High-tech era
Beidou navigation system set to
revolutionize several industries
BUSINESS, PAGE 13
MONDAY, August 17, 2020




 chinadaily.com.cn
“ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SHOULD NOT BE ACHIEVED AT THE COST OF
THE ECOLOGY. THE ECOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT ITSELF IS THE ECONOMY.
PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT IS DEVELOPING PRODUCTIVITY.”
River
Farmers load plums that were just harvested to a vehicle in Wushan county, Chongqing, in June 2018. The county, located in the Three
Gorges Dam area, has embarked on the path of ecological development in recent years. WANG QUANCHAO / XINHUA
River protection efforts bear fruit
Top leadership attaches increasingly greater importance to conservation of Yangtze
By HOU LIQIANG in Wuhan
houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn
Xu Dong’s colleagues jokingly
refer to his cellphone as a hotline
because so many people call the
researcher at the Institute of Hydro-
biology in Wuhan, Hubei province.
Now more often based at the pro-
vincial capital’s ecology and environ-
ment bureau, Xu is part of a team of
experts from his institute and seven
others that is just one of 58 deployed
by the Ministry of Ecology and Envi-
ronment to major cities in the Yang-
tze River Economic Belt with the aim
of fixing up the river’s ecosystem.
As an intermediary facilitating
communication between the
team and the bureau, he has been
busy answering phone calls from
both sides.
Xu returns to the institute, an affil-
iate of the Chinese Academy of Sci-
ences, when the bureau needs its
advice on how to address water pol-
lution in Wuhan, which is located in
the midstream of the Yangtze River
and known for its numerous ponds
and lakes.
With China’s central leadership
attaching increasingly greater
importance to conservation of the
Yangtze, Asia’s longest river, Xu’s role
is a microcosm of a campaign
launched in late 2018 that aims to
turn environmental officials and sci-
entists into comrades in arms to
remediate the basin’s aquatic ecosys-
tem, which was damaged by many
years of human activity, including
Paws crossed for panda birth at Smithsonian zoo
By ZHAO HUANXIN in Washington
huanxinzhao@chinadailyusa.com
Mei Xiang, a 22-year-old giant
panda who came to the United States
in 2000, could deliver a cub — or
cubs — in the next few days, the
Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Wash-
ington has announced, after imaging
revealed what appeared to be a fetus.
News that Mei Xiang may be preg-
nant has brought a joyful sign of
hope to the US capital that is gripped
by the brutal COVID-19 pandemic.
If successful, “she would be the
oldest panda in the United States to
give birth”, Brandie Smith, deputy
director of the National Zoo and
head of animal care, told China Daily.
The record for the oldest panda to
give birth is held by a 23-year-old
female named Hai Zi, who gave
birth at the China Conservation and
XI’S THOUGHT | ECOLOGY
damming, water pollution, overfish-
ing, sand excavation and quarrying.
Some species endemic to the river,
such as the baiji dolphin, also
known as the Yangtze River dolphin,
have not been sighted for years and
others are critically endangered.
According to the Ministry of Agri-
culture and Rural Affairs, the annu-
al catch from the Yangtze fell from
427,000 metric tons in 1954 to less
than 100,000 tons in recent years.
President Xi Jinping chaired two
symposiums about the Yangtze
River Economic Belt, in January
2016 and April 2018. At both con-
ferences, he demanded concerted
efforts to protect the Yangtze and
avoid excessive development.
“We must proceed from the long-
term interests of the Chinese nation to
put restoring the ecological environ-
ment of the Yangtze River at a domi-
nant position, making all-out efforts
to protect it, and forbidding large-
scale development of the river,” he said
when presiding over the latest sympo-
sium, which was held in Wuhan.
The program Xu and other experts
are involved in features both front-
line and follow-up research, and the
58 teams in the major cities in the
basin had tapped more than 5,000
experts from some 300 institutes by
the end of last year, according to the
National Joint Research Center for
Yangtze River Conservation, estab-
lished by the Ministry of Ecology and
Environment in April 2018.
See Efforts, page 4
Mei Xiang holds her cub, Bei Bei,
at the Smithsonian National
Zoological Park in December
2015. MATT MCCLAIN / GETTY IMAGES
Research Center for the Giant Pan-
da in Sichuan province in July 2017.
Reproductive scientists from the
Smithsonian Conservation Biology
Institute and zoo veterinarians per-
formed the artificial insemination
of Mei Xiang in late March, with fro-
zen semen collected from Tian Tian,
HK chief gives
up fellowship
at Cambridge
TOP NEWS, PAGE 3
President Xi Jinping
45,203
Number of rivers in China with a drainage
basin of 50 sq km or more — their combined
length is about 1.5 million km
Major rivers in China
Surface water quality at
national monitoring sections
Unit: percent Grade I-III
(Under China’s five-tier quality system for surface water,
Grade III is considered fairly good quality, with Grade V
the lowest acceptable level. Water below
Grade V is extremely polluted.)
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Sources: Bulletin of First National Census For
Water published by the Ministry of Water Resources and
National Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Ecology and Environment,
Changjiang Water Resources Commission, Yellow River Conservancy
Commission, Huaihe River Commission, Pearl River Water Resources Commission
Mei Xiang’s companion who also
came to the zoo nearly 20 years ago,
the zoo said in a statement.
Early on Friday, the zoo said that
an ultrasound revealed tissue that
indicates a baby panda could be
growing, though it is too early to
determine if the tissue is a complete-
ly viable developing fetus.
“If the fetal tissue continues to
develop, veterinarians estimate that
Mei Xiang could give birth within
the next few days,” it said.
“In the middle of a pandemic, this
is a joyful moment we can all get
excited about,” said Don Neiffer, the
zoo’s chief veterinarian, who con-
ducted the ultrasound.
“We are optimistic that very shortly
she may give birth to a healthy cub or
cubs,” Neiffer said. “We’re watching
her closely and welcome everyone to
watch with us on the panda cams.”
Joy and risks
Parents, though worried, provide safety ty
net for extreme athletes CHINA, PAGES 6-77
RMB ¥2
US urged to bring China
ties back on right track
By WANG QINGYUN and Nonproliferation under the
wangqingyun@chinadaily.com.cn House Foreign Affairs Committee,
according to a statement issued
A senior Chinese diplomat has on Sunday.
urged US officials to stop making In the face of the urgent chal-
negative remarks or behaving in lenge posed by COVID-19, the
ways that would harm bilateral United States should immediately
relations, and he called for joint stop its defamation of China and
efforts to bring the relations back facilitate bilateral cooperation to
on the right track. tackle the pandemic, Zheng said.
Vice-Foreign Minister Zheng
Zeguang made the remark in a See Ties, page 3
video meeting on Thursday with a
group of US Congress members, Inside
including Ami Bera, chair of the
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Comment, page 9
PBOC to promote further
cross-border use of RMB
By CHEN JIA investors will be further facilitat-
chenjia@chinadaily.com.cn ed, and domestic financial market
transactions by foreign investors
China will further facilitate will keep growing rapidly.
cross-border use of the renminbi by Cross-border use of the RMB
promoting pilot programs to boost has sustained rapid progress and
trade and investment, making it maintained robust growth this
possible for more foreign central year, even amid the impact of the
banks and monetary authorities to COVID-19 pandemic, which has
hold the currency as a reserve severely hit global trade, finance
asset, according to a report from and the economy, analysts said,
the nation’s central bank. commenting on the report
After a decade of the currency’s released late on Friday by the Peo-
internationalization, Chinese poli- ple’s Bank of China.
cymakers expect that the alloca-
1 YANGTZE RIVER tion of RMB assets by foreign See RMB, page 3
Length: about 6,300 km
Drainage basin:
WAR AGAINST FOOD
1.8 million sq km
2 YELLOW RIVER
WASTE HEATS UP
Length: 5,464 km
Drainage basin:
2
795,000 sq km
4 X
1 3 PEARL RIVER
Length: 2,214 km Series of campaigns
Drainage basin:
442,100 sq km launched nationwide
3 4 HUAIHE RIVER By XING YI in Shanghai,
Length: 1,000 km XIN WEN in Xi’an,
Drainage basin: ZHU LIXIN in Hefei,
270,000 sq km
and ZHANG YU in Tangshan, Hebei
A
Below Grade V
fter a satisfying lunch,
Qian Bingkun and his Dong Xiujie, the restaurant’s
64.5 wife watched a waitress manager, said a series of measures
pack their leftover stir- have been introduced to remind
67.8 fried tofu and dessert into takeout customers not to order too much
boxes as their daughter paid for food. The slogan “food is a gift
67.9 the meal. from nature, let’s not waste it!”
“You’ve upgraded the appear- adorns a wall at the eatery.
71.0 ance of your to-go boxes, right?” Some measures were first
Qian, 80, asked the waitress at the rolled out two years ago when the
74.9 Yongmama restaurant in Lubei 22-table restaurant noticed that
district, Tangshan, Hebei prov- leftovers each day amounted to
8.8 ince, on Thursday. more than 250 kilograms.
Busily packing the uneaten food “Some food had hardly been
8.6 into a microwaveable box bearing touched, because customers were
a design of traditional blue-and- used to ordering more than they
8.3 white Chinese porcelain, the wait- could eat to show their generosity,”
ress replied, “Yes, it’s to encourage she said, adding that the measures
6.7 customers to take leftovers after have succeeded, as the amount of
they’ve eaten.” daily leftovers has since halved.
3.4
Qian said: “Good! Very good! Too
CHINA DAILY much waste should be avoided.” See Eating, page 2
Ringing bell for peace
Smith, however, said that Mei Xiang
has “a very small chance of giving
birth” but veterinarians were always
hopeful for a healthy cub or cubs.
Mei Xiang has had twins twice
before. In both cases only one cub
survived, which is not unusual,
Neiffer said.
“Mei Xiang always keeps us on our
toes. Most years, the question is
whether she has a pseudopregnancy
or the real thing. Today, the q is
whether she’ll GIVE BIRTH (!!!) in a
few days or just reabsorb the fetal A bell-ringing ceremony on Saturday marks the 75th anniversary
tissue into her body,” tweeted Rachel of Japan’s surrender in World War II at the Memorial Hall of the
Kurzius, senior editor of DCist.com, Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing,
a news portal in Washington D.C. Jiangsu province. YANG BO / CHINA NEWS SERVICE
See Panda, page 4
国内统一编号: CN11-0091 国际标准编号: ISSN0253-9543 邮发代号:1-3
Inside
© 2020 China Daily
All Rights Reserved A member of the
See more, page 5 Vol.40 — No.

12567 Asia News Network
2 | Monday, August 17, 2020
PAGE TWO
Eating: Livestreaming shows targeted
From page 1
Campaigns against food waste
were launched nationwide after
President Xi Jinping on Tuesday
reiterated the need for greater
awareness of the risks posed to the
country’s food security and called
for resolute efforts to promote thrift
and combat food waste.
Citing the words of a Tang Dynas-
ty (618-907) poem — “Who knows
that of our meal in the dish, every
grain comes after hard toil?” — the
president urged the nation to con-
stantly be aware of huge food wast-
age despite consecutive years of
bumper grain harvests. The impact
of the COVID-19 pandemic had
sounded alarm bells, he said.
Xi, also general secretary of the
Communist Party of China, has
made a number of remarks on safe-
guarding food security and halting
food waste.
In 2013, he said, “Food waste in
the catering sector is shocking and
distressing, as a large number of
people are still experiencing poor
livelihoods … Food waste must be
stopped, and the virtuous tradition
of thrift should be promoted.”
In 2018, during an inspection tour
in Heilongjiang province, he said,
“The rice bowl of the Chinese peo-
ple, in any situation, must be firmly
held in our own hands.”
Responding to the president’s call,
restaurants, trade associations and
local governments have come up
with measures to reduce food waste.
The China General Chamber of
Commerce, the China Cuisine Asso-
ciation and the China Hotel Associa-
tion jointly proposed that the
catering industry should curb food
waste and promote thrift.
In Hubei province, the Wuhan
Catering Association suggested that
diners adopt the “N-1 mode”, mean-
ing that if they eat together, they
should order dishes as though there
was one fewer person in the group.
In Shaanxi province, the Xi’an
municipal commerce bureau called
for local eateries to provide smaller
dishes or to serve half portions to
avoid waste.
In the Yaohai district of Hefei,
Anhui province, local authorities
used more than 500 volunteers to
distribute leaflets about table eti-
quette, including taking away
leftovers and using serving chop-
sticks to select food from shared
dishes. The leaflets went to more
than 2,300 eateries.
660
million metric
tons
China’s food output last year,
according to the National
Bureau of Statistics
100
yuan
fine introduced by Acqua,
an Italian restaurant in the
Kempinski Hotel, Shanghai, for
every 50 grams of food wasted
at its Saturday brunch
Jiang Zhuyue, who lives in the dis-
trict, said, “When I saw people tak-
ing food from shared dishes with
their own chopsticks, I was reluc-
tant to take leftovers home to share
with my family, due to concerns
about hygiene.”
However, she added that more
eateries are now placing several
pairs of serving chopsticks or
spoons on tables, adding, “As a
result, I’m now more willing to take
the leftovers away.”
At the Anhui Jinling Grand Hotel
in Hefei’s downtown Baohe district,
diners who avoid food waste have
been rewarded since April. If they
take away their leftovers, customers
receive either a 10 percent discount
or a 50 yuan ($7.19) coupon to use on
their next visit.
Shen Qi, the hotel’s catering man-
ager, said, “In contrast to family gath-
erings, banquets are more prone to
food waste, because hosts often
wrongly think that extravagance
demonstrates their generosity.”
The Datang Fenghuangyuan
Catering Entertainment Co in Lubei
district of Tangshan, Hebei, which
caters to weddings and parties, has
put up notices reminding customers
to avoid food waste.
A banner hung at the door to a
wedding hall states, “Waste is shame-
A farmer teaches primary school students in Rugao, Jiangsu province, how to grow rice.
Top: Food saving is encouraged at a restaurant in Hai’an, Jiangsu province. ZHAI HUIYONG / FOR CHINA DAILY
Above: A customer serves herself at a hotel buffet in Taizhou, Jiangsu. TANG DEHONG / FOR CHINA DAILY
ful, thrift is to be applauded”. On
tables seating 10 diners, a plate is laid
bearing the words “no leftovers”,
while a large electronic screen, usual-
ly used to show newlyweds’ photos,
displays the slogan: “We are in action!
Say no to waste food!”
Zheng Lina, the company’s general
manager, said: “These are all very nec-
essary measures because weddings
and parties are typical examples of
serious food waste. To avoid this, we
have also changed our serving sizes.”
Previously, a dish of shrimps usu-
ally comprised as many of the crus-
taceans as a plate could hold, but
now only 10 to 12 shrimps are served
to a table of 10 diners.
In Shanghai, the Suntime Century
restaurant in the Kempinski Hotel
introduced an individual set menu
in May.
Renepol Bouldoires, the hotel’s
food and beverage director, said the
culinary team ensured the menu
featured a variety of dishes with suf-
ficient portions for each diner. The
menu has been particularly popular
for business meals, he added.
At Acqua, its Italian restaurant,
the hotel has introduced a fine of 100
yuan for every 50 grams of food
wasted at its “all-you-can-eat” Satur-
day brunch. “We promote food
awareness, and to avoid waste we
advise guests not to over-order,”
Bouldoires said.
The Shanghai Yuyuan Tourist
Mart Co said the long-established
restaurants it operates have always
encouraged customers to order sen-
sibly and take their leftovers home.
The eateries also specify the weight
of food in each dish on their menus.
XU HUI / FOR CHINA DAILY
In recent years, chibo, or lives-
treaming people eating food, which
initially became popular in Japan
and South Korea, has been taken up
by increasing numbers of online
broadcasters in China.
Some shows feature excessive
quantities of food being eaten in a
short time, while others focus on
diners tucking into raw seafood or
extremely spicy dishes.
Li Yijun, a food video producer on
Douyin, the short-video sharing
platform, said he disagrees with
such practices.
“Every time I make a food video at
a restaurant, I’m frequently offered
a table full of dishes, but I always
pack up the leftovers if I cannot eat
them all,” said Li, who started post-
ing food videos in January and now
has nearly 50,000 followers.
“I cultivated this habit in child-
hood, and I feel it would be a great
waste if I just throw the food away
after shooting,” he added.
On Wednesday, China Central Tel-
evision criticized food waste, citing
some livestream broadcasts as a bad
example. The post on Sina Weibo
was quickly “liked” by tens of thou-
sands of people.
Many video-sharing platforms
responded to the criticism by sus-
pending accounts that publish foot-
age of food being squandered.
Searches for “chibo” on the Bilibili
video-sharing website produce a
notice at the top of the results
reminding people to cherish food
and eat sensibly.
On Thursday, the short-video app
Kuaishou said it would deal serious-
ly with videos showing excessive
eating and drinking, while those
that feature fake eating and vomit-
ing would be deleted and the
accounts closed.
New laws on way
Meanwhile, the national legisla-
ture is planning new laws to prevent
food waste.
In an interview with the National
Supervisory Commission website
on Thursday, Zhang Guilong, senior
counsel for the Legislative Affairs
Committee of the National People’s
Congress, said a task force had been
formed to research new legislation
on food waste.
“Rules and regulations on pre-
venting food waste are scattered
throughout existing laws, and lack
a system and focus,” Zhang said.
“We will make new laws that give
clear instructions on avoiding
waste in every part of food produc-
tion, purchasing, storage, transpor-
tation, processing and
consumption.”
Many people have voiced support
for stricter rules against squander-
ing food.
Zhang Siying, 56, a publishing
house editor in Beijing, said she
becomes angry every time she sees
food left uneaten in canteens and
restaurants.
“My generation went through
tough times when there were food
supply quotas and we saved our
precious ‘meat tickets’ for holidays
such as the Lunar New Year or
when hosting special guests,” she
said.
“Sometimes, because of shorta-
ges, we couldn’t get food even if we
had tickets. Back then, there were
no leftovers after meals. Wasting
food was simply out of the question.”
Zhang remembers one Spring
Festival when she had a ticket to buy
candy and visited all the shops near
her home in Chengdu, Sichuan
province, only to find that confec-
tionery had sold out.
“I was only about 10 at the time,
and I felt so sad and disappointed.
My father, who experienced starva-
tion, always taught us to cherish all
our food, but young people nowa-
days don’t have such memories, so
we should educate them about just
how precious food is,” she said.
CHINA DAILY
Chen Xiaojing, a former kinder-
garten teacher in Shanghai, said she
hates wasting food, and always
praises children when they clear
their plates at lunch.
“It’s only a small encouragement,
but it helps cultivate a good habit.
Saving food is the responsibility of
every citizen,” she said.
Bumper harvest
According to the National Bureau
of Statistics, China’s food output last
year reached a record 660 million
metric tons, a rise of 20 percent
from 2010.
However, a report published by
the UN Food and Agriculture Orga-
nization in April said the coronavi-
rus pandemic has disrupted the
food supply chain.
A preliminary assessment from
the FAO suggested that the pandem-
ic could result in an additional 83
million to 132 million people being
undernourished worldwide this
year.
On Aug 8, Han Changfu, minister
of agriculture and rural affairs, said
in a People’s Daily article that some
countries had limited their food
exports, but with international agri-
cultural markets facing increased
volatility, China had been able to
maintain ample food supplies and
stable prices.
“Safeguarding national food secu-
rity is a perennial task, and we
should not neglect it or be compla-
cent,” Han wrote.
In recent decades,
Chinese people’s
attitude toward food
has changed
significantly — from
merely hoping to get
adequate supplies, to
pursuing a healthy
diet. But at the same
time, food waste has
gradually become
common in society.”
Li Zhou, economist and former
director of the China Academy of
Social Sciences’ Rural Develop-
ment Institute
Many factors are involved in
ensuring security of the food supply
chain, from production and distri-
bution, to consumption manage-
ment and storage.
Li Zhou, an economist and
former director of the China Acade-
my of Social Sciences’ Rural Devel-
opment Institute, said food waste in
the catering sector may not lead to
famine, but will put pressure on the
environment.
“In recent decades, Chinese peo-
ple’s attitude toward food has
changed significantly — from mere-
ly hoping to get adequate supplies,
to pursuing a healthy diet. But at the
same time, food waste has gradually
become common in society,” he said.
In 2018, an investigation by the
Institute of Geographic and Nation-
al Resources Research and the
World Wide Fund for Nature esti-
mated that Chinese consumers in
four large cities wasted 17 million to
18 million tons of food in 2015 —
enough to feed 30 million to 50 mil-
lion people for a year.
The investigation, which sur-
veyed 366 restaurants in Beijing,
Shanghai, Chengdu and Lhasa, cap-
ital of Tibet autonomous region,
found each person wasted 93 grams
of food at a meal, or 11.7 percent of
that served. At large banquets, more
than one-third of the food was
thrown away.
Eating all the food placed on a
table is just the first step to putting
an end to squandering, as a consid-
erable amount is wasted in other
areas of the supply chain.
Li said the government should edu-
cate people that refined processing of
commodities such as rice and wheat
will not necessarily increase nutrition-
al value, but will use more natural
resources and create additional waste.
He also hit out at the commercial
hype surrounding imported food
and fine dining.
“To reduce energy use and resource
costs per unit of food in production
and transportation, we should pro-
mote the idea of eating locally instead
of eating globally,” he said.
Gu Yuhan contributed to this story.
 CHINA DAILY
TOP NEWS
Cambridge urged not to
bow to whims of politics
By ELEANOR HUANG
in Hong Kong
eleanorhuang@chinadailyhk.com
A world-class university should
not willingly bow to the whims of
politics and judge any city without
knowing the whole story, prominent
educators and a former high-placed
official in Hong Kong said on Sunday.
The remarks came after Chief
Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-
ngor rescinded her honorary fellow-
ship at the Wolfson College of
Cambridge University because the
college accused her of deviating
from the principle of academic free-
dom and of speech by actively pro-
moting the National Security Law
for Hong Kong.
In a social media post on Satur-
day, the Hong Kong leader
expressed her disappointment with
the school, as it admitted to her in a
letter that it based its accusation on
what it heard and what had been
reported. She added that she
believed the school had been under
pressure from British politicians,
the media and other groups.
Mark Pinkstone, a former chief
information officer of the Hong
Kong government before 1997, said
it showed extreme “shortsighted-
ness” for Wolfson College to criticize
one of its fellows over national issues
of which it knows nothing about.
“If the president of the college knew
the real story behind the need for the
National Security Law – to combat
the nearly 12 months of lawlessness in
Hong Kong — she would have extend-
ed her sympathies to the chief execu-
Let the games begin
Chinese tanks arrive in Alabino, Russia, on Friday, to participate in
the International Army Games 2020 from Aug 23 to Sept 5. The par-
ticipation in the games is aimed at strengthening strategic coopera-
tion between the Chinese and Russian militaries. BAI XUEQI / XINHUA
Guangdong virus situation
stable after 6 cases Friday
By LI WENFANG in Guangzhou and
PEI PEI in Shenzhen, Guangdong
The novel coronavirus situation
remains largely stable in South Chi-
na’s Guangdong province, with no
new local infections reported after
six domestically infected cases were
announced on Friday, according to a
provincial health official.
A 41-year-old woman, who
worked at a Hema Fresh supermar-
ket in Shenzhen, was confirmed as
having COVID-19 after she returned
to her hometown in Shanwei,
Guangdong.
Three of her family members and
two of her co-workers at the super-
market tested positive for the virus
but had no symptoms.
The six became the first domesti-
cally infected people in the province
since April 29 — only imported cas-
es were reported before them since
that date.
The epidemic situation remains
largely stable in Guangdong, but
epidemic control remains grave and
complicated as the risk of infections
imported from other parts of the
country and world remains, said
Duan Yufei, director of the provin-
cial health commission, at a news
conference on Sunday. The risk of
scattered new cases still exists.
Workplaces and residences in
Shenzhen and Shanwei related to
the new cases were put under strict
management. Cinema operations in
Shanwei were suspended.
Since the new infections were
found, 37,669 samples in Shanwei
and 83,413 samples from people and
the environment in Shenzhen have
been tested, Duan said.
tive instead of
punishing Lam
for bringing
peace to the
region,” said
Pinkstone, who is
also a veteran
journalist.
Carrie He continued
Lam Cheng that there will be
Yuet-ngor no academic free-
dom in the UK if a
college’s president puts pressure on
one of its fellows at the behest of Brit-
ish politicians.
Ho Hon-kuen, chairman of local
teachers’ alliance Education Conver-
gence, said it is baffling to him that
such a prestigious institution of
higher learning as the University of
Cambridge could make such ground-
less and discriminative allegations.
“There are many other interna-
tional jurisdictions, like the US, that
have enacted their own national
security law. Why hasn’t the college
revoked all those US politicians’
honorary titles,” Ho asked, “Is the
University of Cambridge still an aca-
demic institution, or has it turned
into a political organization?”
Wong Yuk-shan, the president of the
Open University of Hong Kong, said
the UK university is not right to make
such claims against a city’s leader.
As the chief executive of Hong
Kong, it is Lam’s lawful duty to safe-
guard the city’s security, Wong said,
adding honorary titles and degrees
given by the universities should be
based on alums’ achievements or
their commitment to serving their
communities.
Daily testing capacity in Shanwei
has been boosted from 2,500 to
26,000. Shenzhen has a daily testing
capacity of 103,000. A daily capacity
of more than 55,000 tests can be
shifted to places in need in Guang-
dong, Duan said.
“The incubation period of corona-
virus is generally three to seven
days. Early detection and isolation
are the most effective methods to
curb the virus’ spread,” prominent
infectious disease expert Zhong
Nanshan said in a media interview
on Sunday. A massive spread of the
virus is not possible in Guangdong,
he said.
A total of 9,989 samples had been
tested from 36 Hema Fresh super-
markets and 12 businesses related
to the chain in Guangdong, with the
focus placed on imported frozen
meat and aquatic products, said
Mai Jiaomeng, director of the pro-
vincial administration for market
regulation.
The province has stepped up testing
at produce markets, supermarkets,
food companies, cold storage facilities
and cold-chain logistics firms.
Three samples from frozen chick-
en wings imported from Brazil and
stored in a facility in Longgang dis-
trict, Shenzhen, tested positive.
The virus on the chicken wings
was not active and could not infect
humans, said Deng Huihong, direct-
or of the provincial Center for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention.
The produce market in Guang-
dong remains safe and under con-
trol, Mai said.
Contact the writers at
peipei@chinadaily.com.cn
US WeChat move puts firms at risk
Multinational companies voice their
concerns in White House phone call
By HU YUANYUAN
huyuanyuan@chinadaily.com.cn
As China is about to become the
world’s largest consumer market
this year, the US government’s
executive order against WeChat
may result in US companies leaving
China, said a former vice-minister
of commerce.
“For a country boasting a free
economy, the Trump administra-
tion’s recent move is unimaginable
and will severely damage US com-
panies’ businesses in China,” Wei
Jianguo, vice-chairman of the China
Center for International Economic
Exchanges, said in an exclusive
interview with China Daily. Wei is a
former vice-minister of commerce.
“This is particularly unwise as
China is going to become the world’s
largest consumer market this year,
owing to its rapid recovery from the
pandemic,” said Wei, adding that
this development has made the
country’s consumer market critical
Ties: Envoy urges Washington to increase contact, talks
From page 1
China has always remained open
and transparent on its disease con-
trol efforts, briefed the international
community in a timely manner and
done its best to provide humanitar-
ian aid to other countries, he said.
China sincerely hopes the US will
overcome COVID-19 soon and
stands ready to cooperate with the
US to control the disease, but firmly
opposes the US stigmatizing and
deflecting blame to it, Zheng said.
Pointing out that China-US ties are
at an important juncture, Zheng said
the two countries must work to
maintain and stabilize their ties.
The US has been provoking China
for some time by interfering in its
domestic affairs and undermining
its interests, while some US politi-
cians have been attacking China and
distorting and denying the history
of bilateral ties over the past five
decades, Zheng said.
RMB: More expected to use yuan as settlement currency
From page 1
More than 70 central banks and
monetary authorities worldwide
have incorporated the RMB into
their foreign exchange reserves so
far, according to the PBOC’s 2020
RMB Internationalization Report.
The central bank promised to
steadily push forward RMB inter-
nationalization based on market
forces and the orientation of better
serving the real economy.
“We expect more foreign traders
to join crude oil, iron ore and other
commodity futures trading and use
the RMB more frequently in real
commodity trading. More varieties
of RMB-denominated financial
products will be provided,” it added.
Jin Zhongxia, the International
Monetary Fund’s executive direct-
or for China, said, “China’s capital
market can further open up, which
requires free floating of the RMB.”
“It also needs to develop foreign
exchange forward products, and
for domestic
and interna-
tional produc-
ers.
Retail sales
in China
reached 41.2
trillion yuan
($5.92 tril-
lion) last year,
Wei Jianguo and retail
sales dropped
by 1.1 percent in July on a yearly
basis, narrowing from the 1.8 per-
cent decline in June, according to
the National Bureau of Statistics.
Market research firm eMarketers
said in a report in June that retail
sales in the US will drop 10.5 per-
cent to $4.89 trillion this year, a lev-
el not seen since 2016.
“Quite a number of US compa-
nies, in fact, are betting on the Chi-
nese market to salvage their global
earnings,” Wei said.
The shoemaker Skechers US, for
instance, saw overall quarterly
Such erroneous behavior has led
to an extremely complex and severe
situation in bilateral ties, he said.
The Chinese government has
taken, and will continue to take
legitimate and necessary steps to
uphold China’s sovereignty, securi-
ty and development interests, as
well as to keep China-US ties stable,
Zheng added.
Cooperation between China and
the US serves the interests of the
two countries and the world, while
confrontation between them will
only lead to disasters, Zheng said,
adding that people of insight must
work to stop a handful of US offi-
cials from “disrupting bilateral ties
wantonly”.
The two countries must always
stick to cooperation, manage their
differences in a constructive way,
observe the three China-US joint
communiques and respect each
other’s core interests and major
concerns, he said.
better control the overall money
supply and foreign debt,” Jin said at
a seminar held last week by the
China Finance 40 Forum.
Jin suggested issuing RMB-de-
nominated treasuries and central
bank bills in the offshore market.
Meanwhile, the stock market can
attract more foreign investors
through establishing an internation-
al board, which allows initial public
offerings for high-growth enterpris-
es from emerging economies.
Under the complex international
environment at the moment, “RMB
internationalization is not a subor-
dinate target that can be sacrificed,
but a major issue related to whether
China’s economy can effectively
alleviate the impact of external
shocks”, Jin added.
Supported by the monetary
authorities’ policies, analysts
expect more market participants
will accept the RMB as a settlement
and payment currency, especially
those located either in neighboring
sales drop 42 percent year-on-year
but got some relief from 11.5 per-
cent growth in China.
More than a dozen major US mul-
tinationals, including Apple Inc,
Walmart and Walt Disney Co, raised
concerns in a telephone call with
White House officials on Tuesday
about the potentially broad scope
and impact of President Donald
Trump’s executive order targeting
WeChat, saying it could undermine
their competitiveness in the world’s
second-biggest economy.
WeChat is a widely used app
around the world, especially by
Chinese, and banning it could
effectively cut off much informal
communication between people in
China and the United States.
“For those who don’t live in China,
they don’t understand how vast the
implications are if American com-
panies aren’t allowed to use it,” Craig
Allen, president of the US-China
Business Council, was quoted by
The Wall Street Journal as saying.
“They are going to be held at a severe
disadvantage to every competitor.”
In a recent online survey by
xueqiu.com, 807,000 respondents
China’s internal and foreign poli-
cies have always remained open and
transparent, Zheng emphasized,
adding that China today is more
able to deal with risks and challen-
ges than ever before, and its econo-
my is turning for the better.
China continues to encourage
mutually beneficial cooperation
between Chinese and US compa-
nies, Zheng said, urging the US to
stop its crackdown on Chinese
companies and its “hysterical anti-
China clamor”.
He emphasized that China is
committed to developing ties with
the US featuring non-conflict, non-
confrontation, mutual respect and
win-win cooperation.
Through development, China
seeks to enable its 1.4 billion pop-
ulation to live a better life and
contribute to global peace and
prosperity, instead of replacing
any other country, Zheng said,
adding that China has no interest
countries or areas related to the
Belt and Road Initiative. Free trade
zones and the Guangdong-Hong
Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will
become the driving force of RMB
cross-border payment.
Record high
Last year, cross-border RMB set-
tlement hit a record high of 19.67
trillion yuan ($2.83 trillion),
increasing 24.1 percent year-on-
year, the PBOC’s report said.
The yuan’s share of global foreign
exchange reserves hit a record high
of 2.02 percent as a global currency
in the first quarter, according to the
IMF. This was the highest level
since the fund first published
details of renminbi reserve assets
in 2016.
