The Year of the Rooster Review

3. A fundamental task for the new era

China announced it will establish Xiongan New Area in North China’s Hebei province, about 100 kilometers southwest of downtown Beijing, covering the counties of Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin. A fundamental task for the new era, it will absorb part of the non-capital functions of Beijing.

We invited a professor to comment:

While designed to offload part of Beijing’s noncapital functions, which have not yet been elaborated by decision-makers, Xiongan New Area attaches equal importance to “reform” and “opening-up”. In other words, the new area has great potential to become an exemplary economic zone driven by reform and innovation.

Xiongan New Area is also expected to guide the overhauling of the economic mechanism. The reform in previous new areas has been mostly “opening-up oriented”, which is in line with the country’s reform and opening-up practice over the past decades. Xiongan’s mode may create a reform-driven model.

On its part, the new area needs to seize the opportunity to improve its not-so-competitive industrial base, in a bid to supplement the efforts to expedite regional integration. 5. Trump gives the world more reasons to save our planet

The US withdrew from the Paris Agreement despite opposition both at home and abroad, a move that is believed to have endangered the world’s climate safety. In an editorial, we said:

Since Trump has pulled the US out of the Paris pact and thus global climate leadership, joining “a small handful of nations that reject the future” as Obama said, the rest of the world, including China, which is committed to realizing President Xi Jinping’s vision of jointly building and protecting our shared home, have come together to express their united resolve to do even more to protect the one planet we’ve got. 6. Heritage sites show preservation progress

Hoh Xil nature reserve and Gulangyu Island were listed as world heritage sites.

We interviewed a cultural heritage expert from Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, who commented:

It should be emphasized that UNESCO’s announcement is a new beginning rather than the end for the preservation of the sites, as the local governments and managements, as well as residents have to take stricter measures for their protection.

If the local authorities, especially tourism and cultural departments, and local enterprises want to continue capitalizing on the sites’ popularity, they have to implement global standards to ensure the flow of tourists does not cause any damage to them.

Besides, the two managements have to be much more transparent about their protection methods, as media outlets will now keep a closer eye on them. Therefore, the inclusion of the two sites on the World Heritage list is only the first step of a giant project.