THIS WEEK

THIS WEEK

CFP

Chief Executive-Elect

Leung Chun-ying, a former Hong Kong government adviser, won the chief executive election of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China on March 25.

Leung won 689 votes of the 1,132 votes cast by members of the 1,200-member Election Committee. According to the city’s Electoral Affairs Commission, a candidate who obtains more than 600 valid votes will win the election. The whole process was under the supervision of the Electoral Affairs Commission, as well as the scrutiny of candidates, the public and the media.

Leung said that he will uphold Hong Kong’s core values and will work to solve many issues of social confict in order to maintain the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong.

Born in 1954 in Hong Kong, Leung graduated from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He later studied valuation and estate management in Britain for four years before returning to Hong Kong and joining a real estate fi rm in 1977.

In 1985, Leung was elected secretary general of the Basic Law Consultative Committee. He was the convenor of the Non-Official Members of the Executive Council of Hong Kong from 1999 until resigning the post in October 2011 to stand for election.

“In the current complex and everchanging international situation,China and Russia should take a more active stance to implement major consensus on bilateral cooperation, maintain close highlevel contacts and bolster political support for each other.”

Chinese President Hu Jintao, agreeing to promote China-Russia relations to a new level,during a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of the fourth BRICS Summit in New Delhi, India, on March 28

“Continued growth in BRICS countries is the biggest contribution to speeding up global economy recovery.”

Liu Guijin, former Chinese Ambassador to South Africa and former Special Representative of the Chinese Government on African Affairs,speaking of the power of the fi ve most dynamic emerging economies in Beijing on March 28

“China believes the acceptance of the six-point plan is helpful for promoting a political resolution to the Syrian issue. China hopes the Syrian Government and all parties concerned will seize this important opportunity, support and cooperate with Ko fi Annan’s mediation efforts, and therefore help ensure the effective implementation of the plan and promote a political resolution process for the Syrian issue.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei,applauding the Syrian Government’s acceptance of the six-point plan put forward by UN-Arab League envoy Ko fi Annan, at a regular press conference in Beijing on March 28

“I think we’ve come out of the

fi nancial crisis, that con fi dence is restored and we are in the process of economic recovery. Europe has an economic government which overcame the Greek crisis.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, stating that the eurozone’s fi nancial crisis has ended and that the economy of the single-currency bloc was recovering, in an interview with the regional dailyOuest-Franceon March 27

Scientific Input

The Chinese Government plans to allocate more than 15 billion yuan ($2.38 billion) from the central budget to the country’s National Natural Science Foundation, said Chen Yiyu,Director of the foundation, on March 27.

China’s central budget has been steadily increasing its support for the foundation over the past few decades. In 1986, its earmark funds were only 80 million yuan ($12.68 million).

Figures show that the foundation granted a total of 18.28 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) to 34,836 projects out of 153,800 applications it received in 2011.

According to Chen, the foundation will increase the average financing amount for main projects that are led by senior scientists and researchers. Meanwhile, more support will be given to local scientific projects and those led by young scientists.

Fishing Ban

A two-month fishing ban on south China’s Pearl River took effect on April 1, in an effort to protect the area’s fi sh stocks.

All fishing activities are banned during the period on the main stream of the Pearl River, as well as on all tributaries and lakes connected to it, the Fishery Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture said on March 27.

The Pearl River is the second largest river in China in terms of run-off volume, exceeded only by the Yangtze River.

FRESH FASHION A model walks down the ramp at the Mercedes-Benz China Fashion Week on March 24

The fishing ban in the Pearl River was initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2011. More than 29.05 million fi sh fry were released into the river during the previous ban and monitoring data showed that the average density of the fi sh fries in May 2011 had grown by 23.2 percent from the year earlier period.

Panda Census

Forestry authorities in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province said on March 26 that they had begun combing forests for giant pandas in order to determine how many of the endangered animals are living in the wild.

The census in Shaanxi, one of the major habitats of giant pandas, is part of a once-adecade nationwide panda census ordered last year by the State Forestry Administration.

This is the fourth nationwide giant panda census since the program was launched in the 1970s.

Field research in Shaanxi is expected to fi nish by October 2013.

The previous census counted 1,596 wild pandas in China. At that time, 273 of them lived in Shaanxi and a majority of the rest lived in neighboring Sichuan Province.

Sichuan started the census last October.

Rural Services

China has formed a nationwide network to provide agricultural science and technology

AIR SHOW The Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition kicks off in Shanghai on March 26,with the participation of 150 exhibitors from around the world

Youngest Professor

Liu Lu, a senior undergraduate at Central South University in central China’s Hunan Province, was hired as a professor-level researcher by the university in March for his talent in mathematics.

