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THE ESSENTIAL EIGHT
1. A股“中国梦”呼唤长牛中证研究中证网 China Securities Journal says the stock market rise is good but has been too fast, the recent surge damages the prospects for a long-term bull market…short-term punters may want to take the hint and take a breather, but longer term the signals are still very clear that the government wants a bull market// 2014年末A股的急速大涨，是一部“喜剧+
Related: China A-Shares ETF Slumps as Regulator Urges Caution – Bloomberg Investors must consider risks while putting money into stocks, China’s securities regulator warned on Dec. 5 after a buying spree fueled a 21 percent rally in the Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP) over the past month, the most among 93 global indexes tracked by Bloomberg.
Related: 新常态下这一年（2014年经济形势述评①）
2. China’s Xi demands accelerated FTA strategy – Xinhua President Xi Jinping on Friday called for accelerated fulfillment of the free trade area (FTA) strategy and the building of a new economic system of openness. The remarks, published on Saturday, were made at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Friday. The FTA strategy is an important part of China’s new round of opening-up, Xi said. Multilateral trade systems and regional trade arrangements have always been the driving force behind economic globalization.
Related: 政治局集体学习自贸区战略|政治局|自贸区|
3. Girl at Center of Suspected Abuse Case Stops Breathing, on Ventilator: Report | the Beijinger Volunteer caregivers who have assisted Ray Wigdal, identified as the American foster father of the girl and 10 other Chinese children, told reporters that her injuries were the result of a bicycling accident; however authorities suspect the girl’s injuries may have been inflicted by Widgal, as Chinese media reports claim that the girl told the hospital staff she had been hit by him…Wigdal’s whereabouts remain unknown and has not been to the hospital to visit the girl since her admittance Nov 24, although the 163.com report states that he was interviewed by police on Sunday. Beijing Police released no further information on the matter, including whether or not they had detained him…The other 10 children were taken into protective custody by Beijing authorities and children protection staff on Friday, December 5, with reports coming from a trusted American source familiar with the case saying “the kids were safe and treated kindly and with great patience and compassion.”
Related: 被老外虐待中国养女停止呼吸_网易新闻中心-
4. China denounces Philippine ‘pressure’ over sea dispute arbitration | Reuters In a position paper, China outlined its arguments against the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague to take up the case filed by the Philippines last year that could have implications for China’s claims over the South China Sea. “Its underlying goal is not … to seek peaceful resolution of the South China Sea issue, but rather, by resorting to arbitration, to put political pressure on China, so as to deny China’s lawful rights in the South China Sea through the so-called ‘interpretation or application’ of the Convention,” China’s foreign ministry said.
Related: Position Paper of the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Matter of Jurisdiction in the South China Sea Arbitration Initiated by the Republic of the Philippines // the Chinese version-中华人民共和国政府关于菲律宾共和国所提南海仲
Related: Commentary: Manila’s unilateral move on South China Sea dispute unhelpful – Xinhua The Philippines has been acting like a crying baby by seeking international arbitration over its territorial spats with China in the South China Sea. It may get fondness, but will not help settle the disputes. Despite strong objection from Beijing, Manila unilaterally initiated and has been pushing forward with the arbitral proceeding since January 2013. Some blindfolded have questioned China for not accepting or participating in the arbitration, while some ill-intentioned, who have made one-sided and misleading readings of international rules, accused China of not abiding by international law. To clear up the confusion, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued on Sunday a position paper, elaborating on the legal basis for China’s position that the arbitral tribunal manifestly has no jurisdiction in this case and demonstrating that China’s position not to accept or participate in the proceedings stands on solid ground in international law.
5. After the Abe-Xi summit: What comes next in Japan-China Relations (pt. 3)? – Dispatch Japan Last week we began a five-part interview series on these topics. First up was Corey Wallace, a specialist in Japan foreign and security policy. Then came Bob Manning, an Asia specialist with the Atlantic Council in Washington. Today we speak with Michael Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
6. Labor movement ‘concertmaster’ tests Beijing’s boundaries | Reuters China’s ruling Communist Party is deeply paranoid about social instability arising from labor disputes. Though the country boasts the biggest union in the world, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), it is a state-run body that critics say regularly favors investors over workers. Under President Xi Jinping, pressure has intensified on rights advocates, but that has not stemmed a wave of labor activism engendered by a slowing economy, shifting demographics and the rise of social media.