The fund also said that by the end
of 2019, the scale of renminbi
reserves had reached $217.67 bil-
lion, accounting for 1.95 percent of
the total foreign exchange reserves
of designated currencies, ranking
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 3
Fleet sets sail
Fishing boats head out to sea
from Yazhou Central Fishing
Port, Hainan province, on Sun-
day. After a three-and-a-half-
month annual summer fishing
moratorium in the South China
Sea ended on Sunday, the South
China Sea (Sanya) Fishing Fes-
tival was held to welcome the
new fishing season.
CHEN WENWU / FOR CHINA DAILY
said they would get rid of their
Apple phone if WeChat had to be
removed from its devices, com-
pared with 48,000 who said they
would remove the app instead.
According to Tencent’s first-quar-
ter financial report of 2020, the
monthly active users of WeChat
have exceeded 1.2 billion.
Wei considered the US govern-
ment’s latest move against Chinese
internet companies a part of its
“maximum pressure” campaign,
forcing China to compromise on
issues of core interests.
“Those moves, on the other hand,
reflect a US image as a closed and
isolated economy, a retreat for the
world’s largest economy,” Wei said.
Despite the US government’s
pressure, 18,800 foreign-funded
companies were established across
China between January and July,
including 860 US companies, justi-
fying global investors’ confidence
in the market. And foreign direct
investment from the US continued
to flow into China, rising 6 percent
year-on-year in the first half of
2020, according to the Ministry of
Commerce.
in interfering in US domestic
affairs, and it never has.
Urging the US to increase con-
tact and talks with China at all
levels and maintain normal per-
sonnel exchanges, Zheng said
China hopes to strengthen talks
with members of the US Congress
to deepen understanding and
expand common ground.
The members of the US Congress
who attended the meeting said the
stable development of bilateral ties is
in line with the interests of the people
of the two countries and the world.
Though the two countries uphold
different values, have different politi-
cal systems and have differences over
many issues, they should enhance
mutual understanding through can-
did dialogue, manage their differen-
ces and expand cooperation in
tackling COVID-19 and trade.
The US Congress hopes to
maintain communications with
China, they said.
fifth and surpassing the Canadian
dollar’s share of 1.88 percent.
Due to the impact of China-US
trade frictions and other external
vulnerabilities, the foreign exchange
market showed increased fluctua-
tions, and more enterprises prefer to
use the RMB as a safe investment
asset to mitigate risks, said Guan
Tao, chief global economist at BOC
International (China) Co Ltd.
Another survey conducted
recently by the Bank of China also
showed that the international cur-
rency status of the RMB reached a
new high in 2019.
About 80 percent of domestic
and foreign respondents to the
survey believed that the RMB’s role
as an international currency will
not be inferior to that of the Japa-
nese yen or the British pound in
the next decade. The result was 3
percentage points higher than that
in 2018, and had continued to rise
for the fourth consecutive year
since 2016, Bank of China said.
4 | Monday, August 17, 2020
CHINA
XIAOKANG@GRASSROOTS
Villagers out of poverty, into dancing
Fujian area’s prosperity gives women
time to take part in fun, healthy activity
By MO JINGXI
and HU MEIDONG in Fuding, Fujian
At 6:30 pm every day, Zeng Yan-
hong joins about 60 other women
in Boyang village’s public square to
dance the night away.
Their repertoire covers a range of
dance styles, from folk to shuffle
and even ballroom.
“Thanks to our village’s develop-
ment in recent years, almost every
household owns a house and a car,”
Zeng, 46, said. “And every villager
can earn several thousand yuan a
month without leaving home, so
we have the time and energy for
such recreational exercise to keep
ourselves happy and healthy.”
Boyang, a village in Fuding, Fu-
jian province, used to be poverty-
stricken and only accessible by
foot.
When Zeng moved to Boyang
with her husband more than 20
years ago, most villagers lived in
shabby wooden houses in the
mountains and the villagers’ per
capita income was less than 600
yuan a year.
Under the leadership of Wang
Zhouqi, who gave up his own busi-
ness and returned home to serve as
Boyang’s Party head in 1994, villag-
ers started to grow waxberries and
Revision clarifies procedure
for handling IPR crimes
By CAO YIN
caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn
Intellectual property rights
experts have lauded a recent regu-
latory revision that clarifies the
procedure to be used by govern-
ment departments when passing
evidence of suspected IPR crimes
to police.
The revised regulation, pub-
lished by the State Council, China’s
Cabinet, on Friday, specifically
stipulates that if a government
department suspects, after collect-
ing evidence, that a case consti-
tutes an IPR-related crime, it
should be transferred to the public
security authorities.
This change came into effect on
Friday.
“The clearer procedures on
dealing with IPR-related cases is
to help better connect the admin-
istrative protection of IPR with the
judicial protection,” said Ma Yide,
an IPR professor at Zhongnan
University of Economics and Law
in Wuhan, Hubei province.
“The clarified process shows our
country’s determination to oppose
IPR infringements, and the effi-
cient case handling will contribute
to boosting high-quality economic
and social development.”
The move is also an implemen-
tation of the central leadership’s
demands for full protection of IPR,
the intensification of law enforce-
ment in the sector and the promo-
tion of innovation and the
commercialization and applica-
tion of IPR, Ma said.
Liu Bin, a lawyer from Beijing
Zhongwen Law Firm who special-
izes in IPR cases, said the new con-
Briefly
Patent for COVID-19
vaccine a first in China
China has granted its first COVID-
19 vaccine patent to the adenovi-
rus vector vaccine developed by
Chen Wei of the Academy of Mili-
tary Medical Sciences and Chinese
biotech company CanSino Biolog-
ics, the National Intellectual Prop-
erty Administration said. The
patent application was submitted
on March 18 and approved on Aug
11, the patent document showed.
The vaccine, dubbed “Ad5-nCoV”,
uses a weakened common cold
virus to introduce genetic material
from the novel coronavirus into
the human body. The goal is to
train the body to produce antibod-
ies that recognize the novel coro-
navirus’ spike protein and fight it
off.
breed mudskippers to boost their
incomes.
In 2000, the whole village was
relocated down from the moun-
tains thanks to a resettlement pro-
gram, and all its households,
including Zeng’s family, moved into
three- or four-story buildings.
As the village was gradually con-
nected to the outside by newly built
expressways and railway lines, Bo-
yang opened up land in 2002 for
use as an industrial park to bring in
investment and enterprises.
The Boyang industrial park, now
covering an area of 33.3 hectares,
has attracted eight enterprises with
a total annual output value of 2.2
billion yuan ($316.5 million) and
provides employment for more
than 1,300 villagers.
Wang said the next step for the
village will be to develop tertiary
industry by opening hotels and
supermarkets to provide services
for people working for the industri-
al park and a nearby nuclear power
station.
“In recent years, many villagers,
who were farmers before, have
become self-employed business
people, private business owners or
even enterprise shareholders,”
Wang said, noting that some villag-
ers can earn more than 30,000
16,132
IPR-related
cases
were cracked by public
security authorities
nationwide last year.
tent in the revised regulation will
be an effective way to fight IPR-re-
lated offenses.
He said referring cases of sus-
pected IPR crimes to the public
security departments for criminal
investigation was needed because
it represented the strongest possi-
ble protection for IPR.
“The amended regulation, I
think, also tells administrative law
enforcement agencies to work
closely with public security author-
ities when finding suspected cases
to further ensure IPR-related
crimes can be cracked down on
through joint efforts,” Liu added.
The China National Intellectual
Property Administration said in
April that it had called on adminis-
trators at all levels to inspect sus-
pected IPR infringements more
thoroughly. It said some 31,900
trademark-related cases had been
solved by administrations across
the country last year, up 2.24 per-
cent year-on-year.
It added that public security
authorities nationwide cracked
16,132 IPR-related cases in 2019,
with 29,852 suspects being detained.
Statistics released by the
Supreme People’s Court, the coun-
try’s top court, in April showed
that Chinese courts concluded
475,853 IPR-related cases last year,
up 48.87 percent year-on-year.
Fugitive Chinese
gangster repatriated
A fugitive gangster surnamed
Zheng was brought back to China
from the Dominican Republic on
Sunday after 15 years on the lam,
the Ministry of Public Security
said. The suspect was the first
fugitive repatriated by the Carib-
bean country to China, the minis-
try said. Zheng is suspected of
organizing criminal activities in
Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province,
including illegally running a gam-
bling house and instigating a mur-
der in 2005, the ministry said.
Zheng, subject to an Interpol Red
Notice, was arrested in March by
Dominican authorities, the minis-
try said.
XINHUA—CHINA DAILY
A panoramic view of Boyang village in Fuding, Fujian province. The once poverty-stricken village was
relocated 20 years ago and now has its own kindergarten, primary school, park and a cultural square
with a pond and fountain. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
yuan a month by renting their
houses and running noodle stalls.
Last year, the per capita disposa-
ble income of Boyang villagers was
28,976 yuan.
Seven years ago, to provide more
public services for villagers, Bo-
yang started to build a park, kin-
dergarten, primary school and a
cultural square with a pond and a
fountain.
The cultural square, where the
villagers now gather to dance each
night, was put into use in 2015.
Zeng, who is also a member of
the village committee responsible
Efforts: Share of surface water with good quality rises
From page 1
The joint center is a platform that
“effectively integrates scientific
research and administrative man-
agement”, said its head, Li Haisheng.
Many other campaigns are also
proceeding, and in the past few
years chemical plants near the river
have been dismantled or relocated
far from it, and illegal ports closed to
stop them polluting the river.
In January, a 10-year fishing mor-
atorium began in 332 conservation
areas in the Yangtze River Basin to
stem the free fall in the river’s biodi-
versity. Ecological problems caused
by small hydropower stations were
also targeted for rectification in a
campaign launched by four minis-
tries in the past year.
A law devoted to Yangtze River
conservation was drafted and sub-
mitted to national legislators for a
first review last year.
Xu said that being an intermediary
had contributed a lot to making the
mechanism more efficient.
“Once any demands emerge in the
bureau, they can always get in touch
with me and let me know first,” he
said. After learning the details, he
can return to the institute that day
to discuss the issue with Professor
Wu Zhenbin, who works there and
heads the team in Wuhan. Experts
from the eight institutes, who have a
range of expertise, could then gather
and come up with a preliminary
solution the next day, Xu said.
The national joint research center
said that by the end of last year, teams
it deployed had introduced around
600 treatment technologies and solu-
tions drawn from scientific research
for women’s work, said the dancing
was started to enrich villagers’ lives
after their day’s work.
The village gave the dance group
more than 20,000 yuan to pur-
chase audio equipment and dance
wear.
Zeng and some of the other vil-
lagers later found that the regular
dancing greatly eased the symp-
toms of common ailments such as
diabetes and hypertension.
Kong Shiqin, who arrived in Bo-
yang more than 10 years ago after
marrying a local, is an enthusiastic
member of the dance group.
to the 58 cities in the Yangtze basin.
The solutions that researchers
assigned to the Yangtze protection
teams apply to the river’s environ-
mental problems yield tailor-made
and feasible solutions for its conser-
vation, said Li, who is also president
of the Chinese Research Academy of
Environmental Sciences.
The Yangtze has seen a continu-
ous improvement in its water quali-
ty in recent years. By the end of last
year, water from 91.7 percent of
monitored sections of the river was
at or above Grade III, the third-high-
est in China’s five-tier quality system
for surface water, up 4.2 percentage
points year-on-year. Water from 0.6
percent of the sections was below
Grade V, the lowest quality, down by
1.2 percentage points.
‘Mother river’
Other rivers that suffered similar
problems during the country’s evo-
lution from an agricultural nation to
an industrial one are now also see-
ing their ecosystems restored.
Government data show that 68.9
percent of surface water across the
country had a good quality rating —
Grade III or above — in 2012, while
10.2 percent was rated below Grade V.
Thanks to protection efforts, the
share of surface water with a good
quality rating rose to 74.9 percent
last year, while only 3.4 percent was
rated below Grade V.
The improvement was made pos-
sible by the importance attached to
ecological protection by the top
leadership. On many of his inspec-
tion tours, Xi has inspected work to
protect major local rivers.
Apart from the Yangtze, he has
She joined the group after
watching its members dance sev-
eral times and is now one of the vil-
lagers who leads the nightly
dances.
After a day’s work at a factory in
the industrial park, Kong said she
enjoyed the time she spent dancing
with “a group of sisters”.
“I love dancing and being togeth-
er with them,” she said. “Whenever
I come to dance, I feel a sense of
great relief and relaxation.”
Contact the writers at
mojingxi@chinadaily.com.cn
emphasized the importance of eco-
logical protection of the Yellow Riv-
er, known as China’s “mother river”.
“The protection of the Yellow River
is critical to the great rejuvenation
and sustainable development of the
Chinese nation,” Xi said, adding that
it is a major national strategy.
Since August 2018, Xi has checked
the Yellow River at least four times
during inspection tours to various
provinces and regions.
In 2016, the general offices of the
Communist Party of China Central
Committee and the State Council
jointly issued a document to imple-
ment a river keeper system nation-
wide. The system, established across
the country in 2018, names top local
officials as river chiefs and makes
them responsible for protecting
water resources, controlling and pre-
venting pollution, and restoring
aquatic ecosystems.
Seeds of hope
As the national joint center’s pro-
gram and the other campaigns forge
ahead, more improvements to the
Yangtze’s ecosystem are expected.
Yan Zhongning, head of Wuhan’s
ecology and environment bureau,
said dedicated teams, such as the one
headed by Wu, are an innovative solu-
tion to problems faced by the Yangtze.
“Previously, we looked for experts
after we decided to launch certain
projects,” he said. “We might turn to
Professor Wu today and then have no
idea which expert we would approach
next time. It wasn’t systematic at all.”
The frequent changes of experts
made it hard for individual teams at
various institutes to gain a thorough
understanding of the conditions of
CHINA DAILY
Panda: Zoo
grateful for
China’s help
From page 1
In an email interview, Smith said
zookeepers have maintained regu-
lar contact with Chinese colleagues
during the pandemic, talking about
Mei Xiang’s health and well-being.
“We communicate with our col-
leagues in China regularly. We have
been talking about Mei Xiang, most-
ly conversations about her general
health and well-being,” she said.
“We knew that, at this age, she had a
very small chance of giving birth, but
we were always hopeful,” Smith said.
In the decade since 2005, Mei
Xiang had given birth to three sur-
viving cubs, Tai Shan, Bao Bao and
Bei Bei. The trio have all returned to
China in accordance with agree-
ments between China and the US,
according to zoo sources.
“We are especially grateful for our
Chinese colleagues because they
have so much experience with panda
cubs and they are great partners and
always willing to provide assistance
and share information,” Smith said.
The zoo was closed to visitors in
March to contain the spread of coro-
navirus but reopened on July 24 with
new safety measures, including
requiring visitors to reserve passes
online ahead of time and capping the
number of people allowed in at once.
“The panda house has remained
closed because we have been on
birth watch,” Smith said.
Honoring
heritage
Visitors peer at a Buddhist stat-
ue during an exhibition at a
museum in Chengdu, Sichuan
province, on Sunday. The exhi-
bition focuses on the Dazu Rock
Carvings, a UNESCO World Her-
itage Site in Chongqing. It was
rolled out as the two cities,
which are closely linked in cul-
ture, are engaged in a plan to
jointly develop tourism.
XIANG YU / FOR CHINA DAILY
water bodies, which was key to tap-
ping their self-repair potential.
He said the new arrangement
could help address the problem. The
team’s long-term follow-up work on
water pollution could help identify
major sources of pollutants in differ-
ent water bodies and aid in the
choice of aquatic plants best suited
to activate their self-repair.
The novel coronavirus outbreak in
Wuhan, the city in China hit hardest
by the COVID-19 pandemic, led to
the temporary suspension of some of
the team’s remediation projects, but
they found other ways to contribute.
At least 30 team members based
in Wuhan helped monitor water
bodies around hospitals where
COVID-19 patients were being treat-
ed, as well as the waste water they
discharged. They also conducted
research on the effect the wide-
spread use of disinfectants had on
the aquatic ecosystem.
Some of the team’s demonstration
remediation projects resumed on
April 1, before the lockdown of
Wuhan due to the COVID-19 pan-
demic was lifted on April 8, and
work has now returned to normal.
Xu said restoring the health of
water bodies by planting aquatic
plants is a complicated undertak-
ing. Plants with a strong ability to
resist pollution are usually planted
first to improve the water quality so
that other less-resistant plants can
then survive.
The efforts of his team have borne
fruit, with some plants especially
suited to ecological remediation that
researchers from Wu’s institute have
planted on a small stretch of water
having survived the test of time.
 CHINA DAILY
CHINA
Report calls for boost
to net’s cloud security
By CAO YIN
caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn
Cloud platforms need to strength-
en security measures in the face of
increasing attacks, according to an
internet security report.
Released by China’s National
Computer Network Emergency
Response Technical Team and Coor-
dination Center last week, the
report showed that 74 percent of dis-
tributed denial of service (DDoS)
attacks, 86 percent of backdoor
attacks and 87 percent of falsified
webpages in the Chinese mainland’s
network occurred on cloud plat-
forms last year.
It also revealed that cloud plat-
forms were often used as control ter-
minals by hackers to launch online
attacks, adding that about 86 per-
cent of all the recorded DDoS attacks
on mainland targets last year were
initiated from cloud platforms.
Although cloud service providers
have been taking measures to
improve the security of the plat-
forms, “the situation for cloud net-
work security is not optimistic,” the
report said, suggesting providers
build a cybersecurity test and pre-
vention system to tackle online
attacks and determine whether the
platforms have been hijacked.
If cloud platforms are being
attacked or used by hackers, the ser-
vice providers should report to
authorities as soon as possible, and
they are allowed to suspend services
to users in accordance with the Chi-
nese Cybersecurity Law.
Zuo Xiaodong, vice-president of
the China Information Security
Research Institute, confirmed that
using cloud platforms to harm the
Guideline sets rules for
school reopenings in fall
By WANG KEJU
wangkeju@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese authorities have rolled
out plans for the opening of schools
for the autumn semester that
include targeted COVID-19 control
and prevention measures to safe-
guard the health of students and
teachers.
The Ministry of Education and
the National Health Commission
recently issued a guideline on COV-
ID-19 control and prevention for all
schools, including universities, pri-
mary schools and kindergartens, to
facilitate their reopening for the fall
semester.
Schools across the country will
reopen on a staggered schedule in the
coming weeks, and a number of uni-
versities and colleges in cities, includ-
ing Beijing, welcomed their first
batches of students who were check-
ing in or registering on Saturday.
The guideline said all teachers,
students and staff from low-risk are-
as must present a green health code
to be able to return to school. Those
from medium-risk or high-risk are-
as will need to have a negative result
in a nucleic acid test in the week
before their return to campuses.
College staff and students will not
be required to wear masks on cam-
puses. But students and staff enter-
ing campuses should have their
Oldest captive giant panda
celebrates 38th birthday
By TAN YINGZI in Chongqing
tanyingzi@chinadaily.com.cn
Over 100 panda fans sang Happy
Birthday and enjoyed cake as they
celebrated the 38th birthday of Xin
Xing, the world’s oldest giant panda
living in captivity on Sunday morn-
ing at Chongqing Zoo.
This female panda is expected to
break the Guinness world record for
the longest living giant panda ever.
The record is held by a panda named
Jia Jia that passed away on Oct 16,
2016, at Ocean Park Hong Kong about
two months after she turned 38.
“At 38, Xin Xing has reached the
equivalent of about 110 to 130 in
human years,” said Yin Yanqiang,
the zoo’s panda expert. “There are
less than 30 giant pandas in the
world that have lived longer than
the age of 30.”
network is a trending problem, as
their stronger computing power can
help hackers initiate massive online
attacks.
He called on internet users to do a
security risk evaluation of cloud ser-
vice providers and carefully read the
service agreements before upload-
ing pictures, documents or other
messages on the cloud platforms.
“Everyone can easily access cloud
platforms, but while we enjoy the
convenience, risk awareness must
be enhanced at the same time,” he
said.
To ensure the efficiency and safety
of cloud services, the Cyberspace
Administration of China, the
nation’s top internet regulator, has
issued rules for Party and govern-
ment agencies on what can be
uploaded on cloud platforms and
how to do so, Zuo said.
In the report, the center also laud-
ed the mainland’s achievements in
its fight against malware.
It said that last year, about 5.81
million mainland computers were
infected by malware such as Trojans
and botnets, down 11.3 percent year-
on-year and marking the fourth
consecutive year of decline.
About 56,000 malware servers
overseas controlled about 5.52 mil-
lion computers on the mainland, it
said, adding the servers were mainly
in the United States, Japan and
Hong Kong.
The transmission routes of mal-
ware were effectively and strictly
controlled in 2019 due to joint
efforts by the center and mobile net-
work operators to discover and
block malicious software, it said,
with the eradication of 3,057 pieces
of malware on 319 mobile platforms.
body temperature checked and
their health code scanned, the
guideline said.
Colleges and universities should
step up checking, registration and
management of food and parcel
delivery workers entering campus-
es, and designate areas for the col-
lection and delivery of parcels, it
added.
The guideline also said kindergar-
ten children will not have to wear
masks, but their teachers and other
staff are required to do so. Parents
who are dropping off or picking up
children will not be allowed to enter
kindergartens or nurseries.
Students in primary and middle
schools will need to carry medical
face masks, but those in low-risk
areas will not have to wear them, it
said, adding that primary and mid-
dle schools will be put under rela-
tively closed management, with no
entry for visitors, in a bid to reduce
the risk of spreading COVID-19.
Schools should enhance the disin-
fection, ventilation and hygiene of
canteens and stagger meal hours to
prevent crowding, and also guide
students to maintain a safe distance
from each other when waiting in
lines.
Students and teachers who are
currently overseas will not be
allowed to return to campuses until
further notice.
Despite the hot weather, Xin
Xing came out of her air-condi-
tioned panda house and enjoyed a
cake made of ice covered by her
favorite foods, including bamboo
leaves and shoots, apples, carrots
and watermelon, in the outdoor
playground.
Mario Gutierrez, a panda fan
from the United States, said he had
seen Xin Xing before, “but this is
my first time celebrating her birth-
day. I wish she will have a long,
healthy, good life for another 30
years.”
The celebrity panda is in good
physical condition and maintains a
weight of 90 to 100 kilograms. She
eats seven meals a day, including 30
kg of bamboo shoots, 1 kg of bam-
boo leaves and some fruit.
“Xin Xing always has a good
appetite. When she was younger,
Rescue mission
Rescuers try to retrieve a car (right) stranded in floodwaters in Heishuihao village, Suining, Sichuan province, on Sunday that inundated
much of the village (left). Many areas in the Sichuan Basin experienced extremely heavy rainfall over the weekend, with 38 counties see-
ing more than 100 millimeters from Saturday morning to Sunday morning, and a maximum of 466 mm in 24 hours. More than 60,000
people were evacuated. LIU CHANGSONG / FOR CHINA DAILY
Taiwan youth urged to take
part in cross-Straits relations
Annual festival designed to promote
exchanges between young people
By ZHANG YI
zhangyi1@chinadaily.com.cn
A mainland official called on
young people from Taiwan to con-
tribute to the development of cross-
Straits relations at an event attended
by young people from both the Chi-
nese mainland and the island.
Liu Jieyi, head of the Taiwan
Affairs Office of the State Council,
addressed the opening of the 8th
Cross-Straits Youth Festival on Sat-
urday. Held in Fuzhou, Fujian prov-
ince, the festival is an annual event
aimed at promoting exchanges
between young people from both
sides of the Taiwan Straits.
“I hope that young people in Tai-
wan will bear in mind the great
interests of the nation and overcome
obstacles to make contributions to
the development of cross-Straits
relations,” he said via video link.
The mainland will continue to
Suspect in 3 killings captured in Jiangxi’s Le’an county
By WANG XIAOYU
wangxiaoyu@chinadaily.com.cn
A suspect in the killings of three
people in Jiangxi province’s Le’an
county was captured by local police
on Sunday after a manhunt lasting
more than a week in the country-
side, including mountainous areas,
authorities said on Sunday.
The 44-year-old suspect, Zeng
Chunliang, was suspected of killing
an elderly couple and injuring a
child on Aug 8. He was also suspect-
ed of killing a local poverty relief
official on Thursday.
Panda Xin Xing celebrates her 38th birthday, equivalent to about 110
to 130 in human years, at Chongqing Zoo on Sunday. TANG YI / XINHUA
she ate faster and much more than
other pandas,” said Zhang Nai-
cheng, the head of the zoo’s panda
house, who has looked after Xin
Xing for 28 years.
In recent years, Zhang has spent
most of his nights staying in Xin
I hope that young
people in Taiwan will
bear in mind the great
interests of the nation
and overcome
obstacles to make
contributions to the
development of cross-
Straits relations.”
Liu Jieyi, head of the Taiwan
Affairs Office of the State Council
provide support for young people
in Taiwan who are seeking oppor-
tunities on the mainland, he added.
Liu said a great many Taiwan
compatriots and enterprises on the
mainland have made contributions
The public security bureau in the
city of Fuzhou, which administers
Le’an, said Zeng was arrested at
about 4:30 pm on Sunday and the
case is under further investigation.
Zeng was seen being stopped by
local police officers on patrol while
riding a motorcycle in Le’an on
Sunday afternoon, the Beijing
News reported.
The search for the suspect had
involved local and nearby public
security officers, the armed police
and the militia, with many check-
points set up on roads and drones
deployed, it reported.
Xing’s panda house in case she
needed him. His night-shift room is
only 20 meters away from hers.
“We spend so much time togeth-
er, and she is like a family member
to me,” said Zhang, 56.
Now that her teeth are loosening
to its battle against the COVID-19
pandemic.
As the mainland has taken the lead
in effectively controlling the pan-
demic, and both its economic and
social development have shown resil-
ience and vitality, young people from
Taiwan coming to the mainland will
have better prospects, he said.
Liu called on young people on
both sides to work together to push
forward the process of national
rejuvenation and reunification.
About 500 representatives
attended the event in Fuzhou, and
speakers from six other cities,
including Taipei and Beijing, partic-
ipated by video link. About 100,000
people watched the event online.
The event is one of the largest
cross-Straits grassroots exchanges
to take place since the beginning of
the novel coronavirus outbreak late
last year. Many activities had been
canceled due to the pandemic and
tense cross-Straits relations, the
organizer said.
Participants talked about their
lives and work on the mainland,
The Le’an county public security
bureau had raised the reward for
information leading to the arrest of
the suspect from 50,000 yuan
($7,194) on Aug 8 to 300,000 yuan
on Thursday.
During the search, a local auxilia-
ry police officer was hit by a truck
and killed while examining vehi-
cles on a provincial-level highway,
local media reported.
Zeng had twice been convicted of
burglary — in 2002 and 2013 — and
was most recently released from
prison in May, according to ThePa-
per.cn, an online news portal.
as she ages, the zookeepers peel the
hard skin off the bamboo shoots
and choose tender bamboo leaves
that they can cut into small pieces.
Tang Jiagui, the director of the
zoo’s animal management depart-
ment, said that good genes and sci-
entific animal management are
probably the secrets to Xin Xing’s
longevity.
“She has been quite healthy for
the past 38 years with no major ill-
nesses, only occasional high blood
pressure,” he said. “We monitor her
health closely, including daily blood
pressure checks and two overall
physical checks a year. All her major
organs are in good condition.”
Xin Xing, born in Sichuan prov-
ince in 1982, was rescued in the
wild and sent to Chongqing Zoo in
1983. From July to September is the
period during which mother pan-
das give birth, so it is estimated that
Xin Xing was born in August.
She visited Calgary, Canada, dur-
ing the 1988 Winter Olympics,
where she attracted over 1 million
visitors.
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 5
including their experiences fight-
ing on the front line against COV-
ID-19, the latest policies for Taiwan
residents on the mainland and the
resumption of work and produc-
tion after the outbreak was brought
under control.
Kuo Yi-fan, a resident of Tai-
chung on the island who started a
coffee shop in Fuzhou in 2017,
spoke about how he distributed
over 1,000 cups of coffee for medi-
cal workers for free in February.
“Their persistence and dedica-
tion moved me and made me
believe the city would be better, so I
wanted to do something to show
my respect,” said Kuo, 29.
Hou Han-ting, from Taiwan’s New
Party, said the mainland’s supply
chain is deeply embedded in the glob-
al economy. It is the world’s largest
production base and will be the larg-
est consumer market in the future.
He appealed to the island’s young
people to make up their minds as
early as possible to come to the
mainland and share in the fruits of
its development.
The daughter of the first two vic-
tims said on her weibo micro blog
on Wednesday that the injured
child was her 7-year-old nephew.
He had suffered severe brain inju-
ries and was being treated in an
intensive care unit.
She said Zeng had broken into
her parents’ house on July 22 and
injured her brother. Her family
reported the incident to the police
immediately after Zeng left and
called the police again on July 24
when some clothing and tools left
by the suspect were found under a
bed.
In addition to her longevity, she is
also a “hero mom”, having given
birth to 10 cubs and serving as the
matriarch of a huge family of 153
pandas.
Her offspring are spread across
the globe in more than 20 countries
and regions, including the United
States, Canada and Japan.
There are many star pandas in
Xin Xing’s family, such as grand-
daughter Er Shun, who gave birth
to twins Jia Panpan (male) and Jia
Yueyue (female) in 2015, the first
giant pandas born in Canada.
A panda’s average life span in the
wild is 14-20 years, but they can live
up to 30 years in captivity, accord-
ing to the World Wide Fund for
Nature.
The latest census in 2014 found
there were 1,864 giant pandas alive
in the wild. There were 600 in cap-
tivity by November last year.
“Xin Xing’s 38th birthday is a big
encouragement for those of us who
dedicate ourselves to protecting the
precious species,” Yin said. “We
have more confidence in our work.”
6 CHINA DAILY
CHINA
Parents provide safety net for extreeme athletes
A
Practitioners of lthough Zhang Ning’s son is
famous in the world of park-
parkour, BMX and our in China, the father rarely
longboarding rely mentions his boy’s skills and
achievements to colleagues
on family support. and friends.
Instead, his fervent wish is that 27-year-
Yang Zekun reports. old Zhang Yunpeng, who holds a Guinness
World Record in the sport — in which prac-
titioners, or “tracers”, move through com-
plex environments by running, climbing
and jumping without equipment — stays
safe during competitions.
Over the past three decades, extreme
sports have attracted tens of thousands of
participants, but that has led to enormous
pressure on the parents of these fearless
young people, who are usually the family’s
only child.
Whenever Zhang Ning knows his son is
participating in a parkour competition or
exhibition, he and his wife become
extremely nervous because they worry
about the many uncontrollable factors of
the sport that could lead to injuries.
The father, from Datong, Shanxi pro-
vince, wanted his son to finish undergrad-
uate studies, irrespective of whether that
was in the liberal arts or sciences, and then
find a stable job like other people’s chil-
dren. He certainly didn’t view sports as a
good career choice.
Supportive stance
When he was in junior high school,
Zhang Yunpeng was addicted to online
Wu Enming performs a games and showed no interest in study-
longboard move for a live ing, resulting in a poor academic per-
show in Shanghai in 2017. formance. Although Zhang Ning
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY complained to his son many times, the
boy’s attitude didn’t change until park-
our caught his attention.
“We thought that having a sports-based
hobby was not a bad thing — at least he
“I didn’t have the would have a healthy body and a regular
heart to obstruct life. He also shed his addiction to online
his choice (for games, so my wife and I acquiesced, but
initially we showed no obvious opposition
extreme sports), or support for him practicing parkour,”
so I was helpless. Zhang Ning said.
After noticing that Zhang Yunpeng
After thinking showed potential and achieved outstand-
about it for several ing results in many competitions and exhi-
bitions, the family gradually became more
days, I realized supportive and helped him financially,
that it is his life’s covering almost all his training expenses
and attending events nationwide.
path, so he should His mother relocated to Taiyuan, capital
follow his heart, of Shanxi province, and rented a house
near Shanxi Sports Vocational School,
no matter if that where Zhang Yunpeng studied, to take
brings pain or joy, care of his diet and daily life until he grad-
failure or uated in 2012.
“Interest is the best teacher for chil-
success.” dren. We want our son to achieve some-
Wu Hongjun, father of
thing in sports by being a professional
Wu Enming and a leading parkour master, so we
supported him — especially his mother,
who accompanied him for years. I also
visited a lot to encourage him at that
time,” Zhang Ning said.
