CHINA
4 | Thursday, August 22, 2019 CHINA DAILY
Logging to be
prohibited in
natural forests
Government plan will strengthen
recovery work and planting of trees
By YANG WANLI
[email protected]
China will take the strictest ever
forest protection methods and ban
all commercial logging of natural
forests nationwide, forestry
authorities announced on
Wednesday.
For the natural forests in the core
protection area, any production
and other commercial activities will
be also prohibited, Li Shuming,
deputy head of the State Forestry
and Grassland Administration, said
at a news conference held by the
State Council Information Office.
“Also, we will draft a plan to
plant more trees with big diame-
ters, and some rare tree species in
areas with proper environmental
conditions, to guarantee the coun-
try’s wood supply,” Li said.
He also emphasized that forest
land will not be occupied for other
purposes.
The State Council recently
released a plan to protect and
restore the country’s forests, with
the aim of reaching a total area of
200 million hectares by 2035.
According to the plan, a mecha-
nism for forest protection and res-
toration will be built for all of the
country’s natural forests by 2020.
By 2050, a fully functioning eco-
system will be complete, which will
play a fundamental role in the coun-
try’s sustainable development goals.
“Under the plan, we will further
strengthen the forest recovery
work, encouraging forest planting
on those abandoned mines and
barren hills,” Li said.
Moreover, he said the forestry
department at all levels will
enhance supervision on forest pro-
tection and restoration efforts.
Supervision will be included in the
local government’s annual achieve-
ment evaluation system.
“Also, we will encourage local
residents to report activities that
destroy forests to the local depart-
ment,” Li said.
China launched the Natural For-
est Protection Program in 1998. As
of last year, the country owns 197
million hectares of forests, of which
64 percent are natural forests.
Thanks to the program, forest
coverage in China has soared from
12 percent in the 1980s to 22.9 per-
cent last year.
In the past two decades, the cen-
tral government has spent more
than 400 billion yuan ($57 billion)
protecting about 129 million hec-
tares of forest, of which 28.5 mil-
lion were planted during that
period.
The growing forest coverage
benefits the local environment.
Along the Yangtze River, for
example, sand content dropped
by 90 percent from 2000 to 2016.
Wildlife also benefits. According
to the administration, the number
of wild Siberian tigers in Northeast
China increased from 10 in 1998 to
42 this year, and a rare North Chi-
nese Leopard was recently spotted
in Hebei province.
But forest protection and resto-
ration also face challenges.
According to Li, China’s forest area
per capita is 0.16 hectares, only
one-third of the world average.
And its forest stock per hectare is
95 cubic meters, nearly 30 percent
of that in Germany, a leading
country in forest protection.
“We will conduct scientific resto-
ration work in the future and
enhance our country’s forest quali-
ty so that it plays a stronger role in
ecological construction. Local
departments will lead the work
and we also welcome public partic-
ipation,” said Jin Min, director of
the administration’s natural forest
protection office.Amendments coming to criminal law
By CAO YIN
[email protected]A draft amendment to the Chinese
Criminal Law and a draft law on
administrative punishments are
expected to be unveiled this year,
according to a legislative official.
“We’re taking the time to study
and draft the two laws, and try to
submit them to the Standing Com-
mittee of the National People’s Con-
gress, the top legislature, for review
at a certain time of this year in line
with the legislative procedures,” said
Zang Tiewei, the first-ever spokes-
man of the committee’s Legislative
Affairs Commission.
He released the plan at the com-
mission’s first news conference
since its founding on Wednesday,
explaining that the implementation
of a spokesperson is meant to help
the public better understand the
country’s lawmaking and legislativeprocess in a timely manner.
Over the next few months, the
commission will also promote the
legislative affairs on draft sections of
the civil code, as well as on draft
amendments to the drug administra-
tion law, the securities law, the land
administration law and the urban
real estate administration law, he
added.
As for the legislation on personal
information protection, which has
been put on the NPC’s Standing
Committee’s legislative agenda, Zang
said studies and draft-related work
are still being improved.
“We’ve found some people’s legiti-
mate rights have been seriously
harmed in recent years after their
personal information was leaked,
abused or improperly collected, so
we’ve paid a lot of attention to solving
the problem through legislation,” he
said.
China has already enacted severallaws, regulations and rules relating
to the issue, such as the Criminal Law
and the Cybersecurity Law, accord-
ing to him.
Asked whether China would legal-
ize same-sex marriage at the news
conference, he said Chinese law only
allowed for marriage between a man
and a woman.
“This rule suits our country’s
national condition and historical
and cultural traditions,” he said. “As
far as I know, a majority of countries
in the world don’t recognize the
legalization of same-sex marriage.”
