THIS WEEK

THIS WEEK

“Compared with Asia’s increasingly vital role in the world economy, the influence of Asian media groups on the world stage is very much disproportionate.”

Cui Yuying, Vice Minister of the State Council Information Office of China, calling for Asia’s own versions of Facebook and Twitter to expand the region’s influence at the Fifth 10+3 Media Cooperation Forum held in Changchun, northeast China’s Jilin Province on September 4

“This exhibit highlights the importance and the role of the individual. It says to me that by respecting each other and working together we can create the future we want.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, speaking at the opening ceremony of Sculpting the Soul of a Nation, a sculpture exhibition representing important Chinese cultural figures and memorializing the Nanjing Massacre at the UN headquarters on September 4

“Swimming gave me confidence and hope for a better life. I came to the Paralympics to prove to myself that I can make it like anyone else.”

Feng Yazhu, Chinese swimmer who won the gold medal and set a new world record in the women’s 50-meter backstroke S2 final of the London 2012 Paralympic Games on September 5

“We are enthusiastic about combining AMC’s leadership in the United States with Wanda’s leadership in China, the world’s fastest-growing market.”

Gerry Lopez, President and CEO of AMC Entertainment, second largest theater chain in the United States, commenting on the purchase of AMC by Dalian Wanda, a Chinese real estate conglomerate, at a press conference held at an AMC theater in Los Angeles on September 4

Serious Illness Insurance

China on August 30 announced a decision to expand the coverage of the country’s healthcare insurance system to include the treatment of critical illnesses, aiming to prevent patients from being reduced to poverty from high healthcare costs.

The new arrangement will further increase the level of coverage that China’s healthcare insurance system can offer, according to a document co-issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and five other central government departments.

Sun Zhigang, head of the Health Reform Office under the State Council, said it aims to ensure that each patient’s total medical expenditure is no more than the “household expenditure for healthcare,” which is set at the level of the regional annual per-capita disposable or net income.

Though around 1.3 billion people, or more than 95 percent of China’s population, were covered by the healthcare insurance system at the end of last year, medical expenditures incurred by patients with severe medical conditions remain huge, Sun said.

Local governments have been asked to design regulations on fundraising, reimbursement and other details regarding the new insurance plan in line with local conditions, according to the document.

Qualified commercial insurers will be selected to operate the critical-illness insurance program through bidding, the document said.

NEW uNiVERSiTY The South university of Science and Technology of China (SuSTC) is unveiled in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province, on September 2. SuSTC is widely regarded as the country’s first professor-led and bureaucracy-free higher education institution

ShOOTiNG COMPETiTiON Soldiers compete in a shooting exercise during military training in hohhot, capital of north China’s inner Mongolia autonomous Region, on September 5

Official Facing Charges

Wang Lijun, former vice mayor and police chief of southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, was charged with bending the law for selfish ends, defection, abuse of power and bribe-taking by the Chengdu City People’s Procuratorate, Xinhua News Agency learned from authorities on September 5.

According to the indictment, although Wang had known beforehand that Bogu Kailai, the wife of former Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai, was under serious suspicion of murdering Briton Neil Heywood, he consciously neglected his duty and bent the law for personal gain so that Bogu Kailai would not be held legally responsible. Wang was indicted for the crime of bending the law for personal gain.

Prosecutors said that Wang, while he was performing his official duties, left his post without authorization and defected to the United States Consulate General in Chengdu. He was therefore indicted for the crime of defection.

Wang was indicted for the crime of power abuse for illegally using technical reconnaissance measures, either without the approval of authorities or by forging approval documents. Wang also took advantage of his position and accepted massive bribes in a bid to secure benefits for other individuals, leading to the indictment for the crime of bribe-taking.

The Chengdu City Intermediate People’s Court has accepted the case and will hold a trial at a later date, said a Xinhua report.

A Giving Garbageman Liu Shenglan, a 90-year-old trash collector in a village of Yantai, east China’s Shandong Province, has recently moved the nation with his selflessness.

