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Communications to be beefed up

The Chinese mainland and Taiwan agreed on Feb 11 to establish a liaison mechanism in their first formal meeting since 1949.

The agreement was reached after Zhang Zhijun, head of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, held a landmark dialogue with visiting Taiwan mainland affairs chief Wang Yu-chi in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province.

The mechanism will aim at tackling major divergences and facilitating all-round development of cross-Straits relations.

However, it will not replace existing communication channels such as the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation.

Xi pledges continued help to Afghanistan

China is willing to offer continued assistance for Afghanistan's peaceful reconstruction, especially in personnel training, and will encourage Chinese companies to invest in Afghanistan, President Xi Jinping says.

Xi also urged Kabul to create a safe environment for bilateral cooperation.

Xi made the remarks in Sochi, Russia, while meeting his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai. The two were in the city for the opening of the Winter Olympics.

Xi said China attaches great importance to its relations with Afghanistan and stands ready to maintain high-level exchanges and promote communication and cooperation between the two countries to improve bilateral ties.

China is ready to strengthen cooperation with Afghanistan in fighting the "three evil forces" of separatism, extremism and terrorism, as well as transnational crime, Xi said.

China will unswervingly support Afghanistan's efforts in safeguarding national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and back an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned national reconciliation process, he said.

During Olympics visit, Xi gives report on ties

President Xi Jinping said Beijing's relationship with Moscow will maintain its excellent momentum and his trip to Russia "marks a good start" to diplomatic relations in the new year.

Xi returned to Beijing on Feb 8 after a three-day visit that included attending the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

"I am very satisfied with what has been achieved in the Sino-Russian relationship," Xi said in an interview with Rossiya TV. Talking of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi said they agreed to "unswervingly support each other on issues concerning the core interests of either side".

The visit mapped out a strategy for the relationship this year, and the combination of diplomacy and sports is "an innovative move in Chinese diplomacy", Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

During the interview, Xi also gave an update on China's reform and opening-up, and talked about his hobbies, such as reading and watching sports.

Province clamps down on prostitution

Authorities in Guangdong province are to launch a three-month crackdown on the sex industry across the province after media outlets recently uncovered rampant prostitution in massage parlors and hotels in Dongguan.

Li Chunsheng, vice-governor of Guangdong and director of Guangdong Public Security Department, said in a televised news conference on Feb 10 that all entertainment venues involved in organizing sexual services will be targeted.

"Local police officers found protecting the sex industry or who organize sexual services will be severely punished," Li said.

The crackdown came after China Central Television reported that the sex industry was flourishing in Dongguan, an entertainment hub in the Pearl River Delta region.

Shanghai rated Asia's most fashionable city

Shanghai has surpassed Tokyo and Hong Kong to become Asia's most stylish city, a survey has found.

According to research by Global Language Monitor, a data research firm in the US that catalogs trends in word use, Shanghai is the reigning fashion capital of Asia, ranking 10th worldwide.

New York ranked first in the 10th annual survey on global fashion cities, followed by Paris and London.

Asia is well represented in the top 20, with Tokyo at No 11, Singapore at No 19 and Hong Kong at No 20. Beijing did not make the top 55.

"As China further emerges onto the world stage, Shanghai leads the fashion charge," said Bekka Payack, the New York-based fashion director for the outfit.

Global Language Monitor tracked more than 250,000 print media and social media channels looking for buzzwords associated with fashion and haute couture. It then traced the contextual use and frequency of the words to set a gauge for ranking global fashion houses.

H7N9 cases persist through winter

China reported four more human H7N9 virus infections on Feb 11, including one death.

A 70-year-old man in East China's Zhejiang province was confirmed on Feb 11 to have contracted the virus, bringing the total number to 79 in one of the two worst-hit provinces.

East China's Fujian province also reported three more cases on Feb 11, including one death. Two patients have recovered sufficiently to be discharged from local hospitals.

So far China has reported more than 120 human H7N9 cases this year, including at least 31 deaths.

Feng Zijian, deputy head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said it is possible the incidence of human cases of bird flu will grow as the weather gets colder, considering there were few new cases from July to October.

Vendors profit from Games ring failure

The faulty Olympic rings displayed during an opening ceremony malfunction at the Winter Olympics in Sochi have created new business opportunities and triggered playful debate.

Forget about mascots or commemorative coins. The next popular Sochi Olympic souvenir will be a T-shirt emblazoned with four rings and one snowflake, inspired by a mechanical fault during the ceremony on Feb 7.

The glitch occurred when one of five illuminated snowflakes, which were supposed to blossom into the iconic five-ring Olympic symbol, failed to open.

Early on the night of Feb 8, T-shirts inspired by the technical difficulty started to appear on the Chinese online marketplace Taobao.

China changes the way it drinks

Red wine consumption is set to take off in China thanks to more Chinese buying wine as an alternative to cereal-based liquor for gifts and company meetings amid the government's frugality campaign, a report says.

The increased sales will help China overtake France and Italy to become the world's largest market for red wine, says the report by the wine and spirits trade association Vinexpo.

Chinese red wine lovers downed 1.87 billion bottles, or in trade terms 155 million nine-liter cases, contributing to a 136 percent increase in the past five years. This has helped China eclipse the performance of wine sellers in France and Italy, where red wine consumption fell 18 and 5.8 percent respectively during the same period.

More trade friction with EU in wind

China and the European Union may face a fresh round of trade disputes if Brussels goes ahead with more stringent measures against alleged Chinese trade malpractice.

EU trade chief Karel de Gucht is seeking to update the tools that Brussels uses to fight "unfair trade practices" and which date from before China's transformation into a powerful exporter, Reuters reported on Feb 6.

Some in Europe say the rules are too soft. The European Parliament pressed the trade chief on Feb 5 to build stronger defenses against cheap imports from China.

EU politicians want to make it easier for small companies to take on countries that flout world trade rules by exporting goods at below the cost of production. They also want to do away with a European rule that limits punitive sanctions to only what is absolutely necessary to correct any injury caused by illegally subsidized imports, Reuters said.

The Parliament's position is "a lot more radical", Christofer Fjellner, the politician leading negotiations with the European Commission on the issue, was quoted as saying.

Chinese ivory-smuggling suspects arrested

A suspected Chinese ivory smuggler has been apprehended in Kenya after a coordinated operation between the two countries, China's wildlife authorities says.

The suspect, surnamed Xue, was caught in Nairobi on Jan 17 by Kenyan authorities and extradited to China the next day, the China Endangered Species Import and Export Management Office said.

"This is the first time that China has arrested wildlife crime suspects outside the country," said Wan Ziming, director of the Law Enforcement and Training Division under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Management Authority of China.

"It sends a signal of the government's zero tolerance toward the illegal wildlife trade."

Wan, who is also coordinator of the National Inter-Agency CITES Enforcement Coordination Group, said the case was part of a cross-border operation code-named Cobra II launched by China and several countries in Asia, Africa and North America, to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade from the end of last year.

China slams Japan's UN application

A Japanese museum's application to UNESCO to include 333 items left behind by World War II kamikaze soldiers in the UN Memory of the World Register has been criticized by China.

Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Japan is trying to distort the invasion history of Japanese militarism and challenge the achievements of the world's struggle against fascism and the postwar international order.

Sun's day in the sun fails to impress

A 58-year-old tourist from Harbin, Heilongjiang province, was detained in Sanya, Hainan province, as he insisted on sunbathing naked after being asked not to.

Sanya's urban management officers have been asking people not to swim or sunbathe naked near the beach, and the tourist, surnamed Sun, violated the rules twice.

The mayor of Sanya, Wang Yong, said nude sunbathing and swimming are prohibited on the city's public beaches.

"Police officers will patrol the public beaches, telling people to wear bathing suits, and can detain those who refuse to do so."

A notice issued by Sanya police said those who insist on swimming or sunbathing naked will be detained for five to 10 days. Police have posted notices to this effect throughout the popular resort destination.

Surveillance cameras would be installed on beaches, police said.

Snow job really was a snow job

Questions have been raised over a photo on the Internet showing two officials and three soldiers said to be sweeping snow together in Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

In the photo, the five people are standing in a line, and appear to be shoveling snow together. But many of those who looked at the photos closely said they indicated that the soldiers shoveled snow while the officials simply posed for the photos.

Ningxia TV issued a video in which the two officials are seen shoveling snow on their own.

China Daily-Xinhua

(China Daily European Weekly 02/14/2014 page2)