in the
first-tier cities declined 0.6
percent year-on-year in
March, while prices of existing
houses inched down 0.1 per-
cent, data from the National
Bureau of Statistics showed.
The property market in the
second-tier cities also saw
slower price growth.
“Housing prices were gen-
erally stable as market con-
trols have continued to take
effect,” said NBS statistician
Liu Jianwei.
XINHUA
 CHINA DAILY Thursday, May 3, 2018
Q & A WITH CEO
Editor’s Note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up. China Daily interviewed top executives of well-known multinational companies for their views on the country’s socioeconomic development.
A good story for countries to reflect on
China’s development is a robust model that benefits governments, businesses and communities, PwC Asia-Pacific chairman says
By JIANG XUEQING
jiangxueqing@chinadaily.com.cn
Please use three words to
describe China’s changes in
the past 40 years.
Unprecedented, exciting
and game-changing.
What are the biggest
achievements in China since
the introduction of the
reform and opening-up poli-
cy 40 years ago?
Poverty alleviation and
wealth generation: China’s
development has contributed
to inclusive growth through
poverty reduction, dramati-
cally improving the living
standard of 1.39 billion people.
Urbanization: A huge
achievement has come via
China unlocking the power of
cities for sustainable develop-
ment. When China embarked
on the opening-up policy 40
years ago, the percentage of
the urban population was less
than 20 percent. By 2016, the
urbanization rate reached
57.35 percent.
Geopolitical shift: China has
changed the international
landscape to become one of
the main drivers of the global
economy. Since 1978, China’s
ranking with respect to GDP
globally has increased from
the tenth to the second, and it
is on track to become the first.
We now see cities in China that
have the same level of GDP and
social contributions as many
nations around the globe.
Transition from technologi-
cal adaptor to innovator: Chi-
na is developing into a leader
regarding the development
and application of cutting-
edge technology. The world is
now following in China’s foot-
steps in areas like drone build-
ing, mobile applications, AI
and new energy.
Economic reform: The intro-
duction of market principles,
opening up to foreign invest-
ment and enabling entrepre-
neurs to start their own
businesses has created enor-
mous business opportunities
and wealth in the private sector.
What’s the biggest challenge
China faces today and how
can the country overcome it?
President Xi Jinping has
made it clear that eradicating
poverty in rural areas by the
end of 2020 is the “bottom line
for China’s building a well-off
society in an all-round way,
and also our solemn commit-
Prudential executive: Insurance sector can be six times bigger
By LI XIANG
lixiang@chinadaily.com.cn
Please use three words to
describe China’s changes in
the past 40 years.
Progressive, wise and well-
thought-through.
What are the biggest
achievements in China since
the introduction of the
reform and opening-up poli-
cy 40 years ago?
Opening up the market to
attract foreign capital is a huge
game changer for China. If you
combine the openness with
the population that is increas-
ingly better educated, then
you have the ingredients to
effectively reap the success
that China is enjoying today. I
think the other key thing is
being prepared to evolve as
the country goes through dif-
ferent stages, and to plan with
a very long horizon as opposed
to a narrower and shorter
horizon. It means that a lot of
the policies and steps that
have been taken by the author-
ities have been well-thought-
through.
How do you see the growth
potential of China’s insur-
ance and asset management
industries?
ment”. China has to continue
working on promoting indus-
trial development in poor
regions, giving the poor easier
access to employment servi-
ces, healthcare and education,
and improving infrastructure
in poor regions.
In addition to these socioeco-
nomic challenges that China is
responding to, one major chal-
lenge relates to adapting to the
ever-changing frontier of possi-
bilities brought about by the
pace of change that has come
with the nation’s rapid techno-
logical developments. China’s
initiatives, like Internet Plus
and Made in China 2025, have
helped the nation quickly
become an established leader
in tech such as fintech, AI,
drone manufacturing, online
retailing and mobile payments.
Building and sustaining
trust in an ever-changing
world is being recognized as
one of the most significant
challenges faced by organiza-
tions across all industries. The
global financial crisis already
demonstrated how important
trust is, and how easily it can
be damaged. But in a world
that’s changing beyond all rec-
ognition, the very purpose of
business — not just its practic-
es — will come into question.
Trust is seen as the key differ-
entiating capability.
The demand for greater
organizational transparency is
rising in China, particularly
with respect to systems, proc-
esses and sources of materials
and ingredients. The pressure
on the environment is also
mounting as our population
grows and becomes more
urbanized. By way of example,
building trust in food safety
and food quality is an extreme-
ly difficult and complex prob-
lem for China as consumers
seek increased transparency
and greater information about
the ingredients and origins of
the food they purchase. Addi-
tionally, building trust is
essential to the successful
adoption and use of AI.
In creating trust and being
transparent with people, orga-
nizations will need to educate
their people and equip them
with the necessary skills for
the future. Even prior to that,
it must be acknowledged that
our children’s education sys-
tem requires an overhaul. A
“one shoe fits all” approach to
education is being questioned
by many as we hear about
more children being home
For life insurance and asset
management business, the
market is still underpenetrat-
ed in China. On the asset man-
agement side, the whole
market is about $1.8 trillion,
which is roughly equivalent to
15 percent of GDP. When we
compare it with the US or EU,
which have asset manage-
ment sectors with a size equiv-
alent to 75 percent of GDP, it
means that the Chinese mar-
ket very soon will have the
potential to be six times bigger
than it is today.
On the side of life insurance,
there are only about 115 mil-
lion Chinese people that have
a life insurance or a saving-
type contract. When you com-
pare that to the population of
1.4 billion or to the size of the
middle class, which is around
400 million, it gives you a
sense of the growth potential
of the Chinese market.
Mobile and internet finance
has been developing rapidly
in China. What’s Prudential’s
digital plan and how will you
integrate technology into
your business model?
We are increasing spending
across Asia to around $422
million into new technological
advancements. We invest in
technology to support our
schooled or being sent abroad
to pursue alternative educa-
tion paths. Doubt has been
expressed publicly by well-
known business figures about
whether the existing educa-
tion system will be sufficient
to allow our children to com-
pete in a world of machines.
We need to recognize the
importance of teaching soft
skills and creative skills.
How has your company bene-
fited from the reform and
opening-up policy?
While we can trace our roots
in the Chinese mainland back
to the end of the 20th century,
our antecedents, and other
major accounting profession-
als, entered the Chinese main-
land under the opening-up
policy since the early 1980s.
Our profession has played a
critical role when China began
the opening-up policy in the
1980s. For example, we played
a role in assisting State-owned
enterprises’ reform, nurturing
the private sectors and con-
necting Chinese brands and
global investors.
Today, collectively we have
CV
Name: Nic Nicandrou
Nationality: United Kingdom
Age: 52
Career:
Since July 2017: Chief Executive
of Prudential Corporation Asia
Since October 2017: Chairman
of CITIC-Prudential Life Insur-
ance Company Ltd
Since October 2009: Board
member of Prudential Plc
October 2014 – July 2017:
Chairman of the European
Insurers CFO Forum
October 2009 – June 2017:
Chief Financial Officer of
more than 600 partners and
over 18,000 people in the Chi-
nese mainland and Hong
Kong, working collaboratively
in over 20 major cities and
SARs, to build trust in society
and solve important problems.
Furthermore, inspired by
the possibilities arising from
the opening-up policy, PwC
China has been able to estab-
lish innovative new initiatives,
such as our Innovation Plat-
form (an enabling innovation
ecosystem), our China Centre
of Excellence, the Experience
Centre, and the You Plus Pro-
gram, which is a new approach
in the field of business profes-
sional training.
Through the You Plus Pro-
gram, we aim to cultivate a new
generation of business leaders
that can generate greater
insights and have the ability to
think ahead, to optimize the
job market in China, to create
job opportunities, and to con-
tribute toward the sustainable
growth of the economy.
Has competition intensified
between your company and
Chinese companies?
Prudential Plc
1997 – 2009: Senior finance
roles at Aviva
1987 – 97: Senior finance roles
at PwC
Education:
Since 1990, fellow member of
the Institute of Chartered
Accountants of England and
Wales
MA in engineering science from
the University of Oxford
Family:
Married with three children
CHINA DAILY
Chinese companies have
excelled as the nation has
continued developing over
the last two decades. The
emerging market has
brought about challenges, for
sure, but also many signifi-
cant opportunities.
We have been agile and
responded to market needs.
Today, the market wants us to
provide multi-disciplinary ser-
vices, so we have had to broad-
en in order to adapt. By
drawing on the full extent of
our resources across our glob-
al network, we are able to cov-
er multiple industries and
provide holistic services tai-
lored to our clients’ needs.
Additionally, as China’s
reach extends, with initiatives
like the Belt & Road, compa-
nies like ourselves that have
global reach and expertise can
offer a differentiated service
characterized by support that
connects across regions, and
spanning multiple sectors.
Looking ahead, we believe
we will see more intricate
blending of tech resources and
talented people together, with
opportunities for continua-
agents and for the staff work-
ing in bank branches. The
sales process can take place on
a tablet and a policy can be
issued in 30 minutes. That’s
how efficient it is.
In claims, we have been
investing in technology that
helps reduce the amount of
time for customers to wait to
be paid from 15 days to just
one day. We do that by allow-
ing people to effectively file
their claims through
WeChat, through which they
can track the progress of
their claims.
We are now looking to coop-
erate with a number of online
platforms in China so that we
can sell products on the plat-
forms and they can be directly
accessed by customers. The
nature of what we are doing
does require professional
advice, though.
If you want to buy some
form of protection or health
insurance, you would want to
interact with a specialist for
advice and to ask questions.
We don’t think it would be in
the interest of our customers
to simply go on a menu and
buy them. People don’t mind
going online to do research.
But when it comes to making
a decision for a life insurance
product or a long-term edu-
CV
Name: Raymund Chao
Age: 57
Career:
July 2017 – Present: PwC
Asia-Pacific and China
Chairman
July 2015 – Present: PwC
China Chairman
July 2011 – Present: Mem-
ber of PwC Global Assur-
ance Executive Team
July 2011 – June 2015:
Assurance Leader of PwC
Asia-Pacific
Jan 2005 – June 2011:
Assurance Leader of PwC
China
Education:
Wilfrid Laurier University,
Bachelor of Arts, Honours
Economics with Finance
and Accounting
CHINA DAILY
tion in growth and brand
while expanding opportuni-
ties for our people.
The market is big enough
for all kinds of players in the
industry. We are the largest
local professional services
firm with one of the largest
global networks providing
deep local and international
capabilities to help our clients
succeed. We need to let the
market do what it needs to in
order to determine resource
allocations and it will drive the
right result.
How do you view China’s role
in the world today?
Today, China is considered as
a key driver of growth, a dis-
rupter of traditional sectors
and a creator of innovation. As
the world’s second largest econ-
omy by GDP, China undoubted-
ly plays a crucial role in the
world. With the increasing sig-
nificance China has on global
economic and political
progress, China’s develop-
ment plans will carry more
influence than ever before.
It is also clear that China is
rising up to the challenge.
President Xi has highlighted
the importance for China to
help safeguard stable globali-
zation, cushioning against its
negative impact, while ensur-
ing technological progress
and innovation are used safely
and sustainably in service of
mankind.
cational saving plan, they
want to talk to a human. I
think in the future, it is about
the combination of both
online and offline access for
our customers.
The Chinese regulators have
indicated their intention of
allowing foreign investors to
own a controlling stake in
their China JVs. Do you have
any plan to increase invest-
ment in China and boost the
stake in your JV?
We’d like to invest organi-
cally — to hire more people,
invest in more technology and
build new offices and new
branches as we expand in Chi-
na. We would like to boost our
stake holding in the JVs (with
CITIC Group) to 51 percent or
more. But at present, we do
not intend to own 100 percent
because I think in China it is
important to work with an
influential partner.
Our strategy is to cover as
much of China as possible. We
are looking to add more prov-
inces as we go more toward
central and western China. We
distribute our products in two
ways. One is through agents,
the number of which is grow-
ing at a very fast rate. We had
44,000 sales agents in the
country by the end of 2017,
15
Could China’s experiences
and practices be used to
solve global problems?
China’s pursuit of inclusive
growth, premised on strong
and sustainable economic
development, is a robust mod-
el that benefits government,
business and communities.
In addition to providing a
model to solve global prob-
lems, China’s Belt & Road Ini-
tiative, initially proposed by
President Xi in 2013, set out
the objectives of increasing
connectivity between nations,
promulgating free trade and
developing new opportunities
for the countries along the
routes as well as China. The
Belt & Road Initiative is foster-
ing a collaborative approach
among nations to develop
socio-economic conditions in
the countries along the routes.
In support of this, PwC has
established a membership-
based platform, which we aim
to use to connect all aspects of
expertise under the Belt &
Road Initiative. We encourage
members to bring and share
productive resources, and con-
tribute and share values. As
the initiator of the platform,
PwC is ready to share resour-
ces and practical experience
from right across our expan-
sive global network.
The China Experience is an
example for many to learn
from, and there is still a long
way to go. But it has been a
phenomenal 40 years and Chi-
na’s journey is a good story for
many to ponder and reflect on.
What is the most unforgetta-
ble experience you have had
in China?
I started working in the Chi-
nese mainland in the 1990s
and later moved to live in Bei-
jing in 2002. During this time,
I have seen so many amazing
changes and development
within China. I have seen
many of my clients prosper
and grow extraordinarily, and
at PwC, we are now approach-
ing 20,000 people, realizing
remarkable growth. Experi-
encing this journey in ever-
changing market conditions
and riding all the waves that
come your way is what makes
my experience in China unfor-
gettable.
Online
See more by
scanning the
code.
doubling the size we had two
years ago.
At the same time, we have
access to about 4,500 bank
branches today, through
which we can distribute our
products. There are huge
opportunities to go after. Chi-
na is now the second largest
contributor to our new sales
and fourth largest contribu-
tor to our profit. The country
will be the fastest growing
market for us for many years
to come given the size of the
opportunity.
What is most important prin-
ciple of operating an insur-
ance company?
I think the most critical
thing is risk management.
Quality business is about sell-
ing a product that a customer
needs and wants and is sold
in a way that doesn’t create
any systemic risk. We have
not sold any short-term guar-
antee products and we will
not make unrealistic promis-
es about achieving a certain
return.
The critical thing for risk
management starts with what
needs you are fulfilling, what
products you are selling to ful-
fill the needs and what prom-
ises you make to your
customers.
16 BUSINESS Thursday, May 3, 2018 CHINA DAILY

