such an unfriendly and offensive manner,” Wang said, adding t
As a prominent expert on China-US studies for decade
Zhu also was twice denied single-entry visas to the US.
“This shows how the US is trying to block normal social exchanges bet
ween the two countries, an important channel for mutual understanding and trust,” Zhu said.
Besides scholars in social sciences, the US also began last year to make it harder for Chinese graduate students to get visas if they stud
y in “sensitive research fields”. It warned biomedical researchers at US universities to beware of “Chinese spies
trying to steal information from their laboratories”, according to The New York Times report.
Jon Taylor, a professor of political science of the University o
f St. Thomas in Houston, said the decision is “both absurd and exceedingly shortsighted”.
“These scholars and researchers are social scientists with a long history of interactin
g with their American counterparts as well policymakers in both countries,” he said.
“They are scholars teaching and researching what I teach and research. What are they going to steal?”
Wang, the Chinese think tank member, said many of
nternational relations scholars of his generation think of the US
as an example of the value of “freedom, democracy, fairness and human rights”.
“But those words are no longer applicable to describe the US today,” he said.
Wang said that for him, cancellation of the visa is nothing m
ore than a short-term absence from US academic activities, and “it is the US’ loss, not ours”.
He also said the decision would not affect the Chinese think tank he leads in continuing aca
demic exchanges with the US, and he suggests that China should not take countermeasures over such matters.
“No matter how petty the US becomes, China should still stick to its open attitude rather compete for who’s worse,” he said.
The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is not a geopolitical tool or a debt trap for particip
ating countries, but a platform for cooperation, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday.
Wang made the remark at a press conference ahead of the second Belt and Road F
orum on International Cooperation, which will be held in Beijing next week.
Paris fire sends alarm on relics protectionhedral in Pa
An inferno that destroyed the spire and a large portion of the wooden roof structure of the 12th-century Notre Dame Cathedral in Pa
ris on Monday reinforced a cautionary message to Chinese authorities about the need to better protect vulnerable heritage sites.
The National Cultural Heritage Administration held a staff meeting on Tuesday night at wh
ich officials discussed the Paris fire and six major fires that have taken place at Chinese cultural heritage sites this year.
“The fire at Notre Dame in Paris rang the warning bell for us,” Song Xi
nchao, deputy director of the administration, said in an interview on Tuesday.
“The safety of cultural heritage sites is a red line that can never be crossed. It’s a global issue,” he said.
The six fires were in Sichuan, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang provinces, officials said.
On Jan 6, a hall at Yunyan Temple in Jiangyou, Sichuan province, burned down. On
Feb 2, a wooden family temple from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in Nanchang, Jiangxi, was destroyed by fire.
D’s stock tumbled after the student first accused Liu in A
August, and its shares have slowly crawled back since Decembe
r. Hong Tao, an analyst from GF Securities, said the tech heavyweight has faced troubles. JD’s adv
anced logistics system, which is its core strength, has been overtaken by Alibaba’s Cainiao Logistics.
JD is in the spotlight as it is reducing salaries for its delivery staff and seeing a round
of shake-ups in its management team. Its chief technology officer Zhang Chen, chief lega
l officer Long Yu, and chief public affairs officer Lan Ye, all announced their resignation within just one month.
The company said in February that it would lay off 10 percent of its senior executives above vice-president level this year.
The 7-coin set contains two gold coins and five silver coins, with a variety of shapes. Designs i
nclude traditional Chinese ornamentation, dragon, phoenix, flowers and bird. All are legal tender.
The coins are made by Shenzhen Guobao Mint, Shenyang Mint and Shanghai Mint.
It will continue to make operational adjustments to focus
efforts on cross-border sales in China and to keep improving the experience for bo
th Chinese customers and global selling partners.
Amazon entered China in 2004, when it bought a local online boo
kseller for $75 million. Since then, it has invested in wareh
ouses, data centers and programs to teach Chinese sellers how to get their goods to Amazon customers.
In October 2016, Amazon launched in China its Amazon Prime, the first unlimited free cross-border shipping memb
ership program that operates globally, in an attempt to lure the rising number of quality-conscious Chinese buye
rs to buy foreign products.isual China Group, which owns Chinese photo platform vcg.com, was fined 300,000 yua
n ($44,758) for flawed supervision of user content, according to a company statement late Thursday.
The bond pricing mechanism will be further improv
Under a pilot scheme, the first group of six provinces and cities sold 6.8 billion yuan in bonds
at commercial bank counters to individual buyers between March 22 and early April.
The coupon rates are between 3.01 percent and 3.33 percent, higher than treasury b
onds issued by the central government as well as bank deposits with the same maturity.
Gross local bond issuances hit 1.18 trillion yuan in the first qua
rter, compared with only 219.5 billion yuan in the same period last year.
The total quota for 2019 local government bond issuances is 3.08 trillion yuan, according to the Ministry of Finance.
“About 60 percent of the bonds were issued for ongoing construction, especially
for shantytown renovation projects, railways and roads,” said Hao Lei, head of the ministry’s Budget Department.
While debt financing continues to grow, the government is experiencing sharp declin
es in fiscal revenue growth, especially from tax and land sales, official data showed.
hinese ‘can help Notre Dame revival’stunned France wou
hina can lend a helping hand in the rebuilding of Paris’s Notre Dam
e Cathedral, whose spire and roof were destroyed by the huge fire that engulfed the 8
50-year-old Gothic building on Monday evening, said a historian from Cambridge University.
Alan Macfarlane, a historian and professor emeritus at King’s College, said that give
n China’s widely acknowledged engineering and construction expertise, “it would be a very appreciated gesture if the pe
ople of China offered their help in whatever way the French thought appropriate to rebuild a symbol for all of our world”.
“The Chinese have built the largest airport in the world, a far larger job than rebuilding
Notre Dame, in less than three years,” Macfarlane said. “They could be of immense help.”
President Xi Jinping sent a message of support to French President E
mmanuel Macron on Tuesday, expressing sincere condolences to all French people.
We will rebuild this cathedral all together and it is un
tedly part of the French destiny and the project we will have for the coming years … a national subscription will be launched, and well beyon
d our borders we will appeal to the greatest talent, and there are many who will come to contribute and rebuild,” Macron said.
We will rebuild Notre Dame, because that’s what French people e
xpect, because it’s what our history deserves and because it’s our deep destiny,” he added.
Already, two of France’s wealthiest men have pledged large donations. Billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of the Ke
ring group, which owns fashion brands including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga, pledged 100 m
illion euros ($113 million) toward rebuilding Notre Dame, Agence France-Presse reported.
Bernard Arnault, chief executive of the LVMH group, which owns fa
shion labels including Louis Vuitton and Bulgari, said he would donate 200 million euros.
Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, Notre Dame, which has rece
ived about 13 million visitors each year－more than the Eiffel Tower－is regard
ed as one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and sits at the heart of the nation’s history.
In 2017 the institute’s bioethics review committee
n evaluated and approved the experiment before applying for National Natural Scie
