News in review

Monday____December 26

$100 million allocated for Great Wall protection

China's central government has allocated $100.72 million (700 million yuan) to protect the Great Wall over the past two years.

The amount was revealed by Liu Yuzhu, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH), at a national meeting attended by cultural heritage officials across the country.

In 2017, SACH aims to set up model zones for protection, launch training programs for protectors and volunteers, and establish a national research center for Great Wall protection, Liu said.

With a total length of more than 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometers), China's Great Wall runs through 404 counties in 15 provincial regions, with much of it in poor condition due to natural erosion and man-made damage. (Photo 1)

Elderly care market to be fully opened by 2020

China will fully open its elderly care market by 2020, according to a General Office of the State Council statement.

The move will substantially increase the supply of products and services in the market, standardize regulations and raise service quality, the statement said.

Foreign investment in the sector will be facilitated and administrative approval procedures simplified, it said.

China's aging society is a major social issue. There are more than 220 million people over 60 years old in the country, 16.1 percent of the population, with numbers growing. A total of 15.3 percent of senior citizens believe they need to be taken care of, more than double the number in 2000, putting significant pressure on the government. (Photo 2)

Tuesday____December 27

New rule for car-sharing drivers: Learn English

Drivers for Beijing's burgeoning car-hailing apps will have to refine their English-language skills.

A license that allows drivers to work for such apps in Beijing requires three tests. Two are written exams - one for general driving knowledge and another for driving in Beijing, including the city's transport system and an English listening test - followed by a driving test.

The new move came after China toughened regulations on its Uber-like apps in October, making it even harder for drivers to get a license in megacities like Beijing and Shanghai, where such apps attract their major clientele - affluent urbanites - and drivers are required to be locals and have local car plates.

Before the October regulation, app-ordered cars with plates registered outside Beijing hit the road, which, according to some critics, were partly responsible for the city's notorious traffic congestion.

Study: Most parents don't want second child

More than half of Chinese parents do not want a second child, and 25 percent remain hesitant, according to a new study that highlights the challenges facing efforts to inject new blood into an aging population.

The report by the All China Women's Federation and Beijing Normal University found that 62 percent of parents in developed regions alone are unwilling to have a second child despite their relative financial security in China.

Researchers interviewed 10,155 parents whose children are under age 15.

The parents, from 21 cities across 10 provinces, came from various economic and regional backgrounds, such as the well-off eastern and southern coastal areas, central populous regions and mountainous western areas. They included urban residents, migrant workers and rural villagers. (Photo 3)

Wednesday____December 28

Profits of China's major industrial firms increased 14.5 percent year on year in November, up from 9.8 percent registered in October, official data showed Tuesday.

Profits of industrial companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan ($2.87 million) totaled 774.57 billion yuan last month, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

In the first 11 months of the year, industrial profits expanded 9.4 percent year on year to 6.03 trillion yuan, faster than the 8.6 percent rise for the first ten months, the NBS said.

NBS statistician He Ping said the sharp growth in November was a result of acceleration in the growth of both industrial production and sales, a significant rise in producer prices and the strong performance of electronics, special equipment manufacturing and oil refining sectors.

Unmanned probes sent to Mars, Jupiter by 2030

China plans to send unmanned probes to explore Mars and Jupiter by 2030, said a senior space official.

Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the China National Space Administration, said at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday that the government has decided to send a robotic probe to Mars to orbit and land on the red planet around 2020. The probe will conduct scientific research on the Martian soil and atmosphere and search for signs of water.

"The project has proceeded well since it was approved in January. Now we have finalized the overall plan and begun to develop related equipment such as the Mars rover," he said.

A larger probe also will set off for Mars around 2030 to take samples and return to Earth, he said.

The probe is expected to take nearly seven months before reaching the red planet.

Jupiter as well as its moons will be visited by at least one unmanned probe from China before 2030, Wu said.

Thursday____December 29

Genetically modified tree shrew aids health tests

Chinese scientists have developed methods to make the world's first genetically modified tree shrews, paving the way for the production of "knockout" tree shrews for experimental use, according to research paper published by Cell Research, a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal by the Nature Publishing Group.

The tree shrew, a small, fluffy mammal that looks like a squirrel, is an ideal laboratory animal because it shares a higher degree of similarities with humans than rats do. However, the species' timidity has prevented it from contributing to studies on human health.

"The tree shrew has a nervous system and an immune system that share many more similarities with primates, making it suitable for medical research on neurological diseases and infectious diseases," said Zheng Ping, a researcher at the Kunming Institute of Zoology. (Photo 4)

Tibetan water to reach inland by charter train

A train full of Tibetan bottled water left Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, and headed for the city of Ningbo in eastern China's Zhejiang province Wednesday morning.

It is the first of a regular set of cargo trains to bring bottled drinking water from Tibet to China's inland areas. Carrying 1,890 tonnes of bottled water in 35 carriages from Tibet, the one-way train will travel 4,500 kilometers and reach its destination in six days.

Tibet, often called Asia's Water Tower, is rich in water resources. It produced over 400,000 tonnes of natural drinking water in 2015, but high transport costs made it difficult to reach the inland market.

Friday____December 30

Supervision of officials will step up

China will continue its high pressure against corruption next year, strengthen supervision and severely punish officials who break Party rules, according to the top leadership.

A pilot reform program for an integrated supervision system will also be on next year's anti-graft agenda, according to a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on Wednesday.

The meeting, presided over by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, also decided that the seventh plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the country's discipline watchdog, will be held in Beijing from Jan 6 to 8.

At the meeting, members of the Political Bureau listened to the CCDI's work report for 2016 and provided arrangements for combating corruption and building up clean government next year.

Anti-graft officers are required to report in a timely manner any clues about officials who might be corrupt.

Beijing tops China monthly salary list: report

The pretax monthly salary in Beijing tops 34 major cities in China, with its employees earning 9,835 yuan ($1,414) on average, according to a report released by the Peking University Institute of Social Science and Zhaopin.com, a Chinese human resources website.

Shanghai and Shenzhen took second and third place with 8,692 yuan and 8,315 yuan respectively.

The average monthly salary for all 34 cities surveyed reached 7,233 yuan, a slight increase over 7,018 yuan in the first quarter.

It was shown that more than 46 percent of job offers in Beijing offered a monthly salary of more than 8,000 yuan this winter.

The best-paid jobs in the capital are in professional services and consulting, at 14,607 yuan, followed by the rental sector at 12,976 yuan.

The top 10 best-paid jobs in Beijing all surpassed the threshold of 10,000 yuan a month.

(China Daily USA 12/30/2016 page12)