China Daily - 30.07.2019

CHINA

CHINA DAILY Tuesday, July 30, 2019 | 5

Cyber-based

fundraising to

get closer look

More than 90 billion yuan collected

by charities last year, much of it online

By LI LEI

[email protected]

With billions of charitable clicks

and donations recorded online last

year, officials with the Ministry of

Civil Affairs told a news conference

on Monday that more will be done

to counter misconduct involving

internet-based fundraising and

crowdfunding.

Jia Xiaojiu, director of the minis-

try’s new philanthropy and social

work department, said China had

more than 7,500 charities last year,

bringing in public donations of 90

billion yuan ($13.1 billion), a consid-

erable amount of which were made

online.

The government-approved fund-

raising websites received 8.46 bil-

lion page views last year, and many

fundraisers have reported that near-

ly 80 percent of their donations

were raised in the cybersphere, he

said.

The director cited Tencent Foun-

dation’s popular “99 Charity Day” as

an example. He said more than 28

million netizens participated in the

annual charity event on Sept 9,

donating 830 million yuan through

on-screen clicks.

“It’s safe to say that China has

been leading the online fundraising

growth globally,” he said.

Jia said his office, established ear-

ly last year during the latest govern-

ment reshuffle, has been committed

to boosting transparency and over-

sight for internet fundraisers.

It has also worked to guide plat-

forms for crowdfunding for medical

bills — which authorities said were

soliciting efforts by individuals rath-

er than charities — to ramp up

efforts to counter scams, he added.

A recent case centered on the Bei-

jing cross-talk performer Wu Shuai,

whose wife launched a crowdfund-

ing effort online in May aimed at

paying his medical bills.

But many netizens said they felt

cheated by Wu’s family after they

found that they own a car and two

apartments in Beijing, a city known

for its high housing prices. It was

also discovered that Wu was covered

by health insurance.

While speaking at the event, Li

Bo, inspector at the new depart-

ment, said multiple measures had

been taken to better monitor chari-

table endeavors in cyberspace.

That includes making it compul-

sory to register fundraising activities

with authorities and upload its data

to cishan.chinanpo.gov.cn, a plat-

form established by the ministry that

allows donors to review charities’

programs, he said. The ministry has

also created a credit system that will

subject those who misbehave to joint

punishments in multiple sectors.

Experts defend anti-terrorism effort in Xinjiang

By MAO WEIHUA in Urumqi

[email protected]

A group of Chinese experts said

the United States has been adopt-

ing double standards on anti-ter-

rorism and deradicalization and

using issues related to China’s

measures — introduced in the Xin-

jiang Uygur autonomous region to

fight terrorism and religious

extremism — as a tool to interfere

in China’s domestic affairs.

The experts, who specialize in

studies in the fields of human

rights, international relations and

anti-terrorism, made the remarks at

a seminar held recently in Urumqi,

capital of Xinjiang.

Wang Yu, an associate researcher

with the Institute of Chinese Border-

land Studies, said fighting terrorism

and eliminating religious extrem-

ism are common global problems.

China’s anti-terror measures imple-

mented in Xinjiang in recent years,

including the establishment of voca-

tional education centers, have pro-

vided a new solution to the global

fight against terrorism.

As part of the measures adopted

to prevent violent attacks and elim-

inate the breeding of religious

extremism, Xinjiang has set up

such centers around the region in

accordance with the local anti-

extremism regulation.

The centers give free classes on

the country’s common language,

impart knowledge of the law and

provide vocational skills for the

trainees who have been influenced

by terrorism and extremism and

are suspected of minor criminal

offenses. The centers have proved

effective in eliminating religious

extremism, Shohrat Zakir, chair-

man of the regional government,

said in March.

For some time, Xinjiang has seen

frequent incidents of terrorist

attacks. However, there have been

no such incidents in the region for

nearly three years thanks to those

measures. Furthermore, the spread

of religious extremism, which lead

to violent attacks in the past, has

also been curbed, Wang said.

Li Wei, a researcher with the Chi-

na Institutes of Contemporary

International Relations, said Chi-

na’s measures on deradicalization

offer a successful case study to the

international community and have

won widespread recognition and

acclaim.

Gu Liyan, a researcher with the

Xinjiang Academy of Social Scien-

ces, said the US uses human rights

issues to erode public trust in gov-

ernments of other countries and

create social conflict and unrest

there to maintain its global power.