Zhou Ran, 68, whose son is a BMX rid-
From left: Parkour “tracer” Zhang Yunpeng (second from left) poses with his grandparents and a cousin; farmer Wu
Hongjun and his wife are photographed in their fields in Jilin province. Their son, Wu Enming, is a professional long-
board rider. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
er from Beijing, said she cannot change
his mind about the sport, although she
once asked him to stop taking part.
Her son, Liang Wenqing, 36, has been
hooked on BMX since 1999 and shows
no signs of quitting. Zhou is impressed
by Liang’s persistence and thinks having
an interest in sports is a good thing.
There was a period when Liang was
obsessed with BMX and cared about noth-
ing but training. However, many of his
friends who had competed with him for
several years quit the sport, which had a
huge impact, Zhou said.
“I know that for a long time my son was
quite lonely chasing his dream, so he need-
ed my support, although he never said so,”
she said.
“He appreciates my support, which, in
truth, I don’t want to give because no par-
ent wants their child to get involved in
such a dangerous sport and worry about
them getting hurt. But parents shouldn’t
interfere too much in their children’s deci-
sions either — we cannot force them to go
on a route designed by us and leave them
with no interests.”
While Zhou offers almost no advice, she
always listens when Liang talks about his
life, work and training. She feels that chas-
ing the BMX dream is hard and Liang
needs a place to open his heart sometimes.
Liang coaches the Beijing Freestyle
BMX team and other young riders. Zhou
thinks her son’s involvement could help
to raise standards among China’s BMX
riders.
“If nobody promotes the sport, there will
be less general support, and young people
who love the sport wouldn’t find a proper
place to go or a group to practice with. That
could mean they stop training,” Zhou said.
“I am proud of my son — he makes great
efforts in the sport and is persistent. I hope
he will succeed. If a young man changes
his mind day after day, he may achieve
nothing. He is an adult, and I shouldn’t
have to tell him what to do. All I need to do
is support him fully.”
Growing concerns
Extreme sports provide participants
with excitement and a sense of freedom,
but many are injured or even killed
every year. In May, a 22-year-old female
wingsuit flying enthusiast died during a
jump in the central province of Hunan.
Zhang Ning and his wife began to
worry about their son’s safety after
noticing that he had been injured sever-
al times during training. They also knew
that some of his friends had been seri-
ously injured or killed when taking part
in the sport.
“He has decided to take the parkour
path. We cannot stop him and we choose
to support him, believing that he can pro-
tect himself adequately, and bury our wor-
ries inside. We often tell him to be well-
prepared before undertaking the moves to
avoid injury,” Zhang Ning said.
In July 2018, Zhang Yunpeng set a
world record by jumping over four
sports cars that were speeding toward
him in a line at about 80 kilometers an
hour, breaking the previous best of three
cars held by an athlete from the United
States.
Zhang Ning attended the event, but
only after he had struggled for a long
time to decide whether to view the per-
formance on the spot. He didn’t want to
watch because of a potential accident,
but he was determined to be there for
his son in the event of injury.
“My wife and I went to the venue, but
instead of trying to push our way through
the crowd and stand at the front, we walk-
ed back and forth anxiously about 100
meters away. We waited until he had com-
pleted the challenge safely, and then left,”
he said.
He added that his son rarely tells him
about injuries he has suffered, but he and
his wife have taken their son to the hospital
several times. The long waits depressed
them and they never want to experience
that again.
All Zhou’s knowledge of BMX comes
from sports channels she has watched
with her son. She thinks the moves are
risky, but understands that they excite
spectators. She has repeatedly asked her-
self if she is right to support Liang because
he has been injured so many times.
To save her from worrying, Liang rare-
ly tells her about competitions he has
entered and never invites her to training
sessions. Zhou simply watches video
clips after the competition has finished.
“Every time I know he will attend a
competition or exhibition performance,
I am very nervous, but I cannot call him
before the competition because it would
disturb his concentration. All I can do is
stay home and pray he doesn’t get
hurt,” she said.
“I expected him to quit
BMX once he hit 30 and
find another job. I know he
will do all types of work
well because he is diligent
and devoted to whatever
he does. Now, I have
gradually shelved
my concerns and
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 7
Leis
sure
Passion, pride and pain build character
By YANG ZEKUN
Running, climbing, suddenly swinging and
accepted d my son’s work and lifestyle, just in a basement in Beijing for a year when he rolling the body, then jumping from a high wall
so long as
a he is able to live happily and practiced the longboard there. The family — these smooth parkour moves provide
safely.” worried about him after learning he had 27-year-old Zhang Yunpeng with the unre-
Career development
quit his 6,000 yuan-a-month job, especially
as he only earned about 3,000 yuan a
strained freedom he is obsessed with.
Like many other extreme sports participants,
Zhang g Yunpeng, who took up parkour month in Beijing. We didn’t know how his Zhang has gained a lot from the pursuit, both
in 2009, is publicizing the sport and act- future would be without a stable job and mentally and physically. His passion
ing in filmms. Although the young man income,” Wu Hongjun said. for and devotion to parkour have
has enjo oyed success in Chinese He added that riding the never wavered in the 11-plus
parkour circles, his father still longboard is a young person’s years he has been chasing that Dedication
doesn’t think
t it is a good career sport, so as Wu elusive feeling. Some of Liang’s friends have quit BMX, hav-
choice. Enming He has never considered giving up, ing just wanted to experience it for a while and
The yo ounger Zhang has also ages and even during tough times when he was then return to other pursuits. He has never
been stu udying Jackie Chan’s films begins injured or lacked resources to practice. thought about giving up, though, and he keeps
and has moved into the movie to lack Instead, he constantly pushes the publicizing the sport as his passion and devo-
industryy to act and work as a the energy boundaries and promotes his sport. tion push him to continue riding.
stunt dirrector. His father thinks required, he Since the early 1990s, when they first “My family has been concerned about my
this is a better option than may find his became known in China, extreme sports career development and my future. They think
pure spo ort, and hopes Zhang efforts were in have grown rapidly and become increasingly the sport will never bring me promotion, a
Yunpeng g will make a break- vain and he will popular among young people, and although good reputation and a stable life. But I will nev-
through h in the be left with the sector is improving in terms of safety, expe- er quit. Every time I perfect a new move I feel
industryy. regrets. rienced athletes still urge participants to prac- real satisfaction,” he said.
Many o of Wu Hongjun is tice carefully to avoid unnecessary injuries. Despite his coaching duties, he squeezes in
Zhang Ning’s
Ni also worried that time to practice at least three days a week. He
colleaguees the risks inherent in Joy and risks believes the challenge of the sport is endless,
admire anda extreme sports may affect Zhang, from Datong, Shanxi province, holds because even a world champion cannot claim
praise hiss son’s his son’s marriage prospects a Guinness World Record for parkour. He start- to be the best and other riders always have the
talent, buut he and scare the parents of future girl- ed practicing the discipline in 2008 as a junior chance to set new records.
doesn’t seee much friends. high school student who hated studying Li Wenjin, a professional skateboarder from
to crow about,
a In China, parental opinions often because he believed academic work was affect- Beijing, took up the sport in 2001. Two years lat-
because thet sport is have a significant influence on chil- ing his enjoyment of life. er he gained sponsorship, so he quit his job in
dangerou us. After dren’s decisions regarding jobs, mar- He was immediately attracted when he saw the information technology industry and
all, if Zha
ang Yun- riage, children and almost every aspect of parkour on a television program and started focused on the skateboard, running an online
peng had d an life. Some parents even arrange match- imitating the moves whenever he had enough shop and working in a skateboard store.
accident those making dates for their unmarried chil- time — he practiced on his bed, on stairs and For the first few years, he felt confused about
same col-- dren. in parks. his prospects as a professional because China’s
leagues “What if his future girlfriend’s parents “Injuries are quite common among partic- skateboard scene was in its infancy.
might don’t want their daughter to marry a ipants, but they can be avoided as long as the “I tried many times to persuade myself to
blame th he man who plays extreme sports? Maybe I athlete trains step by step. People may have give up my dream of becoming a professional
father forr am a little stubborn or traditional, but I misunderstandings about parkour and think skateboarder, but my perseverance and love of
allowing think all parents hope their child and it is risky. I think it is a safe sport, even safer the sport always overcame the difficulties and
him to ta ake their family can live safely and stably,” than basketball or swimming. Parkour mas- pushed me to carry on,” he said.
part. Wu Hongjun said. ters practice their highly dangerous maneu- Skateboarding has changed Li’s attitude to
“The b biggest progress for my son is that He often asked his son to drop the sport, vers hundreds of times, so they are fully life, providing the passion and willpower to
he has beecome sunny, and understands life but gave up after understanding Wu confident when they undertake the moves. face difficulties. As an indispensable part of his
better tha an before and has a clear life goal. Enming’s passion for longboarding and Also, the sport has boosted my agility and life, he is stepping up efforts to promote the
People wh ho have spoken with him think he is the fact that he had overcome many obsta- balance,” Zhang said. skateboard culture.
very colleected and stylish. His future is in his cles on his journey. He does not believe that the sport itself is
own hand ds and I cannot help him too much, “I didn’t have the heart to obstruct his dangerous, but that some parkour athletes — Life-changing pursuits
except byy giving him guidance to face life choice, so I was helpless. After thinking known as “tracers” — introduce risks by reck- Before he became interested in parkour,
and difficculties bravely,” Zhang Ning said. about it for several days, I realized that it lessly attempting moves that are beyond their Zhang was introverted and stubborn. He
is his life’s path, so he should follow his capabilities, which can have serious conse- appreciates the way parkour has changed his
Longbo oard lover heart, no matter if that brings pain or joy, quences. He has seen many friends sent to the life, turning him from a shy boy who was
Wu Ho ongjun is a farmer in Jilin pro- failure or success. Additionally, the hospital with training injuries, while one died addicted to online games into an energetic and
vince. Hiis 29-year-old son, Wu Enming, is a extreme sports scene is improving in Chi- after attempting a risky maneuver. outgoing young man.
professio onal longboard rider who has his na, so he may seize some opportunities “Parkour is about respecting and focusing on He said if he had not taken up parkour, he
own bra and and media platforms in and be a success,” Wu Hongjun said. the body and people’s connection with the envi- might still be confused about life and lack a
Zhengzh hou, capital of Henan province. Wu Enming returns to Jilin once or ronment. You can feel the freedom and don’t clear goal. In addition to parkour, Zhang has
The 51--year-old doesn’t approve of his son’s twice a year, and whenever Wu Hongjun have to compete with other people, as in sports started working as a stunt director in movies
activity, so
o he was pleased when Wu Enming gets the chance, the two discuss the young like basketball or soccer. Whenever I complete and taken up acting.
took a staable job as an urban planner after fin- man’s career plans, work and relation- a new move I feel pure joy and my inner nature “The sport has brought me honor and repu-
ishing co ollege in Wuhan, capital of Hubei ships. Although Wu Hongjun still doesn’t is released,” he said. tation in parkour circles and also changed my
province.. However, the young man quit after fully support his son, he has full confi- Wu Enming, a professional longboard rider inner world. I am no longer confused, and it
about sixx months and moved to Beijing to dence in his ability. from Jilin province, said injury is inevitable for has given me the faith to face and solve all diffi-
focus on his
h longboard brand. He relocated to “I often tell him that no matter what job he extreme sports’ novices, but the pain enables culties and break through my limitations. No
Zhengzho ou last year. does, he must plan well, ensure his own safe- participants to understand the pleasures matter what job I do in the future, the spirit I
Wu Ho ongjun was angry, and other family ty and not make the family worry too much. earned and lessons taught by the pursuits. have learned from the sport will accompany
memberss were also firmly opposed to Wu He always says that he keeps those words “Nowadays, young people enjoy good finan- me and help me conquer all obstacles,” he said.
Enming’ss decision to quit his job, because uppermost in his mind,” Wu Hongjun said. cial circumstances and smooth lives. They need Wu’s life has also been changed, thanks to the
in their opinion
o sports will not bring him a to go longboarding, feel frustration and pain longboard. He has seen highs and lows, but he is
stable futture and showcase his talents. Contact the writer at and develop willpower. Otherwise, they could grateful for all the experiences.
“I was so sad when I heard he had lived yangzekun@chinadaily.com.cn easily feel discouraged if they encounter set- He took up the sport as a sophomore in 2012,
backs,” the 29-year-old said. and worked as an urban planner after finishing
He has experienced countless failures and college in 2014. However, quit his “boring job”
training injuries, but he has got back up again after a few months, because it was making him
and again. If he gets scrapes and cuts, he simply depressed, and moved to Beijing alone to focus
covers the wounds with plastic wrap when he on the longboard.
takes a shower. Sometimes when he injures “I like the inner peace and happiness
bones and muscles, he may need to rest for one brought by the longboard, which my previous
to two months, which frustrates him because job could not offer. So, I set a goal, giving myself
he cannot ride his board. Instead, he devises three years to focus on the longboard — if I
new moves during the recovery period. could not achieve anything, then I would find
Wu said that unlike China’s first batch of another job,” he said.
extreme sports enthusiasts, who had little From top: A wingsuit flier hits a target dur- For a year he worked as a longboard sales-
knowledge and limited means to protect them- ing a competition in Zhangjiajie, Hunan man, living in a basement in Beijing and earn-
selves, the current crop is more mature, so province; a paramotorist flies over a park in ing 3,000 yuan a month, which strengthened
younger participants can learn from experi- Hunan last year. ZHOU GUOQIANG / FOR CHINA DAILY his desire to realize his dream. In 2015, when his
enced devotees and avoid making too many mis- Li Wenjin performs a skateboard trick in mother and sister visited Beijing, he moved out
takes. They can also enjoy professional training, Beijing in 2018. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY of the basement and rented a new, smarter
which makes life safer. Of course, they also need apartment. He decided to start his own long-
to prepare for possible injuries, he said. board brand and take part in commercial exhi-
Liang Wenqing, 36, is a professional bicycle bitions to raise his company’s profile.
Limited resources motocross rider and also coach of the Beijing Extreme sports have had a profound influ-
Initially, Zhang had no proper training part- Freestyle BMX team. Before taking up the ence on Wu, turning him from an unsociable
ners or places to practice, while his hometown sport, he had no interest in the things his youngster into an outgoing person. He has also
lacked professional guidance and other resour- peers enjoyed, such as basketball, soccer, toys made many friends by attending competitions
ces. However, after about a month, he discov- or video games, which made his parents very and other activities.
ered a parkour group in Taiyuan, capital of concerned. Wu believes that doing extreme sports can
Shanxi, and joined it. Then, in 1995, he watched a BMX competi- bring one closer to nature. Riding the long-
“The people around me had no idea how to tion on television and fell in love with the board makes him feel an almost childish won-
practice parkour, so to continue my studies I sport. He saved more than 1,600 yuan from der and he feels brighter, more positive and
had to take a train to Taiyuan every Friday and lunch money, pocket money and gift money younger.
practice with the group at the weekend. I grad- from his parents and relatives and bought his Last year, Wu moved to Zhengzhou, capital
ually discovered that I was quite talented and first bike in 1999. His BMX life really started of Henan province, and focused on his long-
after training for about two months I surpassed then. board brand, organizing competitions and
all my peers,” he said. There were no professional BMX facilities operating new media platforms related to the
Initially, his parents did not oppose his inter- for Liang to use, so almost every weekend for sport. His parents have gradually changed their
est. They thought the sport would at least help two years he rode many kilometers to meet minds and now actively support his career
to cure his addiction to online games and friends in parks and practice. choice. Privately, though, they still worry that
improve his health, but after Zhang started get- “I just wanted to enjoy BMX and didn’t want his life is unstable and think he would be better
Above: Liang Wenqing practices a BMX move at an extreme ting injured they began to express concerns to take a career path. We were one of the earli- off working for a big company.
sports venue in Beijing, in June; Zhang Yunpeng performs about his safety. est groups of BMX enthusiasts in China, so “If I hadn’t chosen this path, I would not have
during a shoot for a series of videos to demonstrate parkour, “I was quite stubborn, and I cared little about there was no one to guide us — we just had experienced so much. I have felt grief, confu-
filmed in Los Angeles, United States, last year. what my parents said. They knew I had a hard some magazines about BMX and a worn video- sion and hesitation during the past five years,
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY time finding something I was really interested tape about the sport. Today, riders can get sys- but I have learned to overcome difficulties, con-
in, so they kept their concerns to themselves and tematic training materials online or receive stantly asking myself what I want and whether
never stopped me taking part in the sport. I now professional training and purchase profession- I am good enough. I am so glad I stuck with it,
realize that my biggest sporting resource is the al protective items for their head, knees and and the years I spent in Beijing provided
support of my parents,” Zhang said. elbows,” Liang said. enough spiritual wealth for a lifetime,” he said.
6 CHINA DAILY
CHINA
Parents provide safety net for extreeme athletes
A
Practitioners of lthough Zhang Ning’s son is
famous in the world of park-
parkour, BMX and our in China, the father rarely
longboarding rely mentions his boy’s skills and
achievements to colleagues
on family support. and friends.
Instead, his fervent wish is that 27-year-
Yang Zekun reports. old Zhang Yunpeng, who holds a Guinness
World Record in the sport — in which prac-
titioners, or “tracers”, move through com-
plex environments by running, climbing
and jumping without equipment — stays
safe during competitions.
Over the past three decades, extreme
sports have attracted tens of thousands of
participants, but that has led to enormous
pressure on the parents of these fearless
young people, who are usually the family’s
only child.
Whenever Zhang Ning knows his son is
participating in a parkour competition or
exhibition, he and his wife become
extremely nervous because they worry
about the many uncontrollable factors of
the sport that could lead to injuries.
The father, from Datong, Shanxi pro-
vince, wanted his son to finish undergrad-
uate studies, irrespective of whether that
was in the liberal arts or sciences, and then
find a stable job like other people’s chil-
dren. He certainly didn’t view sports as a
good career choice.
Supportive stance
When he was in junior high school,
Zhang Yunpeng was addicted to online
Wu Enming performs a games and showed no interest in study-
longboard move for a live ing, resulting in a poor academic per-
show in Shanghai in 2017. formance. Although Zhang Ning
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY complained to his son many times, the
boy’s attitude didn’t change until park-
our caught his attention.
“We thought that having a sports-based
hobby was not a bad thing — at least he
“I didn’t have the would have a healthy body and a regular
heart to obstruct life. He also shed his addiction to online
his choice (for games, so my wife and I acquiesced, but
initially we showed no obvious opposition
extreme sports), or support for him practicing parkour,”
so I was helpless. Zhang Ning said.
After noticing that Zhang Yunpeng
After thinking showed potential and achieved outstand-
about it for several ing results in many competitions and exhi-
bitions, the family gradually became more
days, I realized supportive and helped him financially,
that it is his life’s covering almost all his training expenses
and attending events nationwide.
path, so he should His mother relocated to Taiyuan, capital
follow his heart, of Shanxi province, and rented a house
near Shanxi Sports Vocational School,
no matter if that where Zhang Yunpeng studied, to take
brings pain or joy, care of his diet and daily life until he grad-
failure or uated in 2012.
“Interest is the best teacher for chil-
success.” dren. We want our son to achieve some-
Wu Hongjun, father of
thing in sports by being a professional
Wu Enming and a leading parkour master, so we
supported him — especially his mother,
who accompanied him for years. I also
visited a lot to encourage him at that
time,” Zhang Ning said.
Zhou Ran, 68, whose son is a BMX rid-
From left: Parkour “tracer” Zhang Yunpeng (second from left) poses with his grandparents and a cousin; farmer Wu
Hongjun and his wife are photographed in their fields in Jilin province. Their son, Wu Enming, is a professional long-
board rider. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
er from Beijing, said she cannot change
his mind about the sport, although she
once asked him to stop taking part.
Her son, Liang Wenqing, 36, has been
hooked on BMX since 1999 and shows
no signs of quitting. Zhou is impressed
by Liang’s persistence and thinks having
an interest in sports is a good thing.
There was a period when Liang was
obsessed with BMX and cared about noth-
ing but training. However, many of his
friends who had competed with him for
several years quit the sport, which had a
huge impact, Zhou said.
“I know that for a long time my son was
quite lonely chasing his dream, so he need-
ed my support, although he never said so,”
she said.
“He appreciates my support, which, in
truth, I don’t want to give because no par-
ent wants their child to get involved in
such a dangerous sport and worry about
them getting hurt. But parents shouldn’t
interfere too much in their children’s deci-
sions either — we cannot force them to go
on a route designed by us and leave them
with no interests.”
While Zhou offers almost no advice, she
always listens when Liang talks about his
life, work and training. She feels that chas-
ing the BMX dream is hard and Liang
needs a place to open his heart sometimes.
Liang coaches the Beijing Freestyle
BMX team and other young riders. Zhou
thinks her son’s involvement could help
to raise standards among China’s BMX
riders.
“If nobody promotes the sport, there will
be less general support, and young people
who love the sport wouldn’t find a proper
place to go or a group to practice with. That
could mean they stop training,” Zhou said.
“I am proud of my son — he makes great
efforts in the sport and is persistent. I hope
he will succeed. If a young man changes
his mind day after day, he may achieve
nothing. He is an adult, and I shouldn’t
have to tell him what to do. All I need to do
is support him fully.”
Growing concerns
Extreme sports provide participants
with excitement and a sense of freedom,
but many are injured or even killed
every year. In May, a 22-year-old female
wingsuit flying enthusiast died during a
jump in the central province of Hunan.
Zhang Ning and his wife began to
worry about their son’s safety after
noticing that he had been injured sever-
al times during training. They also knew
that some of his friends had been seri-
ously injured or killed when taking part
in the sport.
“He has decided to take the parkour
path. We cannot stop him and we choose
to support him, believing that he can pro-
tect himself adequately, and bury our wor-
ries inside. We often tell him to be well-
prepared before undertaking the moves to
avoid injury,” Zhang Ning said.
In July 2018, Zhang Yunpeng set a
world record by jumping over four
sports cars that were speeding toward
him in a line at about 80 kilometers an
hour, breaking the previous best of three
cars held by an athlete from the United
States.
Zhang Ning attended the event, but
only after he had struggled for a long
time to decide whether to view the per-
formance on the spot. He didn’t want to
watch because of a potential accident,
but he was determined to be there for
his son in the event of injury.
“My wife and I went to the venue, but
instead of trying to push our way through
the crowd and stand at the front, we walk-
ed back and forth anxiously about 100
meters away. We waited until he had com-
pleted the challenge safely, and then left,”
he said.
He added that his son rarely tells him
about injuries he has suffered, but he and
his wife have taken their son to the hospital
several times. The long waits depressed
them and they never want to experience
that again.
All Zhou’s knowledge of BMX comes
from sports channels she has watched
with her son. She thinks the moves are
risky, but understands that they excite
spectators. She has repeatedly asked her-
self if she is right to support Liang because
he has been injured so many times.
To save her from worrying, Liang rare-
ly tells her about competitions he has
entered and never invites her to training
sessions. Zhou simply watches video
clips after the competition has finished.
“Every time I know he will attend a
competition or exhibition performance,
I am very nervous, but I cannot call him
before the competition because it would
disturb his concentration. All I can do is
stay home and pray he doesn’t get
hurt,” she said.
“I expected him to quit
BMX once he hit 30 and
find another job. I know he
will do all types of work
well because he is diligent
and devoted to whatever
he does. Now, I have
gradually shelved
my concerns and
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 7
Leis
sure
Passion, pride and pain build character
By YANG ZEKUN
Running, climbing, suddenly swinging and
accepted d my son’s work and lifestyle, just in a basement in Beijing for a year when he rolling the body, then jumping from a high wall
so long as
a he is able to live happily and practiced the longboard there. The family — these smooth parkour moves provide
safely.” worried about him after learning he had 27-year-old Zhang Yunpeng with the unre-
Career development
quit his 6,000 yuan-a-month job, especially
as he only earned about 3,000 yuan a
strained freedom he is obsessed with.
Like many other extreme sports participants,
Zhang g Yunpeng, who took up parkour month in Beijing. We didn’t know how his Zhang has gained a lot from the pursuit, both
in 2009, is publicizing the sport and act- future would be without a stable job and mentally and physically. His passion
ing in filmms. Although the young man income,” Wu Hongjun said. for and devotion to parkour have
has enjo oyed success in Chinese He added that riding the never wavered in the 11-plus
parkour circles, his father still longboard is a young person’s years he has been chasing that Dedication
doesn’t think
t it is a good career sport, so as Wu elusive feeling. Some of Liang’s friends have quit BMX, hav-
choice. Enming He has never considered giving up, ing just wanted to experience it for a while and
The yo ounger Zhang has also ages and even during tough times when he was then return to other pursuits. He has never
been stu udying Jackie Chan’s films begins injured or lacked resources to practice. thought about giving up, though, and he keeps
and has moved into the movie to lack Instead, he constantly pushes the publicizing the sport as his passion and devo-
industryy to act and work as a the energy boundaries and promotes his sport. tion push him to continue riding.
stunt dirrector. His father thinks required, he Since the early 1990s, when they first “My family has been concerned about my
this is a better option than may find his became known in China, extreme sports career development and my future. They think
pure spo ort, and hopes Zhang efforts were in have grown rapidly and become increasingly the sport will never bring me promotion, a
Yunpeng g will make a break- vain and he will popular among young people, and although good reputation and a stable life. But I will nev-
through h in the be left with the sector is improving in terms of safety, expe- er quit. Every time I perfect a new move I feel
industryy. regrets. rienced athletes still urge participants to prac- real satisfaction,” he said.
Many o of Wu Hongjun is tice carefully to avoid unnecessary injuries. Despite his coaching duties, he squeezes in
Zhang Ning’s
Ni also worried that time to practice at least three days a week. He
colleaguees the risks inherent in Joy and risks believes the challenge of the sport is endless,
admire anda extreme sports may affect Zhang, from Datong, Shanxi province, holds because even a world champion cannot claim
praise hiss son’s his son’s marriage prospects a Guinness World Record for parkour. He start- to be the best and other riders always have the
talent, buut he and scare the parents of future girl- ed practicing the discipline in 2008 as a junior chance to set new records.
doesn’t seee much friends. high school student who hated studying Li Wenjin, a professional skateboarder from
to crow about,
a In China, parental opinions often because he believed academic work was affect- Beijing, took up the sport in 2001. Two years lat-
because thet sport is have a significant influence on chil- ing his enjoyment of life. er he gained sponsorship, so he quit his job in
dangerou us. After dren’s decisions regarding jobs, mar- He was immediately attracted when he saw the information technology industry and
all, if Zha
ang Yun- riage, children and almost every aspect of parkour on a television program and started focused on the skateboard, running an online
peng had d an life. Some parents even arrange match- imitating the moves whenever he had enough shop and working in a skateboard store.
accident those making dates for their unmarried chil- time — he practiced on his bed, on stairs and For the first few years, he felt confused about
same col-- dren. in parks. his prospects as a professional because China’s
leagues “What if his future girlfriend’s parents “Injuries are quite common among partic- skateboard scene was in its infancy.
might don’t want their daughter to marry a ipants, but they can be avoided as long as the “I tried many times to persuade myself to
blame th he man who plays extreme sports? Maybe I athlete trains step by step. People may have give up my dream of becoming a professional
father forr am a little stubborn or traditional, but I misunderstandings about parkour and think skateboarder, but my perseverance and love of
allowing think all parents hope their child and it is risky. I think it is a safe sport, even safer the sport always overcame the difficulties and
him to ta ake their family can live safely and stably,” than basketball or swimming. Parkour mas- pushed me to carry on,” he said.
part. Wu Hongjun said. ters practice their highly dangerous maneu- Skateboarding has changed Li’s attitude to
“The b biggest progress for my son is that He often asked his son to drop the sport, vers hundreds of times, so they are fully life, providing the passion and willpower to
he has beecome sunny, and understands life but gave up after understanding Wu confident when they undertake the moves. face difficulties. As an indispensable part of his
better tha an before and has a clear life goal. Enming’s passion for longboarding and Also, the sport has boosted my agility and life, he is stepping up efforts to promote the
People wh ho have spoken with him think he is the fact that he had overcome many obsta- balance,” Zhang said. skateboard culture.
very colleected and stylish. His future is in his cles on his journey. He does not believe that the sport itself is
own hand ds and I cannot help him too much, “I didn’t have the heart to obstruct his dangerous, but that some parkour athletes — Life-changing pursuits
except byy giving him guidance to face life choice, so I was helpless. After thinking known as “tracers” — introduce risks by reck- Before he became interested in parkour,
and difficculties bravely,” Zhang Ning said. about it for several days, I realized that it lessly attempting moves that are beyond their Zhang was introverted and stubborn. He
is his life’s path, so he should follow his capabilities, which can have serious conse- appreciates the way parkour has changed his
Longbo oard lover heart, no matter if that brings pain or joy, quences. He has seen many friends sent to the life, turning him from a shy boy who was
Wu Ho ongjun is a farmer in Jilin pro- failure or success. Additionally, the hospital with training injuries, while one died addicted to online games into an energetic and
vince. Hiis 29-year-old son, Wu Enming, is a extreme sports scene is improving in Chi- after attempting a risky maneuver. outgoing young man.
professio onal longboard rider who has his na, so he may seize some opportunities “Parkour is about respecting and focusing on He said if he had not taken up parkour, he
own bra and and media platforms in and be a success,” Wu Hongjun said. the body and people’s connection with the envi- might still be confused about life and lack a
Zhengzh hou, capital of Henan province. Wu Enming returns to Jilin once or ronment. You can feel the freedom and don’t clear goal. In addition to parkour, Zhang has
The 51--year-old doesn’t approve of his son’s twice a year, and whenever Wu Hongjun have to compete with other people, as in sports started working as a stunt director in movies
activity, so
o he was pleased when Wu Enming gets the chance, the two discuss the young like basketball or soccer. Whenever I complete and taken up acting.
took a staable job as an urban planner after fin- man’s career plans, work and relation- a new move I feel pure joy and my inner nature “The sport has brought me honor and repu-
ishing co ollege in Wuhan, capital of Hubei ships. Although Wu Hongjun still doesn’t is released,” he said. tation in parkour circles and also changed my
province.. However, the young man quit after fully support his son, he has full confi- Wu Enming, a professional longboard rider inner world. I am no longer confused, and it
about sixx months and moved to Beijing to dence in his ability. from Jilin province, said injury is inevitable for has given me the faith to face and solve all diffi-
focus on his
h longboard brand. He relocated to “I often tell him that no matter what job he extreme sports’ novices, but the pain enables culties and break through my limitations. No
Zhengzho ou last year. does, he must plan well, ensure his own safe- participants to understand the pleasures matter what job I do in the future, the spirit I
Wu Ho ongjun was angry, and other family ty and not make the family worry too much. earned and lessons taught by the pursuits. have learned from the sport will accompany
memberss were also firmly opposed to Wu He always says that he keeps those words “Nowadays, young people enjoy good finan- me and help me conquer all obstacles,” he said.
Enming’ss decision to quit his job, because uppermost in his mind,” Wu Hongjun said. cial circumstances and smooth lives. They need Wu’s life has also been changed, thanks to the
in their opinion
o sports will not bring him a to go longboarding, feel frustration and pain longboard. He has seen highs and lows, but he is
stable futture and showcase his talents. Contact the writer at and develop willpower. Otherwise, they could grateful for all the experiences.
“I was so sad when I heard he had lived yangzekun@chinadaily.com.cn easily feel discouraged if they encounter set- He took up the sport as a sophomore in 2012,
backs,” the 29-year-old said. and worked as an urban planner after finishing
He has experienced countless failures and college in 2014. However, quit his “boring job”
training injuries, but he has got back up again after a few months, because it was making him
and again. If he gets scrapes and cuts, he simply depressed, and moved to Beijing alone to focus
covers the wounds with plastic wrap when he on the longboard.
takes a shower. Sometimes when he injures “I like the inner peace and happiness
bones and muscles, he may need to rest for one brought by the longboard, which my previous
to two months, which frustrates him because job could not offer. So, I set a goal, giving myself
he cannot ride his board. Instead, he devises three years to focus on the longboard — if I
new moves during the recovery period. could not achieve anything, then I would find
Wu said that unlike China’s first batch of another job,” he said.
extreme sports enthusiasts, who had little From top: A wingsuit flier hits a target dur- For a year he worked as a longboard sales-
knowledge and limited means to protect them- ing a competition in Zhangjiajie, Hunan man, living in a basement in Beijing and earn-
selves, the current crop is more mature, so province; a paramotorist flies over a park in ing 3,000 yuan a month, which strengthened
younger participants can learn from experi- Hunan last year. ZHOU GUOQIANG / FOR CHINA DAILY his desire to realize his dream. In 2015, when his
enced devotees and avoid making too many mis- Li Wenjin performs a skateboard trick in mother and sister visited Beijing, he moved out
takes. They can also enjoy professional training, Beijing in 2018. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY of the basement and rented a new, smarter
which makes life safer. Of course, they also need apartment. He decided to start his own long-
to prepare for possible injuries, he said. board brand and take part in commercial exhi-
Liang Wenqing, 36, is a professional bicycle bitions to raise his company’s profile.