Besides Zang, director of the com-
mission’s research department, Yue
Zhongming, director of its legislative
planning department, was also
named as the spokesperson.
At Wednesday’s conference, Zang
added that he and his colleagues
would like to answer legislative ques-
tions from the public and increase
communication with the public.Tianjin ready to host disabled athletes
By SONG LINLIN in Beijing
and YANG CHENG in TianjinDisabled athletes will gather in
Tianjin next week for the national
games that are held once every four
years.
The 10th National Games of Dis-
abled Persons and the Seventh
Special Olympics will be held in
Tianjin from Sunday to Sept 1,
according to the China Disabled
Persons’ Federation.
This year the events will draw a
record 35 delegations with 6,
athletes, representing almost all of
China’s provinces, municipalities,
autonomous regions and the HongKong and Macao special adminis-
trative regions, the federation said
at a news conference in Beijing on
Wednesday.
The games this year have set up
43 sports, some of which have been
completed in the first half of this
year.
In Tianjin, athletes will compete
in 20 sports starting on Sunday,
according to the federation.
This will be an important occa-
sion for the athletes to prepare for
the 2020 Paralympic Games in
Tokyo and the 2022 Beijing Olympic
and Paralympic Winter Games, said
Zhang Junjie, deputy director of the
federation’s sports department.Different from previous events,
this year’s games have also allowed
amateur athletes to participate in
five sports including wheel dancing,
chess and rope skipping, he said.
Tianjin, which also hosted the
13th National Games of China in
2017, will be the first city in the coun-
try to host all three national sports
events.
The upcoming games will reuse
the city’s sports heritage — facilities
and other resources remaining after
13th National Games — in a bid to
develop a green sports meeting.Contact the writers at
[email protected]8 killed, 26 missing in Sichuan
after rainfall triggers mudslides
By LI HONGYANG
[email protected]Eight people were killed and 26
were missing after multiple mud-
slides struck Aba Tibetan and Qiang
autonomous prefecture in Sichuan
province on Tuesday, local authori-
ties said on Wednesday.
As of 7 pm on Tuesday, rain-trig-
gered disasters had affected 17 town-
ships in the prefecture, injuring six
people, three severely, according to
the prefectural emergency manage-
ment bureau.
Aba has had about 25 days of rain-
fall since July 1, greatly increasing
saturation of the soil, creating a situa-
tion prone to geological disasters like
landslides and mudslides, according
to Weather China, the weather fore-
cast website of China Meteorological
Administration.
West China Hospital based in
Chengdu has sent a helicopter to the
prefecture and taken those seriously
injured to hospital.
By Tuesday night, more than
34,000 tourists had evacuated
Wenchuan county, which was hit by
multiple mudslides following heavy
rainfall. Efforts to help roughly
13,000 tourists evacuate the area are
underway.
Local authorities are also making
efforts to help more than 12,
trapped tourists evacuate theWolong special administrative zone
in Wenchuan.
About 280 firefighters are clearing
highways across the prefecture. Vil-
lagers have also joined them. By
about 2 pm on Wednesday, the high-
way between Wenchuan and Mao-
xian county had reopened, local
authorities said.
Four other roads are only accessi-
ble to rescue vehicles: Lixian county
to Wenchuan; Sanjiang county to
Chengdu; Gengda to Chengdu; and
Maoxian county to Beichuan county.
Local authorities did not know
when other roads would reopen.
Water and power supplies remained
disrupted in the affected counties,
and firefighters are transporting freshwater to Lixian county and other pla-
ces in need. Mobile companies are
providing signals using satellite vans
in areas like Wenchuan and Yingxiu.
The China Meteorological Admin-
istration said that rainfall will sub-
side in western and northern areas of
Sichuan, where most of the mud-
slides occurred.
However, experts with the admin-
istration said that the middle part of
the province is more likely to have
heavy rain in the next few days that
could trigger mountain torrents, and
governments and residents there
should be prepared to control and
prevent disasters.Xinhua contributed to this story.Above: Rescuers and cranes clear damaged cars after torrential rains in Gengda township, Sichuan
province, on Wednesday. Below: A helicopter transfers tourists and residents trapped at Longtan hydro-
power station, where eight are still missing, to safety in Gengda on Wednesday.LIU ZHONGJUN / FOR CHINA DAILYSmuggling stops here
China, Japan and the ROK are
the world’s second-, third- and
11th-largest economies, with
their total GDP accounting for
about 20 percent of global GDP.
“We believe that, as important
manufacturing and innovation
countries, China, Japan and the
ROK should strengthen coopera-
tion in such areas as big data, arti-
ficial intelligence and 5G,” Wang
said, adding that China’s initia-
tive to make 2020 the China-Ja-
pan-ROK innovation cooperation
year was positively responded to
by the other two sides.
