30/05/2020
SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Indian police have released a pigeon belonging to a Pakistani fisherman after a probe found that the bird, which had flown across the contentious border between the nuclear-armed nations, was not a spy, two officials said on Friday.
“The pigeon was set free yesterday (May 28) after nothing suspicious was found,” said Shailendra Mishra, a senior police official in Indian-administered Kashmir. It was unclear where the bird was released and whether it flew back to its owner.
The Pakistani owner of the pigeon had urged India to return his bird, which Indian villagers turned over to police after discovering it.
“It’s just an innocent bird,” Habibullah, the owner of the bird, who goes by just one name, told Reuters on Friday.
He rejected allegations that the numbers inscribed on a ring on the pigeon’s leg were codes meant for militant groups operating in the disputed region of Kashmir.
Habibullah, who lives in a village near the Kashmir border, one of the most militarised zones in the world, said the bird had participated in a pigeon racing contest and the digits on the bird’s leg were his mobile phone number.
The sport is especially popular in the border villages, said Yasir Khalid of the Shakar Garh Pigeon Club, adding such races are held in India too, and it is not unusual to lose a bird on either side. Owners identify their birds with stamps on the wings, paint and rings on the feet.
“We had to take the bird into our custody to probe if it was being using for spying,” a senior Indian border security officer said requesting anonymity, while explaining this was part of the drill given border sensitivities.
In 2016, a pigeon was taken into Indian custody after it was found with a note threatening Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Source: Reuters
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04/05/2020
BEIJING (Reuters) – Tang Yue, a 27-year-old teacher from the city of Guilin in southwest China, steam-presses a blue dress and takes dozens of photographs before picking one to clinch her 200th online sale.
For a growing number of Chinese like Tang, hit by job losses, furloughs and salary cuts, the consumer economy has begun to spin in reverse. They are no longer buying – they are selling.
Instead of emerging from the coronavirus epidemic and returning to the shopping habits that helped drive the world’s second-largest economy, many young people are offloading possessions and embracing a new-found ethic for hard times: less is more.
With Tang’s monthly salary of about 7,000 yuan ($988), the self-described shopaholic said she has bought everything from Chanel lipsticks to Apple’s (AAPL.O) latest iPad in the past three years.
But the adrenaline rush that comes with binge-shopping is gone, said Tang, whose wages have been slashed with the suspension of all the classes on tourism management she usually teaches.
“The coronavirus outbreak was a wake-up call,” she said. “When I saw the collapse of so many industries, I realised I had no financial buffer should something unfortunate happen to me.”
There is no guarantee that the nascent minimalist trend will continue once the coronavirus crisis is fully over, but if it does, it could seriously damage China’s consumer sector and hurt thousands of businesses from big retailers to street-corner restaurants, gyms and beauty salons.
To be sure, there are signs that pent-up demand will drive a rush of spending as authorities reopen malls, leisure venues and tourist spots. In South Korea, the first major economy outside of China to be hit by the virus, people thronged malls this weekend to go “revenge shopping” to make up for time lost in lockdown.,
There are some signs that a similar trend will take hold in China, where some upscale malls are starting to get busy, although luxury firm Kering SA (PRTP.PA) – which owns Gucci, Balenciaga and other fashion brands – has said it is hard to predict how or when sales in China might come back.
A recent McKinsey & Co survey showed that between 20% and 30% of respondents in China said they would continue to be cautious, either consuming slightly less or, in a few cases, a lot less.
“The lockdown provided consumers with a lot of time and reasons to reflect and consider what is important to them,” said Mark Tanner, managing director at Shanghai-based research and marketing consultancy China Skinny.
“With much more of their days spent in their homes, consumers also have more time and reasons to sort through things they don’t feel they need – so they’re not living around clutter that is common in many apartments.”