Quota expansion gets slow start
Experts expected lukewarm trading as
long-term attractiveness yet to take effect
By OSWALD CHAN
in Hong Kong
oswald@chinadailyhk.com
The first trading day of the
Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock
Connect and the Shenzhen-
Hong Kong Stock Connect’s
trading quota expansion got a
lukewarm market response
as financial analysts argued
that bilateral capital inflows
will depend on the long-term
attractiveness of equity mar-
kets.
On Wednesday, the utilized
quota of northbound trading
of the Shanghai-Hong Kong
Stock Connect and the Shenz-
hen-Hong Kong Stock Con-
nect amounted to 22.9 billion
yuan ($3.6 billion), represent-
ing only 44 percent of the
enlarged quota.
For the southbound trading
of the two direct equity mar-
ket links, the utilized quota
was 12.15 billion yuan, only
about 29 percent of the
increased quota, the website
of the Hong Kong Stock
Exchange revealed.
Patrick Shum Hing-hung,
investment manager at Ten-
gard Fund Management,
said: “The capital flows
depends on whether equity
investments are profitable.
Therefore, just expanding the
trading quota should not
immediately uplift the local
and mainland stock market.”
People’s Bank of China Gov-
ernor Yi Gang announced at
the Boao Forum in Hainan in
April that the daily trading
quota of the two equity mar-
ket trading links with Hong
Kong would be expanded by
four times starting after the
May Day holiday.
The northbound daily quo-
ta is being increased from 13
billion yuan for each of the
Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock
Connect and the Shenzhen-
Hong Kong Stock Connect to
52 billion yuan. In addition,
the southbound daily quota is
being increased from 10.5 bil-
lion yuan for each of the
Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock
Connect and the Shenzhen-
Hong Kong Stock Connect to
42 billion yuan.
The Shanghai and Shenz-
hen equity market trading
links with Hong Kong were
established in 2014 and 2016
respectively in a bid to cement
further financial integration
with the mainland.
Pedestrians walk past the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Shum said the central
bank’s move is to prepare for
the inclusion of A-share Chi-
na companies in the MSCI
Emerging Markets Index next
month.
Starting in June, index pro-
vider Morgan Stanley Capital
international (MSCI) will
include about 236 large-cap A
shares in its emerging markets
index, a move that analysts
said could bring large inflows
of foreign funds to boost the
value of those shares.
“Financial institutions will
ZHANG WEI / CHINA NEWS SERVICE
issue more A-share exchange-
traded funds (ETFs) to attract
overseas capital inflows into
the country’s stock market.
Whether capital inflows into
the A-share market can be
sustained depends on the per-
formance of these A-share
ETFs based on the stock valu-
ation level, and the market
dynamics of the A-share mar-
ket,” Shum told China Daily.
Kenny Wen Kit, wealth
management strategist at
Everbright Sun Hung Kai, the
Hong Kong securities trading
arm of China Everbright
Group, agreed with Shum.
“When the A-share market
booms, mainland stock inves-
tors will also buy Hong Kong-
listed shares. However, from
the perspective of capital
inflows and stock valuations,
the performance of the
A-share market will be lack-
luster in the near future,
meaning stock exchanges
across the border cannot
instantly benefit from the
recent boost of the trading
quota,” Wen told China Daily.
CNOOC-Shell plant
opens in Guangdong
By ZHENG CAIXIONG
in Guangzhou
zhengcaixiong@
chinadaily.com.cn
Production of a major ethyl-
ene project formally kicked off
in Huizhou, Guangdong prov-
ince, on Wednesday, helping
the country reduce depend-
ence on imported petrochemi-
cal products.
China National Offshore Oil
Corporation and Shell Nanhai
BV announced the start up of
their second ethylene cracker
at their Nanhai petrochemi-
cals complex in Daya Bay, a
major petrochemical produc-
tion base.
Meanwhile several deriva-
tive units have also started
and the remaining units will
begin production progressive-
ly over the next few weeks.
These units were constructed
by CNOOC and are owned and
operated by CSPC, the existing
CNOOC and Shell Petrochemi-
cal Co joint venture.
“The start up of the new
ethylene cracker and deriva-
tives units is a significant
milestone for Shell,” said Gra-
ham van’t Hoff, executive
vice-president for Royal
Dutch Shell PLC’s chemicals
business.
“I would like to thank our
partner CNOOC for its excel-
lent project delivery. As the
largest single-site ethylene
The new complex utilizes
Shell’s proprietary OMEGA,
SMPO and polyols technolo-
gies to produce ethylene oxide,
ethylene glycol, propylene
oxide and high-quality polyols,
as well as advanced technolo-
gies for polyolefins, phenol
and oxo-alcohols production,
he said.
The new ethylene cracker
increases ethylene capacity at
the complex by about 1.2 mil-
lion metric tons per year, more
than doubling the capacity of
the complex, and benefits
from a deep integration with
adjacent CNOOC refineries,
He said.
The new facility will also
include a styrene monomer
and propylene oxide plant,
which will be the largest in
China when it begins opera-
tions.
It is the first time that
Shell’s industry-leading OME-
GA and advanced polyols
technologies have been
applied in China. With a
strong track record of reliable
and safe operations, the pet-
rochemicals complex produ-
ces olefins and derivative
products that are used in a
wide range of industrial and
consumer products, including
household appliances, cars,
furniture and computers.
The complex benefits from
deep integration with the
adjacent CNOOC refineries.

TV viewers in US may pay more due to proposed tariffs complex in China, CSPC is key
to Shell Chemicals’ growth
ambitions,” he said.
The expansion enables further
monetization of advantaged
feedstock from nearby
He Zhongwen, chairman CNOOC refineries, respond-
By AI HEPING in New York that it will be higher. tion and another association. plan their orders for the end- and president of CNOOC Oil & ing to the anticipated strong
aiheping@chinadailyusa.com If the full cost of the tariffs TVs and related compo- of-year rush. “The uncertain- Petrochemicals Co Ltd, said Chinese domestic demand in

The average person in the

United States watches more
than four hours of TV a day, or
two months of nonstop
watching per year.
And in a 65-year life, that
person will have spent nine
years glued to the tube,
according to AC Nielsen Co.
If US President Donald
Trump’s proposed tariffs of 25
percent against China go into
effect, watching a new high-
definition, flat-panel screen
could cost more.
How much more? There’s
no consensus on a figure, just
is passed on to consumers, a
new television would be
about $140 more, said Paul
Gagnon, an analyst with data
firm IHS Markit.
“On a $4,000 TV ... the tariffs
might have a several hundred-
dollar price impact,” said
David French, senior vice-pres-
ident for government relations
at the National Retail Federa-
tion, an advocacy group.
The levy could mean higher
prices by 4 percent overall
and 23 percent for TVs from
China, according to a report
commissioned by the Con-
sumer Technology Associa-
nents are among the more
than 1,300 products from Chi-
na, valued at $50 billion,
which would be subject to the
25 percent tariff announced
by the Trump administration.
Last year, of the 41.5 million
TVs exported to the US, about
47 percent were imported
from China, according to Bob
O’Brien, president of Display
Supply Chain Consultants, a
market research firm.
He said the value of TVs
imported from China last
year totaled about $4 billion,
which would be subject to
Trump’s tariff. So TV makers
80 million
number of television sets
that China exported globally
last year
who export their products
from China to the US would
have to pay $1 billion.
Gary Shapiro, chief execu-
tive of the CTA, told The Wall
Street Journal that the tariffs
could affect this year’s holiday
shopping season because
retailers are now starting to
ty level is extraordinarily
high,” Shapiro said.
“There’s potential this
could be a major hit to the
pocketbooks of Americans,
based on what we’re seeing
right now,” said Jack Cutts,
senior director of business
research at the CTA.
China exported around 80
million TVs globally last year,
with nearly 30 percent, or 23
million, shipped to the US,
according to the Beijing-
based market researcher Sig-
maintell Consulting. That
represented $3.9 billion
worth of televisions.
the expansion project demon-
strates great synergies
between CNOOC’s engineer-
ing, construction and manage-
ment capabilities, and Shell’s
advanced technologies in
chemicals.
“It has been recognized by
the government as a role mod-
el for major industrial projects
in China. And this shows what
we can achieve through effec-
tive international partner-
ships,” He said.
“We can now produce more
and better chemical products
for the growing domestic mar-
ket,” he said.
the long term.
Shell has onshore and off-
shore gas and oil development
projects in partnership with
PetroChina and CNOOC, both
inside and outside China,
which help to fuel the coun-
try’s fast-growing economy.
Shell’s downstream business
in China now consists of 11
joint ventures and eight whol-
ly-owned companies.
Founded in 1982, CNOOC is
now the largest offshore oil
and gas producer in China and
its business covers more than
40 countries and regions
worldwide.

Daily Stock Market Performance Gainers

Gainers
and and
Losers
Losers International Stock Markets
Daily YTD Daily Daily Daily YTD % Chg
Index Close % Chg % Chg GAINERS Close % Chg LOSERS Close % Chg Close % Chg –7% 0% +7%
Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index 3081.18 0.0 –6.8 Hang Seng Index 30,723.88 –0.3
Shanghai Stock Exchange
3600 Hang Seng China Ent Index 12,193.59 –1.1
Whirlpool China Co Ltd 5.90 10.07 XishuStrngYrCInnrMngla 16.70 –10.02
3490 Tibet Rhodiola Pharma 42.56 10.00 TonglingZhongFTrntyTch 18.32 –10.02 TAIEX Taiwan Stock Index 10,618.81 –0.4
3380 JDMJingDaMachineNingbo 27.64 9.99 AsiaCuanonTechShanghai 18.68 –10.02 Nikkei 225 22,472.78 –0.2
KunshanKersenSci& Tech 16.74 9.99 Huayi Electric Co Ltd 10.51 –10.02 Sensex 35,221.89 0.2
3270
Tianjin ZhongXin Pharm 16.63 9.99 Ningbo Tianlong Electr 24.71 –10.01 KOSPI 2,505.61 –0.4
3160 S&P/ASX 200 6,050.19 0.6
ShanghaiHileBoTechnlgy 12.68 9.97 Zhende Medical Co Ltd 67.03 –10.00
3050 ShanghaiKaichuangMarne 13.95 9.93 Suzhou Chunqiu El Tech 30.15 –10.00 New Zealand 50 Gross Index 8,494.24 0.7
Sanxiang Adv Materials 21.06 9.80 Univ Sci Ind Shanghai 9.99 –10.00 Straits Times Index STI 3,611.93 –0.1
GuangdongEllingtnElTch 12.81 9.02 Shenzhen Huiding Tech 85.89 –10.00 Bangkok SET Index 1,778.77 –0.1
FangdaCarbonNewMateril 28.19 8.97 XinjiangBaYiIron&Steel 5.05 –9.98 Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index 1,854.38 –0.9
Shenzhen Stock Exchange Component Index 10,342.85 +0.2 –6.3
VN-Index 1,029.08 –2.0
11,700 Shenzhen Stock Exchange Dow Jones 24,099.05 –0.3
11,200 Oriental Energy Co Ltd 10.97 10.03 Dalian Zeus Ent 13.04 –10.01
GuangdongLYIntllgntMfg 6.63 9.95 Dong-E-E-Jiao Co Ltd 53.02 –10.00
10,700 BeijingShunxinAgrcltre 26.93 7.94 Chengdu CORPRO Tech 16.53 –9.67 Commodities
10,200 Wuxi Little Swan Co 68.88 7.63 YuanLngpngHghtechAgrcl 21.07 –7.95 Daily YTD % Chg
ZhejiangSupor Cookware 52.20 7.16 BeijingOrintNtCmmSc&Te 15.31 –7.49 Close % Chg –25% 0% +25%
9700 Walvax Biotechnology 23.39 7.10 Tangshan Jidong Cement 12.36 –7.28 Brent Crude Oil (USD/bbl.) 73.45 0.4
Henan Senyuan Electric 17.83 6.77 ShenzhenLaibao Hi-tech 7.49 –7.07 Gold (USD/t oz.) 1306.80 –0.9
ChongqingZhifeBlgclPrd 43.10 6.11 BYD Co Ltd 49.25 –7.01 Silver (USD/t oz.) 16.13 –1.7
Fujian Sunner Dev 15.24 5.83 Shenwu Envir Tech 11.77 –5.76 Copper (USD/lb.) 3.04 –1.2
Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index 3763.65 +0.2 –6.6
Hengyi Petrochemical 21.35 5.64 WuhShnrngSnqIntrctEntN 13.54 –5.71 Aluminum (USD/MT) 2266.50 0.1
4400 Corn (USD/bu.) 4.06 1.2
Hang Seng Wheat (USD/bu.) 5.29 3.7
4000 Sunny Optical Tech 136.50 4.92 Bank of Communications 6.31 –2.32 Soybeans (USD/bu.) 10.53 0.5
Geely Automobile 21.65 3.10 Hengan International 68.50 –2.14 Coffee (USD/lb.) 1.25 0.2
3600 Sands China Ltd 47.00 2.73 CITIC Ltd 11.82 –1.83 Sugar #11 (USD/lb.) 0.11 –1.8
Galaxy Entertainment 70.95 2.23 Wharf RealEstate Invst 58.00 –1.69 Palm Oil (MYR/MT) 2376.00 0.6
3200 China Mengniu Dairy Co 26.05 2.16 Link REIT 68.45 –1.65