Limited resources motocross rider and also coach of the Beijing Extreme sports have had a profound influ-
Initially, Zhang had no proper training part- Freestyle BMX team. Before taking up the ence on Wu, turning him from an unsociable
ners or places to practice, while his hometown sport, he had no interest in the things his youngster into an outgoing person. He has also
lacked professional guidance and other resour- peers enjoyed, such as basketball, soccer, toys made many friends by attending competitions
ces. However, after about a month, he discov- or video games, which made his parents very and other activities.
ered a parkour group in Taiyuan, capital of concerned. Wu believes that doing extreme sports can
Shanxi, and joined it. Then, in 1995, he watched a BMX competi- bring one closer to nature. Riding the long-
“The people around me had no idea how to tion on television and fell in love with the board makes him feel an almost childish won-
practice parkour, so to continue my studies I sport. He saved more than 1,600 yuan from der and he feels brighter, more positive and
had to take a train to Taiyuan every Friday and lunch money, pocket money and gift money younger.
practice with the group at the weekend. I grad- from his parents and relatives and bought his Last year, Wu moved to Zhengzhou, capital
ually discovered that I was quite talented and first bike in 1999. His BMX life really started of Henan province, and focused on his long-
after training for about two months I surpassed then. board brand, organizing competitions and
all my peers,” he said. There were no professional BMX facilities operating new media platforms related to the
Initially, his parents did not oppose his inter- for Liang to use, so almost every weekend for sport. His parents have gradually changed their
est. They thought the sport would at least help two years he rode many kilometers to meet minds and now actively support his career
to cure his addiction to online games and friends in parks and practice. choice. Privately, though, they still worry that
improve his health, but after Zhang started get- “I just wanted to enjoy BMX and didn’t want his life is unstable and think he would be better
Above: Liang Wenqing practices a BMX move at an extreme ting injured they began to express concerns to take a career path. We were one of the earli- off working for a big company.
sports venue in Beijing, in June; Zhang Yunpeng performs about his safety. est groups of BMX enthusiasts in China, so “If I hadn’t chosen this path, I would not have
during a shoot for a series of videos to demonstrate parkour, “I was quite stubborn, and I cared little about there was no one to guide us — we just had experienced so much. I have felt grief, confu-
filmed in Los Angeles, United States, last year. what my parents said. They knew I had a hard some magazines about BMX and a worn video- sion and hesitation during the past five years,
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY time finding something I was really interested tape about the sport. Today, riders can get sys- but I have learned to overcome difficulties, con-
in, so they kept their concerns to themselves and tematic training materials online or receive stantly asking myself what I want and whether
never stopped me taking part in the sport. I now professional training and purchase profession- I am good enough. I am so glad I stuck with it,
realize that my biggest sporting resource is the al protective items for their head, knees and and the years I spent in Beijing provided
support of my parents,” Zhang said. elbows,” Liang said. enough spiritual wealth for a lifetime,” he said.
8 | Monday, August 17, 2020
COMMENT
Editorials
Bad week for the White House
in bid to force its will on allies
A
t the United Nations Security Council on
Friday, the United States motion for pro-
longing sanctions against Iran failed.
Washington has responded by circulat-
ing to council members a six-page memo outlining
why it still has the right to use the so-called snap
back provision in the 2015 UN Security Council res-
olution endorsing the nuclear agreement between
Iran and six major powers despite it withdrawing
from the deal, saying that it will seek to trigger a
return of all UN sanctions on Iran in the coming
days.
Responding to visiting US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo’s demand last week that his country not
cooperate with China in the nuclear power and tele-
communications sectors, the Czech prime minister
reportedly said they wouldn’t exclude any country
that abides by European Union rules.
The US has hit China’s 5G leader Huawei with
heavy sanctions in a bid to kill the company.
The Czech president was quoted as saying major
countries should target international terrorism as
their common enemy, instead of each other.
And all but three of the EU’s 27 member states
expressed their disapproval to the US State Depart-
ment during a videoconference on Wednesday,
denouncing Washington’s sanctions against the
Nord Stream-II project as a breach of international
law.
The US administration opposes the pipeline
Ugly smearing of Confucius Institute US Center
T
hat the US administration on Thursday
ordered the center which runs the Confu-
cius Institutes in the United States to reg-
ister as a “foreign mission” of the People’s
Republic of China is obviously another move by
Washington to initiate an ideological confronta-
tion with China, pushing normal cultural
exchanges between the two countries to the brink
of severance.
Given the Cold War mentality that prevails in
Washington, it was no surprise that US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo should justify the move by
claiming in a statement that the Confucius Insti-
tute US Center is “an entity advancing Beijing’s
global propaganda and malign influence campaign
on US campuses”.
Although Assistant Secretary of State for East
Asia and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell said when
making the announcement that “this is not going
after the Confucius centers per se”, he urged US uni-
versities to take “a hard look” at what the institutes
were doing on their campuses and then decide for
themselves if they advance “our democratic values
or not”. It is this over-politicization of almost every-
thing Chinese and the narrow-mindedness it
embodies that have become hallmarks of this
administration and fueled its confrontational
stance toward China.
Such accusations against the Confucius Insti-
tutes are without basis and are motivated by “ideo-
logical prejudice and self-interest”, as Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said.
He stressed that “Confucius Institutes are bridges
and links that help people from all over the world
It is not Hong Kong that will fail
I
n a televised interview on Thursday on Hong
Kong, US President Donald Trump claimed
that Hong Kong will “fail” without the bene-
fit of the special status that allowed Hong
Kong to enjoy lower trade tariffs and a separate
customs framework in its dealings with the United
States.
Although the US leader has previously conde-
scendingly claimed that the Chinese mainland’s
success is thanks to US largesse, this is the first time
that unwarranted notion has been applied to the
special administrative region.
The Hong Kong markets will “go to hell”, he said,
without the “very expensive incentives” granted it
by the US. “Very few people are going to do business
in Hong Kong anymore,” he predicted.
He even took it a step further this time alleging
that Hong Kong was the beneficiary of “billions
and billions and billions of dollars” that had been
given to it not only to “make it work”, but also “to
keep a certain amount of freedom over there,
knowing that they have China looming over the top
of them”.
That offers some food for thought, especially
since he acknowledged that Hong Kong is owned by
China — it is natural to ask what exactly he meant
by that.
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claiming that Germany is already too reliant on
Russia for natural gas and that the Nord Stream-II
pipeline would allow Russia to expand its economic
influence in Europe.
The EU and US remain allies, but not on every-
thing because Europe isn’t yesterday’s Europe. The
US isn’t yesterday’s US. Nor are their relations what
they were.
That there is a schism between Washington and
Brussels is evident. And it keeps widening under
Donald Trump’s “America first” agenda. This is a
reality Pompeo and his colleagues tend to ignore.
European countries are struggling to get rid of
backbreaking economic recession. That is a threat
bigger than those Pompeo has been tirelessly
trumpeting. They are turning to China and Russia
for what Donald Trump’s America is unable, or sim-
ply unwilling to offer.
China’s Huawei, for instance, means affordable
5G telecommunications solutions for European
countries with financial troubles. The Nord Stream-
II project, for its part, is considered to be the best
possible option to meet the energy needs of many
EU members.
Perhaps the US’ European allies might be more
willing to lend Washington an ear if it came up with
some alternatives when it called on Europe to shun
China and Russia. Unfortunately it doesn’t.
That is why Brussels finds it difficult to swallow.
That is why Beijing calls it bullying.
learn Chinese and understand China”.
Steve Knapp, who was president of George Wash-
ington University and served as the president of the
US center council, the governing body of the CIUS,
said when the center was unveiled in 2013 that the
Confucius Institutes provide a unique platform for
invaluable cultural educational opportunities for
students and faculties across the United States.
About 500 kindergartens through 12th grade
classrooms are affiliated with the Confucius Insti-
tute US Center, and the institute also operates on
65 US campuses, they have contributed a great deal
to the teaching of Chinese language and cultural
exchanges between the two countries and two peo-
ples.
With the strong capacity of the US to have a cul-
tural impact on other cultures, it is strange that
some US politicians should fear the teaching of
Chinese. Why should they be so afraid of the influ-
ence of China when their own culture is so perva-
sive?
It is because of China’s ever greater opening-up
to the world that an increasing number of foreign-
ers, Americans included, want to know more about
Chinese culture and learn the Chinese language.
There is no evidence that such teaching has ever
been used as a tool of political propaganda. And the
establishment of Confucius Institutes was at the
request of the US universities and was to meet the
needs of US students.
It is the paranoia of politicians in Washington
that is the reason why everything, even the teach-
ing of the Chinese language, is politicized to stig-
matize China.
The president also alleged that Hong Kong will
never succeed with China running it, something
contrary to the evidence. Many US financial, legal,
and accounting businesses have a presence in Hong
Kong. In all, more than 1,300 US companies are
based there. As such, the US will unavoidably suffer
from both the chaos it has championed, which has
roiled the SAR since June last year, miring it in the
worst economic recession in a decade, and the
so-called pulling back of US investment, as both are
politically driven, rather than the consequence of
normal market activities.
As the US-China Business Council’s latest survey
shows, most US enterprises doing business with
and in China remain optimistic about the prospects
of the Chinese market. With further opening-up of
the world’s second-largest economy, Hong Kong’s
role as a financial and logistics hub between the
Chinese mainland and the world can only become
more prominent.
And Hong Kong will not easily lose its status as a
separate customs territory, which is recognized by
the World Trade Organization and cannot be arbi-
trarily abolished by the US.
That being said, it is not Hong Kong that will “go
to bad”, but the US investment that is being forced
to leave it.
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Luo Jie
Opinion Line
Vaccine sellers on WeChat,
they’re just liars and crooks
Some people have been claiming
on the social media platform
WeChat that they have a novel cor-
onavirus vaccine available for peo-
ple to buy. They claim that they
only have limited amounts and
people should get them while they
can.
As a vaccine researcher, my
advice is that anybody who sees
such advertisements should pick up
the phone and call the police imme-
diately, because we can be 100 per-
cent sure that what they are selling
is illegal. According to the law, in
order for a vaccine to enter the
market it has to pass three phases
of tests on volunteers and patients.
So far, the latest news about the
Student applies learning to practical training
Zhang Yadong is an engineering
freshman from Zhoukou, a city in
Central China’s Henan province.
During the last semester, as he had
to stay at home for online classes,
he bought the necessary materials
and parts to build a miniature rail-
way in the yard of his home.
As a report by China Central Tele-
vision shows, the “mini railway” is
more than a toy. The 70-meters of
track traverses a variety of different
landscapes, and has curves, goes up
What They Say
Xinfadi Market reopens, but not as it was
On Thursday, at a news confer-
ence on the epidemic prevention
and control work in Beijing, it was
announced that Xinfadi Market
will reopen. However, it will now be
wholesale only.
Two months have passed since
the market was shut down in early
June because of a cluster of novel
coronavirus cases that originated
there. During the two months,
Xinfadi has been closed, it has
been sterilized, and all workers at
the market and recent visitors
have been tested.
These efforts must be cherished
and measures must be taken to
ensure the safety of the market.
The terminating of its retail oper-
domestic novel coronavirus vaccine
candidates is that some of them
have entered the third phase of
clinical trials.
No domestic vaccine has com-
pleted the testing process yet and
been approved for sale. Therefore,
anyone claiming to have a vaccine
for sale is trying to scam money
from people.
Then what about later? If a Chi-
nese enterprise announces its vac-
cine has passed all the tests and is
on sale, could we trust anyone on
WeChat claiming to have the vac-
cine for people to buy?
The answer is no.
Vaccines are a special medical
product whose production and sale
and down a “mountain” made out
of clay and even crosses “rivers”.
Zhang built eight bridges in all,
some are made of concrete and
some of steel and wood, to cross the
rivers and go above the uneven
ground, and he dug a tunnel
through the “mountain”. Just as Cao
Xinglin, the head of his college, said
in an interview, the building proc-
ess requires both an innovative
mind and good working abilities.
The video has gone viral on
JIN DING / CHINA DAILY
ations is one of the necessary meas-
ures to ensure the market’s safety.
As one of the largest food markets
in Asia, Xinfadi previously had tens
of thousands of customers coming
every day to buy meat, seafood, veg-
etables and even eggs.
Xinfadi was therefore usually
crowded. Moreover, many of the
buyers come from various corners
of Beijing, even nearby cities, while
the products on sale come from all
over the world.
Now the market will only serve
registered wholesale buyers, includ-
ing those from hotels and restau-
rants. In that way, the number of
visitors will be effectively reduced.
That will enable the market to
CHINA DAILY
are strictly regulated. According to
the law, only those enterprises
approved by the government can
produce vaccines, and the vaccines
can only be sold at government-run
epidemic prevention stations.
Any sales channel beside this
authorized one is illegal. If those
selling vaccines on WeChat get
them from unqualified enterprises,
then the vaccines are illegally pro-
duced. Even if they get them from
the authorized producers they will
still have obtained the vaccines ille-
gally.
In either case, selling the vaccines
would be illegal, and those respon-
sible deserve punishment.
— TAO LINA, A VACCINE RESEARCHER
domestic social networks, with
many hailing Zhang as a future
high-speed railway engineer.
It might be too early to assert his
future career because there are still
years before his graduation, and
building such a miniature railway is
different from building high-speed
railways in reality.
Yet Zhang’s railway is still praise-
worthy. We have seen many college
graduates who are good at passing
exams and writing essays, but who
are unable to do anything practical.
Compared with them, Zhang has
demonstrated excellent practical
ability.
Some might say that Zhang stud-
ies in an engineering major and
those studying in other majors
might not need the same practical
skills. But that is incorrect, practical
skills are necessary for all. What
students learn should not stay on
paper only, but also be applied in
reality.
After all, what society needs are
not people who only know about
theories, but people who are capa-
ble of doing things.
— ZHANG ZHOUXIANG, CHINA DAILY
better enforce prevention and con-
trol measures.
Some said it might be inconven-
ient for local residents who used to
shop at the market. That concern
has already been taken into consid-
eration. Outside the market, a new
market for retail that covers 1,000
square meters has been established,
plus 77 convenience stores and 164
vans will sell vegetables to residen-
tial communities. In this way, the
agricultural products from Xinfadi
can still be bought by local resi-
dents without any middle dealer.
The only difference is they now buy
the vegetables and meat in separate
spaces, which is much safer.
— BEIJING YOUTH DAILY
 CHINA DAILY
VIEWS
Blaming China won’t solve US’ problems
Editor's Note: In an essay, a sen-
ior research fellow at China Insti-
tute of International Studies has
exposed Washington’s problems in
dealing with the novel coronavirus
pandemic, saying the blame game
won’t cure the US’ ills. Following is
the full text:
By Friday, the United States had
more than 5 million confirmed COV-
ID-19 cases and over 163,000 deaths,
both highest in the world. Stunned
by the surging cases, people in the
US and around the world can’t help
but wonder what has happened to
the US and why. To that question,
the White House and Republicans
have an answer: It is China’s fault.
But the China blame game is both
undesirable and deadly.
US’ favorite
blame game
A punching bag for political for-
ces in the US for decades, China is
an easy target to pick during a
health crisis in a presidential elec-
tion year. In the past decade, China-
bashing has taken on new intensity,
and under President Donald
Trump’s watch, China has been
increasingly viewed as a strategic
competitor. Blaming China, in fact,
has become part of a well-publi-
cized Republican campaign strategy
in the election year.
Some American politicians
accuse China of covering up the epi-
demic, not sharing sufficient infor-
mation timely, and underreporting
the number of cases. They claim,
explicitly or implicitly, that the nov-
el coronavirus originated in a lab in
Wuhan. They would even like to
make China accountable for the
losses the US has suffered in the
pandemic. And the US president
has accused the World Health Orga-
nization of being “China-centric”,
even pulled the US out of the WHO.
The Chinese side has refuted all
these allegations.
The first three suspected cases of
pneumonia of unknown cause in
China were reported by Zhang Jixi-
an, a doctor from Hubei province,
on Dec 27, 2019. Then a sizable
group of professionals from local
centers for disease control and pre-
vention and hospitals, as well as
from China’s National Health Com-
mission scrambled to investigate
how contagious the virus is and
assess its destructive potential. This
level of early alertness, awareness
and quick response by Chinese
medical experts could be attributed,
to some degree, to their experiences
of the 2003 severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS) outbreak and les-
sons learned thereafter.
Regular updates on
pandemic situation
The first week after the disease
was detected saw China beginning to
send timely updates to the WHO,
and other countries, including the
US. As of Feb 3, China had given the
US briefings on the epidemic and
information on its prevention and
control measures 30 times, almost on
a daily basis. The WHO, too, has been
providing frequent briefings and
updates on the outbreak. According
to various news sources, the US Cen-
ters for Disease Control and Preven-
tion (CDC) has acknowledged that it
first learned of a “cluster of 27 cases
of pneumonia” of unexplained origin
in Wuhan as early as Dec 31.
China has regularly updated the
WHO, too, about the epidemic situa-
tion in the country, fulfilling its obli-
gations of notifying the global health
body under the framework of Inter-
national Health Regulations. China
also hosted a field visit by a WHO del-
egation to Wuhan on Jan 20-21, and
the WHO-China Joint Mission on
Coronavirus Disease 2019 on Feb
16-24 — two members of the mission
were from the US.
China’s intensity of action and
interaction including exchange of
information with the WHO and its
member states shows that from the
very beginning, the US administra-
tion has been regularly and well
informed by the Chinese side and
the WHO on the epidemic situation
in China and the rest of the world.
In retrospect, even China’s public
announcement on COVID-19 to
alert the whole nation on Jan 20 left
the US nearly two months to make
preparations for preventing and
controlling the spread of the virus.
Therefore, the perceived “delay” in
China’s response cannot serve as an
excuse for the US administration’s
sluggish response.
The first couple of weeks also wit-
nessed Chinese professionals deep-
ening their understanding of the
nature, scale and infectiousness of
the disease and sharing their findings
with the rest of the world in real time.
They wasted no time in conduct-
ing research on the cases available.
Their successive findings and
achievements over time include the
identification of the pneumonia to
be viral and caused by the novel cor-
onavirus, development of testing
kits, and submission to the WHO
the genome sequence of the novel
coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) as well as
preliminary estimates of key epide-
miological parameters of COVID-19
— the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2
— such as the incubation period,
case fatality ratio, the serial interval
and the basic reproduction number
(R0).
Richard Horton, editor of the
prestigious medical journal Lancet,
said: “Under immense pressure, as
the epidemic exploded around them,
they took time to write up their find-
ings in a foreign language and seek
publication in a medical journal
thousands of miles away. Their rapid
and rigorous work was an urgent
warning to the world. We owe those
scientists enormous thanks.”
And Michael Head, a senior
research fellow in global health at the
University of Southampton, stated:
“The Chinese have been leading the
way in publishing open-access evi-
dence on case management, genom-
ics and numerous areas of public
health and epidemiology, which has
been vital in informing the response
in more or less every country.”
Firm foundation for
govt decision-making
These findings laid a firm founda-
tion for government decision-mak-
ing, leading to strict anti-epidemic
measures nationwide ahead of the
Spring Festival holiday, which affect-
ed hundreds of millions of people in
China. This drastic and unprece-
dented move alone served as a
strong message to the world about
the nature and severity of COVID-19.
In his tweet on Jan 24, Trump
praised China’s efforts to control the
spread of the virus thus: “China has
been working very hard to contain
the Coronavirus. The United States
greatly appreciates their efforts and
transparency. It will all work out
well.” Since then and throughout
late January and February, Trump
repeatedly praised China’s handling
of the outbreak, acknowledging that
China was “doing a very profession-
al job” and was in touch with the
WHO and the US CDC.
But when the numbers of infec-
tions and deaths in the US climbed
to the top of the global list, the
White House changed its attitude,
and turned the pandemic into a bat-
tle against China, stoking national-
ism by overstressing the fact that
the virus was first detected and
reported in China.
The US side has touted conspira-
cies without offering any evidence,
and ignoring the counterarguments
of leading scientists around the
world including US scientists. It
even began doubting China’s data
as if a much higher number of Chi-
nese infections and deaths would
have made American numbers look
nicer to US voters, and US leaders
less accountable for the high num-
bers of infections and deaths. That
is the key to understanding the shift
in the White House’s narrative from
acknowledging China’s transparen-
cy and professionalism in contain-
ing the outbreak to blaming China
for the US’ problems.
Stringent anti-pandemic
measures behind success
The fact is, China succeeded in
“flattening the curve” by taking com-
prehensive and stringent measures,
not by distorting data. The Chinese
government has time and again
stressed the importance of ensuring
the data are accurate throughout the
fight against the pandemic, and
those who fail to follow the rules of
reporting are disciplined.
Over 100 days, more than 3,000
press conferences were held by gov-
ernments and health departments
at the national, provincial and
municipal levels, providing daily
updates on the pandemic situation
and answering related questions,
and releasing information on both
infections and deaths, so as to
increase public awareness and
assist in timely contact tracing.
With a cell phone in hand, every
Chinese citizen has access to infor-
mation that may alert them to risks
of being physically close to infected
people or suspected cases either in
their neighborhoods, workplaces or
in public transport vehicles. China
has a policy of meticulous case and
contact identification for COVID-19.
In Wuhan alone, more than 1,800
epidemiologists, in a minimum of
five-member teams, were tracing
tens of thousands of contacts a day.
Timely and accurate data on the
pandemic are what they needed to
make the fight successful.
Under such circumstances, any
cover-up or deliberate underreport-
ing of COVID-19 cases or the scale of
the outbreak in China is beyond
imagination, even punishable. No
one in the world is more willing and
eager than the Chinese government
and people to get a clear understand-
ing of the scale, nature and infec-
tiousness of the virus in the country.
As for allegations that the novel
coronavirus was made in the
Wuhan Institute of Virology or
spread through an accidental leak
from the institute, the institute has
unequivocally stated that the virus
did not originate there. Peer-re-
SONG CHEN / CHINA DAILY
viewed and esteemed journals such
as the Lancet, Nature and Science
have published articles dismissing
such weird claims.
A representative voice is that of
Peter Daszak, who has been work-
ing with the Wuhan institute for the
past 15 years. In his interviews with
CNN on April 26, and CBS’ 60 Min-
utes on May 10, Daszak said the
Wuhan P4 Laboratory didn’t have
the virus that led to COVID-19. In
his words, “Nobody has the virus
from bats that then led to COVID-
19. We’ve not found it yet. We found
close relatives, but it’s not the same
virus.” Therefore, the virus could
not have come from that lab.
As for those pursuing lawsuits
against China based on their allega-
tions that China is responsible for
the global spread of the virus, there
is no legal basis for any such law-
suits and no factual evidence to
support their allegations against
China.
White House fails
to see big picture
“They’ve simply lost time they
can’t make up. You can’t get back six
weeks of blindness,” Jeremy Konyn-
dyk, a senior policy fellow at the
Center for Global Development and
a Barack Obama-era administration
staffer involved in the government’s
response to the Ebola virus epidem-
ic in Africa, told The Washington
Post. “To the extent that there’s
someone to blame here, the blame
is on poor, chaotic management
from the White House and failure to
acknowledge the big picture.”
Numerous news reports of inter-
views with current and former US
officials, internal emails, memoran-
dums and other recently unearthed
evidence from Washington indicate
that the White House was being con-
tinuously warned of a coming pan-
demic and its possible consequences
but chose to play down the serious-
ness of the virus. Trump even tweet-
ed that, “We have it totally under
control”, and “USA in great shape!”
In addition to these missed early
warnings, other major missteps and
lost opportunities at the federal lev-
el also contributed to the surging
cases, especially stalled testing
issues. Testing is a key link in the
chain of necessary measures of
response. Had the US tracked the
virus’ earliest reach and identified
hidden hot spots of community
transmission, local quarantining
might have been able to confine the
disease, according to a report in The
New York Times.
There are some root causes for
the negligence and inaction, and
the loopholes in dealing with the
pandemic. First, the White House
has engaged in a tug-of-war with
scientists and experts over the anti-
pandemic policy. As CNN, the NYT
and other US and international
media outlets have reported, the US
administration is putting science
aside in the battle against the virus.
Cuts in medical emergency
funds fuelled US crisis
Second, the lack of attention to
federal preparedness and coordina-
tion helps explain why the US
administration has consistently
botched its response to the pan-
demic. Fortune magazine has
reported that over the past two
years, the Trump administration
has been systematically dismant-
ling government agencies and cut-
ting funds specifically designed to
protect against pandemics such as
the one raging now.
Third, the US administration is
prioritizing politics over public
health amid the worst public health
crisis in the US in a century. Like it
or not, in the election year voters
will almost certainly choose sides
based on how Trump and his
administration have responded to
the pandemic. Trump and his politi-
cal strategists feel very comfortable
with their familiar playbook of the
2016 campaign as he seeks a second
term: blame the outsiders.
As for the Democrats, they would
put all the blame on Trump, high-
lighting how he initially downplayed
the pandemic, and underlining his
subsequent follies. They would try to
show voters that they can do a better
job of governance.
A political battle leading to bigger
and bitter polarization among Amer-
icans does not bode well for the fight
against the pandemic. And blaming
China won’t solve the US’ problems.
The US’ blame game has further
soured Sino-US relations and
increased tensions between the two
sides. As a result, the number of
Americans holding a negative view
about China is increasing, with
Republicans being more likely than
Democrats to view China unfavora-
bly, according to a recent survey by
Pew Research Center.
Serious strategic
policy mistake
Besides, by making China the
scapegoat for all its ills, the US will
weaken its response to COVID-19 and
harm cross-border cooperation in the
fight against the pandemic, leading
to loss of more lives. For instance,
some Americans tend to view the cor-
onavirus outbreak in China as a
result of its unique political system,
and China’s vigorous response meas-
ures as being “draconian” and “totali-
tarian”. The White House and many
of its supporters also view China’s
interaction and cooperation with
other countries through a prism of
great power competition.
This line of ideology-driven logic
has clouded some Americans’
understanding and judgment of
COVID-19, and their ability to act in
proportion to the severity and
nature of the pandemic.
When China is demonized and
deemed untrustworthy, US opinion
leaders tend to treat China as the
“other”, and believe it is politically
incorrect to discuss the effectiveness
of China’s response to the outbreak.
They may talk about how the Repub-
lic of Korea, Japan and Singapore
have responded to the outbreak,
without mentioning China, which
has a far larger population and
might offer equally, if not more,
important references for the US.
Anti-China moves remind
of the McCarthy era
Under such circumstances,
reporting and discussing China’s
effectiveness in mitigating and con-
taining COVID-19 are often viewed
as parroting “Chinese propaganda”,
siding with China, and undercut-
ting Trump’s presidential campaign.
No wonder former US ambassador
to China Max Baucus said that the
US administration’s anti-China rhe-
toric reminded him of the
McCarthy era.
In April, for example, the White
House criticized the Voice of Ameri-
ca, the US’ official propaganda tool
and foreign policy instrument, for
running an Associated Press article
referring to Wuhan’s lockdown as a
“model” for other countries battling
the novel coronavirus. The White
House statement asserted that in so
doing, the VOA “amplified Beijing’s
propaganda” about COVID-19.
CNN and its journalists, who often
give negative coverage to China,
have recently been accused by the
pro-Trump camp of “shielding Chi-
na” because CNN.com ran an article
indicating that the People’s Libera-
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 9
tion Army Navy has done a much
better job of controlling the virus
than the US Navy. On May 10, in a
tweet, Trump accused CBS of “doing
everything within their power” to
“defend China”, shortly after the net-
work’s 60 Minutes aired a story fea-
turing virologist Daszak debunking
false claims about the Wuhan lab.
The US administration and
Republican strategists have deter-
mined that their best bet would be
to turn the anti-virus fight into a
political game, focusing on which
countries and individuals can stand
up to China, instead of who can bet-
ter deal with the pandemic. Accord-
ing to news and information
website Axios, a leading pro-Trump
super political action committee
has been testing a new ad campaign
to paint Democratic presidential
candidate Joe Biden as being soft on
China and redirecting criticism of
Trump’s coronavirus response.
So far, the US administration has
chosen to intensify animosity with
China, instead of playing a role in
forging a global coalition against the
coronavirus. After weeks of shifting
blame to China, Trump has publicly
threatened to cut off all ties with
China. As Richard Haass, president
of the Council on Foreign Relations,
recently wrote, “It would be a major
strategic error to make confronting
China the organizing principle of
US foreign policy. To do so would be
to misread a world in which the
most significant threats come from
global problems such as disease, cli-
mate change, & terrorism.”
A way out
and forward
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the
Chinese government has acknowl-
edged that prevention and control
of the pandemic is a major test for
China’s medical system and govern-
ance capacity, which has helped it
gather experiences and learn les-
sons. Despite the difficulties and
shortcomings experienced in its ini-
tial encounter with COVID-19, Chi-
na has made decisive progress in
fighting the invisible enemy.
Indeed, human beings make
progress by learning from their mis-
takes. With a population of 1.4 bil-
lion, China has vowed to draw
lessons from the ordeal and further
improve its preparedness to deal
with similar events in the future.
In the same vein, global govern-
ance has been put to test in the face
of the pandemic. The coronavirus
knows no border or nationality, nor
does it believe in any faith. In medi-
cal terms, until a vaccine is ready, a
cluster of cases in one country may
pose a threat to people’s health and
safety in another country. And no
country can weather the unprece-
dented pandemic crisis alone. As
UN Secretary-General António
Guterres put it, “This is, above all, a
human crisis that calls for solidari-
ty.” So world leaders must come
together and offer urgent and coor-
dinated global response.
As the world’s two largest econo-
mies, the UN Security Council per-
manent members and major players
in many multilateral institutions,
the US and China have shared inter-
ests and responsibilities in prioritiz-
ing cooperation over competition
and avoiding tensions and conflicts.
Collective, coordinated
response need of the hour
Just imagine how consequential
for the world it would be if the US
and China join hands with other
countries to work out a collective
and coordinated response to ensure
cross-border supplies of medical
products and food, and collaborate
in research on treatment and vacci-
nes, as well as provide economic
recovery packages.
As former US secretary of state
Henry Kissinger recently argued,
today’s leaders should choose a path
of cooperation that will lead toward
improved international resilience.
History shows that the US and Chi-
na, despite their persistent differen-
ces, have worked together on major
global issues, such as nuclear non-
proliferation, counter-terrorism, cli-
mate change, energy security, the
2008 international financial crisis,
and the Ebola virus outbreak.
Containing the coronavirus pan-
demic should be a point of rally
rather than conflict for the US and
China. There are a thousand rea-
sons for the two countries to
embark on a path of cooperation,
but not a single one to drive bilater-
al relations astray.
To begin with, the US should stop
the blame game.
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10 | Monday, August 17, 2020
XIAOKANG SOCIETY
MODERATELY Editor’s note: As China aims to eliminate extreme poverty and be a “moderately prosperous society” (xiaokang shehui) in time for the 100th
PROSPEROUS anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China next year, we talk to leading experts for their take on the country’s commitment.
Florists pick roses in a garden of Xiaozuo village, in Hebei’s Shijiazhuang city. The garden brings more than 1.8 million yuan ($259,000) in annual net income. The Chinese
government has been enormously successful in lifting people into greater wealth and creating a more prosperous society, as Kerry Brown says. ZHANG XIUKE / FOR CHINA DAILY
China, from good student
to wise teacher
As the country has sped along the path of rapid growth and better living standards,
it has learned much from others, and now many can learn from it
By WANG MINGJIE in London
wangmingjie@mail.chinadailyuk.com
I
mpoverished rural areas of China
made a distinct impression on the Brit-
ish Sinologist Kerry Brown when he
lived in Inner Mongolia between 1994
and 1996. He recalls vividly traveling to stay
on a simple farm on a number of occasions
and sleeping on a brick kang (bed stove) and
being awoken by pigs grunting or cockerels
calling out.
“You could see that people’s living condi-
tions were tough — limited sanitation, often
unpredictable electricity supply and pretty
backbreaking lives. And there was a desire
to move forward in the 1990s, but the levels
of development were very uneven and
patchy.”
In stark contrast to what he had wit-
nessed in the 1990s, on a research trip to the
villages of Hebei province about 10 years
earlier, there were already signs of wealth
and development that one usually observes
in rural areas of more wealthy provinces
such as Fujian or Zhejiang, he said.
“In the 1990s, one would imagine that
maybe one day the Chinese countryside
would be developed, but perhaps not as
quickly as happened.”