#DITCHYOURSTUFF
Tang made a spreadsheet to keep track of her nearly 200 cosmetic products and hundreds of pieces of clothing. She then marked a few essentials in red that she wanted to keep. In the past two months, she has sold items worth nearly 5,000 yuan on second-hand marketplaces online.
Bargain-hunting online has become a new habit for some Chinese as the stigma that once hung over second-hand goods has begun to fade.
Idle Fish, China’s biggest online site for used goods, hit a record daily transaction volume in March, its parent company Alibaba (BABA.N) told Reuters.
Government researchers predict that transactions for used goods in China may top 1 trillion yuan ($141 billion) this year.
Posts with the hashtag #ditchyourstuff have trended on Chinese social media in recent weeks, garnering more than 140 million views.
Jiang Zhuoyue, 31, who works as an accountant at a traditional Chinese medicine company in Beijing – one of the few industries that may benefit from the health crisis – has also decided to turn to a simpler life.
“I used to shop too much and could be easily lured by discounts,” said Jiang. “One time Sephora offered 20% off for all goods, I then bought a lot of cosmetics because I feel I’m losing money if I don’t.”
Jiang, the mother of a 9-month-old baby, said she recently sold nearly 50 pieces of used clothing as the lockdown gave her the opportunity to clear things out. “It also offered me a chance to rethink what’s essential to me, and the importance of doing financial planning,” she said.
Eleven Li, a 23-year-old flight attendant, said she used to spend her money on all manner of celebrity-endorsed facial masks, snacks, concert tickets and social media activity, but now has no way to fund her spending.
“I just found a new job late last year, then COVID-19 came along, and I haven’t been able to fly once since I joined, and I’ve gotten no salary at all,” said Li, who said she was trying to sell her Kindle.
Some are even selling their pets, as they consider leaving big cities like Beijing and Shanghai where the high cost of living is finally catching up with them.
NO RETURN TO OLD WAYS?
As the coronavirus comes under control in China, the government is gradually releasing cities from lockdown, easing transport restrictions and encouraging consumers to venture back into malls and restaurants by giving out billions-worth of cash vouchers, worth between 10 yuan and 100 yuan.
But many people say they are still worried about job security and potential wage cuts because of the struggling economy. Nationwide retail sales have plunged every month so far this year.
Xu Chi, a Shanghai-based senior strategic analyst with Zhongtai Securities, said some Chinese consumers may prove the ‘21 Day Habit Theory,’ a popular scientific proposition that it only takes that long to establish new habits.
“We believe people’s spending patterns follow the well-known theory, which means most people in China, having been cooped-up at home for more than a month and not having binge-shopped, may break the habit and not return to their old ways,” Xu said.
Jiang said she was determined not to return to her free-spending ways and planned to cook more at home.
“I’ll turn to cheaper goods for some luxury brands,” she said. “I’ll choose Huawei’s smartphone, because (Apple’s) iPhone has too much brand premium.”
Tang, who has recently used 100 yuan of shopping coupons to stock up on food, is going to hold the purse strings even tighter.
“I’ve set my monthly budget at 1,000 yuan,” she said. “Including one – and just one – bottle of bubble tea.”
Source: Reuters
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02/05/2020
People work at a construction site of a utility tunnel in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province, April 30, 2020. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)
BEIJING, May 1 (Xinhua) — China is getting the world’s largest workforce back to work as the nationwide battle against COVID-19 has secured major strategic achievements.
The unprecedented fight has nurtured new trends in the workplace. For example, more attention is being paid to public health and e-commerce to boost consumption and emerging sectors brought by new applications based on the country’s rapid new infrastructure development of 5G networks and data centers.
In this aerial photo taken on April 29, 2020, representatives of frontline health workers fighting COVID-19 attend a bell-ringing ceremony at the Yellow Crane Tower, or Huanghelou, a landmark in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)
ANGELS OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Ye Man, head nurse of gastrointestinal department of Hubei General Hospital East District, one of the five remaining COVID-19 designated hospitals in Wuhan, is taking her first weeklong vacation since January.
