China and Germany held the 3rd China-Germany High Level Financial Dialogue in Frankfurt on Sunday, during which both sides reached consensus on 25 items for raised for discussion.
The two countries reiterated that this dialogue mechanism is a key platform for bilateral exchange and policy coordination on strategic, overarching, and long-term fiscal and financial issues, according to a statement on the website of the Ministry of Finance.
The re-start of the high-level financial dialogue between China and Germany is of significance to not only the two sides but also to overall China-Europe economic and trade relations, Li Yong, a senior research fellow at the China Association of International Trade, told the Global Times on Sunday.
This is "a good opportunity" for China and Germany to increase understanding of each other against the backdrop of rising global challenges, he said.
Both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation on fiscal and financial matters, and open market access based on a level playing-field, while committing to combating trade protectionism, and supporting the rules-based, non-discriminatory, fair, open, inclusive, equitable, sustainable and transparent multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core.
They agreed that the global economic landscape remains uncertain by complex structural risks. In this context and in light of generational challenges ahead, including the transition to carbon neutrality, both sides are committed to bolstering global confidence and enhancing strong, sustainable, balanced, and inclusive growth for the global economy.
China and Germany are committed to jointly promoting global economic recovery and sustainable development, and aim at safeguarding global financial stability. Both sides support the role of the G20 as the premier global forum for international economic cooperation.
Both sides agreed to strengthen exchanges regarding digital developments in financial services markets, including developments in central bank digital currencies.
Germany welcomes China's progress in recent years in building a stronger regulatory environment for foreign banks in China. And they encourage qualified financial institutions to invest and conduct business in each other's market. Both sides agree to strengthen investment cooperation, actively promote domestic enterprises to invest in each other's market, and reduce obstacles in two-way investment.
Li said major European economies have been facing difficulties such as an energy crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but the Chinese economy continues to recover and is playing an increasingly important role in global governance. In this regard, strengthening cooperation with China will also benefit Europe's economic growth.
The CR400BF-GZ train, the smartest and most frost-resistant Fuxing bullet train model, was deployed in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on Monday. It's the coldest and highest region the model has been used in so far. The Fuxing bullet train has a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour.
The trains will be operating for the first time during the ongoing 40-day chunyun or the Spring Festival travel rush on routes in China's northernmost alpine region, China Media Group reported.
Compared with other Fuxing models, the CR400BF-GZ has the highest speed level. It is more resistant to low temperature and snow and can operate under an extreme cold environment of -40 C.
The advanced technology represents a major breakthrough for China's high-speed railway technology. The nation's independently developed model can meet the operational demand under various temperature conditions.
The designated system and parts used for constructing the model have all been specifically equipped with low temperature-resistant design, while ensuring smooth ventilation and effectively preventing snow and ice from entering the equipment compartment through the filter.
The train is also more intelligent with advanced technology implemented in targeted fields such as safety monitoring, aiming to further elevate the service quality.
Two sets of the trains will undergo a series of test run, and start operating on lines in Heilongjiang.
The world's first hydrogen-energy urban train with independent intellectual property rights officially rolled off the assembly line in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, on Wednesday. The train adopted the key core technology of the Fuxing bullet train, with a maximum speed of 160 kilometers per hour.
China's "artificial sun," the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), which is also the world's first fully superconducting tokamak device in operation, saw a major breakthrough on Wednesday evening.
EAST achieved a high power, stable, 403-second steady-state long-pulse high confinement mode plasma operation, setting a new world record for steady-state high confinement mode operation of a tokamak device, China Central Television reported on Wednesday.
The innovation achieved by the EAST device provides an important experimental basis for the operation of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and the independent construction and operation of fusion reactors in China, the report said.
In January, EAST made another breakthrough by discovering and demonstrating a new plasma operation scenario called Super I-Mode. The news was published in an article in Science Advances, according to Hefei Institutes of Physical Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The ultimate goal of EAST, located at the Plasma Physics center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Hefei, East China's Anhui Province, is to create nuclear fusion in a way that mimics processes in the Sun, using deuterium found in the sea to provide a steady stream of clean energy.
