chinadailyusa.com $1TUESDAY, February 10, 2015

New York’s Baccarat is latest prize

White House: Xi visit major

Graft fi ght targets publicly listed personal ‘ATM’ fi rms

DIPLOMACY REAL ESTATE

By JACK FREIFELDERin New Yorkjackfreifelder@chinadailyusa.com

A second high-profi le hotel real estate deal in the United States involving a Chinese insurance fi rm is a growing sign of the investment-diver-sifi cation strategy of a num-ber of multinational compa-nies, according to a managing director at a commercial real estate fi rm.

Kevin Mallory, global head of CBRE Hotels, a unit of the Los Angeles-based CBRE Group Inc, told China Daily that foreign capital is “mak-ing up a more signifi cant part of our landscape” in the US.

“We have a number of Chinese companies that are highly visible and making sig-nificant investments in the US and elsewhere,” Mallory said Monday. “But there are other types of foreign capital; look at the Malaysian capital that’s coming in.”

“The amount of foreign capital that is invested in US real estate is accelerating from a long-term average of just over 5 to 6 percent to an amount now between 18 to 20 percent,” he said. “In many respects, certainly with Anbang and now with Sun-shine, we’re seeing the results of that diversifi cation strategy that’s being deployed around the globe. So we expect to con-tinue to see this trend acceler-

ate as we go forward.”On Monday, global private

investment firm Starwood Capital Group announced that it agreed to sell the Bac-carat Hotel to a unit of China’s Sunshine Insurance for $230 million. The purchase price breaks down to $2.04 million per room, data from STR Ana-lytics showed.

The Baccarat has 114 rooms and suites available for as much as $18,000 a night. The hotel, which occupies the fi rst 12 fl oors of a 50-story tower at 20 W 53rd Street and fea-tures a 125-foot wide corru-gated crystal façade, is set to open next month. The fl oors above the hotel house nearly 60 apartments set aside for use as condominiums.

The property is also across the street from the Museum of Modern Art.

Sunshine, founded in 2005 as a property and casualty insurer, has provided insur-ance to more than 130 million customers since its establish-ment nearly a decade ago.

In October, China’s Anbang Insurance Co agreed to pur-chase the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York from Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc for $1.95 billion, roughly equal to $1.4 million per room.

The purchase price is the largest amount ever paid for a US hotel, according to research fi rm Lodging Econometrics.

SEE “HOTEL” PAGE 3

By HUA SHENGDUNin Washington

“There is no substitute for the two leaders sitting together,” White House aide Ben Rhodes said of the expected visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.

“We thought it was important to have Presi-dent Xi here,” Rhodes, who is assistant to the president and deputy national securi-ty advisor for strategic com-munications and speech-writing, said Monday.

US National Secu-rity Advisor Susan Rice announced on Feb 6 that US President Barack Obama has invited Xi for a state visit this year. Also on the invitation list is Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Agreements on envi-ronmental, military and reciprocal visa-extension issues were reached when Obama and Xi met during a conference in Beijing in November.

Before that, Xi made his initial visit to the US as president at the Sunnyl-ands retreat in California in June 2013, but has not yet been hosted in Washing-ton for an offi cial state visit. Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, made a state visit in 2011.

Rhodes praised last year’s highlight of “two leaders getting together to [make] progress on climate change, on trade, on military to military relations”. He said the best way to keep the momentum going is to have another state visit.

He said that the White House didn’t have fixed dates for the meeting yet.

Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the US, said on Feb 6 that China-US relations have reached wider and deeper scopes in many ways in recent years, and China would work to enhance bilateral relations in 2015.

“In the Chinese Year of the Sheep, I hope China-US relations will be more like the ‘Pleasant Sheep’ and less like the ‘Big Bad Wolf,’ ” he said at the embassy’s Chi-nese New Year gala.

SEE “VISIT” PAGE 3

By CHEN JIA in Beijingchenjia@chinadaily.com.cn

Corruption has made deep inroads into the Chinese capital market and threatens the man-agement integrity of at least 70 publicly listed companies, according to media reports.

“Nearly all corrupt officials had ill-gotten incomes from

business organizations,” a com-mentary in the Beijing-based Guangming Daily said.

Many companies and enter-prises have served as “money printers and automated teller machines” for corrupt offi cials, the commentary added.

According to Hithink Royal-fl ush Information Network, an online fi nancial information site

in Hangzhou, Zhejiang prov-ince, out of 70 problem-plagued companies, the largest group consists of 18 in industries such as oil, coal mining and nonfer-rous metals.

Six of the 70 are in the real estate sector and another six are fi nancial companies.

State-owned and non-State companies are among those

with executives suspected of being corrupt and of having cor-rupt offi cial ties, Hithink said.

Beijing News said listed companies in high-profit and monopoly industries bribe offi cials by giving them shares, manipulate stock prices and transfer benefi ts through merg-ers and acquisitions in the capi-tal market.

Some senior executives have been taken away by the anti-corruption watchdog to help with investigations, while oth-ers have been accused of accept-ing bribes and of other illegal activities.

One of the largest compa-nies involved is State-owned

SEE “ANTI-GRAFT” PAGE 4

By GAO YUAN in Beijing and CHEN WEIHUA in Washington

Lu Wei, head of the Chinese Internet regulator, and the US Ambassador to China Max Bau-cus are WeChat buddies.

And they will use the most popular instant-messaging tool in China to discuss the thorni-est cyber issues the two coun-tries face. It’s unclear whether they’ll use emojis — animat-ed emoticons — in their chat threads. That might be a fi rst in international diplomacy.

At a Chinese New Year reception held by the Cyber-space Administration Offi ce of China, Lu told Baucus that he would welcome an exchange of views on Internet regulation via WeChat, a social network-ing tool developed by Tencent Holdings that has more than 400 million users worldwide.

“WeChat will be a very nor-mal channel to exchange ideas for me and Baucus,” Lu said.

China is imposing tougher Internet regulatory policies because of fears an unfettered Internet could damage informa-tion security and social stability.

“The word ‘net’ also means law and order in Chinese cul-ture,” Lu said. “Every Internet user desires cyberfreedom, and order is the foundation,” Lu said. “Where there is no order, there will be no freedom.”

China and the United States have had a number of skir-mishes over cybersecurity and Internet freedom.

“I heard the message of coop-eration from Lu,” Baucus said. “I think we should focus more on the cooperation than on the diff erences.”

The former US senator from Montana, who took up his cur-rent job last March, agreed that both parties should keep the dialogue channels open and functioning.

The US, the creator of the Internet and a key overseer, is gradually losing control over the biggest innovation after electric-ity, as a number of countries are asking for an intergovernmental body to oversee the Net.

Fadi Chehade, chief execu-tive of the cyberspace governing body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Num-bers (ICANN), warned on Mon-day that hopes to transfer con-trol of ICANN from US hands to a globally representative body could be jeopardized unless a deal is reached before the 2016 US presidential elections, Agence France-Presse reported.

Lu’s words may indicate that China, with its fast-developing Internet market, is increasingly interested in the international governance of cyber space.

China suspended the bilateral working group on cybersecurity immediately after the US Justice Department indicted fi ve Peo-ple’s Liberation Army officers

last May for alleged cyber theft, charges China has denied.

Like many other countries in the world, China has become increasingly wary of cyberse-curity following the revelations in the past 20 months made by former National Security Agen-cy contractor Edward Snowden that the NSA has been conduct-ing wide-ranging surveillance of foreign leaders, governments and corporations, including some in China.

Lu, minister of China’s State Internet Information Office, paid a high-profi le visit to the US in December, attending the seventh China-US Internet Industry Forum in Washing-ton, meeting US offi cials, speak-ing to students and faculty at George Washington Univer-sity, visiting Silicon Valley and interacting with entrepreneurs, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

China has become the world’s largest Internet market, with more than 4 million websites, 600 million Internet users and four of the world’s Top 10 Inter-net companies. Online com-merce is set to hit $2 trillion this year and keep growing at 30 percent a year, Lu told the China-US Internet forum.

Contact the writers at gaoyuan@chinadaily.com.cn and chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com

China’s Internet regulator to ‘WeChat’ with US ambassador

TECHNOLOGY

NO STRINGS ATTACHED

A puppeteer with the Shannxi Folk Arts Troupe performs the Drunken Concubine at a Chinese New Year program on Monday evening at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis, Maryland. The performance was sponsored by World Artists Experiences, a non-profi t organization whose mission is to bridge international understanding through cultural and citizen diplomacy in communities, colleges and schools. LIU CHANG / CHINA DAILY

Construction work takes place outside the Baccarat Hotels & Residences NYC building on W 53rd Street on Monday. The 50-story tower will be home to the Baccarat Hotel starting next month. JACK FREIFELDER / CHINA DAILY

Max Baucus, US ambassador to China

Ben Rhodes, US Deputy National Security Advisor

Lu Wei, head of the Chinese Internet regulator

CHINA

Church and state

The Catholic Church is push-ing to reclaim land and proper-ties seized in Shanxi province more than 40 years ago. > P5

Legal trouble

Law graduates are facing tough job prospects despite the government’s emphasis on the rule of law. > P6

LIFE

Art treasure

Famed writer La She and his wife were known to collect 20th-century Chinese art, which is now on display in Beijing. > P8

BUSINESS

Stock options

The trading of stock options debuted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Monday, in a nod to institutional investors. > P13

Alibaba quest

Alibaba will invest $590 million in smartphone maker Meizu Technology, boosting an eff ort to get its mobile operating sys-tem on handsets. > P16

In the news

Debut dayEquity-linked options

traded for fi rst time > p13

Proud momentConfucius Institute director honored by Nebraska> ACROSS AMERICA, PAGE 2

Liquid glitterGold fl akes in whitespirit spark debate> LIFE, PAGE 7

terwhite

ebate

Super luxury hotel seen as part of trend among Chinese investors

CRIME

By HUA SHENGDUNin Washington

A delegation from the Bureau of Commerce of Zibo City, Shandong province, and the China-US Chamber of Commerce co-hosted an event to promote investment in the medical industry in Washing-ton on Feb 8.

Li Shumin, vice-mayor of Zibo, said he hoped the con-ference would help generate deeper research and develop relationships with the US.

“We are seeking more coop-eration on a larger scale with the US, specifi cally in the areas of biomedicine, chemical syn-thetics, drugs, medical devic-es and medicinal packaging materials,” Li told China Daily.

During the delegation’s earlier visits to Toronto and

New York City last week, some agreements were signed, including a continuation of cooperation on cancer diagno-sis kit production with Panacea Global, a Canada-based bio-technology company.

The city is also planning to put in place a US-based repre-sentative, but is “still looking for the best location”, said Li.

Zibo city, with a population of about 4.5 million, is located in the center of the eastern cos-tal province of Shandong. Li called it an important indus-trial city with “a long history of international trade and invest-ment dating back a century”.

As a national pharmaceuti-cal export and nationwide bio-logical medicine industry base, Zibo is the largest pharmaceu-tical industrial center in Shan-dong province, its economic

scale and integrated opera-tions ranking it first provin-cially, said Qiu Feng, chairman of the Zibo Medical Industry Association.

“We have a group of prod-ucts with production capacity

and market share ranking fi rst in China,” Qiu said.

The city houses a total of 150 pharmaceutical enterpris-es, more than half in medical device production, 30 in medi-cine and 42 in pharmaceutical

packaging materials, employ-ing about 40,000 people.

Featured are metamizole sodium, caffeine and aspirin from Xinhua Pharmaceutical Co, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers and exporters.

Xinhua products have been distributed to more than 50 countries, with 11 registered by the US Food and Drug Admin-istration, Qiu said.

“Zibo city has developed strong pharmaceutical com-panies and the opportunities for more partnerships here will help many people,” said Milton Brown, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Drug Discovery. “We are looking for-ward to more collaborations with Zibo city.”

Zibo’s GDP rocketed to $64.5 billion in 2014, a 7.4 percent growth over the previous year, according to the Zibo govern-ment.

The medical industry contrib-uted about a third of the city’s export growth of 6.9 percent, the highest rate of any sector.

Sheng Yang in Washington contributed to this story.

A fter a string of teen suicides, with the latest one taking place on Jan 24 in

the San Francisco Bay Area, the Chinese community and parents are busy conducting workshops and organizing public speaking campaigns to restore a healthy family order and nurture a healthier par-ent-youth relationship.

Among the many commu-nity eff orts targeting parent-ing skills and youth behav-ioral health, the public service announcement (PSA) video produced by the city of Fre-mont in the East Bay and made available to the public on Feb 6, is believed to help alleviate many families’ chronic pain caused by mental and emo-tional disorders among youths.

Entitled Chinese Youth and

Families Bridges to Behav-ioral Health, the 30-second video aims to educate Chi-nese-American parents on the importance of early interven-tion and to encourage parents to seek professional assistance from the community and orga-nizations for their troubled youth.

Annie Bailey, administrator of Fremont’s Human Services Department/Youth & Family Services, said her team worked closely with families and the school district to learn some of the concerns about the social and emotional development

of children in the Chinese com-munity. Through this video, Bailey hopes parents will learn more about child development and work with the community and organizations like hers “if issues and concerns do arise.”

Helen Hsu, clinical psy-chologist and supervisor also with the Fremont department, was extensively involved in the production of the video. She deplored losses of young lives through suicides, acknowledg-ing eff ective communication remains the key to solve many parent-children confl icts.

In Fremont where one-fourth of the population is Asian American and 40 per-cent are Chinese-American families with children under 18 years, Hsu said children from the Chinese-speaking families are under a lot of

pressure and anxiety because of the high expectations from immigrant parents.

Hsu said research since the 1970s indicated that Chinese families are very reluctant to seek and utilize public resourc-es for early intervention when it comes to youth mental dis-orders. “Virtually, we just want to keep it in the family and we try to be stoic and wait for its pass,” said Hsu. However, when treatments for mental disorders are delayed, the health outcome is poor. “If you have small problems (but you won’t seek treatment), they don’t usually go but become very worse,” she said.

Very often, “we have families coming to us when they have emergencies due to their lack of education on early interven-tion,” Hsu said. “We need to

fi ght against this kind of stig-ma. Please don’t think of seek-ing mental health assistance as a shameful thing.”

With the release of the video to the public and school dis-trict, “We are able to help the parents gain the knowledge of where to seek assistance, the culturally and linguistically appropriate services and sup-port,” said Ivy Wu, who used to sit on Fremont’s school board and now runs her non-governmental organization to spread concepts about healthy parenting.

Parenting can be very chal-lenging for anybody, but it’s much harder when you are parenting crossing cultures, said Justine Fan, a PhD stu-dent majoring in psychology who conducted workshops to help Chinese-speaking parents

struggling with behavioral disorders of their adolescent children.

“Our parents are fi rst-gen-eration immigrants who tend to use the Chinese tradition to raise us and shape our way of thinking,” said Fan. “We are supposed to respect our par-ents, follow their instruction and don’t talk back.”

In Eastern culture, parents are strict with their youth and spend more time criticizing than praising. In America, we often forget how little time we have to spend with our chil-dren. And when we are with them, we end up berating them – this only makes com-munication more diffi cult, said the monologue in the video. “However, we are Asian Ameri-cans and we need to assimi-late to the American cultures

– its values, social norms and behaviors.”

Fan said confl icts and clash-es of the two cultures some-times would result in tension between parents and children, “somehow they might escalate into stress, anxiety and pres-sure of the youth and lead to emotional derailments.”

Hsu encourages parents to spend more time with chil-dren, praising them on their positive attributes, and always listening with patience, with-out being judgmental. Besides, “Early prevention can keep your children healthy and you can detect the problems much earlier before they are diag-nosed as health issues.”

Contact the writer at junechang@chinadailyusa.com

ACROSS AMERICA2

Tuesday, February 10, 2015 CHINA DAILY USA

By LIA ZHUin San Franciscoliazhu@chinadailyusa.com

After teaching English at Xi’an Jiaotong University in west China for more than 20 years, Huang Pingan’s desire to promote Chinese language and culture became a reality when he was selected to serve as associate director of the Confucius Institute at the Uni-versity of Nebraska–Lincoln in March 2011.

Now not only have the students he has taught hon-ored him but also the State of Nebraska, Governor Pete Rick-etts proclaimed Feb 2 “Pingan Huang Day” for his distin-guished accomplishments and urged “all citizens to take due note of the observance.”

Recalling the past four years of working in this sparsely-populated state, Huang con-sidered his work as “mean-ingful” and “enjoyable.” Every year, around 8,000 students are enrolled in the institute’s classes, despite the limited demand on Chinese education.

“The thought has lingered in my head since I was an Eng-lish major student: When can people across the world learn Chinese as we learn English?” Huang said, in a telephone interview. “The Sino-foreign cultural exchange should be balanced and two-way, how-ever, I feel what we Chinese understand the world much more than the world under-stands us.”

He believes culture can be more easily learned through language at an early age. “In China, English is now taught at primary schools, and even some kindergartens,” he said,.“That’s why we under-stand the English culture bet-

ter than the English-speaking people understand ours.”

In the state capital of Lin-coln, two of the institute’s 15 Chinese teachers are assigned to teach at each primary school for six weeks a semester, which means all the students have a chance to learn Chinese, Huang said. The classes are not formal language teaching, but introduce Chinese culture and simple language through Chinese painting and music, he explained.

Besides Lincoln in the east-ern part of the state, Huang also reached out to cities in the middle and western parts, trying to establish Chinese classes there. With concerted eff orts from local school dis-tricts, a high school and a mid-

dle school in Scottsbluff and another high school in North Platte began off ering Chinese language classes in the fall of 2011. “Now some 200 students in the three schools are taking Chinese classes for academic credit,” he said.

Huang also emphasizes the role of a cordial relationship in eff ectively promoting cultural exchanges

As the governor said in his proclamation last week, “Pin-gan Huang has worked to fos-ter meaningful relationships and create deeper understand-ing among Chinese and Ameri-can students, staff , faculty and citizens by developing Chinese language courses … maintain-ing quality of all language teaching activities.”

“Nebraska is a reserved agricultural state; the people here have limited knowledge of China,” said Huang. “We try to design our courses and lec-tures according to their spe-cifi c needs.”

The courses, designed at elementary, intermediate and advanced levels, range from Chinese language to Chinese painting, dancing and cook-ing. The students include uni-versity students, children and retired people from local com-munities.

Huang also lectures at the university. With the increasing number of Chinese students coming to study in Nebraska, his lectures have become very popular. “The most popular one is on Chinese names,

since the Chinese pronuncia-tion is diffi cult,” Huang said. “The lecture on Chinese char-acters and outlook of values also receives positive feedback from the counselors in dealing with Chinese students’ mental health issues.”

To help local people bet-ter understand China, the Confucius Institute has orga-nized several “culture-experi-ence” trips to China, with par-ticipants including State Secre-tary John Gale, school district officials, school masters and teachers.

“We have received unexpect-ed results from the trips,” said Huang. “The Lincoln school district superintendent has given us exceptional support like attending our Chinese classes and cultural activities, and promoting our Confucius Institute.”

Horace Marvin Almy, 69, is also one of the benefi ciaries of those trips. “We saw awesome constructions and took a bullet train. It confi rms our impres-sion of China from pictures fi rst-hand,” he told China Daily.

A member of the advisory council of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a partner of the Confucius Institute, Almy also co-sponsored the trip last May. “It’s an awesome learning experience, which added to our understanding of the Chinese culture,” he added.

Huang hopes such cultural experience trips can be orga-nized after he leaves to resume his English teaching job in Xi’an.

“The connections and expe-rience that I acquired here in Nebraska will defi nitely help in promoting the cultural exchanges between Chinese and American people in Chi-na,” he said.

CI director honored for exchanges CULTURE

Huang Pingan receives certifi cates from Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale at a ceremony last week. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

Li Shumin (left), deputy mayor of Zibo, meets Milton Brown (right), director of Georgetown University center for drug discovery, at an investment conference in Washington on Feb 8. At center is Sun Qiang, a scientist at the National Cancer Institute. CAI CHUNYING / CHINA DAILY

Zibo seeks industry partners in US tour

Raising bi-cultural Chinese youth and restoring the healthy family

INVESTMENT

ChangJunSAN FRANCISCOJOURNAL

TELEVISION

By PAUL WELITZKINin New Yorkpaulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com

China is taking its famous New Year’s Gala television show to an international audience for the first time, as analysts said the country is eager to inform the West about its culture and eco-nomic progress.