The 34-year-old mother of two started to take a week off on Monday, one day after her hospital cleared all remaining confirmed COVID-19 patients. The nine ICU wards in her hospital had been kept occupied over the past several months.
Friday marked International Workers’ Day, and the start of China’s five-day public holiday. Ye said she planned to visit urban parks with her family during the holiday.
At her busiest point, she and her colleagues took care of a ward filled with 40 COVID-19 patients.
“It was a really tough time,” she recalled. She had to wear a protective gown and a mask for nine hours a day and be separated from her family to avoid possible cross-infections.
Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province and once hard hit by COVID-19, cleared all confirmed cases in hospitals on April 26. Over 42,000 medical workers mobilized nationwide to aid Hubei have contributed to achieving a decisive outcome in the fight to defend Hubei and Wuhan.
In an inspection tour to Wuhan on March 10, President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, lauded medical workers as “the most beautiful angels” and “messengers of light and hope.”
To reward brave and dedicated medics, major tourist sites in Hubei are offering free entry to medical staff over the following two years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about development of the black fungus industry in Jinmi Village of Xiaoling Township in Zhashui County, Shangluo City, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, April 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)
LIVESTREAMING ANCHORS
“We have a new batch of supplies today. Those who did not get the goods should hurry to buy now,” said Li Xuying, a livestreaming anchorwoman selling agaric mushrooms in Zhashui, a small county deep in the Qinling Mountains in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.
Li has been prepared for a boom of online shopping in the holiday, because online buyers rushed to her livestreaming website to place orders, after Xi inspected the county and chatted with her in the village of Jinmi during a recent tour to Shaanxi.
“I used to sell goods worth about 50,000 yuan (7,070 U.S. dollars) on average after a six-hour livestreaming session. Now the sales are 10 times that,” she said.
Li was one of the 10 sales staff sent by the local agricultural e-commerce firm to Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao’s headquarters for livestreaming training. She said livestreaming is effective in bridging buyers and farmers, through which viewers can watch planting and harvesting online.
With the number of netizens in China reaching 904 million in March, e-commerce has been one of the popular means of promoting the sale of farm produce and helping farmers shake off poverty. Despite the impact of COVID-19, the country is determined to eradicate absolute poverty by the end of this year.
Workers work at the construction site of a 5G base station at Chongqing Hi-tech Zone in Chongqing, southwest China, April 15, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Quanchao)
HI-TECH WORKERS IN “NEW INFRASTRUCTURE” BUILDING
As an elasticity calculation engineer of Alibaba Cloud, Zhao Kun and his colleagues always stay on alert for high data flow, for example, brought by the anticipated online shopping spike during the holiday.
“The profession, which may sound obscure, is actually closely connected to everyone’s life, as cloud computing is the infrastructure supporting high-tech applications of artificial intelligence and blockchain,” said Zhao.
The Chinese leadership has underscored expediting “new infrastructure” development to boost industrial and consumption upgrading and catalyze new growth drivers.
Seizing the opportunities of industrial digitization and digital industrialization, China needs to expedite the construction of “new infrastructure” projects such as 5G networks and data centers, and deploy strategic emerging sectors and industries of the future including the digital economy, life health services and new materials, President Xi has said.
During the epidemic, Zhao and his colleagues expanded more than 100,000 cloud servers to ensure the stable operation of “cloud classrooms” and “cloud offices” for millions of people working and studying from home.
In the “new infrastructure” building, people like Zhao contribute to constructing the virtual infrastructure of an ecosystem, which enables e-commerce, e-payment, online teaching and the digital transformation of manufacturing and supply chain management.
In early April, China released a plan on promoting the transformation of enterprises toward digitalization and intelligence by further expanding the application of cloud and data technologies, to nurture new business models of the digital economy.