Related: 报告称农民工集体行动推动工会改革
7. China’s slump will hurt Australian incomes, and the pain is likely to linger–The Age These latest negative surprises have pushed the [Australia’s] Reserve Bank to consider lowering interest rates at its next board meeting in February, according to a report by The Age economics editor Peter Martin. But the bank, like everybody else, is groping in the dark for clues on how China’s notoriously complex and opaque political-economy will evolve from here. To this end, the bank has invited one of China’s foremost economists, Yu Yongding, to spend a month in its Martin Place headquarters with the team of nine specialist China watchers that it has been nurturing since the Global Financial Crisis.
8. Beijing school rush makes property prices higher than Mayfair – Telegraph since April, Beijing’s very best schools have been admitting pupils based only on catchment area…An employee in a government company, his son would previously have been given preferential access to a top school. Until April, the quotas in many of Beijing’s best schools were filled with the children of government officials, state companies or those with the right connections. But this year the government swept away the privileges, declaring that admission would be based on geography alone, and triggering a mad rush for properties.
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BUSINESS, ECONOMY AND TRADE
Slow Burn: Rising Coal Stockpiles in Hubei Point to Slowing Economic Growth in a Key Chinese Province | China SignPost™ We do not want to overstate what the data says, but the implications from multiple signals is clear: coal stockpiles grew less rapidly that they otherwise would have because coal production expanded. To the contrary, China’s coal imports declined by nearly 8% YoY in the first 10 months of 2014 and domestic coal production actually fell by 1.5% YoY in the first 10 months of 2014. If demand were even semi-strong, power plants would be struggling to obtain coal supplies under such conditions. Yet Hubei’s coal-fired plants are now swimming in coal. Most likely, the coal piles are stacking up in Hubei because demand for electricity is weaker compared to prior years and the reason it is weaker is that a range of core economic activities are slowing. Hubei is an industrial and transport hub in the heart of the Yangtze River valley—China’s riverine artery of economic activity—where coal supplies 64% of primary energy. The analogy would be seeing coal demand weakness in Germany’s Ruhr Valley, the country’s industrial heartland.
China property market set for demographic hit – FT.com According to newly published research, the size of China’s main property-buying population — people aged 25 to 49 — will peak next year and then start to decline, just as a huge glut of new apartments hits the market. This demographic will shrink drastically from 2018, with the number of urban homebuying Chinese falling much faster than contemporaries from the countryside, who are far less likely to have the means to buy expensive apartments, according to Ai Jingwei, an expert on Chinese real estate and author of the research.
Tokyo Tops Shanghai in ULI Survey of 2015 Real Estate Prospects | Mingtiandi In a forecast of Asia Pacific real estate markets jointly published on Thursday by the Urban Land Institute and PwC, for the second year in a row, respondents voted Tokyo as the city with the best prospects for real estate development and investment in 2015. Shanghai – the top ranked mainland city – meanwhile fell to number six in the rankings of investment destinations after placing second for the four previous years. Beijing, which placed tenth, was the only other mainland city to place in the top ten, as investors have begun prioritising locations outside of China for their new projects and acquisitions.
China Bad-Loan Level Seen Understated After Economy Slows – Bloomberg China’s bad-loan ratio may have been understated by at least a third in the second quarter as an economic slowdown weakened borrowers’ ability to repay debts. The level may have been 1.5 percent or above, China Orient Asset Management Corp. said in a report yesterday, citing its survey of 64 local bank executives. That compared with an official number of 1.08 percent.
经济参考网 – 吴敬琏点评十八大以来各项改革：金融改革超预期 Wu Jinglian comments on reforms since the 18th Party congress, says financial reforms have exceeded expectations, SOE reforms need to be speeded up
经济参考网 -A股飙涨扰乱“买房族”心绪:买股还是买房? Xinhua asks if the A share frenzy will cause further pain for the real estate market as potential buyers decide there are are better, more liquid returns from punting stocks…I can’t imagine the A share surge is good news for bank deposits, internet finance products like Yu’E Bao or WMPs. A rising stock market has plenty of benefits, but clearly a double-edged sword, and it has surged too far fast, would not be surprised to see more official jawboning to try to get the market on a more “rational” upward trajectory
经济参考网 – 房地产即将开启“增值税时代” 税率或为11%，若允许抵扣不动产，减税规模有望超5000亿
China State Planner Shows Off User-Friendly New Look – China Real Time Report – WSJ Now the powerful National Development and Reform Commission is getting a better run in the press, with state media trumpeting a new and user-friendly online approval system, along with a public service center that applicants can directly visit to get assistance. State media has trumpeted the move as a boon for transparency. Curious to peek inside its doors, China Real Time made a recent visit to the center, which is located down a narrow alley in western Beijing behind a heavy glass door.