State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), which has broadcast the Spring Festival Gala (also known as Chunwan) on the eve of the Lunar New Year annually since 1984, will license the rights to foreign television stations for free.

This global campaign for Chunwan also includes selected programs from previous galas and three gala-themed documenta-ries, which will be telecast in English, Hindi, Portuguese and other languages across 24 television networks in 16 countries.

The programs will also be launched via social media platforms such as YouTube, Google Plus and Twitter to reach an expected 230 coun-tries and regions, said Ma Runsheng, assistant to the president of China Interna-tional Television Corp.

“Our purpose is to give overseas Chinese and for-eigners who are interested in Chinese culture a chance to see Chunwan,” Ma said.

Xu Xin, associate director of the China and Asia-Pacifi c Studies Program at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said in an interview that the Chinese New Year is the most important holiday in the country. He believes CCTV is mainly making show available for Chinese who live abroad.

“In my view, CCTV wants to reach the Chinese popu-lation that lives overseas – people like me,” he said. “They also want to help expand the Chinese culture to new audiences, particu-larly in the US.”

“As China’s economy and role in the world have grown, its culture is something the rest of the globe should know about,” said Joseph Weber, a professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, who has taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “I expect that CCTV

offi cials feel they have a good story to tell that would inter-est viewers well beyond its borders.”

YouTube, Google Plus and Twitter are not available in China.

“You need to reach the audience where the audience is,” Weber said. “If potential viewers are users of YouTube and Twitter, it seems reason-able for Chinese authorities to use those vehicles. Of course, it would be helpful if all Chinese citizens had access to those sites as well. The more avenues of com-munication ... open to Chi-nese citizens and to others around the world, the better,” he wrote in an e-mail.

“Social networks are a popular way to commu-nicate overseas, so I think it’s only natural that CCTV would seek to reach as large an audience as possible,” said Xu.

According to statistics from CSM Media Research, more than 700 million people watched Chunwan live on TV in 2014, and another 100 mil-lion watched it online.

Even with those impres-sive numbers, Jonathan M. Hall, a professor of media studies at Pomona College in Claremont, California, said the gala has less importance in China than it used to.

“CCTV’s foreign promo-tion of the show speaks both to China’s growing eff orts to become a cultural exporter and to the increasing domes-tic irrelevance of this media mishmash,” Hall said. “Even though Chinese national-ism is on the upswing, the domestic need for such unify-ing programs has diminished greatly as Chinese media reflect the individuation of entertainment.

“TV also doesn’t appeal as much as the luxury of the new multiplexes or the personal convenience of the Internet,” he said. “Many Chinese might not appreci-ate the comparison, but we saw a similar phenomenon in the decline of Japan’s Kohaku Utagassen New Year variety show from the 1990s onwards,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Xu of Cornell said the tele-vision show is not as popular as it once was. “Particularly among the youth, I think the show has lost some of its appeal,” Xu said.

CCTV’s New Year’s Gala goes globalChina’s central broadcaster will license extravaganza free of charge

TOP NEWSCHINA DAILY USA Tuesday, February 10, 2015

3

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LABOR

Watch factory to pay moreBy ZHENG CAIXIONGin Guangzhouzhengcaixiong@chinadaily.com.cn

Most of the workers at awell-known Japanese compa-ny in Guangzhou, Guangdongprovince, that shut down lastweek have signed contracts toleave the company of theirown accord after mediationfrom local labor departmentand trade unions by Mondaynoon.

After mediation, the Japa-nese watchmaker Citizenagreed to give workers sev-erance pay plus two months’salary as compensation. Itwill also pay the workers’social security, according toa statement on Mondayfrom the Huadu DistrictBureau of Labor and SocialSecurity.

Previously, Citizen hadagreed to pay its employeesonly severance plus one

month of salary, as compensa-tion, the statement said.

“A total of 968 workers havesigned contracts to leave Citi-zen of their own accord byMonday noon, and the labordepartment will continue tomake efforts to help theremaining 74 workers, whorefused to accept the compen-sation plan, to negotiate withthe company,” the statementsaid.

A task force headed by thelabor bureau was set up imme-diately when Citizen suddenlyannounced on Thursday thatit would dismiss more than1,000 workers.

The workers gathered at thefactory over the next few daysto express their demandspeacefully.

A public relations executivesurnamed Huang acknowl-edged the company hadincreased the compensation toworkers after mediation fromlabor and the labor bureau.

“The closing of the Guangzhoufacility was related to the com-pany’s global reduction policy,”Huang said, adding that thecompany dismissed workersabruptly because it did notwant the company’s normaloperations to be affected byunhappy workers after anannouncement.

Chen Xiaogang director ofthe general office of the HuaduFederation of Trade Unions,said the case is being handledpeacefully after mediation,with more than 90 percent ofthe workers expressing satis-faction.

Wang Songjiang, a locallabor expert, said Citizen vio-lated labor laws and regula-

tions and rules when itsuddenly dismissed its work-ers, despite informing thelabor department in advance.

“The employers still haveto inform the workers at leastone month ahead, if theywant to dismiss more than 20employees at a time, so thatthe workers have enoughtime to seek other employ-ment opportunities orreceive special training. Oth-erwise, they will have brokenlaws, regulations and rules,”he said.

Tian Dangsheng, a lawyerfrom Guangzhou’s GreenleafLawFirm, said: “Citizen’s com-pensation plan is acceptableand meets the country’s stan-dards for compensating work-ers who are dismissed, and Ido not think workers can seekmore if they sue and win incourt,” he said.

Established in 2010 in Hua-du district, Citizen onceemployed 1,042 workers.

tyle gangsters executed for ‘vile and harmful’ deedsThe Liu brothers and 34

other defendants were con-victed in May of murder, aswell as of organizing, leadingor participating in a gang.

The five defendants weresentenced to death; anotherfive were sentenced to deathwith a two-year reprieve; fourgot life imprisonment; and 22received varying prison terms.

The Hubei court upheld the

five death sentences in August.Liu Han was chairman of theHanlong Group, the biggestprivate enterprise in Sichuanprovince. He owned subsidiar-ies in the electricity, energy,finance, mining, real estate andsecurities sectors.

According to the verdict inthe first trial, the group, led bythe Liu brothers, was identifiedas a criminal organization as it

had an established hierarchy,regular members and profitedfrom criminal activities. Theorganization, which was hid-den by government officials,illegally monopolized the gam-bling business in Guanghan,Sichuan, tyrannized local peo-ple and seriously harmed eco-nomic and social order.

“Their activities wereextremely vile and harmful,”

the court said in a statementon Monday. The gang waslinked to eight deaths, gunsales, racketeering, vandalism,obstruction of official duties,disturbing the peace, gam-bling and harboring of crimi-nals, theSPCsaid. Liu Hanwasalso responsible for HanlongGroup’s loan racket and other“extremelyharmful”monetarycrimes, the court said.

SPORTS

Medal counting for assessment apparently on, then offBy SUN XIAOCHENsunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn

To clean up scandals in Chi-nese sports, the country’ssports authorities should endthe obsession with winningmedals by introducing morediversified criteria for per-formance assessments thanmerely the results of competi-tions, observers said.

The General Administrationof Sport of China, the country’stop sports regulatory body, hasbeenmired incontroversyafterit announced on its websitethat the medal tally of provin-cial teams for the 2017 NationalGames will be published as

usual — a move inconsistentwithitsearlierclaimthatmedalcounting would be eliminated.

The administration had saidin January that it would nolonger rank provincial delega-tions by number of medalsearned — a response to a reportby the country’s top anti-graftagency that attributed a seriesof scandals involving match-fix-ing, talent selection and druguse to the blind pursuit of med-als in the sports system.

But that announcement waserroneous, Zhang Haifeng,spokesman for the adminis-tration, said on Friday. Theinformation about the 2017National Games was an older

version mistakenly postedonline, and the medal countwill actually not be released,Zhang said.

Jin Can, director of the Bei-jing Academy of Social Scien-ces’ sports culture researchcenter said: “It seems that tocut off the medal count wasjust a hasty and ill-considereddecision of GASC to deal withthe anti-graft investigation.Local sports authorities willcontinue to spur athletes andtrainers to unscrupulouslywin medals for materialrewards and promotions.”

Tan Jianxiang, a sports soci-ology professor at South ChinaNormal University, echoed

Jin, stressing that it’s moreimportant to overhaul thelong-standing sports achieve-ment evaluation system.

“There’s nothing wrongwith competing for medals ata sporting meet. What’s wrongis assessing local sportsauthorities’ performance andawarding sports officials andtrainers solely by the results ofcompetitions,” Tan said.

“The progress of mass fitnessparticipation, the growth of thesports industry and the devel-opment of professional leaguesshould also be included in theassessment system, so thatmedalsatmajoreventswon’tbeconsidered the only driver.”

968 workers

signed contracts to leaveJapanese employer Citizen vol-untarily by Monday at noon

FROM PAGE 1

Anbang announced on Feb 2 that its purchase of the Waldorf Astoria had cleared a review from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US. Th e com-pany expects the deal to close in the fi rst quarter of 2015.

Real-estate broker Jones Lang LaSalle estimates that Chinese companies will spend more than $5 billion on overseas hotel

investments this year, up from $920 million last year and $130 million in 2012.

“Chinese insurance com-panies underwent a change in their regulatory environment, and now they are allowed to allocate more of their capital into real estate outside of Chi-na,” Mallory said.

In April, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued

new rules regarding Chinese investments overseas. Chinese companies now can register investments up to $1 billion without seeking government approval, up from a previous sum of $100 million, according to a report from Xinhua.

Any project beyond $1 bil-lion still requires NDRC con-firmation, and investments that exceed $2 billion must be approved by the State Council,

Xinhua said.China’s Dalian Wanda Group

announced in July that it would put $900 million into a hotel and apartment complex in Chi-cago..

Stephen Hennis, director of STR Analytics, a market research firm that covers the hotel industry, told China Daily that the price paid by Sunshine is “the record price per room for a hotel in NYC”.

Hotel: Insurer adds a fancy New York property

Visit: Personal talks seen as crucial FROM PAGE 1

“Th e Sino-American rela-tionship is much broader than that, particularly, the economic relationship is extremely important,” said Bernard Cole, a professor at the National War College, said on Feb 6 at Brookings.

Rhodes said the US was looking forward to the Paris summit later in the year.Climate-change pledges and reducing greenhouse gases are on the summit agenda.

Rhodes also said that Obama is “very mindful” to “be setting clear signals to the Asian Pacifi c region that the rebalance is here to stay”.

“Th ere is no substitute for the president of the United States being engaged in those eff orts, and I think it has been borne out in his recent trips to the region,” said Rhodes.

Shen g Yang in Washington contributed to this story.

HIGH STEPPING

A group of American children who study traditional Chinese martial arts at the Wushu-Kung Fu Fitness Center in New Jersey perform kung fu at the Fifth China Intangible Heritage Demonstration Tour to the USA at Lincoln Center in New York City on Monday. HONG XIAO /

CHINA DAILY

True killer to die aftermiscarriage of justiceBy ZHANG YIzhang_yi@chinadaily.com.cn

A man who raped andmurdered a woman in 1996— a crime for which an inno-cent man was wrongly exe-cuted — was sentenced todeath on Monday for thosecrimes and for killing nineother people.

The sentence was imposedafter a trial spanning almost10 years. It concluded only aft-er the innocent 18-year-oldwas declared innocent inDecember. Zhao Zhihong, 42,was tried on charges of mur-der, rape, robbery and larcenyin 21 cases at the IntermediatePeople’s Court in Hohhot, cap-ital of the Inner Mongoliaautonomous region.

The court deprived Zhao ofpolitical rights for life, finedhim 53,000 yuan ($8,500)and ordered him to pay102,768 yuan in compensa-tion to the victims.

Zhao was apprehended in2005andconfessedtoastringof rapes and murders, includ-ingtheone inapublic toilet inHohhot in1996thatwasfalse-ly pinned on Hugjiltu, despitedoubts about the evidence.

Zhao first stood trial in2006 for raping and killingnine women and girls, sevenothercountsofrape,aswellasrobbery and larceny between1996 and 2005.

However, his trial was sus-pended until Hugjiltu wasexonerated in December.Zhao’s trial resumed on Jan 5.

On Monday, Zhao was con-victed of 21 crimes between1996 and 2005 in Hohhotand Ulanqab. Besides a

series of intentional murdersthat left 10 people dead, itwas alleged he raped 13women and girls during thesame period.

He Feng, deputy head ofthe police department inHohhot, said “the trial proc-ess has been exceptionallylong” after he heard thecourt’s decision.

“I had mixed feelingswhen I heard the results. Theadjudication process tooktoo much time and exceededthe time required by the law.I think it is unfair for the vic-tims and their families,” Headded.

He said Zhao’s apprehen-sion was no easy task. After aseriesof rapeandmurdercas-es were reported in Hohhotand other places, the policenarrowed their suspicions toZhaoandbeganefforts tocap-ture him. Zhao evaded twoattempts. He was eventuallynetted at his girlfriend’shome.

His girlfriend was also atthe scene and thought thepolice got the wrong man.She said Zhao was a goodman and asked the police tolet him go, the police said.

Zhao’s lawyer said he feltvery sad in court on Monday,facing many victims’ familieswho were crying but theystayed calm rather thancurse Zhao.

Hugjiltu’s parents wereawarded state compensationof more than 2 million yuanafter their son’s acquittal.

Feng Zhiming, the policeofficer in charge of Hugjiltu’scase who was later promot-ed, is under investigation.

Zhao Zhihong is escorted to trial in Hohhot IntermediatePeople’s Court in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region onMonday. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

JUSTICE

CHINACHINA DAILY USA » CHINADAILYUSA.COM

4 Tuesday, February 10, 2015

BEIJING

Court publicizesparole informationThe Beijing Second Interme-diate People’s Court publi-cized information onMonday concerning casesthat involved parole or com-muted sentences. More than1,800 cases related to com-mutation and parole weretried in the court betweenJuly 2012 and last year. Thecourt held public hearingsin more than 40 such caseslast year. The court hasstepped up efforts to makejudiciary work more trans-parent to the public.

College officialsinvestigatedForty high-ranking collegeofficials were investigatedfor corruption in 2014,among which 27 seriousdiscipline violators werenamed by the Central Com-mission for DisciplineInspection, MinshengWeekly said on Monday.The report also said areassuch as school admission,infrastructure constructionand allocation of researchfunds are potential breed-ing grounds of corruption.

1m more birthsexpected in 2015At least 1 million more birthsare expected in 2015 than lastyear as a result of changes tothe family planning policy.Last year, 16.9 million Chi-nese were born, 470,000more than in 2013, accordingto the China PopulationAssociation on Monday.According to the CPA, since1990s, the annual number ofnewborns has decreasedfrom more than 20 million toaround 16 million.

JILIN

High-speed railto link VladivostokPlans for a high-speed raillink between Hunchun, Jil-in province, and Vladivos-tok, Russia, are takingshape, local authorities saidon Monday. Jilin GovernorJiang Chaoliang said thenew railway will boost tradebetween Jilin and Russiaand cooperation betweenthe province and northwestAsia. Hunchun, on the bor-der with Russia, is onlyabout 180 kilometers fromVladivostok, but it takesmore than five hours totravel by car.

LIAONING

Train derails aftercollision with truckA freight train derailed aft-er colliding with a truckthat had careered through acrossing, authorities saidon Monday. No casualtieswere reported. The truck,overloaded with iron ore,jumped a railway crossingthat links Jinzhou, Liaon-ing province and Chengde,Hebei province, said an offi-cial with the Shenyang Rail-way Bureau. Despite thesignal to stop, the truckcrashed through the guard-rail, hitting the middle ofthe cargo train.

GUANGXI

Passer-by killedin knife attackA passer-by was killed by aknife-wielding man in Bei-hai around 3 am on Mon-day. The suspect, who wasattacking passers-by on thestreet, was shot by policeand died after he was sentto a hospital. The case inunder further investigation.

XINHUA—CHINA DAILY

Briefly

Fancy ride

Yu Jietao, a farmer from Guangfeng county, Jiangxi province, drives his handmade sports car with his relatives on Monday. Yu spent half ayear and more than 100,000 yuan ($16,000) assembling the car. The frame and decorations are made of mahogany, and the vehicle canrun up to 30 kilometers per hour. ZHUO ZHONGWEI / FOR CHINA DAILY

A meal for seals

A spotted seal swims in icy waters off the Dongpaotai seasidescenic zone in Yantai, Shandong province, on Monday. Workersat the scenic zone broke the ice and fed the seals to help themsurvive the winter. CHU YANG / FOR CHINA DAILY

China National PetroleumCorp, the country’s largest oiland gas producer and supplier,with a market capitalization of2 trillion yuan ($320 billion).

Forty-five executives andemployees from the companyare under investigation onsuspicion of corruption, brib-ery and bribe-taking.

According to Hithink, theinvestigation into the companyalso covers alleged illegal activi-tiesat itsHongKong-basedsub-sidiariesKunlunEnergyCoandWison Group and at its Shang-hai-listed Sichuan Star CableCo.

Anti-corruption watch-

FROMPAGE 1 dogs reported an investiga-tion into Shenhua Group Co,the largest State-owned coal-based integrated energycompany, on Feb 5.

Another listed company,Shanxi Coking Coal Group Coand its three subsidiaries fromShanxi, the country’s largestcoal-producing province, haveall been investigated.

The report said Ren Runhou,a former vice-governor ofShanxi province who has beenarrested, previously chairedLu’an Group, one of Shanxi’sseven major coal companies.

In the financial sector, themost recent case is that of Chi-na Minsheng Banking Corp,the country’s biggest private

lender. The bank’s president,MaoXiaofeng, resignedforper-sonal reasons after reportedlybeing implicated in the corrup-tioncaseofLingJihua,aformersenior political adviser.

Lin Boqiang, director of theChina Center for Energy Eco-nomics Research at XiamenUniversity, said officials hold-ing shares in listed companiescan to someextentgiveprotec-tion to a company, for exampleby reducing project examina-tion and approval procedures

and by covering up some ille-gal activities.

On Monday, China NationalRadio reported that the busi-ness department handlingwine imports at China Nation-al Cereals, Oils and FoodstuffsCorp, the country’s largest oiland food importer, spent morethan 200,000 yuan on wineduring a two-day party at aluxury hotel in Yunnan prov-ince.

The anti-corruption watch-dog investigated COFCO fromMarch 27 to May 9 last yearand found some irregularities,including company moneybeing spent on playing golfand to bribe officials.

Anti-graft: High-profit, monopoly sectors probed

BUSINESS

SOEs under graft spotlightWeak supervision and a desire for benefits canprompt senior managers to abuse their power

By ZHANG YANzhangyan1@chinadaily.com.cn

Lack of supervision and astrong desire for benefits wereblamed for rampant graft cas-es involving senior managersin major State-owned compa-nies, according to the CentralCommission for DisciplineInspection.

In early December, inspec-tors visited eight SOEs, includ-ing China Unicom, ShenhuaGroup, Dongfeng Motor Corp,China State Ship BuildingCorp and China HuadianCorp, to collect valuable tipsinvolving corrupt officials.

“Some severe corruptionissues involving senior man-agers were found in those fiveSOEs,” according to the CCDI.

At China Unicom, for

example, annual investmenton 3G services reached 100billion yuan ($16.1 billion),and the purchase of infra-structure construction equip-ment has become one of theworst-hit areas for graft.

In addition, some seniormanagers in the companiesabused their powers toarrange for spouses and chil-dren to operate businesses, orthey gained benefits for otherenterprises in exchange forhuge bribes including cash,financial securities, preciousgifts and overseas trips,according to the CCDI.

“Their strong desire toobtain high benefits and loop-holes in supervision of theirintense powers have contribut-edtothehighincidenceofsuchgraft cases,” said Zhu Lijia, a

professor at the Chinese Acad-emy of Governance.

The priority is to establishclean government and use thehigh salaries to attract moretalented senior directors rath-er than using the high salariesto keep their integrity, he said,adding that integrity shouldbe a basic moral code for eachcivil servant in the country.

Since November 2012, whenthe new leadership took office,

the central government hasconducted a sweeping drive tocrack down on graft.

According to the CCDI,more than 70 senior managersfrom SOEs had been investi-gated on suspicion of corrup-tion last year, 59 percent morethan in 2013.