Cross Currency Rates ETFS

Shanghai B-Share Stock Price Index 316.03 –0.9 –7.5 Daily %
USD EUR CNY HKD GBP KRW BRL RUB JPY INR CAD EQUITY ETFs Ticker Close Change
365
USD 1.200 0.157 0.127 1.364 0.001 0.285 0.016 0.009 0.015 0.780 China 50 510050 2.65 0.15
355 China AMC CSI 300 Index 510330 4.07 0.22
EUR 0.834 0.131 0.106 1.137 0.001 0.238 0.013 0.008 0.013 0.650
345 China CSI 500 510500 6.16 –0.26
335 CNY 6.359 7.630 0.810 8.676 0.006 1.813 0.100 0.058 0.095 4.960 China SME 159902 3.39 0.39
HKD 7.850 9.420 1.234 10.708 0.007 2.238 0.124 0.071 0.118 6.122 China Universal CSI Consumer Staples Index 159928 2.15 0.09
325
GBP 0.733 0.880 0.115 0.093 0.001 0.209 0.012 0.007 0.011 0.572 E Fund ChiNext Price Index 159915 1.70 –0.35
315 E Fund CSI 300 510310 1.60 –0.31
KRW 1076.130 1292.180 169.250 137.087 1468.260 306.927 16.927 9.800 16.137 839.460
E Fund CSI 300 Financials ex Banks Index 512070 1.82 0.33
BRL 3.506 4.233 0.552 0.447 4.785 0.003 0.055 0.032 0.053 2.735 E Fund Hang Seng China Enterprises Index 510900 1.25 1.30
Shenzhen B-Share Stock Price Index 1067.45 –1.0 –8.3
RUB 63.587 76.296 9.992 8.098 86.705 0.059 18.126 0.579 0.953 49.588 E FUND SZSE100 INDEX FUND 159901 4.58 0.04
1260 Fortune SGAM Xianjin Tianyi Money Market 511990 100.02 –0.02
JPY 109.810 131.810 17.270 13.991 149.827 0.102 31.311 1.728 1.647 85.654
Guangfa CSI 500 510510 1.63 –0.12
1210 INR 66.684 80.020 10.486 8.495 90.970 0.062 19.015 1.049 0.607 52.007 Guotai Shanghai Stock Exchange 180 Financial Index 510230 5.88 –0.10
1160 CAD 1.282 1.539 0.202 0.163 1.749 0.001 0.366 0.020 0.012 0.019 Harvest CSI 300 Index 159919 4.10 0.17
Huatai-Pinebridge CSI 300 510300 3.77 0.32
1110 Shanghai SSE180 510180 3.22 0.09
Data provided by
1060 SSE Pledge Urban Investment Bond 511220 93.90 –0.09
M J J A S O N D J F M A Yinhua Traded Money Market Fund 511880 101.54 0.04
 C H I N A DA I LY Thursday, May 3, 2018
SIPO shortens
trademark filing
review processes
By LIANG KAIYAN
liangkaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn
The time taken to review
trademark filings will con-
tinue to shorten as part of
ongoing reforms, according
to a plan released by the
State Intellectual Property
Office at a recent news con-
ference.
The processing period for
new trademark applications
will shorten to six months by
the end of the year and will
be further slashed to four
months by 2020, according
to SIPO’s three-year reform
plans.
The number of trade-
marks filed in China last
year reached 5.75 million,
up 55.7 percent from 2016,
said Chen Wentong, deputy
director of the country’s
trademark office.
Over the past five years,
trademark applications in
China have increased at an
average annual rate of 29
percent, Chen said.
“The large trademark
stockpile and the increas-
ing number of filings require
increased efficiency in pro-
cessing applications and
improved digitalization in
our work.”
According to the reform
plans, SIPO will increase
technological support for
intelligent information
retrieval and optimize its
online application system.
In addition, the organiza-
tion plans to link its trade-
mark database with compa-
nies’ legal departments. The
trademark database will be
open to the public before
year-end.
With access to online
services, trademark appli-
cants will be able to submit
all their materials over the
internet and receive remind-
ers via email, text messages
and SIPO’s online service
platform at the end of this
year.
Since 2016, the trademark
office has strived to change
traditional registration pro-
A Peking Opera doll on display attracts participants’ attention
at the 2017 China Trademark Festival in Guilin, the Guangxi
Zhuang autonomous region in September. LONG TAO / XINHUA
Book targets teenagers to inspire creativity, promote awareness
By LIANG KAIYAN
A novel aimed at promot-
ing innovation and intellec-
tual property awareness was
launched during an open
house event of the State Intel-
lectual Property Office last
week.
The book, entitled I Am
Also An Inventor, is targeted
at teenagers in the hope of
fostering scientific knowledge
and creativity.
A product of SIPO’s Intel-
lectual Property Publishing
House, the work of fiction
tells the story of a young
inventor named Lele who
finds creative solutions to
many of life’s little problems.
“The IP publishing house
takes the responsibility of
pushing communications in
the field of culture and IP,
and cultivating teenagers’
creativity, contributing to the
construction of an innovative
country,” said Chu Mingang,
president of the publishing
house.
The book is designed to
6 and television copyright
months
targeted period of
handling trademark filings
in China by the end of this
year
5.75
million
annual trademark
applications filed in China
last year
cedures by promoting end-
to-end online services that
cover the whole application
process, Chen said.
Last year, the trademark
office began to cooperate
with Chinese internet tech-
nology giant NetEase to car-
ry out a pilot program for
online applications.
The process involved
sending acceptance and pre-
liminary examination notic-
es to 100 trademark agencies
through a public platform.
The program expanded to
500 agencies in February.
“This cooperation has
reduced the time taken to
process and register trade-
marks, resulting in a good
response from society,” Chen
said.
In 2017, overall satisfac-
tion with IP protection
reached 76.69 percent, up
4.31 percentage points from
2016, according to Zhang
Zhicheng, director of the
protection and coordination
department at SIPO.
“With the founding of a
comprehensive law enforce-
ment team for market
supervision, IP protection
in the country is advanc-
ing, and the business and
consumer environment
will continue to improve,”
Zhang said.
Students sign their names to campaign for copyright protection at a primary school in Hai’an county,
Jiangsu province on April 26. GU HUAXIA / FOR CHINA DAILY
inspire people at a young age
to help advance China’s prog-
ress in becoming an IP pow-
erhouse and an innovative
country, he added.
Zheng Yuanjie, a well-
known author in China, said
that children’s curiosity and
Hujiang Education Technologies has advertised its business in public facilities in Shanghai, including office buildings and subway
stations. SUN ZIFA / CHINA NEWS SERVICE
Court upholds ruling over
esteemed university name
Expert suggests more action among institutions to shield intangible assets
By YUAN SHENGGAO
Shanghai High People’s
Court recently upheld a lower
court ruling on a trademark
dispute revolving around a
much-honored university
name that stretches back over
a century.
The wrangle between Uni-
versity of Shanghai for Science
and Technology and leading
Shanghai-based online educa-
tional service provider Huji-
ang Education Technologies
Co Ltd, involved the use of the
trademark Hujiang.
The original University of
Shanghai, founded in 1906,
was also known as Hujiang
University until 1952 when it
was dispersed into other insti-
tutions — including today’s
University of Shanghai for Sci-
ence and Technology.
According to its submission,
USST has long identified itself
as having evolved from Huji-
ang. It said in its bylaws that its
history is given as dating back
to Hujiang University founded
in 1906. USST said that on its
gate hangs two plaques — one
is USST, the other Hujiang.
The Hujiang alumni asso-
ciation, which was founded in
1985, was renamed the USST
alumni association in 2011.
The association still pub-
lishes the Hujiang Alumni
News, which goes out to the
school’s staff and alumni.
By contrast, the internet
company was founded in 2009
and renamed Hujiang EdTech
in 2016. Its founder, Fu Cairui,
studied at a foreign language
school in USST from 1998 to
2005. He told Chinese media
that his company’s name
came from Hujiang University,
showing his esteem towards
his alma mater.
imagination are important
factors in creation and inno-
vation.
To invent is to create IP,
said Zheng, adding that no
one would devote themselves
to creating and inventing
things if it were not for IP.
The page is sponsored by the State Intellectual Property Office.
University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and the
Shanghai Education Commission launch the first Hujiang Cup
piano contest in 2016. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Fu had applied for a series
of trademarks related to Huji-
ang since 2006, which were
granted from 2010 to 2015.
Evidence presented to the
court showed that the com-
pany spent about 300 million
yuan ($47 million) in advertis-
ing to promote its business
in the name of Hujiang from
April 2014 to July 2016.
USST filed a complaint
against the company with the
Shanghai Intellectual Prop-
erty Court in 2016, claim-
ing the latter infringed its
unregistered yet well-known
trademark which constituted
unfair competition.
The Shanghai IP court ruled
in August 2017 that the com-
“As a fairy tale writer, I
think we should set an exam-
ple for teenagers to have
copyright awareness, and
enabling them to learn how
to protect IP is crucial in their
education,” he added.
By using soft power we
pany was involved in unfair
competition over false adver-
tising, but there was no trade-
mark infringement.
Both parties disputed the
decision and lodged an appeal
with the high court, which
heard the case in January and
ruled on the matter on April 18.
The judges said the key
issues in the case were wheth-
er Hujiang was an unregis-
tered, well-known trademark,
whether using Hujiang as a
business mark constituted
unauthorized use of another
business name, and whether
the Hujiang company was
involved in deceptive adver-
tising.
The court found that USST
can create a strong founda-
tion for the understanding
of IP, Zheng said. “Turning
‘made in China’ into ‘created
in China’ should start with
children.”
The launch was part of
a SIPO open house event
which attracted about 300
IP service providers, inno-
vative businesses’ represen-
tatives and primary school
students.
SIPO Commissioner Shen
Changyu said during the
event that his group has
joined hands with the Min-
istry of Education to launch
several pilot programs in IP
education.
To date, SIPO and the
ministry have designated
112 pilot demonstration
schools nationwide. Provin-
cial authorities have named
nearly 1,000 pilot demonstra-
tion schools.
“We want to spread IP
knowledge through every stu-
dent, every family and enable
it to play a role in society,”
Shen said.
uses Hujiang as a logo on its
campus events and alumni
publication.
Its foreign language train-
ing center, named after Huji-
ang, meets the needs of USST
students, as well as a number
of outside trainees. However
the court found that with less
than 1,000 trainees having
gone through its doors in over
three years, the center had not
establish a high-level market
reputation.
Therefore Hujiang could
not be considered as unregis-
tered well-known trademark,
according to the court.
In addition, the court said
that although Hujiang Univer-
sity and USST had certain his-
torical connections, and USST
has continued to use Hujiang
in its name board, and in
previous alumni association
and departments’ names, the
school had no rights to Huji-
ang as a business logo.
The two parties in the case
are both involved in the educa-
tion industry and face com-
petition from each other, the
judges said.
The court found that the
internet-based company had
linked itself to Hujiang Uni-
versity, which had a misleading
effect on the public by suggest-
ing the two were affiliated. This
constituted false advertising,
the court said.
Ning Lizhi, head of the IP
and competition law research
institute at Wuhan Univer-
sity, told China Intellectual
Property News that a higher
learning institution’s name,
as a key intangible asset, has
huge commercial value. He
suggested universities and col-
leges protect their interests by
making full use of the current
legal framework.
Enabling
them (teens)
to learn how
to protect IP is
crucial in their
education.”
Zheng Yuanjie, a writer
112
schools
designated as national-
level pilot demonstration
intellectual property
education centers across
the country
IP special 17
BEIJING
Guide released to
boost efficiency
Beijing High People’s
Court recently released a
guide on hearing copyright
cases to promote quality
and efficiency in the city’s
courts. The guide contains
160 items, covering issues
such as the identification
of infringing copyright-
related personal rights, film
and computer software
copyright. The guide’s
release is a fresh start for the
capital’s copyright judgment
work, local authorities said.
PEOPLE.COM.CN
Dior wins perfume
bottle shape dispute
The Supreme People’s Court
ruled in favor of French
fashion designer Christian
Dior in a recent trademark
dispute. The court heard the
case on World Intellectual
Property Day, which falls
on April 26. It overturned
the rulings by lower courts
and ordered the defendant,
the Trademark Review
and Adjudication Board,
to re-consider a trademark
application by the company.
Dior applied for territory
extensions to five countries
including China via the
Madrid trademark system,
for its signature tear drop-
shaped perfume bottle,
which was rejected by the
board in 2015.
XINHUA NEWS AGENC Y
HENAN
Key industry fund
to protect rights
The province’s first
intellectual property
operation fund for key
industries was launched
recently, with its first-phase
capital worth 300 million
yuan ($47.33 million).
Initiated by Henan’s IP
office, the fund mainly
supports unlisted IP
companies in the province,
including those in the fields
of super-hard materials-
focused new materials,
electronic information and
equipment manufacturing,
as well as related IP
operation organizations,
said the office’s head Liu
Huaizhang.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DAILY
GUANGDONG
Report reveals
record trials heard
Courts in Shenzhen received
28,027 intellectual property
cases, concluding 27,668 of
them last year, according to a
white paper released in late
April. Of the concluded cases,
27,026 were civil cases, 634
were criminal cases and eight
were administrative cases.
The courts have cracked
down on IP infringements to
create market order, where
IP is respected, related
authorities said. They have
ruled over 634 criminal cases,
convicting 1,220 people and
imposed fines worth about
103.35 million yuan ($16.2
million).
SHENZHEN SPECIAL ZONE
Tech standards for
DAILY
patent professionals
New technical standards
for evaluating patent
professionals were
announced recently, the
first of its kind in the
country, local officials said.
The standards released
by the province’s human
resources and social security
department, and IP office
are designed for agencies,
examiners, managers and
analysts in the patent sector.
They set requirements for
educational credentials,
work experience and
achievements, and academic
papers. About 34,000 people
