Nigeria Times

By Cao Ruitong

A new form of tourism with music festivals at its core is now in vogue among young Chinese. Music festivals are becoming signatures of more and more Chinese cities, as many of them have been brought from first-tier cities to lower-tier ones, and even remote regions.

During this year’s May Day holiday, which lasted five days from the start of May, Xiao Ye, 26, went to the Midou Music Festival held in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu province, together with his friends.

The man has attended music festivals in many cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Kunming, and that’s how he spends his holidays.

This time in Nanjing, Xiao spent the first day enjoying the music festival and the rest four visiting tourist attractions in the city, which enabled him to get the joy from both music and traveling.

According to statistics, during the May Day holiday this year, some 40 music festivals were held across the country, which draw millions of music fans. Hotel rooms around the sites where music festivals were held were booked up. Music festival-led tourism is becoming a new choice for young consumers.

Statistics from the China Association of Performing Arts indicated that during the May Day holiday, more than 50 percent of music festivals ticket buyers were from outside the host cities. The consumption in transportation, accommodations, dining and other businesses related to the music festivals held during the same period surpassed 1.2 billion yuan ($170 million). These music events not only satisfied music lovers, but also boosted the tourism and popularity of host cities.

Urban music festivals have achieved remarkable progress in China in the past more than 20 years since the first Midi Music Festival was held in Beijing in 2000.

Today, there are a great number of renowned music events in the country, including the Strawberry Music Festival, the Xihu Music Festival, the Modern Sky Festival, the Beijing Music Festival, the Sun Music Festival, and the Qintai Music Festival. Similar events are just popping up across China and participated by many music fans.

These music festivals are about not only pop music, but also traditional folk music, symphony and musical play. Combining traditional and modern elements, as well as Chinese and international features, they are building a splendid music festival culture that suits everybody.

Music festivals are closely related to tourism development. Many cities, relying on music festivals and urban tourism resources, have built new business forms that feature the mix of music and tourism.

In 2009, the first Sun Music Festival opened in Zhangbei county, north China’s Hebei province. Ever since, the county has been visited by hundreds of thousands of music lovers every year, and the music festival has become one of the largest and the most internationalized music festivals in China.

Tourism authorities in the county tailored seven tourism routes based on the music event, which greatly boosted local tourism and created huge economic benefits for the county.

As Zhejiang province in east China has been building a water tourism route, a recently held music festival set its stages at the core area of the route. According to a source with knowledge, the site of the music festival was divided into performance area, dining area and market area. Intangible cultural heritage and cultural products displayed at the event attracted many visitors, and the music festival triggered a boom in the consumption of accommodation, food and tourism programs.

During the May Day holiday, the 2023 Huang Bo Hai Midi Festival kicked off in Yantai, east China’s Shandong province, which attracted 100,000 music lovers to the city. Yantai has launched a number of measures to drive its tourism development with the popularity of the music event. For instance, those with the ticket to the music festival could get tickets to six local tourist sites for free. Besides, the city also issued a travel guide and launched 11 free bus routes.

An insider noted that music festivals are no longer just entertainment, but integrating with leisure tourism. As the scale of young tourists expands and tourism demands diversify, combining music festivals with local tourism resources, which highlights individuation and differentiation, would help build iconic tourism brands.

By Cui Yan, People’s Daily

What kind of vitality can art bring to the countryside?

Shuangcheng village in Pingchang county, southwest China’s Sichuan province is where the famous oil painting Father was created.

The village, leveraging the influence of this masterpiece produced by the painter Luo Zhongli, has built itself into a hub of rural tourism with its sound ecology and rich heritage. It is recognized as a provincial-level demonstration village for the revitalization of rural culture.

The story of Shuangcheng village is exactly a great example of how art can boost rural revitalization.

Art is an expression of beauty that lights up a better life. Injecting art elements into the construction of “beautiful villages” not only brings a new look to the rural area, but also paves the way for people to live a more aspiring life.

Dongziguan village in Fuyang district, Hangzhou of east China’s Zhejiang province, turned old houses in disrepair into folk houses with local features. Together, the renovated residences look like a Chinese ink painting that well depicts the unique charm. The used-to-be “hollow village” that once suffered a big loss of young workforce is finally getting back the hustle and bustle.