“Whatever measures or policies

China adopted to fight terrorism

and religious extremism will never

accord with the so-called human

rights standards of the US,” she

said. “Its goal is to cause conflicts in

China and create obstacles during

the country’s development.”

The propaganda warfare waged

by the US and some other Western

countries against China on Xin-

jiang-related issues is unable to

conceal their strategic anxiety and

predicament, said Shu Hongshui,

an anti-terrorism expert at North-

west University of Political Science

and Law.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

Environmental upgrades

result in huge influx of

summer tourists in Yibin

By HUANG ZHILING

in Yibin, Sichuan

[email protected]

Wang Kaiping, a 54-year-old res-

taurant owner in Yibin, Sichuan

province, sells 4,000 to 5,000 bowls

of iced cake made of glutinous rice

a day.

Despite the summer heat, lots of

tourists visit Yibin, the first city on

the upper reaches of the Yangtze

River, and many try the iced cake, a

famous local snack.

According to Hu Xiaoping, an

information officer with the Yibin

government, the huge influx of

tourists has much to do with the

environmental upgrades in the

city.

A decade ago, many ships serving

as restaurants were anchored in

the Yibin section of the Yangtze Riv-

er, polluting the river with its litter.

Sand dredgers wrought havoc, and

shanties on both sides of the river

discharged sewage directly into the

water.

The city has spent nearly 10 years

relocating shanty residents and

banning the sand dredgers and

ship restaurants, Hu said.

After relocating nearly 2,

households in 2013, the city

restored nearly 67 hectares of land

to build Yangtze Park.

The park, costing nearly 600 mil-

lion yuan ($87 million), has attract-

ed a daily average of over 10,

tourists — nearly 100,000 people

on a peak day — since it opened in

2015.

Environmental upgrading has

drawn not only tourists but also

Wang, the iced cake seller.

“My daughter and I were

migrant workers in Guangzhou,

Guangdong province. When we

saw many tourists in our home city,

we returned to sell iced cakes,”

Wang said. “It is nice to work at

home, and we can earn about

300,000 yuan a year.”

Each bowl of iced cake is sold for

2 yuan, and I earn much more than

I did when I was a migrant worker

in Guangzhou, she said.

To build an ecological screen on

the upper reaches of the Yangtze,

Sichuan stresses protection of both

the river and its tributaries.

Minjiang, an important tributary

of the Yangtze, flows through Mei-

shan, which has witnessed boom-

ing economic development in

recent years. Although Meishan is

only a small city, 32 of the Fortune

500 firms have settled there.

The city requires all firms to be

located in industrial parks to

ensure centralized treatment of

sewage, providing 10 square meters

of wetland for each ton of sewage to

ensure it can be further treated,

according to Wu Haijun, an infor-

mation officer with the Meishan

government.

Sichuan has resorted to legisla-

tion to protect the tributaries of the

Yangtze. The Regulations on Water

Environment Protection of the

Tuojiang River Basin, which will

come into effect on Sept 1, is meant

to safeguard the basin’s water envi-

ronment.

The basin, a core area of the eco-

logical screen in the upper reaches

of the Yangtze, boasts more than 25

percent of Sichuan’s population

and 30 percent of its GDP. But it is

also Sichuan’s most polluted river,

said Hou Xiaochun, deputy head of

the Standing Committee of the Si-

chuan Provincial People’s Congress.

Popularity of travel surges among younger generation

By HE QI in Shanghai

[email protected]

Traveling abroad to experience dif-

ferent cultures has become popular

for a surging number of Chinese dur-

ing the two-month summer vacation,

according to industry reports.

The growth has been most obvious

in the country’s third and fourth tier

cities, especially in the north, with an

increase of at least 50 percent in the

number of outbound tourists from

there, according to a recent report on

outbound tourism released by Aliba-

ba and its travel portal, Feizhu.

In comparison, big cities such as

Beijing and Shanghai registered rel-

atively slower growth.

Shanghai, which remains the

country’s top city for the number of

outbound tourists this summer, wit-

nessed 18 percent annual growth.

The surge in young tourists has

also changed the popularity of some

destinations. For example, a tour

featuring the making of Harry Pot-

ter in London has enjoyed the fast-

est growth among Chinese tourists

this summer. That was followed by

The Sanctuary of Truth — an all-

wood religious building in Thailand

— and the Sagrada Familia, an

unfinished Catholic church in Bar-

celona, Spain.

