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05/09/2019

Chinese teenager who lost her hair from stress of chasing grades sparks debate about pressure on young people

Doctor who helped 13-year-old girl recover says demands on her to do well at school induced condition
Weibo poll reveals that 68 per cent of participants had hair loss in school

Studies and polls suggest stress leading to hair loss is a big health concern in China. Photo: Alamy

When the 13-year-old girl walked into the hospital in southern China around eight months ago, she was almost completely bald, and her eyebrows and eyelashes had gone.

“The patient came with a hat on and did not look very confident,” Shi Ge, a dermatologist at the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, told the Pear Video news portal.

The girl had done well in primary school but her grades dropped in middle school, Shi said.

Under parental pressure to do well, the girl pushed herself harder, but the stress resulted in severe hair loss.

With time and medical treatment, the teen’s hair grew back but her story left a lasting impression, raising awareness of the increasing number of young people in China seeking treatment for stress-induced hair loss, according to Chinese media reports.

Jia Lijun, a doctor at Shenzhen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, told state-run Xinhua News Agency in May that aside from genetics, factors such as stress in work, study and life would result in endocrine imbalances which affected the cycle of hair growth.

And in January, a survey of 1,900 people by China Youth Daily found that 64.1 per cent of people aged between 18 and 35 said they had hair loss resulting from long and irregular working hours, insomnia, and mental stress.

Hits and myths: stress and hair loss

Shi said that an increasing number of young people had come to her for treatment of hair loss in recent years, and those working in information technology and white-collar jobs were the two biggest groups.

“They usually could not sleep well at night due to high pressure or had an irregular diet because of frequent business trips,” Shi said.

A Weibo poll on Wednesday revealed that 68 per cent out of 47,000 respondents said they had had serious hair loss when they were in school. About 22 per cent said they noticed after starting their careers, while only 5 per cent said it happened after they entered middle age.

More than half of the Chinese students who took part in a China Youth Daily survey said they had hair loss. Photo Shutterstock

Research published in 2017 by AliHealth, the health and medical unit of the Alibaba Group, found that 36.1 per cent of Chinese people born in the 1990s had hair loss, compared to the 38.5 per cent born in the 1980s. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.

The teenager’s experience sparked a heated discussion on Weibo, with users recounting similar cases and some voicing their panic.

“My niece’s hair was gone while she was in high school and has not recovered, even after she graduated from university. This makes her feel more and more inferior,” one user said.

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Another said: “I lost a small portion of my hair during the high school entrance exam, but that is already scary enough for a girl in her adolescence.”

“I had to quit my job and seek treatment,” said a third, who adding that he also suffered from very serious hair loss a few months ago because of high pressure.

Source: SCMP

Posted in adolescence, Alibaba Group, Alibaba Group Holding, AliHealth, at school, business trips, careers, chasing grades, China Youth Daily, Chinese people, Chinese teenager, condition, debate, demands, dermatologist, do well, doctor, entrance exam, frequent, Guangzhou, hair loss, health and medical unit, her hair, high pressure, High school, induced, inferior, Information technology, irregular diet, job, lost, middle age, middle school, myths, pressure, primary school, quit, recover, school, Shenzhen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Sixth Affiliated Hospital, south china morning post, sparks, stress, Sun Yat-Sen University, treatment, Uncategorized, university, Weibo, white-collar jobs, Xinhua News Agency, young people | Leave a Comment »

18/08/2019

Chinese toys boom being fuelled by adult male consumers of collectibles

Adult consumers are fuelling a boom in China’s toy collectibles market
Men are spending thousands of dollars on figurines to express their identity, boost their street cred, and indulge their inner kid

Chinese collector Don Tang with artist Jason Freeny at the Jason Freeny X-Soul Station exhibition in Shanghai. Photo: Don Tang

Don Tang is proud of his toys. So much so that the Shanghai resident, 32, puts them on display both in his home and in the office of the company he runs.

And there are plenty to display. Tang, 32, has some 100 collectibles and the number is growing all the time. Each month he sets aside 2,000 yuan (US$280) to buy the top trending toys, newest releases, or one-of-a-kind items – either from physical stores, online or at toy conventions in China.

But the toys are not connected to his work as the CEO of a firm in the intellectual property sphere. They are simply a hobby, albeit one Tang takes seriously. The crowning jewel of his collection? A 6,000 yuan KAWS action figure bought in Tokyo, Japan.

“When I return home from work each day, I get to see [my toys] and it puts me in a good mood,” says Tang, who realises some people might not get the appeal of his hobby, but says it is an “addictive” pursuit and a way of appreciating designs and craftsmanship. Whether it’s SpongeBob SquarePants, Hello Kitty or Sesame Street, each toy has its own distinct, “lovable, cute, and personalised” identity, he says.

Remind you of someone? Hambuddha is a designer figurine made by Mighty Jaxx of Singapore that is aimed at the adult market. Photo: Mighty Jaxx

“When you look back at the toys that you collected at different times, you realise how your own aesthetic, tastes, and preferences have changed over time,” adds Tang, who would never dream of selling his precious collection.

Tang’s toy story is far from unique. Sales of toys and games in China – which produces 80 per cent of all the world’s toys – soared to 324 billion yuan in 2018, up from 135 billion yuan in 2013, according to market research company Euromonitor. Fuelling these sales is a growing army of toy connoisseurs just like Tang.