Lock-up shares worth 28 bln yuan eligible for trade – Xinhua Lock-up shares worth 28 billion yuan (4.56 billion U.S. dollars) will become eligible for trading on China’s stock markets during the next week. A total of 1.6 billion shares of 20 companies will be tradable on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, representing 0.36 percent of lock-up shares in China’s A share market.
China’s Banks Seize on New Debt Option – WSJ Even as they battle souring loans and weak share prices, China’s banks have managed to raise a record US$110 billion this year by tapping into investors’ desire for yield. The fundraising has been dominated by the sale of bonds, including a preference-share option that was opened to banks this year. The amount raised is more than double last year’s US$43 billion, Dealogic figures show, and tops the record of US$82 billion raised in 2010
Anne Stevenson-Yang: Why Xi Jinping’s Troubles, and China’s, Could Get Worse – Barron’s An American, Stevenson-Yang, 56, is fluent in Mandarin, although her husband, a former People’s Liberation Army intelligence officer, and their two adult children sometimes mock her accent. For Stevenson-Yang, who toted Chairman Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book in high school, her years in China have given her a skeptical view of the nation’s miraculous growth. Her disenchantment arises from the stark inequality of wealth and opportunity, the thuggishness of the Communist elite, and the amount of chicanery and accounting fraud engaged in by Chinese companies and government organs. Read on to find out why she thinks that China has entered the early stages of slowing expansion, severe credit problems, and potential instability.
International lending to China soars in 2014: BIS | Reuters Cross-border claims on China increased by $65 billion in the second quarter of 2014 to $1.1 trillion, and were up nearly 50 percent in the year to the end of June, according to a quarterly report from the Bank for International Settlements on Sunday. “China has become by far the largest (emerging market) borrower for BIS reporting banks. Outstanding cross-border claims on residents of China totaled $1.1 trillion at end-June 2014, compared with $311 billion on Brazil and slightly more than $200 billion each on India and Korea,” the report says.
In China, Developer Has New Theme: Parks – WSJ The goal is to put China “on the stage and lead world-class entertainment,” said Tang Jun, vice president of the Beijing Wanda Cultural Industry Group, at a recent news briefing. Success is far from inevitable for Wanda, which is a newcomer to a sector in which Disney has six decades of experience. Experts say it may be a steep learning curve to navigate safety, hospitality and entertainment. // strange that the WSJ doesn’t mention Wanda hired Noble Coker, who was a senior Disney executive for many years working on Asia-Pacific theme parks to work on their theme park projects. I was on a panel with him earlier this year, very interesting to hear his views on Wanda’s efforts. Is he no longer at the company?
不动产登记条例或10天内公布 主要功能非反腐-房产新闻-太原搜狐焦点网 provision
China publishes draft rules on stock options, signals launch is near | Reuters Chinese regulators say they will launch a series of stock and commodity options in the coming year, and exchanges are already conducting simulated trading for some contracts.
POLITICS AND LAW
China Probe of Former Security Chief May Mean Closed-Door Trial – Bloomberg Zhou is under detention in a small town in Shandong province: Yanggu, the legendary site of the household hero Wu Song defeating a tiger in an ancient Chinese tale, according to a People’s Daily official WeChat post issued early on Saturday. The post was deleted shortly afterward. “The place could be hand-picked by Xi after a nuanced consideration,” said Qiao Mu, a professor of media studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University. “The battle against Zhou is his masterpiece and he wants every single detail to be perfect.’
Ex-security tsar Zhou Yongkang’s power bases cut ties with him | South China Morning Post Peking University anti-graft expert Zhuang Deshui said the declarations by Zhou’s former power bases were an interesting phenomenon in mainland politics. It showed that those still in power were willing to sever all connections with Zhou. “These declarations, on one hand, show that the current cadres have said goodbye to mistakes they might have made in the past,” he said. “On the other hand, it is a kind of support” for President Xi Jinping’s leadership.” Zhuang described Zhou’s case as the most dangerous form of corruption as it involved acts committed by cliques or factions rather than just an individual.
