THIS WEEK SOCIETY

THIS WEEK SOCIETY

Freshening Up

Children queue up to wash their hands at a kindergarten in Shangwan Village in Huachi County, Gansu Province, on June 3. To improve hygiene education in remote areas, the China Development Research Foundation and Unilever launched a campaign to promote hand washing among children during schooltime in 2016. It has covered more than 10,000 rural children in several provinces.

Space Station

China will carry out at least four manned spaceflight missions over about five years to build a space station, the country’s first astronaut Yang Liwei said on June 6.

Two manned space missions will be conducted in 2020, said Yang, Deputy Director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, at the 2017 Global Space Exploration Conference in Beijing.

The country plans to complete the building of the space station by around 2022, aiming to carry out about a dozen launch missions beforehand, according to Yang.

He said the first core module of the space station would be launched in 2019, followed by two experiment modules.

The space station will enable astronauts to stay in the space for three months to half a year, he added.

Yang said astronauts are currently preparing for the space station program and China will start the selection of new astronauts this year.

Nutritional Program

More than 36 million rural students have benefited from a national nutritional improvement program, a foundation said on June 1.

The Chinese Government has allocated 159.1 billion yuan ($23.4 billion) for improving the nutrition of rural students since the end of 2011, according to a report released by the China Development Research Foundation.

It shows that the physical health of students in poor regions has improved remarkably in recent years.

The government will expand the program, which is part of the nation’s poverty relief campaign, and continue its reward and subsidy policies, said Liu Xin’an, an official with the Ministry of Finance.

In November 2011, the nutritional improvement program for elementary and middle school students in rural areas was launched. It offered schools a subsidy of 4 yuan ($0.59) per student per day to build canteens or outsource breakfast and lunch from catering companies.

The program also provided free nutritional packages for infants aged 6 to 24 months and provided information on healthy nutrition for their caregivers.

A total of 1,590 counties in 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have taken part in the program, covering 134,000 schools, the report said.

A separate nutritional program was implemented in Beijing and Tianjin and Shandong Province.

At the end of 2016, China had more than 43 million rural residents living below the poverty line. Malnutrition is a concern amongst those in the remote countryside.

Health Service

The National Center for Children’s Health was inaugurated on June 1 with two affiliates in Beijing and Shanghai respectively.

The center is based on three of the nation’s best children’s hospitals in Beijing and Shanghai, including Beijing Children’s Hospital under the Capital Medical University, Children’s Hospital of Fudan University and Shanghai Children’s Medical Center under Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The center will focus on treatment of complicated illnesses and training of pediatricians to meet rising demand. It will also function as a data collection center on major illnesses affecting children in China and an epidemic monitoring and research body.

“One of the urgent priorities is to deepen research on birth defects and improve diagnosis of illnesses such as congenital heart disease,” said Ni Xin, President of Beijing Children’s Hospital.

Statistics show that at the end of 2015, China had 227 million children under the age of 14, accounting for about 16.52 percent of the national population.

The center will help balance medical resources by raising standards of children’s hospitals in neighboring cities, Ni said.

Garbage Treatment

Beijing incinerates the majority of its unsorted household garbage to address its sprawling landfills and as a more environment-friendly way to treat waste, city authorities said on June 3.

At least 60 percent of the city’s household waste is incinerated or treated, compared to 30 percent in 2013, said Sun Xinjun, Director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Management.

By the end of next year, Beijing will have increased its garbage treatment capacity to 24,000 tonnes a day, Sun said. “By then, all the waste will be incinerated or biologically treated. No untreated garbage will be buried.”

He said Beijing’s waste treatment capacity has improved greatly over the past five years, with 42 garbage treatment facilities having been built or renovated to ensure harmless, environment-friendly ways of disposal.

Sun said the garbage treatment facilities were built in line with national standards, and emission limits are equivalent to, or even stricter than, EU standards. “So these plants won’t become sources of pollution.”

In the meantime, Beijing authorities have encouraged citizens to create less waste and improve waste sorting, he said.

Joint Degree Program

Zhejiang University signed a memorandum of understanding with Yale University on May 31 to launch a joint-degree program.

The program will start this autumn, according to Cheng Lei, Vice Dean of the Life Sciences Institute at Zhejiang University.

Under the program, students can earn a bachelor’s degree after three years of study at Zhejiang University and a master’s degree from the Yale School of Public Health after two years of study there.

It is important for Yale to work with Chinese universities in talent and scientific research exchanges, said Sten H. Vermund, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health.

The two universities agreed to conduct further cooperation in scientific research, faculty and student exchanges, and academic conferences.

Smoke Free Campaign

The World Health Organization (WHO) started a “smoke-free generation” media campaign in Beijing on June 1 targeting young Chinese.

“There is nothing cool about smoking, but there is something empowering about choosing to live a healthy, smoke-free life,”said Bernhard Schwartlander, WHO Representative in China, at the launch event.

According to WHO, over half of Chinese adult men smoke, two thirds of whom started as young adults. By 2014, 72.9 percent of Chinese students had been exposed to secondhand smoke.

Since China ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005, it has made a number of tobacco control efforts, including banning tobacco advertisements, increasing tobacco taxes and putting forward regional smoking bans.

By 2016, 18 cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen had implemented regional smoking bans.

China has set a target to reduce the smoking rate among people aged 15 and older to 20 percent by 2030 from the current 27.7 percent, according to the Healthy China 2030 blueprint issued by the central authorities in October 2016.

Getting Ready

Candidates take part in an outdoor relaxation activity at Yuying High School in Hefei, Anhui Province, before the national college entrance exam. The exam took place on June 7 and 8 in most parts of the country.

Exam Robot

A company in Chengdu, southwest China’s Sichuan Province, has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) robot smart enough to sit the national college entrance exam, commonly known asgaokao.

The robot, named AI-MATHS, answered different paper versions of the math test over two hours on June 7, the test day.

In February, the robot scored 93 on one math test, slightly higher than the passing grade of 90.

“We have been working to improve its performance in logical reasoning and computer algorithms in the past year,” said Lin Hui, CEO of Chengdu Zhunxingyunxue Technology.

The Ministry of Science and Technology has announced a plan to developgaokaorobots. Under the plan, by 2020, AI robots will be smart enough to gain admission to leading universities through the entrance exam.

Intangible Treasures

Clay figurines are displayed during an intangible cultural heritage expo in Linyi, Shandong Province, on June 3.