Shangwei village in Longhua district of Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong province was once bothered by trash dumps and sewage flowing into the river. Today, timeworn walls have turned into “drawing papers” covered in graffiti, and the whole village is immersed in an artistic and tranquil atmosphere.

Zhongxin village in Youyang Tujia and Miao autonomous county, southwest China’s Chongqing municipality, advanced a “toilet revolution” with aesthetic elements, which made renovated public restrooms both pragmatic and good-looking.

Rural revitalization calls for both physical and cultural development. Art can nurture the mind of people and shape the values of villages.

In Xingyi village of Lijiang, southwest China’s Yunnan province, mural artist Liu Zhicheng is presenting aesthetics to villagers via delicate wall paintings. These wall paintings have raised the villagers’ pursuit and aspiration for beauty and inspired many children to learn drawing.

Today, rural art festivals are presenting the charm of aesthetics to residents, and art workshops offer a place for children to receive aesthetic education through fun activities. Besides, some villages have also hosted rural galas and singing competitions, which reactivated cultural resources and enhanced villagers’ sense of belonging.

Leading rural cultural construction with art will better vitalize cultural development in the countryside and enrich the life of villagers.

Art is also a “golden key” that can stimulate potential growth drivers, thus expanding the space for rural economic development. It is bringing more possibilities to rural areas.

As a well-preserved ancient village, Zecheng village in Zuoquan county, north China’s Shanxi province has experienced rapid development thanks to its scenic resources and cultural legacy.

Zuoquan county has built a base for outdoor sketching that features artistic elements, attracting many students and artists. The county has also hosted art exhibitions and developed study tour programs.

These new business forms boosted local tourism and cultural consumption and created jobs for villagers, which proves the concept of “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,” expands villagers’ income and promotes rural revitalization.

Artistic creation betters the living environment in rural areas, art activities enrich the cultural life of rural residents, and art-related business forms create development opportunities. The countryside in the new era has become more beautiful with the decoration of art.

As various types of art practices are carried out in rural areas, art will constantly pave the path to cultural revitalization. It is believed that art will edify more rural residents and better their lives in the countryside.

By Liu Shiyao, Yu Sinan, People’s Daily

China’s Shenzhou-16 manned spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 9:31 a.m. on May 30, sending three astronauts to the country’s space station combination.

At 4:29 p.m. on the same day, the spaceship successfully docked with the radial port of the core module Tianhe of the space station combination. The crew members Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao then entered the core module, marking China’s second in-orbit crew rotation.

The Shenzhou-16 is the first crewed mission for the application and development stage of China’s space station, during which the Shenzhou-16 and Shenzhou-15 crews will start a new round of in-orbit crew handover.

It is reported that the Shenzhou-16 crew will perform extravehicular activities, conduct in-orbit tests and experiments, and carry out equipment installation, debugging, maintenance and repair.

The Shenzhou manned spacecraft and the Long March-2F carrier rocket again make a perfect pair. Together, the two have made remarkable contributions to China’s manned space exploration.

Shenzhou is the only manned round-trip spacecraft model in China. It plays a vital role in safeguarding the safety of astronauts.

Centering on the 14 sub-systems of the spaceship’s orbiting, return and propelling capsules, the development team of Shenzhou from China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) has made more than 100 technical improvements and upgrades over the previous Shenzhou spacecraft, with an aim to informationize the spaceship’s data connectivity, digitalize its cable assembly and layout, and make the monitoring of key parameters more intelligent.

As China has kicked off the application and development stage of its space station, the country now carries out crewed missions on a regular basis with a frequency of twice a year, up from one launch every two to three years in the past.

As the first one among a new batch of upgraded Shenzhou spacecraft, the Shenzhou-16 was designed in pursuit of efficiency and quality. For instance, after years of efforts, scientific researchers abandoned the piece-by-piece handmade production model of multi-layer insulation, known as the “overcoat” of spacecraft, and opted for digital designing and an automated production line.

The Long March-2F carrier rocket is the only manned launch vehicle presently in service in China. It has succeeded in all its missions.

“Compared with the Long March-2F Y15 carrier rocket, the Long March-2F has made 20 technical upgrades,” said Liu Feng, deputy chief designer for the Long March-2F launch vehicle with the CASC China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.