Unlike fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, which will run out and that pose a threat to the environment, raw materials required for the "artificial sun" are almost unlimited on earth. Therefore, fusion energy is considered the ideal "ultimate energy" for the future of humanity.
The "Macao Science 1" satellite that the Chinese mainland and Macao co-developed was "one of a kind" featuring great uniqueness and innovation. It is a result of international collaboration by leading scientists from around the world and has in turn attracted many Western institutes to join the work, Zhang Keke, chief scientist of the "Macao Science 1" satellite, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.
Two "Macao Science 1" satellites were successfully launched into orbit on May 21, 2023, marking the first space science satellite program jointly developed by the Chinese mainland and the Macao Special Administrative Region.
Macao Science 1 takes a twin-satellite approach. Satellite A carries payloads including high-precision magnetometers to detect Earth's magnetic field. Satellite B is equipped with payloads like high-energy particle detectors and solar X-ray instruments to obtain space environment data.
Satellite A is the world's first low-latitude geomagnetic field and space environment scientific detection satellite, featuring the highest geomagnetic field detection accuracy in China. It will significantly improve the level of the country's space magnetic measurement technology, according to the China National Space Administration.
During an exclusive interview with the Global Times, chief scientist Zhang Keke said that they are now carrying out in-orbit testing, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year, after which they will collaborate with Western and domestic scientists to conduct scientific research based on the data obtained.
Zhang told the Global Times that the research and development of the satellite is the most challenging among all satellites of this type.
For one thing, the satellite must be non-magnetic to avoid inducing its own magnetic field, and its measuring instrument needs to be far away from all electronic instruments, generators, and other equipment.
Therefore, it was designed into a unique shape with a box sticking to the end of a long pole, extending to eight meters. This means that it has to be folded up during the rocket launch and unfold after arriving in orbit.
"When everyone was cheering for the success of the launch back then, I was actually very nervous as we waited for the pole to fully unfold. It took about two hours before we knew the unfolding maneuver had been performed perfectly," Zhang recalled.
When asked if his team has encountered any restrictions in its collaboration with Western scientists given the tense relationship between China and the US, Zhang said it wasn't an issue since "for us scientists, there should not be limitations in cooperation due to the so-called decoupling, as science knows no borders."
Many technical problems were difficult to solve, and they received help from researchers from European countries during the R&D process, Zhang said. He is now leading a team of about 30 scientists, some of whom are from the Chinese mainland and Macao, while others are from the US, UK and France among other countries.
What's more, they have signed agreements to jointly conduct research on the satellite with 18 top research institutes from around the world, including those from France, the US, the UK, and Germany.
"Westerners came to us, not the other way around," Zhang said proudly, as he introduced the unique advantages of the satellite. "The scientific project you are working on must be of interest to others, and that means it must be a first in the world. Our satellite is the first high-precision Earth magnetic field measurement satellite launched at a low inclination angle, which is of great significance to scientific advancement."
The expert further explained that the existing high-precision Earth magnetic field measurement satellites are polar satellites, mainly measuring the changes in physical parameters from the South Pole to the North Pole. And the Macao Science 1 has filled in a gap for east-west directions.
Elaborating on the importance of studying Earth's magnetic field, Zhang said that it not only provides a protective shield that blocks high-energy charged particles from the Sun from entering the atmosphere, but applies to almost every area of human beings' daily lives.
"Living on Earth, we need to know how changes occur and what changes will happen in the future. And that's really a question of the movement of the Earth's magnetic field," Zhang said.
Scientists generally believe that the magnetic field occurs in the Earth's core more than 3,000 kilometers below the surface. It is extremely hot at over 5,000 C, mainly consisting of molten iron. This produces a lot of kinetic energy, which is converted into magnetic energy, thus producing a magnetic field.
However, as humans can only drill down into the Earth's surface to a depth of 12 kilometers, we cannot see anything. The only way is to observe the changes of the Earth's magnetic field in time and space, requiring the use of satellites.
This is essential for satellite navigation for airplanes, ships, and spacecraft, which is very important for a country's economy, industry, and national security.
The three taikonauts from China's Shenzhou-15 crewed mission, known as the "dream crew," on Monday made their first appearance in public 57 days later after returning to Earth in June. The crem members shared their experience and feeling in the space and deeply felt the wonder of nature, the vastness of the universe.