were involved in the patent
sector as of the end of
last year, including 12,000
service providers.
GMW.CN
To comment or
contribute, please e-mail
ipr@chinadaily.com.cn
or contact editors at
+86-10-6499 5774.
18 BUSINESS | CSR
Sinopec
adds fuel to
poverty fight
Energy giant plans to sell agricultural
products from impoverished areas
By ZHENG XIN
zhengxin@chinadaily.com.cn
China Petroleum & Chemi-
cal Corp, also known as Sino-
pec, will start selling apples,
kiwi fruits and goat milk from
Shaanxi province at its Easy
Joy convenience stores inside
gas stations nationwide, coop-
erating with the Shaanxi gov-
ernment in an attempt to
alleviate local poverty.
The company, which is also
the nation’s largest oil refiner,
signed a cooperation frame-
work agreement in April on
industrial poverty alleviation
with Shaanxi province, aiming
to help poverty-stricken areas
of the region sell more agricul-
tural products through its
sales channels.
25,000
number of Easy Joy conve-
nience stores owned by
Sinopec
Sinopec currently owns
25,000 Easy Joy convenience
stores, which serve more than
20 million customers each
day.
These outlets scattered
around the country will ena-
ble local agricultural produc-
ers to further expand their
sales channels and reach more
corners of the nation, said the
company.
Sinopec started its non-fuel
businesses, including conve-
nience stores and auto servi-
ces, in 2008. Its non-fuel
business has seen rapid growth
with increased scale and prof-
its. The profit of non-fuel busi-
ness in 2017 was 2.2 billion
yuan ($346 million), an
Founder Group sponsors world-class contest
in programming to cultivate more talents
By REN XIAOJIN
renxiaojin@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese technology con-
glomerate Founder Group
stepped forward to serve as
the diamond sponsor of a
world-class programming
contest held in Beijing last
month as part of the compa-
ny’s vision to cultivate more
talents in the computing sci-
ence field.
The 42nd Association for
Computing Machinery-Inter-
national Collegiate Program-
ming Contest, or ACM-ICPC, is
one of the world’s most influ-
ential annual college student
computer competitions. It
aims to give college students a
stage to demonstrate their
innovation and ability, and to
learn teamwork and problem-
solving skills.
The New York-headquar-
tered ACM, its organizer, is the
world’s largest educational
and scientific computing soci-
ety, delivering resources that
advance computing as a sci-
ence and a profession. It pro-
vides the computing field’s
premier digital library and
serves its members and the
computing profession with
leading-edge publications,
conferences and career
resources.
Since the yearly contest
began in 1970, the sponsors
have been global computing
science monopolies such as
IBM.
Eager to further deepen its
influence in this field,
Founder Group took over the
sponsorship this year as a
strong gesture to show the
company’s support to the
increase of 700 million yuan
compared with 2016.
China’s northwestern
Shaanxi province, known for
apples and kiwis, is one of the
country’s biggest fruit produc-
tion areas in terms of both
acreage and output. It’s also
one of the biggest apple pro-
ducing regions in the world,
with a production area of
more than 700,000 hectares.
Production output accounts
for some one sixth of global
volume.
However, Shaanxi apples
have been under tremendous
pressure in recent years, partly
due to the increased number of
imported apples on the market.
On the other hand, in the
province, the main production
area for kiwis, millions of
pounds of kiwis are facing
sales difficulties, while the
world’s largest kiwis exporter,
New Zealand’s Zespri Interna-
tional Ltd, is selling around 20
percent of its output to China
and also preparing to start
producing in the country to
cut costs.
Other agricultural products
in the province, including tea,
beef and goat milk, face simi-
lar situations.
The company signed an
agreement with Tibet High-
land Natural Water Ltd in
2014 to sell glacier water at
its Easy Joy convenience
stores.
In 2010, Sinopec’s subsidi-
ary in the Ningxia Hui auton-
omous region in
northwestern China entered
into the medlar or Chinese
wolfberry industry by estab-
lishing a new brand and sell-
ing it at more than 10,000 gas
service stations.
The cooperation will be a
win-win for both sides, Sino-
pec said.
ambitious students and the
country’s growing education
sector.
It was also a gift to the
Peking University, the host of
the event during the universi-
ty’s 120th anniversary, as
Founder Group was founded
by the university in 1986.
After more than three dec-
ades of development, the Bei-
jing-headquartered Founder
Group has evolved into a
diversified business structure
maximizing industry synergy,
with the core business seg-
ments of IT, healthcare, indus-
try finance and an innovation
center as its pillars. It current-
ly has more than 35,000
employees.
“ACM-ICPC started in 1970
and has been hailed as the
Olympics of computing sci-
ence ever since,” said Wang
Yanglin, vice-president of
Peking University. “The year of
2018 marks the 120th anniver-
sary of Peking University and
the event to be held in the uni-
versity aims to promote the
computing science education
in China, inspire more stu-
dents to get involved in the
fields and provide the country
with more talents under the
country’s call to develop artifi-
cial intelligence.”
Wang also expressed his
gratitude to Founder Group
for the group’s generosity in
education.
“In recent years, the group
has been actively practicing its
social responsibility to boost
the education development,”
said Sheng Yuhai, chairman of
Founder Group. “Founder
Group will, as it always does,
make persistent efforts in
An employee from GoalBlue (Shenzhen) Low Carbon Development & Promotion Centre hands out wristbands showing support for the I CARE program during the recent
Midi Music Festival at the Suzhou Taihu Midi Camp. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
GoalBlue launches project for sustainable lifestyle
By ZHENG YIRAN
zhengyiran@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese public service orga-
nization GoalBlue (Shenzhen)
Low Carbon Development &
Promotion Centre is leading
an effort to heighten public
interest in embracing a sus-
tainable lifestyle.
In celebration of the 49th
Earth Day on April 22, 2018,
the Shenzhen-based organi-
zation launched a project
called “I CARE”, aiming at
coordinating efforts from
enterprises nationwide to
make commitments to
responsible consumerism,
building an ecosystem that
connects consumers and
responsible environmental
business solutions.
Specifically, the program
unites enterprises from the
catering, transportation,
chemical, agriculture and
Contestants at the Association for Computing Machinery-Interna-
tional Collegiate Programming Contest. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
pushing education forward
and facilitating the integra-
tion of companies and educa-
tion institutions.”
“The university has been
participating in the contest
since 2010 with students
from the department of
mathematics and informa-
tion science,” said Huang Ru,
an academician at the Chi-
nese Academy of Sciences.
“The event provided a stage
for the world’s top program-
mers to showcase their skills
in a fairground.”
She said the contest plays a
significant role in the progress
of computing program teach-
ing in recent years.
“Founder sponsored our
first few contests within the
university and two regional
contests in Asia in 2004 and
2005, which has laid a solid
ground for the university to be
the host of this world-class
contest,” said Huang, who also
fishery industries, to offer
low-carbon food and trans-
portation solutions, sustaina-
ble agriculture and fisheries,
as well as biodegradable
materials.
As many as 20 enterprises
have already vowed to join I
CARE, such as Beijing Midi
Music School, Moka Bros,
Hatsune restaurant, Panda
Brew, Xiao Heng Dumplings
and REmakeHub.
May Mei, founder and exec-
utive director of GoalBlue,
said that “we only have one
earth to live on, and protect-
ing the environment requires
actions from public interest
organizations, commercial
institutions and consumers”.
“Through the I CARE
project, we aim to get more
people to realize that our con-
sumption behavior can make
a positive change to the envi-
ronment that we live in. If you
is dean of the School of Elec-
tronic Engineering and Com-
puter Science of Peking
University
“When the university decid-
ed to host this year’s ACM-
ICPC final contest, Founder
Group again stepped in to be
the diamond sponsor,” Huang
said. “We hope this joint effort
made between the Peking Uni-
versity and Founder Group
will make this contest a suc-
cessful one.”
“The contest has a historical
significance and is a milestone
in the development of infor-
mation science and comput-
ing science of Peking
University,” said Li Wenxin,
vice-dean of the EECS school
at Peking University.
“The fact that a Chinese
company is sponsoring such
an event is a reflection of the
rapid development of the
country’s information indus-
try,” Li commented.
We are grateful to
see those enter-
prises make a
change.”
May Mei, founder and executive
director of GoalBlue (Shenzhen)
Low Carbon Development & Pro-
motion Centre
care about it, then take
action,” she said.
Xiao Heng Dumplings, a
leading Chinese dumpling
chain restaurant famous for its
take-out service, is among the
first batch of enterprises that
have made a commitment to
use biodegradable meal boxes.
Briefly
Auction supports
kids with leukemia
A charity auction was held
in Beijing on April 15 — the
second anniversary of the
Summer Fund, which helps
children with leukemia — to
raise funds and public
awareness about the group.
Established by China Chil-
dren and Teenagers’ Fund
and its Beijing partner,
Langyuan Boundaryless
Charity, a platform coordi-
nating online charity
efforts, Summer Fund has
offered financial assistance
to 33 young people whose
families couldn’t otherwise
afford the treatment to fight
leukemia, and provided
relief goods to an additional
600 children in China.
“Thanks to the support
from all the kindhearted
people in our society, the
fund is becoming a stronger
power in helping Chinese
kids fight this severe dis-
ease,” Zhu Xisheng, secre-
tary-general of the CCTF
said at the opening of the
event.
Didi builds charity
library via high-tech
Didi Chuxing, one of the top
ride-hailing companies in
China, has teamed up with
the Stars Youth Develop-
ment Center, an education
institute focusing on pro-
moting reading in remote
areas, to launch a library in
Songgui county, Guangdong
province. With Didi’s previ-
ous effort — putting QR
codes for donations on the
books provided for custom-
ers using the app — the firm
managed to collect more
than 130,000 yuan
Thursday, May 3, 2018 CHINA DAILY
Ji Weijia, senior vice-presi-
dent of Xiao Heng Dumplings,
noted that “previously, the vol-
ume of plastic lunch boxes
that we delivered each day
reached beyond 10,000. Now,
as awareness of environmen-
tal protection rises, we regard
using environmentally friend-
ly packing material as a com-
mon practice.”
“Through our commit-
ment, we hope to devote our
own effort to make the earth
cleaner, and get other enter-
prises involved into building
a better planet,” he said.
Apart from enterprises, con-
sumers can also join the I
CARE program through Goal-
Blue’s official website and its
official WeChat account, to
take part in or even launch a
challenge match, such as
refusing plastic straws or eat-
ing vegetarian meals once a
week.
($20,440) to purchase
books for children in the
county. “Technology acts as
one of the most efficient
way of promoting reading
in rural areas, and is play-
ing an increasingly impor-
tant role in charity affairs,”
said Yao Song, a representa-
tive from Stars Youth Devel-
opment Center, at the
launch event of the library.
“We believe Didi’s efforts
will attract more attention
and engagement from the
tech sector.”
Fund set to provide
healthcare for poor
Transfar Foundation, a char-
ity fund established by Zhe-
jiang-based chemical firm
Transfar Group, has
announced the launch of its
new charity healthcare
project in Nanchang, capital
of Jiangxi province. Accord-
ing to Transfar, the firm will
invest up to 200 million
yuan ($31.5 million) to set
up medical stations in 1,000
poverty-stricken villages
across the country in the
next three years. The project
will first be set up in Jiang-
xi, Guizhou and Yunnan
provinces, helping 350 villa-
ges in the areas. “We appre-
ciate the help from
Transfar,” Hu Qiang, vice-
governor of Jiangxi prov-
ince, said at the April 25
launch ceremony. “We
believe the move will be of
great help in the course of
development in the rural
areas.”
Rural students’
artworks displayed
A series of artworks from
students in rural areas can
Apart from the first batch of
enterprises, GoalBlue will con-
tinue to invite companies from
across the nation, and even
globally, to join the program.
“I want the world to be
immortal. I care about our
earth. I care about you, and I
care about me, but what I care
most about, is what I can do
to build a better future,” said
American actor Ian Joseph
Somerhalder, founder of the
Ian Somerhalder Foundation,
in regards to his motivation to
join I CARE.
“For catering enterprises,
they choose to offer a vegetari-
an menu, and biodegradable
packages; while for clothing
companies, they recycle clothes
and produce new ones. We are
grateful to see those enterpris-
es make a change,” Mei said.
Fan Hang contributed to the
story.
be seen at this year’s Shang-
hai Education Expo — a
project sponsored by Huji-
ang EdTech, a Shanghai-
based online learning
service provider — due to its
poverty-alleviation Hu+
Project. Launched in 2015,
the project offers online
classes to assist students in
rural areas, and provides
them platforms to have
group discussion. “Through
the project, we aim to
address educational prob-
lems in China’s remote are-
as, as well as to provide a
model for educating urban
migrant children,” said Fu
Cairui, CEO of the company.
“Using the internet, our
Hu+ Project breaks through
the limits of space and time,
setting up links between
thousands of rural schools
and offering excellent edu-
cation resources nation-
wide, and even around the
globe.”
UNEP, Weibo award
youth for green effort
The United Nations Envi-
ronment Programme, in
conjunction with Chinese
social network platform
Sina Weibo, launched the
Young Champions of the
Earth in China award on
April 18, for those aged 18 to
30 engaged in environmen-
tal protection efforts. The
organizing committee will
pick three candidates with
creative ideas regarding
environmental protection
after an online poll and
experts’ review, and then
provide financial help and
training to help them real-
ize their ideas.
CHINA DAILY