During the latest inspectionof SOEs, initiated in December,14seniordirectorswereprobedon suspicion of graft, includedXue Wandong, former manag-er of a petroleum engineeringtechnology subsidiary of Sino-pec, and Zhang Zhijiang,former deputy director of Chi-na Unicom’s network unit.

“Most of the suspects in theSOEs took charge of valuableresources, including petrole-um, gas, coal and electricity.There was a lack of propersupervision and this createdopportunities for misconduct,”said Hao Mingjin, vice-minis-ter of supervision.

REFORM

Monopolies ‘increaserisk of corruption’By CHINA DAILY

Monopolies in the power,communication and finan-cial industries can increasethe possibility of corruptionas well as broaden theincome gap, said a consult-ant to the State Council, whosuggested those are areaswhere economic reformsshould be pushed furtherthis year.

State-owned enterprises,which benefit from lowertaxes and fees than privateenterprises, are able to usethe extra money to lobby thegovernment to increase theirmarket share and causeunfair competition, hinder-ing China’s industrialupgrading and draggingdown economic develop-ment, former chief econo-mist of the World BankJustin Yifu Lin told PhoenixTV.

“Deepened reforms arekey to removing market dis-tortions from the plannedeconomic system, especiallyin terms of financial andprice reforms,” Lin said.

He pointed out that theexisting financial system,formed mainly by giantState-owned banks and thestock market, primarily

serves large enterprises thatare trapped in overcapacityand outdated technology.

However, future economicdevelopment will dependmore on small and medium-sized enterprises in the ser-vice industry, Lin said.

The State Council consult-ant believes that China’sannual growth will fallbetween7and7.5percent thisyear, supported by relativelyhigh investment growth.

“A fast growth in invest-ment is necessary to ensure ahealthy job market and liftresidents’ incomes to expandconsumption,” said Lin.

But the resources and poli-cy support needed toupgrade the industrial struc-ture should come from gov-ernment, he added.

“The required infrastruc-ture construction, and thefinancial and legal environ-ment should all be improvedunder the reforms.”

Contact the writer at chen-jia1@chinadaily.com.cn

GOVERNMENT

City’s former Party chiefhad ties to Ling JihuaBy ZHAO RUIXUE in Jinanzhaoruixue@chinadaily.com.cn

A Party chief with suspect-ed ties to former senior polit-ical adviser Ling Jihua hasbeen removed from his posi-tion, Shandong Satellite TVreported on Sunday.

The whereabout of ChenWei, former Party chief ofZaozhuang, Shandong prov-ince, remained unknown.

Chen, who was removedfrom his post last month, wassuspected of having close tieswith Ling’s wife Gu Liping,thepaper.cn reported.

Ling was also the formerminister of the United FrontWork Department of theCPC Central Committee andwas under investigation forcorruption.

A Zaozhuang official con-firmed to China Daily thatChen had been absent fromthe city’s regular meetingssince early January, and hisresume was removed fromthe city government’s web-site later in January.

The report also cited abusiness source saying thatGu often visited Zaozhuang,as she had lived in the city

when she was younger, andChen often accompanied her.

Chen was born in Zheji-ang province in 1966. He gota doctorate at the TokyoInstitute of Technology andworked in Japan until 2000when he came back to Chinato work as the assistantmayor of Weihai, Shandong.

Chen was appointed as themayor of Zaozhuang in 2007,becoming the youngest may-or in Shandong. He becamethe city’s Party chief in 2011.

Under Chen’s guidance, anancient town was built fromthe ruins of Tai’erzhuangBattle, a major battle ofWorld War II. The town hasbecome a big tourism desti-nation in Zaozhuang, a cityonce heavily dependent onthe coal business.

Money used for buildingthe ancient town was col-lected from five local State-run coal companies whowanted to transform theirbusiness structure by join-ing the tourism project,since coal is running out.

Chen’s position has beenfilled by Li Tongdao,former mayor of Rizhao inShandong.

CRIME

Customs staff stand trial for briberyBy CHINA DAILY

Eight customs officials areon trial for accepting bribes toallow vehicles to pass throughCustoms without beingchecked.

The group at ShenzhenHuanggang Customs inGuangdong province con-nived together and shared inthe spoils, the Futian district

people’s court heard.Li Guoqiang, the former

director of the department,headed the group.

They were put on trial inShenzhen on Feb 5, XinhuaNews Agency reported onMonday.

Huanggang Customs is oneof the major checkpoints con-necting the Chinese mainlandand Hong Kong.

Prosecutors alleged that thegroup started accepting bribesfrom logistics companies andletting their vans pass throughCustoms without beingchecked from October 2011.

Li said it usually took a longtime for logistics companies’vans to pass through Customs.

“We would let them pass ifthey contacted us and gave usrewards in advance,” Li said.

Huang Yanbin, one of thestaff members, confessed thathe was responsible for stayingin touch with four logisticscompanies. If vans from thesecompanies were selected bechecked, the companieswould contact Huang and hewould tell staff on duty to letthe vans pass.

As a reward, the groupcharged 6,000 yuan ($960) foreach van from Guangdong and10,000 yuan for those outsideGuangdong, Huang said.

Contact the writer at zhaoxi-nying@chinadaily.com.cn

Most of the sus-pects in the SOEstook charge of val-uable resources.”Hao Mingjin, vice-minister ofsupervision

JustinYifu Lin,a consultantto the StateCouncil

70number of publicly listed com-panies affected by corruption

CHINA 5CHINA DAILY USA Tuesday, February 10, 2015

RELIGION

Building on the right foundationsThe Catholic Church is pushing to reclaim land and properties confiscated more than 40 years ago toextend its reach in China, as Xu Wei and Sun Ruisheng report from Changzhi, Shanxi province

T he city of Changzhi inShanxi province may havelost a notable entrepre-neur the day Andrew Jin

Daoyuan decided to commit himselfto religion and become a priest inthe Catholic Church.

Jin, who was ordained as a priestby the Chinese Patriotic CatholicAssociation in 1956, and as a bishopin 2000, was instrumental in resur-recting the fortunes of the church inChangzhi diocese after he and otherlocal priests were forced to abandontheir spiritual roles and becomefarmers during the “cultural revolu-tion” (1966-76).

Despite Jin’s business nous, therebuilding process was tough. “Westarted from almost nothing. But Iknew that a church without themeans to sustain itself financiallycould never play a full role in socie-ty,” said the 86-year-old, who servesat the Nantiangong Church in thediocese.

Starting in the late 1980s, Jin usedhis entrepreneurial skills to takeadvantage of the business opportu-nitiespresentedby thegovernment’srelaxed attitude toward the CPCA,and started a number of ventures,including a vinegar factory with anannual production volume of 3,000metric tons, an embroidery factory,and a number of clinics and shops.

Jin believes that dioceses need tobe self-financing to a large degree,and that financial security is essen-tial to both the survival of localchurches and the quality of the ser-vices they offer.

Emphasizing the need for finan-cial independence, Ding Lingbin,secretary-general of the ChangzhiDiocese under the Chinese PatrioticCatholic Association, said, “Thechurchneeds toreachout to thepeo-ple and society, but without a stablesource of income, it can do nothing.”

However, despite owning a largenumber of businesses, the diocese isstill unable to realize its ambition ofbuilding a nursing home for city res-idents, according to Ding. “Thedonations made by the congrega-tion are an important part of ourincome, but they are largely casualand unstable,” he said.

Founded in 1890, Changzhi is oneof the oldest Catholic dioceses in Chi-na, and its estimated 60,000 follow-ers can worship at more than 70churches spread across the city’surban and rural areas. In the 1990s,the city’s Catholics numbered about50,000, but Christianity, both theProtestant and Catholic denomina-tions, has seen a surge in popularitynationwide in recent years. In 1988,there were 4.5 million Protestantsand about 12 million Catholics inChina, according to a 2010 report bytheChineseAcademyofSocial Scien-ces.

Since then, the numbers havecontinued to rise. Wang Zuo’an,head of the State Administration forReligious Affairs, told Study Timesthat there were at least 23 millionProtestants in China in 2013, whilethe number of Catholics was esti-mated to be around 5.5 million.

Cao Nanlai, an associate professorof religious studies at Renmin Uni-versity of China, said the recent rap-id expansion of religion has madeproperty rights a central issue forthe church. “Christianity is differentfrom Eastern religions in that itrequires strong social participationfrom worshippers, and requires afixed space for activities, includingservices and choral singing,” he said.

Charitable actsIn its 2015 work plan, SARA said it

would encourage the religiousgroups to undertake charitable actsand provide nursing home servicesin their dioceses.

Ding said it would be natural forChangzhi diocese to launch a nurs-ing home program because many ofthe priests, nuns, and lay staff havereceived training as paramedics.“However, if we are to start a nurs-ing home, we want to make it a pro-fessional one, somewhere elderlypeople will feel at home,” he said,adding that the diocese’s “good rela-tionship” with the city’s religiousbureau enables the church to playan active role in social affairs.

“We don’t want political power.We spend all our income on socialactivities, to help children and thedisabled. We try to ensure that

everything we do is transparent tothe authorities and there’s nothingmysterious about our activities, so Idon’t see why we can’t all just getalong,” he said.

The harmonious relationshipbetweenthechurchandlocalgovern-ment has been mutually beneficial,and the authorities donated 5 millionyuan ($800,000) toward the con-struction of the main cathedral of thediocese in the north of the city.

According to Song Fuyi, a CPCApriest in urban Changzhi, the grow-ing social acceptability of religion hasenabled the church to play a biggerrole in society. “Compared with yearsago, nowadays there’s a marked dif-ference in reactionwhenyou tell peo-ple you’re a Catholic,” he said.

However, despite all the positives,official support from the authoritiesvaries from area to area, and it’s

impossible for churches to rely onlocal governments as their mainsource of income.

Ding said that as one of the oldestdioceses in China, Changzhi is hometo a large number of devout peoplewho are willing to devote their timeto charitable work. “That means alarge number of the congregation isassisting with church activities,” hesaid.

The diocese is spreading the wordacross China, too: More than 80priests in Catholic churches nation-wide were born in Changzhi, a factthat Ding ascribes to the piety ofbelievers in the city.

Cheng Guoqing said Catholicismhas proliferated in the city because ofstrong religious belief at the familylevel. “Everymemberofmyfamily isaCatholic. As believers, we arerequired to practice what religion

teaches in our daily lives. That’s howour children follow suit in terms ofbeliefs,” the 64-year-old said.

The city’s religious spirit has beenstrong for a long time, and parentseven attempted to pass on theirbeliefs in secret during the “culturalrevolution” when all religious activitywas outlawed.

Real estate standoffsIn April, the demolition of the

massive Sanjiang church in Wen-zhou, Zhejiang province, promptedinternational headlines, eventhough the authorities said themove was aimed at rectifying illegalconstruction and paving the way forfurther economic development.

Although Sanjiang is the best-known case, property disagree-ments between church groups, bothCatholic and Protestant, and local

authorities have made headlines ina number of provinces.

The Catholic church in Quanzhou,Fujian province, has been in a stand-off with commercial and industrialinterests over the fate of a valuablepieceof real estate since2013, accord-ing to local media reports.

In Changzhi, the city’s Protestants,estimated to number about 10,000,were able to build a new church lastyear with the help of 9 million yuandonated by the Changzhi City Bureauof Religious Affairs. Li Baohong, aprotestant elder, said the new houseof worship is the result of decades ofeffort from worshippers and the cler-gy after the original church buildingwas commandeered by the localauthorities, and.

“ThePeople’sHospital isnowlocat-ed in the building our church occu-pied. Once the property had beenconfiscated, itwas impossible toget itback. All we could do was push thelocal authorities to findanotherplacein the city where we could build achurch,” he said.

Ding said the diocese once ownedsix properties in Beijing, but theywerecommandeeredduringthe“cul-tural revolution”, and “so far, we haveonly been able to get one of themback”. It will be impossible to reclaimsome of the buildings because theyare now occupied by governmentdepartments, he said.

Professor Cao — the author of Con-structing China’s Jerusalem: Chris-tians, Power and Place inContemporary Wenzhou, an exami-nation of the role of Christianity inmodern China — said that during the1950s and ’60s, a large number ofchurches were razed to make roomfor government buildings, a policythathasresultedintheproblemsnowfaced by Christian denominationsnationwide. The issue is much more complex in first-tier cities, includingBeijing and Shanghai, where theurbanizationprocessbeganearlyandreal estate prices are much higherthan the national average.

“However, the issue of ownershipof church property mainly affects thecommunity services offered by reli-gious groups, who are unlikely toattract new members or offer regularservices without a brick and mortarcenter of activity,” he said. “My obser-vation is that the expansion of reli-gion goes hand in hand with a rise inthe number of churches.”

A lack of regulations or laws todefine the types of property reli-gious groups can own is also exacer-bating the situation. “The churchproperty issue is important in that afixed church building would make iteasier for church leaders to managereligious activity,” Cao said, addingthat it would also make it easier forcongregations to supervise the useof donations.

The big sticking point, though, isthat a fixed location would also makeit easier for local authorities to super-visereligiousactivity, somethinglocalgovernments are happy to facilitate,Cao said. “My experience is that thelocal religious authorities are willingto help with the return of religiousproperty. Officially recognized reli-giousvenuesarenotonlytheir fieldofresponsibility, but they are also apower base.”

Contact the writers at xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn and sunruish-eng@chinadaily.com.cn

Zhao Mengjiao contributed to thisstory.

HEALTH

‘Cancer hotels’ are home from home for poorer patientsBy XINHUA NEWS AGENCY

A gray, five-story building on thesoutheast corner of Beijing’s SecondRing Road is one of the city’s bur-geoning “cancer hotels”, where SunYu, from a small village in Hebeiprovince, and her husband pay adaily rent of 40 yuan ($6.40) for oneof the 10-square-meter windowlesscells.

Sun, 64, who has ovarian cancer,has been a regular visitor at the Chi-nese Academy of Medical SciencesTumor Hospital since 2012. Everytime she makes the 250-km journeyto Beijing she stays at one of the can-

cer hotels, which are cheap andclose to the hospitals.

Sun’s cancer was diagnosed in2012, but her condition was tooadvanced for surgery at her localhospital. “They told me I only hadtwo years at most. My son said a hos-pital in Beijing was my last hope,”she said.

Sun is one of about 700 patients,most from outside Beijing, who line-up every week at the hospital, reput-ed tobeoneofChina’s leadingcancertreatment centers. However, the lim-ited number of beds mean that mostpatients live in cancer hotels.

China’s cancer morbidity and

mortality rates are set to keep risingover the next 20 years, according toDai Min, a researcher at the ChinaNational Cancer Center. In 2012,more than 3 million Chinese hadcancer, accounting for 20 percent ofthe global total, while deaths fromthe disease reached 2.2 million,accounting for 25 percent of theworld total.

In Europe and North America,prostate and breast cancers — themost common types — have survivalrates of more than 80 percent, but inChina, the most common cancers(lungs and liver) have survival ratesof less than 30 percent.

China’s marked death rate can beattributed to the high number ofpatients in the terminal stages,according to Cheng Shujun, an aca-demician at the Chinese Academy ofEngineering. For example, morethan 80 percent of lung cancerpatients in Beijing are in the termi-nal stages, while in Europe andNorth America the proportion isabout 50 percent.

Like Sun, Zhang Qingxiang, fromShandong Province, has ovariancancer. However, initial examina-tions by senior doctors at her localhospital found no indications, andby the time Zhang was finally diag-

nosed, it was too late.“When the local hospital diag-

nosed cancer, it was already at theterminal stage because the cancerhad moved to other organs. I don’ttrust them (the doctors) — I want tobe treated in Beijing,” she said.

In China, the initial examinationand diagnosis of early stage cancersis still expensive and limited to a fewhospitals in larger cities, leavingalmost no chance of early diagnosisfor people in rural and poverty-stricken areas.

Cancer is also a heavy economicburden on families and society,even though tens of billions of

yuan have been spent on treat-ments. In 2003, the governmentstarted the New Rural CooperativeMedical System to partly covermedical expenses for people inrural areas, but although coveragehas extended to more treatmentsand higher reimbursement rates,most rural patients still can’tafford cancer treatments.

According to an NRCMS regula-tion this year, cancer patients canclaim 50 to 80 percent of treatmentcosts if they are treated in a desig-nated local hospital, but only 35percent in hospitals outside theirhome province.

Worshippers attend a Mass at a Catholic Church in the urban area of Changzhi, Shanxi province, on Jan 22. Changzhi is one of the oldest Catholic dioceses inChina, and its estimated 60,000 followers can worship at more than 70 churches spread across the city’s urban and rural areas. XU WEI / CHINA DAILY

I knew that a churchwithout the means tosustain itself financial-ly could never play afull role in society.”Andrew Jin Daoyuan, a bishop in theCatholic Church. The main cathedral of the Catholic diocese of Changzhi, Shanxi province. ZHAO MENGJIAO / CHINA DAILY

6 CHINA Tuesday, February 10, 2015 CHINA DAILY USA

EDUCATION

Law graduates facing bleak job prospectsNumber of degree programs rises, but someexperts say the training doesn’t match reality

By CAO YINcaoyin@chinadaily.com.cn

Li Xiaoxiao, a law studentwho will graduate with a mas-ter’s degree from Fudan Uni-versity this year, is not aspassionate for themajoras shewas when she selected it sevenyears ago.

“I have sent more than 100resumes on the Internet sinceSeptember, but I’ve receivedno reply,” said the 25-year-old,who currently works as anintern at a Shanghai law firm.

Li sees her hunt for employ-ment as something like find-ing a needle in a haystack. Itwill be hard to stay at the law firm at the end of her intern-ship, let alone become a prose-cutor or judge — jobs thatrequire strict qualificationexaminations.

“I never thought a lawmajor, which is regarded as ahot major in the country,would be such an embarrass-ment in actually finding a job,”she said, noting that she spentseven years pursuing herdegree.

Several legal industry insid-ers said law degrees becamehotter since the central gov-ernment placed an emphasison the rule of law last year andbegan pushing nationwidejudicial reform. The market isthirsty for judicial talent, theysaid.

Only three universitiesoffered a law degree in 1977,but the number has roared to630 out of the total 2,500 col-leges and universities, accord-ing to eol.cn, China’s largesteducation portal.

“Our judicial developmentrequires new talent, especiallyin international law and for-eign commercial law.

Improvements in the legalenvironment are the reasonprograms have been set up atmore universities and collegesacross the country,” said YiShenghua, a criminal lawyer.

But the employment pictureis not rosy. There’s a gapbetween the programs offeredand the real world, said Yi,who has provided career gui-dance for law students since2010.

In a report released last yearon college graduates, lawmajors were included in a list of those with high risk ofunemployment and low salaryprospects. Law even droppedto the bottom in more than 10provinces, including Fujian.

Deng Yong, a law instructorat Beijing University of Chi-nese Medicine, said that cur-rent degree programs are outof step with the market.

“The legal education thatstudents are getting at univer-sities is far from what theindustry demands. If nothingchanges, the awkwardemployment situation willbecome serious,” Deng said.

Few prospectsLi, the Fudan student, spe-

cializes in administrative law.She has become more anxioussince beginning work as anintern at a law firm about amonth ago.

“What I am doing at thefirm is dealing with specificcases, such as company merg-

ers. The basic legal thinking Ilearned at school seems a bitgeneral for the work,” she said.

In her class of about 200graduates, less than 20 per-cent have job offers, she said.

“We chose the majorbecause we were interested init. Then we found we’re not sofond of the job availability attheend,” Li said. “But after sev-eral years of study, it seemsthere’s no turning back.”

She received her bachelor’sdegree three years ago fromEast China University of Politi-cal Science and Law but decid-ed to pursue an advanceddegree at Fudan on account ofthe gloomy employment pic-ture.

Now, many universitieshave created a law major, andall students can take the judi-

cial and civil exams — “which means law graduates have fewadvantages, and everyone hasa finger in the pie”, Li said.

Increasing numbers of stu-dents have pursued a bache-lor’s degree in law, with thetotal reaching about 80,000 in2012, according to eol.cn.

Yi, the lawyer, said thesharply increasing number oflaw graduates is both goodand bad.

“The good is that the majorgets high attention. After thecountry’s leadership empha-sized judicial reform and high-lighted the rule of law, thelegal environment startedimproving,” Yi said.