The young generation loves

amusement parks, galleries and oth-

er places where they can experience

local culture, rather than just shop-

ping, the report said.

Statistics from online travel ser-

vice Ctrip show that the generation

born after 2000 accounted for 36

percent of tourists traveling abroad

last summer, said Leng Shengbao,

the operation manager of Ctrip.

“Based on ticket reservation data,

most in the post-2000 generation

choose Japan, Thailand and Singapo-

re as their top destinations,” Leng said.

As family wealth grows, parents

are more willing to invest in tourism

to provide extracurricular education

for their children, Leng explained.

Many school-age children travel

abroad by joining summer camps,

according to Le Yi, the operation

director of Weekend Hotels, an app

for hotel reservations.

Le said she has taken her 6-year-

old child to around 10 countries

including Cambodia, Malaysia,

Singapore and Japan. The family

spends about 100,000 yuan

($14,500) on travel each year, a situ-

ation Le said is common for other

families around her.

“It is important to let the kid go

somewhere and convert theoretical

knowledge to personal experiences

after reading all the cultural and his-

torical background in books,” Le

said. “It definitely broadens their

horizons and helps them to relax.”

As Chinese society develops,

occupations forced to evolve

NANJING — Gao Yugen, a

79-year-old knife sharpener, is one

of many old-timers well-known

among the generation of the 1980s

and 1990s.

Wandering with a beaten-up tool-

box, Gao was recognized for his clear

voice while yelling “knife-sharpen-

ing” throughout a village in the city

of Wuxi, Jiangsu province. Now the

profession has almost vanished.

“Modern knives have become bet-

ter and better, and I was left with

nothing to do, so I just quit,” Gao said.

The once-popular occupation was

even removed from the official dic-

tionary of occupational titles pub-

lished in 1999.

The disappearance of these old

jobs is a reflection of the develop-

ment of the country over the past

decades.

“Repairing broken things was the

first thing that came to our mind in

the old days, so even fixing a bowl or

a pot could become a profession,”

said Gao Yong’an, associate professor

at Renmin University of China.

In 1978, China started the reform

and opening-up process, kick-start-

ing the country’s transformation

from a centrally-planned economy

into a market economy. A range of

old occupations, such as grain and

oil managers, are becoming obsolete.

Industrialization, the fast evolu-

tion of technology and increased

incomes have also weeded out many

outdated professions, including

pager operators, pen menders and

peddlers who walk the streets carry-

ing various goods on shoulder poles.

Now many of them have become

deliverymen, Taobao customer ser-

vice staff or migrant workers.

Some occupations have trans-

formed. For example, Wu Xiuping,

from Jiangsu province, used to be a

nanny. Now her job title is child care

professional, one who is trained to

provide modern child care services

rather than just using their own

experiences.

“The responsibilities of traditional

nannies has now split into a variety

of new jobs, including domestic

worker and professionals offering

child care or aged care services,” Wu

said. “The monthly income of some

of these occupations can top 10,

yuan ($1,450), but they are more

recognized than traditional nannies.”

In harvest seasons, Ren Haishui,

from Yuncheng in Shanxi province,

shuttles between the peach forests

to spray pesticides with drones.

Drone flyer has become a popular

job as it reduces workloads, which

was greater with old-fashioned

sprayers, Ren said.

Ren’s occupation was included as

one of 13 new professions in a report

published by the Ministry of Human

Resources and Social Security in

April.

Most of the new occupations are

related to leading technology such

as AI, cloud computing and big data.

Data from the China Academy of

Information and Communications

Technology showed that the total

market for cloud computing in China

increased by 39.2 percent to 96.3 bil-

lion yuan in 2018, and individuals in

this field are popular in job markets.

“Artificial intelligence is generat-

ing an increasing number of prom-

ising job opportunities,” said Lin

Zhiyu, who is starting his own busi-

ness in the area of the internet of

things. “Courses in related areas

such as robot education and pro-

gramming are also well-received

among teenagers.”

XINHUA

Stand and deliver

Residents exercise in the morning at the Meishan Dongpo Wetland

Park in Meishan, Sichuan province.

YANG ZHENGNAN / FOR CHINA DAILY

Traffic police stand in floodwater to steer cars away from danger on highway G108 in Yuncheng, Shanxi province, on Monday. A storm

hit the south of Shanxi on Monday, and many parts of the highway were flooded. GAO XINSHENG / FOR CHINA DAILY