CASHING IN

Mighty Jaxx, a Singapore-based urban culture company that designs and manufactures collectibles and lifestyle products, is among the many companies benefiting from this surge in demand.

Its Chinese customer base accounts for 25 per cent of its projected revenue of S$10 million (US$7.21 million) for 2019 – and this proportion is expected to hit 40 per cent over the next few years, according to Mighty Jaxx’s founder and CEO, Jackson Aw, 30.

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An avid toy collector himself, Aw first mused over the idea of turning his hobby into a viable business back in 2012. He ventured to Shenzhen in China for one month, knocking on factory doors just for a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the toy production process.

Being one of his first times to China, the mammoth scale of the industry came as a major “culture shock” to Aw.

Mighty Jaxx founder and CEO Jackson Aw. Photo: Toh Ee Ming

“I had always thought that it was just one giant machine that spits out parts and that was it. But there were rows and rows of hundreds of people printing, hand painting, assembling and using different skills just to produce one toy,” the Singaporean says.

Describing the visit as his “greatest education”, Aw was inspired to launch Mighty Jaxx from his bedroom with start-up capital of S$20,000 loaned from a bank through his parents.

Fast forward to today and his online business has worked with major brands such as Warner Brothers, DC Comics, Cartoon Network, MTV and New Balance, and shipped millions of products to collectors in over 50 countries. It is best known for its XXRAY figures, developed in partnership with artist Jason Freeny, which feature dissected Justice League characters such as Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

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But in its early days, the China market had intimidated Aw as a “big anomaly” that was still largely closed off. Aw had found it difficult to navigate the cultural norms and familiarise himself with unfamiliar business models.

Still, sensing China’s potential, his firm embarked on wide-ranging creative collaborations to tailor its offerings to the Chinese market – from creating yin-and-yang themed toys, celestial chicken fairy deities and the “Hambuddha” (a Buddha holding a pearl-shaped hamburger while on a lotus throne).

It also partnered with Chinese artist Chen Wei (who goes by the alias Cacooca) to develop a new Panda Ink collection, which depicts a panda in the midst of an everyday activity or hobby, such as hiking, playing video games or cuddling with cats.

Mighty Jaxx’s ‘Flow by 18 Uppercut’ has a yin and yang theme with white and black halves. Photo: Mighty Jaxx

It has also collaborated with other big-name artists and celebrities trending among Chinese consumers – such as Los Angeles-based dance crew Kinjaz, who found fame in China appearing on dance shows, and ABS, a leading graffiti crew based in Beijing’s 798 Art District – and has an upcoming collaboration with Taiwanese singer Show Luo.

But it is the comic and toy conventions that provide its biggest fans, typically men in their 20s to 40s who flock in from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Aw says these collectors have a huge appetite to splurge on high-end collectibles, which can range in cost from anywhere between US$10 to US$2,000.

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To these collectors, price is of little concern as they are looking for “tangible products to buy and show off their personality” and build their street cred among their friends, though they still prefer to stay under-the-radar about their collection to the general public, Aw says.

Today, Mighty Jaxx’s products are manufactured in nearly 20 different factories in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. It set up its first overseas office in Shanghai last year and is planning to open its second one in Suzhou by the end of 2019, according to Aw.

Besides growing Chinese affluence, Aw credits his company’s success to a greater exposure to Western influences and China’s own unique brand of pop culture taking off domestically.

He points to one of China’s biggest blockbusters Monster Hunt, a fantasy martial arts film of how monsters live among humans.

Mighty Jaxx’s celestial chicken fairy deity is aimed at the Hong Kong and mainland China market. Photo: Mighty Jaxx

“Outside China, you wouldn’t know what the hell it’s about. But the Chinese are creating their own unique narrative and developing their own intellectual property … That’s when we know the demand for original creation in different forms is truly there,” Aw says.

Likewise, consumers live in an age of a “mishmash of pop cultures and crossovers” and “subcultures becoming mainstream”, he says.

Citing how the business has teamed up with Team Hero, a China e-sports team comprising professional computer gamers, to roll out new figurines, Aw says: “It doesn’t mean that tattoo artists, skateboarders don’t buy toys … What seems to be separate demographics are converging to become a multibillion-dollar market.”

Aw says the company is planning to expand from its current business model based on direct selling to collectors, to e-commerce distribution channels like Taobao and Tmall by the end of 2019.

He hopes eventually to set up the firm’s first retail store in Shanghai, as he believes the future lies in experiential retail.

“China has been cultivating that openness in recent decades, and we’re still very curious and excited for new things to happen [in this market],” Aw says. ■

Source: SCMP

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08/07/2019

Supercomputing centers unveil new engine for innovation in China

BEIJING, July 7 (Xinhua) — China has built six National Supercomputing Centers (NSCC) since 2009, serving as a new driver for the country’s innovation, according to the NSCC in north China’s Tianjin Municipality, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the center on Saturday.

Since the establishment of the NSCC in Tianjin was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology in May 2009, other five supercomputing centers were founded one after another in Shenzhen, Jinan, Changsha, Guangzhou and Wuxi respectively.

As the first supercomputing center in China, the NSCC in Tianjin is not only where China’s first petaflop supercomputer the Tianhe-1 is located, but also responsible for developing China’s new generation of the exascale supercomputer the Tianhe-3.

Tianjin has established a complete autonomous information industry including high-performance chips, autonomous control system, high-performance server and database, setting up a model on the transformation of technologic innovation achievements, said Li Xiang, vice president of the National University of Defense Technology.

