Archive for ‘Yunnan’

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01/05/2020

Xinhua Headlines: China welcomes tourism, consumption rebound under regular epidemic prevention, control

-China will embrace an opportunity for tourism and consumption in the upcoming International Labor Day holiday under regular epidemic prevention and control.

-Among comprehensive prevention and control measures during the holiday, tours to all of Shanghai’s top tourist attractions should be reserved to avoid gatherings of people.

-Internet technologies have also empowered tourism with online booking, live-streaming sessions and “cloud tourism.”

By Xinhua writers Chen Aiping, Sun Wenji

SHANGHAI, April 30 (Xinhua) — The upcoming five-day International Labor Day holiday will be an opportunity for tourism and consumption since China entered the phase of regular epidemic prevention and control.

The number of domestic trips to be made in the holiday is estimated to be over twice the number of that made in the three-day Tomb-sweeping Day holiday in April, said major online travel agencies in China.

How will the country guarantee healthy and safe travels while boosting tourism and consumption in the holiday?

Tourists visit the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province, April 29, 2020. Wuhan’s landmark Yellow Crane Tower partly reopened to the public on Wednesday. For the time being, there is still a visitor number limit and online booking is needed. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

BOOMING RESERVATIONS

Among comprehensive prevention and control measures during the holiday, tours to all of Shanghai’s top tourist attractions should be reserved to avoid gatherings of people.

“Safety comes first,” said Yu Xiufen, head of the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism.

The city, with 84 major tourist attractions and over 5,200 hotels reopened, will be the largest tourist destination as well as the largest tourist source for the holiday, according to booking data from Trip.com Group.

However, reopened tourist sites should receive no more than 30 percent of their daily or real-time visitor capacity, according to a circular jointly released by China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the National Health Commission on April 13.

People enjoy themselves at the Shanghai Happy Valley in east China’s Shanghai Municipality April 5, 2020. (Shanghai Happy Valley/Handout via Xinhua)

“Better travel planning is needed if you don’t want to gather inside the attractions or outside waiting for entry,” said Zheng Bing, a 33-year-old visitor who has booked trips to Zhujiajiao Old Town and Shanghai Happy Valley for her family.

“I can book through the attractions’ official online channels or call them with the required information for a limited number of family members, and check the real-time passenger flow on the WeChat accounts of the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism,” she said, adding that nearly 200 attractions, museums, art galleries and public cultural centers have launched booking access through Visit Shanghai, an online platform with Shanghai’s cultural and tourism resources.

“In April, the number of tourists who made online bookings increased by 300 percent from March,” said Yu Xiaojiang with Trip.com Group, noting that over 4,000 tourist attractions in China have launched online booking access.

“Nearly 2,000 visitors have booked for May 1, marking the largest daily volume during the holiday. We will take more precise epidemic prevention measures,” said Zhao Shuai, marketing director of Shanghai Happy Valley.

PREPARED DESTINATIONS

China has urged the safe and orderly opening of tourist sites across the country, noting that efforts should be made to control passenger flows, prevent the gatherings of crowds, implement reservation systems and raise public awareness of epidemic prevention and control.

China’s resort island Hainan Province recently announced 20 specific epidemic-control measures in tourism, transportation, dining and shopping sectors while launching holiday promotions to boost consumption.

A customer tries out a pair of sunglasses at a duty-free experience shop in a resort in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province, April 15, 2020. (Xinhua/Pu Xiaoxu)

“Tourists are required to wear masks, show their health codes and have their temperature checked. All the sales staff are required to wear masks and gloves,” said Zhang Ke, an employee with a duty-free shop in downtown Haikou, capital of Hainan.

One-meter bars were set at the shop’s sales counters and sanitizers were provided, while staff will keep customer flows at a safe distance and disinfect public areas regularly every day, Zhang said.

Over 85 percent of hotels across China have resumed operations, according to Tongcheng-eLong, another online travel agency giant. Over 110,000 hotel suppliers have joined the Safety Hotel Initiative of Tongcheng-eLong in adopting more safety measures, including disinfecting public areas and popularizing coronavirus control knowledge.

In popular destinations such as Shanghai, Yunnan and Hainan, restaurants are encouraged to serve separate dishes. In Shanghai, some 30 percent of restaurants now offer separate dishes for diners.

Tourists will also shoulder more responsibilities with better travel plans and behavior, said He Jianmin, an expert with Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

INTERNET　EMPOWERMENT

“Epidemic-control measures including online booking are also important for ensuring the tourism sector’s high-quality long-term development,” said Zhao Shuai, adding that China will eye booming smart tourist attractions empowered by Internet technologies.

5G infrared thermal imaging temperature measurement has been implemented in public areas including metro stations, commercial centers, airports and train stations in Shanghai and many other cities to monitor people’s body temperature.

A visitor receives body temperature check at the entrance of Shanghai Museum in east China’s Shanghai Municipality, March 13, 2020. (Xinhua/Ren Long)

The Old Town of Lijiang in southwest China’s Yunnan Province implemented a big data system to monitor passenger flows and prevent the gathering of crowds.

Although group tours across provinces were still suspended, online consumption for tourism boosted.

Shanghai has taken measures to promote the recovery of epidemic-hit culture and tourism, and exhibitions, cooking competitions and tours have been held online. Trip.com Group said its sales of travel products had reached 200 million yuan (28.33 million U.S. dollars) in seven recent livestreaming sessions as of Wednesday.

Tour guide Zeng Hongjuan (R) introduces an exhibit via livestreaming on a cellphone platform at the Beijing Auto Museum in Beijing, capital of China, April 30, 2020. Livestreaming shows for this auto museum will be staged from April 30 to May 3 for the upcoming International Labor Day holidays. (Xinhua/Ren Chao)

Scenic spots in Yunnan have cooperated with video platforms to livestream their natural beauty to attract more tourists.

“Go-Yunnan,” an online travel platform, has launched more than 1,400 live feeds allowing people to enjoy the beautiful scenery of Yunnan from home.

“Online tourism, or ‘cloud tourism,’ as a new mode of tourism, helps scenic spots attract more tourists and aids the recovery of Yunnan’s tourism industry,” said Yang Wenwen, head of the platform’s content operation. “I expect ‘cloud tourism’ to drive the future upgrading of China’s tourism industry.”

The number of netizens in China had reached 904 million as of March 2020 and 897 million of them access the Internet through mobile phones, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

Source: Xinhua

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30/04/2020

Travel bookings surge up to 1,500 per cent on some sites after Beijing downgrades emergency alert level

  • Outbound flights from Beijing were 15 times higher on one travel site within half an hour of Beijing relaxing quarantine requirements on the city
  • The rebound in bookings spells some hope for online travel providers in China as the country emerges from a pandemic which saw widespread travel restrictions
Passengers arrive from a domestic flight at Beijing Capital Airport on March 27, 2020. Photo: AFP
Passengers arrive from a domestic flight at Beijing Capital Airport on March 27, 2020. Photo: AFP
Within an hour of Beijing downgrading its emergency response level, relaxing quarantine requirements for some arrivals to the Chinese capital city, travel bookings on some sites surged up to 15 times.
Thirty minutes after the announcement on Wednesday, bookings for outbound flights from Beijing were 15 times higher than before the announcement on Qunar, one of the biggest online travel service providers in China. Searches for travel packages and hotel bookings on the platform also increased three-fold, according to a Qunar report.
On Alibaba Group Holding‘s Fliggy travel platform, bookings for flight and trains heading in and out of Beijing increased 500 per cent and 300 per cent respectively one hour after the announcement, compared to the same time a day ago, according to a Fliggy report. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Bookings for flight and train tickets in Beijing for the upcoming Labour Day long weekend also increased more than 300 per cent and 160 per cent respectively on Chinese group buying site Meituan Dianping on Wednesday after the announcement compared to the day before, while searches for the attractions in the Beijing area on the platform increased almost three times from a week ago, according to Meituan.
“The surge in searches for travel in Beijing was because the lockdown measures in the city were the strictest in the country after work resumed,” said Jiang Xinwei, senior analyst with Analysys. “Consumption among residents was suppressed [during the lockdowns], so there is now a rebound in bookings.”
China’s online travel sites prepare for surge in domestic tourism
21 Mar 2020

The rebound in bookings spells some hope for online travel providers in China as the country gradually emerges from a pandemic which the Chinese government responded to by implementing strict quarantine measures, shutting down tourist attractions and suspending group tours.

Beijing-based consultancy Analysys estimates that China’s national tourism economy lost at least 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) a day on average during the outbreak, with travel service providers like Qunar and Ctrip overloaded with millions of booking changes as well as cancellation and refund requests.
The relaxation of travel restrictions in and out of Beijing also comes ahead of a

five-day break dubbed the “mini golden week”

, which starts on Friday and is the first extended public holiday after Lunar New Year in late January.

In November, the Chinese government lengthened the holiday from the original three days to five to stimulate consumption and encourage travelling amid a slowing economy weighed down by the US-China trade war.

Some cities, such as Huzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province and Kunming in southwestern province Yunnan, have issued travel vouchers to stimulate consumption for the tourist industry, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Ctrip estimated that there would be more than 86 million domestic tourists during the long weekend – more than double the number of travellers seen during the Ching Ming Festival in April, which recorded 43 million tourists, according to the China Tourism Academy.

However, Jiang said the rebound this week does not mean the Chinese travel industry is out of the red. “The travel industry will recover partially during the public holiday, but this will not be more than 60 per cent [of levels before the pandemic],” he said. “The government needs to do more to signal that travelling is safe and encourage residents to do so.”

Source: SCMP

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01/04/2020

Chinese province bars citizens from leaving the country to stop coronavirus spread

  • Authorities in Yunnan limit land and river ports to cargo traffic, locking down border communities
  • Province on alert for imported cases of Covid-19
Yunnan is on alert for imported cases of the coronavirus. Photo: Xinhua
Yunnan is on alert for imported cases of the coronavirus. Photo: Xinhua
The southwestern province of Yunnan has banned Chinese citizens from leaving the country via its more than 30 land and river ports to stop the spread of the coronavirus epidemic through returning nationals.
Yunnan, which borders Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, had restricted its 19 land ports and 14 river ports to cargo, the provincial government said on Tuesday.
The authorities said that from Tuesday night, all departures by Chinese citizens via the checkpoints would be suspended, with exemptions granted for approved foreign aid, technical support or emergency medical workers.
China closed its borders to foreign travellers and residency holders

on Saturday. But non-Chinese residents of border areas who have permits to cross into Yunnan could still enter the province, according to a previous report by China News Service.

Those permit holders can still cross into Yunnan but will be discouraged from doing so. Under the new restrictions, they will need to test negative for two nucleic acid tests and one antibody test before being put in seven days of centralised isolation and another seven days of home isolation, all at their own expense.

Coronavirus: Decoding Covid-19
Residents in border cities and counties will be restricted to the village and community level to prevent entry and exit of outsiders. They would also be encouraged to report illegal immigrants, the government said.
Yunnan, which recorded 174 local coronavirus cases including two deaths, said all patients in its initial wave were discharged by March 14. The province is now on alert for imported cases, with eight patients who travelled to the province from overseas being treated as of Tuesday.

Xiao Xian, a professor of international relations from Yunnan University, said some permit holders could be deterred from crossing into Yunnan by the cost of tests and quarantine.

Xiao also said that banning Chinese citizens from crossing the border would affect border trade and tourism, but it was necessary to stop transmission of the coronavirus.

“The need to prevent the spread of an infectious disease outweighs trade and tourism. It is understandable since it is the country’s top priority now,” Xiao said.

Source: SCMP

Posted in alert, authorities, banned, bars, border communities, cargo, cargo traffic, chinese citizens, Citizens, coronavirus, coronavirus epidemic, Country, COVID-19, foreign travellers, imported cases, land, land ports, Laos, leaving, limit, Myanmar, Nationals, non-Chinese, province, residency holders, residents, returning, river ports, spread, stop, Tourism, Trade, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Yunnan, Yunnan University | Leave a Comment »

10/03/2020

China issues contingency plan against locust threat

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) — China on Monday unveiled its contingency plan to monitor and control the spread of locusts from home and abroad, in a bid to secure grain production and ecological safety.

Regional governance and scientific prevention and control should be given priority, said the plan jointly issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the General Administration of Customs and the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.

The plan clarified the goal of locust control, which is to ensure that desert locusts from abroad will not cause harm and domestic locust outbreaks will not turn into a plague, with no more than 5 percent of crops affected.

Local authorities are urged to prevent the invasion of desert locusts from abroad. The plan requires that monitoring stations be set up in Tibet, Yunnan and Xinjiang on the potential migration routes of the destructive pests.

To control locusts in domestic agricultural areas, chemical control methods will be adopted for areas with a high density of the pests, while medium- or low-density areas will use biological and ecological control methods, the plan noted.

The plan also requires an investigation into the hidden dangers of grasshoppers in major grasslands in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Sichuan, and the strengthening of prevention and control at key points on the border between China and Kazakhstan, and that between China and Mongolia.

The rare desert locust outbreak in East Africa and Southwest Asia has posed a severe threat to local grain and agricultural production, which led to the desert locust plague warning issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Although experts believe it is highly unlikely that desert locusts will invade China, it is still necessary to take precautions, said the plan.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in against, China, contingency plan, desert locust plague, destructive pests, Food and Agriculture Organization, grain and agricultural production, Inner Mongolia, issues, Kazakhstan, locust threat, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Mongolia, National Forestry and Grassland Administration, potential migration routes, sichuan province, Southwest Asia, the General Administration of Customs, Tibet, Uncategorized, United Nations, Xinjiang, Yunnan | Leave a Comment »

24/02/2020

China’s green zombie fungus could hold key to fighting East Africa’s swarms of locusts

  • An insect-killing fungus has been turned into a mass-produced biopesticide that will face its biggest challenge in East Africa
  • Current swarm has put 13m people at risk of famine and this will be the first large-scale test of its effectiveness
Young locusts in Somalia, where the fungus will be used to try to kill them. Photo: AP
Young locusts in Somalia, where the fungus will be used to try to kill them. Photo: AP

Chinese factories are producing thousands of tonnes of a “green zombie fungus” to help fight the swarms of locusts in East Africa.

Metarhizium is a genus of fungi with nearly 50 species – some genetically modified – that is used as a biological insecticide because its roots drill through the insects’ hard exoskeleton and gradually poisons them.

In China it was named lu jiang jun, which means green zombie fungus, because it gradually turns its victims in a green mossy lump.

There are now dozens of factories across the country dedicated to producing its spores and despite the curbs introduced to stop the spread of Covid-19, many of them have resumed operations and are shipping thousands of tonnes to Africa.

Plague fears as massive East Africa locust outbreak spreads

11 Feb 2020

These factories are set up in a similar way to breweries, growing the spores on rice which is kept in carefully controlled conditions to ensure the correct temperature and humidity.

Each plant can produce thousands of tonnes of fungi powder per year, each gram of which contains tens of billions of spores.

“I am sending off a truckload right now. Our stock is running out,” said the marketing manager of a production plant in Jiangxi province. “Some customers need it urgently. They need it to kill the locusts.”

The need is particularly pressing in East Africa at the moment, where abnormally high levels of rainfall during the dry season allowed hundreds of billions of locusts to hatch in recent months.

So far the swarms have devastated crops in countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and are moving on to neighbouring countries.

Up to 13 million people face the risk of famine in East Africa. Photo: AFP
Up to 13 million people face the risk of famine in East Africa. Photo: AFP
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned the situation could be the “worst in decades” and the resulting famine may affect 13 million people and cause international food prices to soar.

Last week, Science magazine reported that the Somalian government, working with the FAO, was preparing to a metarhizium species that only kills locusts and grasshoppers in what it described as the largest ever use of biopesticides against the insects.

Scientists do not believe that the fungus will be enough to solve the problem – monitoring the outbreak and targeting their breeding grounds will be more important in the long-run – but if it proves effective it could be an important weapon to target future outbreaks.

It will take time to gauge the effectiveness, partly because each fungus will take several days to take effect and partly because of the sheer scale of the challenge; a single swarm in Kenya was estimated to contain between 100 billion and 200 billion locusts.

By fair means or fowl: how Chinese herdsmen are planning to stop a locust invasion

17 Apr 2018

The locusts have also swept eastward into the Middle East, travelling up to 150km (90 miles) a day, and are moving closer to China now that they have now reached some of its neighbours, including India and Pakistan.

At present China’s agriculture ministry believes some locusts may follow the monsoon into the country but “the chances of them causing damage is very small”.

Most scientists agree the swarms will not have lasting effect on food production but say developing countries can tap into China’s cutting-edge anti-locust technology.

Radar stations have been set up all the way along China’s western and southern borders to detect possible clouds of locusts, while unmanned devices lure the insects into traps to collect data about their species population and size.

A locust being eaten inside out by the metarhizium fungi. Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Maryland
A locust being eaten inside out by the metarhizium fungi. Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Maryland
The data is streamed to the ministry’s programme command, which is responsible for the planning and coordination of the national efforts to prevent an outbreak.
The scientists also said that planes loaded with biological and chemical sprays were standing by.
Today, most locust outbreaks happen in developing countries that do not have advanced monitoring networks and some of them are unable to produce pesticides on a mass scale, according to Li Hu, an associate professor with the China Agricultural University in Beijing.
The Chinese locust treatment technologies were highly advanced, and usually cheaper than competing solutions from the West, he said.

Chinese researchers are now working with colleagues in other countries to help them solve the problem.

One disadvantage of the Chinese research is that it is mostly focused on local species, or the East Asia migratory locust. The desert locusts currently swarming East Africa have different genes and behaviour, and Li warned that some methods that work in China might not work elsewhere.

A giant indoor farm in China is breeding 6 billion cockroaches a year. Here’s why

26 Apr 2018

There were some sightings of the species reported in Yunnan and Tibet in the past, but they did not build up to large colonies, Professor Kang Le, lead scientist of the locust research programme with the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told China Science Daily last week.

The vast west China region of Xinjiang, which shares a border with eight countries, is currently too cold for a locust migration, but once temperatures start to rise in the spring it could see locusts swarming across the border with Afghanistan.

Shi Wangpeng, a senior government locust expert, told China Business Network on Sunday that China should be on high alert because many Afghan farms had already been affected.

“These areas share a long border with us, there are almost no barriers,” he was quoted as saying by the Shanghai-based magazine.

China has a long and bitter history of locust swarms, with more than 840 being recorded in the official records over the past 2,700 years.

One famine, in the year 628 was so devastating that even the Tang dynasty emperor Taizong was reported to have run short of food and resorted to eating the insects to survive.

China has a long and bitter history of locust swarms. Photo: AFP
China has a long and bitter history of locust swarms. Photo: AFP
This, in turn, means that China’s rulers have long been looking for innovative ways to solve the problem
In the past farmers tried remedies such as building huge fires, burying the insects in ditches or trying to kill them with sticks.
In one campaign organised by prime minister Yao Chong in 715, the farms collected 9 million sacks of dead locusts and managed to save a significant proportion of their crops, according to historic text.
In more recent times more sophisticated technologies have been deployed to tackle the menace.
Some researchers have spent decades chasing locust colonies and studying their individual and collective behaviour everywhere from coastal areas to inland deserts, and in 2014 Chinese scientists released the world’s most comprehensive genetic map of locusts.
Researchers have also developed chemical agents that can disorient swarms of locusts and disperse them.

Chinese scientists first became interested in the green zombie’s potential in the 1980s after discovering that South Pacific islanders had been using them to kill insects on coconut trees.

Research by US scientists confirmed its effectiveness in the 1990s and the Chinese started importing the fungus from the United States and Britain.

Their experiments led to the development of newer and deadlier strains and mass production started in the past decade.

Other fungi or bacteria can be used to fight locusts, and some laboratories are working with agricultural technology companies to modify their genes to turn them into more deadly or precise killers.

One genetically engineered species of microsporidia, another type of insect-killing fungus, for instance, can generate three times as many as the spores to those produced by nature species, according to a document from the China Association of Agricultural Science Societies last year.

While it remains to be seen whether the current swarms will reach China, these treatments have been effective in the past and there has not been a locust outbreak in China for a decade.

Source: SCMP

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24/11/2019

Farmers move in new residential area, conduct various ways to boost income in Yunnan

CHINA-YUNNAN-QUJING-RURAL DEVELOPMENT (CN)

People walk in Huahongyuan residential area in Zhanyi District in Qujing, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, Nov. 22, 2019. In 2013, under the guidance of local government, farmers in Songlin community started to build a new residential area following the principle to integrate environmental improvement, infrastructure construction and industrial development into building beautiful countryside. In 2016, the farmers moved in the newly-built Huahongyuan residential area and conducted various ways to boost income. (Xinhua/Yang Zongyou)

Source: Xinhua

Posted in area, boost, conduct, farmers, income, move in, new, Qujing, residential, Uncategorized, various ways, Yunnan, Yunnan Province, Zhanyi District | Leave a Comment »

22/04/2019

China lifts 3 ethnic minorities out of poverty

KUNMING, April 21 (Xinhua) — China has lifted three ethnic minority groups out of poverty in the southwestern province of Yunnan as it steps toward delivering the goal of completely eliminating poverty by 2020.

The ethnic minority groups of Dulong, Deang and Jino had a total population of more than 50,000, according to the last national population census in 2010.

The proportion of residents living in poverty has been reduced from 24.25 percent a few years ago to 2.42 percent, well below the required 3 percent that removes them from the poverty list in western China.

The ethnic minority groups of Dulong, Deang and Jino live in the mountainous regions in the northwestern, western and southern parts of Yunnan, respectively.

Huang Yunbo, head of the provincial office of poverty alleviation and development, said a total of seven ethnic minority groups will be removed from the poverty list this year.

The number of such ethnic groups who are lifted out of poverty will reach 11 by 2020, Huang said.

The battle against poverty is one of the “three tough battles” that the country must win to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020. To achieve the goal, China needs to lift around 30 million poor rural residents out of poverty between 2018 and 2020.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in China alert, Deang, Dulong, ethnic minorities, Jino, out of poverty, Uncategorized, Yunnan | Leave a Comment »

12/02/2019

Next stop Xinjiang for one of China’s rising political stars Wang Junzheng

  • Trusted senior cadre tipped for leadership role in implementing Beijing’s ‘stabilising measures’ in the Uygur region
  • His career so far has been a fast track of rotation and promotion
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 12 February, 2019, 6:33pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 12 February, 2019, 6:53pm

COMMENTS: 1 

12 Feb 2019

Beijing has sent a trusted senior cadre – with a track record of versatility and economic development – to join the highest decision-making body of China’s highly sensitive Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Wang Junzheng, 56, has been appointed to Xinjiang’s 14-member Communist Party standing committee, according to an official statement on Monday. His new role was not specified in the two-paragraph announcement.

 

Analysts said he was expected to assume a leadership role in the party’s regional political and legal affairs commission – a critical body in the implementation of China’s “stabilising measures” in Xinjiang, which include the controversial “re-education camps” where up to 1 million people from the Muslim ethnic minority group are reportedly being held.

In a move that may have paved the way for such a role for Wang, the incumbent head of Xinjiang’s political and legal affairs commission – Zhu Hailun, 61 – was elected deputy head of Xinjiang’s People’s Congress in January. It is standard practice in China for deputy provincial level cadres to step down and take up such positions on reaching 60.

Dr Alfred Wu, an associate professor at Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said that while there were other vacancies in both Xinjiang’s political and legal affairs commission and its united front work department, Wong’s legal experience made it likely he would take up the role vacated by Zhu.

A source familiar with Wang told the South China Morning Post he was among a group of cadres who had won the trust of President Xi Jinping.

Wang’s career has been on a fast track of rotation and promotion. He reached vice-provincial level when he was only 49 and, five years later, became an alternate member of the Central Committee – the party’s highest organ of power – at the 19th party congress in October 2017.
https://widgets.scmp.com/video/video_iframe.php?id=6o6g8p&poster=https%3A//cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/video/images/2017/10/03/party_congress_cover2_0.jpg

He moves to Xinjiang from the northeastern province of Jilin, where he was a member of the provincial party standing committee and party chief of Changchun, the provincial capital.

It was not all smooth sailing for Wang in Jilin, where his career was tainted by last year’s Changchun Changsheng vaccine scandal.

National outrage followed the revelation that one of China’s biggest vaccine makers, Changsheng Bio-tech, had systematically forged data in its production of rabies vaccines and had sold ineffective vaccines for diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus that were given to hundreds of thousands of babies – some as young as three months old.

Heads rolled. Sackings included Jilin vice-governor Jin Yuhui, who had overseen food and drug regulation; Li Jinxiu, a former Jilin food and drug chief; Changchun mayor Liu Changlong; and Bi Jingquan, deputy director of the State Market Regulatory Administration in Beijing.

China disciplines more than 80 officials linked to major vaccine scandal

In a farewell speech published in People’s Daily on Monday, Wang apparently made a veiled reference to the scandal and admitted some shortcomings.

“Because of my constraints, I could have done better on some issues … and have failed to meet the expectations of the Party and people,” he said.

Alfred Wu said the Xinjiang posting showed Wang’s career had not been tainted by the Changchun vaccine scandal.

“Going to Xinjiang is both an opportunity and a challenge for Wang. If he can prove himself in stabilising Xinjiang, he will go further [in his career],” Wu said.

Xinjiang is Wang’s fourth provincial posting. He began his political career in Yunnan, southwestern China, where he spent nearly two decades working with many ethnic minority groups.

He was the legal chief of Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, from 1988 to 2000 and also served as vice-president of the Yunnan Higher People’s Court from 2005 to 2007.

In 2009 Wang became party chief of Lijiang, a tourist city in Yunnan where the economy thrived under his watch.

“More importantly, he struck a balance between tourism development and environmental conservation and was noticed by the leadership,” a source said.

Wang left Yunnan in 2012 when he was promoted to provincial vice-governor of Hubei in central China. He later became party chief of the city of Xiangyang in Hubei province and was promoted to provincial party standing committee member in 2013.

After three years in Hubei, Wang headed north to Jilin, becoming Changchun party chief in January 2016.

Wang was born in the eastern province of Shandong. He graduated from Shandong University with a bachelor’s degree in socialism studies and a master’s in the same subject from Renmin University in Beijing in the 1980s. He attained his doctorate in management from Tsinghua University in 2006.

Source: SCMP

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