From 1998 to 2005 Brown served with the
British Foreign and Commonwealth Office
as first secretary at the British embassy in
Beijing. While China’s rapid economic
growth over the past 40 years has been inte-
gral to how the world has developed, it is not
widely recognized, he said.
The country has managed to lift more than
850 million people out of poverty since
reform and opening up began in the late
1970s, with GDP growth averaging almost 10
percent a year, according to the World Bank.
“The vast majority of humanity is better
off than it was 50 years ago, and a large part
of that is because of the achievement from
reforms in China which have made such a
fundamental impact on Chinese people’s
lives and on the wider world,” Brown said.
These days Brown is a professor of Chi-
nese studies and director of the Lau China
Institute at King’s College London and is
now working on a study of the Communist
Party of China as a cultural movement.
While his main role is to try to communi-
cate to Britain and greater Europe some-
thing about the history of China’s
development over the past 70 years, and in
particular what has resulted from this, this
has not been easy, he said.
“Knowledge levels of China are uneven,
for instance, in the UK. Talking about pover-
ty alleviation and China’s achievements
here is important — and from my point of
view I am sincerely admiring of what China
has achieved.
“For all the challenges facing the world
today, people live longer, and have better
Kerry Brown shows his Chinese characters alongside a secondary school student.
standards of life than they did even a quar-
ter of a century ago. A big part of that has
been because of what has happened in Chi-
na. That is something that should be under-
stood and recognized no matter what other
issues there might be.”
Importance of mentality
President Xi Jinping made poverty eradi-
cation a personal mission more than 30
years ago when he was Party chief of Ningde
in Fujian province.
In his book Up and Out of Poverty he sets
out four important principles: avoiding a
poverty mentality (if you believe you are
poor, you will be); adopting development
measures suitable to local conditions; the
importance of strong leadership and coordi-
nation; and not wasting money on grandi-
ose projects just because they may be
popular. The element regarding mentality is
important, Brown said, and in many ways
feeling impoverished is almost comparative.
He cited the UK of the 1980s as an example.
“Many argued that people shouldn’t feel
poor because they had a basic social security
net and support, and there weren’t the levels
of poverty seen in the developing world, in
Africa or Latin America for instance.
“But some argued that in a society like
Britain, just lacking a decent television,
decent housing and decent cars made peo-
ple feel poor. Absolute poverty in fact is sim-
ply a theory; relative poverty is the reality.
And to make people feel that they live in a
society where they can aspire to get out of
their current situation and move into better
ones is important.”
CHINA DAILY
KERRY BROWN
Kerry Brown is one of the leading Sinolo-
gists in the United Kingdom, specializing in
Chinese history and politics.
He is the author of more than 10 books on
modern Chinese politics, history and lan-
guage, including: The New Emperors: Power
and the Princelings in China (2014); What’s
Wrong with Diplomacy: The Case of the UK
and China (2015); Berkshire Dictionary of
Chinese Biography (in four volumes, 2014-
15); China’s CEO: Xi Jinping (2016); China’s
World: What Does China Want? (2017).
Brown, a professor of Chinese studies,
currently directs the Lau China Institute at
King’s College London. He believes that Chi-
na’s changes and growth over the past 25
years have contributed substantially to the
improvement of living standards worldwide.
The idea of China as a teacher may be will-
ingly accepted in Africa or Latin America, but
the general mindset for most Europeans is
that China should still be learning from the
West, in areas such as technology, developing
a finance sector and addressing its environ-
mental and sustainability challenges, he said.
“It is very difficult to convey to people
unfamiliar with China’s conditions now that
it does have a vast amount to teach, and that
in many areas it is already ahead of the West.
The patronizing idea that it just needs to sit
and take instruction from others needs to
disappear. The best position for all of us is to
learn together — and China being a teacher
in many areas is important.”
Post COVID-19 collaboration
The Chinese government takes poverty
reduction very seriously and has set itself the
goal of eliminating all extreme poverty by the
end of this year, a goal Brown said China is
“well on track” to achieve despite the challen-
ges posed by the impact of COVID-19.
China’s record of responding to crises in
the past few decades, particularly in dealing
with the post-2008 global financial crisis,
has been effective, he said.
“So there is a good likelihood that the cen-
tral government and provincial ones have the
right levers, policy options and resources to
be able to get on top of the vast challenges of
COVID-19 and then move beyond them.”
The challenges China faces are probably
not so much whether it can deal with its aim
of lifting the final group of people out of
absolute poverty, he said, but what sort of
role it may take in the face of large-scale pov-
erty elsewhere in the world. The World Bank
estimates that up to 60 million people are
likely to be pushed into extreme poverty as
COVID-19 takes its toll on the world.
“This could be a moment for China to also
play a role in addressing with other govern-
ments these issues through its own experi-
ence of poverty alleviation, but also through
enhanced cooperation and greater efforts to
work together.”
While China is being seen as geopolitically
ambitious and having large strategic aims,
Brown said few really understand that it can
play a huge role in practically addressing
developmental issues in the developing world.
PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY “That is truly win-win because it assists in
creating a much more understandable
image for China, (and) also aids countries
In contemporary Chinese might work for China, but to that are really likely to struggle with the
society, the opportunity to never lose sight of local con- tough economic conditions we seem to be
think of oneself as no longer ditions. heading quickly into.”
being poor and feeling that at It is very difficult “This created the very
least something is possible, to convey to bespoke and particular Chi- Milestone marked
and things will get better, is nese development model Brown hails China’s aim to be a moder-
crucially important, he said.
people that we have seen over the ately prosperous society by the end of this
“It shows an optimistic unfamiliar with last decades, and which has year as a milestone, because for the first
mindset, and where there is been behind so much growth time the world will see modernity with Chi-
optimism, then things are
China’s and stimulation.” nese characteristics — the emergence of a
always possible. That also conditions now China is unique in its own middle-class in a country with most people
demands a set of govern- that it does have way in terms of scale, Brown working in the services sector.
ment policies and attitudes said, and it has come up with “This is an important milestone because
that support this.” a vast amount to a set of policies that deal with it means the world really will be dealing
The Chinese government teach, and that in improving human develop- with a China unlike any they have dealt
has been enormously success- ment, education, health lev- with before in modern history — a place
ful in lifting people into great- many areas it is els and the physical where in terms of prosperity levels it will no
er wealth and creating a more already ahead of infrastructure in rural and longer be a developing or undeveloped
prosperous society, he said. peri-urban areas, allowing a country, but a place where many areas will
In less than 40 years China the West.” combination of innovation be as advanced, or even more advanced,
has emerged from an agrari- Kerry Brown but also central health. than in Europe or America.”
an society to become an “This probably explains The main issue the country will now face
upper-middle-income coun- some of the flexibility of the is how to restructure the economy through
try and the world’s second-largest economy. Chinese approach, and why it worked. It urbanization and how to improve the servi-
It began this period by being the manufac- wasn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, but nor ces sector to create good jobs for young Chi-
turing workshop of the world and now has a did it mean that everywhere went their own nese entering the labor market each year,
large service sector and one of the biggest way.” and to address the inequalities and imbal-
consumer markets in the world. Over the past decade, this way of develop- ances within the country.
Such transitions, Brown said, were ment has gradually been depicted by some “Poverty is often relative. Today’s relative-
achieved because China studied the outside economists as a “China model”, in which the ly well-off people may be tomorrow’s less
world, including organizing study tours for country gained a huge amount of informa- well-off, with nothing changing for them-
government officials to places such as tion and knowledge about implementing selves, but the world around is transform-
Japan, Singapore and the UK in the 1980s, growth strategies, and making it possible ing, so the constant process of ensuring that
but at the same time the government also for large groups of people to lift themselves people feel their lives are going in a positive
strove to adapt to its own conditions. from poverty since 1978. direction, and that tomorrow will be better
“It was clear that Deng Xiaoping’s instruc- Brown said China is now in a position not than today, is crucial. This is not so much
tions even then were to be open-minded just to be a learner, but to be a teacher as about poverty eradication, but about eradi-
about what was looked at, to take ideas that well. cating the feeling of relative poverty.”
 CHINA DAILY
WORLD
Name-calling
seems to be
part of poll
plan in US
By BO LEUNG in London
boleung@mail.chinadailyuk.com
United States President Donald
Trump will blame China for any-
thing that he can in order to win
the upcoming presidential elec-
tion, according to Gayle Allard,
professor of Economics from IE
University, Madrid, Spain.
“This is his strategy and it is not
limited to China, but to anyone
that he can attack publicly and win
votes by doing so: immigrants,
Democrats, protesters, etc,” Allard
said, noting that Trump’s rhetoric
will become more intense in the
next few months.
“This will unlikely make a dif-
ference in the election, however,”
she said. “Recent surveys show
that Trump is very unpopular
with most Americans due to his
poor handling of the COVID(-19)
pandemic and the onset of a very
severe recession.”
According a tally kept by the
Johns Hopkins University, as of
Sunday, over 169,400 people have
now died of COVID-19 in the US
and there are over 5 million cases.
A recent media report by Vox
said the United States “has fail-
ed” to contain the COVID-19 pan-
demic, with case counts far
ahead of other developed nations
and more than 1,000 deaths
reported a day for over two weeks
and counting,” said the report
titled “America’s uniquely bad
COVID-19 epidemic, explained in
18 maps and charts”.
Some countries
have failed to
respond correctly
(to COVID-19) due
to political
considerations.”
Gayle Allard, professor of
Economics from IE University
“It didn’t have to be this way. In
March and April, other devel-
oped countries had significant
COVID-19 outbreaks, but they
did a much better job than the US
in containing the coronavirus
and keeping it down after the
virus arrived,” the report said.
“So while some other devel-
oped nations have experienced
upticks, they all pale in compari-
son to the massive surge in cases,
hospitalizations, and deaths that
the US has seen since May and
June,” it said.
“Now America is stuck with
the consequences, with the death
toll likely to climb by the tens of
thousands in the next few weeks,
and the possibility of another
shutdown looming larger as the
country heads into the fall and
winter,” it said.
Commenting on the global
handling of the pandemic, Allard
said: “There have been a great
variety of responses to the pan-
demic in Western developed
countries. Some, like Denmark,
New Zealand, Germany have
been very successful, while oth-
ers like the UK or the United
States have been less successful.”
Further, she said: “The key
appears to be willingness to sup-
port government measures, and
good scientific input driving gov-
ernment decisions. Some coun-
tries have failed to respond
correctly due to political consid-
erations: harsh measures might
make them unpopular and cause
them to lose elections.”
Trump will go head-to-head
with Democratic Party nominee
Joe Biden when Americans go to
the polls on Nov 3 to decide who
will sit at the White House.
But there are still issues that
will need to be resolved between
the two sides, such as intellectual
property rights, which have been
straining Sino-US relations and
will continue to do so if not
addressed, she said.
“The new administration …
can be expected to pressure for
change in this issue, though their
style and approach will be differ-
ent,” she added.
Xinhua contributed to this story.
Battling a fire
A farmer tries to pour water on an area close to an illegally lit fire in the Amazon rainforest reserve, south
of Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil, on Saturday. CARL DE SOUZA / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
War end anniversary
sees no Abe apology
Emperor vows to reflect on actions and
hopes tragedy will never be repeated
By WANG XU in Tokyo
wangxu@chinadaily.com.cn
Japan on Saturday marked the
75th anniversary of its surrender in
World War II, with Emperor Naru-
hito expressing “deep remorse” over
his country’s wartime actions, but
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made no
word of apology for the sufferings of
its neighbors.
In a much scaled-back ceremony
due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
Naruhito, Japan’s first emperor
born after the war, pledged to reflect
on the war and expressed the hope
that the tragedy would never be
repeated.
“Reflecting on our past and bear-
ing in mind the feelings of deep
remorse, I earnestly hope that the
ravages of war will never be repeat-
ed,” Naruhito said, adding that he
would follow in the footsteps of his
father, who devoted his 30-year
career to making amends for a war
fought in the name of Hirohito, the
current emperor’s grandfather.
“Together, with all of our people, I
would like to pay a heartfelt tribute
to all those who lost their lives during
the war … and pray for world peace
and for the continuing development
of our country,” the Emperor added.
In contrast, there was no word of
apology from Abe, who did not echo
Naruhito’s reference to remorse, but
ByteDance gets 90 days to sell TikTok
By LIA ZHU in San Francisco
liazhu@chinadailyusa.com
US President Donald Trump
issued an executive order late on Fri-
day giving ByteDance, the Chinese
parent company of TikTok, 90 days
to sell the popular video-sharing app.
This latest order comes a week aft-
er the president signed two orders
prohibiting US companies and indi-
viduals from conducting transac-
tions with TikTok and WeChat over
national security concerns. The pri-
or orders take effect on Sept 20.
Trump again in the new order cit-
ed the same rationale, saying:
“There is credible evidence that
leads me to believe that ByteDance
… might take action that threatens
to impair the national security of the
United States.”
The order also requires Byte-
Dance destroy all data of US users
collected on TikTok’s platform and
inform the Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States, or
CFIUS, when it has destroyed all
that data.
Microsoft, the leading bidder to
acquire TikTok’s US operations, has
said negotiations with ByteDance
could be completed by Sept 15,
ahead of the prior deadline.
“Executive orders could be super-
seded by another executive order
that changes or softens the policy.
The thing that’s important to watch
is which of the agencies are given
only gave thanks for the sacrifices of
the Japanese war dead and had
nothing to say about the sufferings
of Japan’s neighbors.
In a largely domestic-focused
speech, Abe said the peace that
Japan enjoys today is built on the sac-
rifices of those who died in the war.
He also listed damage inflicted on
Japan and its people, including the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki by the United States and
the massive firebombings of Tokyo.
Since taking office in 2012, Abe
has increasingly sought to white-
wash Japan’s brutal past by not
acknowledging Japan’s wartime
hostilities in his Aug 15 speech.
Before Abe, there had been a nearly
20-year tradition of apology and
reflecting on Japan’s responsibility
in an event that was begun in 1995
by Japan’s former prime minister
Tomiichi Murayama.
‘Clear cut with past’ urged
Meanwhile, Abe on Saturday sent
a ritual offering to Tokyo’s Yasukuni
Shrine, a symbol of Japan’s past mil-
itarism, and four ministers from
Abe’s administration visited the
infamous shrine the same day.
Yasukukni honors 14 Japanese
wartime leaders convicted as
Class-A war criminals by an Allied
tribunal, as well as Japan’s war dead.
The four Cabinet members visited
the authority to take action,” said
Melissa Hathaway, an expert in
cyberspace policy and cybersecurity.
TikTok is working to challenge
the legality of Trump’s orders
through a lawsuit, according to NPR
citing an unnamed lawyer working
for the company.
Another lawyer, Mike Godwin,
said in a tweet that he’s representing
a TikTok employee to sue the Trump
administration, because under the
initial order, TikTok employees
would lose their paychecks on Sept
20 and it violates the employees’
constitutional rights, including to
the right to be paid.
The Trump administration has
been scrutinizing TikTok for
months, claiming that the platform
shares the data of US users with the
Chinese government, despite the
company’s repeated denial of the
accusation.
‘Tech fear’ and ‘future fear’
CFIUS, a multiagency group that
reviews mergers for national securi-
ty threats, opened an investigation in
November into ByteDance’s takeover
of Musical.ly in 2017. The acquisition
led to the current version of TikTok.
Experts in the cybersecurity space
said the administration lacked
transparency and evidence to back
its claims.
The White House is currently
defining national security issues very
broadly, and that might reflect “a tech
the shrine were Koichi Hagiuda, the
education minister; Seiichi Eto, the
minister in charge of territorial
issues; Sanae Takaichi, the internal
affairs minister and Shinjiro Koi-
zumi, the environment minister and
a rising political star seen as a poten-
tial prime minister whose father is
former Japanese prime minister
Junichiro Koizumi.
Defending his visit, Koizumi said
that paying respects to those who
made sacrifices for their country is
natural.
“Whether to visit or send offer-
ings, it equals the worship of Class-A
war criminals, which means sup-
porting the glorification of the war
of aggression, and will seriously
undermine Japan’s postwar peace
order,” said Takakage Fujita, direct-
or-general of a civil group dedicated
to upholding and developing the
1955 Murayama Statement.
Repeated Yasukuni visits by Japa-
nese government officials “indicates
that Japan has not made a clear cut
with its militaristic past,” said Yu
Qiang, a professor at the University
of International Relations in Beijing.
“Japan has long portrayed itself as
the ‘victim’ of World War II, especially
of the nuclear explosions, but made
little reference to the historical back-
ground of the atomic bombings and
its brutal aggression and colonial
rule cast upon its neighbors. As mem-
ories about the history of aggression
are fading, it is worrying that reflec-
tion on the war in Japanese society
will get neglected,” he said.
fear and a future fear” beyond the
current issue itself, said Hathaway.
Gary Rieschel, a US venture capi-
talist who founded Qiming Venture
Partners in Shanghai, said: “I look at
TikTok again, there’s no real history
of turning data over to the Chinese
government.”
There’s nothing in TikTok’s own-
ership structure to cause concerns
— most of the investment in Byte-
Dance and TikTok are international
funds, with firms like Sequoia Capi-
tal, Hillhouse and SIG as primary
investors, said Rieschel.
At the same time, Hathaway
argued that the current conversa-
tion around TikTok should be much
more transparent — not just about
the US and China, but about the
apps broadly.
“The conversation needs to be
about the data, not about the app, or
the company, because that’s what it’s
really coming down to — the data
flows, the access to that information
and what you can do with it,” she said.
Steve Orlins, president of the
National Committee on US-China
Relations, noted that the current
issues with TikTok and WeChat also
reflect the Trump administration
lacking expertise on China.
“I actually don’t agree with that
assumption that the Chinese compa-
nies would not resist the request of
the Chinese government (to send data
back to China),” said Orlins at a recent
webinar hosted by his organization.
Belarus president
says Putin ready to
help ensure security
By REN QI in Moscow
renqi@chinadaily.com.cn
Belarusian President Alexander
Lukashenko said his Russian
counterpart has pledged to sup-
port and offer security assistance
in the case of external military
threats, if requested by Belarus.
According to Belarusian state
news agency BelTA, Lukashenko
had a telephone conversation with
Vladimir Putin on Saturday, and
the two presidents made an agree-
ment “as far as military matters
are concerned”.
Saturday was the seventh con-
secutive day of large protests
against the results of the country’s
Aug 9 presidential election in
which election officials
announced the 65-year-old
Lukashenko won a sixth term in a
landslide. It was reported that the
police have cracked down against
the protesters and detained some
7,000 people so far.
The Central Election Commis-
sion said Lukashenko won 80.1
percent of the vote and the main
opposition candidate Svetlana
Tikhanovskaya 10.12 percent.
Opposition supporters
claimed that the election figures
were manipulated and protest-
ers have been beaten mercilessly
by police since the vote. Tikhan-
ovskaya insisted she won sup-
port ranging from 60 percent to
70 percent.
“I had a long and thorough dis-
cussion about the situation with
the president of Russia. And I was
a bit surprised by how up to date
he is on what’s going on,” Lukash-
enko said.
“He and I agreed: at our request
they will provide comprehensive
security assistance to ensure Bela-
rus’s security.”
Lukashenko did not specify
what sort of assistance Russia
Independence Day parade
Flower petals are showered on Indian soldiers participating in an
Independence Day parade in Gauhati, India, on Saturday. India’s
prime minister said on Saturday his country has done well in
containing the coronavirus pandemic and announced $1.46
trillion infrastructure projects to boost the sagging economy.
ANUPAM NATH / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Briefly
UNITED STATES
Trump’s younger
brother dies at 71
US President Donald Trump’s
younger brother, Robert Trump,
died on Saturday night at the age
of 71, according to the White
House. Trump visited his brother
on Friday at a New York hospital
after being told he was seriously
ill, staying for about 45 minutes.
The cause of the death has not yet
been revealed. Robert Trump, born
in 1948 as the youngest of real
estate developer Fred Trump’s five
children, was a longtime business-
man as well, managing the Trump
Organization’s real estate holdings
outside Manhattan. The younger
Trump was a staunch supporter of
his brother’s when the latter ran
for president in the 2016 election.
RUSSIA
Nation starts making
COVID-19 vaccine
Russia has started manufacturing
its new vaccine for COVID-19, the
Interfax news agency reported on
Saturday, citing the health minis-
try. Russia has said the vaccine,
developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 11
would be willing to provide. But he
said “when it comes to the military
component, we have an agree-
ment with the Russian Federa-
tion”, referring to a mutual support
deal the two former Soviet repub-
lics signed back in the 1990s.
The President of Belarus also
noted the buildup of the military
component in neighboring Poland
and Lithuania, where NATO mili-
tary exercises are held.
“I am more worried about the
situation that is unfolding on the
territory of our neighboring states
— Poland and Lithuania. As you
know, military exercises of NATO
troops are taking place there.
That would have been fine, but
there is an escalation and a build-
up of the armed component in
these territories,” Lukashenko
said hours after the phone talks
with Putin.
Settling the crisis
The talks took place the day after
European Union foreign ministers
agreed to prepare new sanctions
against Belarusian officials.
The EU will offer to Minsk its
assistance in the dialogue with the
opposition to settle the current cri-
sis in the country, the EU foreign
ministers said in a statement after
a video conference on Friday.
US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said Saturday that he
was glad to see that some protest-
ers in Belarus had been freed, but
that it was not enough. He also
said the presidential election in
Belarus fell short of democratic
standards.
In another development, a
funeral was held Saturday for
Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-
old protester who died Monday in
the capital of Minsk. Belarusian
police said he died when an explo-
sive device he intended to throw at
police blew up in his hand.
Institute and the first for the coro-
navirus to go into production, will
be rolled out by the end of this
month. Russia will offer the vac-
cine to other countries once its
own citizens are vaccinated,
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko
said on Wednesday.
NEPAL
18 killed, 21 missing in
massive landslide
Landslides triggered by heavy rain
swept away dozens of houses and
killed 18 people in mountainous
villages of Nepal, and many people
were missing. Mud and stone came
hurtling down on the remote hill-
side village in Sindhupalchowk
district on early Friday morning.
Police said that their personnel
and Nepal Army personnel were
engaged in rescue efforts along
with local people. Helicopters were
also used to reach the remote site
after the landslide blocked roads.
The search continued on Sunday
for missing people. Eighteen bod-
ies have been recovered in Jugal
Rural Municipality, while 21 people
are still missing.
AGENCIES—XINHUA
12 | Monday, August 17, 2020
Qingdao, a coastal city in East China’s Shandong province, is taking the lead in promoting intercity cooperation among areas along the
Yellow River and member cities of the Jiaodong Economic Circle. ZHANG XIAO / FOR CHINA DAILY
Qingdao takes the initiative to
boost nationwide cooperation
Coastal city of Shandong province holds seminar among areas that share links to Yellow River
By YUAN SHENGGAO
Qingdao, a coastal city in East
China’s Shandong province, has
taken the lead in promoting inter-
city cooperation among areas
along the Yellow River and mem-
ber cities of the Jiaodong Econom-
ic Circle, as part of its efforts to
stimulate domestic demand and
explore new room for China’s eco-
nomic growth.
The 2020 Qingdao Land-Sea Link-
age Seminar was held on Aug 8 and
invited nine capital cities along the
Yellow River — Xining in Qinghai
province, Chengdu in Sichuan prov-
ince, Lanzhou in Gansu province,
Yinchuan in Ningxia Hui autono-
mous region, Hohhot in Inner Mon-
golia autonomous region, Xi’an in
Shaanxi province, Taiyuan in Shanxi
province, Zhengzhou in Henan prov-
ince and Jinan in Shandong prov-
ince — and the five member cities of
the Jiaodong Economic Circle: Qing-
dao, Yantai, Weifang, Weihai and
Rizhao.
The seminar brought the cities
together to conduct in-depth
exchanges and discussions on
strengthening economic coopera-
tion between the western and east-
ern parts of China.
Originating from the Qinghai-Ti-
bet Plateau to the east coast of Chi-
na, the Yellow River winds more
than 5,000 kilometers and spans the
eastern and western parts of north-
ern China. It coincides with the
domestic section of the Silk Road
Economic Belt.
The Yellow River basin is
believed by insiders to have a
strong geo-economic value, espe-
cially as China greatly values
Potential of industrial internet industry surpasses manufacturers’ upgrades
By YUAN SHENGGAO
Thanks to its achievements in
the industrial internet industry,
Qingdao, an eastern coastal city in
Shandong province, is poised to
boost the high-quality develop-
ment of the Yellow River basin.
The development will come by
helping local industries with digi-
tal transformation and upgrading.
Giving full play to its regional and
industrial advantages, Shandong
province held the 2020 Qingdao
Land-Sea Linkage Summit on Aug
8. It aimed to deepen openness and
coordination between the Yellow
River basin and its Jiaodong Eco-
nomic Circle and inject momentum
into China’s domestic economic
growth.
The industrial internet, as one
of Qingdao’s most competitive
industries, is believed by insiders
to have the capability of promot-
ing the high-quality development
of the Yellow River basin thanks to
its series of digital solutions.
The industrial internet gathers
all kinds of enterprises on one
online platform and enables them
to collaborate and interact. Topics
of potential collaboration include
human resources, capital, tech-
nology and market trends.
COSMOPlat, an industrial inter-
net platform developed by house-
hold appliance manufacturer Haier,
is the backbone of Qingdao’s efforts
to build a global industrial internet
hub.
Local representatives help launch the land-sea linkage cooperation
initiative in Qingdao. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
domestic economic development.
The crucial cities along the Yellow
River have gathered in Qingdao, sig-
nifying openness and cooperation
while also injecting strong momen-
tum into the common development
among domestic cities, insiders
said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seri-
ously hampered the global econo-
my. But trade protectionism
aggravates the reverse of globaliza-
tion, which challenges the structure
of the global economy.
“The more difficult the times, the
more valuable cooperation
becomes,” said an official from Qing-
dao.
Shandong is the only coastal
province among the nine provin-
ces in the Yellow River basin, and
Qingdao is the bridgehead of
Shandong’s opening-up to the
world. The city plays a vital role in
the integrated development
COSMOPlat is an industrial internet platform developed by Qingdao-based household appliance
manufacturer Haier. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
With 340 million users, COSMO-
Plat has developed into one of the
top three industrial internet plat-
forms in the world, alongside simi-
lar platforms developed by General
Electric of the United States and Sie-
mens of Germany, according to offi-
cials in Qingdao.
COSMOPlat ranked first among
China’s cross-industry and cross-
sector industrial internet platforms
between land and sea and inter-
city cooperation, according to the
local government.
“As one of China’s first coastal cit-
ies to open to the rest of world and
an international port city, Qingdao
plays a role as a pivotal point in the
New Eurasian Land Bridge econom-
ic corridor as well as maritime coop-
eration,” said Zhang Shenfeng, vice-
chairman of the China Council for
the Promotion of International
Trade at the event on Aug 8 in Qing-
dao.
Jiang Mingbao, chief engineer at
the Ministry of Transport, said:
“Shandong is a province strong in
economy, especially in maritime
economy, and it is crucial in promot-
ing land-sea cooperation and inter-
nal and external communication.
“The 2020 Qingdao Land-Sea
Linkage Seminar will certainly exert
positive influence on the regional
economic and social development
in 2019, according to the Ministry of
Industry and Information Technol-
ogy.
At the 2020 Qingdao Land-Sea
Linkage Summit, COSMOPlat dis-
played targeted creative solutions
to help promote concerted cooper-
ation among the cities along the
Yellow River and the five member
cities of the Jiaodong Economic
Circle, namely Qingdao, Weihai,
This page is sponsored by the Qingdao government.
and the global port and shipping
industry.”
At the seminar, a land-sea link-
age cooperation initiative was
launched by the 14 cities in ques-
tion. Involving Shandong Port
Group, Qingdao Customs, Jinan
Customs and Shanghai Futures
Exchange, the platform aimed to
bridge cooperation between the
Yellow River basin and the Jiao-
dong Economic Circle.
Zou Zhiwu, vice-minister of the
General Administration of Cus-
toms, said at the seminar that the
total value of foreign trade in nine
provinces along the Yellow River
basin has been growing rapidly in
recent years. It demonstrates the
region’s great potential of devel-
oping an export-oriented econo-
my.
Shandong has the capability of
promoting mutual economic devel-
opment between the eastern and
western parts of China, and the
land-sea integrated development.
The province is a region of strong
strategic emerging industries and
advanced manufacturing industries
in the Yellow River basin, Zou add-
ed.
Statistics show the volume of for-
eign trade in the Yellow River basin
rose from 1.7 trillion yuan ($245.09
billion) in 2010 to 3.3 trillion yuan
in 2019, with an annual growth rate
of 7.6 percent. That rate is 2.5 per-
centage points higher than the
national average for the same peri-
od.
In the first seven months of this
year, the region’s growth rate of for-
eign trade was 5.3 percentage
points higher than the national
average.
Weihang, Rizhao and Yantai.
Taking full advantage of COS-
MOPlat, Qingdao will share its
industrial data resources and
application scenarios with the cit-
ies in the Yellow River basin, to
help the cities’ companies trans-
form and upgrade while improv-
ing production efficiency and
product competitiveness, local
officials said.
Transport debated by local
officials in bid to lift trade
By HU YUYAN
huyuyan@chinadaily.com.cn
Representatives of the nine
provinces and autonomous
regions which the Yellow River
runs through met on Aug 8 to dis-
cuss the future of their only
access point to the sea — Qingdao
city in East China’s Shandong
province.
The main topics of the seminar
included land-sea intermodal
transport and cooperation
between the upper and lower
reaches of the Yellow River, which
flows from west to east.
In the first seven months of
2020, foreign trade in the nine
provinces and autonomous
regions totaled 2.22 trillion yuan
($320 billion), accounting for 13
percent of the country’s total,
said Zou Zhiwu, vice-minister of
the General Administration of
Customs, Qingdao Daily report-
ed.
The growth rate of foreign trade
in these regions during that period
was 5.3 percentage points higher
than the national. It means that
the Yellow River basin has tremen-
dous potential to develop an
export-oriented economy, Zou not-
ed at the seminar.
However, due to natural condi-
tions and other factors, the Yellow
River has not become a “golden
waterway” like the Yangtze River
and the flow of people and goods
along the river and out to sea does
not all go smoothly. The key to
solving this problem is ports,
according to Qingdao Daily.
“Shandong Port Group has
built an inland port in Gansu,
which serves as an efficient and
convenient trade path for Gansu
to go east and for Shandong to go
west,” said Li Rongcan, Party sec-
retary of Lanzhou city in North-
west China’s Gansu province. It
is one of the nine provinces and
autonomous regions the Yellow
River traverses.
So far, Qingdao has established
inland ports in provinces includ-
ing Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan, Hebei
and Shanxi, according to Qingdao
Daily.
Qingdao Port of Shandong Port Group helps the city to connect
domestic and overseas markets. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Looking ahead, the
industrial internet
can help boost the
economic
development of the
Yellow River basin
from multiple
perspectives ...”
Zhou Yunjie, chairman of Haier
The industrial internet will not
only help shore up companies and
cities, but also help cities comple-
ment each other and realize sound
resource allocation, local officials
said.
COSMOPlat is assisting 387 com-
panies in seven provinces in the Yel-
low River basin by improving
production capability and efficiency
while also cutting costs.
In Houma, Shanxi province,
COSMOPlat launched a medical
supplies production solution in
just 48 hours to allow the prov-
ince’s first automatic medical
mask production line to produce
100,000 masks a day. The mask
producer can have a gross profit
rate of 50 percent.
In Xi’an, capital city of Shaanxi
province, COSMOPlat empow-
ered a clothing manufacturer
CHINA DAILY
2.22
trillion yuan
in foreign trade achieved by the
provinces and autonomous
regions along the Yellow River
between January and July
Qingdao is also creating an
international logistics network
that reaches Japan, South Korea,
Europe, South Asia, Russia, Mon-
golia and members of the Shang-
hai Cooperation Organization and
the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations via sea, land, air and rail
transport.
“We have played an active part
in Shandong’s effort to promote
cooperation between the upper
and lower reaches of the Yellow
River and land-sea intermodal
transport,” said Wang Haimin,
director of the board of China
COSCO Shipping Corp.
“COSCO has entered into a
strategic partnership with
Shandong Port Group and estab-
lished COSCO Qingdao, mark-
ing a new stage in COSCO’s
development in Shandong,”
Wang noted.
Jiang Mingbao, chief engineer
at the Ministry of Transport, said:
“Qingdao Port is the country’s first
port operator to accommodate
over 1 million standard containers
for sea-rail combined transport.
Its convenient location is a natural
advantage for the city to connect
domestic and overseas markets
and promote land-sea intermodal
transport.”
Wang believes that digital ship-
ping and digital ports are the
future of the sector.