顺应人民期待 彰显治党决心–观点–人民网
Ex-village chief’s 132 city homes | Shanghai Daily A FORMER village Party chief in China’s Zhejiang Province amassed a portfolio of 132 properties in Shanghai, it has emerged. The property empire of the 60-year-old former Longgang Town official, surnamed Li, came to light during legal disputes, the Modern Gold Express reported yesterday. Li is also accused of 18 cases of private lending involving 77.85 million yuan (US$12.65 million).
China’s Explosion in Administrative IP Appeals and Its Impact on the New Beijing Specialized IP Court | China IPR – Intellectual Property Developments in China On October 30, 2014, the Beijing Higher People’s Court published a report on patent and trademark administrative appeals for the first nine months of 2014, which underscores the kind of docket that this new court will face. Trademark administrative cases increased drastically, from 2139 for all of 2013, to 7749 for the first nine months of 2014. If these 7749 cases were annualized, the total would be 10332 — a five-fold increase for 2014. Moreover, in 2013, about 50% of this docket involved foreigners. This court will be of key interest for foreigners.
疲劳审讯拟算变相刑讯逼供深度新京报网 记者昨日获悉，
《习仲勋画传》出版 揭十六年蒙冤经历深度新京报网 pictorial biography of Xi Zhongxun released, includes never before released pictures of a young Xi Jinping, details of Xi Zhongxun’s 16 years of being subject to injustice… // 《习仲勋画传》
近期多省公安厅长被任命为副省长 均由异地调任新闻腾讯网 根据《第一财经日报》统计，
FOREIGN AND DEFENSE AFFAIRS
海军副政委马发祥中将离世19天后火化政经频道财新网 of
天量下换仓？军工逾20股涨停-股票频道-和讯网 Hexun on the best military industrial complex stock ideas…
Internet freedom rankings biased – Global Times The year 2014 saw the state of global Internet freedom declining for the fourth consecutive year, with China, Iran and Syrian rated as the world’s worst abusers of Internet freedom, according to an annual report from the US-based human rights organization Freedom House, released on Thursday. China was ranked the last but two among the 65 countries and regions examined. According to a report by the Christian Science Monitor, a US newspaper, Freedom House is 80 percent funded by the US government. It is another bizarre ranking by a Western organization that attempts to defame China after Transparency International degraded China by 20 places on its corruption perceptions index. However, such moves have no ethical limit, and the motive of ideological attacks can easily be discerned. It actually acts to undermine the reputation of all Western organizations among the Chinese public. // 社评：中国网络自由排倒三，
Chinese company undertakes largest water supply project in Sri Lanka – Xinhua The inaugural pipe laying was done by Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa in the town of Mahara, about 19.6 km from capital Colombo. The project, once completed, will provide clean drinking water to about 600,000 people in 42 villages scattered around the region. An estimated 20 million U.S. dollars is also provided by the Sri Lankan government who will work with CMEC to implement the venture. “We are doing this for the community. It’s a very important project and we are grateful for the Chinese government for supporting us in this. This is something that has great social worth,” Rajapaksa told the gathering at the inauguration ceremony.
China ‘boosting shoal defence’, AsiaOne Asia News Recent surveillance photos show the ropes and buoys that used to barricade the mouth of Scarborough’s large lagoon have been replaced by the Chinese with nets tied to large posts, according to a security analyst. The reinforced barricade was apparently meant to keep out Filipino fishermen who had been sneaking into the lagoon with canoes to trawl for tuna, blue marlin, grouper and lobster, said the analyst. He spoke to The Straits Times on condition he not be named as he is also a private consultant to the Philippine military.
The road from China’s past to future | South China Morning Post He said private companies such as Holley Metering were unlikely to win the big contracts. “Although private companies are often more flexible and capable about doing business overseas, we can rarely get the contracts that SOEs are given,” he said. Beixin, a Xinjiang SOE, faces a similar problem. Zhang said that while Beixin had an advantage in sharing culture, climate, and diet with nations linked by the new Silk Road, it would be hard for an SOE in Xinjiang to compete with top national SOEs. “Often top national SOEs are the first to be awarded lucrative contracts and we have to wait for them to subcontract out part of their work to us,” Zhang said.
