IN BRIEF (Page 2)

Beijing Marathon boosts mass fitness

The 2017 Beijing Marathon proved a victory on Sept 17 for mass fitness in China, highlighted by rising enthusiasm and better event management. African runners dominated the 37th Beijing Marathon of 42.195 kilometers from the start at the landmark Tian'anmen Square. Salah Bounasr of Morocco led the men's group in two hours 11 minutes and 18 seconds. Ethiopian Melesech Beyene finished first in the women's group with a time of 2:27:44. In all, 98,687 runners applied for the 30,000 places in the race this year, up 48 percent year-on-year. Photos and race posted by successful participants with the hashtag #Beijing Marathon# on Sina Weibo attracted more than 1 billion views hours after the race.

Xi, Trump talk about peninsula issues

President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone with US President Donald Trump on Sept 18 in which the two exchanged views on the Korean Peninsula situation. Xi stressed that he is glad to maintain regular communication with the US president on issues of common concern. China and the United States share a broad range of common interests, and the current exchanges and cooperation in various fields are gaining good momentum, Xi said. The two sides should strengthen high-level exchanges, as well as those at other levels, ensure the success of the first round of the China-US social and cultural dialogue, the first round of the law enforcement and cybersecurity dialogue, as well as expand bilateral cooperation in various fields, Xi said. Trump said it is satisfying that the two heads of state keep in close contact and have a good working-level relationship. This year, both the US and China have important domestic agendas, Trump said, and he hopes that these can be carried out smoothly.

China, Russia urge dialogue for peace

When their foreign ministers met on Sept 18 in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, China and Russia agreed that tensions on the Korean Peninsula must be solved peacefully, and the "vicious cycle" must end. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said "the vicious cycle, which is worsening, must be broken", and added that resuming dialogue and peace talks is a necessary step in implementing UN Security Council resolutions regarding the nuclear and missile tests carried out by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The road map China and Russia proposed for solving the peninsula's nuclear issue is "realistic and feasible", and both countries should work to obtain more understanding and support from the international community, Wang said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia shares a "completely identical" position on the issue, and said the two countries should work together to promote a peaceful solution.

Party constitution to be amended

The Communist Party of China is expected to amend its constitution at the upcoming 19th CPC National Congress next month by adding key theoretical viewpoints and strategic thoughts. The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee produced a draft amendment at a meeting on Sept 18 presided over by President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. A statement released after the meeting said the amendments should include the key theories and strategic thoughts presented in a work report to be delivered at the National Congress. The amended constitution should fully embody the latest Chinese adaptations of Marxism; new governance concepts, thoughts and strategies of the CPC Central Committee since the last national congress; and fresh experiences in adhering to and strengthening Party leadership and governance, according to the statement. The amendment should make the Party stronger and more vigorous, and enable it to keep a close connection with the people, it said.

5,763 accountable for pollution

China completed a high-level environmental inspection of 31 provincial regions on Sept 15, including the latest round, in which 5,763 government officials were held accountable, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Sept 18. The last inspection round - the fourth - began in mid-August and covered Jilin, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hainan, Sichuan and Qinghai provinces as well as the Tibet and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions. As of Sept 15, the inspectors had discovered 39,585 pollution problems and alerted the provincial governments. Of those problems, 35,039, or 88 percent, were dealt with. More than 32,000 companies were ordered to stop generating pollution and to improve their equipment; 9,181 companies were fined a collective total of 466 million yuan ($71.2 million; 59.6 million euros; ￡52.5 million) and 364 people from the polluting businesses were detained, the ministry said. In addition, 5,763 government officials were punished for poor performance in tackling pollution.

Embassy in Panama has quick opening

The Chinese embassy in Panama was opened on Sept 17, setting a benchmark for other countries in the region. Foreign Minister Wang Yi approved of the progress achieved just 100 days after China and Panama established diplomatic relations. He attended the inaugural event with Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela. Hailing the opening as a historic moment in their relationship, Wang said the new Chinese embassy will devote itself to serving Chinese people as well as institutions in Panama.

