Monthly News and Views on China

December 01-31, 2017

CHINESE STUDIES CENTRE (CSC), S3H, NATIONAL

UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, SECTOR

H-12, ISLAMABAD

Monthly News and Views on China

Opportunities for the development of Sino-Pakistan Maritime Sector multiply

China launches world’s first electric cargo ship China Daily DEC 6TH, 2017

With other means of transportation systems going all-electric, China has now constructed the world’s first

all-electric cargo ship producing zero-emissions. The country has already set the vehicle into working.

The ship was launched in Guangzhou city last month and runs in the inland section of Pearl River. The

ship marks itself first one in the world to use lithium battery in a completely powered cargo vessel. The

2,000-metric-ton ship was manufactured by Guangzhou Shipyard International Company Ltd. After being

charged for two hours, the vehicle contains the ability to travel up to 80 kilometers. The ship is 230 feet

long and can travel up to 12.8 km/h, with a battery capacity of 2,400 kWh – equal to the energy of 40 new

energy cars. The vehicle itself is a zero-emission of waste gas pollutants, reported China Daily.

First China-made 'smart' ship debuts in Shanghai Xinhua, December 06, 2017

China's first "smart" ship embedded with a domestically-developed intelligent navigation system made its

debut in Shanghai Tuesday. The 179-meter-long ship, Great Intelligence, is 32 meters wide and 15 meters

high, with a maximum loading capacity of 38,800 tonnes. It is installed with SOMS, a China-Developed

marine system with autonomous learning ability and intelligent operation system. It can analyze real-time

navigation and meteorological data, pick the best routes and alert the crew to hidden dangers in advance.

Developed by China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), Great Intelligence will be used by Sinotrans

Shipping to transport coal and salt between China, Australia and Southeast Asia. "Great Intelligence will

become smarter as it accumulates more data," said Qiu Bohua, with the Systems Engineering Research

Institute of CSSC. "Not only can it spot dangers and system bugs, it also can lower transport costs and

raise efficiency." Technical performance of the ship has reached advanced levels, and it has passed

official assessments by the China Classification Society and Lloyd's Register of Shipping. "It shows that

China has taken the lead in merchant ship design and construction," said Sun Feng, vice president of

China Classification Society. "The smart ship has also laid solid foundations for unmanned ship

development." Compared with Green Dolphin, an ordinary ship with the same capacity, Great

Intelligence can improve propulsive efficiency by 3 percent and cut daily oil consumption by 4 percent.

China developing first Smart Oil Carrier China Daily, December 27, 2017

Engineers with Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co are working on China's first smart crude oil carrier,

which will incorporate technology to help the captain operate the ship.The company is undertaking a

special project named "smart ship 1.0 R&D", assigned by the Ministry of Industry and Information

Technology, according to Guan Yinghua, deputy chief engineer of DSIC. "The very large intelligent

crude carrier will be the most important result of the project," said Guan, adding that smart vessels

represent the future. DSIC, based in Dalian, Liaoning province, built the country's first domestically

developed aircraft carrier. It is a subsidiary of State-owned shipbuilding giant China Shipbuilding

Industry Corp. This year, the shipyard has delivered 24 high-end vessels, including large container ships

capable of carrying 20,000 standard 20-foot containers, advanced deep-water semi-submersible drilling

platforms, China's biggest ship for transporting live animals and a very large chemical tanker. DSIC's

annual revenue is expected to exceed 20 billion yuan ($3.05 billion). The company is pushing China's

shipbuilding industry to shift from conventional shipbuilding to high-end vessels. In July, the shipyard

delivered a 319,000-ton crude carrier to China Merchants Energy Shipping Co. It is among the new

generation of energy-saving and environmentally friendly ships classified as very large crude carriers and

independently developed by Guan and her fellow engineers. DSIC is the nation's first shipyard that can

design and manufacture 300,000-ton crude carriers. It has delivered more than 70 VLCCs and has eight

orders, accounting for more than 10 percent of the total number of such carriers in operation worldwide.

Since the international financial crisis in 2008, the shipbuilding industry and the offshore industry have

been in a downturn. Despite that, DSIC has delivered more than 380 high-performance civilian ships to

owners around the world since 2006.DSIC's service spans the entire life cycle of a ship, including

research and development, construction, repair and scrapping. Guo Ping, a professor at Dalian Maritime

University, said that with a growing technical level and competitive prices, Chinese shipyards are winning

more orders.

Opportunities For development of Joint Ventures for E –Commerce in Pakistan

JD.com to build drone airports to promote logistics services China Plus, December

05, 2017.

Workers prepare to attach a package onto a drone in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province,

June 20, 2017. Delivering goods to terminal customers through drones has been normalized by JD.com

since June 18, 2017 in Xi'an. [Photo/Xinhua]

Liu Qiangdong, founder and CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, has announced plans to build

185 drone airports in Sichuan Province in order to promote logistics services in rural areas, ithomes.com

reports. Liu has made the revelation as part of a speech at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen,

Zhejiang Province, on December 4, 2017. "Due to the high costs of logistics, agricultural products sell at

higher prices in cities while industrial products sell at higher prices in remote rural areas," said Liu. Liu

Qiangdong said JD.com is already using a large network of drones in Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces, and

plans to use drones to deliver agricultural products from rural areas in Sichuan to cities across the country

within 24 hours, cutting the logistics costs in rural areas by 50 to 70 percent. This is not Liu's first move

aimed at poverty alleviation. On November 28, 2017, the internet entrepreneur was inaugurated as

honorary chief of Pingshitou Village in Fuping County, Hebei Province, one of the most impoverished

areas in the region. In a post on his microblog, Liu set a target to have a tenfold increase in the village's

average household income within five years, with all the villagers being lifted out of poverty.

Opportunities For Pakistani IT Sector

Nation ranks second in new internet index China Daily, December 05, 2017

China ranked second after the United States in an internet development index released on Monday that

gauges six dimensions from internet infrastructure to application among 38 countries. China has the

largest number of internet users and is the world's top e-commerce and mobile payment market by

transaction volume, according to the Global Internet Development Index, published during the 4th World

Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. The findings are part of the World Internet

Development Report 2017, the first such industry index China has compiled as a world-leading digital

force, said Yang Shuzhen, head of the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies. "It represents the

specification, standardization and indexing of President Xi Jinping's thought on global internet

governance," he said at a news conference. The index takes a holistic approach by assessing the level of

infrastructure, innovation capacity, industry development, internet application, cyber security and internet

governance among economies with advanced internet conditions. The rest of the top six were the

Republic of Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom and Singapore. Compared with other international indexes

that rely mostly on one specific benchmark, the Chinese plan aims to provide a comprehensive picture of

internet development so that countries can draw on each other's experience and make progress

accordingly, said Xu Yunhong, assistant to the head of the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies.

Opportunities For Pakistani IT Sector For Link Ups and Networking

Initiative on Belt and Road digital economy cooperation launched Xinhua,

December 04, 2017

China and six other countries along the Belt and Road launched an initiative to strengthen cooperation on

digital economy during the ongoing Fourth World Internet Conference in Hangzhou, east China's

Zhejiang Province Sunday. The initiative includes deeper collaboration to improve broadband access and

quality, digital transformation and e-commerce cooperation as well as to enable more support for Internet

start-ups and innovation. It also aims to promote transparent digital economy policies and establish multi-

layer communication mechanism to create a more open, orderly and safer cyberspace. Digital economy

has become an important drive for global economic growth. It can help improve productivity, foster new

markets and industries as well as promote sustainable growth, according to the initiative.

Attendees are seen at the launching ceremony of "The Belt and Road" Digital Economy International

Cooperation Initiative during the 4th World Internet Conference, in the water town of Wuzhen, east

China's Zhejiang Province, Dec. 3, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

"The initiative will become a guide for us to push forward cutting-edge technological cooperation,

optimize innovation environment and gather innovative resources," said Lin Nianxiu, deputy head of

China's National Development and Reform Commission. Bounsaleumsay Khennavong, Vice Minister of

Laos' Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications said the initiative offered all member states new

opportunities for closer cooperation and would lower the development gap in digital economy between

participating countries. Majed Almesmar, Deputy Director General of the Telecommunications

Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates said the proposal could help their digital reform and

transformation as well as deal with challenges in the new area of big data and cloud computing. The

Fourth World Internet Conference opened Sunday and is themed on "Developing digital economy for

openness and shared benefits -- building a community of common future in cyberspace."

Opportunities For Pakistani Exporters

China could become world's largest importer by 2022 Xinhua, December 05, 2017:

China is expected to overtake the United States to become the world's largest importer within five years, a

leading Chinese investment firm said Monday. In the past ten years, China's annual average import

growth was 6 percentage points higher than the United States. If that growth gap remains in 2018 and

moderates by 0.15 percentage points in each of the following years in a baseline scenario, the country will

become the world's largest importer by 2022, according to a report released by China International

Capital Corporation (CICC). By a more conservative estimate, China will become the top importer by

2025, CICC said. China is now the world's largest exporter and the second largest importer. As the

domestic economy has stabilized and global commodity prices have recovered, imports in the first ten

months of the year rose 21.5 percent year on year, official data showed. The country's rising imports have

a significant global impact, as it is the largest importer for 41 countries and regions, compared with 36 for

the United States, the CICC report said. With imports likely to continue to outpace exports in the coming

few years, China's foreign trade will become more balanced as it has been in the past two years, according

to CICC. CICC predicts the trade surplus in goods and services will account for around 1 percent of GDP

in 2017, the lowest level since 1994. China is also expected to become the world's largest consumer

market and start importing more consumer-related products than industrial materials, as its growth

becomes increasingly consumer driven. "In our view, the rise of Chinese consumers, with its significant

positive spillover effect on the rest of the world, will be the most important and exciting investment story

in the coming years," the report said.

Opportunities For Young Pakistani IT Talents

Nation faces 'talent gap' in cyber security China Daily, December 13, 2017

The training of cyber security talent is an urgent and important task for China's internet development,

according to a senior official with the nation's web watchdog. Cyber security talent is in short supply,

"which presents us with a great challenge in preventing online attacks", said Zhao Zeliang, director of

cyber security coordination for the Cyberspace Administration of China. In his view, China can catch up

with Western nations' cyber security protection by buying and learning their products and technologies.

"But if our talent is insufficient, or we are unable to train talent, our internet development will face

difficulties," Zhao said. The country has more than 751 million netizens, but only produces around 8,000

cyber security graduates every year, he said. Although educational efforts have increased since 2015, "the

talent gap, obviously, is still large". To effectively fill the gap, education bases are being established at

five universities, including Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunication, Shanghai Jiaotong

University and Sichuan University, according to the administration. "We've also joined hands with the

Ministry of Education, preparing to set up an academic institute to cultivate security talent," Zhao said.

Meanwhile, the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team and Coordination

Center of China also encourages "white hats" - hackers who help companies identify security risks - by

giving them rewards. "The move kills two birds with one stone. People with hacking skills can play a role

in prevention, while we can learn about security problems at the same time," said Li Jia, deputy director

of the center's operations department. Qihoo 360, Chinese largest security software provider, said the

move also helps provide legitimate jobs to hackers and guide them on the right path.

Largest automated container terminal opens Xinhua, December 11, 2017.

Photo taken on Dec. 10, 2017 shows the Phase IV of Shanghai Yangshan Deep

Water Port in Shanghai, east China. Located at the south of Donghai Bridge, phase

IV of the Yangshan Port, the world's biggest automated container terminal, started

trial operations on Sunday. It covers 2.23 million square meters and has a 2,350-

meter shoreline. Once it enters full operation, the fourth phase of the Yangshan

Port will initially be able to handle 4 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units).

The number will expand to 6.3 million TEUs at a later stage. (Xinhua/Ding Ting).

Opportunities For Young Pakistani IT Talents/Writers

China launches first cyberspace writers' village

The launch ceremony of China's first cyberspace writers' village is held in

Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province on Saturday, December 9, 2017. [Photo:

zjol.com.cn]

China has launched its first cyberspace writers' village to encourage the development of online literature,

reports zjol.com.cn. Zhang Wei, better known by the pen name "Tang Jia San Shao," has become the first

chief of the village, which is located by White Horse Lake in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province.

Zhang has been China's top-earning online writer for six consecutive years. Over a dozen online writers

have signed agreements to station their teams in the village. The village will work as an incubator for

cyberspace authors to write their works as well as communicating with each other. The entrance to

China's first cyberspace writers' village [Photo: zjol.com.cn An exhibition on the development of China's

online literature over the past two decades is being held in the village. Video clips of movies, TV dramas,

and animations adapted from online literature are also on display. Favorable policies are being offered to

attract more online writers. An official from Hangzhou High-tech Zone, where the village is located, said

they are planning to create a complete industrial chain including online literature creation, project

incubation, copyright trading, work adaption, and development of derivatives.

Opportunity For Pakistan. Kashghar-Karachi Railways to become a reality soon

too!

Thailand agrees to start construction of Thailand-China railway Xinhua,

December 20, 2017

Thai cabinet on Tuesday approved an agreement to start the construction of the first phase of Thailand-

China railway on Dec. 21, said Thai Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith during a press

conference on Tuesday. The cabinet also approved the Department of Highways of the Thai Transport

Ministry to build the first 3.5-kilometer section, the minister said. State Railway of Thailand (SRT) will

sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Highways on Wednesday to

authorize the department to do the job, said acting governor of SRT Anont Luangboriboon during the

press conference. The first 3.5 km section is located between two current railway stations, Klang Dong

and Pang Asok in the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima. Thanin Somboon, Director-General

of Department of Highways, said in a press release for media on Tuesday that the department is ready for

the construction work and would build the first section and a good example for other sections. Thanin

added that the construction would be a great chance for both Thai and Chinese engineers to learn together.

A ground breaking ceremony is set to be held there on Dec. 21, while the second section of 11 km, the

third of 119.5 km and the fourth of 119 km are to open for bidding later. The 253 km project is set to cost

some 179 billion baht (US$5.4 billion). The Chinese side is responsible for the design of the railway,

supervision of the construction and supplying trains, signal systems, among others. Once completed, the

Bangkok-Nakhon Ratchasima railway with a maximum speed of 250 km per hour will be the first

standard gauge high-speed railway of the country. However, to finally form an artery railway linking

Thailand, Laos and China, a 355 km second phase linking Nakhon Ratchasima with Nong Khai on the

border with Laos has to be built. Arkhom said that Thailand and China had begun to discuss the second

phase.

China's first home-grown large amphibious aircraft AG600 takes off Source:

Sunday 24 December, 2017. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)

China's first large amphibious aircraft AG600 on Sunday completed its maiden flight in south China's

Guangdong Province. At 9:39 a.m., the aircraft AG600, code named "Kunlong" left Jinwan airport in the

city of Zhuhai. The flight lasted about one hour."The maiden flight makes China among the few countries

capable of developing a large amphibious aircraft," said Huang Lingcai, chief designer of AG600.The

Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council congratulated all those

engaged in the mission, including those from the Ministry of Industry and Information, the Civil Aviation

Administration of China and the Aviation Industry Corporation of China The congratulatory message said

that the maiden flight was a major breakthrough in developing special-purpose aircraft following the

maiden flight of the large C919 passenger jet in May. The 39.6-meter aircraft is powered by four

domestically-built turboprop engines, according to its developer, the Aviation Industry Corporation of

China (AVIC).With a maximum take-off weight of 53.5 tonnes and a top cruising speed of 500

kilometers per hour, the AG600 has a range of 12 hours. Designed to be the world's largest amphibious

aircraft, the AG600 will be mainly used for maritime rescue, fighting forest fires and marine monitoring.

It can carry 50 people during search-and-rescue missions, collect 12 tonnes of water in 20 seconds for fire

fighting and transport up to 370 tonnes of water on a single tank of fuel. Its name "Kun long" stands for a

high expectation in Chinese culture with the "Kun" meaning an enormous legendary fish and "Long" a

dragon. The AG600 is the third member of China's "large aircraft family" following the large freighter Y-

20 and large passenger aircraft C919, which made maiden flights in 2013 and 2017. The Y-20 entered

into service with China's air force in July 2016.

Chinese start-up tests rocket engine, Source: Xinhua 24 December, 2017.

A Chinese start up successfully tested an engine for its light rocket, which is set to be launched by June

2018.The test was conducted in a test ground in east China's Jiangxi Province on Friday, said Shu Chang,

chief executive officer of Beijing-based One Space, on Saturday. The engine uses solid propellants and

will power the company's X-series light rockets, Shu said, adding that engineers have finished designing

the rocket's main body and electrical system. The engine can not only drive light carrier rockets but also

sub-orbital spacecraft, he said. Founded in 2015, One Space focuses on developing light rockets that can

carry small satellites at affordable prices.

China's commercial drone market to top $9b by 2020 Xinhua, December 24, 2017.

China has released new guidelines on the civilian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry, expecting the

market value of the industry to rose 40 percent year on year on average to 60 billion yuan (about 9.1

billion U.S. dollars) by 2020. The market value would be tripled to 180 billion yuan by 2025, according

to the guidelines made by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The estimate was much

higher than a forecast by an iResearch report last year, which said the overall market of UAVs, commonly

known as drones, could reach 75 billion yuan by 2025 in China. The country's UAV manufacturing

industry has been expanding rapidly in recent years thanks to extensive use of drones in fields such as

surveying and mapping as well as rising individual consumption. The ministry said China is playing a

leading role worldwide in consumer UAV product manufacturing. In the future, the ministry will promote

national unified management of the industry, strengthen its competitive edge and help foster several

leading drone manufacturers by 2020, according to the guidelines. While it is good to see drones

increasingly used in agriculture, environmental monitoring and public entertainment, civilian drones have

threatened the safety of civil aviation on many occasions. In late April, four drones flown illegally over

Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport in southwest China's Sichuan Province. They obliged 58 flights

to land at alternative airports, four to return, and many more to be cancelled. China requires civilian

drones weighing more than 250 grams to be registered under real names from June 1 to improve civil

aviation safety. Registration of civilian drones is a common international practice.

China can double 2010 GDP with 6.3 percent growth in 2018-2020 Xinhua,

December 24, 2017

China needs annualized growth of 6.3 percent in 2018-2020 to realize the target of doubling the 2010

GDP by 2020, an official said Saturday. "Judging from current economic performance, there will not be

any huge barrier in meeting the goal," Yang Weimin, deputy head of the office of the central leading

group on financial and economic affairs, said at an economics forum. Five years ago, China decided to

double 2010 GDP and per-capita income by 2020 as an important component of becoming a moderately

prosperous society in all respects. GDP expanded 6.9 percent year on year in the first three quarters of

2017, above the government's target of around 6.5 percent for the whole year. In a report delivered at the

19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, no more GDP-doubling target was mentioned,

showing China's emphasis on development quality rather than fast expansion. "High-quality development

is the fundamental requirement for determining the development path, making economic policies and

conducting macroeconomic regulation," said a statement following the central economic work conference

on Wednesday. "The theme of economic development will become high-quality development, instead of

rapid growth," Yang said. The potential growth rate has changed due to upgraded consumption, financial

risk and environmental constraints, he added. "If China ignores these realities and continues to be

obsessed with fast growth rates, the concomitant risks will outweigh the increase in GDP," Yang said.