“COSCO and Shandong Port
Group together launched block-
chain-based contactless services
during the COVID-19 outbreak,”
Wang was quoted as saying by
Qingdao Daily.
“In the future, the two compa-
nies will further their coopera-
tion in developing blockchain-
based port and shipping
solutions, 5G ports and the inter-
net of things to jointly create a
digital shipping ecosystem,”
Wang added.
with advanced intelligent manu-
facturing technologies, which
helps the manufacturer achieve
an annual production capability
of 60,000 sets of customized prod-
ucts.
After the intelligent upgrading,
the clothing manufacturer
improved its production efficien-
cy by 28 percent, shortened its
delivery period from 45 days to
seven working days and cut an
annual average cost of 1.8 million
yuan ($259,000).
The COSMOPlat established a
regional industrial internet plat-
form in Longnan, Gansu province,
which helps build intelligent fac-
tories, digital workshops and
automatic production lines in the
city.
Empowering local agriculture,
tourism and medicinal material
industries with digital solutions,
the platform helped offer 1,200
new jobs to local residents and
helped local companies improve
their popularity and competitive-
ness.
“Looking ahead, the industrial
internet can help boost the eco-
nomic development of the Yellow
River basin from multiple per-
spectives, including the cultiva-
tion and strengthening of
emerging industries, the trans-
forming and upgrading of tradi-
tional industries and the
acceleration of modern service
industry development,” said Zhou
Yunjie, chairman of Haier.
 BUSINESS CHINA DAILY | CHINADAILY.COM.CN/ Monday, August 17, 2020
Killer tech combo is a real game-changer
Beidou Navigation
Satellite System,
5G and IoT are set
to revolutionize
several industries
By MA SI
masi@chinadaily.com.cn
Global acceptance and applica-
tion of China’s Beidou Navigation
Satellite System will gather
momentum on the back of further
integration with telecom technolo-
gies like 5G and the internet of
things, company executives and
experts said.
Their comments came after Bei-
dou started offering full-scale global
services on July 31. More important-
ly, navigation technologies are
increasingly intertwined with tele-
communication technologies to
enable more applications in trans-
portation, energy, fishing, agricul-
ture, city management and other
areas.
“The era of Beidou as a global
system is coming,” said Miao Qian-
jun, former secretary-general of
the Global Navigation Satellite
System and Location-based Servi-
ces Association of China, which
goes by the abbreviation GLAC
and was founded in 1995 to pro-
mote commercial applications of
Beidou technologies.
“Just as high-speed railways, Bei-
dou will become another high-tech
name-card for China,” Miao said.
According to a GLAC report, syn-
ergy of navigation and telecommu-
nication is an inevitable trend, with
the two becoming increasingly
inseparable and destined to power
wider industrial applications.
“This is the most noteworthy
development. Such integration has
greatly broadened the application
scenarios of Beidou,” the report said.
Beidou is China’s largest space-
based system and one of four global
navigation networks, along with the
US’ GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the
European Union’s Galileo.
Since 2000, 59 Beidou satellites,
including the first four experimen-
tal ones, have been launched, and
some of them have been retired.
With China pioneering com-
mercialization of the IoT and 5G,
Beidou is expected to benefit big
time. By the end of June, China
had built 410,000 5G base sta-
tions, laying a foundation for local
companies to experiment with
new applications.
A typical combination of Beidou
and 5G finds application in servi-
ces of bike-sharing companies.
Shanghai-based bike-sharing com-
pany Hello Global has brought its
shared bikes under the Beidou
umbrella. Similarly, Beijing-based
Meituan has installed Beidou on
its bikes.
Li Kaizhu, co-founder and execu-
tive president of Hello Global, said:
“The application of the Beidou sys-
tem is the first large-scale attempt in
the shared travel sector. It will help
shared bicycles better integrate into
the urban public transportation
ecology.”
The Beidou network will help
users to park vehicles in an orderly
manner as the technology will prior-
itize the parking order of vehicles on
municipal roads, he said.
Spirit of ‘Father of Beidou’ will guide homegrown scientific app
REPORTER’S
LOG
By Ma Si
A
t the launch ceremony for
the Beidou Navigation Sat-
ellite System’s full-scale
global services on July 31, a hoary-
haired man in a wheelchair caught
many people’s attention. Sun Jiad-
ong, 91, is considered the “father of
Beidou”. He is the former chief
designer of both the Beidou naviga-
tion system and China’s lunar explo-
ration project, and has been
instrumental in the design of the
country’s navigation satellites.
I have had two opportunities to
interview him in person. On each
A farmer plants paddy on an unmanned transplanter supported by Beidou Navigation Satellite System in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, in
June. HU PING / FOR CHINA DAILY
Left: Technicians install Beidou Navigation Satellite System on a bus in Tianjin. ZHANG CHAOQUN / XINHUA
Right: An ARJ21-700 plane with Beidou Navigation Satellite System on a test flight in Dongying, Shandong province.
Technicians can use the Beidou
system for real-time management of
road vehicle information in the
background and effectively control
traffic tides, ride out hot spots and
deal with vehicle accumulation, said
executives of bike-sharing compa-
nies.
Wang Peng, assistant professor at
the Renmin University of China,
who specializes in transportation,
said: “The combination of 5G and
Beidou solves the signal problem of
shared bikes. Previously, the bikes
were equipped with 3G, or even 2G
networks, and the signal was poor,
making it difficult for users to find a
bike or make a payment online. The
combination of 5G and Beidou
solves the problem, offering a better
user experience.”
Yu Zejun, a research fellow at the
research institute of China Fortune
Land Development Co Ltd, said that
shared bikes are among the four
major application fields — A (auto-
mobile), B (bike), C (cellphone) and
D (drone) — of the Beidou system.
The location service offered by Bei-
occasion, Sun made lasting impres-
sion on my mind with his palpable
dedication to China’s space industry.
His perseverance in times of difficul-
ties is legendary in space circles.
Sun’s life is closely associated with
many firsts in China’s aerospace his-
tory, and his experience offers a
glimpse into how the domestic
space industry took off and why Bei-
dou stands out in the global arena,
now on a par with the US’ GPS, Rus-
sia’s GLONASS and the European
Union’s Galileo.
Sun was born in 1929 in Fuxian,
Liaoing province. On turning 18, he
enrolled into the Harbin Institute of
Technology to start preparatory
courses in Russian, and later trans-
ferred to the automotive depart-
ment. Later, Sun was chosen to join
the army as a Russian translator.
In 1951, Sun, together with 29 oth-
dou is a key element in shared trav-
el.
In the future, every shared bicycle
will be equipped with a Beidou posi-
tioning chip. Shared travel contains
diversified scenarios, and the appli-
cation prospect of Beidou system is
promising, he said.
To better promote the integrated
development of 5G and Beidou, Chi-
na Mobile, the nation’s largest tele-
com carrier, and Wuhan University,
a prestigious Chinese university,
have set up an industry alliance and
a joint innovation laboratory to pro-
mote cross-industry communica-
tion and the use of precision
positioning technologies in more
sectors.
The industry alliance has already
attracted more than 20 enterprises,
including internet heavyweights
such as Baidu, Tencent, as well as
technology powerhouses such as
Huawei.
Such moves are part of Chinese
companies’ larger efforts to make
the best use of Beidou. By the end of
2019, Beidou functions had been
er soldiers, was sent to study aircraft
engines at an academy in Russia. Its
traditions included hanging pic-
tures of students who scored a 5, the
highest grade, in all their examina-
tions on the school gate. If the stu-
dent could maintain such
excellence, the picture level on the
gate would be raised. The higher it
went, fewer would be the competing
images, and the larger your picture
got. If it remained on the gate on
graduation, the student concerned
would be awarded a gold medal.
In 1958, Sun brought one of these
precious gold medals to China. In
1967, China decided to set up the
China Academy of Space Technolo-
gy. The CAST’s then president was
Qian Xuesen, who appointed Sun to
a role that involved restructuring
staff for satellite research. Later, Sun
became the vice-director of the gen-
applied in nearly 6.6 million taxis,
buses and trucks around China.
More than 3,200 navigation facili-
ties along rivers and over 2,900 mar-
itime navigation instruments
employ Beidou services, according
to a GLAC report.
In the agricultural sector, Beidou-
enabled functions are used in at
least 50,000 farm machines and
have improved operational efficien-
cy.
Cotton growers in the Xinjiang
Uygur autonomous region have
found it more efficient and cost-ef-
fective to deploy Beidou-navigated
unmanned aerial vehicles or drones
to spray farm chemicals rather than
doing so manually, thus saving man-
power, money and time.
In China, the overall value of sat-
ellite-enabled navigation and posi-
tioning services in 2019 was 345
billion yuan ($48.5 billion), up more
than 14 percent year-on-year,
according to a GLAC report.
The number is expected to
exceed 400 billion yuan by the end
of this year, as wider applications
eral satellite design department at
the CAST.
Just like he did nine years earlier
on his return to China, Sun gave up
the more familiar field of guided
missiles, his domain of expertise, for
shouldering the responsibility of sat-
ellite research. He was 37 at the time.
Beginning in 1967, when he took
charge of the design of China’s first
man-made satellite, he also worked
as the technical superintendent and
general designer for both China’s
first remote sensing satellite and a
recoverable satellite. In addition, he
was the chief designer of the sec-
ond-generation of special applica-
tion satellites, such as the ones used
in communication, meteorology
and earth resource detection. With
an iron will, Sun led his team-mem-
bers to many breakthroughs in new
techniques, and solved a series of
DING DING / XINHUA
are foreseen, the GLAC has fore-
cast.
Sun Jiadong, an academic at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences and
former chief designer of the Beidou
system, had said earlier: “What we
are doing in China is we are all lay-
ing the foundation for Beidou’s glob-
al applications. Beidou will start
providing full-scale global services
in 2020, and I believe its globaliza-
tion boom will come around 2021.”
More efforts are needed to
explore the industrial application of
Beidou, he said.
Amid the COVID-19 outbreak,
Beidou has also played a positive
role in helping quickly build make-
shift hospitals for patients in
Wuhan, Hubei province.
Take the construction of
Huoshenshan and Leishenshan
hospitals. Beidou-powered map-
ping equipment was used to
quickly locate the construction
sites for the two hospitals, said
Zhou Ruxin, chairman of BDStar
Navigation, a Beijing-based com-
pany that develops Beidou-relat-
technical problems.
For instance, he and his team built
the first and second generations of
the Beidou Navigation Satellite Sys-
tem, laying a solid foundation for its
third phase of development, which
finally saw Beidou offering full-scale
global services on July 31.
Because of his contributions to
the country’s satellite technologies
and space exploration, Sun received
the Two Bombs, One Satellite
Achievement Medal in 1999, the
country’s top award to scientists
contributing to China’s nuclear and
satellite projects.
Three years ago, when I got an
opportunity to interview him, Sun,
then 88, remained sharp in mind,
and expressed his ideas very clearly.
I was struck by his boundless enthu-
siasm for China’s space program.
I asked him about the global
The era of Beidou as a
global system is
coming. Just as high-
speed railways,
Beidou will become
another high-tech
name-card for China.”
Miao Qianjun,
former secretary-general of the
Global Navigation Satellite
System and Location-based
Services Association of China
ed high-precision equipment.
Beijing Enterprises Group Co Ltd,
a major infrastructure builder in
Beijing, has also used Beidou to
track gas pipelines, which can help
swiftly locate gas leaks before they
cause serious damage.
Even during the typhoon season,
Beidou has played an indispensable
part in helping fishermen cut losses
and evade the strong winds and
waves.
When typhoon Hagupit, the
fourth typhoon this year,
approached the coastal areas in
eastern China’s Fujian province in
early August, all the boats in Sansha
township, Xiapu county, were
already moored at the bay.
“All of our boats have returned to
the harbor thanks to the Beidou
position indicators that were
installed in them, which allow us to
locate the exact position of the boats
in real-time and give prompt notifi-
cations,” said Lin Peng, who is with
the local marine and fishery
enforcement brigade.
“The Beidou position indicator is
non-detachable, and the built-in
battery can supply power autono-
mously for five years and realize the
real-time location of the boats even
when they are in the open waters,”
said Ma Jianhua, director of the dis-
aster response center of the Fujian
provincial department of ocean and
fisheries.
Ma also said the Beidou-support-
ed system can also help with disas-
ter alarms, automatic identification,
information release and early warn-
ings about the state of the seas,
which has significantly improved
the safety of fishermen.
Equipped with Beidou-based
geological sensors, officials in dis-
aster-prone regions can also detect
and forecast landslides or other
abnormal geological movements
and deliver early warnings to resi-
dents.
Ran Chengqi, director-general of
the China Satellite Navigation
Office and the spokesperson of the
Beidou Navigation Satellite Sys-
tem, said that high-accuracy func-
tion is possible thanks to
collaboration between Beidou sat-
ellites and the vast ground-based
network of nearly 3,000 augmenta-
tion stations.
Beidou is so capable that even
abnormal movements at the centi-
meter level can be detected in real-
time, he said.
Wang from Renmin University
said Beidou’s efficiency and reliabili-
ty have been tested in all the domes-
tic applications, which can be
replicated overseas, after factoring
in peculiar characteristics of each
country.
prospects of Beidou. Sun said: “What
we are doing in China is we are all lay-
ing the foundation for Beidou’s glob-
al applications. Beidou will start
providing full-scale global services in
2020, and I believe its globalization
boom will come around 2021.”
Finally, the moment for Beidou
came! There is no reason to doubt
its future on the global stage,
because an increasing number of
entities are keen to adopt Beidou
and apply it in their operations, just
like Sun had predicted.
Currently, China has about 14,000
enterprises and more than 500,000
people who work on businesses
related to satellite-based navigation
systems, according to a report from
the Global Navigation Satellite Sys-
tem and Location-based Services
Association of China (which is
abbreviated as the GLAC). It was
founded in 1995 to promote the
commercial application of Beidou
technologies. As I see it, it will power
Beidou ahead on its global journey.
14 | Monday, August 17, 2020
BUSINESS
MG vehicles are assembled at SAIC Motor’s fully-automatic production line in Thailand.
Virus-proof wheels on a roll
GOING GLOBAL |
SAIC Motor’s auto
sales sustain
momentum in 60
overseas markets
By WANG YING in Shanghai
wang_ying@chinadaily.com.cn
As the global auto industry’s
wheels came off due to the impact
of COVID-19, one Chinese company
— SAIC Motor Corp Ltd — bucked
the worldwide downtrend and
zoomed ahead with impressive per-
formance.
China’s largest A-share listed
automaker, SAIC Motor not only
continued its overseas expansion
amid the pandemic but posted a
17.3 percent growth in overseas
sales of its own brand vehicles in
the first six months this year.
“Our international team did not
take a single day of break even
when the pandemic was most
severe in overseas markets. Our
communications at work stayed
regular as before,” said Yu De, man-
aging director of SAIC Motor’s
international business department.
The company sold 132,000 vehi-
cles in overseas markets in the first
half, accounting for 34 percent of
overseas sales of Chinese automak-
ers, and keeping its leading posi-
tion in China’s auto exports.
Up to 60 percent of SAIC Motor’s
overseas sales were contributed by
its own brands, whose sales surged
more than 17 percent to reach
79,000 units. Its MG brand was the
bestseller among China’s exported
cars.
Fang Yinliang, global partner
and vice-president for China with
consultancy Roland Berger, said
Beijing recovery boosts foreign firms’ confidence
BEIJING — Foreign enterprises in
Beijing are regaining confidence as
the city’s work and production
resumption continues to accelerate
amid further containment of COV-
ID-19, while its economy has
rebounded with strong resilience
and vitality.
“We highly appreciate the gui-
dance and support we got from the
Beijing government and municipal
authorities … Thanks to the effec-
tive measures taken by China in
fighting COVID-19, we are witness-
ing a strong recovery of its auto mar-
ket,” said Hubertus Troska with
Daimler AG.
“We are also fortunate to see a
positive sales momentum for our
Mercedes-Benz brand in China with
a year-on-year growth of 21.6 per-
cent in the second quarter,” he said.
In the first six months of the year,
Mercedes-Benz delivered more than
346,000 new cars to its customers in
China, basically returning to the lev-
el of the same period last year, data
from the German automaker
showed.
According to the Ministry of Com-
Chinese passenger vehicle sales will
fall by about 10 percent this year
due to the contagion. But, they will
still outperform sales in US and
Europe markets.
SAIC Motor’s vehicle sales turned
positive in June, and its quarter-on-
quarter sales doubled in the second
quarter, confirming the uptrend in
the company’s performance and
suggesting that sustained and con-
sistent efforts will pay off sooner or
later.
SAIC Motor has spent years
before taking the first step toward
global development. “There are lots
of challenges and bumps, and it is
too early to celebrate any achieve-
ment, but the efforts are worth-
while. Like all major industries, the
Chinese automotive industry will
build its presence in the global mar-
ket sooner or later,” said Yu.
He divides SAIC Motor’s evolu-
tion over the past few decades into
three phases. The first phase, he
said, started from the middle of the
1980s through joint ventures. The
second phase involved creation of
its own brands and products
around 2000. The third phase start-
ed in 2013 and is still on. Incidental-
ly, it was in 2013 that the SAIC
brand first sought to go global.
The go-global plan necessitated
enhancement of its operations and
management capabilities, which
may now hold the company in
good stead, in the context of the
post-COVID phase. The rapid
recovery of business in China from
the COVID onslaught has helped
put Chinese companies in a rela-
tively better position for their
overseas development. But they
need to make breakthroughs and
upgrade their products, branding,
and innovative capabilities to
become truly world-class, said
Fang.
“SAIC Motor is one of the earliest
An employee puts finishing touches to a Mercedes-Benz car on an
assembly line in Beijing in February. CHEN ZHONGHAO / XINHUA
merce, foreign direct investment in
the Chinese mainland, in actual use,
grew by 8.4 percent year-on-year in
the second quarter of this year, a sig-
nificant rebound from the first quar-
ter (down 10.8 percent), indicating
foreign investors’ stabilizing expecta-
tions and confidence in China’s econ-
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Chinese automakers that planned
overseas development, beginning
with technology upgrades and
strengthened research and devel-
opment capability.
“In contrast to its Chinese peers
that first established marketing
and sales channels to export their
vehicles, SAIC Motor built its own
factories locally in overseas mar-
kets as the group had resolved to
become part of the global automo-
tive industrial chain.”
SAIC Motor is also China’s first
automaker to have formulated a
long-term go-global strategy. To
date, the Shanghai-based company
has set up three innovation R&D
bases outside of China (in the Unit-
ed States, Israel, and the United
Kingdom), three overseas produc-
tion bases in Thailand, Indonesia
and India, and 12 regional market-
ing service centers in Europe,
South America, the Middle East,
North Africa, Australia, New Zea-
land, and markets of member coun-
tries of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations.
SAIC Motor’s products and servi-
ces are available today in more than
60 countries and regions where
more than 750 outlets constitute its
global marketing and service net-
work. Thailand, the UK, Indonesia,
Chile, Australia and New Zealand,
the Middle East and India are the
top seven overseas markets whose
annual sales volume exceeds
10,000 vehicles each.
SAIC Motor’s three overseas tech
R&D centers will customize prod-
ucts according to various local mar-
ket requirements and customer
feedback, Fang said.
Agreed Yu. “We have one of the
most comprehensive product mod-
els among all Chinese auto manu-
facturers, which enables us to
provide the most suitable products
in accordance with the unique
omy. Besides, international
enterprises, including Daimler, are
seeking a stronger presence in China.
“I’m very confident in the long-
term development of the Chinese
auto industry and believe that the
best times are yet to come,” Troska
said, adding that Beijing is still a
requirements of each market.”
About 16,000 units of the locally
made MG Hector have been sold in
the India market. More than 12,000
orders are going to be delivered
from the factory at Halol in the
western Indian state of Gujarat,
according to Rajeev Chaba, manag-
ing director of MG Motor India.
Back home, SAIC Motor had main-
tained its position as the nation’s top
vehicle seller overseas for four years
in a row (2016-19). It sold some
350,000 vehicles abroad in 2019
alone, up 26 percent from 2018.
“SAIC Motor’s recognition in
the Southeast Asian market has
reached the level of some Japa-
nese automakers, while its out-
standing sales in developed auto
markets including the UK and
Australia showed Chinese passen-
ger carmakers are capable of com-
peting in the mainstream market,”
said Fang.
The MG model’s overseas sales in
the first half surpassed 70,000
units, up 37 percent year-on-year.
The regions that reported the most
significant sales growth include the
Middle East, Southeast Asia, Aus-
tralia and New Zealand, and the
UK.
Yu credited the stellar perform-
ance to the company’s years-long
efforts in exploring global markets
and its ability to follow the latest
trends in the automotive sector,
including the gradual shift to elec-
tric, intelligent and connected vehi-
cles, the concept of sharing
economy as embraced by ride-hail-
ing firms that are now among auto-
makers’ biggest clients, and
internationalization of auto com-
panies.
“We are confident that our MG
brand will be able to reach annual
global sales of more than 1 million
vehicles by 2025,“ said Wang Xiao-
qiu, president of SAIC Motor.
21.6
percent
sales growth of Mercedes-Benz
vehicles in China in the second
quarter
highly attractive business location
for international companies. Daim-
ler is committed to further investing
and strengthening its local footprint
in research and development, and
production and purchase, Troska
said.
From January to May, 495 new
foreign-funded enterprises were set
up in the services sector in Beijing,
actually using $5.12 billion in direct
overseas capital, according to the
municipal commerce bureau.
Universal Beijing Resort, a key
project in Beijing’s Tongzhou dis-
trict, has seen its construction
progress smoothly, and the main
structure has been completed. The
theme park is expected to open in
the first half of next year.
“We quickly resumed construc-
tion in the ever-changing epidemic
Chinese system illumines
path for users worldwide
By MA SI
masi@chinadaily.com.cn
Chinese companies are working
to introduce Beidou-related prod-
ucts in more overseas countries, aft-
er the navigation system has
garnered about 100 million users
and covered more than 200 coun-
tries and regions.
Zhou Ruxin, chairman of BDStar
Navigation, a Beijing-based compa-
ny that develops Beidou-related
high-precision positioning equip-
ment, said: “After Beidou started
offering full-scale global services,
people anywhere in the world can
access Beidou’s high-quality servi-
ces, which will further promote the
global application of the Beidou sys-
tem and accelerate Chinese prod-
ucts’ go-global push.”
In recent years, the company has
acquired a 50-percent stake in
In-tech GmbH, a German automo-
bile engineering service provider,
for 60 million euros ($71 million)
and a 100-percent stake in Rx Net-
works Inc, a Canadian navigation
satellite system provider, for an
undisclosed amount. The moves
are part of its broader efforts to go
global.
By the end of 2019, Chinese prod-
ucts based on the Beidou system
had been sold to more than 120
countries and regions, playing a
helpful role in a number of public
sector fields, according to a report
from the Global Navigation Satellite
System and Location-based Services
Association of China, which goes by
the abbreviation GLAC.
Beidou covered the entire Asia-
Pacific region in 2012, and started
offering full-scale services on July
31. During the time period, Beidou
has seen increasing applications,
from land ownership investigations
to smart agriculture, intelligent con-
struction, and other areas in Asia,
Europe and Africa.
For instance, Beidou has helped
Russia improve its electric grid
inspections, made operations more
convenient for users of unmanned
aerial vehicles or drones in Cambo-
dia, boosted management efficiency
of many warehouses in Thailand,
and facilitated construction work in
Kuwait, according to the China Sat-
ellite Navigation Office.
To promote the global application
of Beidou, China has implemented
the “Beidou System Tour” series of
A remote-controlled lightship equipped with Beidou Navigation
Satellite System is seen at the Pearl River estuary.
TIAN JIANCHUAN / XINHUA
circumstances under the ongoing
guidance and support from related
government authorities,” said Tom
Mehrmann, president of the resort.
Mehrmann said he has full confi-
dence in the Chinese economy and
the tourism industry, and the total
demand for Chinese tourists is sig-
nificant. Although the short-term
impact seems inevitable, it will even-
tually lead to a dramatic rebound
and growth, Mehrmann said.
Data from the Beijing municipal
bureau of statistics showed that the
city’s regional gross domestic prod-
uct edged down 3.2 percent year-on-
year to 1.62 trillion yuan ($232
billion) in the first half of this year.
The decline narrowed by 3.4 per-
centage points compared with that
of the first quarter, indicating steady
economic recovery of the city.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19,
the enterprises of Swiss tech giant
ABB in Beijing have overcome mul-
tiple challenges with the help of the
municipal government, which sent
anti-epidemic materials to the local
firms of ABB and helped their sup-
porting enterprises resume produc-
tion as soon as possible.
“We have been committed to the
long-term development in China,”
said Peter Voser, chairman of the
CHINA DAILY
events, and pushed forward the
establishment of the Beidou System
Centers in a number of countries.
The BSCs will enable better under-
standing of the navigation system,
said a white paper on China’s Bei-
dou Navigation Satellite System
published by the State Council
Information Office.
According to the white paper, Chi-
na has also opened the Beidou Inter-
national Exchange and Training
Center, and a demonstration plat-
form for education and training in
the field of satellite navigation.
In addition, academic education,
summer schools, short-term train-
ing courses, symposiums, and other
international education and training
activities have been regularly held to
popularize knowledge of Beidou.
In April 2019, the second China-
Arab States BDS (Beidou System)
Cooperation Forum was held in
the Tunisian capital Tunis, which
was reported by Xinhua News
Agency.
“The BDS cooperation is the best
example of strategic cooperation
between China and Arab states, as
satellite navigation integrates many
high-tech areas, including telecom-
munication and space technolo-
gies,” said Slim Khalbous, Tunisian
minister of higher education and
scientific research, at the forum.
Wang Zhaoyao, chairman of the
Chinese Satellite Navigation Com-
mittee, said the Beidou system has
been applied in many Middle East
and African countries, including
Tunisia, Algeria, Kuwait and Sudan,
in areas such as precision agricul-
ture, telecommunication, maritime
monitoring and disaster relief.
Following the full commissioning
of the Beidou system, Simonetta Di
Pippo, director of the United
Nations Office for Outer Space
Affairs, said in a congratulatory let-
ter: “This historic milestone is a sig-
nificant step toward increasing the
availability of precise geolocation
services through Global Navigation
Satellite Systems for people all over
the world.
“Initiated in 1994, the Beidou pro-
gram has been over 25 years in the
making. This result is only possible
with a long-standing and sustained
commitment to space. Indeed, the
completion of the Beidou program
reminds us all: space is not easy and
must always be considered in the
long term.”
board of directors at ABB Ltd. “ABB
will work together with our Chinese
customers and partners to further
develop the industrial and supply
chains.”
In order to promote the resump-
tion of work and production at
major foreign firms in Beijing and
minimize the impact of the epidem-
ic, the city has launched several
commercial activities through the
internet since May. The activities
provided an online platform for
local officials to meet leaders of mul-
tinational companies. Besides, the
overseas side could see real-time
videos of production lines of foreign
firms in Beijing, thus injecting con-
fidence into their investment plans
in China.
The municipal government not
only solved the problems of foreign
companies in the supply of spare
parts and international logistics and
transportation but also facilitated
executives and their families to
return to Beijing.
Last month, Beijing issued an
action plan to implement new open-
ing-up measures as part of efforts to
open up at a higher level and opti-
mize its business environment.
XINHUA
 CHINA DAILY
BUSINESSINSIGHT
Dual-cycle economic model to lift future world
EAGLE EYE
By David Blair
Over the past 20 years, develop-
ing countries’ economies have been
growing much faster than those of
the traditional developed econo-
mies in Europe, North America and
Japan. According to calculations by
the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, 72
“economies identified in the Belt
and Road Initiative”, not including
China, grew from 26.6 percent of
world GDP in 2000 to 30.2 percent
in 2008, and to 32.3 percent in 2017.
In the same period, the United
States’ share of world GDP (meas-
ured in purchasing power parity)
fell from 20.6 percent in 2000 to 15.3
percent in 2017. The share of 18 rich-
er European Union countries, not
including the United Kingdom, fell
from 19 percent in 2000 to 12.6 per-
cent in 2017. In the same period, Chi-
na’s economy grew from 7.4 percent
to 18.3 percent of world GDP.
While the developing world’s con-
sumption capability is growing fast,
China’s own domestic economy is
changing. Decades of rapidly rising
wages have created a massive con-
sumer market. Plus, high-tech sec-
tors and other higher value-added
sectors are growing rapidly.
A likely decline in the US trade
deficit is another coming shock to
the world economy. A substantial
part of US consumption has long
been financed by international len-
ders through the trade deficit. It’s
unlikely that international lenders
will continue to finance such defi-
cits through the next decade, so US
consumption is likely to grow very
slowly, or even fall.
Working with international part-
ners, China established the BRI and
the Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank to push future development of
the newly developing countries and
to facilitate trade between them.
These are big steps toward making
use of the opportunities in a shifting
world economy.
In a symposium with corporate
leaders in July, President Xi Jinping
called for greater strides in reform
and opening-up, including in sci-
ence and technology, while fully lev-
eraging the strength of the nation’s
huge domestic market in the face of
rising protectionism, a sluggish
global economy and a weakening
international market.
Xi ruled out the possibility that
China would close its doors during
the process, saying that the country
will instead fully unleash the poten-
A bullish view on CSI 300 is 5600 points by the end of this year
MAIN STREET
By Wendy Liu
After the Chinese economy
staged a better-than-expected
recovery from the COVID-19 pan-
demic in the second quarter,
whether a market-style shift from
growth to value or growth to cycli-
cal is warranted in China’s A-share
market has been much debated
among investors.
Value stocks are those traded at a
lower price relative to their funda-
mentals, while growth ones feature
strong earnings growth prospects.
We think such a shift is happen-
ing to some degree, primarily
among cyclicals and consumer dis-
cretionary ones that are poised to
deliver stronger-than-expected rev-
enue and earnings growth.
Mainland retail and institutional
investors are the ultimate absolute
return investors: their preference is
to buy equities for growth, and buy
bonds or wealth management
products for stable returns. All else
being equal, earnings-per-share
growth is the ultimate driver of
long-term share price return. Con-
sistent growth over multiple years
can make expensive stocks at
today’s valuations become unde-
manding or cheap several years
down the road when such growth is
delivered.
Related to the marginal shift in
investment style and fundamentally
driven by earnings growth outlook,
tial of its domestic demand, enable
better connectivity between the
domestic and international mar-
kets, and better employ the two
markets and resources, in order to
attain more vigorous and sustaina-
ble development.
And, in his opening address to the
fifth annual meeting of the Board of
Governors of the AIIB, Xi said the
bank “needs to provide public goods
for our region and beyond, push for
regional economic integration, and
help make economic globalization
more open, inclusive, balanced and
beneficial for all”.
This “dual-cycle” economic model
combines the advantages of China’s
large consumer market and techno-
logical capability with the advanta-
ges of opening markets across
Eurasia, thus allowing industries to
achieve the gains from trade — spe-
cialization of production and econo-
shares of select industrial, materials
and consumer discretionary sectors
have risen strongly so far this year as
they benefit from China’s resilient
infrastructure investment growth
as well as a housing completion
cycle that has boosted demand for
shares of companies that produce
related materials.
Along the same rationale, the
ChiNext, the startup-heavy board in
Shenzhen, has outrun the overall
market since the third quarter of
2019. During 2019, earnings growth
finally troughed and started to
recover from a three-year decline
over 2016-2018. Mutual fund hold-
ings in ChiNext shares also
troughed back then.
The buoyancy in market liquidity
also helped as investors continued
to view smaller market cap-sized
names in the ChiNext as higher beta
plays when liquidity is aplenty. Year-
to-date, healthcare and tech were
the major contributors to strong
performance.
The ChiNext index surged by 74
percent since last July to Thursday’s
close at 2622.64 points. Over the
same period, the benchmark CSI
300, heavy with real estate and
financials, rose by only 21 percent.
The CSI 300 shares were priced at
13.91 times earnings as at the end of
July, much lower than 75.2 of the
ChiNext index at the same time and
slightly above own median of 12.05
for the past decade, according to
market tracker Wind Info.
Will the current investment-style
shift from growth to select cyclicals
and consumer discretionary shares
spread to macro-sensitive sectors
mies of scale.
The idea that China’s growth is
based on running large trade sur-
pluses is mistaken and out-of-date.
The trade deficit surplus rose from
1-2 percent of GDP in the early
2000s to around 10 percent in 2008,
but it declined by 2012 to 2 percent
and near zero today.
This means that China’s growth
is based on domestic demand and
current exchange of goods and ser-
vices, not purchases financed by
extensive international debt. This
shift was made possible by a combi-
nation of investment in infrastruc-
ture and technology, rapidly rising
wages, and reforms that greatly
improved the business climate in
China.