China launched the manned spaceship Shenzhou-15 on November 29, 2022, sending Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu to China's space station core module Tianhe.
Having spent six months living and working in the China Space Station, the three Shenzhou-15 taikonauts safely returned to the Dongfeng landing site in the Gobi Desert, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in June.
China Astronaut Research and Training Center has scientifically formulated a recovery plan. The recovery period is mainly divided into three stages - quarantine, recuperation and observation. So far, the crew has completed the first two stages, and they are in good physical and mental condition, and have been fully in the observation stage. They will resume regular training after completing all health and wellbeing assessments.
The four extravehicular activities (EVAs) are the highlight of our crew and the highlight of China's manned spaceship development. We believe that the following crew members will create more records, Fei said at Monday's press meeting.
"To realize a dream is not the end of the efforts, but a new starting point," Deng said. Deng has been made efforts for 25 years and finally fulfilled dream of missions in space.
Zhang who took the mission in the space for the first time took a lot of beautiful photos in space, many of them are about the motherland and hometown. Zhang again and again in the window looked at the motherland, and Zhang said that what impressed him most was extravehicular activities.
"Before my first extravehicular activities, I had been looking out of the porthole, which was so small that I couldn't get a full view." When I was faced with the boundless space for the first time, "I had a deep understanding of the wonders of nature and the vastness of the universe," Zhang said.
China has unveiled its preliminary plan on manned lunar landing. China planned to land its taikonauts on the moon before 2030 to carry out scientific exploration, according to a preliminary plan released by the China Manned Space Agency in July.
"We are fully aware of the mission and responsibility on our shoulders. We firmly believe that with scientific and systematic training, the full support of space science and technology staff, the unity of our crew, we can overcome any difficulty," Fei noted.
In half a month, two economic powerhouse provinces in East China relaxed their household registration limits, leaving many wondering what the lifting of rule which once restricted migration between rural areas and cities signals for the country?
Household registration, known as hukou in Chinese, was formed in 1958. It serves to categorize citizens as either rural residents or non-rural residents.
For a long period, almost all large cities have set strict household registration thresholds, the more economically developed, the higher the bar for registering a local hukou. Obtaining a Beijing and Shanghai hukou could be very difficult as the top cities tend to restrict population growth from becoming overcrowded.
Jiangsu Province recently drafted regulations aiming to relax limits for registering a hukou, allowing residents from rural areas to register themselves in cities, except Nanjing and Suzhou.
Earlier, except provincial capital of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province also announced to ease restrictions.
A VOA report interpreted the policy shift aimed at propping up China's housing market.
Ma Li, former director of China Population and Development Research Center, told the Global Times that the driving force behind allowing new arrivals to become permanent residents in urban areas is aimed at expanding the available urban talent pool to boost local economic development.
Propping up the housing market is not an explicit goal set by officials, but could be one of those benefits of scrapping household registration limits, Ma noted.
Niu Fengrui, a researcher from Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the Global Times that linking the current economic situation to hukou policy reform is too short-sighted, because the essence of lifting household registration curbs is aimed at closing the gap between rural and urban regions and accelerating the urbanization of rural populations, allowing citizens to enjoy equal basic public services, which serves the overall goal of achieving the country's modernization for the wellbeing of all Chinese people.
Optimizing population distribution
The reform of allowing rural hukou holders to register in urban cities is not a new concept. In 2014, the third meeting of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform proposed to facilitate 100 million rural migrants and other residents to resettle into urban areas by 2020.
Previously, Guizhou, Sichuan, Inner Mongolia, Hainan, Guangxi and other jurisdictions have also proposed full opening-up of household registration. At least 18 provinces in China have relaxed restrictions on household registration to date, according to media reports.
However, the policy shift may be less attractive to current residents in rural areas as obtaining a urban hukou leads to a possibility of losing their rural land contracting rights and their rights to use residential land. In well-developed provinces including Zhejiang, the shortened gap between rural and urban regions' living standards means any move to further relax restrictions only delivers marginal benefits, Ma noted.
But, rural hukou holders who now work and live in urban areas will certainly embrace the change which allows them to move their permanent place of residence to larger cities. It will grant them the equal access with urban citizens to employment, social security, family planning and other social services, Ma said.
