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Local “Two Sessions”Convened Across China

As local “two sessions” convened across China, provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities released their 2023 government work reports.Apart from stating their performance during the past year,they also unveiled their development roadmaps for 2023.The agenda for 2023 is set to be centered around one topic in particular: Growth.Placing high-quality development as the top priority, local governments will focus on stabilizing expectations,boosting confidence, and building strength, and will strive to achieve new highs of development.ln their work reports, local governments stressed prioritizing stability while pursuing progress with regards to economic and social development in 2023 and the next five years.

Deputies and members of the “two sessions” of Beijing discuss the development of the city during livestreaming interviews at the Beijing Conference Center on January 17, 2023.

A group of deputies take a selfie at the first sessio of the 14th People’s Congress held in Chengdu of Sichuan Province on January 11, 2023.

The first session of the 14th People’s Congress of Yunnan Province concludes in Kunming on January 15, 2023.Deputies from various ethnic groups attend the congress and cast their votes.

“China and Europe have no way for geopolitical conflicts and what we enjoy is broad common interest.The two sides should remain committed to a comprehensive strategic partnership, uphold mutual respect, dialogue, and cooperation,oppose politicizing and weaponizing economic and trade issues, and work together to maintain safe and unimpeded global industrial and supply chains, in a bid to promote long-term and stable development of China-Europe relations.”

Foreign Minister Qin Gang said during his phone call with Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib on February 10, 2023.

“China stands ready to work with South Africa, this year’s chair, and other BRlCS partners to implement the outcomes and common understandings of previous BRlCS summits, continuously deepen the BRlCS strategic partnership, consolidate the sound momentum of BRlCS mechanism development, and push forward BRlCS cooperation toward higher quality, so as to make greater contributions to world peace and development.”

Coordinator of China’s BRlCS Affairs and Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu made the remarks while attending the First BRlCS Sherpa and Sous-Sherpa Meeting 2023 in Limpopo Province of South Africa on February 1, 2023.

Xi Jinping Meets with Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen

On February 10, 2023, President Xi Jinping met with Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.

Xi Jinping stressed that China takes Cambodia as a key part of its neighborhood diplomacy and always plans and advances China-Cambodia cooperation in various fields from a holistic and strategic perspective.China is ready to share opportunities, seek cooperation, and promote development with Cambodia in the process of advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization.China will also jointly build a high-quality, high-level, and high-standard China-Cambodia community with a shared future in the new era, so as to bring more benefits to the two peoples and contribute more positive energy to regional peace, stability, and development.

Xi Jinping noted that the two countries may focus on the six areas including politics, production capacity, agriculture, energy, security, and people-to-people exchanges to build a "diamond hexagon" cooperation framework between China and Cambodia.In politics, the two sides need to deepen strategic communication, strengthen the exchange of experience in governance, and deepen exchanges through various channels.In production capacity, the two sides need to focus on building the "industrial development corridor." China will encourage more Chinese companies to invest and do business in Cambodia, help build a multifunctional economic demonstration zone in Preah Sihanouk Province,and support Cambodia in building transportation infrastructure.The two sides should take the Year of China-Cambodia Friendship as an opportunity to expand pair-up cooperation at subnational levels, increase people-to-people and cultural exchanges, promote youth exchanges,and strengthen China-Cambodia friendship.

Hun Sen expressed full agreement with China’s proposal to advance the “diamond hexagon” cooperation framework.The Cambodian side hopes to take the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Cambodia and China as an opportunity to further consolidate the ironclad friendship between the two countries, deepen the exchange of experience in party governance and state administration as well as practical cooperation in various fields, and actively build the “industrial development corridor” and the “fish-rice corridor,” working together for more achievements of the Cambodia-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

Hun Sen highlighted that the Cambodian side is willing to promote the development of ASEANChina relations.The Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and the Global Security Initiative proposed by China are of great significance to maintaining world peace and promoting common development.Cambodia greatly supports and participates in these initiatives.

Wang Yi Meets with President of the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi

On February 2, 2023, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Wang Yi met with President of the 77th Session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi in Beijing.