Source: Xinhua
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30/04/2020
– The last nine poverty-stricken county-level regions in east China’s Anhui Province have been removed from the country’s list of impoverished counties.
– This marks that all county-level regions in the Yangtze River Delta, consisting of Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, have been officially lifted out of poverty for the first time in history.
HEFEI, April 29 (Xinhua) — Sitting in front of his smartphone, Zhang Chuanfeng touts dried sweet potatoes to viewers on China’s popular video-sharing app Douyin, also known as TikTok.
“These are made from sweet potatoes I grew myself. They are sweet and have an excellent texture,” said Zhang while livestreaming in Tangjiahui Township of Jinzhai County in east China’s Anhui Province. Tucked away in the boundless Dabie Mountains, the township used to have the biggest poor population in the county.
Aerial photo taken on April 16, 2020 shows residential buildings in Dawan Village of Jinzhai County, east China’s Anhui Province. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)
Jinzhai County is among the last nine county-level regions in Anhui that have been removed from the country’s list of impoverished counties, according to an announcement issued by the provincial government Wednesday. They are also the last group of county-level regions that bid farewell to poverty in the Yangtze River Delta.
E-COMMERCE
Zhang might seem like a typical e-commerce businessman reaping success in China’s booming livestreaming industry. But his road to success has been a lot bumpier: he suffers from dwarfism.
A little more than 1.4 meters tall, Zhang has a babyface, making him “look like a junior school student,” he said. But the man, 38, is the father of a nine-year-old boy.
For Zhang, life was tough before 2014. “Nobody wanted me because of my ‘disabilities’ when I went out to look for jobs,” he said. “I was turned down again and again.”
Zhang was put on the government’s poverty list in 2014 as China implemented targeted poverty-relief measures. With the help of local officials, he got a bank loan of 10,000 yuan (about 1,400 U.S. dollars) and bought 22 lambs. He tended the animals whole-heartedly and seized every opportunity to learn how to raise them more professionally.
Zhang Chuanfeng feeds his lambs in Zhufan Village of Jinzhai County, east China’s Anhui Province, April 26, 2017. (Xinhua/Zhang Duan)
Within a year, the number of his lambs expanded to hundreds. In 2016, Zhang’s earnings exceeded 100,000 yuan, more than enough for him to cast off poverty.
Riding on this success, Zhang began to seek new opportunities. He rented a shop and started selling products online to embrace an e-commerce strategy the local government introduced in 2017.
More than 100 online shops, including Zhang’s, in the county have helped more than 7,000 poverty-stricken households sell about 73 million yuan worth of local specialties since 2018. Zhang alone earned 500,000 yuan from a sales revenue of 5 million yuan last year.
A villager arranges local specialties for sale at Dawan Village of Jinzhai County, east China’s Anhui Province, April 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)
WICKERWORK SUCCESS
About 100 km north of Jinzhai lies Funan, a place that used to be vulnerable to constant floods.
Zhang Chaoling, who lives by the Huaihe River in Funan County, had to flee her hometown at a young age due to floods, but has flourished on a willow plantation along the river later.
“The land is largely covered by silt following continual flooding in the past. It is an ideal place to plant willows and make wickerwork,” Zhang said.
Zhang left her hometown for Guangzhou in 1993 and found a job in a garment factory. A few years later, she founded a trading company with her husband in Guangzhou, selling wickerwork products from her hometown to other countries.
Zhang returned to her hometown and set up a wickerwork production base in 2011. Funan is famous for its delicate wickerwork. Skilled craftsmen traditionally use local willow as a raw material to weave products such as baskets, furniture and home decorations.
A villager arranges wickerwork products in Funan County, east China’s Anhui Province, April 15, 2020. (Photo by Zhou Mu/Xinhua)
“The flood is well controlled now. I remember the last huge flood came in 2007,” Zhang said.
Taking advantage of the fertile land along the Huaihe River, she plants over 130 hectares of willow trees and employs hundreds of locals mostly in their 50s and 60s.
