‘Suhail’ and ‘Thuraya’, or ‘Jing Jing’ and ‘Si Hai’ in Chinese, are the first-ever pandas in the Middle East, Qatar, October 2022 [The Peninsula]
Dear readers,
Last Sunday, we published on our YouTube channel a new video explaining the behind the scenes and consequences of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Comment, share and subscribe to our channel!
Also this week Gisela Cernadas wrote an article for ARG Media about the tensions between China and the US and, in her participation in Barricada TV, she talked about the process of inequality reduction and common prosperity (in Spanish).
– Dongsheng Editorial Collective
Geopolitics
China plans to set up an international mediation center in Hong Kong to handle intergovernmental and political and trade disputes
The aim is to prioritize mediation rather than litigation and arbitration for dispute resolution and seeks to unify visions of different countries around a common charter; the proposal is related to recent goal of promoting peace and security in conflict-affected countries
China will expand its zero tariff policy to nine more African countries for 98% of taxable items, starting in December
The measure covers about 8,800 products, including agricultural and chemical goods, and is part of China’s goal to increase African imports to US$300 billion by 2025; from January to October, trade with the continent increased 14.3% (US$236.54 billion) and should surpass the record of US$254 billion in 2021
National Politics
The government clarifies details of the 20 new Covid-19 regulations, amid surging cases and need for more precise local implementation
Local authorities should not implement mass testing when there is no outbreak and pay special attention to people’s mental health while in quarantine; several cities are hit with outbreaks, as Beijing faces its most complicated situation since the pandemic began, including two deaths
State-owned Shenzhen Data Exchange begins official data trading with the goal of reaching a volume of 10 billion yuan (US$1.395 billion) by 2025
During the trial year, it facilitated 415 trade deals with a total trade volume of 1.1 billion yuan (US$150 million), but system still lacks a proper legal framework to solve issues such as data ownership; China wants to create a market for data, which Beijing considers a new factor of production like land, capital, and labor
Economy
Assets of China’s state-owned enterprises grew nearly twice as much as China’s economy in 2021 reaching 308.3 trillion yuan (US$43.76 trillion)
Excluding the financial sector, assets of SOEs increased by 15%, and have stood out as an economic engine amidst the covid’s surges in spending and investment, while private ones have retreated; state-owned companies account for 25% of the economy and dominate key sectors such as energy, telecommunications, finance, and transportation
Henan’s Kaifeng Municipality buys 1,050 apartments from stalled Evergrande project to expand supply of subsidized housing
Luxury residential project has been delayed by Evergrande’s worsening debt crisis; in China, 8.7 million subsidized rental units are planned to be added between 2021 and 2025, while housing prices fall in 83% of China’s major cities in October, the biggest drop in 10 months
Agriculture and Environment
Chinese scientists manage to significantly increase protein content in corn variety thanks to cloning of gene that controls nitrogen use in the plant
More than 70% of corn in China is used for feed, but livestock and poultry still rely on soy imports; an increase of 1 percentage point in corn protein could mean a reduction in the need for soy imports of almost 8 million tons
China presents action plan to eliminate heavy air pollution in 70% of its major cities by 2025
By 2021, 87.5% of days had reasonably good air quality, 6.3 percentage points more than in 2015; among the plan’s measures are reducing emissions from diesel trucks and increasing the proportion of freight transported by rail by 0.5 percentage points by 2025
People’s Life and Culture
Faced with an aging population, China sets up a National University for the Aged, seeking to build a “lifelong learning society”
The new university will be merged with the Open University of China to become a education resource-sharing platform for students aged over 60, with a broad curriculum; with already over 76,000 universities for seniors, registering over 14 million students, China aims to create one university for every county by 2025
China sends two pandas to Qatar ahead of the World Cup, marking a new chapter in “panda diplomacy” that began in the 1930s
Country has used giant pandas as a diplomatic gesture over the past decades to boost its international image, but stopped the practice in 1982 after criticism from conservationists over capture methods; since 2016, pandas went from “endangered” to “vulnerable” and sending them to other countries has become rare
Senior students take an English class at Shanghai University for the Elderly, December 2016 [Cai Yiwen/Sixth Tone]
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