LIFE
CHINA DAILY » CHINADAILY.COM.CN/LIFE
DEATH BECOMES HIM
Film director Lee Unkrich waxes lyrical about his award-winning Day of the Dead romp,
W
hen award-win-
ning American
director Lee
U n k r i c h
addressed the 14th China
International Cartoon & Ani-
mation Festival in Hangzhou
on Friday, the hall was so full
that some of the attendees
were forced to sit on the floor.
With his directorial hits Toy
Story 3 and Coco, both win-
ning best animated feature
Oscars in 2010 and 2017,
respectively, Unkrich’s speech
was one of the hottest tickets
at the annual festival.
With 1.2 billion yuan ($190
million) in box office earn-
ings, Coco became the high-
est-grossing Pixar film in
China, making four times
more than second-placed
Finding Dory.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the
105-minute fantasy film about
a Mexican boy’s adventure
through a colorful Land of the
Dead racked up a score of 9.1
points out of 10 on Douban, a
popular Chinese film-rating
platform.
The movie follows 12-year-
old Miguel, who dreams of
becoming a musician but is
discouraged by his parents,
who despise music since
Miguel’s great-great grandfa-
ther abandoned the family in
pursuit of his own tilt at star-
dom decades earlier. His
desire to emulate his musical
idol, and a magic guitar,
thrusts Miguel into an adven-
turous romp accompanied
Qingdao Movie Metropolis opens with a splash
By XU FAN
Inside a soundstage in west-
ern Qingdao, Shandong prov-
ince, actors from the action-
thriller The Teacher are
performing a series of chase-
and-combat sequences for a
group of onlookers.
Transfixed by the perform-
ance, the audience members —
mainly a mix of movie-industry
insiders and reporters — give
the actors a round of applause
after the scenes.
The demonstration was
part of a string of events held
on Saturday to celebrate the
opening of the Qingdao Movie
Metropolis, which is said to be
the largest film-studio com-
plex in the world.
As China’s answer to Holly-
wood, the new “film kingdom”
backed by investment from
the conglomerate Dalian Wan-
da Group is a 50 billion yuan
($7.9 billion) project that has
taken more than four and a
Coco, at China’s premier animation festival. Xu Fan reports.
only by his faithful pet, a Xolo
dog named Dante.
Talking to China Daily, the
50-year-old filmmaker admits
that he was surprised at the
level of success Coco has
achieved in the world’s sec-
ond-largest movie market.
“Initially, we were worried
that we wouldn’t even be
allowed to release (the film) in
China, due to the regulations,”
he says. “But, it did get
released and it did well, and
we are happy about that.”
Touching on the reason for
the film’s unexpected popu-
larity, Unkrich believes the
similarity between the Mexi-
can and Chinese traditions
about the deceased makes the
movie relatable to local audi-
ences.
“Part of my goal in making
the film was to share the Mexi-
can culture with people
around the world, but I also
wanted to tell a story which
would be universal,” the veter-
an filmmaker notes. “The fact
that the movie did so well in
China shows that we were
right.”
Since graduating from the
University of Southern Cali-
fornia’s School of Cinematic
Arts in 1990, Unkrich has
been fascinated with Latino
culture, especially the
unlikely juxtapositions sur-
rounding death, such as that
of morbid, skeletal imagery
set against bright colors and
the festival feeling of celebra-
tion.
half years to construct.
Spanning 166 hectares, the
sprawling complex will
include 52 state-of-the-art stu-
dios, with 30 completed in the
first phase and 10 more cur-
rently under construction for
the second phase.
Besides the studios, the
complex is home to a film-set
street lined with European
and Shanghai-style architec-
ture, a shopping mall with a
theme park, several luxury
hotels, a yacht club, a hospital
and an international school. It
also includes a 30-theater,
5,000-seat multiplex cinema,
the largest in China.
Wang Jianlin, chairman of
Dalian Wanda, says the mas-
sive film complex marks a
milestone for the industriali-
zation of Chinese cinema, and
will help to promote Chinese
films in foreign countries.
Speaking at the inaugura-
tion ceremony, Wang said the
facility will firmly place Qing-
Lee Unkrich, the Pixar director behind the Oscar-winning animated hits Toy Story 3 and Coco, gives a
speech at the 14th China International Cartoon & Animation Festival in Hangzhou recently.
However, the original inspi-
ration for the film came one
year after the release of Toy
Story 3, during a family vaca-
tion to Disney World in Flori-
da. While visiting the Mexico
pavilion at the Epcot theme
park in 2011, Unkrich spotted
four papier-mache skeletons
dressed like a mariachi band.
Two things immediately
crossed his mind.
“I first thought, it would be
really fun to see them being
animated,” he says, adding
that this is a world he hadn’t
seen explored in film before.
Qingdao Movie Metropolis, said to be the world’s largest film-studio complex, opens in Qingdao, the
seaside city in Shandong province, on April 28. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
dao on the international cine-
matic circuit and turn the
eastern coastal city into a glob-
al movie hub.
With a long history connect-
ed to cinema — the first docu-
mentary shot in China was
made in Qingdao in 1898 and
China’s first movie with sound,
“It can be a dangerous
thing: telling a story about cul-
ture that is different from your
own,” he says. “For Coco, I
knew I had to really deeply
understand the culture of
Mexico.”
After deciding to set a fable
against the Mexican holiday,
Dia de los Muertos, or the Day
of the Dead, Unkrich and his
Pixar creation team did a lot of
research, including visits to
Mexico, where the team spent
time with local families,
watching documentaries and
even inviting some Xolo dog
Sing-song Girl Red Peony, was
made there in 1931 — the city
was named by UNESCO as a
“city of film” in November, the
first of its kind in China.
To date, the fantasy epic
The Great Wall, starring Matt
Damon, and sci-fi film Pacific
Rim: Uprising, headlined by
breeders and their charges to
the Pixar studio to study the
symbolic animals.
Xolo canines are a hairless
breed with a 3,500-year histo-
ry in Mexico, where locals
believe the dogs possess a
supernatural power to ward
off evil spirits.
It took hundreds of anima-
tors six years to create the
vibrant world of Coco, during
which time they had a major
creative obstacle to overcome
— skeletons are usually con-
sidered scary to most people.
“When we first announced
John Boyega, used the Qing-
dao studios to shoot some
special-effects sequences.
For US director Jeremy
Weiss, the convenience and
diversity of the film sets at
the Qingdao facility were the
major inspiration for The
Teacher, a 20-minute short
Thursday, May 3, 2018
that we would make a movie
set against Day of the Dead,
people thought Pixar was
making a horror movie,” notes
Unkrich. “Of course, we knew
it wasn’t. We were going to
make a comedy about family
and love.
“In my mind, a skeleton is
just another form of regular
people.”
In order to make the skele-
ton characters appealing, Coco
animators made them with
eyeballs, lips and vivid facial
expressions, even taking inspi-
ration from some of Pixar’s
most famous characters by
digitally transforming them
into skeletons to study the
movements of their bones.
Speaking about the key to
the enduring success of Pixar,
the animation giant that now
has 19 feature films to its
name, and for which Unkrich
has worked for the best part of
two decades, he believes it’s
the animators’ understanding
about life that makes it work.
“Sometimes the story might
be fantastical, and might not
seem like being about us, but
most of the time, underneath,
it’s often about things that are
important to us as people or a
society,” he explains.
Recently embarking on a
whirlwind tour of China —
taking in Beijing, Shanghai
and Hangzhou — Unkrich says
he has accumulated plenty of
significant experiences of local
life, which may inspire his
future works.
film about a German assas-
sin’s hunt for a Chinese
teacher.
Featuring exotic scenes set
in a German prison and a tra-
ditional Japanese hall, the
movie was actually shot in one
of the Wanda soundstages in
six days.
“We find it interesting that
we can just as easily shoot a
movie in Qingdao as we do
elsewhere around the world,”
says Weiss.
And the fact that the loca-
tions are just a few minutes’
walk from each other also
saves the crew a lot of time, he
says.
Jia Hao, a veteran director
specializing in water sequen-
ces, thinks the state-of-the-art
tanks at the Qingdao facility
will help stars feel safer and
more comfortable in water.
The filmmaker behind the
water scenes of Painted Skin:
The Resurrection and Wolf
Warrior 2 recently shot an
19
Coco, about a Mexican boy’s
adventure through a colorful
Land of the Dead, grabs $190
million at the Chinese box office,
becoming the highest-grossing
Pixar film in the country.
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
In my mind, a
skeleton is just
another form of
regular people.”
Lee Unkrich, director
“As we have traveled a lot,
we discovered a lot of things
and asked many questions,
which has been similar to
the journey that I undertook
while making Coco,” he
notes.
However, Chinese audien-
ces won’t have to wait too long
for a Pixar film rooted in Chi-
nese culture, with Unkrich
revealing that Domee Shi, a
Chinese-Canadian, is about to
become the first female direct-
or in the studio’s 32-year histo-
ry when she releases her film
Bao (Steamed Bread).
The animated short centers
around a mother whose chil-
dren have all left home and
who gets another chance at
parenting when the epony-
mous dish comes to life.
Bao is set for a summer
release alongside Pixar’s much
anticipated superhero sequel,
Incredibles 2.
Contact the writer at
xufan@chinadaily.com.cn
underwater scene in one of
the two huge tanks in the stu-
dios.
One is an indoor tank with
the temperature maintained
at around 32 C. The other, with
a storage capacity of up to
10,000 cubic meters, has
tracks to allow heavy cameras
to operate underwater and a
dedicated room for directors
to guide the action at the bot-
tom of the tank.
“In the past, there were only
a few tanks in China and they
were mostly unheated. Stars
were reluctant to stay in the
water for a long time. The
Wanda tanks have raised the
bar for filming water sequen-
ces,” says Jia.
Operators from Wanda esti-
mate that more than 500 film
and television companies in
China will move into the com-
plex over the next three years,
and will shoot or produce
around 100 movies and televi-
sion series every year.
20 LIFE | Film & TV
Star power sees Youku pack a punch
Chinese video giant is pulling out all stops with a host of new-format shows featuring
big names in a bid to tap the diverse youth market. Wang Kaihao reports.
W
hen long-run-
ning Taiwan
variety talk
show Kangsi
Coming aired its final episode
in 2016, fans on both sides of
the Straits bid an emotional
farewell to its host duo — Kev-
in Tsai and Dee Hsu — who
finally answered the curtain
call after 12 years of bringing
laughter to their viewers.
But the good news is that
fans won’t have to wait much
longer for the pair to make a
comeback.
Youku Inc announced
recently that the duo are set to
return as hosts of a new talk
show for the on-demand vid-
eo giant, one of China’s lead-
ing streaming platforms.
“I didn’t expect to host a
show with Little S (Dee Hsu)
again,” Tsai tells a news con-
ference in Beijing. “We
thought we had covered every
interesting angle, so we decid-
ed to leave Kangsi Coming
while people still had a good
feeling for the show.”
However, when it comes to
variety shows, there is always
something new around the
corner.
According to Tsai, the new
series will feature the original
production team behind
Kangsi Coming and has been
tentatively titled Tan Bai Ba,
Hua Hua Shi Jie (Confess for
a Colorful World). The show
will explore stars’ shopping
habits by asking them to
share their shopping lists and
bills.
“You are what you buy,” Tsai
says. “And this also reveals a
celebrity’s desires and atti-
tudes toward life. Through
this, viewers will be able to
gain a better understanding
of them.”
Tsai adds that unlike Kang-
si Coming, the new show will
use big data analysis of con-
sumer patterns as its founda-
tion, which he hopes will give
it added resonance with ordi-
nary shoppers.
After all, Alibaba, which
runs China’s biggest online
shopping platform Taobao, is
Youku’s mother company.
The reunion between Tsai
and Hsu is just one of a raft of
new-format variety shows
due to be aired by Youku this
year.
Dunk Boys, a new basket-
ball-themed show starring
Taiwan singing star Jay Chou,
will see the idol for a genera-
tion of pop fans team up with
Jeremy Lin, the Chinese-
American NBA star with the
Brooklyn Nets, and Stephon
Marbury, a former NBA star
who has also enjoyed huge
career success in China by
helping the Beijing Ducks win
three national champion-
ships.
Known for being a die-
hard basketball fan, Chou
often shows off his hoop
Documentaries add sparkle to country’s film industry, says report
By XU FAN
xufan@chinadaily.com.cn
With the unexpected suc-
cess of Twenty Two, which
topped the global documenta-
ry box-office charts in 2017,
Chinese producers who make
such films are on a roll, says a
report recently released by
Beijing Normal University.
The report shows that 16
documentaries were screened
in Chinese theaters in 2017,
grossing 269 million yuan ($
43 million), a year-on-year rev-
enue growth of 237 percent.
Twenty Two, a film about
sexual slavery during World
War II, made a record 170 mil-
lion yuan, making it the first
documentary in Chinese cine-
matic history to surpass the
100-million-yuan mark.
The other documentaries
that did well include Sino-UK
production Earth: One Amaz-
ing Day and Return to the
Wolves, a 98-minute film
about a Chinese painter work-
The Taiwan hosting duo of Kevin Tsai (right) and Dee Hsu will reunite for an upcoming variety show for Youku.
Left: Variety show We’re From Earth, featuring one of the first Chinese astronauts, Li Qinglong, will showcase trainings of China’s space
program. Right: Former NBA star Stephon Marbury will appear on the talent show Dunk Boys on Youku.
This era calls for
young idols who
are full of
positive energy
and possess a
strong spirit.”
Yi Hua, producer of Dunk Boys
ing to return an orphan wolf
back to the wild, grossing 47.78
million yuan and 33 million
yuan, respectively, to take the
second and third slots.
In 2017, China invested
nearly 4 billion yuan in total to
produce movie and television
documentaries, which grossed
more than 6 billion yuan.
The two figures are an
increase of 14 and 15 percent,
respectively, year on year.
“In China, there is sufficient
market space for high-quality
documentary films,” says
Zhang Tongdao, who headed
the team that wrote the
report.
Zhang, who is also the
director of the Documentary
Center at Beijing Normal Uni-
versity, says that Chinese view-
ers’ diverse tastes in film also
bodes well for the documenta-
ry sector.
For Guo Ke, the 38-year-old
director of Twenty Two, the
crowd-funding campaign to
raise money for the film shows
skills in music videos.
The new show will see the
three stars help recruit young
players from around China to
team up for 3x3 basketball
events, with the storyline
developing along with the
selection process.
According to Yi Hua, the
producer of Dunk Boys, the
upcoming show will pay hom-
age to Slam Dunk, a Japanese
animation that influenced
generations of young people
in China. And, since 3x3 bas-
ketball is also one of the
sports featuring in the 2020
Summer Olympic Games, Yi
thinks the show will help
warm up audiences ahead of
the competition.
Left: An image of the Chinese documentary Twenty Two, which topped global documentary charts last year.
Right: Director Guo Ke (right) and his filming crew shooting the same documentary. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
that a quality documentary
can work with Chinese audi-
ences, who were seen earlier
to prefer only action-studded
films or slapstick comedies .
The crew of Twenty Two
contacted more than 32,000
people through WeChat mes-
sage groups across 50 cities,
and their enthusiasm helped
Nevertheless, she says that
the theme of basketball was
simply chosen as a vehicle to
allow the producers to take a
closer look at popular youth
culture.
“Young Chinese people’s
aspirations and struggles will
be on display,” she says. “This
era calls for young idols who
are full of positive energy and
possess a strong spirit, and
the basketball pitch is an ideal
place to demonstrate this.”
However, this year’s batch
of idols will not only be drawn
from the circles of entertain-
ment and sport. Efforts taken
by behind-the-scenes national
heroes will also have a chance
to reach younger audiences,
boost the documentary’s pop-
ularity online.
Guo says that his next film
will also be a documentary, as
“the power of truth in docu-
mentaries is overwhelming”.
Another industry highlight
last year was the global out-
reach of Chinese documenta-
ries.
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
thanks to another new Youku
program We’re From Earth.
Li Qinglong, deputy direct-
or of the Shenzhen-based
Space Institute of Southern
China, is taking part in a new
reality show centered around
the training program of Chi-
nese astronauts.
Li was among the first
astronauts to be trained in
China. Although he coached
Yang Liwei, the first Chinese
astronaut to be sent into
space, he unfortunately never
made it there himself.
In We’re From Earth, six
guests — a mix of celebrities
and ordinary people — will
spend 30 days in the training
center used by China’s space
In 2017, Chinese documen-
tary makers continued to
team up with global partners
to reinvent the style and sub-
stance of documentary story-
telling.
China: Time of Xi, a three-
episode television series on
China’s policies and their
impact over the past five
Thursday, May 3, 2018 CHINA DAILY
program, where they will
undergo the same arduous
training regime as the astro-
nauts, including one that mim-
ics the environment of Mars.
It is the first time a reality
show has revealed the rigor-
ous training process that Chi-
nese astronauts have to
endure.
“We’re witnessing historical
stages in the development of
China’s space program,” Li
says. “This time we want to
tell the lesser-known stories
behind the program and show
how we have attained the
achievements of today.”
According to Yang Wei-
dong, head of Youku, the wide
spectrum of variety shows
offered by the platform this
year echoes the diverse needs
of the contemporary Chinese
audience.
“It’s getting more and more
difficult to make one program
that will suit everyone’s taste,”
Yang says. “A show that proves
popular with one group of
people, might hardly be
noticed by another.”
Users now pay more atten-
tion to what interests them
most, he adds.
“We have to develop tai-
lored plans for different social
circles and not just cater to
loyal fans.”
Contact the writer at
wangkaihao@
chinadaily.com.cn
years, is a case in point.
The series, co-produced by
China Intercontinental Com-
munication Center, Discov-
ery Networks Asia-Pacific
and Meridian Line Films,
was aired across around 30
countries and regions in
October.
On CGTN’s YouTube chan-
Chilean
filmmaker
seeks links
with China
BEIJING — Chilean film-
maker Silvio Caiozzi says he
did not expect that his work
would be cheered and under-
stood as it was in Beijing
recently.
His latest feature film And
Suddenly the Dawn was well
received at the Beijing Inter-
national Film Festival.
The three-hour movie,
crowned Best Film at the Mon-
treal World Film Festival in
September, is set in Patagonia
in Chile, where a man who has
escaped from his native land
out of fear as a young boy,
returns in search of what he
had left behind.
“I intended to explore the
complexity and depth of
human nature,” Caiozzi said
after the movie’s premiere in
Beijing.
The audience did not leave
the cinema until after mid-
night, and posed a variety of
questions on specific filming
techniques.
“I am surprised by their
knowledge and enthusiasm
for cinema. They were intelli-
gent questions,” says the film-
maker on his first contact with
the Chinese public.
“If one’s work is able to
reach out to so many people,
regardless of where they come
from, or what language they
speak, it is a wonderful gift,”
Caiozzi says.
Since his last film Cachimba
(2004), the filmmaker says he
took his time to fall in love
with the new story. What Cai-
ozzi was looking for is the
complexity of human nature.
“Such complexity is what we
have in common as human
beings,” he says. “The most
wonderful thing about cinema
happens when the viewer for-
gets that he is a spectator, and
he becomes another character
and gets emotionally engaged
in the movie. That means the
movie is well done.”
Given that in China there
are millions of movie lovers
with a fervent thirst for better
films, and Latin America pro-
duces works that continue to
impress the world, Caiozzi
says a wider collaboration
between the two sides seems
logical and natural.
“China is opening up to the
world and eager to see how
things are done everywhere
else,” Caiozzi says. “So, there is
a possibility for coproduc-
tions, talent encounters and
film exchanges.”
He sees the likelihood of a
“swap” mechanism to show-
case a certain amount of each
other’s films every year.
“I’m going to try to push for
the idea to get going,” he says.
“In a globalized world where
the human being is becoming
more and more isolated, cine-
ma is what brings us closer.”
XINHUA
nel, the documentary received
more than 274,000 hits and
770 comments.
The television series fea-
tures President Xi Jinping’s
undertakings and philoso-
phies, such as targeted pover-
ty alleviation, supply-side
structural reform and the Belt
and Road Initiative.
Speaking about the series,
Vikram Channa, the vice-
president of Production and
Development at Discovery
Networks Asia-Pacific, says:
“The challenge (when it
comes to such a documenta-
ry) is how to make policy into
a story.”
Calling the series “a chore-
ography of multiple opin-
ions”, Channa, who is also the
producer of China: Time of Xi,
says the hope is that “it (the
series) can communicate hard
policies in an intimate and
personal way”.
Liu Yinglun contributed to
the story.
 CHINA DAILY Thursday, May 3, 2018 Fun | LIFE 21
Language tips
Horoscope
BETTER CHINESE
Crossword Capricorn (DEC. 22-JAN. 19)
You may feel like talking and discussing your personal business,
but be careful whom you open up to. Sharing information can
change the way someone views you, causing an unfair response.
买裙子


