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one animal in particular, which

some villagers refer to as the

“naughty one”. Others have nick-

named it “the terrorist”.

The male Asian elephant,

which Wu estimates weighs more

than 2 metric tons, is worthy of its

reputation.

On Aug 4, it entered an urban

area of Mengla county, where the

Nanha community is located. Vid-

eos uploaded to the internet by local

residents show the animal roaming

Ethics body set to improve oversight of tech

By WANG XIAODONG

[email protected]

The establishment of a national

ethics committee on science and

technology will improve supervi-

sion and ensure they develop

along the right path, experts said.

“There have long been calls to set

up a top-level ethics committee to

enable unified supervision of scien-

tific research,” said Zhai Xiaomei,

deputy director of the National

Health Commission’s Expert Com-

mittee on Medical Science Ethics.

China announced a plan to estab-

lish a national science and technol-

ogy ethics committee on July 24,

but details have not been released.

CONFLICT ESCALATES BETWEEN

HUMANS AND ELEPHANTS

X

Monitor uses drones to check on animals’ whereabouts

By HOU LIQIANG

in Mengla, Yunnan

[email protected]

W

hen Wu Junhui visits

Nanha, a communi-

ty in Yunnan prov-

ince, he always

attracts crowds of curious villag-

ers, whether he arrives in the

small hours or during the day.

The size of his audience can

range from about 10 people to all of

the community’s population of

around 40.

Wu monitors elephants by using

unmanned aerial vehicles, or

drones, and the first question the

residents ask him is if he has seen

the streets, leaving huge footprints

in some unpaved areas, and even

trying to climb a low wall. It placed

its front feet on the wall a number of

times before giving up.

More than 30 police officers were

tasked with ensuring the elephant

did not enter densely populated are-

as and cause injuries.

But this elephant has been far

from being merely naughty.

According to local authorities, in

May, it killed a villager working on

a rubber plantation who tried to

scare it away, and in December it

kicked and seriously injured

another resident.

See Village, page 2

Inside

Editorial, page 8

By CAO DESHENG
[email protected]

President Xi Jinping underscored
the importance of ecological conser-
vation in the nation’s drive for high-
quality development during his
inspection tour of Gansu province
on Wednesday.
Xi, also general secretary of the
Communist Party of China Central
Committee, visited a new communi-
ty on Wednesday in Gulang county,
which is home to people moved from
rural mountainous areas due to eco-
logical concerns, and he talked with
the villagers about their livelihoods
and the progress in poverty relief.
The president also inspected an
afforestation program in a desert
area of the province, where he
learned of the latest developments
in desertification control and envi-
ronmental protection.
Thanks to local people’s consist-
ent efforts, more than 14,400 hec-
tares of desert in Gulang have been
afforested since 1981, China Central
Television reported.
When Xi visited a horse ranch
in Shandan county on Tuesday, a
vast grassland on the north side of
the Qilian Mountains, he was
briefed by local government offi-
cials about the progress of ecolog-
ical restoration in the area.
The Qilian Mountains are a vital
ecological shield in western China,
Xi said.
He expressed satisfaction with the
effectiveness of the restoration work,
and urged the local government to
keep making efforts in this regard.
The Qilian Mountains are on the
border of Gansu and Qinghai
provinces. The 1.98-million-hec-
tare nature reserve was designated
a national protected site in 1988,
but hundreds of mines in the area

and construction projects have

continued to take a toll on the

environment.

In July 2017, the general offices of

the CPC Central Committee and

the State Council jointly released a

document, urging the local govern-

ments to address the existing envi-

ronmental issues in the nature

reserve, such as the over-exploita-

tion of mineral resources, illegal

construction and operation of

hydropower facilities, and exces-

sive emissions by local enterprises.

A number of local officials, includ-

ing three at the provincial level,

have been held accountable for the

environmental violations.

Xi said Gansu’s ecological conser-

vation work conforms to the new

development philosophy that calls

for innovative, coordinated, green,

open and shared economic growth.

The nation is at a crucial and chal-

lenging stage in its development

endeavors, Xi told officials, and to

achieve high-quality development, it

needs to guide the people to be aware

that lucid waters and lush moun-

tains are invaluable assets.

China has set the goal of winning

the critical battle of pollution pre-

vention and control in 2020, and

basically attaining a fundamental

improvement in the environment

and the goal of building a beautiful

China by 2035.

When he visited Bailie School, a

vocational school in Shandan coun-

ty, on Tuesday, Xi stressed the

importance of developing vocation-

al education.

China’s northwestern region lags

behind in development due to its

natural conditions, Xi noted, say-

ing that although development

conditions vary from region to

region, there should be no differ-

ence in equality of opportunity.

China’s economy needs the

support of the real economy,

which requires a large number of

professional and technical per-

sonnel and craftsmen, Xi said,

adding that vocational education

can contribute a lot.