Zhejiang Province said it will increase quotas for public schools and improve capacity for children of residence permit holders to receive education.
Cai Fang, former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, calculated that the number of migrant workers who live in urban areas but do not hold an urban hukou is likely between 130 million and 170 million.
But Ma also noted if rural hukou holders convert their registration to an urban area but still are allowed to hold their rural land contracting rights, an urban hukou would become very attractive because of access to better education and employment in cities. "Cities are on the process of optimizing the relevant measures."
For provincial capital cities including Hangzhou, first-tier cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou where public resources are already stretched, however, the opening up of the household registration policy is unlikely in the short term, experts said.
According to a recent announcement by China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on further relaxing household registration, a points-based household registration system for mega cities with a permanent urban population of over 5 million will also be optimized, encouraging local governments to lift restrictions on annual quotas for local household registration.
"The removal of the household registration system has been discussed for many years in China, I personally believe that the economic and social conditions to scrap the policy are already in place, but the traditional mindset of hukou has slowed down the process of household registration reform."
The lifting of hukou restrictions will lead to the concentration of populations in urban areas and the decline of rural populations, several demographers noted.
Following major reform and opening-up, China's urbanization level has increased rapidly, rising from 17.92 percent in 1978 to 64.72 percent in 2021, with the country's urban population reaching 914.25 million, the Guangzhou Daily reported citing Xiao Jincheng, former director of Institute of Land Development and Regional Economy affiliated with the NDRC.
In other words, every year, more than 10 million people move from rural areas to urban areas, find jobs and live in cities. It is believed that China's urbanization level will exceed 70 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. In the next decade, more than 100 million people will migrate from rural areas to cities and towns, Xiao said.
In the future, as more rural hukou holders move to cities, the country's rural areas are expected to be revitalized as technology-empowered agriculture will nurture professional farmers and ensure talent remains in the farming economy, Ma told the Global Times. "Like those towns in Europe, each town has its own characteristics and own way of development."
Achieving the country's modernization is the process of re-optimizing the layout of China's population, Niu concluded.
Chinese netizens have urged against using ethnicity to fuel division and conflict, following controversy sparked by crew members of a mythological epic film who labeled Mulan, a heroine who disguised herself as a man to fight in her father's place, as Mongolian. The film director's comments about the origins of the Han ethnicity have also stirred debate.
An actress in the film, Na Ran, who plays the role of a fox spirit, was found to have liked and retweeted a post in 2017 which claimed Mulan was a Mongol fighting for territories occupied since the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220).
Mulan is a household name in China, and the woman was believed to have lived during the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), which was ruled by Xianbei people who transformed from a nomadic to an agricultural civilization.
The post cannot be found in the account of Na Ran, who is of Russian and Mongolian ethnicity. But the screenshot of her repost offended many Chinese who see Mulan as their heroine and who dismissed the narrative of "Han Dynasty occupation."
Some urged Na Ran to apologize and rectify her erroneous historical view, but other said that instead of having ulterior motives, she may just lack knowledge. Na Ran could barely speak Chinese in 2017 and information she could access could have been very biased.
Another controversy was about the director's preference in the film's casting.
When asked why the film has a lot of actors and actresses of ethnic minorities, the director Wu Ershan, who is of Mongol ethnicity, said the term of Hanzu, or Han ethnicity, started in the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) which was ruled by Mongol people. Before that, people referred to each other by the place in which they lived.
Such remarks immediately triggered anger among some net users who argued that Han people originated in the Han Dynasty some 2,000 years ago and accused the director of disparaging the concept of Han ethnicity and advocating historical nihilism.
But others interpreted the director's remarks as an attempt to explain that in ancient China, Han was not yet an ethnicity, so using ethnic minorities in casting does not apply to such a story which is set in ancient times.
The film Creation of the Gods was inspired by history of the Shang (c.1600BC-1046BC) and Zhou (1046BC-771BC) dynasties, and is intertwined with folklore, legends and mythical creatures.
"If actors of Han ethnicity can play Mongols in many historical TV dramas, why can't it be the reverse as well?" said a Weibo user.