“The supercomputer has become a symbol of power reflecting the innovative capabilities of China. Next, we will connect these supercomputing centers and share the resources nationwide,” said Mei Jianping, deputy director-general of the Department of High and New Technology of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in Changsha, Department of High and New Technology, Guangzhou, Jinan, Ministry of Science and Technology, National Supercomputing Centers (NSCC), National University of Defense Technology, new engine for innovation, Shenzhen, Supercomputing centers, Tianhe-1, Tianhe-3, Tianjin, Uncategorized, unveils, Wuxi | Leave a Comment »

06/07/2019

China Focus: Peacebuilders in China-Japan friendship

TIANJIN/BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhua) — Even at the age of 100, Yang Enze, one of the founders of China’s optical communication, does not stop his research and teaching as a professor at Tianjin University.

Besides his pioneering achievements as the chief engineer of China’s first optical communication project for practical use in the 1970s, Yang is also known as a survivor and a witness of the war of Japanese aggression against China.

“I was admitted to Wuhan University in 1937, the year when Japanese troops attacked the Lugou Bridge, also known as Marco Polo Bridge, on the outskirts of Beijing, on July 7,” said the senior recalling the start of his academic study.

The incident marked the beginning of Japan’s full-scale war against China during World War II and triggered China’s full-scale resistance against the invasion.

Ahead of the 82nd anniversary of the incident that falls on Sunday, Yang said because of the war, his university in central China’s Hubei Province was relocated to southwestern province of Sichuan to avoid the enemy forces. “Even in Sichuan, there were a lot of Japanese bombings, but none of the students missed any of the classes as long as there was no air-raid siren,” he recalled.

It was at that time he and many of his peers cemented the belief that the country needed advanced science and technology for reconstruction and revival.

“I have always kept in mind late chairman Mao Zedong’s words that it was Japanese militarists’ crime that was to blame for the war, not Japanese civilians, ” Yang said, noting that he still gets in touch with many Japanese scholars.

He established the first optical communication laboratory in Tianjin in 1985, when he was invited to teach at Tianjin University. In Yang’s career, he has made friends with several leading experts from Japan at international conferences and even kept friendship with some of them.

Also in Tianjin, Morita Naomi, a Japanese language teacher in Nankai University, works as a consultant to the school’s research institute of Zhou Enlai-Daisaku Ikeda.

“By involving in the research of the friendship between the late Chinese premier and the Japanese philosopher, I want to search for the core factors that help consolidate the friendship between the two peoples,” said Naomi.

She came to Nankai to pursue a master-degree study in Modern Chinese and Chinese Literature in 2010 and has stayed ever since.

When she first arrived, she had troubles even in learning Chinese phonics. Now she can read and speak Chinese fluently, write beautiful Chinese characters, and study ancient Chinese literature independently.

As a teacher, she feels frustrated that most of her Chinese students are more likely to be attracted by Japanese animation and games rather than Japanese literature.

According to the school’s statistics, nearly half of the undergraduates in the 2019 class of Japanese major chose to work in Japanese-funded enterprises or Japanese-related enterprises after graduation.

Naomi said Japanese visitors to China are more likely to choose destinations like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Peking University in Beijing impresses young Japanese most.

According to a report released by the China Tourism Academy, China received 2.69 million Japanese visitors in 2018, making Japan China’s fourth largest source of foreign tourists. In the same year, Chinese made 9.06 million outbound visits to Japan as a direct destination.

The academy released the report at the 2019 China-Japan Tourism Forum Dalian held on May 26, which focused on promoting win-win cooperation on cultural exchanges and tourism between the two countries.

China and Japan agreed to push forward bilateral relations along the right track of peace, friendship and cooperation, at the summit of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies held in Osaka, Japan, in June.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and Japan has also entered the Era of Reiwa. It is also the China-Japan Youth Exchange Promotion Year, for promoting friendship and cooperation in a wide range of areas between the two peoples.

“We keep the wartime memory not because we bear the hatred, but because we want the younger generations to cherish what they own today and move towards a better future,” said 70-year-old Zhen Dong, who on Friday visited an exhibition on Beijing’s past, held in Beijing Municipal Archives.

Zhao Hongwei, a professor with Tokyo-based Hosei University, said when it comes to the bilateral relations between China and Japan, it is very important to promote the free trade agreement and expand the markets of both sides.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in air-raid siren, ancient Chinese literature, Beijing, Beijing Municipal Archives, chairman Mao Zedong, China Tourism Academy, China-Japan friendship, China-Japan Tourism Forum, China-Japan Youth Exchange Promotion Year, Dalian, Era of "Reiwa", Group of 20 (G20), Guangzhou, Hosei University, hubei province, Japan, Japanese bombings, Modern Chinese and Chinese Literature, Nankai University, Osaka, Peacebuilders, Peking University, People's Republic of China (PRC), Shanghai, sichuan province, Tianjin University, Uncategorized, war of Japanese aggression, Zhou Enlai-Daisaku Ikeda | Leave a Comment »

05/07/2019

China still committed to getting rid of ‘big, foreign and weird’ place names

Civil affairs ministry reaffirms plan to eradicate names that ‘violate the core values of socialism, damage national confidence’
One man says it reminds him of the dark days of the Cultural Revolution

Beijing wants to eradicate place and property names, like “East Rome’s Garden”, that are influenced by foreign or “weird” words. Photo: Weibo

Beijing has reiterated its commitment to rid Chinese cities of “big, foreign and weird” property and place names, sparking a backlash from the public.