Home prices cool in major cities

The growth of home prices in 15 key cities, including first-tier cities and provincial capitals, cooled in August, as city-specific measures curbing speculation continue to exert their effect, National Bureau of Statistics officials said on Sept 18. Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the bureau, said the growth in new home prices in August was the lowest in seven months on a year-on-year basis. On a month-on-month basis, prices fell or leveled off in even more cities - a sign of stable and steady development in the real estate market, according to the bureau. The growth in new home prices in 48 cities in August dropped from 1.3 percent to 6.6 percent from July. In Beijing and Shanghai, the average new home price in August remained at the same level as in July. Prices in Shenzhen dropped by 0.4 percent in August and in Guangzhou by 0.7 percentage points compared with July.

Leisure congress opens on Sept 22

The China (Beijing) Leisure Congress, sponsored by the China Tourism Association, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development and the city's Pinggu district government, opened on Sept 22. Themed "Leisure raises life quality", the three-day event aims to increase awareness among Beijing residents of leisure as a force for human growth and well-being.

Joint naval drills with Russia begin

The Chinese and Russian navies kicked off the second stage of the Joint Sea 2017 drills on Sept 18, which also marked the 86th anniversary of Japan's invasion of Northeast China. The weeklong exercise will be conducted in the Sea of Japan and, for the first time, in the Sea of Okhotsk, north of Japan's Hokkaido Island, according to Vladimir Matveev, spokesman for Russia's Pacific Fleet, who was quoted by Russian Times. It is also the first time the two navies have conducted joint submarine rescue and anti-submarine exercises involving multiple types of aircraft, vessels and military personnel. The Chinese fleet used the missile destroyer CNS Shijiazhuang, missile frigate CNS Daqing, support ship CNS Dongpinghu and submarine support ship CNS Changdao with the deep-submersible rescue vehicle Elar-7, according to the Defense Ministry. The Russian fleet brought out the anti-submarine ship Admiral Tributs, the corvette Sovershenny, the rescue vessel Igor Belousov, which carried the deep-submersible rescue vehicle AS-40, two diesel submarines and a number of support ships, Matveev said.

Security innovation seen as crucial

President Xi Jinping has called for more systematic and innovative social governance, stressing the need to improve the capability to predict and prevent security risks. Xi, who is general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, spoke on Sept 19 at a Beijing conference to award individuals and units that have made outstanding contributions to the public security governance sector in the past five years. More than 500 members of central and local political and legal departments, as well as outstanding individuals and units, participated in the two-day meeting, which concluded on Sept 20. The authorities involved should be aware of the difficulties and challenges, carefully analyze the current situation of Chinese society, adopt technological innovation methods and improve the capacity to forecast and prevent risks, Xi said. He added that social governance officers should have a better sense of the rule of law.

Xi: Singapore ties help region

Strengthening political trust between Beijing and Singapore and moving relations forward are good for both sides, President Xi Jinping said on Sept 20. He made the remark at a meeting with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who was on his first official China visit since 2013. Maintaining contact at a high-level is a good tradition, carried forward from past generations and is the embodiment of close bilateral ties, Xi said.

Singapore looks for railway bidders

Chinese enterprises are welcome to participate in the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail project, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said as he met with Premier Li Keqiang on Sept 19 during a three-day official visit to China. The 360-kilometer railway was announced in September 2010 to connect Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with Singapore. Three years later, Lee agreed with his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razakto, to build the railway by 2020. Lee was quoted by Xinhua News Agency as saying that Singapore hopes to see Chinese offers in international bidding that is scheduled for the next few months. China has advanced high-speed rail technology for building safe and cost-effective railways, Premier Li said, adding that he hopes Singapore can support Chinese enterprises' participation in the project.

PLA replaces its equipment chief

The People's Liberation Army has appointed a new chief for its arms and equipment wing. Lieutenant General Li Shangfu, 59, replaced General Zhang Youxia, 67, as head of the Central Military Commission's Equipment Development Department. The information was published by the department in a news release on Sept 18, when Li appeared in a civil-military integration expo in Beijing in his new capacity for the first time. Li's previous post was deputy commander of the PLA Strategic Support Force, the youngest branch of the Chinese military.

Science ship retrieves deep-sea probe

The Chinese research vessel Kexue successfully retrieved a deep-sea probe and its 186 gigabytes of firsthand data from the South China Sea on Sept 18. The probe was sent into a cold seep at a depth of 1,130 meters in the northern part of the sea in early September last year. Over the past year, it has collected high-quality data and video. The data are important in analyzing the evolution, transformation and ecological relations of the biotic community in the cold-seep ecosystem, according to scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oceanology.

School gives nod to web publishing

Works by students and faculties that are widely shared online can now be recognized as having the same status as academic papers, according to guidelines issued by Zhejiang University. Works may include original articles, audiovisual materials and animations. Three levels of online works are covered by the new rule. Works published by the three major Party newspapers - People's Daily, Guangming Daily and Qiushi Journal - with more than 20 reposts by mainstream media will be ranked as first-class academic work, while those published in other major media will be ranked as second or third class, according to the number of reposts. Sina Weibo, WeChat and major media apps are also among the platforms.

Solid-waste control gets new emphasis

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress conducted inspections this year on the enforcement of the law on solid waste pollution for the first time since 2005, when the revised law took effect. The inspections were finished by the end of August. Inspection teams headed by top national legislators, including Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, visited 10 areas, including Tianjin, Shanxi and Jiangsu provinces. Legislators and leaders of the ministries involved discussed the results at a meeting on Sept 19. Zhang acknowledged achievements in preventing and tackling solid waste nationwide in recent years. The teams also found problems that create environmental and health risks, he said, adding that dangers arise from the large quantity of solid waste from industrial and agricultural sources.

Government moves to tighten dating sites

China moved a step toward helping people find love on Sept 18, with the issuance of a guideline governing dating websites. Government bodies will coordinate to promote real-name registrations and authentication on dating sites and crack down on marital fraud and other crimes related to matchmaking services, according to the guideline issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National Health and Family Planning Commission. The guideline was published after a suicide made headlines for days and triggered widespread concern about the authenticity of dating websites. On Sept 7, tech entrepreneur Su Xiangmao, 37, killed himself in part because his ex-wife had hidden the fact that she had been married briefly before, according to the note he left behind. The couple met in March on dating website Jiayuan. According to the suicide note, the woman told him about her previous marriage just one day ahead of their marriage registration in June. Su wrote that his wife's character changed after they got married, and they divorced on July 18, after Su agreed to give her a villa in Hainan province and 10 million yuan ($1.5 million; 1.25 million euros; ￡1,11 million) that she demanded for mental distress. He added that she also threatened to tell the authorities he had been evading his taxes.

172 pyramid scheme suspects detained

Police in Henan province have detained 172 members of Shanxinhui, a Shenzhen-based company suspected of organizing and leading a pyramid scheme. All will face criminal charges, according to a statement issued by the police recently. Others involved in the case will be treated with leniency if they turn themselves in by Sept 30, according to the statement. Chinese police previously investigated Shanxinhui for allegedly manipulating people into taking part in pyramid selling and cheating them out of huge amounts of money under the guise of helping the poor.

Customs intercepts clamshell products

Customs authorities in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, have intercepted more than 7,000 beads made of the shells of an endangered clam species. A suspect was caught in August with 7,319 bead-shaped objects in a suitcase at Luohu Port in Guangdong province. The beads were made from the shells of Tridacnidae, a giant clam listed as a Class I State-protected species in China.

Boat overturns with 10 crew members

A fishing vessel with 10 crew members capsized on Sept 19 off Shandong province, local authorities said. The maritime rescue center in Weihai received a report about a Liaoning-registered vessel overturning in waters of the Yellow Sea around 5 am, a spokesman for the city government said.

E-commerce zones to be extended

China will set up more cross-border e-commerce pilot zones to facilitate trade and boost its global competitiveness, under a decision made at a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Sept 20. It was decided to extend the success of such zones to more cities that have good infrastructure and strong potential for trade and e-commerce development. The State Council set up the original initiative in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, in 2015 before it was expanded to another 12 cities, including Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing, starting in early 2016.

Grottoes offer virtual tours in English

Digital Dunhuang, a website that offers tourists a virtual tour of the renowned Mogao Grottoes in Gansu province, launched an English language version on Sept 20. Tourists can visit e-dunhuang.com to view 28 of the Mogao caves and two of the Yulin Grottoes through high-definition pictures and virtual reality. The website features photos, video clips, archival materials and a 360-degree view of the millennium-old caves, which were carved out of a sandstone cliff near Dunhuang. The Chinese version of Digital Dunhuang was launched in May 2016 on the same website.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 09/22/2017 page2)