But there’s a downside forgraduates. For example, sala-ries for judgesandprosecutorsare small, yet the number of

cases they handle in a year isbig, which cools the interest ofsome law graduates, Yi said.He added that the number ofjudges and prosecutors will bereduced further under thereforms, which means someexperienced insiders willswitch to being lawyers.

“A stable judicial job, includ-ing work opportunities inundeveloped areas, such aslegal aid providers in a county,is not as attractive for moststudents as being a lawyerwith a good income,” he said.

Reality gapFor those with the chance to

be employed by a law firm, sal-aries at the beginning are alsonot great, “as they must belawyers’ assistants at first,researching and learning how

to handle specific cases,” Yisaid.

The current impracticallegal education deserves somecriticism, he said.

In career training lectures atlaw schools, Yi tells studentsthat the legal theories they arelearning are not necessarilywhat’s found in actual prac-tice. He used his own assist-ants as an example, sayingthey sometimes had no ideahow to search for judicialmaterials or how to talk withlitigants in their first working year.

Liu Xing, a senior official atthe Beijing Dongcheng Dis-trict People’s Procuratorate,saidabout 100graduatesapplyfor jobs as prosecutors everyyear, but only 15 are hired.

“The newcomers should be

copy clerks at first, but some ofthem sometimes are not quali-fied for this simple job,” Liusaid. “They have legal back-ground, but what we need issomeone with combinedmajors.”

For example, a law graduatewith medical knowledge candeal more easily with casesrelated to hospitals, he said.

“In other words, our laweducation in universitieshasn’t been geared to realityfor a long time, and most stu-dents have little time forinternships at legal organs,” hesaid.

He prefers the approach ofTaiwan to law education. Lawschool students are requiredto put what they learn intopractice during their fouryears of university study, hesaid.

“Being an intern for severalmonths isn’t enough to under-stand judicial work, let aloneto follow specific legal cases,”he said.

Deng, the teacher at BeijingUniversity of Chinese Medi-cine, said that while the num-ber of universities offering lawmajors has risen sharply inrecent years, most offer noth-ing unique.

“Some teachers who arequalified lawyers intend toshare practical cases withtheir students, but the detailsof cases they are handlingsometimes can’t be disclosed,”he said. He suggested thateach law school select a specif-ic branch of law as its specialty.

“For example, laws dealingwith medicine or that aim tosolve medical disputes arethe key course at our univer-sity,” he said. “Our studentscan be both legal consultantsfor medical bodies — includ-ing hospitals and medicalsupervision organs — andlawyers specializing in medi-cal cases.”

After Zhang Tianyi (left) received his master’s degree from Peking University Law School in June, he started his own business, two noodleshops in Beijing’s central business district. A handful of other law graduates across the country, facing a challenging employmentenvironment, have also become entrepreneurs. LUO XIAOGUANG / XINHUA

80,000students

pursued a bachelor’s degree in lawin 2012, according to eol.cn, butsome are turning to other fields

Tuesday, February 10, 2015 7

LIFE DININGCHINA DAILY USA » CHINADAILYUSA.COM

NOVELTY

W hat do curry,schnapps, bot-tled water,c h o c o l a t e ,hamburgers,

soup,digestivecapsules, bagelsandlobsters have in common?

All of these edible items havebeen embellished with gold leavesor gold flakes in recent years, asmarketers seek some extra sizzlefor their products.

The latest to seek the shiny statusis China’s distilled white spirit, bai-jiu, which has seen its sales slide asthe government pursues a policyagainst extravagance and corrup-tion. Industry observers questionwhether regulators would approveof such a showy step in this climate,though it’s a mystery that who hasasked the government to approveglittery baijiu — and who mightbuy it.

Putting gold in alcoholic bevera-ges is currently illegal in China,though such bottles have sporadi-cally popped up on store shelves. Inthe West, a few gold-flake tippleshave been market successes, par-ticularly the cinnamon schnappsGoldschlager and the Germanherbal liqueur Goldwasser.

Dong Shuguo, the president ofwebsite Winechina.cn, a Chinesewebsite, says: “I have seen somesparkling wines and dry whitewines with golden flakes, such asBlue Nun. But they are all for deco-ration.

“Gold flakes will only make thebottle look elegant and pleasing tothe eyes. They add nothing to theflavor,” he says.

Blue Nun Gold, in fact, was not aluxury product but an effort toappeal to young female drinkerswho “like to try something new”.

Ignace Lecleir, general managerof the elegant Temple RestaurantBeijing, says that he can’t recall anycustomer asking for a drink withsuch a golden touch. He is diplo-matically noncommittal on theidea, though “it looks pretty…”, hemuses with a slight shrug.

Beijing cocktail guru Leon Leefinishes that thought more ada-mantly: “Gold adds nothing to thevalue, only to the price, so I don’tcare for the idea,” he says, dismiss-ing it as a gimmick best suited forkaraoke bars.

Like other critics of the idea, hesays such liquors command a pre-mium price despite containing aminuscule amount of gold.

Ruan Guangfeng, food-safetyexpert from China Food Informa-tion Center, says the proposalwould limit the additions to 0.01gof gold per 500g of baijiu.

“The raw material of 99.99-per-cent pure gold sells for more than200 yuan a gram,” he adds, “so thevalue of the gold flakes in one bottleof baijiu may be no more than 2yuan”.

The Beijing News reports thatleading Chinese baijiu brands suchas Moutai, Wuliangye, Luzhou Lao-jiao and Xifeng aren’t talking abouttheproposal.However, adealerwhowished to remain anonymous tellsChina Daily there is no reason forsuchtopbrands toalter their formu-las and jeopardize their reputations,even if the gold flake is tasteless.

If the proposal is approved, otherdealers agree, it may be strugglingsmaller distillers that try to capital-ize on the novelty.

Zhong Kai, associate researchfellow with China National Centerfor Food Safety Risk Assessment,writes on a popular-science web-site, Guokr.com: “It’s hard to saywhy it is necessary to add goldflakes, though it’s proved to causeno harm within the safety limit andprocedure.”

Experts have dismissed mostrumors about the safety of gold-

enhanced liquors. Goldschlagerwas long-rumored to enter thebloodstream faster than plainschnapps because the gold flakessupposedly made small cuts in thedrinker’s throat and stomach lin-ing. Experts say gold is too soft tomake such cuts, and The Savoryblog was quick to ridicule the get-drunk-faster theory as “just onestep further from pulling up to abar, cutting your hand open andpouring whisky into the wound”.

The idea of gold-plated baijiudoes have fans in some luxuryhotels, however. Chocolates deco-rated with gold are still profferedby top pastry chefs, and gold flakesare likely to swirl in champagneglassesaroundtheworld thisweek-end for Valentine’s Day. So why not

put some glitter in baijiu?That’s the question embraced by

the Taiwan-based biotech firmGold Nanotech Inc, whichannounced in late January that ithad received notification of com-pliance from the European Union’sfood additive regulator for its gold-flake product, which it sells to mak-ers of cosmetics, food andbeverages. The certification notonly means more credibility inEurope, where most of its custom-ers are based, but in India and Chi-na, where it sees most of its growthpotential.

“In China, they want to see thatother countries have recognizedyour product first,” company presi-dentAlexChentold the tradepubli-cation Biotech East. “I believe that

the China market will eventuallymake up more than 80 percent ofGNT’s business in Asia.”

Most of the blogosphere, howev-er, has yet to be convinced.

“Gold just passes straightthrough the body,” a netizen identi-fied as ToastMe wrote last week.“Why pay extra just to have sparklypoop the next morning?”

Contact the writers atdongfangyu@chinadaily.com.cnand michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

TASTE TO ACQUIRE

Who’s afraid of ashot of strong liquor?By CHINA DAILY

Many foreigners in China havetheir first serious encounter withbaijiu, China’s potent white spirit,when they join in Spring Festivalcelebrations. But while some for-eigners shun the clear grain distil-late (and mutter about “kerosene”),many are finding wine-like subtle-ties in the top-shelf varieties and anew appreciation for the liquor.

Chinese-American Simon Dengis one of the co-founders of CapitalSpirits, a bar in a Beijing hutong(lane) that he believes is the world’sfirst dedicated to baijiu and craftliquor. We asked him for insightsand advice that would make every-one an expert when Chinese NewYear arrives.

Q: First things first: What isbaijiu?

It’s a clear alcohol distilled fromdifferent grains, usually sorghum,after aging in earthen pits withyeast. It’s generally 40 to 60 percentalcohol by volume.

Q: Your bar serves more than40 different kinds. Where do westart?

There are four basic types: rice,light, strong and sauce. While “rice”is literally made from rice, the oth-er labels tell you more about thearoma, not the strength of the alco-hol.

Among the four types of baijiu, Ipersonally enjoy the “strong aro-ma” type the most. Beginners willnormally favor the rice-flavoredbaijiu first, due to its clean flavor,and then slowly develop a taste forthe “strong” or “sauce” aroma bai-jiu. “Light” is not for the light-hearted with its typical highalcohol and strong flavor — don’tlet the name category fool you.

Q: Should novices jump inwith both feet and say “Gan-bei!”, or can you dip a toe in andlearn to appreciate baijiu?

We serve flights of four samples,in small tasting shots, to give peoplean introduction to the four types.Once they decide their type, we canoffer four more samples of theirfavorite type.

Some visitors come to the barwith a baijiu-drinking friend, butdon’t intend to drink shots of baijiuthemselves. We convert about 90percent of them once they try it. Weserve tasting shots in very smallglasses, so people can sample a fewwithout getting loaded.

For people curious about baijiu,we also like to suggest trying it in acocktail, such as a baijiu sour.

Q: What’s the most popular?“Strong” is probably the most

popular and widely distilled cate-gory of baijiu. It’s particularly com-mon in China’s southwesternSichuan province, eastern Anhui,Jiangsu and Shandong. Famous“strong” brands include Wuliangyeand Luzhou Laojiao; such brandsare mostly based on the grain sor-

ghum. The “strong” types have flo-ral, licorice flavor with a strong,pungent aftertaste.

Q: How long does it take tomake?

Premium strong-aroma baijiucan be aged from one to three years,but the action is really much longer.The strong-aroma distilleries spe-cialize in continuous distillation,which allows the microoganisms todevelop their unique tastes overmany decades or sometimes a fewcenturies. Luzhou Laojiao’s 1573,for example, is named after the lasttime the fermentation tanks werecleaned! Using the last batch ofmash for the next mash ensurescontinuity in taste. Different layersof the distillate are then aged inbatches for at least six monthsbefore bottling.

Q: What do we do when weare at a Lunar New Year celebra-tion and the host brings out thebaijiu and a bunch of glasses?

My advice would be, of course, todrink what you are offered to giveface to your host. Then offer to buythe next round and choose the bai-jiu type you like (rice, strong, light,sauce). If you don’t know the differ-ence, go with the rice-based baijiusince it’s the easiest to drink. Thehost will most likely be impressedby your knowledge of baijiu!

Q: Is it true that we won’t get ahangover?

Normally if you have a meal, andthe baijiu is of good quality, youwon’t get a hangover.

Gift of the corn godsMost of the crowd huddled at

Beijing’s discrete Taco Bar in Sanli-tun are there for, well, tacos —which are superb, satisfying andcomfortable companions for thenice tequila selection. But wealways save room for dessert: thepan de elote is two nice slabs ofgrilled corn cake, a mildly sweetconfection in a divine combinationof vanilla ice cream, rum syrup,honey and chili powder. At 30yuan, it’s a bargain sugar rush.

Taco Bar, Unit 10, ElectricalResearch Institute (next to HomePlate), Sanlitun Nan Lu, (SouthRoad) Chaoyang district, Beijing.010-6501-6026.

Bite of the week

The taste of baijiu was new to SimonDeng when the Chinese-Americancame to Beijing, but now he savors it.PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

But experts have dismissed the idea that gold flakes will add flavor to thespirit or enhance its quality. Mike Peters and Dong Fangyu report.

BAIJIU GOESFOR THE GOLD

OnlineSee more storiesabout dining byscanning the code.

Gold flakes will onlymake the bottle lookelegant and pleasingto the eyes. They addnothing to the flavor.”Dong Shuguo, president,Winechina.cn

WANG XIAOYING / CHINA DAILY

The Oscars inspired a bar at theMandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, to addgold powder to a special cocktail for itsawards-viewing party later this month.PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

8 LIFE | Art Tuesday, February 10, 2015 CHINA DAILY USA

on the move

Get one week free access toChina Daily on Smart Edition

ARTISTIC EYEFamed writer Lao She and his wife were notable collectors of 20th-centuryChinese art, and many of those works are now on show, Lin Qi reports.

COLLECTIONS

B esides his accomplish-ments as a novelist andplaywright, Lao She(1899-1966) isnoted forthe connoisseurship of

traditional Chinese paintings.Together with his wife, Hu Jieqing(1905-2001), he accumulated awealth of artworks dating from theMing Dynasty (1368-1644) to themodern age. Many were created byimportant figures of 20th-centuryChinese art, whom the couple kept aclose relationship with in their life-times.

Artists of the People, an exhibitionnow on at the National Art Museumof China, demonstrates the couple’sdiscerning judgment of Chinese artwith a display of part of their collec-tions.More than200paintings, calli-graphic pieces, seals and ink slabsstand as testaments of their aesthet-ic taste and their friendship withprominent painters such as Qi Bai-shi (1864-1957) and Yu Feian (1888-1956).

The exhibits fall into three sec-tions. The first one shows severalcooperative works between Hu, awell-established painter herself, andLao She, who nourished himself tobe a poet and calligrapher.

The second section celebrates theintimate association between thecouple and Qi Baishi. Lao Shebought the first painting of Qi in theearly 1930s and had since thenbecomeanadmirer.Huonce tutoredQi’s children, and later became a stu-dent of Qi.

Qi once said of himself, “(I’m) bestin poetry, then seal art and calligra-phy, while painting comes last.” Onshow are more than 70 works, mostof which the couple received as gifts,to show Qi’s versatility and compre-hensiveness as a genuine literati.

“The relationship between myfather and Qi Baishi was more thanthatofacollectorandapainter.Theywere definitely bosom friends,” says

Shu Yi, the son of Lao She.The third section elaborates on

the couple’s criteria as collectors:They bought artworks that theywere interested in, not those thatwould bring short-term gains. Andthe modern masters on their collect-ing list trace the peak and evolutionof Chinese art in the first half of the20th century, including Wu Chang-

shuo (1844-1927), Fu Baoshi (1904-1965)andLinFengmian(1900-1991),to name a few.

“LaoShe lovedpaintings.He lovedcollecting and hanging them on thewalls. He also loved befriending thepainters and commenting on theirworks. In one word, he was obsessedwith paintings,” Shu Yi once said.

He said his father started to pur-chase small-sized paintings, includ-ing picture postcards, when heserved as a lecturer at the Universityof London between 1924 and 1929.Although he lived on a limited wage,he bought many albums and printedpictures of Western artists includingRembrandt and Michelangelo,before he returned to China.

The couple hung their collectionson a wall in the living room. Theywould rotate the paintings regularly.They didn’t keep these valuableassets only to themselves but wouldinvite friends in to appreciate them.Thewallwascalled the“LaoSheGal-lery”.

Lao She felt quite humble to berecognized as a connoisseur though,Shu says, “because he said hecouldn’t identify a real antiquepainting, nor could he afford a mas-terpiece”.

Lao She also collected a lot of pic-ture fansonceownedandpaintedbyfamous Peking Opera actors such asMei Lanfang (1894-1961) and MaLianliang (1901-1966). “He was quitefamiliar with them. They dined anddrank together very often. He knewthat these star performers workedwith opera-loving literary figureswho also wrote scenarios and helpedrehearsals, hence they had gainedartistic attainments during the proc-ess,” Shu says.

The fans, however, were confiscat-ed and lost during the “cultural revo-lution (1966-76)”, when the familysuffered mistreatment.

The works on show come from thecollections of the National Museumof Modern Chinese Literature, theBeijing Lao She Memorial and pri-vate hands, as well as a recent dona-tion from Lao She’s family to theNational Art Museum of China.

Painting Collections of Lao Sheand Hu Jieqing, a set of five volumescompiled by China Guardian Auc-tions, will soon be published.

Contact the writer atlinqi@chinadaily.com.cn

If you go

9 am-5 pm, through March 15.National Art Museum of China,1 Wusi Dajie, Dongchengdistrict, Beijing.010-6400-1476.

Lao She’s collections of painting works of Qi Baishi (left), Yu Fei’an (right top) andXie Zhiliu (right bottom). PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

What’s new

SHANGHAI

Beauty in sheep

Write the two Chinese charactersyang (sheep) and da (big) togetheras one, and you get a new charactermei (beauty). Artist Zhou Beili,inspired by the character’s compo-sition, has created a large installa-tion with paper, wool, glass andfoam. The piece shows a happyshepherd sitting midair on theclouds, in the public space in LifeHub@Anting.10 am-10 pm, through March 2.Life Hub@Anting, 1055 MoyuRoad South, Jiading district.021-6950-2255.

Swordsman’s dilemmaOne of the most pre-eminentnames in contemporary Chineseart working with digital images,Yang Yongliang is presenting hislatest creation, Yan (Nightmare).The 50-minute piece depicts a met-aphorical dream from which onecan never wake up and a dilemmathat one could never piercethrough. The protagonist is aswordsman existing in a metropo-lis who has an ambition but no wayto express it.11 am-7 pm, through April 7.Shanghai Gallery of Art, 3F, 3Zhongshan E1 Road, Huangpu dis-trict. 021-6321-5757.

Chasing the lightJapanese artist Hitomi Uchikura ishaving her first exhibition, Lumi-ere, in Shanghai. Uchikura wasinspired by a pile of glass piecesfrom a broken mirror, whichreflected light from the sun andilluminated her studio. Later, as shetraveled to many parts of the world,she continued to be fascinated bythe movement of light. The exhibi-tion features photography and digi-tal installations.10 am-6 pm, through March 22.

Shun Art Gallery, 28 MoganshanRoad, Putuo district.021-5252-7198.

HONG KONG

Ode to human formForemost sculptor Wang Keping’ssolo exhibition at the 10 ChanceryLane Gallery continues his obses-sion with the human body.Through his sculptures, he conveyssimplicity and nature that areessential to Asian spiritual philoso-phies. “Through his bestial eroticforms and swirling lines he workswith a language of natural intuitionof space and object, collaboratingwith his material and the secrets ithas to reveal,” says gallery founderKatie de Tilly.10 am-6 pm, Tuesday to Saturday,through Feb 28. G/F, 10 ChanceryLane, SoHo, Central.852-2810-0065.

BEIJING

Focus on people

Chinese paintings of the 20th cen-tury broke away from traditionalrules by shifting the focus fromlandscape to people, as artists feltobligated or were required to paintpeople from different walks of life,living up to their social responsibil-ities. Images of People, an exhibi-tion at the National Art Museum ofChina, shows dozens of portraitsand other paintings from the muse-um’s holdings. Highlight worksinclude Liu Wenxi’s Four Genera-tions and Zhou Sicong’s PremierZhou Enlai.9 am-5 pm, through March 11. 1Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng district.010-6400-1476.

Arts |LIFE 9CHINA DAILY USA Tuesday, February 10, 2015

A mix of traditional and audacious on the red carpetGRAMMY AWARDS

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Grammys newcomer SamSmith looked dapper in a white bowtie, and Madonna rocked one of theseason’s most eclectic red carpets onSunday in a bedazzled two-cornerblack hat and burlesque-esque cor-set with matching thigh-high boots.

Fashion is always a little crazy atthe Grammys, guys included, butfirst-time nominee Smith soaked itall up in a more traditional tuxedoas he managed his nerves going upagainst some of his idols.

Madonna’s big-shouldered shortyoutfit was custom Givenchy HauteCouture by Riccardo Tisci. She worenot much underneath, flashing ablack thong and fishnets at the Sta-ples Center in Los Angeles. Shewasn’t a hit with some in the Twitterpeanut gallery: “Just got a glimpseof Madonna arriving. Seems to bechanneling some mix of the Duch-ess of Windsor and Mae West,”someone commented.

Rihanna dashed into the liveshow at the last minute in a poofy,tiered pink confection of silk andtulle from Giambattista Valli.Beyonce and Miley Cyrus went forblack — Cyrus in strategic, sexy cut-outs and the queen in a low-V neckembellished gown with a train from

Proenza Schouler.Also in black was Gwen Stefani in

a stunning strapless black VersaceAtelier jumpsuit with a structuredspiderweb swirl up top.