China Exclusive: Countdown to China’s new space programs begins – Xinhua China hopes to put a rover on Mars around 2020, complete a manned space station around 2022 and test a heavy carrier rocket around 2030, a top space scientist revealed Sunday. Lei Fanpei, chairman of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the main contractor for the space program, revealed the details in an interview with Xinhua after the launch of CBERS-4, a satellite jointly developed with Brazil, from the Taiyuan base, by a Long March-4B rocket. It was the 200th flight of the Long March variants since April 1970 when a Long March-1 carried China’s first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, into space.
Chinese military aircraft send water to Maldives – Xinhua Two Chinese military aircraft laden with 40 tons of drinking water left for the water-starved Maldives on Sunday night, according to the Defence Ministry. The two aircraft from the Chinese air force are expected to arrive at Male, capital of Maldives, at 4 a.m. (Beijing Time) on Monday, the ministry said. A marine rescue vessel of the Chinese navy has been dispatched to transport about 1,000 tons fresh water to Male on Friday, and it is scheduled to arrive at 3 a.m. Monday.
高小燕背后“贵人”曝光 疑是谷俊山情妇(图)-搜狐军事频道 reports that recently detained Maj. Gen Gao Xiaoyan was a mistress of Gu Junshan, bought her promotion from him
HONG KONG, MACAO AND TAIWAN
High-rolling Macau junket operator fights gambling charges in US | South China Morning Post The majority of suspects accused by US authorities of running a multibillion-dollar World Cup gambling ring have agreed to plead guilty, reports said. The decision by the five defendants leaves only Macau junket operator Paul Phua Wei-seng and his son, Darren, to contest the illegal-betting charges before a court in Nevada, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
China ex-general says using force an option in ‘Taiwan problem’ – Channel NewsAsia Liu Jingsong told the annual conference of the Global Times newspaper that the Chinese government would not be afraid to use force to resolve “the Taiwan issue”, the Chinese-language paper reported Saturday on its website without specifying further. “The Taiwan issue will not remain unresolved for a long time. We will not abandon the possibility of using force; according to the law, it is also an option to resolve the issue by military means if necessary,” said Liu, a former president of the influential Chinese Academy of Military Sciences. He retired from active service with the People’s Liberation Army in 1997.
Taiwan Hangs Out ‘tiny Welcome Sign’ For China Delegation – Business Insider The eight-day visit by a delegation led by a former Chinese commerce minister and including Alibaba founder Jack Ma is seen by many in Taiwan as aimed at gauging the mood on the self-ruled island towards its giant neighbor after a stinging election defeat for its ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT).
For China and the UK, respect is key – Telegraph It’s time to share China’s side of the story about the Foreign Affairs Committee’s proposed ‘inquiry’ in Hong Kong, says Liu Xiaoming. {PRC Ambassador to UK]
Resistance Is Futile | Foreign Policy Rachel Lu, in Hong Kong, says Beijing will emerge winner from HK protests // Everyone in Hong Kong will probably emerge from the Occupy movement a bit bruised, either physically or mentally, but some in Beijing might be smiling. China’s central government has stood fast on the core issue — that Beijing will vet the slate of nominees for Hong Kong’s chief executive in the 2017 election. Years (if not decades) of “united front” work, a term used by China’s ruling Communist Party to describe efforts to hew non-party elites close to its goals, seem to have paid off. Beijing has proven that it knows how to pull the right levers in Hong Kong to wield considerable influence…The ranks of the pro-establishment camp will likely tighten, while the opposition pro-democracy camp is left in disarray amid infighting. More importantly, Beijing has managed to discredit this brand of student-led protests in the eyes of many mainlanders
TECH AND MEDIA
Internet tycoon Yu Jiawen, 24, urges young to be audacious | South China Morning Post Calling himself a “wild child” and demanding the same from his employees, Yu said he needed to be bold to beat his rivals. Few companies could achieve what his had because their bosses lacked audacity, he said. He was considering rewarding his employees – almost all born after 1990 – 100 million yuan in bonuses next year. Clips of Yu’s appearance on the show went viral, with some online users saying his success and confidence were impressive, while others doubted the numbers he quoted and found him arrogant. “China’s mobile internet industry is just in a bubble … The funding numbers are all made-up … I don’t believe Yu. It’s just a show and he’s just a liar,” one person wrote on Zhihu.com.