Aquarius (JAN. 20-FEB. 19)
Finish what you start. A positive change regarding how you make Buying skirts
or handle your money is apparent. Home or personal improve-
ments, along with romance and family fun, are favored.

Pisces (FEB. 20-MARCH 20) 我想买条裙子，稍微正式点的，平时也能穿，上班也

能穿的那种。我们公司只有周五才让穿休闲装，所以
Keep your story straight. Emotions can bring out the best and
the worst in you and in others. Stick to the truth and offer com-
我一般买的衣服都是偏正装的。
passion and understanding.


  
Aries (MARCH 21-APRIL 19)  ! 
"


#$%
# &' (
Do the best you can and avoid negative people. It’s important to
gravitate toward people who share your vision and spark your 
%
!
$)#
imagination. Romance will improve your life. "

Taurus (APRIL 20-MAY 20)
Making an adjustment to your expenses is a good place to start if
you want to make your cash flow a little smoother. Stop talking
and start taking action.
I’d like to buy a skirt, a little formal so that I can wear it
both to work and off work. You know our company only
allows us to wear casual clothes on Friday, so I usually buy
formal outfits.

Gemini (MAY 21-JUNE 20)

Don’t feel obligated to say yes to everyone who asks you for 那边有一些正装的品牌专柜，咱们去看看吧。我觉得
something. Draw the line if you don’t want someone to take 你穿紫色的特别好看。
advantage of you. Know your limitations and boundaries.
 !
%
Cancer (JUNE 21-JULY 22)
*+ +,!,"
-%%
!
By assisting others, you will help yourself. Giving back and shar- + "
ing what you know with the people around you will help you gain
support and give you greater self-confidence. There are some formal clothes over there. Let’s go and
have a look. I think purple looks good on you.
Leo (JULY 23-AUG. 22)
Do something different or get involved in a group that offers
insight into new ways to use old skills. Expand your awareness by 可是我不喜欢紫色的，我喜欢黄色的。
listening more and talking less.
+
!*%%
%"
Across 25 Rarest state 47 Baby ___ Want 12 One may close Virgo (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22)
1 Hosp. proce- bird You (1971 hit by a book
26 Walked (on) Bread) 15 Rocky Moun- Taking part in an event will bring you in touch with someone But I don’t like purple. I like yellow.
dure whom you can benefit or learn from. Explore all possibilities and
4 Not esto or eso 27 Shamble, 48 Famed deli tain forager question anything that isn’t clear.
8 Frances Moore e.g. seen in Woody 17 Something that
___, author of 28 The Disrobing Allen’s may be found 黄色太艳了吧？
Libra (SEPT. 23-OCT. 23)
the best-selling of Christ Manhattan in a belt
Diet for a Small painter, 1579 50 Visiting the 23 Way over- Use your intuitive intelligence when dealing with domestic 
 .!,/
issues, partners or anyone who needs your help. Understanding
Planet 31 Most-nominat- nation’s capital, charge, what’s going on will help you find a workable solution.
13 HUD secretary ed woman ever for short say Isn’t yellow too bright?
Carson in the Gram- 51 *Anthem writer 27 2014 psycho-
14 Milling byprod- mys 53 Brought in logical thriller Scorpio (OCT. 24-NOV. 22)
uct 33 What it takes 55 It’s usually in based on a Gilli- How you go about getting things done will make a difference. 当正装穿不好。
15 *Onetime decades to the 80s or 90s an Flynn novel Make use of your physical abilities and get the grunt work out of
the way to avoid complaints.
White House grow 56 Start of a kids’ 29 Wood resistant !*"
nickname 34 Poetic “indeed” taunt to splitting
16 High-pH 35 Watches every 57 More substan- 30 Turner of music Sagittarius (NOV. 23-DEC. 21)
It doesn’t look formal.
18 Support penny tial, as a pay- 32 “___-haw!” Home, family and happiness should be your priorities. Don’t let
19 *What may 39 It comes at the check 35 Take from the the little things get to you. Offer love and help to the people who
From Shopping Talk, by Sinolingua.
keep a model’s end of a sen- 58 “___ homo” top mean the most to you.
weight down? tence 59 Traffic caution 36 *Shade of
20 “Hear me out 43 Not getting up 60 Elevator stop black
…” until after 10? 61 Florida pro 37 Give one’s Bridge BETTER ENGLISH
21 Somewhat 44 Something team opinion on,
22 Caught that’s long and 62 About 5 mL say Miguel De Cervantes, the
24 Music genre steep? 38 Bro or sis author of Don Quixote, said, 洋垃圾 overseas/foreign garbage
that spawned a 46 Pop singer Hal- Down 39 *Discussion “A proverb is a short sen-
fashion style liwell 1 Capital of Swa- venues tence based on long experi- 请看例句：
ziland 40 One with a job China’s environmental watchdog has approved two action
to fill? ence.”
Yesterday’s solution 2 Put a new tag plans, vowing to further crack down on the smuggling of
on 41 Trials When you have a long suit
42 Dramatic end- opposite shortness, it is usu- overseas garbage while maintaining a tough stance
3 Vague notion
4 Start of a Beat- ing to a per- ally a minus. When you have against pollution caused by the processing of imported
les title formance … or a long suit opposite length, waste.
5 Adorns a hint to that normally makes an
6 Unexpectedly answering the excellent trump suit. When 我国环境监管部门近日通过了两项行动方案，表示将
met six starred you have a good fit, a side-suit 进一步打击走私洋垃圾，
同时保持对加工进口废物造
7 “It’s just getting clues shortage is often beneficial. 成的污染问题的高压态势。
out of ___ and 45 Padded envel- In this deal, look at the
getting into ope North hand. Partner opens 洋垃圾(overseas/foreign garbage) 是指进口固体废物
another” (John 48 ___ cards one heart, and the next play- play a trump. However, East (imported solid waste) 有时又特指以走私、夹带等方式
Lennon on (tools used in
er passes. What would you can take that trick and
进口国家禁止进口的固体废物(banned solid waste
death) ESP testing) smuggled into China) 或未经许可擅自进口属于限制
8 Fatty acid, for 49 Airheaded do, if anything? return a club, suddenly leav-
进口的固体废物。2017年7月18日，中国正式通知世界
one 52 The Green Then, look at the South ing South with those four 贸易组织，自2017年年底开始将不再接收外来垃圾，包
9 German cries Hornet’s hand as well and decide how losers: down one. 括废弃塑胶(plastic waste) 、纸类(paper waste) 纺织品
10 Ever-changing masked driver you would play in four The more thoughtful 等。
11 *Word after 54 Metal contain- hearts after West leads the declarer leads a diamond at
North or South ers club queen. trick two (preferably a 生态环境部(the Ministry of Ecology and Environment) 26
If you count short-suit sneaky jack, hoping West 日召开第一次常务会议(the first executive meeting) ，
points, North gets three for will play low). Let's assume 通过了《关于全面落实禁止洋垃圾入境推进固体废物
Comics his singleton because he West wins with his ace and 进口管理制度改革实施方案2018-2020年行动方案》
DILBERT knows of at least a nine-card plays another club. Declarer (the 2018-2020 action plan for the implementation of the
fit. With seven support takes that trick and discards reform plan to ban waste imports) ，《进口固体废物
points, he has sufficient for a dummy’s remaining club on 加工利用企业环境违法问题专项督查行动方案(2018
two-heart response. North a high diamond. The loser 年)》和《垃圾焚烧发电行业达标排放专项整治行动方
also has nine losers (two spa- count is down to three, so 案》。
des, three hearts, one dia- South draws trumps as
mond and three clubs), the quickly as possible. 生态环境部有关负责人表示， 禁止洋垃圾入境是党中
number for a single raise. Sometimes, having a sin- 央、国务院在新时期新形势下作出的一项重大决策
South starts with four los- gleton opposite the king- (major decision) 部署，是我国生态文明建设的标志性
ers, one in each suit. The queen-jack would be a 举措(a landmark measure for the country’s construction
careless declarer would win minus, but here the suit pro- of an ecological civilization) 。
trick one and immediately vides a vital discard.
要坚定不移、 不折不扣地落实好这项工作。要着眼于
F-MINUS 推动高质量发展，统筹考虑行动方案目标任务， 全面提
Kakuro 升我国固体废物污染防治水平(improve China’s capabil-
ity in solid waste pollution control) 。要加强部门间协
调沟通， 加大信息共享及联动执法力度，建立长效工作
机制(a long-term working procedure featuring informa-
tion sharing and coordinated law enforcement will be
established) 。
要进一步完善监管制度， 强化洋垃圾非法入境管控
(the border controls on illegal foreign garbage will be
intensified) ，深入实施全过程监管(the entire process
of the industry will be inspected) ，确保各项任务落实
到位。
PEANUTS
相关词汇
循环利用 recycling
危险废物 hazardous waste
生态安全 ecological security
生态足迹 ecological footprint
生态保护红线 red lines for ecological protection
To learn more hot words,
A Kakuro consists of a playing area
please log on to http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/
of filled and empty cells similar to a
Follow us on weibo at http://weibo.com/languagetips
crossword puzzle. Some black cells
DRABBLE contain a diagonal slash from top
left to bottom right with numbers in
them, called “clues”. A number in
the top right corner relates to an
“across” clue and one in the bottom
left a “down” clue. The object of a
Kakuro is to insert digits from one
to nine into the white cells to total ChinaDaily 中国日报
the clue associated with it. However Yesterday’s solution 手机报免费体验 双语新闻微信
no digit can be duplicated in an entry.
22 SPORTS
SOCCER
Real resistance heartens Zidane
Coach says ‘it’s
better to suffer’
as Madrid rides
luck to reach
European final
MADRID — Real Madrid
scrapped its way into a third
consecutive Champions
League final on Tuesday and
coach Zinedine Zidane said he
would not have wanted it any
other way.
After the Spanish giant’s
last-gasp win over Juventus in
the quarterfinals, Real was left
hanging on against Bayern
Munich at Santiago Bernabeu
as Karim Benzema’s double
secured a 2-2 draw and 4-3 win
on aggregate.
When Joshua Kimmich
gave Bayern an early lead and
James Rodriguez equalized
with 27 minutes remaining,
Real looked in danger of sur-
rendering its 2-1 advantage
from the first leg.
Madrid was heavily indebt-
ed to two excellent late saves
by goalkeeper Keylor Navas
and, by the end, Real fans
were begging for the full-time
whistle.
Zidane, however, took heart
from the grit his team has
shown to overcome Paris
Saint-Germain, Juve and now
Bayern.
“It was a mad game but a
lovely one,” Zidane said. “In
football, you have to suffer.
You cannot be in the final
without suffering, it’s even bet-
ter, more beautiful when you
win like that.
“Madrid never gives up. It is
the same in adversity, we
believe in what we do and we
get things done by believing in
ourselves and fighting.
“It’s not just the team, it’s
the club. It’s a history that
Real Madrid players celebrate in front of their fans after reaching their third consecutive Champions League final by drawing 2-2 with Bay-
ern Munich at Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid on Tuesday for a 4-3 aggregate victory. KAI PFAFFENBACH/ REUTERS
comes from a long way back
and now it’s a history we are
writing, just as those other
teams did. This team never
surrenders. We know it is hard
but we believe in what we do
and keep fighting.”
Real and Zidane are now on
the brink of a third consecu-
tive Champions League title,
and 13th overall in Europe’s
premier club tournament.
It will be the favorite to lift
the trophy in Kiev on May 26
against either Roma or Liver-
pool.
“We are only in the final,”
Zidane said. “You can be hap-
py, you have to be, it is not nor-
mal to be in the final for the
third consecutive time.
“But now that we are, what
we have to do is try to win. We
will fight to defend our title.”
Gift for Benzema
Benzema’s brace was also
credit to Zidane, who had
picked the striker despite a
poor run of form that included
only one goal in 12 games.
“He never gave up and I’m
very happy for him,” Zidane
said.
“He expected this, to score
goals, and two today gave us
the chance to go through. It
has been difficult when he was
not scoring, but he kept work-
ing, did not drop his hands.
Not just me, but his team-
mates and the fans, showed
their support, and we are hap-
py for him now.
“I defended Karim as I
defend all my players. I defend
them until the end."
Bayern, meanwhile, was left
wondering what might have
been after dominating large
spells of the two legs but pay-
ing a heavy price for individual
mistakes.
Benzema’s second was a gift,
with Bayern goalkeeper Sven
Ulreich making a mess of Cor-
entin Tolisso’s soft back pass
and allowing the French for-
ward to slot into an open net.
“If you look at both games it
is quite apparent we were the
best team,” Bayern coach Jupp
Heynckes said.
“I’m very disappointed in
the result. We dominated, I
believe, and they should thank
Keylor Navas for his perform-
ance in goal. He was spectacu-
lar, particularly toward the
end of the match.”
On Ulreich’s error, Heync-
kes was sympathetic.
“He had a little blackout, he
got confused, he didn’t realize
he couldn’t pick it up with his
hands,” said the coach.
“It’s terrible for a player to
live through such a moment,
but nevertheless we did have a
lot of opportunities, and gen-
erally speaking our keeper
performed well.”
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Thursday, May 3, 2018 CHINA DAILY
Infantino peddling
dreams ’n’ schemes
LAUSANNE — FIFA chief
Gianni Infantino is busily
promoting money-spinning
schemes for world soccer
ahead of an expected bid for
a second term, including a
revamped Club World Cup
and a proposed Global
Nations League.
Infantino faces a re-elec-
tion vote in June next year,
three years after he took con-
trol of the game’s global gov-
erning body after long-time
leader Sepp Blatter was eject-
ed amid a bitter corruption
scandal.
With an eye to winning a
new term at FIFA’s 2019 Paris
Congress, Infantino has
embarked on one new
project after another to fill
the coffers and bolster his
reforming appeal.
“He clearly has a political
agenda,” said an expert on
FIFA’s inner workings. who
requested anonymity.
“He has opened two main
areas, one covering competi-
tions and the other on rules,
where he wants to work on
transfers.”
Infantino’s marquee
project is to boost the num-
ber of World Cup participat-
ing nations from 32 to 48 by
2026, a target that has now
been brought forward for the
2022 edition in Qatar.
“It is the president of Con-
mebol (South American soc-
cer’s confederation),
Alejandro Dominguez, who
proposed (bringing in the
expansion for 2022) but you
would be forgiven for think-
ing that FIFA was directly
behind it,” said a former FIFA
official, speaking on condi-
tion of anonymity.
That proposal has left
Qatar, already diplomatically
isolated, wondering how to
host an expanded tourna-
ment that would likely
involve staging matches in
Gianni Infantino
neighboring countries.
Infantino’s other key pro-
posal is to revamp the Club
World Cup, boosting it from
seven to 24 clubs in a four-
year format rather than
retaining it as an annual
event.
At the same time, borrow-
ing an idea from Europe’s
governing body UEFA,
Infantino has opted to
launch an international
tournament, the Global
Nations League, grouping
the winners of international
competitions in each of
FIFA’s six regional confedera-
tions.
Infantino pushed the pro-
posals at a FIFA council