“I can process 100 to 150 kg of willow twigs per day, from which I make around 80 yuan,” said Geng Shifen, who peels willow twigs with a clamp next to the plantation.
A total of 130,000 people are engaged in the wickerwork industry in Funan, creating an output of nearly 9 billion yuan in 2019, and helping 15,000 locals shake off poverty, local statistics showed.
POVERTY REDUCTION FEAT
The Anhui provincial government Wednesday announced that its last nine county-level regions including Jinzhai and Funan are removed from the country’s list of impoverished counties.
This marks that all 31 impoverished county-level regions in Anhui have shaken off poverty, echoing China’s efforts to eradicate absolute poverty by the end of 2020.
With the announcement, all county-level regions in the Yangtze River Delta have been officially lifted out of poverty for the first time in history.
A bus runs on a rural road in Jinzhai County, east China’s Anhui Province, April 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)
Covering a 358,000-square-km expanse, the Yangtze River Delta, consisting of Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, is one of the most populated and economically dynamic areas in China, contributing one-fourth of the country’s GDP.
Anhui had a population of 63.65 million as of 2019, official data showed. The poor population in the province had decreased from 4.84 million in 2014 to 87,000 in 2019, and the poverty headcount ratio had been reduced from 9.1 percent to 0.16 percent during the period, according to the provincial poverty relief office.
A county can be removed from the list if its impoverished population drops to less than 2 percent, according to a national mechanism established in April 2016 to eliminate poverty in affected regions. The ratio can be loosened to 3 percent in the western region.
By the end of 2019, 5.51 million people in China were still living in poverty.
“We will continue our work to prevent people from returning to poverty, and help the remaining poor population shake off poverty by all means,” said Jiang Hong, director of the Anhui provincial poverty relief office.
Source: Xinhua
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19/04/2020
URUMQI, April 18 (Xinhua) — A medical team of eight experts who aided Pakistan’s fight against COVID-19 returned Friday night to Urumqi, capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The team, consisting of experts in various fields including respiratory, critical care and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), arrived in Pakistan on March 28 and visited cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.
The Chinese experts communicated with the Pakistani federal government, national and local health authorities, hospitals and medical schools, as well as the Red Crescent.
The team members shared their experience through several video conferences and offered practical, specific suggestions to their Pakistani peers concerning the diagnosis, clinical treatment and epidemiologic study of COVID-19, and the application of TCM, hospital infection control and the construction of temporary hospitals.
The team also assisted with improving Pakistan’s guidelines on diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 to help build an efficient epidemic prevention and control system in Pakistan and enhance its screening and testing capabilities.
Meanwhile, the experts carried out epidemic prevention guidance and popular science education for the Chinese embassy in Pakistan, Chinese enterprises, overseas Chinese and Chinese students in the country.
Source: Xinhua
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06/12/2019
MACAO, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) — The “one country, two systems” principle has proved to be feasible, achievable and popular in the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) since Macao returned to the motherland in 1999, said Fu Ziying, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR.
Fu told Xinhua in a recent interview that the Macao SAR government, along with all walks of life, has comprehensively and precisely understood and implemented the “one country, two systems” principle and strictly abided by China’s Constitution and the Basic Law of the Macao SAR since Macao’s return to the motherland.
The Macao SAR government has ensured the steady and practical implementation of the “one country, two systems” principle by devoting to developing economy, improving people’s wellbeing, upholding inclusiveness and mutual support and promoting the unity of the compatriots in Macao under the banner of loving both the motherland and the region, thus opening a new horizon in practicing the “one country, two systems” with Macao characteristics.
Fu eulogized Macao’s success in implementing the “one country, two systems” principle in three aspects.
Firstly, for the past 20 years, the authority of China’s Constitution and the Basic Law has been firmly safeguarded in Macao and the executive-led system has been running smoothly.