专访余佳文：“谁不想年轻、谁不想张狂？”-看点-虎嗅网
Alibaba Must Deploy Cash to Challenge Android: Real M&A – Bloomberg Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai, laying out plans for the next decade, said in an interview last month that Alibaba’s homegrown system, YunOS, can knit services together for the company as Asia’s largest e-commerce giant steps beyond clothes and gadgets to entertainment and health care. With a market value of $266 billion, Alibaba has struggled to push YunOS in China, where more than nine out of 10 mobile devices use Google Inc. (GOOGL)’s Android. // YunOS really a “homegrown system”?
SOCIETY, ART, SPORTS, CULTURE AND HISTORY
China registers 92 million people in poverty – Xinhua According to Liu Yongfu, head of the State Council leading group office of poverty alleviation and development, poverty has declined substantially in China, but the country still has 832 poor counties and districts…To expand the safety net for those in poverty, the national poverty line was increased from 206 yuan in 1986 to 2,300 yuan per annum in 2011 (33.5 to 374 U.S. dollars).
南方周末 – “计生红旗县”往事 Southern Weekend interviews a retired local family panning official, he says government should offer support for older cadres who did their jobs but not have only one child to support them
A Harvard professor explains Daoism, with help from RZA – Ideas – The Boston Globe For anyone just glancingly familiar with Daoism, it might come as a surprise to see that the prodigious, two-volume Norton Anthology of World Religions, published earlier this month, includes it as one of its six major living world religions…James Robson, a scholar of East Asian religions at Harvard, was tapped to edit the Daoism section of the new Norton anthology, which meant collecting a set of readings to define a tradition that has been notably hard to pin down. He was able to draw on a recent resurgence of interest among scholars who are translating and studying the surprisingly vast Daoist religious canon, much which had been lost and then rediscovered in the 20th century.
ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND HEALTH
China Blocks Carbon Review Sought by U.S. at UN Talks – Bloomberg Chinese negotiators sought yesterday at a climate conference in Lima, Peru to delete provisions in a draft text that would have paved the way for other countries and non-governmental organizations to submit questions about its carbon-reduction plans, according to environmental groups that are official observers to the talks. The carbon pledges are to be included in a global deal that would be sealed next year and start from 2020…“The spirit of constructive cooperation of the U.S.-China agreement seems to have come to a full stop,” Liz Gallagher, senior adviser to the policy analyst E3G said today in an interview in Lima, where two weeks of United Nations climate talks began on Monday.
Environmental authorities probe central China pollution – Xinhua Environmental officials will probe into the contamination scandal in which Chuangyuan Aluminum Co. Ltd was accused of discharging untreated waste, allegedly imposing health threats and causing crops to wither in Taoyuan County, Hunan Province, the local government said on Sunday. The case was exposed via social media by the Beijing News on Saturday, in which the newspaper suggested more than ten people have developed cancer due to the fluoride from company’s aluminum processing projects.
Foreign Drug Companies in China See Approval Delays – Bloomberg Foreign pharmaceutical companies in China say they are concerned that recent regulatory delays could push back plans to introduce their newest medicines into the country by as many as two years. At least thirty-four applications from foreign multinationals have been or are set to be delayed after Chinese regulators began requiring an added procedure, according to R&D-Based Pharmaceutical Association Committee, an industry group.
AGRICULTURE
黑龙江“农垦式”腐败-新闻-中国新闻周刊
FOOD AND TRAVEL
Construction begins on Chengdu-Ya’an section of Sichuan-Tibet railway – Xinhua The 42-km Chengdu-Ya’an section is an important part of the Sichuan-Tibet railway, and will have a journey time of about eight hours from Chengdu to Lhasa, capitals of Sichuan the Tibet . Transport is a bottleneck for tourism in Tibet and currently, there is no direct railway service between the two cities. After completion, the Sichuan-Tibet railway will connect with the Qinghai-Tibet railway.
BEIJING
‘A Universe Beneath Our Feet’: Life In Beijing’s Underground : NPR In Beijing, even the tiniest apartment can cost a fortune — after all, with more than 21 million residents, space is limited and demand is high. But it is possible to find more affordable housing. You’ll just have to join an estimated 1 million of the city’s residents, and look underground. Below the city’s bustling streets, bomb shelters and storage basements are turned into illegal — but affordable — apartments.