According to him, the development team further lowered the fault rate of the rocket and strengthened the rocket’s reliability by improving its techniques.

The larger weight and size of the combination made the docking this time more difficult. To solve this problem, the CASC research team optimized the Shenzhou-16 spaceship’s navigation and control system through specialized analysis and simulation.

Living in space is a challenge for astronauts as their health conditions may be affected by the space environment. A set of health monitoring devices is needed to check their heart rate, breath, body temperature, blood pressure and other indices.

Such devices on the Shenzhou-16 spaceship, developed by an institute under the CASC, constitute a data processing center for the physiological information of astronauts that monitors and safeguards astronauts’ health conditions.

Compared with general medical monitoring devices, the ones on the Shenzhou-16 are much more reliable and safer. Apart from monitoring health conditions, they can also store, transfer and process relevant information, so that ground medical staff are able to guide astronauts to cope with health emergencies.

Pressure relief valves, liquid shut-off valves, physiological signal test kits and ECG recorders are also onboard with the Shenzhou-16 crew this time. These technologically mature products have joined multiple flight verifications and missions of Shenzhou spacecraft.

By Qiu Haifeng

China’s Renminbi(RMB) has constantly expanded its international circle of friends as China sees better economic development and a higher level of opening up, playing a more important role in cross-border payment, investment and financing, exchange reserves and invoicing.

A Chinese official revealed that the country will further improve the fundamental systems for RMB settlements in cross-border investment and financing transactions, enhance the opening-up of China’s foreign exchange and financial market and ensure better access to it, and keep promoting the internationalization of the RMB in an orderly manner.

On April 26, the Argentine government declared that it would pay for imports from China with RMB. Argentina’s Economy Minister Sergio Massa said this indicated further activation of the currency swap agreement between China and Argentina, which helps Argentina strengthen its foreign exchange reserves and is of important significance for the country to better its economic situation.

Previously on February 7, China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), announced that it had signed with its Brazilian counterpart a memorandum of cooperation on setting up RMB clearing arrangements in Brazil.

Two months later, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), authorized by the PBOC as an RMB clearing bank in Brazil, has processed the first cross-border RMB settlement transaction in the South American country at its local branch there, which marked substantial progress of the ICBC’s cross-border RMB business in Brazil.

At the end of March this year, the first yuan-settled liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade was completed, a big step of China’s exploration in the cross-border yuan payment in petrol and gas trade.

It is reported that the first international LNG transaction settled in the Chinese currency was made between China National Offshore Oil Corporation and France’s TotalEnergies. Approximately 65,000 tons of LNG imported from the United Arab Emirates was traded.

According to statistics, China’s cross-border receipts and payments settled in RMB totaled 42 trillion yuan ($5.91 trillion) in 2022, an increase of 3.4 times compared to 2017, and accounted for nearly half of the country’s total cross-border receipts and payments. An obvious rise in the cross-border RMB settlements was reported in the first quarter this year, too.

Besides, the PBOC has authorized 31 RMB clearing banks in 29 countries and regions, and signed bilateral currency swap agreements with central banks or monetary authorities in 40 countries and regions, with a total value of more than 4 trillion yuan.

“Cross-border settlement is one of the important indicators demonstrating the internationalization of the RMB. The Chinese currency is used in more and more countries and regions for settlement and payment, which mirrors that it has been further internationalized,” said Wang Jiaqiang, a senior researcher with the Bank of China Research Institute.

The RMB is also getting popular globally as a reserve currency.

According to a recent report issued by Brazil’s central bank, the RMB became an international reserve currency of Brazil in 2019. As of the end of 2022, the proportion of the RMB in Brazil’s international exchange reserves reached 5.37 percent, exceeding the proportion of the euro at 4.74 percent, which marked that the RMB became Brazil’s second-largest international reserve currency.

Over 80 central banks or monetary authorities have listed the RMB as an international reserve currency, including Brazil’s central bank. The RMB has retained its position as the fifth-largest reserve currency, and its weighting in the basket of currencies that make up the International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights－an international reserve asset also known as the SDRs ranked third.