Wang Yi noted that China, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council,has always been a staunch supporter of and a positive contributor to the cause of the UN.Under the circumstance that unilateralism, protectionism, and hegemonism hinder world peace and development, China is ready to work with all other countries to firmly safeguard the international system with the UN at its core and firmly safeguard the international order based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

Wang Yi said that today’s world is full of uncertainty and instability.All countries need to hold high the banner of the UN and work together to deal with the uncertainties and instability, to decrease the number of geopolitical conflicts, reduce hegemony and bullying, and bring more peace, dialogue and consultation, and international cooperation.China will continue to give firm support to the UN, and stands ready to further strengthen cooperation with the UN to implement Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative, advance the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and jointly address global challenges such as water resources, climate change and biodiversity.

Kőrösi thanked the Chinese government for supporting the UN and multilateralism, and congratulated China on opening a new chapter of national development.He said that the UN hopes to strengthen cooperation with China, work together to prevail over the pandemic, jointly address global challenges and promote the realization of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Qin Gang Holds Talks with Thai Deputy Prime Minister Don Pramudwinai

On February 13, 2023, Foreign Minister Qin Gang held talks with visiting Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai.

Qin Gang said that China is ready to work with Thailand to well implement the outcomes of President Xi Jinping’s historic visit to Thailand, advance the building of a community with a shared future, jointly address common challenges and create opportunities for cooperation and development.

Qin Gang briefed Don on China’s basic vision for advancing comprehensive cooperation with Thailand in the next stage, and proposed to maintain high-level exchanges to raise political mutual trust and practical cooperation to new heights and deliver new outcomes in cultural and people-to-people exchanges.He also proposed that both countries work jointly to promote solid and substantive progress in implementing the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative, and follow through on the important outcomes of the ASEAN-China Special Summit to Commemorate the 30th Anniversary of ASEAN-China Dialogue Relations, so as to achieve new progress in multilateral cooperation.

Don said that both sides should follow through on the series of important common understandings reached during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Thailand last year.Thailand values its relations with China, remains firmly committed to the one-China policy, supports the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, and hopes that the two countries will maintain exchanges at all levels and actively promote cooperation in various fields.

“The unintended entry of China’s civilian unmanned airship into U.S.airspace is an entirely unexpected, isolated event caused by force majeure, and the Chinese side has time and again explained this to the U.S.side.Yet the U.S.overreacted by abusing the use of force and escalating the situation, which is against the spirit of international law and customary practice.The U.S.has also been hyping up the situation and pushing the envelope by using it as an excuse to impose illegal sanctions over Chinese companies and institutions.China strongly disapproves of and firmly opposes this.”

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a regular press conference on February 13, 2023.“

Türkiye and Syria are both friendly countries to China.ln the wake of the devastating earthquakes, the Chinese side will do all it can to assist.The Chinese government immediately activated the emergency humanitarian assistance mechanism.Our first batch of RMB 40 million emergency aid will be on its way to Türkiye,including heavy urban search and rescue teams,medical teams, and urgently needed disaster relief supplies.China is coordinating urgently needed disaster relief supplies to be shipped to Syria and speeding up the delivery of ongoing food aid programs.The Red Cross Society of China has provided emergency humanitarian assistance to the Turkish Red Crescent and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.”

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning indicated at a regular press conference on February 7, 2023.

China’s Resumption of Outbound Group Tours a Boon for the World

China’s resuming of outbound group tours after the optimization of its COVID-19 response will be a strong boost to the global tourism industry and a boon for the world,especially for economies that are dependent on tourism.

On February 6, 2023, China resumed outbound group travel to 20 countries, including Thailand, the Maldives,the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and New Zealand.Group tours between the Chinese mainland and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions also resumed.

The move came after the country downgraded its management of COVID-19 from Class A to Class B on January 8,2023.Resuming outbound travel is one of the measures in China’s COVID-19 response adjustment.

Over the past three years, China’s average growth rate was 4.5 percent, far higher than the global average of 1.8 percent.The resuming of group tours shows that China will strengthen people-to-people and economic exchanges with other countries, and inject more confidence and strength into global economic recovery.

China’s Software Industry Reports Robust Expansion in 2022

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China’s software and information technology services industry logged steady growth in 2022.

The combined software revenues of major companies in the sector topped RMB 10.81 trillion last year, up 11.2 percent year-on-year.

