ACCORDING TO A RECENT POLICY, passengers have been able to purchase tickets online 60 days in advance for travel during the Spring Festival rush, an annual phenomenon caused by people working faraway returning home for the Chinese New Year. However, a recent online survey of 1,141 people found more than 60 percent of them failed to purchase a ticket and had to resort to scalpers, whose businesses continue flourishing. Comments:
"Protect our language!" That was the call of Zhang Huaiqiong, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Shanghai Municipal Committee. Zhang said some of the new words that had emerged online were rather vulgar and might pollute the Chinese language. Comments:
President Xi Jinping has expressed the importance of giving higher priority to ecological and environmental protection during his visit to the Bai autonomous prefecture in Yunnan province, Southwest China.
Is gold medal worship the root cause of corruption in the field of competitive sports or the other way round? This seems to be a question of chicken and eggs. But there is no denying that corruption is often behind sports scandals related to winning gold medals by cutting corners.
Civil servants' hard work in promoting good governance in China should be fairly rewarded according to rules and laws. But it is unacceptable for government officials to raise their own salaries under the pretense of helping them make ends meet without ending their corruption and power abuses. Their salaries should be the main source of income for civil servants, says an article in People's Daily.
China's neighborhood appeared to be generally stable last year, although some regional security problems continued posing a threat. The strategic containment policies by major powers such as the United States, and pressing issues like territorial disputes, separatism and terrorism, comprised most of the destabilizing factors for China.
China faces major as well as potentially minor security threats, and given the complicated international situation, the security environment in its neighborhood cannot be said to be satisfactory. This calls for further reform of the military, without which China cannot safeguard its national security.
The compass, paper money, moveable type printing, gunpowder and silk. These are a few of the inventions that until the early modern era put China ahead of the West as an innovator. But past glories are insufficient to address current and future challenges. Innovation requires a continuous flow of new ideas, and the ability to transform these into dynamic economic processes.
Chinese participants at the World Economic Forum (this year's session ended in Davos, Switzerland, last week) and other international gatherings are becoming increasingly articulate, with Peking University's Justin Yifu Lin, Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Huawei president Ren Zhengfei being prominent among them.
"Seeking common ground while putting aside differences", a famous quote of former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai is the long-time guiding principle of China's diplomacy. It helped China resume diplomatic relations with the United States despite the Cold War.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that China's working-age population decreased by another 3.71 million last year, which means it has declined for three successive years. At the same time, the national gender ratio, or the number of males to that of females, is as high as 1.16. Comments:
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