Liu, 22, became the youngest of his kind and was awarded 1 million yuan ($158,900) by his university to upgrade his experimental facilities and improve his living conditions. The university has also given him special approval for successive postgraduate and doctoral programs of study to help him make greater contributions to science.

In 2010, Liu won international acclaim by solving a problem of reverse mathematics, namely the Seetapun Enigma, a conjecture put forward by English logician David Seetapun in the 1990s concerning the Ramsey Theorem of Pairs.

During the past two decades, countless mathematicians have made efforts to solve the problem but without any results. Liu solved the open question and provided a negative answer to Seetapun’s conjecture.

Liu first knew about this conjecture in August 2010. After reading many papers on the issue, he was suddenly struck with an idea that could solve the problem. He finished a paper in a night and sent it to theJournal of Symbolic Logic, an internationally prestigious academic journal on mathematical logic, using his pen name Liu Jiayi.services in rural areas, according to the China Rural Special Technique Association.

There are now 133,000 primary-level organizations for promoting agriculture technology across the country, with 11.3 million members.

Since 2006, the Chinese Government has invested 1.05 billion yuan ($166.9 million)in rewarding organizations and personnel for providing agriculture technology services and supporting primary-level service units.

Cabin Entertainment

Chinese and French companies on March 27 agreed to set up a joint venture to develop cabin entertainment systems for China’s homegrown C919 passenger planes.

The joint venture will be set up in Chengdu, southwest China’s Sichuan Province, in the third quarter this year with an initial investment of 300 million yuan($48 million), according to the deal signed between the France-based Thales and China Electronics Technology Avionics Co. Ltd.

The new company will provide cabin entertainment systems for the C919 and other China-made business and large passenger jets.

Test flights of the C919, China’s first independently developed passenger jet, are scheduled for 2014 and the aircraft is expected to hit the market two years later. So far,at least 235 orders have been placed for the single-aisle jet.

Sustainable Development

A seminar entitled Combat Deserti fi cation and Sustainable Development in Inner Mongolia of China—Maowusu Biomass Thermoelectric Project was held at the UN Headquarters in New York City on March 26.

As a side event of the Third Intersessional Meeting of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, the seminar highlighted the public-private partnership in China for exploring low-carbon development, combating desertification, utilizing biomass for energy and even producing nutritional supplements.

The Maowusu Biomass Thermoelectric Project is an integrated management system to combat deserti fi cation while developing a sustainable green economy, which is characterized by the Tri-Carbon green economy to serve the carbon absorption (planting shrubs in the desert to fi x sand dunes), carbon emission reduction (biomass power generation)and carbon sequestration (capture the CO2 emission to produce spirulina in green houses), in addition to generating employment and income for people of ethnic groups to reduce poverty.

Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification,suggested at the seminar that the integrated approach to combating desertification could be introduced as a good model for African and other developing countries’ sustainable development initiatives.

THE REAL STEEL The Mr. Iron Robot Theme Park,which features about 600 robot-shaped sculptures, opens in Jiaxing, east China’s Zhejiang Province, on March 24

QUAKE PRECAUTION Students learn selfpreservation skills during an earthquake drill at Wenhualu Primary School in Zaozhuang, east China’s Shandong Province, on March 26,the country’s 17th National Safety Awareness Day for Middle and Primary School Students

SEA OF TEA Farmers harvest tea at Lushan Mountain, Jiangxi Province. Due to rising temperatures, the local tea leaves have been growing quickly

Banking in China

The London-based Standard Chartered Bank expects to expand its outlets on the Chinese mainland from the current 83 to 100 by the end of 2012.

Standard Chartered will continue to recruit in China this year, as it seeks to open more branches and sub-branches across the country, said Peter Sands, CEO of the lender.

“We will continue investing signi fi cantly both on the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. We remain very excited by the opportunities in greater China,” he said.

In addition, Sands said the bank will play a leading role in the use of the renminbi in London and in supporting the authorities from both Hong Kong and London in considering London’s role as a potential offshore renminbi center.

Joining Hands

The German auto giant Daimler AG and China’s BYD Co. Ltd. will introduce a new brand for their jointly developed electric vehicles in March, accelerating their efforts to ride on China’s green vehicles trend.

The two companies also plan to unveil the fi rst electric vehicle model at the upcoming 2012 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in April.

Both companies agreed to invest 600 million yuan ($95 million) to build a joint venture on electric vehicles in China in 2010. The Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology,which incorporates BYD’s experience in battery technology and e-drive system and Daimler’s know-how in design and safety,aims to commercialize its fi rst model by 2013.