President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, works at an afforestation program in Gulang

county, Gansu province. He learned about the latest developments in desertification control during the inspection tour.XIE HUANCHI / XINHUA

China, Japan, ROK vow

to uphold multilateralism

By MO JINGXI
[email protected]

China, Japan and the Republic
of Korea vowed on Wednesday to
advocate multilateralism and
promote regional peace, making
their cooperation the cornerstone
of Northeast Asia’s prosperity and
stability.
This was agreed on by State
Councilor and Foreign Minister
Wang Yi, Japanese Foreign Minis-
ter Taro Kono and ROK Foreign
Minister Kang Kyung-wha during
the ninth meeting of the three
countries’ foreign ministers in
Beijing on Wednesday.
They also agreed to maintain
bilateral ties and actively promote
trilateral cooperation, and speed
up negotiations on the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Part-
nership and the China-Japan-ROK

free trade agreement, to jointly

safeguard free trade.

“China will continue to resolute-

ly promote all-around opening-up,

... which will absolutely bring new

opportunities for the development

of the ROK and Japan as well as

providing broad space for trilateral

cooperation,” Wang said at a news

conference after the meeting.

According to Wang, they also

agreed on the necessity of strength-

ening communication and coordi-

nation on macroeconomic policy

among the three countries and

building an open world economy

given the downward pressure

faced by the global economy.

See Meeting, page 4

State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (center), Japanese For-
eign Minister Taro Kono (right) and Republic of Korea Foreign Minister
Kang Kyung-wha attend a ceremony marking the launch of a picture
album featuring the three countries after the ninth meeting of the coun-
tries’ foreign ministers on Wednesday in Beijing.ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY

Xi calls for continuing ecological efforts

Public awareness

of lucid waters,

lush hills urged

Cloned cat

brings real

comfort to

its owner

By WANG KEJU

[email protected]

A Chinese biotech company pro-

duced the country’s first cloned cat

last month, offering a solution for

cat lovers heartbroken by the death

of a beloved pet.

The cloned British Shorthair cat,

named Dasuan — Garlic in English

— was born on July 21, 66 days after a

successful embryo transfer in a labo-

ratory of Beijing based-Sinogene, the

biotech company.

“My cat (also called Dasuan) died

of illness in January. If it weren’t for

my carelessness in missing the best

time for his treatment, he would be

3 years old now,” said Huang Yu,

Dasuan’s owner.

Sinogene created the world’s first

cloned dog using the somatic cell

transfer technique in 2017.

“We began cat cloning research

and experiments in August last

year,” said Zhao Jianping, vice-presi-

dent of Sinogene. “Although the sur-

rogate mother, a 2-year-old domestic

cat, is not the same breed as Dasuan,

she is showing great maternal

instincts and taking good care of the

cloned offspring.”

The dead cat that supplied the cells

for cloning and the cloned kitten look

identical and have a great chance of

having similar behavior, Zhao said.

“The cloned kitten is 90 percent

like my original cat,” Huang said.

Dasuan had been dead for nearly

six hours when Huang recalled the

news about the cloned dog and con-

tacted Sinogene. Staff members told

him to make a quick decision

because it would be better to extract

the cells within 24 hours.

“I had already buried the cat by

that time,” Huang said. “Thanks to

the cold weather in winter, the body

was relatively well preserved.”

He wrapped the exhumed cat’s

body in a wet towel and placed it in

the refrigerator, as instructed by Sino-

gene. The next morning, the compa-

ny extracted tissue beneath the skin

of its thigh to retrieve cells for cloning.

Shi Zhensheng, a member of the

Chinese Association of Animal Sci-

ence and Veterinary Medicine, said

cloning a cat was not easy.

“Cats are different from most ani-

mals as they cannot ovulate sponta-

neously, which adds to the

difficulties during the cloning proc-

ess,” he said. “The cultivation of the

cloned cat is one of the few success-

ful cases in the world, marking a

major step for China in this field.”

Sinogene charges 250,000 yuan

($35,400) to clone a cat and

380,000 yuan for a dog.

“My family doesn’t understand

why I insisted on spending so much

money on cloning a cat. But it provid-

ed me with a chance to ease my pain,”

Huang said, adding that he can’t wait

to take Dasuan home in October.

Zhao said Sinogene was interest-

ed in exploring the possibility of

transferring memories to cloned

pets if such technology ever became

available.

Dasuan, China’s first cloned cat.

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Vol.39 — No.

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Up close

Documentary focuses on three US

hosts’ trips to villages LIFE, PAGE 19

New chapter

5G technology in spotlight

at annual Beijing book fair

CHINA, PAGE 5

Marvel may

face a future of

no Spider-Man

WORLD, PAGE 10

 

US

It would be tasked with pro-

moting effective supervi-

sion and regulation of the

sector, including legislation

on ethical supervision.

The rapid development of

science and technology in

China, including life scien-

ces and artificial intelli-

gence, had created an urgent

need for the establishment of a top-

level body with overarching respon-

sibilities to ensure effective ethical

supervision of different sectors, said

Zhai, who is also director of the Chi-

nese Academy of Medical Sciences’

Life Ethics Research Center.

Different government depart-

ments had different regulations

and standards on ethical

supervision, resulting in

supervisory loopholes in

many scientific research

projects, she said.

“Following the establish-

ment of the committee,

much detailed work will

need to be done to ensure it

can effectively perform its

duties,” Zhai said.

The new committee may have

similar functions to national ethics

committees in countries such as the

United States and United Kingdom

that supervise the application of

controversial technologies, she said.

See Ethics, page 3

Zhai

Xiaomei