"The question itself is strange, as casting should be to choose the ideal person for a role and the ethnicity of an actor or actress should not be an issue," wrote a Weibo user.
There have been debates about the origins of Han ethnic group and the concept of ethnicity in the contemporary sense, but introducing such debates into an entertainment product and continuously hyping the casting is more like "stirring up trouble," one history student told the Global Times on condition of anonymity.
As the film itself is popular and has generated lots of online discussion, and given that ethnicity is a sensitive public topic, it is possible that some netizens are hyping the recent controversy just to generate comments, reposts and attention, which can ultimately transform into economic benefits.
Over the ground lies a mantle of white — on Pluto. Snow-capped peaks on the dwarf planet dot an otherwise ruddy terrain. But these snowy summits appear to be composed of methane, not water, researchers report online March 3.
Mountain tops in Pluto’s Cthulhu Regio, a dark landscape abutting the planet’s famous heart, reflect more light than the surrounding area. The New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Pluto on July 14, found that the bright regions correspond to surface deposits of methane. Mission scientists speculate that perhaps methane in the atmosphere on Pluto behaves like water in the air on Earth, building up on the ground as frost at the highest (and coldest) elevations.
Two small comets — or rather two chunks of the same comet — will slip by Earth on March 21 and March 22, each on a different side of the planet. Comet 252P/LINEAR passed at a distance of about 5.2 million kilometers (13.5 times as far as the moon) around 8:14 a.m. Eastern on Monday, while comet P/2016 BA14 (PANSTARRS) will fly by at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, coming no closer than about 3.5 million kilometers, just over nine times the distance to the moon. Neither comet poses any danger to Earth.
Comet BA14 was discovered in January. Its orbit is strikingly similar to that of fellow traveler252P, a comet first seen 16 years ago. Researchers suspect that both bodies are fragments of a larger comet that broke apart. Despite their close approach, neither comet is visible to the naked eye.
New microscopy images of the virus reveal a bumpy, golf ball‒shaped structure, similar to that of the dengue and West Nile viruses, researchers report March 31 in Science. It’s the first time scientists have gotten a good look at Zika, the infamous virus that has invaded the Americas and stoked fears that it is causing birth defects and a rare autoimmune disease (SN: 4/2/16, p. 26). Cracking Zika’s structure is like getting the blueprints of an enemy’s base: Now scientists have a better idea of where to attack. “This certainly gives us great hope that we will be able to find a vaccine or antiviral compounds,” says study coauthor Michael Rossmann of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., who’s known for mapping the first structure of a common cold virus in 1985.
Researchers have been racing to solve Zika’s structure, says UCLA microbiologist Hong Zhou. “I was trying to work on the same thing myself.” But the new study’s authors beat everybody. “I was impressed they were able to do it so quickly,” Zhou says.
Rossmann and colleagues imaged a strain of Zika collected from a patient during a 2013‒2014 outbreak in French Polynesia (the strain is nearly identical to the one now spreading through Latin America).
The team used a technique called cryoelectron microscopy to create a three-dimensional picture of Zika. It’s a pretty sharp image, says study coauthor Devika Sirohi, also of Purdue. She and colleagues can clearly see the virus’ shape and can even make out sugars protruding from its surface.
These sugars, which look like little red doorknobs, hang from proteins in Zika’s shell. The knobs may help Zika attach to — and infect — human cells. The team discovered that Zika’s knobby regions look slightly different from those of related viruses. Zika’s sugar-decorated proteins “fold a little differently,” Sirohi says. And that might let Zika make different contacts with attachment sites on cells, called receptors. That could “influence what kind of cell the virus infects,” she says. These differences could explain why Zika infects cells not typically targeted by dengue or West Nile. One of the receptors targeted by Zika could be AXL, a protein crowded on the surface of neural stem cells, researchers propose March 30 in a separate study published online in Cell Stem Cell. Zika virus is thought to preferentially infect these early-development brain cells, and it could potentially use AXL as an easy entry point, study coauthor Arnold Kriegstein of the University of California, San Francisco and colleagues suggest.
Of course, exactly what role subtle structural differences play in Zika’s infection ability is “only speculation at this point,” Sirohi says. The team now plans to test how tweaking the knobby regions of the virus affects Zika’s virulence.