meeting in Bogota in March,
with the persuasive argu-
ment that sponsors were
ready to pour $25 billion into
the new league and expand-
ed cup proposal.
Infantino has been work-
ing behind the scenes to
interest top clubs and spoke
to a dozen including Real
Madrid and Bayern Munich
in Zurich recently.
Faced with a cash windfall
of between $50 million and
$80 million per club per
tournament the response
has been positive, according
to a source who followed the
discussions.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
 CHINA DAILY Thursday, May 3, 2018
Digest
BASEBALL
Yankees spoil
Justin’s gem
Gary Sanchez launched a
three-run homer in the ninth
inning off angry closer Ken
Giles to spoil a splendid outing
by Justin Verlander as the New
York Yankees beat the Houston
Astros 4-0 on Tuesday night.
Verlander tied a career high
by striking out 14 and allowed
just three hits — all singles —
over eight innings. Giles (0-1)
took over and took one on the
chin — literally. The Houston
reliever punched himself in
the face as he walked off the
mound after surrendering a
single to Aaron Judge and a
double to Didi Gregorius,
which set the table for San-
chez’ moonshot into the left-
field stands.
Bryce shows signs
of busting loose
Slumping Bryce Harper was
moved to the leadoff spot for
the first time since 2013 and
responded with a three-run
homer that helped Max Scher-
zer win his fifth straight start as
the Washington Nationals
pounded the Pittsburgh Pirates
12-4 on Tuesday night.
Harper entered in a 5-for-35
slump and had not gotten an
extra-base hit since April 16. He
grounded out in the first inning
against Chad Kuhl (3-2), fol-
lowed Wilmer Difo’s go-ahead
homer in the third with a fly-
out, then gave the Nationals a
5-0 lead in the fifth with his
ninth homer this season.
ICE HOCKEY
Hurricanes hand
reins to Dudley
The Carolina Hurricanes
continued the restructuring of
their front office on Tuesday by
naming Rick Dudley senior
vice-president of hockey oper-
ations.
Dudley’s hiring comes one
day after the dismissal of Ron
Francis, who was demoted as
GM last month and was serv-
ing as president of hockey
operations.
Dudley, 69, had been serving
in a similar position with the
Montreal Canadiens over the
past four seasons. He also has
been a GM with four NHL
franchises — Ottawa, Tampa
Bay, Florida and Montreal.
NFL
Draft draws big
numbers on TV
With someone walking
onstage every few minutes to
read a name off a piece of paper,
the NFL Draft wouldn’t seem
like a big television draw. Yet
the 11.2 million people who
watched this year made it the
week’s second most popular
telecast in the US, behind The
Big Bang Theory.
The first round of the draft
was shown on Fox, the NFL
Network and several ESPN net-
works simultaneously. This
year’s assignment of college
football players to NFL teams
was particularly suspenseful,
with a handful of quality quar-
terbacks waiting to be drafted.
Meetings focus
on safety issues
NFL coaches, referees and
officials began two days of
meetings in New York on Tues-
day to review safety-related
rules, vowing not to eliminate
kickoffs while examining ways
to make the game’s most dan-
gerous play much safer.
Troy Vincent, NFL executive
vice-president of football opera-
tions, said changes in recent
years, such as moving the kick
line to produce more touch-
backs, have helped.
But Vincent worries about
the number of devastating hits
delivered by players making
high-speed contact with one
another as they block for kick
returners or try to make tackles.
“We’ve got to get that out of
the game,” Vincent said.
The meetings, which include
former NFL players, are the lat-
est to address the issue of kick-
offs and touchbacks, where the
ball is downed in the end zone
or kicked beyond it and teams
scrimmage from their 25-yard
line.
AGENCIES
BASKETBALL
CHINEY
KNOWS OF
WHAT SHE
SPEAKS
WNBA star excited about new career
as fulltime television analyst for ESPN
NEW YORK — Chiney
Ogwumike remembers her
father always telling her and
her sisters that every disap-
pointment is a blessing.
The Connecticut Sun star
followed that advice, turning
two season-ending injuries
into what could be a television
career.
ESPN on Tuesday
announced she will be a full-
time basketball analyst. At 26,
she is one of the youngest ana-
lysts at the network and one of
few women in that role.
“It is truly the best of both
worlds, being able to pursue
my passions both on and off
the court,” Ogwumike said.
“My hope is to inspire the
GYMNASTICS
Former world
champion latest
to file abuse suit
HOUSTON — A former
member of the US national
team on Tuesday became the
latest gymnast to file a law-
suit over sexual abuse by
imprisoned former sports
doctor Larry Nassar.
Sabrina Vega alleges USA
Gymnastics, the US Olympic
Committee and the husband-
and-wife duo who coached
America’s top female gym-
nasts for three decades failed
to protect her and other ath-
letes.
Vega, who was on the team
that won a gold medal at the
2011 World Championships,
alleges the organizations,
along with coaches Bela and
Martha Karolyi, ignored
signs about Nassar’s behavior
or should have known he
posed a risk to the gymnasts
he treated.
Vega alleges that during
medical treatments, Nassar
molested her hundreds of
times from 2008, when she
was 12 years old, until 2012,
during competitions and
while she trained at the
Karolyi Ranch.
The ranch is outside of
Huntsville, Texas, about 70
miles north of Houston.
Vega’s lawsuit was filed in
state district court in Hunts-
Scoreboard
BASKETBALL
Results from Tuesday’s NBA second-
round playoff game (all series best-of-
seven):
Eastern Conference
2nd rd
At Toronto
Cleveland 113 Toronto 112 (OT)
(Cleveland lead series 1-0)
Western Conference
2nd rd
At Oakland
Golden State 121 New Orleans 116
(Golden State lead series 2-0)
BASEBALL
Results of the Major League Baseball
games on Tuesday:
Texas 8, Cleveland 6, 12 innings
Detroit 2, Tampa Bay 1
Kansas City 7, Boston 6, 13 innings
N.Y. Yankees 4, Houston 0
Toronto 7, Minnesota 4, 10 innings
rising generation, especially
young girls, to continue to defy
expectations and create their
own path.”
Ogwumike (pronounced
o-GOO’-mee-kay) is also now
100 percent healthy and ready
to resume playing with the
Sun this season.
Training camp started last
weekend.
“I’m really proud of being
back with my team, I missed
them” she said. “I’m happy to
be back and wearing a jersey.”
The team has been suppor-
tive of her television endeav-
ors, which began in 2015 after
she was first injured playing in
Italy.
She missed the 2015 WNBA
ville on Tuesday.
“I have struggled to cope
with the effects of the repeat-
ed abuse I suffered at the
hands of Dr Nassar,” the
22-year-old Vega said in a
statement.
“USA Gymnastics, the
USOC and the Karolyis failed
to protect me and the other
athletes in their care and I
believe they should be held
accountable.”
Vega, who now competes
for the University of Georgia,
said Nassar’s abuse has
caused her depression, panic
attacks and anxiety, which
have become worse as Nas-
sar’s case has become widely
publicized.
In a statement, USA Gym-
nastics said it doesn’t com-
ment on pending litigation
but the organization is “com-
mitted to creating a culture
that empowers and supports
our athletes and focuses on
our highest priority, which is
the safety and wellbeing of
our athletes.”
US Olympic Committee
spokesman Patrick Sandusky
said in a statement that Nas-
sar’s “reprehensible behav-
ior” has no place “in our
Olympic and Paralympic
community” and that the
St. Louis 3, Chicago White Sox 2
L.A. Angels 3, Baltimore 2
Seattle 6, Oakland 3
ICE HOCKEY
NHL playoffs
Results on Tuesday:
Washington 4, Pittsburgh 3
(Washington leads series 2-1)
Winnipeg 7, Nashville 4,
(Winnipeg leads series 2-1)
SOCCER
UEFA Champions League
Result on Tuesday:
Semi-finals, second leg
At Madrid
Real Madrid (ESP) 2 (Benzema 11, 46)
Bayern Munich 2 (GER) (Kimmich 3, Rod-
riguez 63)
Real Madrid win 4-3 on aggregate
season while recovering from
knee surgery.
“I just didn’t push myself in
rehab on the court. I also tried
to push my mind and career
off the court to see what hori-
zons there would be,” Ogwum-
ike said.
That’s when she started
working at ESPN. She credits
her agent, Allison Galer, for
helping her pursue the new
line of work.
It was trial by fire. Ogwum-
ike co-hosted a few shows that
covered a wide range of sports,
giving her a taste of live TV.
She was hooked.
“It’s weird ... people on TV
will tell you that being on TV is
almost like being in a game as
Sabrina Vega, a member of the US gold medal team at the 2011 World Gymnastics Championships,
on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against USA Gymnastics, the US Olympic Committee and two former
coaches for failing to protect her and other athletes from sexual abuse. AP FILE
organization “has made sig-
nificant progress to strength-
en protections for athletes,
and we recognize that our
work is never done.”
The Houston Chronicle
reported the Karolyis had
quietly filed a lawsuit last
month in Huntsville against
USA Gymnastics and the US
Olympic Committee, seeking
more than $1 million in dam-
ages.
The lawsuit says the couple
didn’t know about Nassar’s
“reprehensible conduct” and
would have reported it if
there had been any suspi-
cions about him.
In an interview with Date-
line NBC that aired last
month, Martha Karolyis said
she feels for Nassar’s victims
Playing Wednesday
At Rome
Roma (ITA) v Liverpool (ENG) (1845 GMT)
Liverpool lead 5-2 from first leg
-- Final to be played May 26 in Kiev
Leading scorers in the UEFA Champions
League after Tuesday’s game:
15 goals: Ronaldo (Real Madrid)
10 goals: Firmino (Liverpool), Salah (Liv-
erpool)
8 goals: Ben Yedder (Sevilla), Mane (Liv-
erpool)
7 goals: Cavani (Paris SG), Dzeko
(Roma), Kane (Tottenham)
6 goals: Messi (Barcelona), Neymar
(Paris SG)
TENNIS
Estoril Open ATP
Results on Tuesday (x-denotes seed-
ings):
1st rd
Simone Bolelli (ITA) bt Joao Domingues
a player,” she said.
“Being in broadcasting is
very similar to being a pro ath-
lete. You’re competing, you
want to do well. I’m a competi-
tor. It takes that same mindset
to broadcast.”
She spent time rehabbing
her body and working games
at both the Pac-12 Network
and ESPN.
Ogwumike was healthy for
the 2016 season, playing in the
WNBA and working for ESPN
on a part-time basis.
Another offseason injury to
her Achilles while playing in
China shut the door on her
WNBA season in 2017, but
allowed her to work more at
ESPN. She became host of
but that she doesn’t believe
she should be held responsi-
ble for his actions.
Vega’s lawsuit is the third to
be filed against the Karolyis.
More than 250 women and
girls say Nassar, who worked
for USA Gymnastics and
Michigan State University,
sexually assaulted them
under the guise of treatment.
He’s now serving up to 175
years in prison for molesting
women and girls and possess-
ing child pornography.
Several gymnasts have said
Nassar abused them at the
ranch, which served as the
training ground for US wom-
en’s gymnastics.
Vega alleges in her suit the
Karolyis allowed Nassar to
enter the cabins of female
(POR) 6-3, 6-2; Roberto Carballes Baena
(ESP) bt Bjorn Fratangelo (USA) 7-6 (7/1),
6-3; Ricardo Ojeda Lara (ESP) bt Federico
Silva (POR) 6-4, 7-5; Nicolas Kicker (ARG)
bt Tim Smyczek (USA) 6-2, 6-2; Joao Sou-
sa (POR) bt Daniil Medvedev (RUS x8) 7-6
(7/1), 7-5; Federico Delbonis (ARG) bt
Albert Ramos-Vinolas (ESP x5) 6-2, 6-4;
Cameron Norrie (GBR) bt Robin Haase
(NED x6) 6-4, 3-6, 6-3; Stefanos Tsitsipas
(GRE) bt Pablo Andujar (ESP) 7-6 (7/2),
6-3; Nicolas Jarry (CHI) bt Leo Mayer
(ARG x7) 3-6, 7-6 (9/7), 6-4
Munich ATP Open
Results on Tuesday:
1st rd
Jan-Lennard Struff (GER) bt Daniel Mas-
ur (GER) 7-6 (7/1), 6-4; Yannick Maden
(GER) bt Yuichi Sugita (JPN x8) 4-6, 7-6
(11/9), 6-2; Mirza Basic (BIH) bt Gael
Monfils (FRA x7) 6-2, 3-6, 6-3; Marco
Cecchinato (ITA) bt Fabio Fognini (ITA
x5) 5-7, 6-3, 6-2; Marton Fucsovics
(HUN) bt Guido Pella (ARG) 6-4, 7-5;
SPORTS 23
SportsCenter Africa and was
used as an analyst on shows
discussing the NBA, WNBA
and college basketball.
She has spent the past four
months getting up at 4:30 am
and working all morning at
ESPN before continuing her
rehab to get back on the court.
“Now I know that I don’t
have to play 24-7 if I don’t want
to,” Ogwumike said. “I think a
lot of times, we are prisoners
of the paycheck in the WNBA.
People go to countries in tur-
moil. They go to faraway pla-
ces to play, pushing their
bodies to the limit. I am fully
blessed to play in the WNBA.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
gymnasts alone and unsuper-
vised to perform his training
techniques.
The ranch is being investi-
gated by the Texas Rangers
and the Walker County Sher-
iff’s Office. USA Gymnastics
cut ties with the ranch in Jan-
uary.
Vega’s lawsuit is the second
filed in Texas in the last few
weeks related to the abuse
scandal. Last month, Rebecca
Whitehurst, a former Texas
gymnast who had been a
member of the USA Gymnas-
tics team, filed suit in Hous-
ton against USA Gymnastics,
alleging Nassar abused her in
1996 when she was 15 years
old.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Maximilian Marterer (GER) bt Dustin
Brown (GER) 5-6 -- retired; Philipp
Kohlschreiber (GER x6) bt Ivo Karlovic
(CRO) 7-5, 6-4; Mischa Zverev (GER) bt
Andreas Haider-Maurer (AUT) 6-4, 6-3;
Casper Ruud (NOR) bt Marius Copil
(ROU) 7-6 (7/3), 6-3
WTA Prague Open
Results on Tuesday:
1st rd
Kristyna Pliskova (CZE) bt Aliaksandra
Sasnovich (BLR x9) 7-6 (7/5), 6-3; Antonia
Lottner (GER) bt Mona Barthel (GER) 6-0,
7-5; Mihaela Buzarnescu (ROU x7) bt
Beatriz Haddad Maia (BRA) 6-1, 7-5; Den-
isa Allertova (CZE) bt Patty Schnyder
(SUI) 6-4, 6-4; Camila Giorgi (ITA) bt Bar-
bora Strycova (CZE x5) 6-0, 2-6, 6-2; Shu-
ai Zhang (CHN x6) bt Stefanie Voegele
(SUI) 6-4, 7-5; Gabriela Ruse (ROU) bt
Bernarda Pera (USA) 2-6, 6-1, 7-5; Jas-
mine Paolini (ITA) bt Darya Kasatkina
(RUS x3) 7-6 (8/6), 6-3
Petra Kvitova (CZE x2) bt Tereza Smitko-
MOTOR SPORTS
F1 boss
predicts
‘better
racing’
LONDON — Formula
One’s aerodynamic rule
changes for 2019 are a step
in the right direction and
fans should see better rac-
ing as a result, F1 managing
director Ross Brawn said
on Tuesday.
Brawn was speaking aft-
er the sport’s governing
body announced modifica-
tions for next season to
cars’ front and rear wings
and front brake ducts.
The changes should
make it easier for drivers to
follow each other, and
come after criticism of the
lack of overtaking in some
races.
“We’ve had some fantas-
tic races this year but actu-
ally if you look at them in
detail, they’ve often been
created by unusual circum-
