Digest

Countries urged to cut trade barriers

China proposed to help Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries upgrade their resource-based economies with advanced industrial equipment and financial support to hedge against the impact of plunging oil prices and geopolitical uncertainties.

The organization's six members, China, Russia and four Central Asian countries, signed deals to strengthen cooperation in customs, law enforcement and a multilateral economic and trade outline on Dec 15, following the 13th prime ministers' meeting of the bloc in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Premier Li Keqiang called the organization to reduce trade barriers, improve the efficiency of customs and open market access among the organization's members. He also announced the start of the selection of projects for the $5 billion (4 billion euros) China-Eurasia cooperation fund.

Economic growth in Central Asia will continue to slow next year, hit by deepening geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the International Monetary Fund said last month.

"China is willing to cooperate with all the members in the organization in the same way as we are working with Kazakhstan," Li told government heads at the meeting on Dec 15.

New grand canal sends water to arid north

More than 1,400 kilometers of canal and pipeline began transferring water on Dec 12 from China's longest river, the Yangtze, to the country's arid northern regions, including the nation's capital, Beijing.

Completion of this section marks major progress in the enormous South-to-North Water Diversion Project, costing an estimated 500 billion yuan ($80 billion; 65 billion euros) and the largest of its kind in the world.

President Xi Jinping sent his congratulations to workers and people "who have made contributions" to the middle route project, calling the achievement a "major event" in the nation's modernization drive.

He said the success has come through ceaseless effort by hundreds of thousands of people since construction started on Dec 30, 2003. More than 200,000 workers participated in the construction.

Xi described the project as important strategic infrastructure that would optimize water resources, boost sustainable economic and social development, and improve people's lives.

Diversion to ease stress on water table

Water transferred by the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is expected to ease the need to pump underground water, which has gone deeper due to overexploitation in recent years.

Beijing is also capping 4,216 dry wells to prevent pollution, the municipal water authority said. These wells can no longer provide water due to the fall in the level of the water table.

More than 3,000 of them have been filled with concrete or covered with iron plates and all of the work will be finished next year, said Wang Wei, deputy director of the water resources bureau of the Beijing Water Authority.

"The capping of wells will cut the channels of sewage and waste polluting underground water, reduce the pollution risk to major water sources and protect the drinking water supply," he said.

In Beijing, more than 60 percent of the annual water consumption 3.6 billion cubic meters comes from underground water. The other 40 percent comes from rivers and reservoirs.

Underground water will continue to supply 50 percent of Beijing's water when the diverted water arrives, he added.

Canada prepares to return illegal assets

Canada and China are ready to sign an agreement to return illegal assets seized from fugitives of economic crime, including corrupt officials, according to a senior Canadian diplomat.

Canada's ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, said that the countries have made "good progress this year" in the fight against corruption.

The agreement "is ready to be signed on the return of property related to people who would have fled to Canada and would have been involved in corrupt activities", he said. Once the agreement is signed, "it will serve as a model for other countries. I think we should have good progress".

Corrupt Chinese officials and smugglers seeking shelter in Canada have led to long-term controversy.

In mid-November, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation member economies decided to set up a cross-border law enforcement network to strengthen transnational anti-corruption cooperation in the region.

Beijing and Ottawa have "good collaboration" and have returned more than 1,200 people in the past three years, including more than 60 who were sought in China for criminal reasons, Saint-Jacques said.

Overseas centers to aid disease research

China plans to set up overseas research centers for pathogens and tropical infectious diseases in Africa to improve international collaboration and to practice a preemptive strategy of epidemic control, according to a senior public health official.

The Ebola epidemic is likely to be reined in by June with enough personnel and constant intervention efforts, said Gao Fu, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He spoke after returning to China last month from a two-month Ebola deployment in one of the worst hit countries, Sierra Leone.

"China should learn from developed countries setting up their own permanent research centers in Africa, particularly for special pathogens like Ebola, under a preemptive strategy for epidemic control," he said.

"We would have our own high safety-level labs and research capacity where such epidemics started. That surely helps China's own research and capability in epidemic response."

To help curb the deadly virus, the Chinese government has sent hundreds of clinical and public health experts to Africa.

Tourism to shine spotlight on initiative

Highlighting the modern Silk Road's cultural importance will help pave the way for people to better understand the initiative, specialists said at the Silk Road International Cultural Forum held recently in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

The forum attracted more than 100 delegates, specialists, scholars and decision-makers, as well as representatives from various enterprises from China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

According to the Astana Consensus reached at the two-day forum, cooperation will be a major focus of the countries and organizations involved in the Silk Road, but getting the public to appreciate just how beneficial it will be is also a prime goal.

"Everybody is talking about the Silk Road, but not many people know that much about it," said Wang Dong, a philosophy professor from Peking University, suggesting tourism would be a good way to fire the public's imagination.

The Silk Road is a route that has been recognized as having extreme cultural and historical importance. The "Chang'an-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road", which includes 33 cultural heritage sites in China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage site in June.

International students to get better services

Services for international students will be improved, Chinese top officials said during a meeting on overseas study.

China will take measures to boost educational cooperation with other countries, including sending more Chinese students overseas, receiving more international students, and strengthening services for those who go out and come in, Vice-Premier Liu Yandong said at the national meeting on overseas study, held in Beijing on Dec 12-13.

The meeting, which focused on Chinese students studying abroad and international students studying in China, is the first of its kind since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949.

China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 12/19/2014 page3)