“More and more central banks or monetary authorities are including RMB in their foreign exchange reserves, which fully reflects the demand of the market. In the past years, foreign exchange reserves held by central banks around the world were mostly in U.S. dollars. However, ‘putting all eggs in one basket’ is obviously to the disadvantage of the stability of the international market as the U.S. currency faces more and more uncertainties these years. The RMB is gradually recognized as a reserve currency, and it offers a new and reliable choice for central banks,” said Zhang Huanbo, a researcher with the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

Insiders believe that the RMB has achieved new breakthroughs and progress in internationalization this year.

With the establishment of RMB clearing banks and local currency swap networks, the development of offshore RMB market, the opening of domestic financial market and the improvement in the overseas layout of Chinese financial institutions, the RMB has preliminarily shown the network effect of its international use.

Besides, the investment and risk-hedging functions of RMB assets have been gradually enhanced, and enterprises are more willing to use RMB in cross-border trade, investment and financing to avoid the risk of currency mismatch. The international monetary system is more diversified.

By Zhang Bolan, Gong Ming, People’s Daily

Chinese President Xi Jinping on May 23 sent a congratulatory letter to a forum on the development of Tibet.

Xi said he hopes that on the new journey of advancing Chinese modernization, Tibet can fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy on all fronts, step up efforts to promote high-quality development, and strive to build a prosperous, harmonious and beautiful new socialist Tibet underpinned by unity, civility and modernization so that the people of Tibet can enjoy better and more fulfilled lives.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, people in Tibet, with the strong support of the central government and people throughout the country, have worked with fortitude and brought about a resolution to the problem of extreme poverty that had plagued the region for centuries, the letter said.

Tibet has achieved a moderately prosperous society in all respects along with the rest of the country, demonstrating vibrant and thriving scenes, it added.

Former Nepali Ambassador to China Leela Mani Paudyal has paid multiple visits to Tibet since 1990s, during which he witnessed the improvement of Tibet’s infrastructure and drastic changes taking place in various fields in the Chinese autonomous region.

He said the elimination of absolute poverty is the best guarantee for human rights, and Tibet has completed a very arduous task by bringing about a resolution to the problem of extreme poverty.

The autonomous region has launched a series of measures to stabilize employment and increase income for its people, such as developing modern animal husbandry and tourism, promoting e-commerce and popularizing vocational education, he noted.

“It is believed that the people of Tibet will have a happier and better life,” said Paudyal.

Australian sinologistColin Mackerras came to China to study the country’s history and culture nearly 60 years ago. As a recipient of the Chinese Government Friendship Award, the highest award to commend foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to China’s modernization drive, Mackerras pays close attention to Tibet’s religion and culture as well as their inheritance.

He said the remarks related to Tibet made by some Western observers are completely the opposite of what he has seen and felt.

Through watching traditional Tibetan opera in the autonomous region, he learned that the culture of Tibet has made remarkable progress. He also learned through his conversations with local villagers that the Chinese government has made huge investment in the protection of Tibetan culture and traditions. These efforts are laudable, he said.

Mozambique’s Ambassador to China Maria Gustava called her recent visit to Tibet a magical experience that gave her an opportunity to see what it’s like to live on the plateau.

There, she saw railways, modern airports, and roads connecting villages, as well as advanced communication systems including the 5G network. She also witnessed how a power grid interconnection project in Tibet’s Ngari prefecture has ended power shortage, a problem that has long bothered the autonomous region, and how the project has contributed to rural vitalization.

“Today, Tibet has become a place full of vitality and in a prosperous atmosphere,” she noted.

French employee of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation Guibe Guillaume surprisingly found in a recent visit to Tibet that communication networks worked very well in the high-altitude autonomous region. He also discovered that even remote villages in Tibet had access to electricity as well as wide and flat roads. To protect the safety of residents and livestock, speed detectors have been installed near many villages.

He said that through the trip, he saw massive and high-quality infrastructure built in Tibet over the past decades.

Muhammad Asghar, a senior correspondent of the Associated Press of Pakistan, also joined the trip to Tibet, which marked his first visit to the Chinese autonomous region in the recent five years.

The journalist, after visiting Tibet’s Nyingchi and Lhasa, noted that the size of urban Lhasa has been expanded from five years ago, and the social and economic development and people’s livelihood in Tibet are on a new level today.