stances — safety cars or
other factors,” Brawn said
after a lunch at London’s
Royal Automobile Club to
award the Segrave Trophy
to 2017 Dakar winner Sam
Sunderland.
“What we want to do is
create racing which can
stand alone without the
need for a safety car or
some other event. I think
this moves it in the right
direction.
“What I’m really encour-
aged by is that Formula
One came together and
recognized it was necessa-
ry.”
Brawn said a collision
between Red Bull’s Daniel
Ricciardo and Max Ver-
stappen in Sunday’s Azer-
baijan Grand Prix showed
how hard it was to follow a
car and make a move.
Ricciardo ran into the
back of Verstappen, with
both retiring.
“I think we had a demon-
stration in a very extreme
sense with Ricciardo and
Verstappen that the
moment Verstappen
moved in front of Ricciar-
do, Ricciardo lost all the
downforce and couldn’t
stop,” Brawn said.
“There was no way he
was going to stop that car
once Verstappen took his
air away from him.”
The changes will see a
front wing with a larger
span, winglets removed
from front brake ducts and
a wider and deeper rear
wing.
Approved and ratified on
the last day before unani-
mous agreement was
required, the measures fol-
lowed research carried out
by most teams and backed
by commercial rights hold-
ers Liberty Media.
Brawn confirmed there
had been some dissenters,
however.
“I guess it’s a healthy situ-
ation that you have debate,”
he said.
“There were some teams
that felt we should have
waited until 2021 and done
the complete package. But
certainly enough of the
teams felt it was going in
the right direction.”
REUTERS
va (CZE) 6-1, 6-3
Rabat WTA
Results on Tuesday:
1st rd
Elise Mertens (BEL x1) bt Kristina Kuco-
va (SVK) 6-0, 6-0; Laura Siegemund (GER)
bt Ana Bogdan (ROU) 6-4, 6-1; Alexandra
Dulgheru (ROU) bt Timea Babos (HUN
x4) 2-6, 7-6 (9/7), 7-5; Katarina Zavatska
(UKR) bt Diae El Jardi (MAR) 6-2, 6-3;
Tamara Zidansek (SLO) bt Magda Lin-
ette (POL) 6-4, 6-2; Su-Wei Hsieh (TPE x8)
bt Bethanie Mattek-Sands (USA) 3-6, 7-6
(7/3), 6-1; Magdalena Frech (POL) bt
Christina McHale (USA) 7-5, 7-5; Ajla
Tomljanovic (AUS) bt Silvia Soler (ESP)
6-2, 3-6, 6-1; Aleksandra Krunic (SRB x7)
bt Lara Arruabarrena (ESP) 6-2, 6-7 (0/7),
6-2; Paula Badosa (ESP) bt Fiona Ferro
(FRA) 5-7, 6-4, 6-0; Polona Hercog (SLO)
bt Dominika Cibulkova (SVK x2) 2-6, 7-5,
6-4
24
SPORTS
Thursday, May 3, 2018
CHINA DAILY » CHINADAILY.COM.CN/SPORTS
EQUESTRIAN
Alex Hua Tian made history when he became China’s first Olympic equestrian athlete at the 2008 Beijing Games. He still proudly represents the country.
Never alone on road to glory
Pioneering Alex Hua Tian appreciates nation’s unbridled support, writes Shi Futian
E
ven though he’s been
hailed as China’s lone
ranger of equestrian-
ism, Alex Hua Tian,
the nation’s first Olympian in
the sport, has never felt alone.
Last week in Beijing, Hua
announced his preparations
for the 2018 Asian Games,
unveiling his new slogan —
“I’m not alone” — at a media
conference at the Hong Kong
Jockey Club.
“I have been China’s sole
representative at the Olympics
in my sport for ten years,” he
said in an exclusive interview
with China Daily.
“But I have been anything
but lonely, thanks to tremen-
dous support from the Gener-
al Administration of Sport of
China, the Chinese Equestri-
an Association (CEA), my fam-
ily, horse owners and, of
course, everyone who’s fol-
lowed my story since I was 18
years old at the 2008 Beijing
Olympics.
“Without them, I would not
have had the opportunities
and drive to achieve my ambi-
tions. I am so looking forward
to joining our national team
once again for this year’s Asian
Games in Indonesia.”
Hua represented China at
the Beijing and Rio Olympic
Games in three-day eventing.
“We have been paying close
attention and supporting Alex
Hua Tian since the 2008 Sum-
mer Games,” said Zheng Guo-
wei, deputy secretary-general
of the CEA. “We are very
delighted that he will compete
SOCCER
CSL mulling introduction of salary cap
By SUN XIAOCHEN
sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn
Plans are reportedly under-
way to introduce a salary cap
to the Chinese Super League
as authorities strive to
improve its financial health.
In a meeting convened by
the Chinese Football Associa-
tion last week, executives from
CSL and second-tier League
One clubs discussed possible
wage-control measures,
including setting a spending
ceiling of 75 percent of a club’s
annual income, sina.com
in the 2018 Asian Games rep-
resenting China, and we will
support him as always.”
With all the support he has
received and with five alterna-
tive mounts being prepared
for future challenges, Hua,
who won silver at the 2014
Asian Games, remains cau-
tiously optimistic.
“Most of the five horses are
new to my team, so these are
very new partnerships,” he said.
“It’s really difficult for me to
evaluate exactly where I am in
this process at this moment —
and the process between now
and the Asian Games is really
interesting because I will
develop a relationship with
them.
“It won’t be a linear process.
There will be ups and there
will be downs. Over any period
of time, things can go right or,
more often, things can go
wrong.
“So, until the week before
the Asian Games when I pick
the horse I want to take to
Indonesia and I start to get the
feel of how that preparation is
coming together, I won’t really
have much of an idea. But this
is the strongest team of horses
I’ve ever had.”
A sport for everyone
Hua’s international profile
has helped dramatically accel-
erate equestrian development
in China.
According to the annual
report on Chinese Equestrian
Market Development released
by Horsemanship magazine,
reported on Wednesday.
The exact percentage has yet
to be finalized but the cap is
expected to kick in from 2021,
leaving clubs two seasons to
prepare for the new rules, said
Yuan Ye, a soccer commentator
with Sina Sports.
“This is going to be a regula-
tion that will raise both hands
to support its implementa-
tion,” Yuan said.
“The investment in player
salaries, especially the increas-
ing sums paid for foreign
imports, has been a serious
issue for the league’s long-
Alex Hua Tian speaks at a media conference at the Hong Kong
Jockey Club in Beijing last week. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
there were 37 registered
equestrian competitions in
China in 2017, including show
jumping, dressage and event-
ing.
There were about 906
equestrian clubs around Chi-
na in 2016. A year and a half
later, that number had jumped
to 1,452 and membership in
China’s equestrian clubs now
tops one million.
Still, the stereotype that
equestrian is a sport only for
the rich remains an obstacle.
Although Hua was born in
London and attended prestig-
ious Eton College, he is the
antithesis of the stereotypical
equestrian athlete.
“The problem that equestri-
anism has is that the public
sees the top level of the sport
as the whole pyramid, and this
is what I want to reposition in
China,” he said.
term development.”
The proposals are believed
to be the result of pressure
from the General Administra-
tion of Sport of China, the
country’s top sports governing
body, which last year urged
clubs to get their finances in
order.
A string of high-profile play-
er transfers, including Shang-
hai SIPG’s $72 million signing
of Brazilian midfielder Oscar
from English Premier League
side Chelsea in December
2016, and Argentine veteran
Carlos Tevez’s reported $45
“Of course the top level of
equestrian sport is expensive,
but at the bottom level, more
and more families in China are
able to be involved. It is acces-
sible and it is growing.”
To battle the stereotype,
Hua has struck a strategic
partnership with Sina Sports
that will see a series of unique
documentaries, behind-the-
scenes videos, photos, info-
graphics and quizzes about
him and his horses posted on
Weibo.
“Millions of Chinese neti-
zens are behind Alex when he
competes in the Asian Games,”
said Arthur Wei, vice-presi-
dent of Sina and general man-
ager of Sina Sports.
“As the ambassador of Sina’s
Future Star Equestrian Com-
petition, his story will inspire
young riders to actively partic-
ipate in the sport and earn
million annual salary with
Shanghai Greenland Shen-
hua, had triggered concerns
that CSL spending was getting
out of hand.
The accounts of reigning
CSL champion Guangzhou
Evergrande are typical of the
problem.
The two-time AFC Champi-
ons League winner’s latest
financial report, published
last month, showed it generat-
ed revenue of $83 million last
season but was running a $155
million loss due to transfer
fees and salaries.
HAN YAN / XINHUA
Of course, the top
level of the sport is
expensive, but at
the bottom, more
and more families
are involved.”
Alex Hua Tian
pride for the country.”
Hua offered his own per-
spective, saying: “China’s bud-
ding young riders don’t have
to be me. I have been extreme-
ly lucky, and it all came togeth-
er to give me a wonderful
opportunity. That’s very rare,
and to benchmark my journey
with anybody else would be
very unfair.
“What you have to be is
somebody who loves being
around horses, loves the part-
nership between yourself and
the horse.
“The most important thing
is what my mom taught me
when I was young: When you
finish riding, it’s your respon-
sibility to make sure your
horse is comfortable before
you are.
“As long as you do that, your
horse will appreciate it and
always have your back.”
Tan Jianxiang, a sports soci-
ology professor with South
China Normal University, said
sports clubs here need tougher
regulations to keep on a stead-
ier financial footing.
“Although the league has
independent operational
rights, it’s necessary to have
the administrative power to
resolve some critical issues,”
said Tan.
Some observers fear, howev-
er, that a salary cap could dam-
age the CSL’s pulling power
and result in a decline in popu-
larity.
BASKETBALL
No rust on Curry
in dominant return
to center spotlight
OAKLAND, California —
Long before Tuesday’s tipoff,
Stephen Curry swished his
routine tunnel shot on the
second try.
Once the game began, the
two-time NBA MVP stood at
the bench anxiously waiting
for his turn, shaking his legs
and clapping his hands with
nervous energy.
Then — mouthpiece dan-
gling, of course — Curry
finally entered at the 4:20
mark of the first quarter to a
roaring ovation from the
Oracle Arena crowd and
immediately went to work.
He knocked down a
3-pointer from the left wing
11 seconds later and was off
and running in Golden
State’s 121-116 victory over
the New Orleans Pelicans.
“It felt like an eternity, for
sure,” Curry said. “When the
lights come back on after the
starting lineups you’re usu-
ally in the ‘go’ kind of mind
frame.
“I had to kind of pace
myself and be patient with it.
It seemed like it took forever,
but it was a good feeling to
get back out on the floor and
just let loose and have fun.”
Curry came off the bench
to score 28 points in a trium-
phant return from a knee
injury and nearly six weeks
off, and the Warriors held off
Anthony Davis and the pes-
ky Pelicans to go up 2-0 in
their Western Conference
semifinal.
All is right with the Warri-
ors again now that their star
No 30 is back on the floor —
even as a backup.
“It brought a lot of life to
the building, a lot of life to
our team’s spirit. Pretty fit-
ting for sure,” Draymond
Green said of Curry’s imme-
diate 3-pointer.
Kevin Durant scored 29
points with a huge 3 with
3:10 to play, to go with seven
assists and six rebounds in
ICE HOCKEY
Cool and calm Jets
rebound from 3 down
WINNIPEG, Canada —
Down 3-0 after a disastrous
opening 20 minutes on Tues-
day, there was no flipping of
tables or peeling of paint off
the walls in the Winnipeg
Jets’ locker room.
Instead, Canada’s last
hope in these Stanley Cup
playoffs spent the first inter-
mission calmly trying to fig-
ure a way out of that deficit.
“We got kicked in the teeth
a little bit,” Jets captain Blake
Wheeler said.
“Our goal was just to win
the second period and give
ourselves a chance.”
They did that — and a
whole lot more.
Winnipeg dug itself out of
a deep hole to stun the Nash-
ville Predators 7-4 and grab a
2-1 lead in their Western
Conference semifinal.
“It’s definitely not how you
draw up a first period, but
nobody panicked,” said Jets
defenseman Jacob Trouba,
who finished with a goal and
an assist.
“We just regrouped. It
wasn’t really any different in
here than if it was a tie game
or if we were winning.
“We just went out there
and played a little bit faster
and played with a little bit
more confidence.”
Dustin Byfuglien had two
goals and an assist for Winn-
ipeg, and Paul Stastny added
a goal and two assists.
Stephen Curry of the Golden
State Warriors reacts to
draining a 3-pointer against
the New Orleans Pelicans on
Tuesday night in Oakland.
EZRA SHAW / GETTY IMAGES / AFP
Golden State’s franchise-
record 14th consecutive
postseason victory at Oracle
Arena.
Green contributed 20
points, 12 assists and nine
rebounds while battling
Davis on both ends all night.
Davis finished with 25
points and 15 rebounds, and
Jrue Holiday had 24 points,
eight rebounds and eight
assists for the Pelicans, who
also got 22 points and 12
assists from Rajon Rondo.
“It was tough,” Davis said.
“We were in it the whole
game.”
Andre Iguodala converted
a snazzy three-point play
with 6:41 left when he
flipped the ball up and it
came back down and
through the net as he was
fouled by Rondo, then Gold-
en State pulled away.
The best-of-seven series
resumes with Game 3 on Fri-
day at New Orleans.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wheeler, who also had an
assist, scored the first of two
empty-net goals in the final
minute, with Brandon Tanev
getting the other.
Mark Scheifele added two
assists to become the first
player since Sidney Crosby
in 2010 to have five consecu-
tive multi-point games in the
postseason.
Connor Hellebuyck made
26 stops in the Winnipeg net.
Filip Forsberg and PK Sub-
ban each had a goal and an
assist for Nashville, while
Mike Fisher and Austin Wat-
son also scored.
Mattias Ekholm and Ryan
Johansen both added two
assists for the Predators,
who got 38 saves from Pekka
Rinne.
“We just stopped skating,”
Nashville defenseman Ryan
Ellis said. “You can’t win hock-
ey when you stop skating and
stop playing.”
Johansen said the Preda-
tors stopped skating after
blowing the lead.
“We stopped moving our
legs,” Johansen said. “We did
a lot of things poorly and
they got better. Momentum
swings in playoffs, they can
be deadly.”
Game 4 is on Thursday
night in Winnipeg before the
series shifts back to Nash-
ville for Game 5 on Saturday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS