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Xi, Chu stress shared destiny

Both sides of the Taiwan Straits should build a community of shared destiny and settle political differences through consultation as equals, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee, said on May 4.

Xi made the remarks during a meeting with visiting Kuomintang Chairman Eric Chu at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Chu, 53, is the first KMT chairman to set foot on the mainland at a time when the KMT is Taiwan's ruling party since 1949.

Both leaders stressed the importance of the 1992 Consensus, the agreement that there is only one China.

Xi said the consensus is the foundation for exchanges with Taiwan's authorities and political parties. China is willing to take the lead in sharing development opportunities with its compatriots on the island, he added.

"Both the CPC and the KMT should fight against any comments that would undermine the current hard-won cross-Straits political basis," he said.

Chu also highlighted the importance of the 1992 Consensus, saying that it changed the status of cross-Straits relations from resistance and opposition to cooperation and communication.

Midwife shortage may grow crucial

Many college students who are about to graduate are still struggling to find work, but almost all the 58 students majoring in midwifery at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, have already landed well-paid jobs at respected hospitals.

"Most of them have already completed internships at big hospitals across China, including ones in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai," said Cai Wenzhi, deputy dean of the university's nursing school. "Only several gave up looking for jobs for reasons such as wishing to continue their studies."

The midwifery students, who enrolled in 2011, will be the first group of students majoring in midwifery to receive bachelor's degrees at the university.

China faces a severe shortage of midwives, a situation exacerbated by the loosening of the family planning policy in recent years. This is expected to result in two million more babies being born annually over the coming years, and there is an urgent need to train more midwives, experts said on May 5, the International Day of the Midwife.

On average, only three midwives are available for every 100,000 people in China, said Pang Ruyan, vice-chairwoman of the China Maternal and Child Health Care Association. The figure is 70 in Sweden and 45 in the Philippines, she said.

Bilateral efforts 'inject fresh impetus'

State Councilor Yang Jiechi has said the expected meeting between Premier Li Keqiang and the leadership of the European Union later this year is "of high importance".

Bilateral efforts will "inject fresh and key impetus" into the development of the relationship, Yang said at a news conference with Federica Mogherini, visiting EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and vice-president of the European Commission.

Yang and Mogherini co-hosted the Fifth China-EU High-Level Strategic Dialogue through May 6 during the latter's visit to China.

China and the EU have become key trade partners as they embrace the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.

Mogherini said that since the establishment of the China-EU strategic partnership in 2003, trade exchanges have more than quadrupled.

Reforms could have global impact

As China adjusts to a more sustainable long-term economic growth model, countries around the world should be aware of the impact that the reforms could have on the global economy, Cui Yuying, vice-minister of the State Council Information Office of China, said on May 4.

"China is the second-biggest economy in the world, so implementing a profound and broad reform agenda against the backdrop of current economic trends has not been an easy task," Cui said through a translator. "The world has paid attention to the development of China's reform because it affects not only China, but also the world."

Cui spoke on May 4 at the Asia Society headquarters in New York during an event titled China, the US and the Way Forward. The event is part of the sixth World Forum on China Studies, the first such forum to be held outside China since it started in 2004.

Cui said the world economy is still in the stage of sluggish recovery, which puts downward pressure on China, but China still has many policy tools and measures it can adopt for adjustment. "Economic transformation will upgrade the US-China economic relationship," she said.

Smartphone mania drives families apart

People should switch off their smartphones for an hour every day to prevent the use of mobile apps from eroding family ties and restricting direct communication between people, say researchers.

The call was prompted by a survey carried out by Marriage and Family, a monthly magazine affiliated with the All-China Women's Federation.

The survey found that the more time people spend using mobile electronic devices, the more they put their family relationships at risk.

Family members were advised to increase the amount of time they spend communicating face-to-face, and to do other things with their family members instead of keeping their eyes glued to their phone screens.

Robots go it alone at factory with no workers

More than 100 industrial robots have been installed at a zero-labor factory that is being built in Dongguan, a major manufacturing base in Guangdong province.

The construction of the factory, the first of its kind in the province, marks an important step for the "robot assembly line" strategy that is being followed by the province as it tackles a severe labor shortage.

Chen Qixing, chairman of the board of Guangdong Everwin Precision Technology, said 1,000 robots will be used in the first phase of the production facility.

"The use of industrial robots will help the company to reduce the number of front-line workers by at least 90 percent," Chen said.

"When all the 1,000 industrial robots are put into operation in the coming months, we will only need to recruit fewer than 200 software technicians and management personnel."

New leaders take reins at oil giants

New chairmen have been named for the country's top three state-owned oil companies as the sector faces a range of challenges including low global crude prices, industrial reform, a need for improved growth and the fallout from President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign.

Wang Yupu, 59, deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, is replacing Fu Chengyu as chairman of Sinopec Group, Asia's largest refiner, the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China announced on May 4.

However, the strategic path followed by the huge enterprise is likely to remain unchanged as the country deals with rising dependence on foreign supplies of crude, said Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University.

19 top SOE managers held in probe

Dozens of senior executives in state-owned enterprises have been investigated on corruption charges in the first round of an inspection this year by the country's top anti-graft authority.

The Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection held 19 top managers from SOEs during its first disciplinary tour from late February to the end of April.

Thirteen teams were sent to the giant corporations, with each team reviewing two companies, including China National Petroleum Corp, China National Offshore Oil Corp, China Huaneng Group, State Grid Corp of China and China Mobile Communications Corp.

The number of enterprises under scrutiny was almost double that of previous inspections. Last year, such inspections investigated more than 70 executives.

57-floor building goes up in 19 days

Changsha-based company Broad Sustainable Building has built a 57-floor building in only 19 days in February, handling the construction as if working with Lego blocks, according to netizens after seeing an online video of the work.

Mini Sky City was built by 1,200 laborers working around the clock in Changsha, Hunan province. The 200-meter structure contains 800 homes and working spaces for 4,000 people, said Xiao Changgeng, the company's manager. All that remains is the interior decoration.

"It could be built quickly because the steel structure was made of prefabricated parts, and 95 percent of the process took place in plants in advance," Xiao said.

The building is more earthquake-resistant than other buildings and also more energy efficient. Moreover, it is 80 percent more energy efficient than a regular building with steel and concrete, cutting carbon dioxide emission by 12,000 metric tons annually, he said.

Draft report released to tackle water pollution

A draft report on tackling water pollution was released on May 6. The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Environmental Protection published the document, which contained regulations governing the water industry in public and private sector partnerships. The draft report encouraged utilities to clampdown on pollution by protecting drinking water resources and standardizing operating procedures. The State Council, China's cabinet, announced plans to crackdown on water pollution on April 16.

Manufacturing activity still sluggish

China's manufacturing activity was on the verge of contraction in April, firming up policymakers' key task of stabilizing growth by new stimulus measures.

April's manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, released on May 1, remained unchanged from March, at 50.1, close to the 50-point level that separates expansion from contraction, compared with 49.9 in February and 49.8 in January.

The PMI readings for medium and small enterprises in April remained below 50, while those for large companies stood at 50.6, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The sub-index for employment was 48 in April, a decline from 48.4 in March, indicating fewer job opportunities in the sector. Labor at manufacturing companies has contracted since June 2012, the NBS data showed.

The official statistics agency also said the PMI for the service sector was 53.4 in April, the lowest level since January 2014, indicating a slower expansion compared with 53.7 in March and 53.9 in February.

Authorities specify no-go areas for meetings

Twenty-one resorts and tourist attractions throughout the country have been ruled out of bounds for official meetings, as the government clamps down on profligate spending.

All Party organs, the National People's Congress and its affiliates, government organizations and judicial bodies, as well as other state-run departments, have been warned by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China's top anti-graft authority, about organizing meetings in tourist hot spots.

During the May Day holiday, the commission's website featured pictures of zones where official meetings are not allowed, along with a written reminder.

The sites include the Badaling section of the Great Wall outside Beijing, the former imperial summer residence of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in Chengde, Hebei province, and Wutai Mountain in Xinzhou, Shanxi province.

The post reinforced a regulation issued by the CPC Central Committee and State Council in September prohibiting all meetings in those places.

Under the regulation, officials should hold meetings in places within their jurisdictions. Meetings that must be held in other jurisdictions are to be approved by the Party committee or other government oversight body.

Modi scores hit with micro blog in run-up to visit

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attracted thousands of Internet users on May 4 by opening an account on one of China's most popular social media platforms ahead of a visit to the country this month.

Using the Twitter-like weibo.com, Modi posted at 12.28 pm, "Hello China! Looking forward to interacting with Chinese friends through Weibo."

The post was immediately forwarded more than 4,700 times and attracted more than 7,800 comments within three hours.

As of 4 pm, the prime minister's account had attracted more than 16,600 followers.

A source at the Indian embassy in China said the embassy started to communicate with weibo.com several weeks ago over issues such as the Chinese name for Modi's account.

Maritime efforts 'to help others'

China's ongoing efforts to build and upgrade infrastructure on islands and reefs in the South China Sea will improve its maritime search and rescue capability and help other nations, according to military experts.

They were speaking after China invited the international community to use its facilities in the waterway for anti-piracy and humanitarian missions.

"Anyone can see from the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 that China lacks sufficient maritime search and rescue force in the South China Sea," said Yin Zhuo, director of the Expert Consultation Committee of the People's Liberation Army navy.

"Under international maritime conventions, China has responsibilities to perform rescue operations in the South China Sea.

"However, if our rescue team is based in Hainan province, it will take several days for large ships to reach the scene of a wreck, and aircraft will have short ranges due to fuel limitations," he said.

"So it is very necessary to construct or upgrade infrastructure on islands and reefs in the South China Sea, as we can then send rescue ships and planes there in case of emergency."

(China Daily European Weekly 05/08/2015 page2)