Audacious singer-actress Joy Villawas encaged in revealing brightorange, and it was unclear how Siacould see under her huge shaggywhite wig.

Brandy Clark showed off a killerpair of metallic silver Prada pumpsunder a sparkly, second-skin silver-

and-black gown, while Nick Jonaschatted, hands in pockets of a lightgray tweed suit with a touch of yel-low and ultra-skinny trousers.

How’s Clark handling newfoundfame and regular everyday life?“Squeeze myself into this dress, forstarters,” she says.

Ariana Grande had her signaturehigh ponytail in place, wearing awhite-and-silver, one-shoulder Ver-sace with a cutout back — Big Seanby her side. “I’m wearing Saint Lau-

rent man, head to toe,” he adds of hisshades of black tuxedo.

Black-hatted Aloe Blacc wentwith a patterned bow tie and edgyroyal blue tuxedo trimmed in blackfrom the Danish fashion house SandCopenhagen. Known for leg bear-ing, Pharrell Williams didn’t breakfrom tradition. He was dressed in ashort gray suit, matching bow tieand shoes, from Adidas.

Tuxedos aren’t just for the dudesthese days. Charlie XCX did her

white tailed-tux trouser look justicefrom one of her favorites, Moschino,paired with a bright pink bow tieand blush fur stole.

“I hate boring fashion so I wantedto do something ’80s and fabulous,”she says. “I like unpredictable.”

Meghan Trainor brought the bass— and her dad. She wore a tightsheer miniskirt under a full black,long-sleeve overskirt adorned withblack lace for her first Grammyswalk.

Katy Perry’s tousled blue hairpopped against her silver backlesssheer dress. It fell below the kneeand had long sleeves and swingycrystal fringe — fresh from the Parisrunway of Zuhair Murad. “I justwant to shine like a diamond,” shesays, referring to one of her songs.

Perry was greeted on the red car-pet by Nicki Minaj in black TomFord, her decolletage out in a frontslit cut to her waist. Ford dressedJennifer Hudson in a stunningbright white strapless dress that felljust below the knee, her sassy shorthair a perfect complement.

Lady Gaga went gray-for-graywith date Tony Bennett. On theirheads, that is. She showed off a highslit in her silver gown by BrandonMaxwell, dripping in LorraineSchwartz diamonds and emeralds.

Taylor Swift’s turquoise Elie Saabdrew some online snark: “curtainsover a mini dress,” one tweeteroffered of her sleeveless short-un-der-billowy, long look.

Kim Kardashian’s gold John PaulGaultier screamed bathrobe. “I lovehow sparkly it is,” she says. “I love it.”

Iggy Azalea’s hair? Not so much. Itwas a thick braid wound around herhead like a crown against a tight-tight bright blue custom ArmaniPrive gown.

Partial list of winners of the 57thannual Grammy Awards, presentedon Sunday at the Staples Center inLos Angeles:

Best new artist: Sam Smith.Best pop vocal album: In the

Lonely Hour, Sam Smith.Best pop solo performance:

Happy (Live), Pharrell Williams.Country solo performance:

Something in the Water, CarrieUnderwood.

Country duo/group performance:

Gentle on My Mind, The Band Perry.Country song: I’m Not Gonna

Miss You, Glen Campbell.Pop duo/group performance:

Say Something, A Great Big Worldand Christina Aguilera.

Traditional pop vocal album:Cheek to Cheek, Lady Gaga and TonyBennett.

Rock performance: Lazaretto,Jack White.

Rock song: Ain’t It Fun, HayleyWilliams and Taylor York.

Rap performance: i, KendrickLamar.

Rap/sung collaboration: TheMonster, Eminem and Rihanna.

Rap song: i, Kendrick Lamar.Rap album: The Marshall

Mathers LP2, Eminem.R&B song: Drunk in Love,

Beyonce and Jay Z.Urban contemporary album:

Girl, Pharrell.R&B album: Love, Marriage &

Divorce, Toni Braxton and Babyface.

At a glance

PROFILE

HIGH-DEF IDEASA Chinese digitalveteran is helping oneof the world’s busiestmuseums conductbusiness withsmartphone apps,Wang Kaihao reports.

F ei Jun, 45, calls himselfan “artist, designer andeducator” in one of hisonline profiles. Thetech-savvy associate

professor of interactive media, atthe Central Academy of Fine Arts, isa key figure behind the PalaceMuseum’s recent smartphone appthat allows virtual visitors to themuseum and have an understand-ing of ancient Chinese paintings.

Night Revels of Han Xizai, theapp named after one such artwork,was launched last month in a bidto enhance the interest of youngChinese in China’s ancient culture.

The painting titled Night Revelsof Han Xizai was created in theSouthern Tang Dynasty (AD 937-975) that ruled what is today’ssouthern and central China, andreflects how the highly placed gov-ernment official Han Xizai tried toescape his home state when herealized the dynasty’s end wasnear.

“I call myself a translator of tra-ditional arts for today’s museumvisitors,” Fei says.

“Frankly speaking, modernyouth no longer has enough cul-tural contexts to feel attached tothe rich content preserved inmuseums. What we do is helpthem understand it.”

The recent app, for instance, hesays, hides more than 100 explana-tory notes in high-definition for-mats.

This isn’t Fei’s first cooperationwith the Palace Museum. In 2013,Fei and his team designed Auspi-cious Symbols in the ForbiddenCity, an app explaining the culturalconnotations of auspicious sym-bols on relics, for the most-visitedmuseum in the world (more than15 million visitors were recordedin 2014).

The app has also stirred publicdiscussion on symbols.

“Museums should take moreresponsibilities to educate thepublic today rather than quietlyprotect cultural relics,” says he.

His Beijing-based private com-pany Moujiti (meaning “somegroup”), founded last year, special-izes in digital design.

Virtual museums became apathfinder for Fei and his teamwhen major cultural institutionslike the Palace Museum demandedthat their guests be given the bestin technological assistance inunderstanding the country’s histo-

ry and culture.The Palace Museum plans to

open its digital exhibition hall lat-er this year, and Moujiti has alsojoined the project.

Visitors will have the chance toexperience different digital exhibi-tion spaces, including those forpalaces that are closed to the pub-lic. The surroundings will changeaccording to viewers’ action, like amotion sense game.

Fei says that it’s hard for today’sdomestic museums to catch upwith their leading overseas coun-terparts within a short time in

terms of traditional exhibition dis-play design.

“But the new trend of worldmuseums using hi-tech approach-es still lacks the perfect example.China’s chances to lead havecome.”

A confident Fei expects an idealmodel to combine online and off-line channels.

Moujiti’s newest exhibitiondesign, which is planned for mar-ket release later this year, usesinteractive transparent screens toreplace the glass of museum dis-play cabinets.

Though similar technology hasbeen shown at some IT exposi-tions, Fei says he has yet to comeacross any museum using it.

“Traditional displays only offercultural relics, and a virtual exhibi-tion or an app will merely providedigital images of the relics,” hesays.

“If visitors view the original pie-ces from different angles, and getthe information they want on thescreen at the same time like oper-ating a smartphone, how interest-ing will that be?”

His team has also developed a

screen wall for museums that cancontain massive data on their col-lections, using multiple searchengines.

If a visitor likes a certain collec-tion, all that’s needed is touchingthe wall and its image and relevantinformation will be immediatelydownloaded to the user’s connect-ed smartphone.

The two-dimensional-code sys-tem, which had become common atmajorChinesemuseums in thepastfewyears, looksset to lose itsutility.

“Many souvenirs and culturalproducts will thus be developed onnew technical platforms,” Fei says.“We want a mature business chainbeyond nice single products.”

Fei expects that future Chineseartists will also have more of a sayin exhibitions once hi-tech gadgetsbecome popular.

“Today’s exhibitions are mainlydesigned by construction or indoordecoration companies. They willleave certain space for us to set theinstruments,” the designer says.

“However, when more domesticmuseum operators realize visitors’experience has to come first, theywill consider the space as a whole,and we’ll have the chance to fullypresent original ideas emphasizingthe interaction between visitorsand the space.”

Still, Fei confesses their ideas areoften considered to be a bit uncon-ventional by museum authorities.

“Things have to move forwardstep by step,” he says.

“I have a folder in my computercalled ‘too good to be realized’. We’llkeep these blueprints and wait fortheir days to come.”

Contact the writer atwangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn

Treasures ofAncient Chinadisplay opensin BudapestBy XINHUA in Budapest

Treasures of Ancient China, a dis-play of over 100 artworks includingtwo life-size terracotta soldiers fromthe 3rd century BC, opened in Buda-pest on Friday.

Hungarian Human ResourcesMinister Zoltan Balog, Chineseambassador Xiao Qian, Zhou Ming,the deputy director of organizingbody Art Exhibitions China, andother guests attended the openingceremony at the Budapest Museumof Applied Arts.

Balog said that the terracotta sol-diers, recovered from the grave ofChina’s first emperor, Qin Shi-huang, send the message, “not onlydid we need to protect the presentand future, we also had to protectthe past, a common past”.

“We came from the east, and weare heading westward but mustnever forget that we came from theeast," Balog said. “Knowing this isimportant to Chinese-Hungarianfriendship since culture can providetrue content to business and otherrelations.”

Xiao Qian said that contactsbetween China and Hungary hadbeen advancing for the past 65years. Today, China is Hungary’s big-gest trading partner outside theEuropean Union with bilateraltrade exceeding $9 billion dollarslast year and Chinese businessesinvesting over 3 billion euros (about$3.4 billion) in Hungary.

“Culture is an important aspect ofour bilateral relations,” Xiao said.He hoped that the exhibition wouldenhance the Hungarian people’sunderstanding of China, and con-tribute to strengthening friendshipand cooperation between the twonations.

Zhou detailed the exhibitionitself, saying that the artifacts onshow ran from the Neolithic era tothe Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), andoffered an overview of Chinese his-tory, religion and day-to-day lifeover the past 5,000 years.

The materials come from theShaanxi History Museum, NanjingMunicipal Museum and ChengdePalace Museum. The exhibition willcontinue through April 19.

EXHIBITION

Sam Smith with four Grammysduring the 57th Grammy Awards inCalifornia. ASSOCIATED PRESS

An original terracotta statue isbeing unpacked prior to the openingof the show. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Top: Auspicious Symbols in the Forbidden City, an Apple app designed by Fei Jun and his team for the Palace Museumin 2013. Above: A bowl is displayed through an interactive transparent screen, which will replace the glass of somemuseum display cabinets eventually, Fei says. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

Fei Jun, interactive media designer.

10 LIFE | Culture CHINA DAILY USA Tuesday, February 10, 2015

By HANNAH FURNESS

Two “lost” statues have beenidentified as original Michelan-gelo sculptures, experts claim, asthey attribute the only survivingbronzes by the master.

The pair, which show nakedyoung men riding panthers, aredescribed as “phenomenallyimportant” and, if genuine,would solve one of the great mys-teries in the history of art.

They have been attributed toMichelangelo following a clue ina little-known 500-year-olddrawing, which made the linkbetween the figures made ofbronze and an incomplete sketchfrom thedays of theartist’s work-shop.

They could now become theonly surviving bronzes attribut-ed toMichelangelo, asacademicsat the University of Cambridgeand the Fitzwilliam Museumpublicly declare their find.

The statues, which have beenwell-known as the RothschildBronzes for many years, will nowgo on display at the museum,along with published evidencethe authors claim proves theirorigins.

Critics, experts and membersof the public will now be invitedto share their own views on thestrength of the claims, before apublic conference later this yearaims to reach a consensus aboutthe creator of the statues.

Michelangelo is knownto havemade at least two bronze statues,a nine-foot high figure of PopeJulius II and a version of David,but both have since beendestroyed. Martin Gayford, theart critic, has called the possibili-ty of finding a surviving bronzeoneof the “most intriguingpossi-bilities in art history”.

The two bronzes in question,two nude men of differing agesriding lithe panthers, were onceattributed to Michelangelo in the19th century, before the claimwas dismissed at a Paris exhibi-tion in 1878.

Since then, they have beencredited to various other, lesser-known sculptors, and was heldin private collections for yearsbefore going on display at theRoyal Academy in 2012.

There, they came to the atten-tion of scholars who believed theattribution should be re-exam-ined.

Prof Paul Joannides, emeritusprofessor of art history at theUniversity of Cambridge, recog-nised that the shape of the bronz-es matched a small sketch in adrawing by one of Michelange-lo’s apprentices, held in theMusée Fabre, Montpellier,France.

The ‘Sheet of studies with Vir-gin embracing Infant Jesus’(c.1508) is understood to be a stu-dent’s faithful copy of various,slightly earlier sketches byMichelangelo, which have nowbeen lost to history.

Once the match was found, theanatomy and style of the bronzeswere compared to known worksby Michelangelo and found to be“very similar” to his works of1500–1510. Poses, the depictionof muscle and the physical like-ness were linked from bronze toMichelangelo, as authors con-cluded the evidence pointedtoward the artist.

BRONZE SCULPTURE

Exceptionaldiscoveriesseem to beMichelangelobronzes

ART

Was master Flemish painter Rubensthe most important artist of all time?Forget his roly-poly nudes— the Baroque master’srange was so mighty hetransformed art forever.By ALASTAIR SMART

I t was one evening in June 1629that Peter Paul Rubens firstcaught sight of Dover’s whitecliffs. He was on his way to

England as the esteemed guest ofCharles I, who’d dispatched the war-ship Adventure to Brabant especial-ly for his safe conveyance.

Two days later, the Flemish mas-ter was invited to meet the king atGreenwich Palace. Charles, a keenart lover, already owned a gloriousRubens self-portrait that hung out-side the royal bedchamber andremains in the Royal Collectiontoday.

Yet Rubens wasn’t visiting in hiscapacity as an artist but as a diplo-mat. He’d been sent by the Spanishking, Philip IV, in search of a truce,ideally a fully fledged peace treaty,withEngland—inhisownwords, to“smother the flames which threatento devastate Europe”. One hoped-forknock-on effect would be Charlesforcing his Protestant allies in theDutch Republic to quit hostilitieswith their Catholic neighbours inthe Spanish-ruled southern Nether-lands where Rubens lived.

A complex nexus of alliances wasat work across Europe and Rubens,as one of the age’s leading diplo-mats, was right at its centre. Thiswas an era before Romanticism ledus to expect artists to be tortured,troubled souls in thrall solely totheir muse. Back in the 17th century,they were more often men of affairs,who soared the heights of courtlysophistication and were fullyengaged with politics and the worldaround them.

Even in that context, though,Rub-ens’s pre-eminence as both painterand diplomat was exceptional: hewas Henry Kissinger and Andy War-hol in one. And insofar as Charles Iwas the greatest connoisseur-kingEngland has ever had, Philip IV’schoice of Rubens as his envoy was amasterstroke.

Britain has always been on art’speriphery, and of the dozen greatestartists in history Rubens is more orless alone in having a meaningfulrelationship with this country. He isperhaps best known nowadays forhis roly-poly females, those amplyfleshed pink nudes with a mother-of-pearl sheen. Yet, as a major newRoyal Academy exhibition seeks toremind us, Rubens was responsiblefor so much more. From portraitsand landscapes to sweeping mytho-logical narratives and highlycharged religious scenes, Rubenscould pretty much do it all.

Fused styleRaised and trained in the Flemish

city of Antwerp, from 1600 he spentalmost a decade travelling Italy,hoovering up the influence of Ren-aissance greats. Upon return homein 1608, he’d developed a hybridstyle that, broadly speaking, fusedsumptuous Venetian colour and thespiralling forms of Michelangelowith Northern European natural-ism. As the American professor H WJanson observed in his 1962 tomeHistory of Art, “Rubens finishedwhat Durer started: the breakdownof artistic barriers between northand south.”

His vast altarpiece at Antwerp’sCathedral of Our Lady, Descent fromthe Cross (1614) — in which Christ’scontorted body seems to push out ofthe picture in a diagonal swathetowards the viewer — establishedhis reputation as a Baroque painterpar excellence. It is perhaps hisgreatest work and still wowing thecathedral’s visitors today.

However, back in Greenwich in1629 Charles I was none tooimpressed with Rubens’s openinggambit. He demanded Philip IV“offer something firm to facilitatethe peace”, specifically his brother-in-law Frederick V’s restoration tohis throne in the Rhineland, fromwhich he’d been unceremoniouslyejected by Spain and her allies

(Bavaria and the Holy RomanEmpire).

Meeting followed meeting, and togrease the wheels of diplomatic ser-vice, Rubens found time after-hoursto paint for the king the toadyingcanvas Landscape with St Georgeand the Dragon. In it, the saint,unmistakably modelled on CharlesI, having slain a fire-breathing drag-on, rescues a fair princess (repre-senting the people of Europe).

Drama kingOver the centuries, many have

criticised Rubens’s paintings fortheir dramatics and operatics, fortheir apparent hyperbole, for thelack of depth to the Baroque fire-works. Tiger-hunters are eaten aliveby their prey (Tiger Hunt, 1616); sin-ners, on the Day of Judgment, arecast headfirst into a lake of hellfire(The Fall of the Damned, 1620). All isdone to excess.

For the 19th-century Americanpainter Thomas Eakins, Rubenswas “the nastiest, most vulgar, noisy

painter that ever lived… His pic-tures always put me in mind ofchamber pots.” The NeoclassicistIngres, in turn, said the best way toview Rubens’s paintings wasthrough horse blinkers.

Yet, for all the criticism, there’s aunique thrill to the facthispaintingswere diplomatic weapons, con-ceived, painted and wielded withthe very future of Europe at stake.(Before London, he’d visited Paris tocomplete a 24-canvas series, now inthe Louvre, hailing the dowagerqueen of France, Marie de’ Medici.)

Rubens stayed in England fornine months and — after pledgingPhilip would intercede on Freder-ick’s behalf with Spain’s allies — leftwith both a peace treaty and aknighthood, not to mention a haulof royal gifts including a bejewelledsword, a diamond-studded hatbandand a ring pulled from the king’sown finger.

In 1631, ?Philip IV duly knightedRubens too. His friend, the Spanishgrandee Ambrogio Spinola, said ofRubens that “of all his talents, paint-ing is the least”. As well as diplomat,hewasascholar,humanist,architect,linguist, antiquities collector andbusinessman, who managed a hugestudio of assistants — Van Dyckamongthem—tohelpmeetdemandfor his paintings across Europe.

It’s his paintings that endure,however. Massacre of the Innocents(1611-12) remains the most expen-sive Old Master painting ever sold atauction, having fetched £49.5 mil-lion at Sotheby’s in 2002. His influ-ence has lived on across thecenturies across the world — in partbecause he painted for powerful

patrons far and wide, meaning hiswork became known by painters farand wide too.

His big biblical paintings —infused with Counter Reformationfervour in a bid to check the rise ofProtestantism — were hits in Spain,where they influenced the likes ofMurillo and Francisco Rizi. Engrav-ings of these works were, in turn,widely used by missionaries in theNew World, exerting an influencestronger than any other on theso-called “Colonial Baroque” stylethat developed in the churches ofmost of Latin America.

In France, he can be said to haveinspired a whole new genre, the fetegalante: in which stylish couples inthe throes of love ooh and aahthrough parks and forests. Boucher,Watteau and Fragonard would allfollow in the wake of The Garden ofLove (c. 1633) and the other worksRubens painted late in life of him-self and second wife Hélène, stroll-ing through the gardens of theircountry house, Het Steen.

Ending legacyAs for Britain, his legacy lasted

well beyond 1629. Charles I wouldlater commission a set of ceilingpaintings — glorifying his fatherJames I — that still occupy pride ofplace at London’s Banqueting House(formerly part of Whitehall Palace).And by the 19th century, Rubens wasas well represented in English collec-tions as almost any other Old Master.

Which, on first thoughts, mightseem a little strange. His scenes ofsex, superabundance and, at times,terrific violence are ostensibly atodds with English taste; likewise his

Catholicism and patent lack ofhumility. (Rubens once declared,“My talent is such that no undertak-ing, however vast in size, has eversurpassed my courage.”)