The campaign began last year when six government departments introduced a joint policy requiring provincial and county authorities to identify all such properties within their jurisdictions and rename them by the end of March.

On Friday, the Ministry of Civil Affairs reaffirmed its support for the plan, but reminded local governments to implement it “prudently and appropriately”.

Many Chinese properties, especially hotels and apartment buildings, incorporate famous foreign places, like Manhattan, California or Paris, into their names, but under the new rule they all have to go. According to a report by local newspaper Sanqin Metropolis Daily, in one city in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province, at least 98 apartment projects, hotels, townships, communities and office towers need to be rebranded.

Many Chinese properties, like the Vienna International Hotel, incorporate famous foreign places into their names. Photo: Weibo

But for some people, the plan is nothing more than a waste of time and money.

“If projects are forced to change their names, what about the name on the property certificate, the enterprise licence and tax registration? Do they have to be changed too?” asked Zhu Yun, a woman who lives in Guangzhou, the capital of south China’s Guangdong province.

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“And what’s the standard for the new names, and who’s going to do the renaming? It’s just a waste of people’s energy and money, and will do nothing for the national culture or confidence.”

Zhu Min, an octogenarian who also lives in Guangdong, said the scheme had echoes of a darker time in China’s history.

“It reminds me of the bad times of the Cultural Revolution,” he said. “At that time, a great number of streets, roads and stores were forced to rename, because they contained elements of old customs and old culture.”

The debate has also been raging online, with tens of thousands of people airing their views on social media.

“Cultural and national confidence is about respect for multiculturalism,” one person wrote on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.

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Despite the outcry, the civil affairs ministry said the implementation of the scheme was “an important measure … to carry forward the national and local culture”, Xinhua reported.

“The relevant regulations and guidelines of the campaign should be strictly observed to prevent the campaign from being expanded in an arbitrary manner,” it said.

The plan announced last year stated that “big, foreign, weird” place names and those based on homonyms “violate the core values of socialism, damage national confidence, and affect the production and lives of the people, and must be rectified and cleaned up”.

Source: SCMP

Posted in Beijing, big, foreign and weird, California, China still committed, Cultural Revolution, East Rome’s Garden, getting rid of, guangdong province, Guangzhou, Manhattan, Ministry of Civil Affairs, Paris, place names, Sanqin Metropolis Daily, shaanxi province, Tsinghua University, Uncategorized, Vienna International Hotel, Weibo, Xi'an | Leave a Comment »

28/06/2019

Xinhua Headlines: China-Africa trade expo to forge closer economic partnership

Justin Yifu Lin, former senior vice president and chief economist at the World Bank, delivers a speech at the China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo in Changsha, central China’s Hunan Province, June 27, 2019. (Xinhua/Xue Yuge)

by Xinhua writers Cao Kai, Chu Yi, Yang Jian and Zhang Yujie

CHANGSHA, June 27 (Xinhua) — The first China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo opened Thursday in Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan Province, in a move to forge closer economic ties between the largest developing country and the largest developing continent.

The three-day event has attracted more than 10,000 guests and traders, including those from 53 African countries, according to the organizing committee.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory letter.

The expo, announced at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) last September, was established to provide a platform for deepening economic and trade cooperation between the two sides, he stressed.

It is hoped that the two sides will strengthen coordination to better implement the eight major initiatives put forward at the Beijing summit of the FOCAC, actively explore new paths for cooperation, open up new points of growth for collaboration, and promote China-Africa economic and trade cooperation to a new level, Xi said.

“Industrial development and free trade amongst ourselves will foster faster growth for our mutual benefit,” said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at the opening ceremony. “This Forum should, among others, enable us to devise ways of turning these rays of hope into a reality.”

Hailing the long-term friendship with Africa, Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Qian Keming said at the expo that bilateral trade and economic cooperation should be practical and concrete to meet the development needs of African countries in areas such as infrastructure and talent cultivation.

China saw 3 percent year-on-year growth of foreign trade with African countries in the first five months this year, hitting 84.8 billion U.S. dollars. China’s direct investment to the continent has increased by 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in the past five months, up 20 percent year on year, according to Qian.

According to Assome Aminata Diatta, Senegal’s Minister of Trade and SMEs, China is an ideal partner for Africa to improve its capacity building when China is seeking higher-quality growth driven by innovation.

Bringing modern production lines to Africa, especially in the special economic zones, will likely provide tens of millions of jobs for Africa, accelerate its industrialization and improve the trade structure between China and Africa, Diatta said.

China has set a good example for other developing countries, especially those in Africa which, having a lot in common with China, may benefit from mutual complementarity in the area of development, said Justin Yifu Lin, former senior vice president and chief economist at the World Bank.

The experience, wisdom and programs that China will offer are very good reference for African countries that are now eager to work themselves out of poverty and pursue development, Lin said.

After the opening ceremony, 13 cooperation projects involving eight African countries were signed, worth a total of more than 2.5 billion U.S. dollars.

Conferences, seminars, forums and exhibitions focusing on agriculture, trade, investment and infrastructure construction will be held during the expo, with experts sharing views on closer bilateral exchanges.

The expo will feature exhibition areas covering more than 40,000 square meters, including national pavilions and display areas for enterprises that showcase the achievements and opportunities of China-Africa economic and trade cooperation.