Expanding Property Tax

China will extend trials of a property taxation program to cover more cities this year as part of its efforts to regulate the real estate sector.

The tax, currently in operation in Shanghai and Chongqing, is considered a heavy tool to curb soaring housing prices.When it rolled out the levy early last year, the Ministry of Finance said all provinces would adopt the tax “when conditions are ripe.”

Jia Kang, Director of the Fiscal Science Research Center of the Ministry of Finance,said that the government will sum up lessons learned from the trials in Shanghai and Chongqing and map out an expansion plan,but he added that it is still too early to apply property taxes to the entire country.

Invigorating E-commerce

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released a development plan on March 27 for the electronic commerce sector,pledging vigorous efforts to double transaction value of e-commerce to 18 trillion yuan($2.86 trillion) by the end of 2015.

“E-commerce has expanded into various industries such as agriculture, trading, transportation, fi nance and travel industries and it is merging with China’s real economy,” said the ministry.

“Still, the industry faces many intractable problems, such as a low level of services,weak regulatory system and infringement of intellectual property rights,” it added. “So more efforts will be made to propel technology innovation, foster professional talent,and encourage venture capital to invest in this emerging sector.”

Air China Loses Shine

Air China Ltd., one of China’s carrier giants,reported net pro fi ts of 7.48 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) for last year, tumbling 38.75 percent from a year ago, because of rising fuel prices and intensifying market competition.

Its revenue rose 20 percent from a year earlier to 97.14 billion yuan ($15.4 billion).

The Beijing-based company said it transported 59.39 million passengers on its domestic routes last year, up 18.34 percent year on year. It had 432 planes at the end of last year.

“The global aviation market still faces looming uncertainties due to slumping demand for international passenger and cargo transport,” it said in a statement.

Fairing Well

The 23rd Harbin International Fair for Trade and Economic Cooperation (HIFTEC) will be held on June 15-19, 2012, in Harbin, capital of northeastern Heilongjiang Province.

In the past 22 years, the HIFTEC has played a significant role in facilitating investments and trade ties between China and neighboring nations, such as Russia, South Korea and Japan.

“This year’s fair will attach greater importance to trade and investment cooperation between China and Russia because Russia’s recent WTO entry provided a good opportunity to expand the economic tie-up of the two countries,” said Sun Yao, Vice Governor of Heilongjiang Province. “More than 10,000 foreign business people and 100,000 domestic ones are expected to participate in the fair this year.”

Retired Chairman

Wang Jianzhou, Chairman of China Mobile Communications Corp. (CMCC),China’s largest mobile service provider, retired in March.

Founded on April 20, 2000, the company currently has the world’s largest mobile phone network and largest customer base, competing for subscribers with its two major domestic rivals, China Unicom and China Telecom, in a nation with nearly 1 billion cell phone users.

Wang, 64, was born in Wenzhou, east China’s coastal Zhejiang Province. He graduated from Zhejiang University with a master’s degree in engineering, and holds a doctoral degree in business administration from Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Wang has three decades of experience in the industry. He started to work for CMCC in 2004 as general manager and has been chairman of the company since 2010. Under his leadership,the total income of CMCC increased from 192.4 billion yuan($30.51 billion) in 2004 to 528 billion yuan ($83.74 billion) in 2011, with the number of the company’s subscribers reaching 650 million in 2011, three times that in 2004. Wang was selected one of the best CEOs in the world byBusinessWeekmagazine in 2007.

BRIDGING NINGXIA An airplane waits for passengers at the Yinchuan Hedong Airport. On March 24 the South Korean carrier Korean Air started a passenger route linking Seoul and Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the fi rst international route to Ningxia

SERBIA

Serbian President Boris Tadic lays a wreath at a monument in Aleksinac on March 24 during a ceremony commemorating those killed in NATO bombings in 1999 during the Kosovo War

SOUTH KOREA

U.S. President Barack Obama looks through binoculars toward North Korea from an observation post in the Demilitarized Zone near Panmunjom on the border between North Korea and South Korea on March 25

JAPAN

Representatives of the victims of the bombing of Chongqing protest in Tokyo on March 21 for compensation. During World War II, the Japanese military launched more than 200 air raids on the southwestern Chinese city,causing huge casualties

KAZAKHSTAN

A Russian rocket carrying a U.S. Intelsat-22 satellite blasts off from the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 25

BRITAIN

Penguins at the Edinburgh Zoo prepare to move to temporary quarters on March 21 before the renovation of their usual home

AFGHANISTAN

An Afghan National Police (ANP)trainee holds a fake gun at a German-sponsored training center in Mazar-i-Sharif on March 22. Around 200 German police of fi cers train the ANP in Afghanistan