The Macao SAR government and all walks of life have always firmly safeguarded the authority of China’s Constitution and the Basic Law by holistically combining upholding the principle of “one country” with respecting the differences of the “two systems,” and maintaining the power of the central government with ensuring the high degree of autonomy of the Macao SAR, ushering in a new era of good political situation in Macao.
The national sovereignty, security and interests are well safeguarded and the capability and level of law-based governance has been significantly promoted in Macao, Fu said.
Secondly, Macao has witnessed rapid economic development and continued improvement of people’s livelihood, with people feeling more satisfied and happier, Fu said.
Macao, by making good use of the advantages of the “one country, two systems” principle, has achieved a leaping development in economy, Fu said.
Over the past 20 years, Macao has witnessed the fastest development in its history, with outstanding performance in various macroeconomic sectors, Fu said.
With the full efforts from the SAR government in building long-term efficient mechanisms in social security, housing, education, health, human resources and disaster prevention and reduction, the social welfare and people’s livelihood have been greatly improved since Macao’s return to the motherland, said Fu,
Thirdly, Macao’s success could be seen in its harmony and inclusiveness in society, where both loving the motherland and the region has become the mainstream value, according to Fu.
He said education on the country’s Constitution and the Basic Law is deep-rooted in the society, as the “one country, two systems,” “Macao people governing Macao” and the high degree of autonomy are well-accepted by residents in Macao.
Fu said Macao has attached great importance to cultivating patriotism among the youth, with patriotic education legalized in Macao in 2006.
The development of the socialism with Chinese characteristics had entered a new era, so is the cause of the “one country, two systems,” said Fu.
Under the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the practice of “one country, two systems” is included in the Chinese Dream.
In the future, Macao should further exploit the advantages of “one country, two systems” principle, seize the opportunities brought about by the Belt and Road Initiative and the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
“We will always comprehensively and precisely understand and implement the principle of ‘one country, two systems’,” said Fu.
Fu called on Macao to participate in the country’s reform and opening-up cause more actively so as to help boost the country’s people-to-people exchanges with other countries.
He highlighted the importance of the construction of the Greater Bay Area, hoping that Macao would, by participating in the development, further expand its industries and promote people’s livelihood so as to maintain the economic and social stability.
“Remain true to the original aspiration of the principle of ‘one country, two systems,’ Macao, the land of lotus, will for ever glisten,” Fu added.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in "one country, two systems", achievable, Belt and Road Initiative, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Central People's Government, Chinese President Xi Jinping, feasible, Greater Bay Area, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), Macao SAR, motherland, popular, The Chinese Dream, the land of lotus, Uncategorized, Xinhua |
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21/09/2019
BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) — A total of 73 popular domestic scenic spots have joined a campaign to collect garbage as China marked the World Cleanup Day Saturday.
Stalls will be set up in these scenic spots to encourage tourists to pick up garbage, take them away and sort them.
Spearheaded by China’s largest online travel agency Ctrip and charity program Pickup China, the campaign will last through the National Day holiday and is expected to attract about 1 million travelers and reduce 1,000 tonnes of tourism-related waste.
A mobile game was also launched on Ctrip’s app to raise awareness of trash collection and sorting among its users.
Sustainability will contribute to improved travel experiences and the sector’s development, said Fang Hongfeng, general manager of the activities business unit at Ctrip, adding that they are willing to seek broader cooperation with scenic areas in this field.
The World Cleanup Day, which falls on Sept. 21 each year, is a global social action program designed to address the global solid waste problem.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in Beijing, campaign, charity program, China's scenic spots, collect garbage, Ctrip's app, domestic, garbage pickup, global solid waste problem, join, Mark, Mobile game, National Day holiday, online travel agency Ctrip, Pickup China, popular, scenic spots, Spearheaded, Stalls, Sustainability, tourism-related waste, tourists, travelers, Uncategorized, World Cleanup Day |
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 