Yet his impact on the growth oflandscape painting in England —into what became the nation’s quin-tessential genre — is undeniable.After giving up diplomatic activitiesin the early 1630s for a quiet life atHet Steen, Rubens painted land-scapes aplenty pullulating withhuman life. Gainsborough and par-ticularly Constable inherited hisfaithful rendering of atmosphericsand nature unfolding: from rain-bowsandblusterywinds toburstsofsunshine. In contrast to the artifi-cial, Italianate landscapes of Claude,Rubens’s visions of Flanders werereal and highly personal, just asConstable’s of Suffolk would be.

Rubens wasn’t the sort of artistHollywood would rush to make amovie about: he had little angst, lit-tle darkness in his soul and a careerof lucrative, uninterrupted success.Yet so total was his artistic vision,his legacy can be felt, one way oranother, in the majority of painterswho followed him.

I haven’t even mentioned his por-traiture; nor his effect on the FrenchRomantics, Géricault and Delacroix,or on the sculptures of Rodin… It’sfair to say that art was one thingbefore Rubens and quite anotherafter him. And of how many othermen can the same be said? Rubensdidn’t do anything by halves.

Rubens and his Legacy, spon-sored by BNY Mellon, is at RoyalAcademy, London W1, through toApril 15; royalacademy.org.uk

Two Bronze sculptures thoughtto be works by Michelangelo areexamined by Dr Victoria Avery,keeper of Applied Arts at theFitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.CHRIS RADBURN / AP

Clockwise from top: A man looks at a painting as he visits an exhibition at China's National Museum in Beijing; royal collections of Liechtenstein, including worksby Rubens, Van Dyck and other Flemish painters, have been shown at China's National Museum. WANG ZHAO / AFP

Rubens finished whatDurer started: thebreakdown of artisticbarriers betweennorth and south.”HW Janson, American professor andauthor of History of Art

Tuesday, February 10, 2015 11

COMMENT EDITORIAL • OPINION

China Daily USA chinadailyusa.com

VIEWS

The opinions expressedon this page do not necessarily

reflect those of China Daily

I see my own past in these people seeking justice: exhausted yet never giving up the hope thatthe wrongs done to their beloved will be righted. But I am only an ordinary citizen and I amnot able to help them.”

Shang Aiyun, mother of Huugjilt, who was executed in 1996 at the age of 18 after being wrongly convicted of rape and murder. Shang never stoppedpetitioning for a retrial to clear her son’s name, and after 18 years the local court announced Huugjilt innocent last December. Since then, hundreds ofpeople, who believe their family members have been wrongly convicted have visited her for advice.

V I C T O R PA U L B O R G

Many Chinese tourists on a learning curveA s the number of Chinese

travelers taking tripsabroad is projected to be

greater than those travellingdomestically during the upcom-ing Spring Festival, we are likelyto hear more about the antics ofsome Chinese tourists abroad inthe media this year. Last year’shigh-profile incidents were aptlyput into perspective by mostmedia outlets – the few outra-geous incidents were hardly rep-resentative of Chinese touristsoverall given more than 100 mil-lion Chinese traveled abroad lastyear. But Chinese tourists canexpect more scrutiny simplybecause they are a relatively newphenomenon.

Another reason for thevisibility of Chinese tour-ists, especially in somecountries in Asia, wheretheir numbers have becomesubstantial, is that a greaterproportion of Chinese com-pared to travelers from most oth-er countries travel in groups. Apropensity to travel in tour groupsis partly due to time-restrictions(most employees can only taketheir holidays during specifictimes of the year such as theLunar New Year “shutdown”) andpartly due to inexperience ortimidity – most Chinese are una-ble to speak English, many are ontheir first trip abroad. So thesenew tourists feel safer in groups.But groups of like-minded compa-triots tend to become a gaggle,raucous, boisterous, and oblivious

to their hosts’ finer sensitivities.This is not much different than

groups of tourists of other nation-alities, and when I hear in Thai-land – where I am writing thisfrom – the lament that Chinesegroups can be loud and sociallyinept, it reminds me of the placewhere I grew up, in a Mediterra-nean island, where groups of Ger-mans or English also behavedwith loutish offensiveness when Iwas young. It’s not only certaintypes of Chinese who are oblivi-

ous to cultural sensitivities,although this doesn’t of courseexcuse any Chinese – or othernational – from bad behavior.

Yet the point to make is thatthese tourists aren’t consciouslydisrespectful, for even within Chi-nese these same people canappear crude and loud among themore urbane Chinese. After all,there are many people in Chinawho have acquired wealth beforea concurrent assimila-tion of sophistica-

tion; it’s not only the educatedand cultured Chinese who travel.

Moreover, for many Chinesetourists, an inability to speak orread English, tourism’s de factolingua franca, makes their inter-actions awkward and makes themunaware of subtle sensitivities.Chinese tourists can often be seeneating instant noodles, I am surethey would like to sample thelocal food if only they could read

the menus or havethe courage to

make fluent enquiries in a restau-rant. But the unadventurousabroad often resort to familiarcomfort foods. In this sense, anyoffensive or uncouth behavior isnot so much rudeness but clumsi-ness; it’s largely a case of bewil-dered-tourists-abroad actingclumsily due to lack of knowledgeand inability to communicate.

There is certainly a learningcurve ahead for many Chinesetourists, and the Chinese govern-ment’s publication of a code ofconduct for travelers will obvious-ly expedite that process. More-over, President Xi Jinping, who isoften said to be China’s preemi-nent tourist, has been highlight-ing these issues, and his recentcall to Chinese tourists to eat lessinstant noodles is welcome pre-cisely because his words serve toinspire.

So, although the Chinese mediaand government have a part toplay in educating the Chineseabout sensitive and immersivetravel, in time people in placeswhere Chinese travel will get usedto the particular quirks andwhims of Chinese travelers. In themeantime people in host coun-tries should bear in mind thatmany of the Chinese they comeacross will be making their firsttentative forays out into the worldbeyond – and first steps are oftenawkward.

The author is a freelance writerthat specializes in culture, travel,and lifestyle.

LI MIN / CHINA DAILY

S H E N D I N G L I

US dominance not right way of pivot to Asia

T he US governmenthas just released itsnew National Securi-ty Strategy whichstresses four main

features, namely national securi-ty, economic development,American values, and the inter-national order. There is nothingdramatically new in the firstthree, as US presidents alwaysemphasize security, the economy,and democracy, the only differ-ence is the priority given themdepending on the circumstancesat different times.

However, this time, the WhiteHouse has added the fourth ele-ment to this document, the inter-national order. It is good that theUS seems more willing to accom-modate the United Nations andother multilateral organizations topromote world peace and security,as well as global economic pros-perity. In the face of the US’domestic situation, the Obama

administration has to focus moreon partnerships and cooperationfor his remaining two years in theWhite House.

The new National SecurityStrategy, however, has not forgot-ten the US’ “rebalancing to Asiaand the Pacific”. The Obamaadministration’s first NationalSecurity Strategy of May 2010used the term “rebalancing” fourtimes, but none of them applied tothe Asia-Pacific region. Indeed,Obama first raised the notion ofrebalancing to the Asia-Pacific in2011. However, given the opportu-nity presented by drawing up anew National Security Strategy,the White House national securityteam has reaffirmed the US’ com-mitment to rebalancing to theregion.

According to the latest NationalSecurity Strategy, the US willemploy a combination of tools inits rebalancing, including“increased diplomacy, stronger

alliances and partnerships,expanded trade and investment,and a diverse security posture”. Inthis context, the US NationalSecurity Advisor Susan Rice hasannounced that the Chinese, Japa-nese, South Korean and Indone-sian leaders have been invited tovisit the US this year, when sheinaugurated the release of the newNational Security Strategy. Thiswas a clear signal that the US isdiplomatically committed to itsrebalancing to East Asia.

China welcomes the US’ diplo-matic rebalancing to the Asia-Pa-cific. Over the last two years,China and the US have worked tobuild up their mutual military-to-military trust. As Rice said, “We’rebuilding a constructive relation-ship that expands practical coop-eration across a wide spectrum ofissues from global health to non-proliferation.” And the list contin-ues to expand.

As the UN is approaching the

70th anniversary of its founding,it bears more responsibility inmaintaining the post World WarII order. Obviously, how the cur-rent Japanese government looksat Japan’s wartime history willhave a big influence on the peaceand stability in East Asia. In thiscontext, the US needs to displaythe leadership it likes to claim andprevent and reverse the emergentJapanese historical revisionism.

Nevertheless, the White Housemay have invited the Japanese,South Korean and even Indone-sian leaders to Washington tostress alliances and partnerships.Last year, the Obama administra-tion declared the US-Japan Secu-rity Treaty covered the DiaoyuIslands, explicitly siding withJapan in its territorial disputewith China over the islands. WithSouth Korea, the US is pressing todeploy the Terminal High AltitudeArea Defense missile system,which is likely to further excite a

regional arms race. With Indone-sia and other members of theAssociation of Southeast AsianNations, the US has been keen topush for freedom of navigation,aspiring to reclaim its regionaldominance.

Washington would do better toweigh the cost-effectiveness ofinciting more regional disputesbacked by its arms against trulymoderating its allies and friendsto approach differences throughdialogue. It is welcome to hearthat the US doesn’t believe that aChina-US conflict is inevitable,but the White House should backup its words with actions. An hon-est and impartial adherence to theregional order based on interna-tional law, rather than US domi-nance, is the ultimate answer.

The author is a professor andassociate dean at Institute ofInternational Studies, Fudan Uni-versity.

W aiting for a colleague on alate afternoon in Brusselsrecently, I got a text message

that she was at a police station report-ing a robbery and assault case. Later,she called to tell me in detail what hadhappened: She had left her apartmentbuilding in the Schumann area, nearthe European Union headquarters, justbefore dusk to take a bus to meet me.But before she could do so, a manwielding a knife forced her to part withher handbag, which among otherthings contained her wallet, voicerecorder and camera, and ran awaywith it.

Too shocked at first to react, she gother wits back on seeing a cab. Gettinginto the vehicle, she asked the cabbiefor help and got it. The cabbie not onlyfollowed the robber, but also alertedpolice and other cabbies about thecrime and the description of the perpe-trator.

My colleague said that just like in themovies, more than 10 taxis and a coupleof police cars zoomed in on the robber,who, out of fear, threw her handbag onthe road and fled.

Two months before the Brussels inci-dent, after attending a meeting in Paris,several colleagues were on their way toa restaurant one night when a pick-pocket tried to steal something from acolleague’s handbag. Being aware of thedangers lurking in Paris streets, my col-league stunned the pickpocket bycatching him red-handed. Shocked, thepickpocket fled.

A third Chinese woman, who worksfor a law firm in Brussels, became thetarget of another pickpocket while trav-elling by bus. Realizing that she hadbeing robbed of her billfold which alsocontained her passport, which sheneeded to go on a business trip to Chi-na the next week, she decided to acttough.

She asked the bus driver in Englishand French both to not open the doorsbecause she suspected the pickpocketwas still on the bus, and requestedhim/her to return her belongings, espe-cially her passport, or else she wouldcall the police. After a moment’ssilence, someone shouted that her bill-fold was lying on the floor.

Although my personal experiencewith pickpockets is not as adventurousor lucky, it also gives an indication ofthe deteriorating law and order situa-tion in Europe. A couple of months ago,I was checking my cellphone for impor-tant information and dates while tak-ing a ride on the Brussels subway.Emerging from the metro, I realized Ihad lost my wallet which contained myID and credits cards. I immediatelyreported the matter to police, but I amyet to get any response from them.

This week, European leaders willmeet to discuss ways to fight terrorismin the aftermath of the attack on theoffices of the satirical magazine CharlieHebdo in Paris a month ago. Terrorismis indeed a threat to European societybut so is the rising graph of petty andnot-so-petty crimes across Europe.

The rising crime graph in Europe canbe attributed to the EU’s strugglingeconomy and the resultant high rate ofunemployment over the past six yearsor so, say many experts. While that maybe true, Europe remains a magnet forpeople across the world, especially Chi-nese tourists. Perhaps the robber andthe pickpockets that targeted the threeChinese women believed they weretourists and would not be very carefulwith their belongings. The “poor guys”were right that Chinese tourists are notvery careful with their belongings butwrong in assuming that the three wom-en were tourists.

Many Chinese and other nationalsmight have been targeted by pickpock-ets and robbers and not reported theincidents to police. But going by eventhe recorded cases, Europe is becomingincreasingly unsafe for foreigners, espe-cially Chinese tourists and business-people.

The challenge for EU politicianscould not be more clear — they have toclean their house before seeking toclean the Augean stables.

F U J I N G

EU leaders have areal task in hand

Z H A N G M O N A N

‘New normal’ needs an innovative pushA lthough six years have

passed since the globalfinancial crisis broke out,

many countries have not yetovercome its impact with theglobal economy is still facinguncertainties. And given the eco-nomic slowdown, albeit slight, inChina, it can be said that the Chi-nese and global economies haveentered stages — which can becalled “new normals” — whichare far different from those inpre-crisis times.

In the past three and half dec-ades China has passed two histor-ic milestones. In 1998, itgraduated from a low-income to alower-middle economy, accordingto World Bank criteria. And in2001, it became an upper-middle-income economy. China now facesnew challenges to cross the nexteconomic threshold because ofthe “new normal”, which ismarked by six factors.

First, economic growth will

slow down. After more than 30years of fast-paced growth, Chi-na’s economic engine is losingsome steam due to internal andexternal conditions. The mostimportant thing for it to do nowis to free itself of the “speed com-plex” and “gear-shift anxiety” toachieve qualitative, as opposedto quantitative, GDP growth at asustainable and more reasonablepace.

Second, the center of gravity ofthe Chinese economy will shift tothe higher end of the industrialspectrum. As a rule, rising percapita income leads to greaterfocus on the tertiary industry todevelop an optimum industrialstructure. The “new normal”means an increase in secondaryand tertiary industries, moreadvanced manufacturing technol-ogies, a fast-growing serviceindustry and larger market supplyof high-quality capital and con-sumer products to generate great-

er added value.Third, the gap between urban

and rural areas will be narrowed.The warped distribution ofnational resources has ham-pered China’s economic develop-ment and wealth growth. The“new normal” will lead to a “bal-anced development” of indus-tries across the eastern, centraland western regions, and large-scale farming and land reformwill expedite the modernizationof agriculture and thus enablerural and urban areas to developin unison.

Fourth, commodity exports willgive way to capital exports. Chi-na’s foreign trade has for longenjoyed a double surplus, which isnot sustainable and carries hugerisks in the international market.So China has to import moreresource and strategic products,and consumer goods. Possiblybecoming a net capital exporter inthe near future, China will see

massive outflows of capital thatwill expand its global resources,giving it a much stronger edge inreshaping global industrialchains, as well as supply and valuechains.

Fifth, the middle-incomegroup will become the main con-sumers at home. China will haveabout 600 million middle-in-come people by 2020, and theirtotal spending will be thrice asmuch as in 2010. This, alongwith rising farmers’ income, willfacilitate the simultaneousgrowth of China’s consumptiondemand and purchasing powerin the global market.

And sixth, small and medium-sized enterprises and new indus-tries may become China’s newgrowth engines. And new indus-tries such as e-commerce, infor-mation technology andwarehouse-logistics could bringabout major changes in the tradi-tional patterns of competition,

organizational forms and busi-ness models.

History tells us that everyglobal financial crisis has endedwith the reshaping of the worldeconomic structure, which thistime may be to the liking of Chi-na. But China should be wary ofthe risks and uncertainties —such as local government finan-cial debts, shadow banking, highdebt-equity ratios of enterprisesand overcapacity — whichaccompany the transition fromthe old to a new mode of eco-nomic growth. To preempt them,China needs to use innovativeideas to improve its macro-con-trol measures and thus ensurethat its economy has a “soft land-ing” and can grow steadily in thefuture.

The author is a researcher at theChina Center for InternationalEconomic Exchanges.Courtesy: chinacusfocus.com

The author is China Daily chief corre-spondent in Brussels. fujing@chinadai-ly.com.cn

12 Tuesday, February 10, 2015

The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily

refl ect those of China Daily USA.

VIEWS

BUSINESSCHINA DAILY USA » CHINADAILYUSA.COM

Tuesday, February 10, 2015 13

600 firms

still on the waiting list for initialpublic offerings approval fromthe securities regulator

The recent export taxrebate adjustmentsannounced by thegovernment will buoy

the fortunes of Chinese medi-cal product exporters andsharpen their competitiveedge, industry experts said onMonday.

The Ministry of Finance lastyear announced adjustmentsin the export rebate rates forsome goods, including 67medicines and health prod-ucts. Tax rebates for 55 West-ernmedicines, four traditionalChinese medicines and eightmedical devices have beenrevised upwards to between 2and 13 percent, depending onthe type of product.

About 6,100 companiesfrom China are set to benefitfrom the new regulations,with the total value of theirexports and imports beingabout $9.426 billion duringthe first 11 months of 2014,according to statistics provid-ed by the China Chamber ofCommerce for Import andExport of Medicines andHealth Products.

Meng Dongping, vice-chair-woman of the chamber, saidthe tax rebates have come atan opportune time for themedical products industry, asit has been seeing slowergrowth rates in the past years.Medical product exports fellfrom a relatively high growthrate of 20 percent in 2012 toabout 7 percent last year.

Breaking down the num-bers further, Deng said theexpected total volume of Chi-na’s medicine exports andimports for 2014 would beabout $100 billion and thatthere has been a slowdown inexports. The chamber esti-mates that exports will remainrelatively subdued this year,while the global marketgrowth rate would be around4 to 7 percent.

According to Meng, the rap-idly shrinking global market,rising costs and currencyappreciation pressures arehurting exports.

In addition, domestic fac-tors like higher humanresource costs, raw materials,energy and environmentalprotection costs are fast erod-ing the price advantage of Chi-nese companies.

“The higher export rebateswill help companies recoupsome of the additional costsand also enhance the competi-tive advantage to someextent.” The measures areespecially beneficial for the

SEE “PHARMA” PAGE 14

By BLOOMBERG

The People’s Bank of Chinais set to lose three of its fourdeputy governors as person-nel change sweeps throughthe central bank’s second tier.

Deputy Governor Hu Xiao-lian, 56, is departing and isset to be appointed as theExport-Import Bank of Chi-na’s new chairwoman,according to people familiarwith the situation. Li Dong-rong will retire, while YiGang may be replaced after apromotion last year to con-currently be deputy directorat a Party body that overseeseconomic policy.

That will leave Pan Gong-sheng, 51, as the only deputyto Zhou Xiaochuan, whohimself has been the subjectof speculation as to when his12 years as governor will end.

Pan and Zhou will adviseonhowbest to steer theecon-omy as growth slows andcapital leaves the country.

“The major monetary poli-cypathwouldn’tchange,”saidZhuHaibin, chiefChinaecon-omist at JPMorgan Chase &Co in Hong Kong. “The PBOCis an advisory organizationand not the final decision-maker. The decisions comefrom the State Council.”

The National People’s Con-gress, the top legislature, willmeet next month. Econo-mists expect it will set thisyear’s growth target at about7 percent, down from 7.5 per-cent in 2014.

Hu will replace currentExport-Import Bank Chair-man Li Ruogu, who is set toretire, said the people, whoasked not to be identifiedbefore an official announce-mentof thechange.Thebankis one of China’s three majorpolicy lenders.

The 21st Century BusinessHerald reported Li’s plan toretire and said that GuoQingping, an assistant gover-nor, would be promoted todeputy. Li is 60 years old.

Yi, who also serves as headof the State Administrationof Foreign Exchange, waspromoted last year to the

deputy-director position atthe Party’s Office of the Cen-tralLeadingGroupforFinan-cial and Economic Affairs.

Fan Yifei, the chairman ofthe Bank of Shanghai, is theleading candidate to replaceYi at the foreign exchangeregulator and as a deputyPBOC governor, Bloombergreported last month.

Another deputy governor,Liu Shiyu, left in Novemberto become chairman of Agri-cultural Bank of China Ltd.

Pan Gongsheng studied atCambridge and Harvard uni-versities and worked atIndustrial & CommercialBank of China Ltd and Agri-cultural Bank before joiningthe PBOC in 2012.

Zhou, who turned 67 lastmonth, has overseen mone-tary policy since 2002, help-ing steer the nation throughthe global financial crisis. In2013, Zhou was appointed avice-chairman of the ChinesePeople’s Political Consulta-tiveConference,whichraisedhis required retirement agefrom 65 to 70 and enabledhimtodirect thecentralbankfor a longer term.