TRADE AND INVESTMENT

With the theme “Win-Win Cooperation for Closer China-Africa Economic Partnership,” the expo, which will become a biennial event, will open a new chapter in the history of bilateral trade.

“Nigeria has a lot of non-oil products of high quality and we want China to buy more,” Uduak M. Etokowoh, an official with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, told Xinhua.

Nigerian gemstones, Namibian oysters, Kenyan coffee and tea as well as South African wine are attracting many Chinese visitors at the expo.

“We used to export leather materials to Italy and Spain, who now have a wobbling economy,” said Nigerian businessman Mustapha Tijjani Garo. “We are now looking east for the market.”

China has been the largest trading partner of Africa for ten consecutive years. In 2018, trade volume between China and Africa amounted to 204.2 billion U.S. dollars, up 20 percent year on year.

China’s imports of non-resource products from Africa have increased significantly. In 2018, China’s imports from Africa went up 32 percent year on year, with the imports of agricultural products up 22 percent.

“Namibian oysters are selling well in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou,” said Rinouzeu Katjingisiua. “We are hoping to find more partners here.”

For Chinese businessmen, with mounting pressure on labor-intensive industries as cost is surging and industrial upgrading is urgently needed, Africa is a great destination.

Wang Lianfang, owner of Qiqihar Quanlian Heavy Forging Company Ltd. based in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, set up an assembling plant in Senegal two years ago to find new markets amid slump domestic demand on agriculture machinery.

“Africa has strong demand,” said Wang, who is selling seeders, tractors and harvesters in the west African country.

“The output is expected to reach 2 billion yuan (291 million U.S. dollars) within 5 years,” said Wang, adding that the company has been working hard for survival in the past three years.

The transfer of labor-intensive industries from China can also give a strong push to Africa’s industrialization and modernization. It will expedite the economic take-off of Africa in the same way as how the industrial transfer had benefited China, Justin Yifu Lin said.

AGRICULTURE AND POVERTY REDUCTION

With abundant resources, a large population and a vast market, Africa is still the poorest continent and falls behind in the overall context of development and is battling poverty and hunger.

For 11 years, paddy land has been Hu Yuefang’s battlefield in Madagascar to fight against poverty.

“Madagascar can reach the self-sufficiency in rice as long as 15 percent of its rice planting area belongs to hybrid varieties,” Hu Yuefang said, adding that the average yield of hybrid rice produced by Chinese technologies in Africa is two to three times more than that of local ones.

Buried in the field all day, the 61-year-old agriculture expert from Yuan Longping High-tech Agriculture Co. Ltd. (LPHT) has been on the frontier of closer agriculture cooperation between the two sides.

He said though he could not come to the scene, he expected fruitful results from the inaugural expo to help tackle challenges and bring shared benefits to China and Africa.

China took deliberate steps using the agriculture sector to transform its economy by setting up favorable agricultural policies, the experience of which can be learned by us to accelerate our development, according to Ugandan Minister of Agriculture Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempijja at the expo.

“We strongly believe that by working together with our Chinese friends through joint venture businesses, investment arrangements and win-win cooperation, the majority of African countries can quickly eradicate poverty,” he said.

Hunger has long been bothering African countries. To help relieve the grain shortage, Chinese agricultural enterprises and experts, like Yuan, have been devoted to the continent for years, sharing China’s wisdom and experience.

“We put red flags on the map to show our steps in promoting hybrid rice in Africa in recent years, which have covered nearly 20 countries in southeastern, western and northern parts of the continent,” said Yao Zhenqiu, LPHT’s deputy general manager.

Guided by Yuan Longping, China’s “Father of Hybrid Rice,” the LPHT expert team has successfully cultivated five kinds of high-yielding hybrid rice seeds suitable for the local soil and climate.

So far, Chinese experts and technicians have carried out more than 300 small-scale projects in nine African countries, promoted 450 agricultural technologies, and trained nearly 30,000 local farmers and technicians, according to Ma Youxiang, an official with China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, at the expo.

“We will continue to send high-level agricultural experts and vocational education teachers to African countries, to further expand training in Africa and help cultivate more talent in agriculture,” he said.

The World Food Programme (WFP), the food assistance branch of the United Nations, is also taking the expo as an opportunity to meet Chinese business society to tackle food problems in Africa.

WFP will work with China to help Africa achieve the goal of ‘Zero Hunger’, said Qu Sixi, WFP China Representative.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in 'Zero Hunger, africa, Beijing, Changsha, China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Summit, China-Africa trade expo, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Chinese Vice Commerce Minister, closer, economic partnership, Father of Hybrid Rice, forge, Guangzhou, Heilongjiang province, Hunan Province, Madagascar, Namibian oysters, Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Qiqihar Quanlian Heavy Forging Company Ltd, Senegal, Shanghai, Ugandan President, Uncategorized, World Bank, World Food Programme (WFP), Yuan Longping High-tech Agriculture Co. Ltd. (LPHT) | Leave a Comment »

22/06/2019

Can China sort its household waste recycling problem by 2020?

After two decades of inaction, Chinese President Xi Jinping has set a deadline for the nation
Small, local successes show education is the key

The sorting of household waste is more of a novelty than the norm in China. Photo: Xinhua

As 60-year-old Xu Mingan hurried to the rubbish bins on her Beijing estate, she saw an abandoned aluminium clothes rack.

Standing in front of several bins labelled “recyclables”, “kitchen waste” and “other waste”, she tore apart the rack, packed the aluminium parts together for selling to the recycling men who drop by occasionally, and threw the remaining plastics randomly into the bins.

“People don’t sort their waste here. We can’t even tell the difference between these bins,” she said.

But unlike other residents of the estate, Xu likes to rummage through the bins, picking up recyclables and selling them, as well as sharing discarded clothes, shoes, quilts and blankets that are still in good condition to the janitors.

The concept of sorting waste is still new in China. Photo: Xinhua

Xu, who has lived in Beijing for 10 years, admitted her family never sorted its household waste, despite two decades of encouragement from the government to do so. Her attitude may be about to change.

As part of the three major tasks Chinese President Xi Jinping has set the nation to achieve by 2020, China has adopted a new plan which aims to build a standard waste sorting system.

China must heed Xi’s call on tackling waste

In 2000, the government chose eight cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, as pilots for the waste sorting plan, but the slogans fell on deaf ears and there have been few signs of progress.

But Xi appears to have given the grass-roots environmental policy his attention once more, delivering a long statement on June 3 about how the country needs to do better on sorting its waste.

“[We should have] extensive education and guidance, to let people realise the importance and necessity of waste sorting; through effective supervision and guidance, [we should] let more people take action and form a good habit on waste sorting,” he said.

In 2000 the Chinese government chose eight cities to pilot a waste sorting plan but it made little progress. Photo: Xinhua

In March 2017, the government set out a plan to formalise a standard system and regulations for rubbish sorting by 2020, with a target for 46 major cities – including Beijing – to recycle 35 per cent of their waste by that year. Three months later, the housing ministry published a notice requiring the cities to classify their waste and build a basic sorting system.

The recent attention from the top leaders has seen a spike in activity among local officials. Shanghai’s Communist Party chief Li Qiang was among the first to release local plans to implement household waste sorting in February, going in front of television cameras to demonstrate how to recycle plastic bottles.

“Waste sorting is a now a political task for local officials, and they might lose their jobs if they can’t do the job well,” said Zhang Yi, an expert with the ministry, which has primary responsibility for waste management.

G20 set to agree on ways to reduce problem of plastics in oceans

But the political will still needs time to translate into actual sorting and recycling, with environmental activists pointing out that little has been done in the two years since the plan was published.

“The vast majority of cities are still at the same level they were two years ago. They just change one bin into two or three bins in the community, but in the end, they are emptied into a single garbage truck,” said Chen Liwen, co-founder of Zero-Waste Villages, a non-government environmental organisation.

Waste classification should be done systematically, she said, with residents, government and sorting companies working together, “but we don’t have that at all”.

“The government should do a vast amount of work on education in the early stages, as well as change the sorting system in the later stage,” she said.

The recent attention from the top leaders has seen a spike in activity among local officials. Photo: Handout

Build the system

There are four main processes in the sorting of waste: dumping, collection, transport and treatment, Chen said. But currently, “not even one city has got the first step, trash sorting, sorted out”.

On May 31, China’s environment ministry published a report into its citizens’ thoughts on green issues and found a large gap between people’s recognition of the problem and their actions.

According to the study, 92 per cent of respondents believe rubbish sorting is important for environmental protection, but only 30 per cent said they were doing it “very well” or “fairly well”.

More than half gave their reasons for not sorting waste as “no classification bins in the community” and “no classification for the garbage truck, so no need to sort in the dumping process”. More than 30 per cent said they did not know how to classify their rubbish.

A government report found a large gap between people’s recognition of environmental problems and their actions. Photo: Handout

Wang Xi, a 29-year-old Beijing resident, said she did not know the standards for “recyclables” and “non-recyclables” so had never sorted her household waste. She only began to understand when she spent some time in Japan.

The difference there, she said, was that there was a guide in every home that showed how to sort waste into the different types – kitchen waste, plastic, paper – and designated collection days for each kind.

“If you mix the garbage, like put plastic in with the kitchen waste, the garbage company will send it back to you,” she said.

“But in China, all the bins are emptied into one garbage truck, so I don’t know what the point is for us to sort it in the first place.”

I don’t know what the point is for us to sort it in the first place – Beijing resident Wang Xi

Chen said the government needed to take the lead in waste sorting as a matter of public interest instead of only paying lip service to the issue.

Zhang said waste classification was a social issue but local officials had so far not paid enough attention to it. Most of the targeted 46 cities now had a plan on paper and had established offices with specific targets but, at the moment, waste sorting remained on paper too, he said.

How China’s ban on plastic waste imports threw recycling efforts into turmoil

Pilot projects in rural areas

Despite the challenges ahead, some projects have shown promising results. Chen has been classifying waste in rural areas since 2017 and today her pilot projects have been replicated across more than 20 villages.

The greatest success has been in Jiangxi province, where 12 villages have been sorting their rubbish since December.

A government official in Dongyang county checks if a woman has correctly sorted her rubbish. Photo: Handout

Wang Qinghai, party chief of Dongyang county in the northeastern part of the province, said preparation work began last June.

“We investigated the scale of household residents in our county, and the number of hotels, restaurants and schools, to estimate the garbage production per capita and how much we could reduce after sorting,” he said.

The hardest part was educating the public, he said. “We organised training and meetings and sent materials, we also guided people when they dumped their garbage.”

Wang said the effect had been very good and people’s understanding of environmental protection and their cooperation with the government had been beyond his expectations.

Beijing struggling to contain its growing garbage problem

According to his estimates, after the introduction of classification system the amount of waste had decreased by 50 per cent. Now, the amount of waste being classified correctly in Dongyang county was over 99 per cent.

A successful waste programme needed the government’s lead and the cooperation of the relevant departments, Wang said. In Dongyang, the agricultural, water resources and urban-rural development departments had all taken part.

As for investment, Zhang estimated China needed to double its financing to introduce sorting facilities and build treatment systems but, speaking from his experience, Wang said waste sorting had not required any extra money.

Zhang remains optimistic that the 46 cities named in the latest waste management plan can achieve their goal by 2020.

“Waste sorting was a big problem in China that hadn’t been solved for nearly two decades, but as our ‘big boss’ pays attention to this, it will be solved,” he said.

Source: SCMP

Posted in aluminium clothes rack, Beijing, Beijing estate, blankets, Chinese President Xi Jinping, clothes, Dongyang county, Guangzhou, household waste, janitors, Jiangxi Province, kitchen waste, other waste, Plastics, quilts, recyclables, recycling men, recycling problem, rubbish bins, Shanghai, Shanghai’s Communist Party chief, shoes, Uncategorized, Zero-Waste Villages | 1 Comment »

11/06/2019

China sees over 6 mln entries, exits during Dragon Boat Festival holiday

BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) — China’s border check agencies saw about 6.13 million inbound and outbound trips made during the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, up 6.3 percent year on year, the National Immigration Administration (NIA) said Monday.

During the holiday that ended Sunday, Chinese mainland residents made more than 3.2 million entries and exits, up 11.3 percent from the previous year, NIA data showed. Entries and exits made by residents from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan stood on a par with the same period last year at about 2.1 million.

Entries and exits made by foreign citizens increased by 5.3 percent to 812,000, according to the NIA.

Compared with major airports in places such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, some small and medium-sized airports reported an obvious rise in their trans-border passenger volumes during the holiday this year, said the NIA, citing that of an airport in the port city of Tianjin surging 28.6 percent.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in Beijing, dragon boat festival, entries, exits, Guangzhou, Holiday, Hong Kong, Macao, Shanghai, Taiwan, Tianjin, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

21/05/2019

China’s green efforts hit by fake data and corruption among the grass roots

Local officials have devised creative ways to cover up their lack of action on tackling pollution
Falsified monitoring information risks directing clean-up efforts away from where they are needed most

China’s efforts to cut pollution are being hampered by local officials who use creative methods to hide their lack of action. Photo: Simon Song

China’s notoriously lax local government officials and polluting companies are finding creative ways to fudge their environmental responsibilities and outsmart Beijing’s pollution inspectors, despite stern warnings and tough penalties.

Recent audit reports covering the past two years released by the environment ministry showed its inspectors were frequently presented with fake data and fabricated documents, as local officials – sometimes working in league with companies – have devised multiple ways to cheat and cover up their lack of action.

Local governments have been under pressure to meet environmental protection targets since Chinese President Xi Jinping made it one of his top three policy pledges in late 2017.

The performance of leading local officials is now partly assessed by how good a job they have done in cleaning up China’s much depleted environment.

According to the reports released this month by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, pollution inspectors have found evidence in a number of city environmental protection bureaus of made-up meeting notes and even instructions to local companies to forge materials.

Cao Liping, director of the ministry’s ecology and environment law enforcement department, said many of the cases uncovered were the result of officials failing to act in a timely manner.

“In some places, local officials didn’t really do the rectification work. When the inspections began, they realised they didn’t have enough time, so they made up material,” he said.

China ‘still facing uphill struggle in fight against pollution’

While some officials are covering up their inaction, others are actively corrupt. According to Guangzhou’s Southern Weekend, since 2012 there have been 63 cases involving 118 people in the environment protection system involved in corruption.

In the southwest province of Sichuan, 32 current and former employees of Suining city’s environmental protection bureau were found to be corrupt, raking in illicit income of 6.32 million yuan (US$900,000).

Fabricated notes

The party committee of Bozhou district in Zunyi, Guizhou province in southern China, was found to have fabricated notes for 10 meetings – part of the work requirement under the new environmental targets – in a bid to cheat the inspectors.

The case was flagged by the environment ministry in a notice issued on May 10, which said party officials in Bozhou lacked “political consciousness … the nature of this case is very severe”.

Watering down results

Environmental officials in Shizuishan, in the northwest region of Ningxia, tried to improve their results in December 2017 by ordering sanitation workers to spray the building of the local environmental protection bureau with an anti-smog water cannon.

The intention was to lower the amount of pollutant particles registered by the building’s monitoring equipment.

The scheme may have gone undetected if the weather had been warmer but the next day a telltale layer of ice covered the building and the chief and deputy chief of the environmental station in the city’s Dawokou district were later penalised for influencing the monitoring results.

1 million dead, US$38 billion lost: the price of China’s air pollution

Similar tactics were deployed in Linfen, in the northern province of Shanxi in March 2017, when former bureau chief Zhang Wenqing and 11 others were found to have altered air quality monitoring data during days of heavy pollution.

The monitoring machine was blocked and sprayed with water to improve the data and Zhang was also found to have paid another person to make sure the sabotage was not captured by surveillance camera.

According to the environment ministry, six national observation stations in Linfen were interfered with more than 100 times between April 2017 and March 2018. In the same period, monitoring data was seriously distorted on 53 occasions.

Zhang was sentenced to two years in prison in May last year for destroying information on a computer.

Bad company

A ministry notice on May 11 flagged collusion by local officials and businesses in Bozhou in southeast China’s Anhui province. Companies were given advance notice of environmental inspections, with instructions to make up contracts and temporarily suspend production in a bid to deceive inspectors.

In Henan province, central China, inspectors found a thermal power company had been using a wireless mouse to interfere with the sealed automatic monitoring system. They were able to remotely delete undesirable data, eliminating evidence of excessive emissions, and only provided selective data to the environment bureau.

Officials in Shandong reprimanded for failing to cut pollution

In another case, from 2017, an environmental inspection group in Hubei province, central China, found a ceramics company had been working with the data monitoring company to alter automatically collected data on sulphur dioxide emissions.

Criminal offence

Cao said that while the cheating by grass-roots officials was serious, the involvement of companies in falsifying data was a major issue that made the work of inspectors even harder.

“Some fraudulent methods are hidden with the help of high technology, so it’s hard for us to obtain evidence. Besides, the environment officials are not totally familiar with these technologies,” he said.

The environment ministry was working on solutions to the problems, he said, adding that falsifying monitoring data was now a criminal offence.

Fake data was particularly serious, he said, because it could directly influence his department’s decisions about where to deploy resources.

Wang Canfa, an environmental law expert at the China University of Political Science and Law, said the problem of fake data could damage the government’s credibility but also prevent it from taking measures in time.

“If the water pollution or air pollution is severe in one place but the local government has said it’s not a big deal, then the investment needed to control the situation might go to other places,” he said.

Zhou Ke, a professor of environment and resources law at Renmin University, said there was an incentive for local officials to cheat because the inspection results were directly related to their career prospects.

Officials ended up cheating or forging materials to protect local interests or their own political achievements, he said.

Source: SCMP

Posted in among, Anhui province, Bozhou, Cao Liping, ceramics company, China University of Political Science and Law, China’s green efforts, Chinese President Xi Jinping, corruption, ecology and environment law enforcement department, environmental law expert, fabricated, fake data, grass roots, Guangzhou, Guizhou Province, Henan province, hit, hubei province, Linfen, local governments, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, professor of environment and resources law, Renmin University, shandong province, Shizuishan, sichuan province, Southern Weekend, Suining city, Uncategorized, Wang Canfa, Zhang Wenqing, Zhou K, Zhou Ke, Zunyi | Leave a Comment »

17/05/2019

I M Pei, Louvre pyramid architect, dies aged 102

I M Pei on the 10th anniversary of The Pyramid of the Louvre, April 1999

I M Pei, the architect behind buildings including the glass pyramid outside the Louvre in Paris, has died aged 102.

Tributes have been pouring in, remembering him for a lifetime of designing iconic structures worldwide.

Pei’s designs are renowned for their emphasis on precision geometry, plain surfaces and natural light.

He carried on working well into old age, creating one of his most famous masterpieces – the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar – in his 80s.

A pragmatic artist

Ieoh Ming Pei was born in Guangzhou in 1917, and moved to the US at the age of 18 to study at Pennsylvania, MIT and Harvard.

He worked as a research scientist for the US government during World War Two, and went on to work as an architect, founding his own firm in 1955.

I M Pei: Iconic buildings across the globe

One of the 20th Century’s most prolific architects, he has designed municipal buildings, hotels, schools and other structures across North America, Asia and Europe.

Qatar's Islamic Museum of Art — Image caption Qatar’s Islamic Museum of Art is one of Pei’s most famous designs

Image caption The architect also designed the Suzhou Museum in China, which was completed in 2006

His style was described as modernist with cubist themes, and was influenced by his love of Islamic architecture. His favoured building materials were glass and steel, with a combination of concrete.

Pei sparked controversy for his pyramid at the Louvre Museum. The glass structure, completed in 1989, is now one of Paris’ most famous landmarks.

The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston — Image caption Pei designed Boston’s John F Kennedy Library and Museum

Dallas City Hall, designed by architects I M Pei and Theodore J Musho — Image caption I M Pei designed Dallas City Hall with fellow architect Theodore J Musho

I M Pei's Bank of China tower (L) in Hong Kong — Image caption I M Pei’s Bank of China tower (L) in Hong Kong

His other work includes Dallas City Hall and Japan’s Miho Museum.

“I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity,” he once said.

He was won a variety awards and prizes for his buildings, including the AIA Gold Medal, the Praemium Imperiale for Architecture.

In 1983 Pei was given the prestigious Pritzker Prize. The jury said he had he “has given this century some of its most beautiful interior spaces and exterior forms”.

He used his $100,000 prize money to start a scholarship fund for Chinese students to study architecture in America.

Source: The BBC

Posted in aged, AIA Gold Medal, architect, Bank of China tower, Boston, China alert, Dallas City Hall, dies, Doha, Qatar, Guangzhou, Harvard, Hong Kong, I M Pei, Ieoh Ming Pei, Islamic architecture, John F Kennedy Library and Museum, landmarks, Louvre pyramid, MIT, Museum of Islamic Art, Paris, Pennsylvania, Praemium Imperiale for Architecture, Suzhou Museum, Theodore J Musho, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

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China sees over 6 mln entries, exits during Dragon Boat Festival holiday

China’s green efforts hit by fake data and corruption among the grass roots

I M Pei, Louvre pyramid architect, dies aged 102

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