The sector’s total profits rose 5.7 percent from the previous year to RMB 1.26 trillion.

During the same period, industrial software product revenues surged 14.3 percent from 2021, 3.1 percentage points higher than the level of the industry at large.

Cloud computing and big data services revenues rose 8.7 percent year-on-year,and e-commerce platform technical services revenues jumped 18.5 percent.

RMB 4.9 Trillion

China’s new RMB-denominated loans reached RMB 4.9 trillion in January.The figure increased by RMB 922.7 billion from the same period last year.The growth rate was 0.8 percentage points higher than the figure seen at the end of December 2022.

Tech Companies Jump on Chatbot Bandwagon

Chinese tech companies are scrambling to roll out artificial intelligence-powered chatbots or products, similar to ChatGPT, which has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022 by U.S.-based AI research company OpenAI due to its advanced conversational capabilities.

As ChatGPT uses machinelearning technology to generate text responses to prompts, Chinese enterprises should pool more resources into improving algorithm models, computing power, and natural language processing abilities, industry experts said.

They also expressed concern that the ChatGPT-like concept might be overhyped and suggested that people should invest rationally in the stock market.Meanwhile, a new set of problems related to ethics,copyright protection, privacy, and data security will likely emerge.

Baidu Inc., China’s largest search engine company, announced on February 7, 2023, that a similar AI chatbot project, called Ernie Bot, will complete internal testing in March before being announced to the public.

NEA Sets Energy Goals for 2023

China is accelerating wind and solar power development for its transition to green energy as it increases coal,oil, and gas output to ensure energy security this year, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said.

By the end of the year, the installed capacity of wind power will reach about 430 million kilowatts, and the installed capacity of solar power will reach about 490 million kW, the NEA said at a recent conference that mapped out goals for 2023.

More efforts will be made to coordinate hydropower development and ecological protection with a goal of 423 million kW of installed hydropower capacity for this year.The NEA also vowed to actively develop nuclear power in a safe and orderly manner.The goal is to increase the installed capacity of nuclear power by 2.89 million kW within the year.

It is also important to increase oil and gas production and supply, promote major pipeline projects, and improve the oil and gas reserve capacity.It is estimated that crude oil production will reach 205 million metric tons and natural gas output will increase by more than six billion cubic meters by the end of this year.

The NEA also said international cooperation on clean energy will be deepened by establishing China-ASEAN and China-Arab clean energy cooperation centers, and by facilitating cooperation with European countries in areas like hydrogen energy, energy storage, wind power, and smart energy.

More Cars Hit the Road

According to the traffic management administration under the Ministry of Public Security, the numbers of motor vehicles on the road and licensed drivers in China reached 417 million and 502 million respectively in 2022.They represent year-on-year increases of 34.78 million and 29.23 million respectively.

A total of 84 cities on the Chinese mainland had more than one million automobiles on the road, five more than the figure in 2021, and 21 of those had more than three million.Four cities – Beijing, Shanghai,Chengdu, and Chongqing– crossed the five million mark.

R&D Spending Maintains Double-Digit Growth

China's total expenditure on research and development (R&D) amounted to nearly RMB 3.09 trillion in 2022, up 10.4 percent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).This marks the seventh double-digit annual growth in a row.After deducting price factors, China's R&D spending in 2022 rose eight percent year-on-year, said the NBS.

China's total spending on R&D accounted for 2.55 percent of its gross domestic product last year,up 0.12 percentage points from the previous year.

Investment in basic research stood at RMB 195.1 billion last year, up 7.4 percent year-on-year, accounting for 6.32 percent of the total R&D spending.

Tapping the Massive Geological Carbon Storage Potential

At a recent meeting, the China Geological Survey — an agency under the Ministry of Natural Resources — for the first time released the results of its assessment of the geological carbon storage potential of China’s offshore areas.It assessed that these regions can store up to 2.58 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Geological carbon storage is the process of injecting carbon dioxide into geological formations, such as the saline aquifer and depleted oil and gas reservoirs.It can mitigate increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, offsetting the greenhouse effect.The research by the China Geological Survey gives relevant departments a better understanding of China’s offshore resources of geological carbon storage, identifies sites with high capacities for such storage, and hence provides support for the country’s endeavors to realize carbon peak and neutrality as scheduled.