Zhu said Zhou will proba-bly stay until 2017, the end ofhis term,asthenext fewyearswill be “key in China’s finan-cial reforms”.

BANKING

Major shakeupof second-tierstaff at PBOC

$100 billion

the estimated value of China’smedicine and medical productsexports and imports in 2014

GOING GLOBAL

Gettingmedicineright forlong-termgrowthExport tax rebates willsharpen competitiveadvantage of healthproduct companies inoverseas markets,reports Wang Wen.

LEGAL

By XIE YU in Hong Kongxieyu@chinadaily.com.cn

China is expected to take asignificant step in its capitalmarket reform after the mar-ket regulator decided to relin-quish control over newlistings and transfer them tothe Shanghai and Shenzhenbourses.

Sources close to the ChinaSecurities Regulatory Com-mission said on Monday thatthe change is expected tocome into effect from June 1.After that, all IPO applica-tions will be vetted by thestock exchanges, while theCSRC’s public offeringreview committee will be dis-banded.

The move has been widelyanticipated by investmentbankers, stockbrokers andsecurities analysts since theCSRC initiated discussions

early last year on its inten-tion to abandon the principleof approval in favor of onethat emphasizes voluntarydisclosure by the manage-ment of enterprises that areseeking to raise capital in thestock market through newlistings. The “registration”approach is widely adoptedby capital markets in majorfinancial centers around theworld.

The CSRC, however, hasnot issued any statement onthe issue yet.

Investment bankers andstock analysts have said theywould welcome such achange because the currentsystem of approval was seento be onerous and inefficient,leading to unduly long wait-ing periods for the CSRCapproval.

More than 600 companiesare waiting for the IPO review

which has been delayed by aninvestigation into financialfraud. Analysts said theybelieve the speed of approv-ing new IPOs will go up underthe new arrangement.

However, the CSRC willcontinue to have an impor-tant investigative andenforcement role to play inthe IPO marketplace. But theresponsibility for due dili-gence and disclosure will nowrest on the company manage-ment and their advisers, as itis done in capital markets likeNew York or Hong Kong.

China has been using thequalification verification

based IPO approval systemfor more than 13 years. Underthe current rules, mainlandA-share listing applicantsshould go through multiplerounds of reviews lasting aslong as several years to getapproval from the securitiesregulator. Requirementsinclude an annual net profitof more than 30 million yuan($4.8 million) for three suc-cessive years before listing. Inaddition, the proposed IPOprice has to stay in line withother stocks in the sameindustry sector, irrespectiveof the applicant’s perform-ance.

But the new leadership hasbeen actively pushing for atransition to the registration-based IPO system, whichemphasizes information dis-closure and offers easier fundraising access to small andmedium enterprises.

FLOATS

Regulator loosens grip on new listings

DERIVATIVES

In Shanghai, investorshave a different optionDerivatives based onexchange-traded fundare seen as reducingvolatility in marketBy LI XIANGlixiang@chinadaily.com.cn

Trading of stock optionsmade its long-awaited debuton the Shanghai StockExchange on Monday, allow-ing investors more ways tohedge risks and make profits.

Volume was light, with just25,113 contracts valued atonly 37.86 million yuan($6.06 million) changinghands. But the introductionof stock options was viewedas a milestone for the nation’scapital market, which haslong been known for beingunderdeveloped and volatile.

The launch of options trad-ing also underscored the secu-rities regulator’s intent toattract large and sophisticatedinstitutional investors into themarket, which is now domi-natedbysmall retail investors.

“A capital market withoutstock options is like an econo-my without insurance,”Huang Hongyuan, generalmanager of the ShanghaiStock Exchange, said justbefore trading kicked off.

Options trading “will helpimprove the capital structureof the market and meet thedemand for value investmentby long-term institutionalinvestors such as the coun-try’s social security fund andthe pension fund”, he said.

Options give buyers theright to buy or sell the under-lying instrument at an agreedprice on a specific date. Theoptions are the first equityderivative China introducedsince it launched the tradingof stock index futures in 2010.

At present, options tradingis limited to the ShanghaiStock Exchange 50 ETF, anexchange-traded fund track-ing the country’s 50 mostheavily weighted stocks.

The most actively tradedcontracts on Monday wereMarch call options at 2.2yuan, accounting for one-

fourth of total trading vol-ume, as investors bet onfurther gains for blue-chipstocks in the short term. Calloptions give holders the rightto purchase the underlyingasset, while puts allow themto sell.

Ee Chuan Ng, head ofBloomberg China, said theintroduction of stock optionsrepresented a significantdevelopment in China’s capi-tal markets and a movetoward greater financialreform and market liberaliza-tion.

“For this new hedging toolto positively contribute to amore robust equity market,liquiditywill bean imperativefactor,” he said.

Analysts said the short-term effect of options tradingis usually an immediate boost

in the prices of target stocksor indexes. But in the longrun, the trading tool will helpcurtail market volatility.

Liao Hong, chief economistat investment bank ChinaInternational Capital CorpLtd, said that options tradingwill improve liquidity andinvestors’ confidence in thestock market.

“It is just the beginning forChina to develop andimprove its derivative mar-ket. More complicated deriva-tive tools can be expected asthe country will accelerate itsfinancial innovation in thenext five to 10 years,” Liangwrote in a research note.

Some analysts anticipatethat the regulator may soonexpand options trading to thestock index and individualstocks.

Securities firmsarebelievedtobeamongthe first tobenefitfrom the launch of the optiontrading as it will boost theirrevenue. Shares of securitiesfirms moved up 4.13 percentand led the gain of the Shang-hai Composite Index.

A technician repairs the electronic display at a brokerage in Fuyang, Anhui province, on Monday. On the first trading day of stockoptions, shares of securities firms rose 4.13 percent and led the gain of the Shanghai Composite Index, LU QIHUA / FOR CHINA DAILY

Hu Xiaolian, deputy governorof the People's Bank of China

The major mone-tary policy pathwouldn’t change.”Zhu Haibin, chief China econo-mist at JPMorgan Chase & Coin Hong Kong

$6.06 million

value of stock option contractschanging hand at the Shanghaibourse on Monday

By CHINA DAILY

The National Develop-ment and Reform Commis-sion is likely to complete its14-month antitrust violationinvestigation intoQualcommInc, the world’s biggest chip-maker and release its find-ings soon.

Qualcomm is likely to behit with fines that would beseveral times over the totalfor all antitrust investiga-tions last year, Xu Kunlin,head of the National Devel-opment and Reform Com-mission’s bureau of pricesupervision and anti-monop-oly and the department ofprice,wasquotedas saying inan article posted on the web-

siteof theSecuritiesTimesonMonday.

Sources said the fines onQualcomm could be as highas 10 billion yuan ($1.6 bil-lion), according to the report.

“It’s a groundless number,”a source familiar with theinvestigation told China Dai-ly, without giving a specificnumber.

He said the investigation isexpected to end soon andmuch progress has beenachieved in the discussionsbetween the chipmaker andthe regulator.

The Anti-Monopoly Lawallows the government tofine companies up to 10 per-cent of their annual revenuefor monopoly practices.

Qualcomm mayface huge fines

14 BUSINE S S Tuesday, February 10, 2015 CHINA DAILY USA

GOVERNMENTS AND POLICIES

Internet finance hasvital role to play

A central bank official has under-lined the importance of Internetfinance to the economy. Lu Lei, headof the research bureau at the Peo-ple’s Bank of China, said the grow-ing sector will help direct much-needed capital into financialproducts designed for micro andsmall enterprises, and agriculture-related companies. He said Chinaneeds financial reforms and innova-tion to better guide the direction ofcapital. “With the help of Internettechnologies, small companies andthe general public will receive finan-cial services more conveniently. Thiskind of system will screen qualifiedfinanciers more efficiently,” he said.

No wage increases forloss-making SOEsTheAssetsSupervisionandAdminis-trationCommittee saidonMondaythatState-ownedenterpriseswithreducedprofitswillnot receivewageincreases in2015.Theannouncementwasmade throughadocument thatoutlined theperformanceappraisalsofSOEs for thecomingyear. It alsosaid thatenterpriseswhichrecordhigherprofits in2015compared tolast yearwill receivewage increases inlinewith industry levels.

Water supply pilotschemes plannedThe reform of water prices hasbeen pushed to the top of the gov-ernment’s agricultural reformagenda because of the scarcity ofwater resources, according to areport by Economic InformationDaily on Monday. A person withknowledge of the matter said thatthe government will soon roll outpilot programs across 80 countiesnationwide and draw up an overallreform plan that will be submittedto the State Council. The first pilotswill be initiated in areas that cur-rently overuse their undergroundsupplies. The program includespaying extra for excess water useand receiving government subsi-dies for saving water.

Pension funds tendersystem standardizedThe Ministry of Human Resourcesand Social Security has issued areport aimed at improving thestandardized management of com-pany pension funds, according tomedia reports on Monday. Inresponse to recent malpractices,the ministry has forbidden tenderdocuments from being sold to man-agement companies for high prices,as well as other additional fees forthe granting of tenders. It alsourged fund management compa-nies to report malpractices to thesupervision authorities. Anyimproper conduct will be swiftlyinvestigated and published onlineby the ministry.

COMPANIES AND MARKETS

Visitors to bear costof third HK runwayA senior executive at Hong Kong’sAirport Authority said on Monday

that visitors to the administrativeregion might have to bear the con-struction costs of the planned thirdrunway at the airport. Wilson Fung,the authority’s executive directorfor corporate development, saidcharging an airport improvementfee was accepted internationallyand he did not think it would affectthe competitiveness of the airport.As one of the busiest airports in theworld, the authority is planning athird runway to cope with antici-pated growing demand.

Chinese tycoon boostsstake in drilling firmChinese property tycoon Tong Jin-quan increased his stake in billion-aire John Fredriksen’s offshoredriller Seadrill Ltd to 5.2 percentafter the stock plunged 70 percentsince June. Tong’s wholly ownedWealthy Fountain Holdings Incbought 1.3 million Seadrill shares at$13.26 apiece on Friday, the Hamil-ton, Bermuda-based company saidin a statement. Wealthy Fountainnow owns 4.3 percent of Seadrill,bringing the total stake held by allTong’s companies in the driller to5.2 percent.

Emerging-marketshares lose groundEmerging-market stocks declinedthe most in a week after Chineseimports plunged and Greece reaf-firmed its rejection of the country’sbailout program. India’s rupee fellafter reports that Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s party is likely tosuffer a setback in local elections.China Shipping Container Lines Codropped 1.3 percent. India’s Sensexheaded for its longest losing streakin 15 months and the rupee weaken-ed 0.7 percent against the dollar.Paradise Co sank the most since

2008 in Seoul, pacing a slump ingaming stocks after China clampeddown on foreign casinos’ .

CSR to buy underwaterrobot maker in UKA subsidiary of China’s leadingtrainmaker CSR Corp Ltd hasagreed to buy the entire share capi-tal of British company SpecialistMachine Developments Ltd, aleading subsea equipment manu-facturer and the firm behind thebuilding of the world’s first deep-sea mining robot. The deal, worthabout 130 million pounds ($198million), was signed on Thursdayin the United Kingdom betweenZhuzhou CSR Times Electric Coand SMD.

AROUND THE WORLD

New Ebola test fromGermany’s StadaGerman drugmaker Stada said itwill launch a test next month thatcan diagnose Ebola virus infectionswithin minutes, a move it hopeswill help to slow the spread of thedisease. The test, which is beingmarketed by Stada, was developedand produced by unlisted Germandiagnostics firm Senova. It yieldsresults based on pre-treated patientblood samples within about 10minutes. Stada said its main use isto diagnose the disease in dead vic-tims because their body fluids donot need to be pre-treated beforetesting.

10-year Bordeauxwines biggest gainersTop Bordeaux wines from the 2005

vintage, currently being reviewedby critics a decade after the har-vest, were among the biggest gain-ers on the Liv-ex wine market lastmonth and accounted for almost20 percent of trading. Chateau LaMission Haut Brion 2005 gained21 percent last month to a mid-price of 3,501 pounds ($5,336) acase while Chateau Mouton Roth-schild ’05 rose 13 percent to 4,274pounds, according to the Liv-exblog and its Cellar Watch marketreport.

Nissan Motor reveals21% jump in profitsNissan Motor Co has raised itsearnings forecast for the fiscal yearafter reporting a nearly 21 percentjump in quarterly profit. The Japa-nese automaker said that saleswere strong in the US and Europeand the cheap yen boosted overseasrevenue. Nissan reported a better-than-expected 101.8 billion yen($856 million) net profit for Octo-ber to December. Quarterly salessurged about 17 percent to 2.94 tril-lion yen.

TransAsia insists on‘no opt out’ for staffTransAsia Airways Corp is notconsidering allowing its flightattendants to opt out of theircontracts after the carrier’s sec-ond fatal crash in seven months.“We aren’t considering amend-ing contract regulations forflight attendants because we’refully focused on the aftermath ofthe crash,” said Amy Chen, aspokeswoman for Taipei-basedcompany in a text message onMonday.

CHINA DAILY - XINHUA -BLOOMBERG - REUTERS

I hope the Shenzhen-HongKong Stock Connect can startin the second half of the year.”

Leung Chun-ying, chief executive ofHong Kong Special AdministrativeRegion

A substantial depreciation ofthe yuan is unlikely to hap-pen this year. Deutsche Bankforecasts that the exchangerate between the dollar andthe yuan will be 6.2 by theend of this year, which is thesame as it was at the end oflast year.”

Zhang Zhiwei, economist at Deut-sche Bank

The yuan’s exchange rate hasa limited effect on boostingChina’s exports.”

Zhang Jianping, dean of interna-tional cooperation office of theacademy of foreign economicresearch at the National Develop-ment and Reform Commission

There may be one or twomore reductions in thebanks’ reserve requirementsin 2015, and the central bankis cautious about cuttinginterest rates.”

Lian Ping, chief economist at theBank of Communications

SOURCE: WSJCN.NET;HEXUN.COM

Quotes of the dayWhat’s news

biomedicine industry, she said.“The adjustments mainly focus

on the products with high addedvalue and high technology, whichmeans the government will encour-age enterprises to develop suchproducts,” Meng said.

Zhejiang Medicine Co Ltd, whichexports benflumelol, an antimalari-al drug, to global drug pharmamajor Novartis AG, said it will enjoyhigher export rebates of about 17percent, compared with 13 percentnow.

“The higher rebate will boost thecompany’s plan to explore new cli-entsand markets,” saida topcompa-ny official, on condition ofanonymity.

Li Kun, chairman of ShenzhenOriental Pharma Co, whose mainproduct is Phenylephrine HCL, usedin the manufacture of decongest-ants, said following the tax rebates,his company will save costs of about1.5 million yuan ($240,000) and thesame would be used to expand pro-duction.

“We have already identified landin Shandong province to build anew facility for our raw materialneeds,” he said.

That marks a sharp contrast froma few months ago, when the compa-ny was planning to raise funds fromexternal sources to fund its expan-sion plans, Li said, adding that thecompany did not get any exportrebate earlier because of Customs’classification issues.

Shenzhen Oriental Pharma,which has a 25 percent global mar-ket share through exports of about20 metic tons of PhenylephrineHCL every year, was facing roughtimes as its competitors were cut-ting prices frequently. “The exportrebate is a godsend for us as we cannow offer competitive prices,” Lisaid.

However, there have also beensome concerns among industryexperts whether the new measureswould lead to monopoly dumping.

Li from Oriental Pharma, howev-er, begs to differ. “Our prices will stillbe higher than our competitors inIndia. But we hope to make inroadswith our better quality products,” Lisaid.

The export rebates willhavea lim-ited impact on product prices, as itwill not be enough to offset the loss-es from renminbi appreciation, saidTan Shengcai, deputy secretary-gen-eral of the chamber.

Tan said the increased exportrebate will just balance the enter-prises’ rising costs as other coun-tries, such as India, also providehigh export rebates to medicinemanufacturers. On the other hand,the adjustment shows the govern-ment’s keenness to support theentire domestic medical productindustry rather than giving suchbenefits to some companies, as onlya few China-made medicine prod-ucts are exported to global markets,the sources said.

Contact the writer atwangwen@chinadaily.com.cn

FROM PAGE 13

Pharma:Companiessee light atthe end ofthe tunnel

By QIU QUANLIN in Guangzhouqiuquanlin@chinadaily.com.cn

Guangdong province, the long-time economic and export power-house of South China, expectsforeign trade to grow by 3 percent in2015, after it registered a negativeyear-on-year growth for 2014,according to a government workreport on Monday.

The report, which cited the prov-ince’s increasing efforts to transformits economic growth model, wasdelivered by Guangdong GovernorZhu Xiaodan at the annual local leg-islative session, which opened onMonday in Guangzhou, the capitalcity.

“We will increase investment andboost domestic consumption, andbetter readjust our economic struc-ture, to maintain a healthy economicgrowth,” said Zhu.

Guangdong’s foreign trade

declined 2.5 percent year-on-year to6.61 trillion yuan ($1.05 trillion) in2014, the first drop since 2010,according to the provincial customsauthority.

Theprovinceaccounted for25per-cent of China’s total foreign trade,which grew 2.3 percent year-on-yearto 26.43 trillion yuan last year,according to the General Adminis-tration of Customs.

Guangdong’s trade, which saw thebiggest year-on-year drop of 38.7 per-cent in March since 2013, ended aperiod of negative growth in Juneand started a rebound starting in thethird quarter of last year.

Despite negative trade growth in2014, Zhu said Guangdong’s foreigntrade structure was optimized, withgeneral trade and service tradeincreasing steadily.

Guangdong’s general trade, whichreflects the exports of self-developedproducts, increased 12.7 percent

year-on-year to $415.76 billion in2014, accounting for 38.6 percent ofthe province’s total trade, accordingto customs data.

“We also developed a number offoreign trade service companies,which played an increasing role inhelping exporters ship goods over-seas,” Zhu said.

Guangdong’s cross-border e-com-merce trade grew fast last year, withonline transactions accounting fornearly 70 percent of the country’stotal, according to the governmentwork report.

According to Zhu, the provincewill introduce a series of measuresincluding establishment of morenew trade platforms, organization ofoverseas promotion events andstreamlining trade procedures tomaintain growth.

“Traditionalprocessingtradecom-panies will be encouraged to acceler-ate technology innovation and

upgrade their products. Moreover,we will expand the export of self-de-veloped products,” Zhu said.

Industry sources said Guang-dong’s lower trade growth target in2015 was based on uncertain foreigndemand and the province’s determi-nation to change its economicgrowth model amid a “new normal”for the economy.

Lin Jiang, director of the financeand taxation department of the SunYat-sen University in Guangdong,

said: “Under the new economic situ-ation, Guangdong, one of the coun-try’s economic powerhouses, shouldbecome a pilot province to boosttrade quality and optimize the eco-nomic development model.”

Guangdong’s economy expects togrow by about 7.5 percent year-on-year in 2015, with fixed-asset invest-ment and total retail sales ofconsumergoodsexpectedtoincrease15.5 percent and 12 percent year-on-year, respectively, according to the

government work report.“Theprovinceneeds to improve its

trade structure by attaching moreimportance to exports of advancedtechnologyandequipment,”saidLin.

Meanwhile, the establishment of afree trade zone in Guangdong, whichincludes Nansha in Guangzhou,Hengqin in Zhuhai and Qianhai inShenzhen, will play a significant rolein boosting trade by building aninternational trade practice, accord-ing to Lin.

DATA

Guangdong growth falters in 2014

Foreign buyers look at products during the autumn session of the CantonFair in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, in October. Guangdong’s trade wasdown 2.5 percent year-on-year in 2014. QIU QUANLIN / CHINA DAILY

Fruits of their labor

Girls wearing minority costumes sell kumquats grown in Rong’an county near the city of Liuzhou in GuangxiZhuang autonomous region, at a wholesale fruit market in Beijing on Saturday. Rong’an county has a history ofmore than 300 years of kumquat cultivation. Its annual output of the crop hit 87,000 tons last year, worth near-ly 400 million yuan ($63.91 million). TAN KAIXING / FOR CHINA DAILY

LIU LUNAN / CHINA DAILYSource: Guangdong Sub-administration of China Customs

Guangdong's foreign trade growth Unit: % (y-o-y)

-15

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

2009 20112010 2012 2013 2014 20152007 2008

20.2

7.8

-10.8

28.4

16.4

7.710.9

-2.5

3Goal

Companies |BUSINE S S 15CHINA DAILY USA Tuesday, February 10, 2015

TRADE

Commodity importlevels down in JanIron ore, coal, crude oil, refined oil all recordsignificant price declines in global markets

By DU JUANdujuan@chinadaily.com.cn

Commodity imports fellsharpy last month comparedwith January 2014, a directresult of the economic slow-down, said experts.