“Tibet, on a path of high-quality development, has built better infrastructure in transport, health and education. Its development achievements prove that no ethnic group will be left behind as China embarks on a new journey to build itself into a modern socialist country in all respects,” the Pakistani journalist said.

By Yan Ke, Shen Zhilin, People’s Daily

The 3rd Changsha International Construction Equipment Exhibition was recently held in Changsha, central China’s Hunan province.

Covering an exhibition area of around 300,000 square meters, the event was joined by over 1,500 enterprises. More than 20,000 equipment were exhibited, including a 2,400-ton all-terrain crane, the world’s largest of its type, a four-boom face drilling rig able to drill holes with a depth of 5 meters within 2 minutes, as well as a satellite-guided fire-prevention aircraft that could automatically recognize and put out fires.

As the largest construction equipment exhibition in Asia, the event mirrored the new trends and changes in the Chinese construction machinery industry.

Many Chinese construction equipment manufacturers were once bothered by the insufficiency of key parts and technologies. However, things have completely changed today. Among the 1,500 participating enterprises, 70 percent to 80 percent were suppliers of parts and components.

“We have independently developed and manufactured hydrostatic transmissions with load capacities ranging from 5 to 8 tons, which are economical, reliable and efficient. They have been widely applied now,” said Yan Wanbin, general manager of LiuGong Liuzhou Driveline Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Chinese machinery manufacturer Liugong Group.

At the expo, machinery manufacturers debuted 30 new products and more than 200 new technologies, and 1,000 items were launched by relevant suppliers, including 120 innovative products and technologies.

These new products and technologies reflected the innovations and breakthroughs made by the Chinese construction machinery industry in technology, platform building and development philosophy.

The No.18 Factory of SANY Group, a leading Chinese enterprise of high-end equipment manufacturing, has a 100,000-suqare meter workshop in Changsha, central China’s Hunan province. In the control room of the workshop, there are multiple screens that display the production in the facility in real time, including the work status of robots, production progress and other information.

According to Rao Youfu, an expert of intelligent manufacturing of SANY Group, the No.18 Factory has increased its capacity, efficiency and automation by 123 percent, 98 percent and 76 percent, respectively, since it went through intelligent transformation five years ago. The facility is able to manufacture 263 types of equipment, Rao said.

In a manufacturing base for earth-moving equipment owned by Chinese construction machinery manufacturer Zoomlion in the Xiangjiang New Area, Hunan province, an excavator is rolling off the production line every six minutes. Over 150 frontier technologies, including AI and digital twin, have been applied in all procedures of production, from materials preparation, welding, and coating to assembly and debugging.

The application of intelligent and green technologies has become a new advantage of the Chinese construction machinery industry in global competition.

According to an official with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the industry has developed 11 demonstration factories of smart manufacturing, nearly 100 typical scenarios of smart manufacturing, and some 20 enterprises of green supply chain management. The official said the ministry will further promote the high-quality development of the construction machinery industry.

It is reported that last year, SANY Group’s revenue from the overseas market reached 36.57 billion yuan ($5.18 billion), accounting for nearly half of the group’s total income, and the export value of Zoomlion jumped more than 70 percent year on year. Besides, the overseas revenue of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Corporation Limited surged over fivefold from a year ago, and the value of the company’s new contracts grew 74.47 percent year on year.

Statistics released by the China Construction Machinery Association (CCMA) show that the exports of Chinese construction equipment hit $44.3 billion in 2022, setting a new record in history.

In particular, there was a significant rise in the exports of high-tech construction equipment. The exports of crawler excavators went up by 65.8 percent, those of wheeled excavators by 53.3 percent, and those of loaders with more than 320 horsepower by 87.8 percent.

Many Chinese construction equipment manufacturers have maintained sound momentum for growth in the overseas market this year.

An insider said that apart from the competitive edge gained through intelligentization and electrification, the increasingly maturing industrial chain and equipment manufacturers’ improved global service capability also contributed to the momentum for growth.

The Chinese construction machinery industry is quite experienced after decades of domestic development, and will distinguish itself in the global market, said Su Zimeng, president of the CCMA.