Liu has used his meager income to aid more than 100 poor students nationwide for the past 17 years. He has sent these poor students more than 70,000 yuan ($11,000) after reading about their hardship in newspapers. Liu himself, however, lives on vegetables collected from garbage heaps.

He receives 1,800 yuan ($283.5) a year from the government, which he donates to struggling students. His neighbors and relatives cannot understand why Liu donates all his savings to others, leaving little for himself. Liu responds that he has no children and he doesn’t want to pass away without leaving anything to the world. Liu stopped collecting trash earlier this year due to old age.

Far-sea Territory Monitoring

The availability of remote-sensing images brought by China’s satellites has allowed the country to better monitor its territory in the far seas, including Huangyan, Diaoyu and Xisha islands and the surrounding sea areas.

The Overseas Edition of thePeople’s Dailycited sources with the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) as saying it is a significant move in terms of extending China’s maritime monitoring network coverage from the near to far seas.

The network went into service in 2009 after construction began in 2006.

By combining satellite, aerial remotesensing and ground-based monitoring methods, the system monitors development activities in China’s coastal and sea areas “in a stereo and dynamic manner,” the paper said on September 3.

China’s monitoring of its sea territory had long been constrained by its lagging monitoring capacity, mainly due to the shortage of satellites, the report said, citing experts. The situation improved following the activation of the maritime monitoring network.

Pensions Recipients

More than 180 million Chinese were receiving their basic pensions in August with some 600 million people covered by the country’s pension system, a senior social security official said on September 3.

Among the pension recipients, 116 million were rural and urban residents who contribute to their own pension accounts while 70 million are retirees from enterprises and public institutions, said Hu Xiaoyi, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security.

The official said that the government will gradually increase the fiscal support for the new rural endowment insurance and urban residents social pension insurance programs.

About 427 million Chinese have been insured by the programs at the end of August, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

KUNG FU TRiP French martial artists train in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous Region, on September 2. They excelled in this year’s French National Martial arts Competition and were sent to Liuzhou to study for 20 days

Colliery Safety

China will launch a new round of safety inspections in collieries nationwide, said Yang Dongliang, head of State Administration of Work Safety, on September 4.

Yang stressed that the inspections would be panoramic and thorough.

The announcement came after a deadly colliery blast on August 29 in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, which caused the death of 45 miners.

For mine owners who push miners to work overtime or under high intensity in order to increase coal output, Yang ordered an immediate halt of production and temporary seizure of business licenses.

Yang urged mine owners to make detailed precautions and implement reliable technical measures to guarantee safety.

Those who fail safety inspections will not be allowed to continue in the mining business, Yang said.

DORaEMON iNVaSiON hong Kong holds the largest ever Doraemon exhibition on august 14-September 16 to celebrate the character’s fictional birthday—100 years in advance

Mobile Map Users

China is boasting a promising mobile map market, with the number of users estimated to reach 600 million at the end of 2015, according to a report released by market researcher Analysys International on September 5.

Mobile map clients will account for about 64.6 percent of all cellphone users, the report stated.

By the end of June, the average number of daily active mobile map users in China had reached 5.54 million, or only 2.4 percent of mobile phone users, the report said.

The total number of mobile map users is expected to hit 287 million at the end of the year.

PMI’s New Low

China’s manufacturing activity slid further in August, with the purchasing managers index (PMI) standing at 49.2 percent, the lowest pace in nine months, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP).

It marked the first time the index has fallen below 50 percent since December 2011. A reading of 50 percent demarcates expansion from contraction.

The falling PMI showed growth in the world’s second largest economy remains in a downward movement, said Cai Jin, Vice Chairman of CFLP. The PMI reading in August retreated 0.9 percentage points from July.

“The [weak] external demand remains the biggest factor dragging down China’s economic growth; meanwhile, domestic demand has not yet improved,” said Fan Junlin, an economic researcher at the Agricultural Bank of China.

The PMI of China’s non-manufacturing sector rose 0.7 percentage points to 56.3 percent in August.