Kang said at the news confer-
ence that it is important to explore
and expand cooperation to enable
the people of the three countries
to earnestly feel the benefits
From page 1 brought by trilateral cooperation.
The meeting also approved a
concept paper on “Trilateral +X”
cooperation, which aims to share
successful experiences with other
countries and promote common
development.
This year marks the 20th anni-
versary of the China-Japan-ROK
cooperation mechanism. And there
was a two-year gap between this
year’s meeting and the previous
one in 2016.
Zhuang Rui, a professor of Asia-
Pacific economics at the Universi-
ty of International Business and
Economics in Beijing, said the
meeting, which came amid ten-
sions in bilateral ties and the
trend of anti-globalization, helped
to boost confidence and expecta-
tions for regional development
and the global economy.
Meeting: Countries urged
to expand high-tech synergy
Briefly
SHANGHAI
Press and publication
museum to be built
China’s first press and publica-
tion museum will complete con-
struction in 2021 in Shanghai,
local authorities said. The muse-
um on press and publication in
China’s modern history will be
located in the city’s Yangpu dis-
trict, said Xu Jiong, head of the
Shanghai press and publication
administration. Tens of thou-
sands of articles have been col-
lected since preparation for the
museum began in 2003, includ-
ing newspapers, journals and
books before the founding of the
People’s Republic of China in
1949, Xu said. The museum will
include an archive center, a cul-
tural relic repair center and an
exhibition center for innovative
cultural products.JIANGXI
Fishing ban coming
to Poyang Lake in ’
China’s largest freshwater lake,
Poyang Lake in eastern China’s
Jiangxi province, will ban fishing
year-round for a 10-year period
starting Jan 1, 2021, local authori-
ties said on Wednesday. The ban
is a key measure to prevent the
decline of biological resources
and diversity, according to the
Department of Agriculture and
Rural Affairs of Jiangxi province.
Poyang Lake is renowned for its
rich fishing resources. However,
due to persistent drought and
over-exploitation, the ecosystem
has degenerated. The provincial
government will withdraw fish-
ing licenses, offer fishermen new
jobs and boost the economy of
traditional fishing villages.FUJIAN
Over 80 captured
in oil smuggling case
More than 80 suspects have been
caught in the city of Fuzhou in a
refined oil smuggling case involv-
ing about 1.5 billion yuan (about
$213 million), local customs said
on Tuesday. The suspects were
nabbed in a coordinated opera-
tion on Aug 17 by customs and
the coast guard. Six oil-smug-
gling rings were busted with sev-
en vessels, more than 1,
metric tons of smuggled refined
oil and nearly 20 million yuan of
cash seized, local customs said.
The preliminary investigation
showed that the suspects had
trafficked around 200,000 tons of
refined oil.SICHUAN
New digging to probe
Sanxingdui Ruins
Chinese archaeologists will
launch a large-scale excavation at
the prehistoric Sanxingdui Ruins
in Sichuan province before the
end of this year. The new excava-
tion project aims to discover
more items of the lost civiliza-
tion, such as sacrificing and wor-
shipping sites and aristocratic
tombs, according to Tang Fei,
head of the Sichuan Provincial
Cultural Relics and Archaeology
Research Institute. The Sanxing-
dui Ruins are in the city of
Guanghan, around 38 kilometers
from Chengdu. They are believed
to be remnants of the Shu King-
dom, which can be dated back
2,600 years to 4,800 years. The
ruins were discovered by a farm-
er when he unearthed a bright
piece of jade in 1929.BEIJING
Issues cause 5 hotels
to lose 5-star ratings
The five-star ratings of five hotels
in China have been revoked due
to problems found during secret
investigations by the Ministry of
Culture and Tourism, according
to the ministry. The investiga-
tions found that some five-star
hotels had severe hygiene and
fire safety problems and provided
substandard services, the China
Tourist Hotel Association said.
The five hotels are Tianjin Yan
Yuan International Hotel (for-
merly Sheraton Tianjin Hotel),
Holiday Inn Binhai Tianjin, Eton
Hotel Pudong, Hilton Chongqing
and Days Hotel and Suites Dian-
ya Chongqing. The committee
also ordered 11 hotels to rectify
their problems within 12 months.XINHUAPolice display smuggled luxury goods at Gongbei customs in
Guangdong province on Tuesday. A total of 25 suspects were
caught, with more than 1,300 luxury brand items including
watches, shoes and handbags, worth approximately 160 million
yuan ($22.7 million) seized. QIAN WENPAN / FOR CHINA DAILY