The BRI has been criticized for
creating too much debt. But this
debt is used to build productivity-
enhancing infrastructure. The
With growth recovery
materializing better
than expected, we
have advised adding
sector and sub-sector
leaders in construction
machinery, building
materials, gold/copper
and energy, as well as
renewables such as
wind and solar.
currently trading at depressed valu-
ations, including banks, energy,
infrastructure constructors, proper-
ty, and telecom services?
That question is yet to be
answered satisfactorily by market
mavens.
On the one hand, it appears that
industry-leading private-sector list-
ed companies and industry-leading
local government-owned enterpris-
es continue to be preferred by inves-
tors as equity incentives are more
prevalent, and this helps to align
management incentives with public
market minority shareholders.
With rising institutionalization of
the A-share market, we expect
investors’ preference for quality
growth names or industry leaders to
continue, barring major misses of
earnings forecasts.
On the other hand, even though
leading central State-owned enter-
prises have large and recurring busi-
majority is being put into countries
direly in need of capital investment
and infrastructure. Contrast this
with loans to support the US trade
deficit, which have gone almost
entirely into consumption.
In the short term, China’s rapid
recovery from the pandemic has
made its consumer markets critical
both for domestic and international
producers. A recent Wall Street
Journal article concluded: “In earn-
ings calls for the (second) quarter,
senior executives from some of
America’s best-known brands sin-
gled out China for salvaging what
otherwise was a rough three
months.”
For example, the shoe company
Skechers US saw an overall quarter-
ly sales drop of 42 percent from a
year earlier but saw some relief from
11.5-percent growth in China. The
French luxury products company
nesses, some investors remain
concerned about the structural
overhang of these respective indus-
try leaders, fearing that they are
“value traps”.
For example, there is no market
consensus that banks are done with
margin contraction and earnings
declines yet. Structurally, the Chi-
nese financial sector needs capacity
consolidation and cost rationaliza-
tion to allow non-financials to invest
and grow.
The property development indus-
try is experiencing slowing growth
due to demographics and policy
restrictions. The leading energy
names face price caps, and defen-
sives such as telecom services have
downward pricing guidance that
suppresses their revenue growth
and net profit margins.
Investors we spoke to are con-
cerned about the divergence in
price-to-earnings multiples
between value and growth in A
shares. All else being equal, inves-
tors would not miss the opportunity
to buy stocks at cheaper valuation
multiples.
Hence, the upside for the value
sectors is there, provided there are
structural catalysts. For now, these
sectors are still underweight in our
model portfolio, but they have
become incrementally less under-
weight than before given their com-
pelling valuations.
China’s second-quarter GDP
growth of 3.2 percent year-on-year
was materially ahead of Bloomberg
consensus estimate of 2.4 percent.
This has evidenced a “V-shaped”
recovery trajectory of the Chinese
CAI MENG / CHINA DAILY
LVMH saw an overall sales fall of 38
percent in the quarter but enjoyed a
sales rise of 65 percent in China.
Of course, the longer-term shift
toward rising GDP in China and the
BRI countries of Eurasia combined
with the stagnation of the US and
the Eurozone is more important
than short-term effects of the virus.
China’s dual-cycle model, which
emphasizes domestic demand in
China and trade with the fast-grow-
ing developing countries, is a nec-
essary economic policy for dealing
with the future world.
Wang Huiyao, president and
founder of the Center for China
and Globalization and counselor
for the State Council, in an inter-
view with China Daily, said that
the BRI has built a great founda-
tion to support the expansion of
infrastructure needed for trade —
railways, 5G, tourism facilities,
economy from the COVID-19 epi-
demic, characterized by a strong
recovery after a sharp economic
decline.
The rebound extended into July
as the official Purchasing Managers’
Index for the manufacturing sector
rose to a four-month high of 51.1,
indicating that the sector has accel-
erated its recovery from the COVID-
19 epidemic.
With growth recovery materializ-
ing better than expected, we have
advised adding sector and sub-sec-
tor leaders in construction machin-
ery, building materials, gold/copper
and energy, as well as renewables
such as wind and solar.
Our model portfolio is currently
overweight in consumption, inter-
net, and cyclicals, and underweight
in financials and defensives (I
change this weighting every month
or once in two months).
Within the macro-sensitive value
sectors, we advise exposure to
growth-oriented sub-sectors such as
property management services
names in the property space, fintech
names within financials, renewable
and gas distribution names within
defensives.
The A-share market retreated
recently after the rally in early July,
when the CSI 300 rose by 16.5 per-
cent from the beginning of the
month to close at 4852.96 points on
July 13. It ended at 4635.71 points on
Thursday, 4.5 percent below the
recent high on July 13.
Our base-case price targets for the
CSI 300 for this year-end is 4900
points, and upside target is 5600
points, owing to favorable liquidity
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 15
China’s creation of the
BRI and the AIIB
combined with the
new dual-cycle
economic model are
very good and
necessary steps to
adapt its economy to
the new world.
ports and other infrastructure
facilities. He suggested that the
multilateral BRI could be modern-
ized with lending facilities from
the AIIB, ideally working as a con-
sortium with the World Bank,
Asian Development Bank, African
Development Bank and other
international institutions to form
a multilateral infrastructure bank
alliance to have joint projects and
joint financing, to make it more
effective with more joint interna-
tional participation.
Wang also said that China’s
trade will be re-oriented toward
the BRI and other markets. “Enter-
prises ‘going out’ should pay atten-
tion to multi-regionalization,
multilateralization, diversified
development. At present and in
the future, the foreign investment
layout of enterprises can focus
more on countries outside the
United States, such as the Europe-
an Union countries, ASEAN coun-
tries, Japan and South Korea,
African countries, Latin American
countries, etc, to expand the space
of enterprises in developing coun-
tries and reduce the risks brought
about by international political
uncertainty.”
The world economy has been
changing rapidly for the past 20 to
30 years. As recently as the year
2000, the only economies that
“counted” were the US, West
Europe, and Japan. That is certainly
not true today and will become even
less true in the coming decade as
China and many other developing
countries continue to grow much
faster than the traditional devel-
oped countries.
Every country will have to adapt
its economic model to reflect this
new reality. China’s creation of the
BRI and the AIIB combined with the
new dual-cycle economic model are
very good and necessary steps to
adapt its economy to the new world.
The author is a senior staff
commentator at China Daily.
Contact the writer at
davidblair@chinadaily.com.cn
as well as better-than-expected
earnings growth, particularly
among the non-financials.
Our bullish stance on Chinese equi-
ties aside, we also note risk factors in
the months ahead. COVID-19’s spread
globally remains elevated, while more
possible flare-ups in US-China eco-
nomic and trade tensions could still
churn investor sentiment, despite
that A-share investors have grown
less sensitive to escalations in the
trade row in the past 22 months.
If the risk of China-US tensions
intensifying materializes, low beta
quality growth names may outper-
form, including leaders in tradition-
al industries with strong digital
capabilities, quality premium prod-
ucts favored by the households, and
the property completion cycle
boosting demand for leading mate-
rial names.
Another risk to look out for is the
supply of equities in the months
ahead as more shares come off
restrictions on the STAR Market
and registration-based IPOs kick off
on the ChiNext.
We estimate the first round of reg-
istration-based ChiNext IPOs to
total 30 billion yuan ($4.3 billion)
and are set to debut this month or in
September.
Fintech giant Ant Group
announced in late July that it is
seeking a $200 billion valuation in a
dual listing in Shanghai and Hong
Kong. We expect more companies,
especially technology-related ones,
to list while the iron is hot.
Wendy Liu is head of China
Strategy at UBS Investment Bank.
16 | Monday, August 17, 2020 CHINA DAILY

Pent-up demand delivers CATL makes massive

boost to local carmakers in July
Almost 600,000 Chinese-branded cars were sold last month, according to CAAM
By ZHANG DANDAN
zhangdandan@chinadaily.com.cn
Domestic automakers secured a
market share of 35.1 percent in Chi-
na’s passenger vehicle segment in
July, an increase of 1.7 percentage
points from June, prompting cau-
tious optimism from industry insid-
ers.
In July, 585,000 Chinese-branded
passenger cars were sold, a year-on-
year growth of 4.5 percent, the Chi-
na Association of Automobile
Manufacturers said on Tuesday.
Over the first seven months of the
year, Chinese brands sold 3.43 mil-
lion vehicles, down 25 percent from
the same period in 2019.
“Recovery of sales of China-
branded passenger vehicles signals
purchasing power is being released
after pent-up demand caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic,” said Xu Hai-
dong, vice-chief engineer with the
CAAM.
“However, explosive growth is not
expected, which is instead deter-
mined by overall product competi-
tiveness.”
Xu added there is a serious polari-
zation among Chinese automakers
in terms of market share. The front-
row players, including Geely, Great
Wall Motors and Changan Automo-
bile, have a much larger market
share than many of their peers.
Statistics show Geely sold 105,218
vehicles in July, up 15 percent year-
on-year.
Great Wall Motors sold 78,339
vehicles last month, of which 23,723
were its H6 model, the automaker’s
best-selling model.
Meanwhile, Changan sold 123,548
of its Chinese-branded vehicles in
July, up 49.9 percent.
The three automakers rank
among the top 15 Chinese automak-
ers in terms of sales between Janu-
ary to July, according to statistics
from the CAAM.
With total sales of 753,000 vehi-
cles in the first seven months of this
year, Changan ranked second in the
top 15 list, following SAIC Motor
with a sales volume totaling 1.08
million.
Geely, with a sales volume of
636,000 between January and July,
took third place. Great Wall Motors
ranked fifth, with sales of 404,000
vehicles during the period.
In July, China produced 2.2 mil-
lion passenger and commercial
vehicles, down 5.3 percent month-
on-month.
A total of 2.11 million were sold in
July, down 8.2 percent month-on-
month. However, the figures were
up 21.9 percent and 16.4 percent
respectively year-on-year, according
to the CAAM.
A total of 1.73 million passenger
vehicles were produced with 1.67
million sold in July.
The figures were down 3.9 per-
cent and 5.6 percent respectively
month-on-month but up 13.2 per-
cent and 8.5 percent year-on-year.
A total of 472,000 commercial
vehicles were produced in July, with
SAIC showcases an MG model at the Guangzhou auto show in November 2019.
The recovery of the
sales of China-
branded passenger
vehicles signals that
the purchasing power
is being released after
pent-up demand
during the COVID-19
pandemic.”
Xu Haidong, vice-chief engineer
with the China Association of
Automobile Manufacturers
3.43
million
vehicles under Chinese auto
brands were sold over the first
seven months of the year
496,000
new energy cars
produced in China in the first
seven months of the year
447,000 sold. This was down 10.4
percent and 16.6 percent respective-
ly month-on-month but up 70.3 per-
cent and 59.4 percent year-on-year.
From January to July, China pro-
A Changan model is displayed at the Shanghai auto show last
year. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
duced 12.31 million vehicles and
sold 12.37 million.
It marked a decrease of 11.8 per-
cent and 12.7 percent respectively
from the same period of 2019.
There were positive signs for new
energy vehicles in July with 98,000
sold, up 19.3 percent from the previ-
ous year,the first increase of 2020.
In the first seven months, China
produced 496,000 NEVs and sold
486,000, down 31.7 percent and
32.8 percent respectively year-on-
year.
With the scaling back of govern-
LI FUSHENG / CHINA DAILY
ment subsidies for NEVs since the
second half of 2019, there has been
a sales decline that has lasted for
around a year, according to Xu.
“After nearly a year of strategic
adjustment, new energy vehicle
companies are on the right track
and individual consumption is
dominating the NEV market. These
are key factors to ensure the steady
development of the market,” Xu
said.
“We estimate total NEV sales will
reach 1 million units this year in
China, excluding the sales of Tesla.”
investment to shore
up competitive edge
By LI FUSHENG
lifusheng@chinadaily.com.cn
China’s CATL will invest 19.07
billion yuan ($2.75 billion) in busi-
nesses in the upstream and down-
stream sectors to recover its
competitive edge, the company
said last week. The announcement
comes two months after it lost the
crown of the world’s largest power
battery maker to LG Chem.
The investment targets are Chi-
nese and foreign companies along
the industry chain, and the
amount of money appropriated
overseas could reach $2.5 billion,
the Shenzhen-listed company said
in a filing on Tuesday.
CATL said the decision was
based on the company’s “long-
term strategic development”, and
the goal is to further enhance its
competitive edge in the power bat-
tery sector.
CATL has stakes in around 45
companies, 11 of which are wholly-
owned. Most of them are compa-
nies in the battery materials and
mobility industries.
CATL shipped the equivalent of
40.25 gigawatt-hours of automo-
tive lithium-ion batteries in 2019.
The company is an industry leader
with a global share of 28 percent,
according to South Korea’s SNE
Research.
Most of its products are sold in
China, which is the world’s largest
electric car market. Statistics from
Soochow Securities show that
CATL has a roughly 50 percent
market share in China. Major cus-
tomers include Yutong, Nio, Great
Wall Motors and WM Motor.
Overseas, CATL has big names
on its list of customers, including
Daimler and Volkswagen. But
their sales have been quite small.
Panasonic is Tesla’s major battery
provider.
The coronavirus pandemic and
falling sales of electric cars in Chi-
na have hurt CATL.
New energy vehicle sales started
to fall in July 2019, and did not rise
again until last month.
Xu Haidong, vice-chief engineer
of the China Association of Auto-
mobile Manufacturers, said sales
this year could reach 1.1 million,
down from 1.2 million in 2019.
CATL’s installed capacity totaled
10 GWh in the first half of the year,
down 28 percent from the same
period in 2019.
To make things worse, LG Chem
overtook it as the world’s largest
battery maker, with its installed
CATL is speeding up its overseas business.
capacity surging 82.8 percent to
10.5 GWh in the same period,
according to SNE Research.
At an industry forum on
Wednesday, CATL founder and
Chairman Zeng Yuqun said new
energy vehicle sales surged 52 per-
cent in Europe but fell 44 percent
here in China.
“That means China may lose its
No 1 position to Europe this year,”
Zeng said.
China overtook the United
States as the world’s largest elec-
tric car market in 2015 and has
held the title since then. “The idea
of Europe surpassing China this
year makes me sad,” Zeng said.
CATL is thus speeding up its
overseas business. Earlier this
month, Mercedes-Benz said it has
entered the next stage of a strate-
gic partnership with CATL, which
covers the full range of battery
technologies, from cells across
modules to entire battery sys-
tems.
This agreement also involves
CATL’s cell-to-pack design, which
eliminates conventional modules
and integrates the cells directly
into the battery.
“Working with CATL will see us
accelerate our transformation
towards carbon-neutrality,” said
Markus Schaefer, a board member
of Daimler and its subsidiary Mer-
cedes-Benz.
The two companies have started
working on battery products that
are to be featured in a number of
vehicles within the next few years.
The EQS sedan, which is to be
sold in 2021, will feature CATL cell
modules. It will have a range of
700 kilometers and its charging
time will be faster compared with
current models.
CATL is building a plant in Ger-
many, which will make it easier for
Mercedes-Benz to purchase their
battery products.
Zeng Duohong, a senior analyst
at Soochow Securities, is optimis-
tic about CATL’s prospects. In a
research report, she estimates
CATL’s overseas shipment could
reach over 10 GWh in 2021, double
this year’s level.
The company’s shipment could
reach 350 GWh in 2025, almost
nine times its figure in 2019,
according to Soochow Securities.
But Zeng said China will remain
CATL’s major market.
“In the long run, we estimate it
has a 40 percent market share in
China, and a 20 percent market
share overseas.”
PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

New rules on car recycling, scrapping welcomed as good for business

By ZHANG DANDAN
China’s latest policies on recycling
scrapped motor vehicles are to take
effect from September, according to
the Ministry of Commerce, and they
are expected to help create a market
worth a 100 billion yuan ($14.39 bil-
lion) to sustainable development of
the automobile industry.
The policies will help to increase
China’s recycling and dismantling
capability and shore up the healthy
development of the scrap industry,
according to Zhang Ying, a secre-
tary-general of the China Resource
Recycling Association.
The policies propose that China
will begin a qualification system for
enterprises to engage in the recy-
cling and dismantling of scrapped
motor vehicles.
Without a qualification, no com-
pany or individual may operate such
a business.
Based on the new rules, recycling
enterprises must record specific
information about each recycled
engine, gearbox, front and rear axle
converters, with relevant informa-
tion also being submitted to the
database.
With the New energy vehicles are also
improvement of included in the policies with special
management attention being paid to the disposal
and recycling of batteries.
measures and Statistics show China had 260
relevant laws and million vehicles on the road asof
2019, and according to what is
regulations, vehicle known as the international average
scrapping will scrap ratio, 9.1 million of those vehi-
cles are classes as obsolete.
gradually move However, only 1.95 million vehi-
towards cles were scrapped last year.
“With the improvement of man-
standardization and agement measures and relevant
the industry may laws and regulations, vehicle scrap-
ping will gradually move toward
usher in an standardization,” Zhang said.
accelerated shuffle.” Haitong Securities estimate that
at present, the market for auto
Zhang Ying, a secretary-general
of the China Resource Recycling
Vehicles are prepared for scrapping in Qingdao, Shandong scrapping in China is worth 6.6 bil-
Association province. HE YI / FOR CHINA DAILY lion yuan annually.
According to Essence Securities,
in the next three years, the market
and chassis, including serial num- Only qualified enterprises will be forwaste materials from scrapped
bers and models, and upload the able to dispose of hazardous waste vehicles will be valued at 40.1 billion
information to a national database. and components, such as catalytic yuan, and the market of recondi-
tioned engines, gearboxes, front and
rear axles and chassis will be worth
79.9 billion yuan.
Some major companies have tak-
en the lead in developing the recon-
ditioning and scrapping industry.
GEM is a Shenzhen-based high-
tech company that focuses on the
large-scale recycling of electronics
and batteries.
The listed company is establish-
ing scrapped car processing bases in
multiple cities nationwide, with an
estimated processing capacity of
more than 300,000 vehicles per
year.
The new rules on recycling
scrapped vehicles will promote bet-
ter market-orientated, specialized
and intensive development of the
scrapped automobile industry,
according to GEM.
Miracle Automation, an intelli-
gent equipment and services suppli-
er, has also entered the scrapped
vehicle dismantling industry. The
company expects scrapping to
become the key area of business
growth in the future.
 CHINA DAILY
LIFE
Top: Li Baofeng’s paper-cut
depicting a scene from the
ancient Chinese classic, The
Dream of the Red Chamber.
Middle: A paper-cut by Li
portrays a girl with her younger
brother and a dog.
Above: Litter Partner, a paper-
cut by Li.
Bottom: A paper-cut by Li
features a snow-covered
landscape in Jilin province.
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
I want to create
images that use
multiple colors, which
may even have some
three-dimensional
effects and seem to
have different layers,
making them more
vivid.”
Li Baofeng, paper-cutting artist
What’s on
Making a splash
The classic fairy tale, The Little
Mermaid, written by the Danish
author Hans Christian Andersen,
has been adapted into a Chinese
play by the China National Theater
for Children. By Danish theater
director Torkild Lindebjerg and
Danish composer Jens Tolsgaard,
along with Chinese creative team
members, the play tells the story of
a curious and free-spirited mer-
maid who courageously follows her
dreams and embarks on life-chang-
ing adventures to find what she
truly treasures. The play, which
premiered on July 6, 2019, gathers
five young actresses from the Chi-
na National Theater for Children
to play the roles of the five mer-
maid sisters. The music pieces in
the play feature stringed instru-
A cut above
A rural woman finds fame and fortune through
her obsession with ancient folk art, Wang Ru reports.
L
i Baofeng recalls spending
her childhood days painting
and creating paper-cuts.
Some villagers teasingly
asked her: “You draw and cut every
day. Can you make a living from
that?”
After many years, their casual
words have unexpectedly come true,
and the poor village girl has become
a folk artist famous for her paper-
cutting.
The 54-year-old recently took part
in a reality show, in which her
paper-cutting skills were marveled
at by the audience because, thanks
to her own special technique, the art
she produces looks as vivid as oil
paintings.
“Traditional paper-cut images are
often made using red paper, which
seems a little boring. So I want to
create images that use multiple col-
ors, which may even have some
three-dimensional effects and seem
to have different layers, making
them more vivid,” says Li.
She cuts each color of paper as a
layer, and then pastes the layers
together to form the image. Each of
her works is made of dozens of lay-
ers, and each layer is made using
ments, like guitar, harp and ukule-
le, and are performed by the
composer.
7:30 pm, Aug 19 to 22. National Cen-
ter for the Performing Arts. No 2
West Chang’an Avenue, Xicheng
district, Beijing. 010-6655-0000.
A peak performance
The NCPA Chorus and Chinese
opera singers, including Zhou
Xiaolin, Zhang Xin and Wang
Chong, will perform the concert
version of Chinese opera produc-
tion, Visitors on the Snow Moun-
tain. Adapted from a Chinese
movie in 1963 with the same title,
the opera, produced by the Nation-
al Center for the Performing Arts in
Beijing in 2015, was written by
composer Lei Lei alongside libret-
tist Yi Ming and was directed by
Chen Yixin. It tells the story of
frontier guards in Northwest Chi-
na’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous
region. The music features both
Western classical music and Xinji-
ang ethnic folk songs.
Aug 21 and 22. National Center for
only one sweeping cut without stop-
ping.
Not only that, but the paper she
uses for cutting is tailored for each
specific piece. “For example, when I
wanted to create some works to
show the grottoes in Dunhuang,
Gansu province, I used thick paper
to show that the place is laden with
history, as normal paper would not
have the desired effect.”
On the other hand, her works
depicting people always employ
many layers, which require each lay-
er to be thin enough to be pasted
together and still look natural.
Since Li’s works are often sold to
private collectors or as gifts, the
paper is also made to last so that the
colors will not fade.
According to painter Li Zijian: “Li
Baofeng’s paper-cutting realizes a
harmony of scissors and paper. They
combine both traditional and crea-
tive techniques, and show both true-
life depictions and the inner essence
of different themes.”
“Scissors are still scissors,” Li says.
“Techniques are improved based on
the traditional techniques, and I pay
special attention to the cultural con-
notations behind my works, show-
the Performing Arts. No 2 West
Chang’an Avenue, Xicheng district,
Beijing. 010-6655-0000.
The fine print
Key traditional Chinese printed
works from non-Han ethnic groups
went on show at the China Printing
Museum in Beijing on Aug 11,
unveiling a lesser-known part of
Chinese printing history. The Spe-
cial Exhibition of Chinese Ethnic
Print Art, which was co-organized
by the China Printing Museum and
the Chinese National Museum of
Ethnology, displays 125 works
spanning the ancient to the mod-
ern, offering a panorama of the
print art produced by different eth-
ing a lot about Chinese literature,
folk life and folk stories,” says Li.
Her representative series about
the ancient Chinese classic, The
Dream of the Red Chamber, includes
more than 100 works depicting the
120 chapters of the book. The very
first one, called Grand View Garden,
attracted a lot of attention when it
was exhibited in Beijing in 1999.
Li recalls how she created the
work. “I was an art teacher in an ele-
mentary school in my hometown,
where I had a studio to do paper-cut-
ting in my free time. I rode a bike to
school every day in the early morn-
ing to read some picture books about
the novel to figure out the plots and
learn the personality traits of charac-
ters in the story and about the food,
clothes and architecture depicted in
the book to create the piece.”
She was honored as an excellent
teacher in Jilin province by the local
government, and was given a
chance to participate in a field trip
to Beijing when she was creating the
work. During the trip, she and other
members of the excursion were
arranged to visit Beijing Grand View
Garden, a garden that reproduces
the landscape of the characters’
nic groups in Yunnan, Tibet, Inner
Mongolia and other provincial-lev-
el administrative regions in China.
The exhibits include ancient wood-
block prints that depict such cul-
tural dimensions as astronomy,
religion and medicine that range
from the Yuan (1271-1368) to the
Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, togeth-
er with famed artists’ works from
recent history and contemporary
pieces featuring figures, land-
scapes and ethnic cultures. Some of
the displayed copperplate etchings
were created as anthropological
references by Europeans following
their explorations of those regions
during the late Qing Dynasty.
9 am-5 pm, through Sept 15, closed
on Mondays. China Printing Muse-
um, 25 Xinghua North Road, Daxing
district, Beijing. 010-8128-2770.
Block of ages
Spring Festival nianhua prints from
the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and
ukiyo-e pieces are among the most
eye-catching genres of art, both
being influenced by the advance-
dwellings in The Dream of the Red
Chamber.
When they arrived at the garden,
it rained heavily, and other mem-
bers of the group decided to stay on
the bus, but Li insisted on visiting
the attraction.
“I didn’t bring an umbrella, so I
just ran as fast as I could around the
garden and took a quick look, but I
still realized there was a big gap
between images in my work and
those shown by the statues and
paintings in the garden. The scenes
in the garden impressed me a lot
and urged me to improve my work
when I returned home,” says Li.
She worked on the piece for about
three years, and finally showed 55
characters of the book in the 3-me-
ter-long and 1.5-meter-high work. “I
cut each character’s front and side
look many times and became
obsessed with it.
In 2010, former president Hu Jintao
received Kim Jong-il, then leader of
the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea, in Changchun, and sent a
work of Li’s to Kim as a national gift.
Over the years, she has been invited
to exhibit her work in many coun-
tries, including Russia, Japan,
ment of printing techniques in the
late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
Woodblock Prints in Distinctive
Lands surveys the differences and
similarities between the two forms
of art by showing 138 prints from
the collection of the National Art
Museum of China in Beijing. The
traditional nianhua prints on dis-
play were made in some of China’s
best-known production centers,
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 17
Artist Li Baofeng has won
acclaim for her special
technique of creating paper-
cuts that look as vivid as oil
paintings. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
France and Germany, and she
always gives a demonstration of her
cutting skills at the exhibitions,
arousing a great deal of interest
from visitors.
Born in a remote village in Shu-
angyang county in Changchun, Jilin
province, in 1966, Li learned needle-
work and paper-cutting from her
mother in childhood and grew an
intense interest in the latter.
Although she dropped out of
school in her teens and engaged in
farm work, she didn’t give up the
hobby, and seized the chance to
become an auditor at a local voca-
tional high school with more than
400 paintings and paper-cuttings
she had made in her free time. After
graduation, she was hired as an art
teacher at a local elementary school
and became famous thanks to her
paper-cutting skills. She later
resigned and started her own busi-
ness, selling customized artworks.
Each one takes between two months
to one year to produce and is sold for
anything from tens of thousands to
several million yuan.
Li highlights the importance of
innovation in folk art’s develop-
ment.
“We need to endow traditional
folk art with greater cultural
meaning,” she says.
“We should create work to suit the
aesthetic standards of modern peo-
ple, so that the skills can be passed
down to future generations.”
Contact the writer at
wangru1@chinadaily.com.cn
such as Yangliuqing of Tianjin, Tao-
huawu of Suzhou, Jiangsu province,
and Mianzhu of Sichuan province.
Featured ukiyo-e artists at the exhi-
bition include Hishikawa Morono-
bu, the first ukiyo-e master, and
Katsushika Hokusai, best known for
his piece Great Wave off Kanagawa,
from his series of works entitled 35
Views of Mount Fuji.
9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays,
through Oct 15. Online reservation
needed. 1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng
district, Beijing. 010-6400-6326.
CHINA DAILY
18 | Monday, August 17, 2020
LIFE
F Emotional response
ive days after Wuhan, capi-
tal of Hubei province, was
locked down in January, Liu
Zhengkui and his team
started an operation of psychologi-
cal assistance and psychological cri-
sis intervention to help people at the
epicenter of the pandemic.
“Usually we start the operation
right away when an emergency hap-
pens, but the pandemic is different
because it’s an infectious disease, so
it took us a couple days to figure out
how to proceed,” Liu, a researcher at
Institute of Psychology of the Chi-
nese Academy of Sciences, explains.
Liu spent almost three months in
Wuhan providing psychological
assistance to local medical workers,
recovered COVID-19 patients and
community staff since March. At the
end of August, he will return to con-
tinue his work.
Initially, the operation was
planned to last for a year, but recent-
ly Liu’s team has managed to secure
the funding and support to extend it
by two years.
“Large-scale disasters always have
long-term influence on people. For
people in the core area of the Wench-
uan earthquake, its influence has
lasted for five years,” Liu says. “The
influence of the pandemic may last
as long as three years for people in
Wuhan.”
Liu says when a disaster happens,
the public’s attitude usually goes
through three steps — nervous and
terrified first, then angry, before
gradually going back to normal.
“In the first phase, people think
their lives are threatened, and then,
when they realize their lives or work
are unaffected by the disaster, socie-
ty needs an emotional release and
the anger will gradually fade away
over time,” Liu explains.
In Liu’s mind, as transmission
prevention has become the norm,
the public’s mentality also flows
into a new phase.
“Social distancing is still
required, which will affect people’s
emotions. There are occasionally
new cases showing up in some pla-
ces in China, which will still make
people in those locales feel nervous
again,” Liu says.
“The prompt reaction to control
the spread of the pandemic when it
reoccurs will calm local people
more quickly than the first wave,
such as the cluster of cases which
originated at Beijing’s Xinfadi
wholesale market,” he says.
A seven-day self-help online
training camp was launched by
Liu’s team at the end of January. A
special version of the training camp
for medical workers went online on
Feb 23 followed by a version for par-
ents and children.
The training camp takes one per-
son 10 to 20 minutes each day to
learn how to cope with stress and
manage their emotions.
According to Liu, the core content
of the training camp is based on the
courses and intervention plans that
are recommended by the WHO and
the Chinese Psychological Society,
and have been widely applied in
many post-disaster psychological
rebuilding operations worldwide.
“The content is combined with
psychology research literature and
also experiential decompression
training,” Liu adds.
“We also have an online psycho-
logical counseling team. If there
are situations that the person who
takes part in the camp cannot deal
with alone, the specialists will
US ginseng farmers hit hard by trade tensions, COVID-19
CHICAGO — Jiang Mingtao, a
ginseng farmer in Marathon Coun-
ty in the US state of Wisconsin, has
maintained the daily routine of
taking care of his ginseng fields,
weeding and spreading hay to pre-
vent small animals from digging
and eating the crop.
Harvest will start in less than a
month, but Jiang is a bit worried.
Trade tensions between China and
the United States have dealt a big
blow to his ginseng cultivation
business, and now the prevailing
COVID-19 pandemic has further
plunged the operation into uncer-
tainty.
“As there is still inventory on the
market, we have postponed many
harvests until next year, and will
probably harvest between a quar-
ter and a half of our ginseng field
(this year),” Jiang says.
Jiang launched Marathon Gin-
seng International in 2010. With
China being a leading consumer of
ginseng, Jiang has been targeting
the Chinese market from the begin-
ning. As of 2015, the company
exported half of its production to
As well as overcoming the physical challenges posed by COVID-19, there is a need
to tackle the psychological fallout from the pandemic, Li Yingxue reports.
Top: Gao Yongzhe (center), a doctor with the department of neurology at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan
University, conducts psychological counseling for visitors with problems related to the COVID-19 pan-
demic in Hubei province on May 14. ZHAO JUN / FOR CHINA DAILY Above: Medical workers at Shenyang
Anning Hospital call on a hotline for psychological issues related to the pandemic in Liaoning province
on Feb 12. YU HAIYANG / CHINA NEWS SERVICE
offer help,” he says.
So far, around 250,000 people
have finished this online training
camp, Liu says.
Liu’s team was founded in 2008.
They helped people affected by the
Wenchuan earthquake. The team
includes six tutors and a dozen stu-
dents.
Liu says the strength of one team
is not enough. Therefore, their team
produced a list of more than 800
psychology service institutions
across the country and trained them
Left: Ginseng farmer Jiang Mingtao at his company in Marathon County in the US state of Wisconsin. Right: Jiang inspects his ginseng field
on Thursday. PHOTOS BY LIU YA’NAN / XINHUA
the Chinese market.
The stay-at-home orders
imposed at the early stage of the
COVID-19 pandemic reduced the
number of workers at the farm.
Then Chinese buyers and US pro-
ducers could not travel freely. “We
have not received any Chinese pur-
chase orders so far, so the export
to be able to help their local commu-
nities.
Technology has also played an
important role in this operation.
More than 1,000 smart bracelets
have been distributed to medical
workers, recovered COVID-19
patients and community staff.
“The bracelet can warn people if he
or she has a violent mood swing and
push some information about how to
manage the emotions,” Liu says.
Besides helping in Wuhan, Liu’s
team has also opened a nationwide
side of the business has been
severely hurt.”
Jiang attended the China Inter-
national Import Expo in 2018 and
2019, where he got acquainted with
many Chinese businesses and cli-
ents and signed letters of intent for
cooperation.
“Due to quarantine policies, I
hotline for people to ask for help.
More than 400 experienced psycho-
logical counselors take shifts to
answer the calls.
Li Huijie, a member of the Nation-
al Alliance of Psychological Aid, is
one of the volunteers manning the
phones for the hotline.
Li stresses that it’s normal for the
public to experience feelings of wor-
ry, fear and anxiety, and people
should understand and accept this
situation.
“When a crisis happens, some peo-
cannot attend this year’s CIIE,”
Jiang says sullenly. “But our distri-
bution partners in China may
attend the fair.”
Wisconsin ginseng enjoyed a
good reputation in China. In 2017,
before tariffs started, the state
exported 14 million dollars worth
of ginseng to China alone, up more
ple will exhibit certain emotional
and physical behaviors they would
otherwise not display. It is a normal
reaction for people in an abnormal
situation,” Li explains.
Li says the pandemic has affected
the five basic needs of people — a
sense of safety, trust and control,
self-esteem and affinity. As the pan-
demic is brought under control and
the economy begins to recover, the
psychological impact of the pan-
demic is fading.
“Each person should have a little
knowledge about psychological crisis
intervention and learn some scientif-
ic methods to self-regulate when a
crisis happens,” she says, adding that
once people feel they can’t live their
normal life, with regular social con-
tacts or a feeling of happiness, they
can ask for professional help.
According to Liu, so far there are
more than 6,500 cases of people who
have contacted the hotline asking
for help.
Jiang Changqing, chief physician
at department of clinical psychology,
Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital
Medical University, says that the ten-
sion in intimate relationships and
parent-child relationships is a prom-
inent problem alongside anxiety and
fear for the public during the pan-
demic.
“For people, the social functions
include work, interpersonal commu-
nication and also family life, and if
people only put focus on one aspect,
it’s easy to cause problems,” Jiang
explains.
Jiang says a key rule to regulate
the relationships between parents
and their children or couples is to
than 16 percent from 2016. The US’
total ginseng exports were valued
at about 30 million dollars in 2017,
and China was the biggest buyer.
Now there are few flights
between China and the US, and
Wisconsin’s ginseng export to Chi-
na has decreased dramatically.
“Many ginseng farmers (here) plan
CHINA DAILY
maintain self-censorship and ask
whether the goal and the action are
consistent.
“Usually, in most families, the
intention is good, so people need to
reflect whether their behavior is
good or bad, and make sure to act in
a way that is conducive to accom-
plishing what they want,” Jiang says.
“For example, if you want your
child to make progress, by making
too many negative comments, you
may not achieve the desired goal,” he
says.
During the pandemic, for people
who live alone, Jiang says they need
to keep in touch with their family
and friends, as close family contact
and social support is an important
foundation to a sense of security.
Jiang says that, even though the
pandemic has limited people’s
sphere of activities, the public
should try to maintain their regular
schedule and get their life back to
normal.
“Rules and a sense of control is a
dose of good medicine for anxiety
and panic,” Jiang says.
He advocates for people to “self-
check” by communicating with
friends and family to find out wheth-
er or not they are exhibiting any
change in their behavior, or acting
more — or less — cautious than they
should be.
“For example, if someone is wear-
ing a protective suit, an N95 mask
and goggles to go out while others
are just wearing masks, it shows
signs of over cautious behavior,”
Jiang says.
As well as learning the procedures
for, and scientific reasons behind,
the various pandemic prevention
measures, practice is another way to
strengthen the sense of control.
“This can be seen with medical
workers in Wuhan. They may have
felt a bit afraid when they entered
the negative pressure ward to treat
the COVID-19 patients, but after
practicing for several days, they
became sure that if they followed the
necessary safety measures step-by-
step, they wouldn’t be infected,”
Jiang says.
Jiang arrived in Wuhan on Feb 20,
to help the medical assistance team
from Beijing. According to him,
around 28 percent of the medical
workers often have insomnia or
their sleep is restless and filled with
vivid dreams, and less than half of
them have problems with their
appetite or digestion due to the pres-
sure and nervousness they experi-
enced.
Liu and his team arrived in
Wuhan on March 3. Their main
focus was the medical workers and
the COVID-19 patients.
Liu later noticed that the city’s
front line community workers were
also under a lot of pressure during
the pandemic, so his team decided to
expand their scope of help.
According to Liu, Zhang Dingyu,
head of Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital,
arranged for all front line medical
workers to take turns in taking two
weeks’ leave.
“The break can help them to deal
with their emotions,” Liu explains.
“Zhang also asked our team to
arrange training for them to
enhance their psychological resil-
ience, as well as to learn how to help
the patients manage their emotions
if there is a second wave of the pan-
demic,” Liu says.
Contact the writer at
liyingxue@chinadaily.com.cn
to retire this year, and are selling
their tractors, planters and gin-
seng-picking machines,” Jiang says.
As for Jiang, he is shifting focus
to sales within the US. At the early
stage of the pandemic, he provided
ginseng tea free of charge to more
than 1,500 local households. He
also promoted wearing masks and
introduced Chinese experiences of
quarantine on the company’s social
media accounts.
“Our Chinese partners sent us
protective masks. We also bought
some. Together we donated these
masks to local hospitals and nurs-
ing homes,” Jiang says.
As for the prospect of the ginseng
industry, Jiang says, “Until the pan-
demic is under control, and until
China-US relationship improves, I
am not optimistic about the gin-
seng industry.”
He notes that ginseng is a niche
product and has a unique presence
in China and the world, and ginseng
cultivation in Wisconsin will contin-
ue, albeit on a smaller scale for now.
XINHUA
 CHINA DAILY
SPORTS
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Little learners leap into fitter future
Summer-camp
boom highlights
shifting priorities
JINAN — Despite being aged just
9, Zhang Yimeng has already been
fencing for over three years with a
club in Jinan, the capital of Shand-
ong province.
The training does not come
cheap, with Zhang’s parents shelling
out 8,800 yuan (about $1,265) annu-
ally for the course. That does not
include expenses for travel, accom-
modation and uniforms when he
participates in competitions away
from home.
“We are glad that Yimeng has
become more independent and con-
fident after fencing for nearly four
years. It’s all worth it,” said his father
Zhang Kan, adding that he will
encourage his younger daughter to
fence too when she turns 5.
Zhang Yimeng’s story mirrors the
boom in China’s sports training
industry.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led
to a broader awareness of the
importance of exercise, with more
and more Chinese parents choosing
sports courses for their kids during
this summer’s vacation.
Twelve-year-old Yang Yu enrolled
in swimming, diving and ski courses
this summer, compared with only
swimming last year.
“Exercising with friends is more
effective than staying at home. More
importantly, exercise makes me gain
less weight,” she told Xinhua after
finishing a session on a ski simulator.
Courses range in price from 1,000
yuan to over 10,000 yuan. Yang’s ski
lessons, for example, cost 1,380 yuan
for a three-day summer camp; a
five-day camp costs 1,680 yuan. Her
swimming courses are priced at
1,500 yuan for 12 classes in a 5-per-
son program, and 1,800 yuan for 10
one-on-one classes. Yang’s parents
have, therefore, spent a sizable
5,000 yuan on their daughter’s phys-
ical education this summer.
Fencing, sailing and equestrian
courses are more expensive than
ball sports and swimming. On the
AMERICAN FOOTBALL
Recalibrating Brady admits to ‘challenging’ countdown
By MURRAY GREIG
murraygreig@chinadaily.com.cn
Two weeks into his first training
camp as a member of the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers, 43-year-old Tom Brady
is feeling a little like a rookie again.
After 20 seasons with the New
England Patriots, the four-time
Super Bowl MVP signed a two-year
free-agent deal in March, so now
he’s in the unfamiliar position of
having to learn and understand
every aspect of a new offense down
to the minutest detail: terminology,
timing and new faces in new places.
The process also involves plenty
of physical maintenance to ensure
he can still perform at the highest
level.
“I’m just glad we’re not playing a
game this Sunday. I’m glad we have
time to prepare,” the three-time NFL
MVP said during a media confer-
ence to mark the opening of Tampa
Bay’s camp.
“I still have to work at it pretty
hard physically; I put a lot of time
and energy into making sure I’m
Scoreboard
BASKETBALL
NBA playoff qualifier in Orlando on Saturday:
Portland 126 Memphis 122
Monday, Aug 17
Denver vs Utah, 1:30 pm
Toronto vs Brooklyn, 4 pm
Boston vs Philadelphia, 6:30 pm
LA Clippers vs. Dallas, 9 pm
Tuesday, Aug 18
Milwaukee vs Orlando, 1:30 pm
Miami vs Indiana, 4 pm
Oklahoma City vs Houston, 6:30 pm
LA Laker vs Portland, 9 pm
BASEBALL
Results of the MLB games on Saturday (home
team in CAPS):
MINNESOTA 4 Kansas City 2, 1st game
St. Louis 5 CHICAGO WHITE SOX 1, 1st game
Kansas City 4 MINNESOTA 2, 2nd game
St. Louis 6 CHICAGO WHITE SOX 3, 2nd game
Cleveland 3 DETROIT 1
Tampa Bay 1 TORONTO 0 (4 innings, rain, sus-
pended)
NY YANKEES 11 Boston 5
Oakland 7 SAN FRANCISCO 6
HOUSTON 2 Seattle 1
Nine-year-old Zhang Yimeng (center) warms up for his fencing class in Jinan, Shandong province, in May.
website of “Happy Summer Camp”,
sailing courses can set parents back
anything from 4,980 yuan to 17,760
yuan.
Wang Zongping, a professor with
Nanjing University of Science and
Technology, noted that many par-
ents have no problem paying for
their children to be academically
tutored, but then fall short in
guiding their kids in terms of physi-
cal education.
Nowadays, though, an increasing
number of parents want their kids
to exercise safely and professionally,
so are willing to spend big on physi-
cal education.
In a survey published by the Peo-
feeling good, in order to perform at
my best. But mentally, I think that’s
been the thing that obviously has its
challenges.
“I think you couple that with the
coronavirus situation and it became
even more difficult, so I think con-
versations we probably would have
had in April, we’re having now and I
think that part is a bit challenging
too. The only thing you can do is
adjust to the situation, adapt the
best way you can.”
With the Bucs’ season-opener set
for Sept 13 when they visit New
Orleans to take on the Saints, Brady
said time is of the essence.
“Put as much time and energy
now as we can into it, and I think the
reality is the clock is ticking on
everybody and we’re going to have
to work as hard as we can and not
waste any minutes of any day trying
to get used to one another and
embrace the challenge. We have to
view it as an opportunity to see what
we can become.”
Arriving in a new city as the face
of the franchise brings its own set of
BALTIMORE 7 Washington 3
Milwaukee 6 CHICAGO CUBS 5 (10 innings)
PHILADELPHIA 6 NY Mets 2
Atlanta 2 MIAMI 1
Pittsburgh at CINCINNATI, ppd
ARIZONA 7 San Diego 6
Texas 6 COLORADO 4
LA Dodgers 6 LA ANGELS 5 (10 innings)
GOLF
Wyndham Championship
Leading scores after Saturday’s third round of
the US PGA Tour Wyndham Championship in
Greensboro, North Carolina (USA unless noted,
par-70):
192 - Kim Si-woo (KOR) 65-65-62
194 - Rob Oppenheim 66-66-62, Doc Redman
67-64-63
195 - Billy Horschel 66-64-65
196 - Jim Herman 66-69-61, Mark Hubbard 67-65-64
197 - Peter Malnati 68-65-64, Webb Simpson
66-66-65
198 - Kevin Kisner 69-64-65, Tyler Duncan 68-64-
66, Zach Johnson 70-67-61, Harold Varner 62-69-
67, Talor Gooch 65-65-68
199 - Im Sung-jae (KOR) 69-64-66, Russell Henley
68-68-63, Jason Kokrak 69-63-67, Harris English
64-67-68
200 - Patrick Reed 65-68-67, Sam Burns 67-68-65,
ple’s Bank of China in early July,
respondents were asked what they
planned to spend more on in the fol-
lowing three months, with educa-
tion (29.8 percent) topping the list
ahead of medical care (28.3 percent).
With many families scrapping
travel plans this summer due to the
epidemic, the number of students
who have enrolled in sports courses
or have been exercising independ-
ently has risen by about 20 percent,
according to another survey.
“Statistics showed that swimming
is still the most popular sport as it
can make your heart and lungs
strong, followed by ball games and
taekwondo,” said Wang Zongping.
Tom Brady prepares to unleash a throw during the Tampa Bay Buc-
caneers’ preseason training camp last Thursday. The Bucs open
their campaign against the New Orleans Saints on Sept 13. AFP
expectations, and Brady said he’s
anxious to prove he’s up to the chal-
lenge while acknowledging the lack
of on-field preparation during the
pandemic has limited his progress.
“I think everyone’s learning every
Dylan Frittelli (RSA) 69-65-66, Roger Sloan (CAN)
62-70-68, Kristoffer Ventura (NOR) 69-68-63
EPGA Celtic Classic
Leading third round scores in the European
Tour’s Celtic Classic, The Celtic Manor Resort,
Newport, Wales on Saturday (GBR/IRL unless
stated, par 71):
198 - Connor Syme 68 67 63
199 - Sam Horsfield 67 64 68
200 - Sebastian Soderberg (SWE) 66 69 65
201 - Andrew Johnston 67 66 68, Adrian Meronk
(POL) 66 71 64, Thomas Detry (BEL) 67 66 68
202 - Callum Shinkwin 68 65 69, Thomas Pieters
(BEL) 64 68 70
203 Wil Besseling (NED) 67 69 67, Cormac Sharvin
71 67 65, Jason Scrivener (AUS) 69 69 65, Marc
Warren 66 72 65, Jake McLeod (AUS) 65 69 69
Ladies Scottish Open
Leading scores after the third round at Renais-
sance Club in North Berwick, Scotland, on Satur-
day:
Azahara Munoz 68-69-69—206
Stacy Lewis 71-66-70—207
Jennifer Song 68-70-70—208
Lydia Ko 70-72-67—209; Cheyenne Knight 72-68-
69—209
Kids shoot hoops during a basketball class in Kunming, Yunnan
province, earlier this month. CHEN XINBO / XINHUA
single day a little bit more,” he said
of COVID-19. “I think you just take
these things one day at a time. I
think we’ve all learned a lot over the
past five or six months.
“I’ve always felt that taking care of
Liu Yu 71-70-69—210; Amy Olson 68-71-71—210
Danielle Kang 71-71-69—211; Emily Kristine Ped-
ersen 68-74-69—211; Minjee Lee 68-73-70—211
Lin Xiyu 72-71-69—212; Nasa Hataoka 73-69-
70—212; Chun In-gee 71-71-70—212; Olivia Cowan
68-71-73—212
Manon De Roey 73-70-70—213; Andrea Lee 69-71-
73—213
Eleanor Givens 74-71-69—214; Hannah Green
72-72-70—214; Dani Holmqvist 72-71-71—214;
Haru Nomura 72-70-72—214; Caroline Inglis
71-71-72—214; Gerina Piller 70-72-72—214; Nicole
Broch Larsen 67-73-74—214
ICE HOCKEY
Results of the National Hockey League playoff
games on Saturday (home team in CAPS):
At Toronto
Boston 3 Carolina 1
Tampa Bay 3 Columbus 2
At Edmonton, Alberta
Arizona 4 Colorado 2
Las Vegas 2 Chicago 1
SOCCER
UEFA Champions League
Results on Saturday:
All matches in Lisbon
ZHU ZHENG / XINHUA
my body was really important. Not
just for football — because it has
been my job — but my quality of life
in the future. You either believe
what you put into your body has an
effect, or that it doesn’t have an
effect.
“I think for me, in my experience,
the better I’ve treated my body, the
better I’ve eaten, the more hydrated
I am, the better treatments I get, the
more sophisticated my workouts
have been, the better my body’s
performed.”
Brady’s first camp with the Bucs
comes exactly 25 years after he was
drafted 503rd overall by Major
League Baseball’s Montreal Expos
(now the Washington Nationals) as
a 6-foot-3 (1.92-meter) catcher at
Junipero Serra high school in San
Mateo, California.
One week after he was drafted,
the Expos happened to be in San
Francisco at Candlestick Park for a
series against the Giants so they
arranged for Brady to come from his
nearby home to take batting prac-
tice with the club.
Quarterfinals
Estadio Jose Alvalade
Manchester City (ENG) 1 (De Bruyne 69) Lyon
(FRA) 3 (Cornet 24, Dembele 79, 87)
Played Friday
Estadio da Luz
Barcelona (ESP) 2 (Alaba 7-og, Suarez 57) Bayern
Munich (GER) 8 (Mueller 4, 31, Perisic 22, Gnabry
27, Kimmich 63, Lewandowski 82, Coutinho 85,
89)
Played Thursday
Estadio Jose Alvalade
RB Leipzig (GER) 2 (Olmo 50, Adams 88) Atletico
Madrid (ESP) 1 (Joao Felix 71-pen)
Played Wednesday
Estadio da Luz
Atalanta (ITA) 1 (Pasalic 27) Paris Saint-Germain
(FRA) 2 (Marquinhos 90, Choupo-Moting 90+3)
Champions League leading goalscorers
(after Saturday’s match)
14: Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
10: Haaland (Dortmund)
7: Gnabry (Bayern Munich)
6: Depay (Lyon), Jesus (Man City), Kane (Totten-
ham), Mertens (Napoli), Sterling (Man City)
5: Benzema (Real Madrid), Icardi (Paris SG), Ilicic
(Atalanta), Martez (Inter Milan), Mbappe (Paris
SG), Son Heung-min (Tottenham), Suarez (Barce-
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 19
Many parents
nowadays value their
kids’ all-round
development,
especially their
character-building
through sports.”
Xin Tingzhong,
Taekwondo and kung fu coach
As well table tennis, 10-year-old
Wang Yuelin took a one-on-one
course in backstroke after getting
the hang of breaststroke.
“Swimming is a life skill and
keeps me fit, so I decided to learn
more strokes,” said Wang Yuelin.
Wang’s coach, Zhang Jingjing,
has been in the swimming training
business for nearly 10 years. She
said about 170 kids have enrolled in
her club this summer, a considera-
ble increase from last year.
“There is a limit on the number of
swimmers because of the new pro-
tocols to contain the virus. The one-
on-one courses will only be available
after mid-August,” said Zhang.
According to the Annual Report
on Chinese Children’s Development
(2019), 58 percent of kids participate
in extra-curricular courses during
summer vacation, with sports
courses ranking third in terms of
participation numbers. Math is the
most popular ahead of artistic pur-
suits, which includes the likes of
painting and dancing.
Xin Tingzhong, a professional
taekwondo and kung fu coach for 18
years in Jinan, predicts that sports
training will further flourish in the
post-coronavirus era.
“Many parents nowadays value
their kids’ all-round development,
especially their character-building
through sports,” Xin said.
“So in the future we are going to
see them spend more on sports.”
XINHUA
“I was traveling with the team and
(scout) John Hughes said he was
bringing in a young catching
prospect,” former Montreal GM
Kevin Malone recalled in a recent
interview with Danny Gallagher,
author of a series of books about the
Expos.
“We thought very highly of Tom,
his stature, his poise. He was very
mature for his age and presence. He
had all the tools we were looking for
to project him as a major-leaguer.
He had the arm strength, he was a
left-handed hitter with power. He
had a good swing. He was cerebral
and analytical.”
Brady was offered a baseball con-
tract, but turned it down because his
father, Tom Sr, wanted him to go to
college and get an education. So
Junior enrolled at the University of
Michigan, posting a 20-5 record
over two seasons as the Wolverines’
starting quarterback.
He was selected by the Patriots
with the 199th overall pick in the
sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft.
The rest, as they say, is history.
lona)
Semifinals line-up (all matches in Lisbon; Kick-off
1900GMT)
Tuesday, Aug 18
Estadio da Luz
RB Leipzig (GER) vs Paris Saint-Germain (FRA)
Wednesday, Aug 19
Estadio Jose Alvalade
Lyon (FRA) vs Bayern Munich (GER)
Final on Aug 23 at Estadio da Luz
TENNIS
WTA Lexington
Results of the semifinals on Saturday (x-denotes
seeding):
Jil Teichmann (SUI) bt Shelby Rogers (USA) 6-3,
6-2; Jen Brady (USA) bt Coco Gauff (USA) 6-2, 6-4
Prague WTA
Results on Saturday (x-denotes seeding):
Quarterfinals
Irina-Camelia Begu (ROM) bt Sara Sorribes Tor-
mo (ESP) 6-2, 4-6, 6-2
Semifinals
Simona Halep (ROM x1) bt Irina-Camelia Begu
(ROM) 7-6 (7/2), 6-3; Elise Mertens (BEL x3) bt
Kristyna Pliskova (CZE) 7-5, 7-6 (7/4)
20 | Monday, August 17, 2020
SPORTS
MASS FITNESS
Idols not idle as celebs sweat it out
Dancer Liu Jia takes aim during the men’s archery competition at the Super Novae Games at Nanjing
Olympic Sports Center on the weekend. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
The men’s 3-on-3 basketball competition was one of the highlights of the third edition of the Super
Novae Games in Nanjing over the weekend. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
BOXING
Meng’s date with destiny confirmed
By MURRAY GREIG
murraygreig@chinadaily.com.cn
Meng “Cold Blood” Fanlong will
challenge IBF light heavyweight
champion Artur Beterbiev of Russia
for two world titles on Sept 25 in
Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Beterbiev (15-0, 15 KOs) was sup-
posed to defend against the 2012
Chinese Olympian on March 28 in
Quebec City, Canada, but the fight
was postponed because of the coro-
navirus pandemic.
In Beterbiev’s last outing, 11
months ago, he stopped WBC champ
Oleksandr Gvozdyk (17-1, 14 KOs) in
the 10th round in Philadelphia.
Meng (16-0, 10 KOs), said in Feb-
ruary he hoped his title challenge
would provide China with a much-
needed morale boost.
“My fellow citizens need some-
thing to help them escape from this
very difficult time,” said the 32-year-
BASEBALL
Indians enraged after partying pitchers violate virus rules
By MURRAY GREIG
It’s going to take some time for
pitchers Mike Clevinger and Zach
Plesac to regain the trust of their
Cleveland Indians teammates.
Clevinger and Plesac violated
Major League Baseball’s COVID-19
protocols two weeks ago in Chicago,
and fellow pitcher Adam Plutko
didn’t mince his words when detail-
ing the sentiment toward them in
the Indians clubhouse.
“They hurt us bad. They lied to us.
They sat here and publicly said
things they didn’t follow through
old southpaw from Chifeng, Inner
Mongolia.
“I hope to bring some positivity,
happiness and joy to them with this
fight. I want to put pride in their
hearts.”
Meng won a lopsided decision
over Germany’s Adam Deines in
June 2019 in Macao to become
Beterbiev’s mandatory challenger.
In his last outing, on Oct 5 in the US,
Meng stopped Mexico’s Gilberto
Rubio in two rounds.
Meng was guaranteed the largest
purse of his career for the title bout
after Beijing-based Longjoy Sports
won the initial purse bid, offering
$1.9 million to eclipse Top Rank’s
$1.315 million offer.
After Longjoy defaulted on its bid,
Las Vegas-based Top Rank took over
the promotion and guaranteed
Beterbiev 65 percent ($854,750)
while Meng was guaranteed 35 per-
cent ($460,250).
on. I’ll let them tell you how they’re
gonna earn our trust back; I don’t
need to put words in their mouths,”
Plutko said on the weekend.
Both pitchers were placed on
MLB’s restricted list.
Plesac was sent home after the
Indians learned he left the quaran-
tined hotel in Chicago to celebrate
his victory on Aug 8. Later it
emerged that he was accompanied
by Clevinger on the night out. Both
players have since issued apologies.
“I would like to apologize to my
teammates, the entire Cleveland
organization and all of our fans for
“I am truly honored to be fighting
Beterbiev for the championship
belts; I have worked very hard to earn
the mandatory position and I plan on
being the first Chinese light heavy-
weight champion in boxing history,”
Meng said when the deal was final-
ized. “This is just the beginning.”
The 35-year-old Beterbiev, who
lives and trains in Montreal, is box-
ing’s only current champion with a
perfect knockout percentage. He’ll be
looking to score his 16th consecutive
KO in his fourth defense of the IBF
175-pound (79 kilograms) title that he
captured in 2017 by stopping Germa-
ny’s Enrico Koelling.
To earn the No 1 ranking with the
IBF, Meng KO’d Chris Eppley of the
US and Frank Buglioni of England
before decisioning Deines.
Tyson doubts
Now that former undisputed
heavyweight champion Mike Tyson’s
my actions,” Plesac said, via The
Athletic. “I realize I made a poor
choice to leave the hotel, which
broke protocols and could have
endangered other people.
“I understand that in these times
of uncertainty, I need to be more vig-
ilant and responsible and I am
determined to earn my teammates’
forgiveness and get back to work.”
Clevinger was likewise repentant,
saying: “There is an implicit trust
that each of my teammates share as
we navigate a season during this
pandemic, and I broke that trust. In
Chicago, I made the mistake of vio-
Stars do battle at Super Novae Games
to entice fans off couch and into action
By SHI FUTIAN
shifutian@chinadaily.com.cn
China’s celebrity sports enthusi-
asts sweated it out over the weekend
as the Super Novae Games returned
to energize the nation.
Staged at Nanjing Olympic Sports
Center in the capital city of Jiangsu
province, Tencent’s 27-hour live
broadcast featured 127 entertain-
ment stars, including pop idols, rap-
pers and actors. They battled it out
in sprinting, high jump, archery, 3x3
basketball, swimming, rhythmic
gymnastics, Chinese Wushu, tug of
war and e-sports.
And while their performance lev-
els were not quite up to professional
standard, the celebrities were cer-
tainly not there to mess around. The
stars showed different, often sur-
prising, sides to their characters on
the sports field, while fans were
encouraged to cheer on their idols
and try out the sports for them-
selves, with the main aim of the
Games being to promote fitness
among the younger generation.
Deng Yaping was the contest-
ants’ head coach for the second
year running, with the four-time
Olympic table tennis champion
ably assisted by 2008 Beijing Olym-
pics archery gold medalist Zhang
Juanjuan and hurdler Shi Dong-
peng, who won silver at the 2010
Asian Games.
Deng hailed the standard of this
year’s celebs as the best yet.
“Technically speaking, our star
athletes are becoming more and
more professional than previous
editions of the event,” she said.
“As singers or actors, their jobs are
to put on a show on the stage. How-
ever, in sports, it’s very different. In
sports competitions, you don’t need
to talk too much, and you will have
to fight with the best efforts you
have. You can see their will to win
through their facial expressions and
every eye contact.
“I used to think they were just
here for fun. However, what
shocked me is their thirst for victory.
They are not professional athletes,
but their competitive spirit is what
has impressed me. Some even got
injured during the competition, but
they would not give up or simply
eight-round exhibition against
ex-four-division champ Roy Jones Jr
has been postponed from Sept 12 to
Nov 28, at least one of their contem-
poraries thinks it’s a bad sign.
Former IBF, WBA and WBC
super-middleweight champion Carl
Froch suspects that the postpone-
ment could cause the 54-year-old
Tyson to lose patience and start foul-
ing Jones once the bell rings.
Moreover, they will be wearing
16-ounce gloves, which are much
bigger than the 10-ounce gloves typ-
ically used for heavyweight match-
es. Englishman Froch said it’s going
to be a lot harder for Tyson to dis-
patch Jones with gloves that large,
and he might not be able to do it.
Jones, 51, fought just two years
ago, easily beating Scott Sigmon by a
10-round unanimous decision in
February 2018. Tyson hasn’t fought
since June 2005 when he lost to Kev-
in McBride by a six-round stoppage.
lating the protocols but the biggest
mistake of all was not immediately
coming clean to my teammates.
“I owe them better. I now realize
that by even exposing myself to just
one person more than necessary, I am
putting myself, my teammates, the
guys I compete against, the umpires,
the staff, the Indians organization as
well as the game that I love at risk.
“There is no excuse for my
actions, and I can only take respon-
sibility and learn from my mistakes.
Moving forward, I promise my
actions will reflect a full under-
standing of the protocols set in place
Table tennis legend Deng
Yaping says the Super Novae
Games are a great way of
engaging young people with
marginal sports.
quit easily.”
Deng, though, says the event
serves a more important function.
“It will undoubtedly boost the
promotion of many marginal sports,
allowing more people to be interest-
ed in certain sports that they might
not have been so familiar with,” she
added.
“For example, rhythmic gymnas-
tics has been a good match for our
idols. Many of them have had dance
training and some even performed
ballet. For sure, it’s more challenging
to practice rhythmic gymnastics, but
our stars have the talent to give it a
go. That shows the beauty of both the
sports and our girls.
“This is a good way as the idols
will encourage their fans and more
young people to embrace these
sports. We want these sports to
become part of people’s lifestyles.
The youngsters will follow their
idols and get out of the house to
exercise, play ball games and make
more friends.”
Deng has been especially
impressed by pop star Li Wenhan,
who last year finished second in the
men’s 50-meter swimming, and this
year participated in the mixed
4x50m relay in the pool as well as
the tug of war.
“Actually I don’t have much time to
have professional training due to my
Meng Fanlong (left) will take on IBF light heavyweight champion
Artur Beterbiev in Russia on Sept 25. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
“Will Mike lose the plot like he did
against (Evander) Holyfield and bite
a chunk of Roy’s ear off?’ Froch said
on his Froch on Fighting podcast.
“There could be a danger if he
gets really frustrated. Those
16-ounce gloves are going to be
more difficult to knock his oppo-
nent out. And they’re going to be
breathing out of their a** after
while I continue my passion for
competing for the incredible Indi-
ans fans and the city that I adore.”
Plutko wasn’t alone in chastising
the pair. Indians shortstop Francis-
co Lindor posted a strong statement
on Twitter that focused on their
decisions and the need for all MLB
players to be selfless in observing
the quarantine rules.
Before the departure of Plesac
and Clevinger, Cleveland’s pitching
staff had posted an American
League-best 2.04 ERA.
The controversy overshadowed
this week’s 100th anniversary of
CHINA DAILY
work. But I always keep exercising
and maintain a good physical condi-
tion,” said Li.
“Being a professional athlete is
really hard. It demands daily train-
ing and athletes need to have
extraordinary perseverance. I just
hope more people can take up
sports as it greatly benefits your
body.”
Li’s efforts in the pool are having
the desired effect on his fans, with
Beijing office worker Mu Yan among
those now raring to take the plunge.
“I knew that Li Wenhan had
swam since he was a boy and he con-
tinued exercising after he became a
pop star,” she said. “He is now a pop
idol with many sports skills like
swimming, basketball, table tennis
and surfing.
“As I’m an office worker, I don’t
have much time to do sports. Now I
have realized the importance of
health and I push myself to keep
training at the gym half an hour in
the afternoon. Li said that the habit
of sports gave him good health and
perseverance. Now I’m waiting for
the reopening of the swimming pool,
so I can start to learn how to swim.”
Fitness first
The COVID-19 pandemic has
made 2020 a particularly tough year
for the sports industry worldwide,
with major events such as the Tokyo
Olympics postponed or canceled.
The public have also seen their exer-
cise routines curtailed, however
with the epidemic now under con-
trol in China, sports are returning to
people’s lives.
To help teenagers get back on the
sports field, the Super Novae Games
this year launched an initiative enti-
tled “Bring the playground back
home”. In addition, an online chal-
lenge called “Super Novae Games
fans sports meet” is aimed at a wider
audience and encourages people to
run, dance and do push-ups or
planks at home.
“The pandemic has made people
focus more on health and an impor-
tant way to increase our body’s
resistance to diseases is to keep
doing sports,” said Deng.
“Now sports are coming back to
our lives and more sports venues are
reopening to the public. I know a fit-
ness center in Zhengzhou that
reopened in June and it welcomed
much more people compared with
the same time last year.”
three or four rounds, too.
“Tyson smokes, and that’s a bad
habit for a boxer who needs to have
the full lung power to be able to fight
hard for an extended period. What
happens if he’s unable to knock
Jones out quickly? Does he then fall
apart like he did in his losses to
Holyfield and Lennox Lewis? I think
it’s highly possible.”
another dark day in Cleveland base-
ball history.
On Aug 16, 1920, Indians short-
stop Ray Chapman registered two
doubles in his first two trips to the
plate against the New York Yankees.
Through four innings, he also stole
two bases, scored two runs, made
two put-outs, was credited with two
assists and committed two errors.
During plate appearances in the
third and fifth innings, he was
struck by a pitch. The second one, a
fastball served up by Yankees fire-
baller Car May, struck him in the
temple and killed him.