“The rebound shows the non-manufacturing sector has played a more significant role in stabilizing economic growth,” Cai said. “The recovery in the consumer service sector and dynamics of the information service industry have been building up a solid foundation for stabilized growth.”

Disappointing Profits

Chinese listed companies disappointed investors with bleak reports over the first half of the year against the backdrop of the economic slowdown.

As the period of disclosures came to an end on August 31, 2,475 companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges posted a combined first-half net profit of 1.02 trillion yuan ($160 billion), down 1.51 percent from the previous year, according toShanghai Securities News.

The figure marked a steep downturn in combined net profits of listed companies, which saw profits surge more than 20 percent year on year during the same period in 2011 and 40 percent in 2010.

Among all listed enterprises, 2,130 companies made profits in the first six months but 46 percent of them saw their gains fall, while about 14 percent of all companies posted losses, 5 percentage points higher than the figure registered last year.

The average earnings per share of listed companies also went down 6.59 percent to reach 0.27 yuan ($0.043) in the first half of the year.

Rice Price Up

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on September 3 that it will raise the minimum purchase prices for mid-season and late rice in 2012, as severe droughts in the United States and other grain-producing countries have driven up food prices in the global market.

uNDERSEa CaBLE a 3,000-ton ship lays undersea cables at Penglai Port of Shandong Peninsula on September 2. The cable will carry electricity to the Changdao islands in the Bohai Sea

The minimum purchase price for midseason and late indica rice will be raised to 2.5 yuan ($0.39) per kg, up 16.82 percent from a year earlier, according to the NDRC.

Meanwhile, the minimum purchase price for japonica rice will be set at 2.8 yuan ($0.44) per kg, up 9.38 percent from last year.

The new prices will be effective in Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Sichuan provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from September 16 to December 31, 2012.

In northeast China’s provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, the new minimum purchase price for rice will be applied from November 16, 2012 to March 31, 2013 due to different climate conditions, said the NDRC.

Elevator Giant

China has become the world’s largest manufacturer and seller of elevators, with an average annual growth of 20 percent over the past 10 years, said the organizers of the upcoming 2012 World Elevator Summit.

By the end of 2011, China had installed more than 2 million elevators nationwide, while its elevator sales and production volume both topped 450,000 units, accounting for more than 60 percent of the global total. Elevator exports volume exceeded 47,000 units in the same period.

The huge demand has helped boost the development of domestic elevator producers, who now occupy almost 40 percent of the domestic market, up from 20 percent 10 years ago.

There is still a great deal of room for future development, as the country’s per-capita ownership of in-service elevators is only one third of the global average.

The 2012 World Elevator Summit, which is set to open on October 25 in Beijing, will focus on future trends in the elevator market and improving elevator security.

Role Model for Youth

Houston Rockets basketball star Jeremy Lin, an emerging pop idol with a huge following of young fans in China, sent his best wishes to Chinese youth in a message from the United States, highlighting the importance of teamwork and encouraging students to bravely pursue their dreams in a video shot for a program called The First Lesson of the China Central Television (CCTV) on September 3.

The Chinese Ministry of Education and CCTV have been producing the program since 2008 as a welcoming gift for students. The show invites dozens of celebrities to give speeches on a topic at the beginning of each autumn semester. This year’s theme is The Beauty Around You.

Lin, 24, is a Harvard-educated guard and the first American-born NBA player of Chinese heritage. He became an international sensation earlier this year with his exceptional skills, humor and work ethic.

Subway Order

CSR Sifang Co. Ltd. and Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries Group have obtained a joint contract to supply subway vehicles in Singapore, according to CSR Sifang.

This marked the third time the two companies have won such a contract from the Land Transport Authority, a board under Singapore’s Ministry of Transport.

CSR and Kawasaki were awarded the latest contract for their reliable technology, advanced operating experience and strong production capacity.

The two companies will work together to supply 132 train cars to Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit system. The contracted subway vehicles will be delivered between 2015 and 2016.

CSR Sifang, based in Qingdao, Shandong Province, is a subsidiary of China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp., the country’s biggest train maker.