Prices of raw materialssuch as iron ore, coal, crudeoil and refined oil have beenhitting record low prices onthe global market, butimport volumes into China,the world’s second-largesteconomy, reported a majorplunge in January.

A report from the RoyalBank of Scotland comment-ing on China’s import andexport data, said: “Withexports and imports signifi-cantly weaker than expect-ed, the January trade datamay increase the need formacroeconomic policymeasures to supportgrowth.”

The report said the recentexternal trade trends aremore likely to lead to furtherdomestic growth supportmeasures than significantpolicy-driven exchange ratedepreciation.

Iron ore imports fell 9.4percent year-on-year to 78.57million metric tons com-pared with the previousmonth. The import pricedropped by 45.1 percentcompared with the sameperiod last year to an aver-age of 438.6 yuan ($70.46)per ton, according to theGeneral Administration ofCustoms data released onSunday.

Liu Xinwei, an iron oreanalyst with Shandong-based commodities consult-

ancy Sublime ChinaInformation Group Co Ltd,said steel prices have falleneven further than iron ore,starting in December, whichfurther cut steel producers’profits, and led to less ironore being imported.

In addition, more steelfurnaces carried out mainte-nance last month comparedwith previous years, he said,and said that China’s ironore imports in February willcontinue to remain lowbecause of the ongoingmaintenance.

Meanwhile, coal importsin January plunged by 53.2percent year-on-year to 16.78million tons, the biggestmonthly drop in 15 years,with an average price of415.3 yuan a ton, 18.4 per-cent lower than the sameperiod last year.

Liu Dongna, a coal analyst

with Sublime China, said thedecline in coal imports wasmainly caused by the gov-ernment’s policy of encour-aging domestic coal use andthe stricter management ofimported coal.

Domestic coal demand isweakening because the eco-nomic slowdown has result-ed in weaker powerconsumption as domesticcoal prices continued to fall,Liu said.

Affected by the shrinkingdomestic manufacturingindustry and the economicslowdown, China’s crudeimports also edged loweryear-on-year by 0.6 percentlast month to 27.98 milliontons, said Gao Jian, a crudeanalyst with Sublime China.

“The main reason for thedecline in crude imports,however, might be that Chi-na is close to the end of thesecond phase of expandingits strategic crude storagefacilities,” he said.

China has been rapidlyincreasing its crude importssince the global crude pricefirst started to plunge inJune last year. In December,crude imports hit a recordhigh of 30.37 million tons.

January crude importswere 2.39 million tons lesscompared with December,or a 7.87 percent fall month-on-month. Lin Jiaxin, ananalyst with ICIS C1 Energy,a Shanghai-based energyinformation consultancy,said although crude importsfell last month, they werestill at a high level.

“China’s daily crude refin-ing output was around 1.36million tons, 0.5 percentdown compared with the fig-ure for December, whichalso contributed to the fall incrude imports,” she said.

By ZHONG NANzhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn

The nation’s long-term out-look for energy demand willremain strong, according toan industry report released onMonday.

The energy sector faces atough balancing act in 2015. Itwas affected by the plunge inoil prices during the secondhalf of last year, which fol-lowed prolonged high outputlevels amid weakening globaldemand.

The Outlook for the Oil andGas Industry in 2015, pro-duced by Det Norske Veritasand Germanischer Lloyd, theworld’s largest risk manage-ment company by revenue,said the rising demand isbeing driven largely by thecentral government’s EnergyDevelopment Strategy ActionPlan (2014-20) and increasingurbanization.

The factors indicate thatinternational investment willcontinue to flow into the coun-try’s oil and gas sectors.

The report, based on a glob-al survey last month of morethan 360 senior industry pro-fessionals and executives,found that the United States,

China and Norway will be thethree most favored invest-ment destinations for 2015.Last year, it was the US, Braziland Australia.

Wu Yi, regional manager forDNV GL China, said that reas-sessments and postpone-ments of new investments areexpected in light of current oilprices.

China’s oil demand willgrow 3 percent year-on-year to534 million metric tons thisyear, according to the econom-ic and technology researchinstitute of China NationalPetroleum Corp, the nation’stop oil and gas producer.

In 2014, oil consumptiongrew 3.3 percent to 516 milliontons.

However, the report said thebiggest barriers to growth forAsia-Pacific respondents arelow oil prices, the weak globaleconomy and tougher compe-tition from internationalrivals. Among respondentsglobally, the same top two bar-riers to growth are identified,with the third being gas pricesthat make the resource unat-tractive.

International oil prices haveseen a significant decline sinceJune. Oil has traded at $44 to

$48 per barrel at the begin-ning of this year, the lowestlevel since 2009.

“Falling energy prices haveheightened the cost manage-ment challenge facing the oiland gas industries, as they areforced to spend more toextract reserves amid evermore tightly squeezed mar-gins,” said Wu.

Richard Bailey, executivevice-president and director ofthe Asia-Pacific region andMiddle East for DNV GL, saidit is positive to note that Asia-

Pacific respondents focus onimproving work processes asways to work smarter andmore cost-effectively to helpride out the storm.

“Short-term measures suchas cutting capital expenditureto reduce costs are under-standable. However, theindustry must continue tokeep a clear focus on long-term growth to remain robustin different price environ-ments,” said Bailey.

Jing Yongping, a professorat the Beijing Institute of Pet-rochemical Technology, said:“The resultant environmentwill be more difficult than thatwhich companies have had to cope with over the past fiveyears, yet the new realitybrings both opportunities andchallenges.”

Jing said international exec-utives will have tough choicesto make on spending, costs,staff levels and growth strate-gies this year.

At the same time, Jing said,new possibilities should openup, such as the chance to refo-cus on core projects, ease upon talent pressures andexplore more affordableacquisitions in China and thewider Asia-Pacific region.

ENERGY

Oil, gas firms face ‘tough balancing act’

By BLOOMBERG

Steel exports from China,the world’s largest producer,rose to a record for a fifthmonth as new tax rules forsome shipments failed toslow sales.

The country shipped 10.29million metric tons of steelproducts in January, a 52 per-cent rise from the samemonth of the previous year,according to data released bythe customs administrationin Beijing.

China’s outbound ship-ments surged 51 percent to arecord 93.78 million tons in2014 as producers soughtoverseas buyers while domes-tic construction slowed andthe economy cooled.

The surging exports under-scored the country’s recordtrade surplus last monthcaused by weakening domes-tic demand and plummetingcommodity prices. Totalimports fell by the most in fiveyears amid a property down-turn and a stall in manufac-turing.

Steel shipments during thisyear are forecast to fall afterthe government canceledexport-tax rebates for alloysthat contain the chemical ele-ment boron as part of a driveto force the industry to con-solidate.

“We expect exports todecline in February as theimpact of the tax change fil-ters through and as domestic

crude steel production hasfallen sharply in response tosteel margins turning nega-tive,” Ivan Szpakowski, aHong Kong-based commoditystrategist at Citigroup Inc,wrote in a report on Monday.“Anecdotal reports are thatexports were slower in lateJanuary and early February.”

January shipments werestronger than expectedbecause many supply con-tracts for the month weresigned before the change andas mills and traders liquidat-ed inventories, according toSzpakowski. February exportsshould decline while millsadjust production to exportalternate products, he said.

Boron-alloyed steelaccounted for more than 30

percent of last year’s ship-ments, according to Ian Rop-er, a commodity strategist atCLSA Ltd in Singapore.

China’s output grew at theslowest pace on record lastyear while steelmakersdelayed cutting jobs and clos-ing plants during the weakestyear of economic expansionsince 1990. The country’s out-put of 822.7 million tons wasmore than double that of thecombined next four largestproducers, Japan, the UnitedStates, India and South Korea,according to statistics fromthe World Steel Association.

Iron ore imports fell 9.5percent from record inDecember to 78.57 milliontons last month, the customsagency said.

The country will continueto phase out overcapacity inits steel industry, which canproduce 1.16 billion tons, theMinistry of Industry andInformation Technology saidlast Thursday.

Domestic steel consump-tion shrank 3.4 percent to738.3 million tons last year,the China Iron & Steel Associ-ation estimates. That was the first demand contractionsince the 1990s, according toSanford C. Bernstein & Co.

Steel reinforcement-bar,used in construction andtraded on the ShanghaiFutures Exchange, fell 0.8percent to 2,477 yuan ($396)a ton on Monday. Prices aredown 28 percent in the last12 months.

DATA

Steel exports rise for record fifth month

A foundry of Hebei Iron and Steel Group Co Ltd in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province. China shipped 10.29 million metric tons of steelproducts in January, a 52 percent rise from the same month of last year. CHEN XIAODONG / FOR CHINA DAILY

Source: customs.gov.cn SU JINGBO / CHINA DAILY

Commodity imports in January (year-on-year)Volume (million tons) price (yuan/ton) % change

78.57

27.9816.78

1.15

10.07

0.1

-9.4-0.6

-53.2

-14.7

16.4

-9.5

438.6 2,855.8 415.37,480 2,581.5

248,057

Iron ore

Crude Coal Steel Grain Auto

-45.1-41.4 -18.4

-1.4

-13.3-9.9

Iron ore

Crude Coal Steel Grain Auto(million units) (yuan/unit)

Short-term meas-ures such as cut-ting capitalexpenditure toreduce costs areunderstandable.”Richard Bailey, executive vice-president and director of theAsia-Pacific region and MiddleEast for DNV GL

7.87 percent

The fall in China’s crude oilimports month-on-monthduring January

...the data mayincrease the needfor macroeconomicpolicy measures tosupport growth.”Royal Bank of Scotland report

16 BUSINE S S Tuesday, February 10, 2015 CHINA DAILY USA

By BLOOMBERG

Beijing Yanjing Brewery Co,China’s third-largest beermak-er, plans to sell about a 20 per-cent stake to a foreign strategicpartner, according to peoplewith knowledge of the matter.

The company, which isbacked by the Beijing munici-pal government, has reachedout to potential investorsincluding overseas brewers,two of the people said.

The stake could be valued atabout $700 million based onYanjing’s current share price,according to data compiled byBloomberg.

President Xi Jinping hasbeen encouraging State-ownedenterprises to bring in outsideinvestors and boost competi-tiveness as part of the nation’smost sweeping economicreforms since 1978. Such a dealwould give Yanjing, the onlymajor Chinese brewer withoutan overseas partner, access toforeign know-how and tech-nology to counter slowing salesgrowth in the world’s second-largest economy.

Yanjing shares rose 1.7 per-cent to 7.93 yuan in Shenzhenon Monday, giving the compa-

ny a market value of $3.6 bil-lion. An official in Yanjing’sinvestor relations depart-ment, who would not give hername, said she was unawareof the plan.

State-backed China Resour-ces Enterprise Ltd produces thenation’s best-selling Snow BeerthroughajointventurewithUKbrewer SABMiller Plc. TsingtaoBrewery Co, the country’s sec-ond-largest beermaker, is 19.99percent owned by Japan’s AsahiBreweries Ltd, according to its2013 annual report.

Anheuser-Busch acquired

control of Harbin BreweryGroupLtd,based innortheast-ern China’s so-called Ice City,for $738 million in 2004, datacompiled by Bloomberg show.The Harbin brand is now soldby Anheuser-Busch InBev NV,which took over Anheuser-Busch in 2008.

Yanjing is controlled byHong Kong-listed BeijingEnterprises Holdings Ltd,whose largest shareholder isan investment arm of the capi-tal city’s government, accord-ing to the Beijing Enterprisesannual report.

INDUSTRY

Yanjing seeks foreign buyerfor strategic 20% holding

The production line of Yanjing Brewery Co in Beijing. The companyhas reportedly reached out to potential strategic investorsincluding overseas brewers. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

By BLOOMBERG

Hong Kong and New Yorkoffer the lowest returns foroffices among the world’smajor markets even as pricesincrease because of demandfor high-quality properties,according to global propertyagent Savills Plc.

Grade-A commercial prop-erties in Hong Kong’s centralbusiness district yielded 2.85percent and New York’s 3.29percent after excluding tenantincentives, the Savills/DeakinUniversity World Office YieldSpectrum, released on Mon-day, showed. San Franciscoand Singapore had the highesteffective yields, at 5.39 percentand 4.85 percent respectively.

“Pension funds, sovereignwealth funds, insurance com-panies and even high networth individuals are all con-tributing to the weight ofmoney chasing real estate

assets” and boosting prices inAsia, Savills said.

“The search for top-tierproperties that offer investorspeace of mind continues towin out over the quest forhigher yield” in the UnitedStates, the study showed.

Effective yield, whichdeducts incentives from mar-ket rents, is derived by divid-ing the net income from theproperty by its value and isexpressed as a percentage.Yields drop when prices risefaster than rents.

Thedecline inyields inHongKong has been driven by lowsupply of investment-gradebuildings, said Simon Smith,senior director of research forAsia-Pacific research at Savills.Foreign buyers are pushinginto prime US real estate tobenefit from the country’s eco-nomic rebound.

When incentives offered totenants are not deducted from

rents, Hong Kong and Tokyohad the lowest yields, whileSan Francisco and Sydney hadthe highest. In Tokyo, inves-tors are attracted by PrimeMinister Shinzo Abe’s aggres-sive monetary easing andimproving occupancies.Japan’s policies, dubbed Abe-nomics, have drawn interna-tional investors includingBlackstone Group LP andSingapore’s sovereign wealthfund GIC Pte, to the real estatemarket and boosted values.

London had the lowestyields among major WesternEuropean cities when incen-tives were excluded from mar-ket rents, and Berlin thehighest, the report showed.Across large Asian cities, Tai-peihadthe lowestyieldandHoChi Minh the highest. Amongmajor US markets, New Jerseyoffered the lowest and TampaBay in Florida the highestyields.

REALTY

HK, New York offer lowestreturns for office buildings

By BLOOMBERG

AmorePacific Group expectssales in China to jump 30 per-centthisyearastheSouthKore-an cosmetics producer opensmore outlets to capture awealthier Chinese middle classkeen to look more like theirKorean idols.

“China is geographicallyclose and it has a very big popu-lation,” Suh Kyung-bae, the bil-lionaire chairman of the Seoul-based holding company ofAmorePacific Corp, said in aninterview. The company recog-nized the importance of Asia’srising middle class 15 years ago,and this is still one of its maindrivers, Suh said at the cosmet-ics maker’s factory in Osan,South Korea.

AmorePacific Corp, SouthKorea’s largest cosmetics mak-er, joins companies such asHotelShillaCoandcasinooper-ator Paradise Co in benefitingfrom the rising popularity ofKorean entertainment and cul-ture, especially in China. Themaker of facial creams and gin-seng serums plans to increasethe number of Laneige and Sul-whasoo sales outlets in Chinaand work with more online

retailers tosell itsproducts, Suhsaid.

AmorePacific Group, whosebrands also include Etude andMamonde, competes withProcter&GambleCoandL’Ore-alSA insellingproducts suchasthe 270 yuan ($43) Laneige and188 yuan Innisfree-brand facialcreams in China.

The company, which has2,335 stores in China, plans toraisethatby15percentthisyear,it said.

AmorePacific Group had 2.1percent of China’s 131.4 billionyuan skin care market in 2013,the 12th-biggest share, accord-ing to Euromonitor Interna-tional. L’Oreal has the largestmarket share with 11.4 percent,according to the industryresearcher.

Suh is South Korea’s third-richest man with a net worth of$6.8 billion, according to theBloomberg Billionaires index.

AmorePacific Corp’s sharesjumped 19 percent in January,

making it the best-performingstock in the beauty and person-al care sector globally, accord-ing to data from BloombergIndustries.

China and Southeast Asiawill be the biggest growth driv-ers for the group, said KimBo-young, a Seoul-based ana-lyst at BNP Paribas SecuritiesKorea Co.

“The Southeast Asia markethas become almost half the sizeof China,” said Kim, who has abuy recommendation onAmorePacific Corp. “It is alsoenjoying faster growth, andthere is a meaningful numberof middle class looking to buyaffordable luxury brands.”

AmorePacific Group said onFeb 3 sales grew 21 percent to4.7 trillion won ($4.3 billion) in2014.Chinais itsbiggestmarketoutside South Korea andaccounted for 8.6 percent ofsales in 2013.

China may make up 30 per-cent of AmorePacific Group’stotal salesby2020,ChiefStrate-gy Officer Kim Seung-hwansaidlastyear.Thegroupexpectsto more than double sales to 12trillion won by 2020, with halfof that coming from overseas, itsaid last October.

LEISURE

South Korean cosmetics firmeyes aspiring middle class

2,335 stores

strength of AmorePacific Groupin China.

DEALS

Alibaba buys stake in MeizuDeal offers channelto expand mobileoperating system viatarget’s handsets

By EMMA GLEZand MENG JING

Alibaba Group Holding Ltdhas agreed to spend $590 mil-lion for a minority stake indomestic smartphone makerMeizu Technology Co, whichwill offer it a means to expandits mobile operating systemin China through the elec-tronics company’s handsets.

The deal is Alibaba’s largestinvestment since its listing inthe United States last year,according to a statementreleased by the group. Howev-er, its scope is unclear, withcompanies declining to offerany details.

“This could be one of thebiggest investments Alibabaand other local Internet ser-vice providers have made tosmartphone vendors so far,”said Nicole Peng, an analystat research firm Canalys.

Guangdong-based Meizu isa relatively small companycompared with major localcompetitors Xiaomi Corp,Huawei Technologies Co Ltdand Lenovo Group Ltd, aswell as foreign rivals such asUnited States-based AppleInc and South Korea’s Sam-sung Electronics Co.

The privately owned com-pany’s share of the Chinesesmartphone market is esti-mated at less than 2 percent,according to analysts. But theagreement is expected to helpAlibaba pursue plans tosecure its own mobile-operat-ing system, a similar strategyto that carried out by Ama-zon.com Inc with its Firephone.

“The investment is a win-win deal for both Alibaba andMeizu. Being China’s 10th-largest mobilephone makerin terms of shipments, Meizucan also help Alibaba attractmore mobile users to its apps,whether it is Alipay or itsonline shopping apps likeTaobao,” said James Yan, sen-ior analyst at market researchfirm International Data Corp.

The investment in Meizu isa key step in the expansion ofAlibaba’s ecosystem and animportant step in the overallmobile strategy as the compa-ny strives to bring users awider array of mobile offer-ings and experiences, saidAlibaba Chief TechnologyOfficer Jian Wang.

Meizu will benefit from thedeal by gaining access to Ali-baba’s e-commerce saleschannels and other resources.

The two groups already had astrong partnership and Meizuwas one of the few Chinesemanufacturers to preload Ali-baba’s YunOS operating sys-tem in its phones. China’smajor smartphone playersdecided to opt for Google Inc’sdominant Android mobile-operating software.

“Alibaba’s investment cangive Meizu substantial finan-cial support in expandingproduct lines and improvingmarketing and distributionchannels, which is critical forthe company as it has strug-gled with these (issues) in thepast years,” said Peng.

Alibaba’s expansion, mainlyin themobile sector,has result-ed in the company going on anaggressive spending spreesince the beginning of 2014,including paying $1.5 billionon AutoNavi Holdings Ltd, a

mobile mapping software.“Alibaba will still be open in

terms of cooperating withmultiple hardware vendorsand this acquisition could beonly just the beginning ofmany investments this year,”said Peng.

The future of China’sonline retail spending isclosely linked to mobile use.

Online retail spending israpidly increasing and isexpected to surpass $1 trillionby 2019, helped by the use ofsmartphones, according toForrester Research Inc.Spending via mobile phonesis expected to grow twice asfast as online sales in the nextfive years, analysts said.

Contact the writers at emma-gonzalez@chinadaily.com.cnand mengjing@chinadaily.com.cn

A customer using a Meizu smartphone at a showroom in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province. AlibabaGroup Holding Ltd has agreed to spend $590 million for a minority stake in domestic smartphonemaker Meizu Technology Co. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY