Nigeria Times

By Xu Peiyu                                                                                                        

Thanks to the rapid development of the new generation of information technologies, vehicles are getting more and more intelligent in China.

The country is witnessing bourgeoning intelligent connected vehicles and the internet of vehicles industry. Urban traffic management has been improved, which brings better traveling experiences to passengers.

Internet of vehicles is an interconnection function accessing the network for in-vehicle devices through wireless communication technology. With the internet of vehicles, dynamic information about vehicles can be uploaded to online platforms and then provided various services when running on the roads.

It is mainly applied in pilot assist, autopilot, and intelligent traffic management.

The internet of vehicles can effectively improve people’s traveling experiences. An executive of Chinese carmaker BYD told People’s Daily that the company’s internet of vehicles products today feature all-scenario applications.

Before getting into a BYD vehicle, the owner can remotely unlock the car, control the air conditioning, disinfect the interior, and check the status of the vehicle on a mobile application. BYD vehicles come with rich pilot assist functions that make driving easier under multiple scenarios, and offer various entertainment services when they are parked.

Besides, users can lock the vehicles on mobile phones and check vehicle information anytime and anywhere after leaving the cars.

Autopilot has constantly expanded its application scenarios, which not only facilitates the daily life of people, but also improves traffic efficiency. Today, many express parcel delivery vehicles, street sweepers and sightseeing buses are unmanned, running on both enclosed roads in parks and open streets in cities.

It is also employed by container trucks in port areas. For instance, containers at a terminal in the Taicang port in east China’s Jiangsu province, after being lifted by automatic quay cranes, are carried by autopilot container trucks to their destinations along the driving routes measured by the system.

The intelligent transportation system enabled by the internet of vehicles is forcefully driving the construction of smart cities. Jiangsu’s Wuxi city has built a national comprehensive testing center for intelligent traffic, which, based on traffic management data collected by the police, reminds drivers of vehicle illegal processing, urban roadblock information, as well as safety and emergency warning.

In Suzhou of Jiangsu province, passengers getting off high-speed trains can board autopilot buses immediately after exiting the train station, or order unmanned taxis on mobile applications.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), 7 million intelligent connected vehicles with pilot assist systems were sold in China last year, up 45.6 percent year-on-year. During the same period, 48 percent of new energy vehicles in the country were equipped with pilot assist systems.

The Chinese market of intelligent vehicles may hit nearly 1 trillion yuan ($138.65 billion) by 2025, said a white paper issued by the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology.

In April this year, the MIIT announced to build national pilot zones of the internet of vehicles in Xiangyang of central China’s Hubei province, Deqing of east China’s Zhejiang province and Liuzhou of south China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. So far, China has approved seven such pilot zones, including the previously unveiled ones in Jiangsu, Tianjin, Hunan and Chongqing.

The internet of vehicles system in the pilot zone of Wuxi is able to alert drivers to puddles and ice on roads with situation awareness technology and vehicle-mounted sensors, which improves traffic safety. In Wuxi’s high-tech district, two routes have been designated for autopilot logistics, which benefit major enterprises and are connected to local unmanned factories.

The pilot zone in Tianjin, a municipality with a well-built industrial chain of the automobile sector, has taken the lead to establish a service system for the development of the internet of vehicles and explore the commercial application modes. It has grown into a world-class pilot zone that combines R&D, testing and commercialization of the internet of vehicles.

The national pilot zones of the internet of vehicles have been expanded, releasing a signal of China’s accelerated layout of development of the internet of vehicles and the intelligent connected vehicle industry, said Feng Yi, director of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center.

“As an emerging business form, the internet of vehicles has become an important engine driving the high-quality development of the automobile industry,” Feng added.

Deputy head of the MIIT Xin Guobin said that China has, to date, designated over 15,000 km of roads for testing intelligent connected vehicles, and is also expanding the use of driverless taxis and buses, autonomous valet parking, and unmanned delivery vehicles.

Besides, over 7,000 km of roads have been updated for intelligent connected vehicles with over 7,000 sets of roadside equipment in China’s 17 national-level demonstration bases to test intelligent connected vehicles, 16 pilot cities for the coordinated development of smart city infrastructure and intelligent connected vehicles and seven national pilot zones of internet of vehicles.

By Lin Dongmei

At the recent 8th annual Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals, a farmer named Freda Korarome from Papua New Guinea (PNG) shared her story of fighting poverty with assistance from technology.

From the deep mountains in PNG’s Eastern Highlands to the UN headquarters in New York, she told her amazing journey with the Juncao technology to the world, a wonderful experience she could not imagine before.

Juncao, which literally means “mushroom” and “grass” in Chinese, can be used, as its name suggests, to grow edible mushrooms as livestock feed or as a green barrier to stop desertification. It is hailed by many as “magic grass.”

As a female representative of the beneficiaries of the Juncao project of the China-UN Peace and Development Trust Fund, Korarome was the first Juncao grower to deliver a speech at the UN headquarters.

She said in the speech that after receiving technical training and guidance from Chinese Juncao experts, she employed 25 people in her village to grow Juncao, most of whom were females. Every week, she would sell 200 kilograms of fresh mushrooms to local dealers. Soon she earned money, with which she built a new house and bought a new car for her family.

The woman, in cooperation with Chinese experts, has offered training sessions for more than 1,500 people in 10 surrounding villages. The Juncao technology has increased local farmers’ income, and lowered the rate of malnutrition in the community from 70 percent to 55 percent, she noted.

Her story has inspired people around. According to Korarome, people call her every day to congratulate her success and to learn the Juncao technology.

The Juncao technology marks a successful practice of China in promoting poverty alleviation, as well as an important contribution made by the country to the sustainable development of the world.

Juncao is a sound substitute for timber to be used as a substrate for growing edible mushrooms. It has solved the problem troubling the world that to produce edible mushrooms, trees must be cut down. So far, the technology has been applied in over 100 countries.

I serve as the deputy director of the China National Engineering Research Center of Juncao Technology. Over the past more than 20 years, I have met many women like Korarome.

After learning the Juncao technology, they became entrepreneurs and sci-tech workers. I see from them the strong aspiration of women in developing countries to eliminate poverty and embrace happiness, as well as the important role played by the Juncao technology in increasing the well-being of people, especially in improving the living environment for women.

I first realized that the Juncao technology could be life-changing for impoverished women when I worked in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa in 2005.

In the province, there were many single mothers and grandmothers. They were poor in land and education, living on a meager income from government jobs.

A Chinese idiom goes that giving a man a fish feeds him for a day, but teaching a man fishing feeds him for a lifetime. After learning the Juncao technology, these women saw their income increase. They could afford their children’s schooling, opened groceries in villages and even started a logistics business, which completely changed the lives of themselves and their families.

The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes 17 sustainable development goals, and the Juncao technology serves 13 of them including gender equality. In many developing countries, the technology can not only lift women’s social status, but also serve as a demonstration that helps improve local productivity and economic vitality.

Under the guidance of Chinese experts, some women in Fiji, especially those with disabilities, have embraced a better life by growing Juncao. Among the nearly 2,000 people trained by the China-aided Juncao demonstration center in Fiji, women and people with disabilities account for 56.7 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively.

Arailde Fontes Urben, professor with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, has contributed to the promotion of the Juncao technology in South America.

Since she joined a training program on the Juncao technology in China in 1995, she has always been committed to the research and communication of the technology in South America. The expert, who is now in her 70s, has trained more than 2,000 people and translated a Chinese Juncao textbook into Portuguese, which was published in Brazil.

Developing the Juncao technology would benefit the whole mankind. China’s Juncao has blazed a trail of sustainable development for the world.

It is believed that more and more women, who are indispensable for developing the industry, will realize their dreams with the Juncao technology.

By Zhang Zejun

Pandas are unquestionably one of the most adorable animals among millions of species living on the Earth. They have a round face, a body in black and white, black eye patches and a pair of black ears. Their chubby and fluffy body make them extremely “adorkable.”

Pandas are national treasures of China. Over recent years, China has witnessed steady expansion of the panda population, improved environment of the animal’s habitats, and constant progress in panda protection and research. It mirrors the country’s achievements in ecological progress and biodiversity conservation.

The loveliness of pandas is a result of the Earth’s evolution of billions of years. It carries the code of biological evolution and reflects the progress of panda protection, propagation and ecological studies.

Pandas have a round face because their cheekbones are wide, which makes the nose look shorter. The black-and-white body is also one of the adorable features of pandas. This “colorway” helps pandas keep warm on mountains and in forests and is also the animal’s camouflage. However, not all pandas are black and white. Currently, a rescued brown and white panda named Qi Zai is living in the Qinling research center of giant panda breeding in northwest China’s Shaanxi province. Since 1985, giant pandas with brown fur have been spotted six times in the Qinling Mountains.

Compared with their acute sense of smell and strong hearing capacity, pandas’ visual acuity is weak. They have a myopia of about 800 degrees. However, in bamboo groves, they don’t need a strong visual ability.

Pandas are pigeon-toed. Their wobbly walks make them very cute. Such slow movement helps them save strength. Besides, pandas can swim and climb trees, and have flexible joints that enable them to make unexpected moves.

Fossils of the ancestral panda Ailurarctos lufengensis, the oldest panda found so far, were discovered in Lufeng, southwest China’s Yunnan province. The ancestral panda lived in the late Miocene about 8 million years ago, and was a rare species native to China.

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese government has never ceased its protection of pandas. It has set up four giant panda nature reserves in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Besides, biological studies of pandas gradually developed in China. The country has been one of the leaders in the world in terms of panda research since 1990s thanks to the joint efforts of Chinese scientists.

To get a clear picture of the panda population is the foundation and premise of science-based panda protection. Since 1974, China has conducted four panda censuses. According to the latest census, the population and the area of panda habitats both grew more than 10 percent.

As of the end of 2013, the population of giant pandas living in the wild exceeded 1,800, and that population was divided in different locations, among which giant pandas in some locations had a population less than 30, which made it extremely difficult to maintain the population with on-site protection.

Therefore, China initiated a wilderness training program for giant pandas, which aims at releasing artificially bred pandas to expand endangered panda populations in the wild. So far, more than 10 captive pandas have been released through this creative protection method.

In October 2021, China announced to build the first batch of national parks, including one for giant pandas. The giant panda national park covers an area of about 2.2 million hectares and 60 percent of panda habitats, where more than 70 percent of wild giant pandas live. The establishment of the giant panda national park marked a new phase of China’s panda protection.

In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature took the species off its endangered list and downgraded the conservation status of giant pandas to “vulnerable.” It reflected the remarkable achievements made by China in the protection of giant pandas and demonstrated the country’s sense of responsibility as a major country in natural conservation. Under the joint efforts of all sectors of the society, the Chinese people are writing a splendid chapter of panda protection and research, setting a good example for global wildlife conservation.

By Jiang Yunlong, Li Ya’nan, People’s Daily

There’s a 2,712km railway in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. It crosses desert, the Gobi, and no man’s land and stretches in scorching heat, sand storms and extreme coldness. It connects multiple places in five prefectures in southern Xinjiang and serves millions of people of various ethnic groups. Because of it, many remote cities have had access to railway services for the first time.

It is the rail loop line that encircles the Taklamakan, China’s largest desert. As the world’s first desert rail loop line, the railway was completed after the new Hotan-Ruoqiang rail line was linked with the Ruoqiang-Korla section of the Golmud-Korla railway line, and the Korla-Kashgar and Kashgar-Hotan sections of the southern Xinjiang rail line in June last year.

“It was totally impossible to get cargos to Tibet in three days,” said Huang Wei, general manager of a coal mining company in Xinjiang, adding that it took over 10 days before the Golmud-Korla railway line was put into service.

Now, the loop line has further facilitated transportation, which helps broaden the sales channel of his products, the man added.

The Golmud-Korla railway line is an important part of the loop line encircling the Taklamakan. It handles over 95 percent of the cargos in southern Xinjiang. From a line that connects Qinghai province and Tibet autonomous region, it has grown into a logistics artery that links Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces and contributes to the economic development of west China.

Today, carpets from Hotan, plums from Kashgar and apples from Aksu are being sent to various parts of China with a much faster speed.

According to statistics, since the loop line was put into operation, freight transport centers in Korla and Kashgar has shipped nearly 33.5 million tons of cargos.

The loop line has for the first time brought railway services to Lop, Qira, Yutian, Minfeng, Qiemo and other places in southern Xinjiang, facilitating local residents of various ethnic groups.

It is learned that the Hotan-Ruoqiang rail line has witnessed more than 360,000 passenger trips in the past year, and trains were kept full almost every day.

At around 1:00 pm, Train 5818 was about to depart from Hotan. Attendant Mihray Mesawur retracted a bridge plate after receiving the order of departure and closed the door of a car. As the train blew its whistle, buildings outside the window started moving backwards and were gradually replaced by desert.

Mihray Mesawur was born in Qira county, Hotan. Before the Hotan-Ruoqiang rail line was put into operation, the county had no access to railway.

The woman said that she had to spend 2 hours on bus and then take the train to go to work in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

“Now I can go to the city by taking Train 5818,” she noted.

Tursuntohti Aminniyaz told People’s Daily that it was the first time for him to take a train. “I’m going to Urumqi first and then Savan county. I have relatives there who told me I could probably get a decent job there,” he said.

When the train passed Yutian, it was all desert outside the windows. However, there were grass grids and a green corridor about tens of meters wide along the tracks. According to a railway worker, the greenery was designed to protect the railway from sandstorms.

The grass grids cover an area of 50 million square meters along the Hotan-Ruoqiang rail line, which is also lined with 7,600 hectares of artificial trees. This effectively protects the railway and improves the ecology on both sides of the railway.

Train 5818 arrived at the Minfeng railway station at 4:58 pm. About 186km of the 264km section north from the station was located in desert. That’s why passengers always feel there are fine sands in their mouths.

The number of days with sandstorms exceeds 200 each year there, said Zhong Dingjun, a chief engineer in Kashgar, adding that the high roadbeds, long and high bridges, as well as high tunnels were all built to make way for sand in case it buries the tracks.

Apart from manual inspection, big data technology is also applied to ensure the stable operation of the desert rail loop line. For example, with the help of track geometry cars, as well as vehicle-mounted circuit checkers that collects gauge width and height, targeted maintenance can be carried out.

“They can find out a variation as small as 5mm in track height,” said Zhong.

The desert rail loop line is injecting vitality into the economic and social development in southern Xinjiang, carrying the aspiration of the people along its route for a better life.

In response to recent false reports and allegations against the Department of State Services (DSS), Rising-Up for a United Nigeria, a Coalition that oversees all youth organisations and middle-aged citizens in Nigeria has issued a stern warning to media groups, cautioning them against interfering with and blackmailing the DSS. The CSO’s statement comes after certain online media outlets, including SaharaReporters, Peoples Gazette, and Jackson Ude, published misleading narratives and accusations against the DSS.

In a statement signed and made available to journalists by Amb. Solomon Adodo, the National Coordinator of Rising-Up for United a Nigeria, the group decried the incessant attacks on the DSS by media houses who are obviously paid by corrupt cronies of accused persons desperate to cover the tracks of their patrons by swaying public opinion and portraying the DSS as an aggressor.

According to the statement, allegations such as the one attributed to SaharaReporters about the purported DSS operations at the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) headquarters, allegedly carting away files from these agencies and the false claim about surveillance on Presidential Tribunal Judges and sundry issues by one Jackson Ude are jokes taken too far at the expense of national security.
The Peoples Gazette’s story on Senator Abdulaziz Yari is laughable and simply a product of junk journalism”.

The CSO, in its statement, emphasised that these allegations lack any factual basis or credibility and are merely figments of the creators’ imaginations, pointing out that the media outlets in question have a notorious reputation for peddling fake news, engaging in sensationalism, and practicing gutter journalism.

“It is clear that those publications are aimed at smearing the DSS and undermining its integrity and leadership. The accolades the DSS has received from the majority of stakeholders for its excellent performance and professional conduct in handling critical national issues must not be undermined by underdogs bent on evading justice”, the statement added.

While reaffirming its commitment to the rule of law, the Coalition emphasised that judging from antecedents, the DSS respects the independence and autonomy of other agencies, including the judiciary and legislature and will not be involved in any illegality, adding that, the Secret Police will also not shirk its responsibilities or allow detractors to hinder its statutory duties or lawful orders from constituted authorities.

According to the statement, “we know that the DSS is ever determined to act whenever the need arises. Those who try to thwart the DSS will face the wrath of the law henceforth. Similar plots were used against the DSS in the case of Emefiele in December 2022 when he and his minions explored every back hand tactics to blackmail and hoodwink the Service depite our efforts to dispel the false narratives. Others wanted for interrogation by the DSS have also explored this ignominious pathway. The Agency has the right to invite and question any Nigeria where necessary and must not be blackmailed. Those paid goons who have made it a duty to obstruct the DSS should desist or have our legal team to contend with”.

Rising-Up for a United Nigeria (RUN) finally called on the public to disregard these misleading stories, which aim to create disaffection within the country and tarnish the reputation of the DSS’s leadership. It expressed confidence in the DSS’s ability to address security challenges in Nigeria and urged the agency to remain focused and resilient in the execution of its duties.

Two Civil Society Organisations, Save Nigeria Movement (SNM) and College of Bishops Imams and Clergy Councils (CBICC), have jointly described the recent call by the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) to scrap the National Population Commission (NPC) as misguided comments that fail to recognize the importance of the Commission by law in gathering accurate population data which is essential for effective governance, resource allocation, and planning for the country’s future.

The CSOs which advocate for policy reforms and good governance in a tersely worded press release signed by the duo of Rev. Solomon Semaka and Bishop Abel Kings, the Convener and National Coordinator of SNM and CBICC respectively expressed shock that a supposed credible organisation like HURIWA has decided to ridicule and make a caricature of itself by promoting an incoherent and uninformed narrative against the National Population Commission including accusing the Commission of duplicating the duties of other agencies.

Part of the statement reads, “it is the highest height of ignorance to accuse the NPC of duplicating the duties of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), a sister agency that at best offers limited data for a few Nigerians. To begin with, NPC was established before NIMC so which organisation should be duplicating the other? Is HURIWA in their misguided pontification accusing the National Assemblies that passed the law establishing the NPC and NIMC for not knowing that the two agencies are duplicating themselves? Are they also insinuating that the Heads of States or Presidents that signed the NPC Bills into law were so daft to ignore the so called duplicity of functions? Since when has this come to the fore? “Clearly HURIWA must be out for something else” the statement read.

“HURIWA’s unsolicited counsel smacks of blackmail and cheap attention seeking antics which has become the fashion of the organization” No sane organisation or individual will compare the data captured by other organisations such as NIMC to that which is obtained by NPC in a proper census exercise. Voters data for example is restricted to adults who are 18 years above. NIMC also keeps a database on Nigerians and issue identify cards to eligible Nigerians who apply for same.

“The National Population Commission(NPC) on the other hand is mandated to collate comprehensive individual, demographic and housing data including a continuous record of vital events”

How can these distinct agencies duplicate themselves? “Even advanced countries like the USA, UK, France and so on that keep very strict hospital, electoral and immigration records including a functional Social Security system still conduct periodic censuses”

“Does HURIWA think those countries too are just wasting money? Comprehensive and periodic population census goes beyond simple identity registration or voter registration” NPC census exercise further provides detailed demographic information that is indispensable for policymaking, urban planning, infrastructure development, and public service provision and must not be politicised”.

The CSOs maintained that, in deviating from their mandate, HURIWA has constituted itself into an attack dog and a tool in the hands of opposition elements”

The Commission under the current leadership has judiciously used every resources allocated to it in preparation for the conduct of a national census with impressive results so far for all to see and given the Commission’s frequent media briefings done on the funding and it’s application, this call can only be described as diversionary “

According to the statement, “HURIWA’s argument about waste of funds by NPC is misleading. How can NPC that has successfully conducted a verified Digital Area Enumeration demarcation, trial census, trained over a million ad-hoc staff and procured Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) be accused of wasting money? It would seem HURIWA in their desperation to blackmail the NPC intentionally overlooks the long-term benefits of having accurate population data which is needed to effectively plan and allocate resources”

“Without this data, long term sustainable development is impossible no matter the resources available to the federal government. The value of appreciating Nigeria’s population distribution, age structure, employment trends, and educational needs, among other census derivatives is tangential to national development and should not be measured in terms of cost alone”. And in the present circumstances based on available records, the Commission has lived up to expectations”

The group insisted that, instead of advocating for the abolition of the NPC, HURIWA should focus on urging the government to enhance the Commission’s efficiency and transparency. The NPC should be encouraged to implement measures to “streamline data collection processes, improve data quality, and promote public awareness and participation in the census exercise when Mr President eventually fixes a date for the exercise.

“By strengthening the NPC’s capacity, the government can guarantee that the census is conducted efficiently and effectively, thereby maximizing the benefits derived from the exercise”. Scrapping the commission would be detrimental to the country’s progress by undermining effective governance, planning, and resource allocation.

“On accountability of the NPC in terms of funding, the group noted that the Commision has given a breakdown of the funding received so far which covers over 10 years of preparations since the last census exercise” the information is available for everyone to see therefore the repeated calls for accountability amounts to over flogging the matter with intent to mislead Nigerians.

“We urge Mr President to fix a date for the census so as to bring the positive fruits to bear on the nation.

By Yang Ou, Qiang Wei, Qu Song, People’s Daily

Recently, the 2023 Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Media Summit hosted by People’s Daily kicked off in Beijing.

Themed “Promoting People-to-people Bonds for a Better Shared Future,” the summit was joined by over 130 representatives from relevant departments and mainstream media of China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, who had in-depth exchanges on promoting economic recovery and deepening media cooperation.

Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) mechanism has achieved fruitful results since it was initiated in 2016. It has demonstrated a Lancang-Mekong speed and efficiency, and fostered a Lancang-Mekong culture featuring equal treatment, sincerity, mutual assistance and family-like closeness.

President of People’s Daily Tuo Zhen said in his speech that it is important that media outlets dig deep into the concrete actions and measures of LMC to demonstrate its progress and potential, and present the tangible benefits created by the cooperation to the world.

He encouraged relevant media outlets to make use of the features and advantages of local cultures to promote people-to-people exchanges, build a bond between peoples, tell the stories of mutual friendship and assistance, and make the public foundation of LMC even more solid.

Qian Hongshan, vice-minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, noted that media outlets of the six countries of LMC should meet challenges together and share responsibilities, tell LMC stories of common development and shared benefits, nurture the friendship of the six countries along the Lancang-Mekong river, and demonstrate their vision of building a shared and win-win future, so as to win solid public support for building a community with a shared future for Lancang-Mekong countries and even Asia at large.

LMC, as the first new type of sub-regional cooperation mechanism launched by riparian countries based on wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, has been growing at a high level since its inception, becoming a golden model of success for subregional cooperation.

In 2022, trade between China and the five Mekong countries reached $416.7 billion, up by 5 percent year on year. The China-Laos Railway, Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway, China-Vietnam freight train and other projects are also contributing to the interconnectivity in the region.

Vansay Tavinyan, deputy head of the Propaganda and Training Board of the Central Committee of Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, editor-in-chief of Lao Pasaxon Newspaper, has visited China multiple times to observe China’s economic and social development and poverty reduction.

Calling LMC a model of regional cooperation, he said the mechanism has made important contributions to the economic and social development of the six countries. He urged media outlets from the six countries to further strengthen cooperation to publicize the measures launched by these countries to jointly safeguard the ecology along the Lancang-Mekong river and promote sustainable development of the region.

“Media outlets from the six countries could launch regular communication activities for mutual learning,” he said.

Deputy director general of Cambodia’s state-owned news agency Agence Khampuchea Press Khan Sophirom said that countries along the Lancang-Mekong river enjoy huge potential in economic and political development, and the summit reflected their firm determination to cope with challenges and promote sustainable development.

He called on media outlets from these countries to enhance cooperation, deepen traditional friendship and contribute to building a Lancang-Mekong community with a shared future.

Sudruethai Lertkaserm, deputy director-general of the Government Public Relations Department of Thailand hailed the fruitful results of LMC over the years. She hopes that the six countries could enhance communication on information sharing, culture, environmental protection and green development.

Assistant minister of foreign affairs of China Nong Rong said in his speech that China is advancing high-quality development and Chinese modernization on all fronts, which will bring new development opportunities for the rest of the world, especially its surrounding countries.

China will stick to the policy of forging friendships and partnerships with its neighbors, and work with relevant countries to build the Lancang-Mekong region into a demonstration area for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, a zone of pioneering efforts under China’s Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, and the best example of the Global Civilization Initiative.

Vu Mai Hoang, member of leader board of Vietnam’s NhanDan newspaper and editor-in-chief of NhanDan Weekend, said that people-to-people exchanges remain an important way for people from different countries to share experiences and consolidate friendship, and news media plays an important role in promoting such exchanges.

Media cooperation under LMC is particularly relevant for promoting people-to-people communication and regional cooperation and development, he added.

By He Yin, People’s Daily

Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 23rd meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) via video conference from Beijing on July 4 and deliver important remarks.

Xi will map out the future development of the SCO with the leaders of other countries attending the summit, expound on Chinese plans and raise cooperation initiatives on building a closer SCO community with a shared future.

The SCO, as an organization for regional cooperation with the largest population and the largest landmass in the world, is a constructive force in international and regional affairs.

In the past more than 20 years since the organization was established, the SCO member states have always followed the SCO Charter and the principles and purposes of the Treaty on Long-Term Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation Between the SCO Member States.

They pursue and carry forward the Shanghai Spirit, namely, mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diversity of civilizations and pursuit of common development. They constantly deepen political mutual trust and strengthen solidarity, resolutely oppose external interference, hegemonism and power politics, and promote upgrading of regional cooperation. They offer solid support for each other’s development, prosperity, security and stability.

The more volatile the international situation is, the more the SCO member states need to carry forward the Shanghai Spirit, enhance cohesion, consolidate solidarity and cooperation and hold their future firmly in their own hands.

Security is the precondition for development, and peace and stability remain a common aspiration. The SCO member states adhere to political mutual trust and constantly expand security cooperation. They signed the world’s first inter-governmental anti-extremism treaty, organized “Peace Mission” counter-terrorism military drills, and advocate for political settlement of international and regional hotspot issues including the Afghan issue.

The SCO not only plays a positive role in safeguarding the peace and stability of Eurasia, but also contributes to world peace and development.

During last year’s SCO Samarkand summit, Xi expounded on the significance of the Global Security Initiative (GSI), called on relevant countries to stay committed to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and establish a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, offering a clear path to maintaining long-term stability of the region and expanding SCO security cooperation.

The SCO member states’ implementing the GSI helps them deepen security cooperation and cope with security challenges.

To deliver a better life for people of all countries in the region is a shared goal of the SCO member states. The Global Development Initiative proposed by Xi has been appraised by SCO member states. They believe the initiative is of important significance for international energy security, food security and other global development challenges, and will help the world achieve more robust, greener and more balanced development.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As connectivity is constantly being built between the BRI and other countries’ development strategies, the Eurasian Economic Union and other regional cooperation initiatives, a pattern of high-quality regional interconnectivity is taking shape. A series of cooperation projects have been implemented and made remarkable achievements, such as the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan highway, the China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline and the Tajikistan Agriculture and Textile Industrial Park, bringing tangible benefits to local people.

China will keep working with regional countries to advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and build more growth drivers.

Interactions between civilizations provide the most solid foundation for the SCO’s development, and people-to-people exchanges provide the strongest driving force for the organization.

The SCO member states enjoy geographical proximity and cultural affinity, as well as a long history of friendly association. Making full use of these advantages, they are constantly strengthening mutual learning among civilizations and fostering a closer people-to-people bond.

Because of this, the SCO has risen above differences in ideology, social system and development path, and set a good example in new-type international relations.

The Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) proposed by Xi is highly consistent with the Shanghai Spirit. Implementing the initiative will energize SCO member states in strengthening experience sharing on national governance and mutual learning.

By promoting people-to-people exchanges under the SCO framework, China is consolidating the public foundation for SCO development.

The country has planned to provide 1,000 training opportunities in poverty alleviation for other SCO countries, open 10 Luban Workshops, and launch 30 cooperation projects in such areas as health, poverty relief, culture and education under the framework of the Silk Road Community Building Initiative. Besides, it has also held the SCO non-governmental friendship forum.

As a founding member, China always views the SCO as a high priority in its diplomacy. The world today is living through accelerating changes unseen in a century, and global development entering a new phase of instability and transformation. China will work with other SCO member states to carry forward the Shanghai Spirit, to build a closer SCO community with a shared future and create a better future of Eurasia with the power of the organization, of solidarity and of cooperation.

By Peng Xunwen

In factory workshops, robots are precisely producing parts; on roads, autopilot vehicles are running to accumulate data under different traffic scenarios; on industrial cloud platforms, enterprises trade with each other idle production capacity and equipment.

In today’s China, the industrial internet is promoting in-depth integration between the digital economy and the real economy, creating new prospects for industrial production.

In a pile driver factory of Chinese heavy equipment manufacturer Sany Group in Changping district, Beijing, there stood several machines that were dozens of meters high.

“These are rotary drilling rigs we manufactured. Each of them weighs nearly 100 tons and can drill to a depth of over 100 meters,” said Yin Yanhu, head of the factory’s production technique department.

These giant devices were manufactured in a huge workshop, where various robots controlled by a few workers were busy working in the production line. neatly arranged. Different from traditional laborers, these workers were more like “taking care” of the robots, ensuring that those smart machines functioned properly.

Yin told People’s Daily that machines were mostly manufactured by human labor in the past, and it took about a month to make a rotary drilling rig. At that time, there used to be over 1,000 workers in the factory, and the annual output was more than 3 billion yuan ($414 million).

“In 2019, the factory started the digital transformation. Now it takes only around a week to manufacture such a rotary drilling rig, and the annual output has jumped to more than 7 billion yuan,” Yin said, adding that hundreds of workers have become versatile and turned into engineers that can perform physical tasks and program.

The key to the factory’s digital upgrading lies in a system developed based on the industrial internet platform Rootcloud. Yin called it the central controlling system of the factory, a “brain” for manufacturing.

To manufacture a rotary drilling rig, for example, the system can rapidly assign required tasks to each flexible production line, work island, equipment and worker. The whole workflow is digitally driven, from order generation to delivery, Yin said.

In the factory, machine parts are welded, moved and assembled by robots. Rootcloud works nonstop to analyze the industrial data collected from over 36,000 sampling sites, so as to generate the optimal parameters for each procedure and machine model, and optimize the workflow to the maximum extent.

The factory was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a “lighthouse factory” in 2021.

According to statistics recently released at the 2023 Industrial Internet Conference, the scale of China’s industrial internet industry has exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan. Besides, 240 influential industrial internet platforms have been listed, including Rootcloud, serving more than 260,000 enterprises. Rootcloud is one of them.

Recently, Rootcloud unveiled three versions of its industrial internet operating system tailored for smart factories, digital enterprises and intelligent chains. As the core of the platform, the operating system, after seven years of application verification, is able to virtualize industrial equipment in an online space and provide a sound environment where enterprises develop and run their applications.

At present, the operating system is providing industrial internet services for nearly 1,000 relevant enterprises.

Co-founder and CEO He Dongdong of Rootcloud said that data from traditional industrial information systems are distributed in a layered structure, and the transmission of data is completed in a bottom-up manner layer by layer.

However, he said, in digital factories built by the industrial internet operating system, data can be exchanged more frequently and efficiently, and the cost of developing industrial applications is lower.

On the industrial internet platform Laohuyun, or TigerCloud, authorized enterprises can not only check other enterprises’ data, but also make purchases, sell products, launch training sessions, and carry out maintenance activities. Just like a “social network” for industrial enterprises, the platform boasts annual transactions of tens of billions of yuan.

XCMG Hanyun, an industrial internet platform launched by Chinese heavy machinery manufacturing company XCMG, has been connected to more than 400,000 sets of equipment. It obtains data through instruments developed based on China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System. The platform currently provides services for tens of thousands of enterprises in some 80 industries.

Yu Xiaohui, head of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, told People’s Daily that China’s industrial internet is entering a new phase featuring large-scale development. Industrial internet will become an important approach and infrastructure leading the manufacturing industry toward more digitalized and higher-end development that is smarter and greener, Yu said.