China must build and improve mechanisms for pushing forward high-quality development, including

indicators, policies, standards, statistical and performance assessment systems, according to the

Wednesday statement. Realizing high-quality development is a must for sustaining healthy economic

development and adapting to the country's new principal contradiction between unbalanced and

inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life, it said.

China, Pakistan, Afghanistan agree to discuss extending economic corridor

Xinhua, December 27, 2017

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (C), Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani (L) and Pakistani

Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, meet the press after the 1st China-Afghanistan-Pakistan

Foreign Ministers' Dialogue, in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 26, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua].

Foreign ministers from China, Pakistan and Afghanistan on Tuesday agreed to discuss ways to extend the

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan. "In the long run, through Afghanistan, we

will gradually connect the CPEC with the China-Central and Western Asia Economic Corridor," Chinese

Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters after China-Afghanistan-Pakistan foreign ministers' meeting in

Beijing. As important neighbor of China and Pakistan, Afghanistan has an urgent desire to develop its

economy and improve people's livelihood, and it is willing to integrate itself into the process of regional

interconnection, said Wang. "With regard to specific cooperation projects and ways of cooperation, we

will determine through tripartite consultations on an equal footing," he said. Improving livelihoods in

border areas may be an entry point for the extension, said Wang, noting that the three parties agreed to

promote wider connectivity under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative. The CPEC is a network

of highways, railways, pipelines and optical cables, and a flagship project under the Belt and Road

Initiative, currently under construction throughout Pakistan. The 3,000-km-long corridor starts from

China's Kashgar and ends at Pakistan's Gwadar, connecting the Silk Road Economic Belt in the north and

the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in the south. Wang said the CPEC has not targeted at any third

party, but hopes to bring benefits to the entire region and become an important driving force for regional

integration. "The CPEC is an economic cooperation project and should not be politicized," he said, noting

that it has no relationship with existing disputes in the region, including territorial disputes, nor should it

be related. As the first meeting of its kind since the three countries agreed to establish a trilateral dialogue

mechanism in June, the foreign ministers' meeting aims for dialogue between Afghanistan and Pakistan

and to reinforce trilateral cooperation in politics, economy and security.

Opportunities For Pakistan Railways increase-- Kashghar-Karachi Bullet Trains

could become a Reality in Future

Note: The Centre welcomes visits by Chinese and Pakistani delegations, students,

researchers, experts etc. for mutual exchange of views for promotion of goodwill,

understanding and collaboration. I will request you to put our contact details for

your kind reference and facilitation, in order to add value in your own work,

relating to cooperation with China.

Ambassador (Retired) Syed Hasan Javed

Director, Chinese Studies Centre

Tel Off: +92 51 90853870 F +92 51 90853502 M +92 305 2413648

E-mail:dir-csc@s3h.nust.edu.pk OR s.hasanjaved@gmail.com

School of Social Sciences and Humanities (S3H)

National University of Science and Technology, Sector H-12

Islamabad 44000, Pakistan

______________________________________

前大使 赛义德•哈桑•贾维德

主任 中国学研究中心

电话:办+92 51 90853870传:+9251 90853502手:+92 305 2413648

电子邮件：dir-csc@s3h.nust.edu.pk或 s.hasanjaved@gmail.com

社会科学和人文学校 (S3H）

巴基斯坦国立科技术大学， H-12 区

伊斯兰堡 44000。 巴基斯坦