Nigeria Times

By Li Xinping, Han Xin, People’s Daily

“Traveling” became a buzzword during the just-concluded May Day holiday.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Transport, Chinese people made over 270 million trips nationwide via railways, highways, waterways and civil aviation during the five-day holiday, with a daily average of over 54 million trips, an increase of 162.9 percent over the same period last year.

The significant rise mirrored the vitality of the Chinese economy and the remarkable capability of China’s transport network.

“The train leaves Zhengzhou in the morning and arrives in Chongqing at noon,” said Liu Chen, who was taking a family trip from Zhengzhou, capital of central China’s Henan province to southwest China’s Chongqing municipality by the G3421 train on May 2.

The high-speed railway from Zhengzhou to Chongqing was put into use on June 20 last year. It takes only some four hours to complete the entire trip between the two cities, about 13 hours faster than normal-speed trains.

A number of new lines, train stations and airports started operation before this May Day holiday. The comprehensive multidimensional transport network has made travel even more convenient.

Soon after a plane landed at the Taxkorgan Khunjerab Airport in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, passengers filed out of the plane and started snapping photos.

In the past, it took nearly eight hours to go to Tashkurgan from Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang. Since a flight was launched by China Southern Airlines at the end of 2022, the trip has been shortened by 3/4.

During the May Day holiday, cruise ships along the Yangtze River received an enormous number of tourists. Ninety-five percent of them were occupied.

“Cruise ships of the Sinotrans Changhang Group are expected to receive 60,000 passengers along the Yangtze River during the holiday, a new record in history,” said Yuan Baofeng, head of the market operation department of the company.

Road trips were also popular. Gu Yue, a tourist from east China’s Anhui province, was quite excited about his trip. During the trip, Gu drove all the way east for two hours along the Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway and then got off the expressway and onto rural roads, enjoying the beauty of mountains and countryside along the way.

“I didn’t expect that there would be charging stations for electric cars along rural roads,” he told People’s Daily, adding that this has made the trip more convenient.

China has made steady progress in the construction of transport infrastructure over recent years. Both the size and coverage of the country’s multidimensional transport network have been on a constant rise.

As of the end of 2022, the network had grown to cover a total mileage of more than 6 million kilometers, with 128,000 kilometers of inland waterways, and the number of certified civil airports reached 254. Nearly all qualified townships and administrative villages are connected to hardened roads and bus services.

China today is home to the world’s largest high-speed railway network and expressway network, as well as world-class port clusters.

Technologies have also made transport more efficient and intelligent.

For instance, passengers can complete security checks, customs clearance and boarding procedures by “face scanning” with their ID cards, and they can also track their checked luggage in real time on mobile applications.

“All I need is an ID card. Tracking the luggage is as easy as tracking express delivery parcels. The intelligent airport is awesome,” said Wang Xiao, a passenger flying from the Beijing Daxing International Airport to Kunming, southwest China’s Yunnan province.

The Beijing Daxing International Airport saw a daily average of 120,000 passenger trips during the May Day holiday, 30,000 more than those in the Spring Festival travel rush this year, said Li Ziwei, a manager with the airport.

According to Li, despite a surge in the number of passenger trips, no serious delays or long passenger queues were observed at the airport thanks to its intelligent operating system.

During the May Day holiday, over 11,000 trains were riding and 16,000 flights were flying across the nation on a daily basis. Besides, more than 50 million passenger vehicles were running on roads every day. This demonstrated the country’s strong capability of transportation coordination.

In the dispatching center of China Railway Shanghai Group, a big screen was showing the passenger flow of more than 740 train stations and the operational status of trains on over 13,000 kilometers of railways nationwide.

Bian Guiqing, chief on duty of the dispatching center, told People’s Daily that 168 temporary passenger trains were added to meet tourists’ demand. According to Bian, it took as short as two hours to open a new temporary line since obtaining the demand of tourists.

By Zhong Sheng, People’s Daily

Some secret military documents of the United States leaked on social networking sites recently showed how the United States has been eavesdropping on the secretary-general of the United Nations as well as the Republic of Korea, Israel, Ukraine and other countries.

These leaks once again prove that the United States is the world’s largest “empire of hackers” that’s been spying on people around the world in every way possible. The so-called Clean Network and what the United States calls “technology that reflects democratic values and interests” are extremely hypocritical.

The leaked documents, numbering more than 100 pages, involve nearly every corner of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.

An American media outlet called them “a rare window on the inner workings of American espionage.” They revealed how the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) recruited agents or eavesdropped on the closed-door conversations of world leaders.

These documents explain that the United States is still engaged in massive cyber attacks and theft of secrets around the world, which seriously harms other countries’ sovereignty and the privacy of global internet users, severely contravenes international law and basic norms governing international relations.

U.S. spying scandals tell the world that the United States is the origin of cyber warfare, the biggest spreader of advanced cyber weapons and the biggest global cyber thief.

The Black Chamber following World War I, the Project SHAMROCK after World War II and the Echelon during the Cold War period were all ironclad proofs of U.S. spying activities across the world.

The United States has been acting more arbitrarily with regard to global surveillance over the recent years.

According to the 2013 disclosure by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, Washington had been spying on the cell phone communications of as many as 35 world leaders and collecting almost 5 billion cell phone records around the world each day.

The Danish Broadcasting Corporation revealed in 2021 that Denmark’s secret service helped the United States spy on leaders of Germany, France, Norway and other U.S. allies in Europe.

The WikiLeaks, PRISM, Dirtbox, Irritant Horn, Bvp47 and Swiss encryption machines manipulated by the CIA all exposed that the United States has long been engaged in indiscriminate eavesdropping on the world.

“Do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

U.S. spying scandals tell the world that the United States only values its own hegemony and private interests, rather than its allies.

Former CIA official Philip Giraldi once said that “They should not have been surprised and all that. The United States spies on all its allies. When I was in the CIA working in Europe, we spied on the Germans. We spied on the Italians. We spied on the Spaniards. We spied on the British. We spied on everybody.”

The U.S. side claimed that the leak of these classified documents this time did not undermine trust and confidence with its partners, but the international community is clear that the United States was trying to conceal its lack of confidence, and the allies of the United States know that the country is not reliable at all.

New York City-based multinational financial and business news website Business Insider noted that it’s not a secret that U.S. intelligence organizations spy on both U.S. allies and enemies.

Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun said the leak this time discredited the White House and was a huge blow to the relations between the United States and its allies.

U.S. spying scandals tell the world that the United States is a total hypocrite when it comes to safeguarding cybersecurity.

China Cybersecurity Industry Alliance recently issued a report revealing the typical cyber attacks launched by the United States over the recent years and their negative impacts.

According to the report, the ransomware WannaCry that affected most countries and caused the most severe losses across the world in 2017 was the result of leaked cyber weapons from the U.S. National Security Agency. Ironically, in 2021, the United States put on an act by launching a so-called International Counter-Ransomware Initiative with dozens of countries.

The United States asked nine international internet giants, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Apple to cooperate with the U.S. government to secretly monitor information. It has been citing digital security as an excuse to suppress Chinese companies without providing any evidence, and even coerced its allies who were also victims of U.S. espionage to join the gang.

Besides, the United States also launched projects aiming to intrude, divide and suppress foreign cybersecurity vendors and force them to dance to the tune of the United States.

Facts have proved that the United States, which claims to work for a “Clean Network,” is not clean at all. It says it aims to develop “technology that reflects democratic values and interests,” but is only breaching the bottom line of morality.

What the United States really wants are a network and technologies that enable it to steal secrets, attack other countries and maintain its hegemony.

Safeguarding cybersecurity is a shared responsibility of the international community. The United States claims itself to be a defender of freedom and democracy, yet it has been the champion of hacking by using cutting-edge technology. The United States says it’s important to protect information security, yet it has placed information security traps worldwide. The country should stop its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices, and give a responsible account to the international community.

By Zhou Aimin

Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence and other new technologies are becoming new “farming tools” for Chinese farmers, injecting strong impetus into China’s rural revitalization.

Shouguang, known as the “vegetable capital of China” in east China’s Shandong province, has turned 60 mu (4 hectares) of greenhouses into modern agricultural factories where pollination, sorting, fertilization and other farming procedures are all completed by robots.

The “cloud planting” model, increasing vegetable production by 10 percent and the ratio of healthy fruits by 15 percent to 20 percent, has significantly improved the income of farmers.

Promoting the construction of digital villages is an important means to realize rural vitalization on all fronts and an important part of building a digital China.

China recently issued a document on the priorities of digital village construction in 2023, which requires local governments to enhance rural industrial development, rural construction and rural governance with digitalization and thus drive the modernization of agriculture and rural areas.

The country is currently working to use new-generation digital technologies to meet the demands of rural and agricultural modernization, accelerate the construction of digital villages and drive rural revitalization.

Digitalization opens up new space for the revitalization of rural industries.

Today, digital technologies are applied in every aspect of agriculture, including cultivating, planting, management and sales, making traditional agriculture more intelligent and leading to more targeted, efficient and robust agricultural production.

Technologies are used to monitor weather, soil conditions, humidity and temperature to make plants grow better, and experts can diagnose plant diseases and recommend treatment plans via online platforms. Besides, intelligent systems are adopted for targeted and digital management of agricultural personnel, capital and equipment, and e-commerce is expanding the sales channels of agricultural products.

The wide application of digital technologies has constantly enriched the forms of rural industries and helped form relevant industrial clusters, bringing new opportunities to rural revitalization.

High-quality development of rural public services can narrow the urban-rural gaps.

Over recent years, focusing on rural social security and employment services, information services for special groups in rural areas and rural inclusive financial services, China has achieved fruitful results in the digitalization of rural public services.

For instance, with regard to the integration of medical and elderly care, many regions across the country have introduced quality medical resources in urban areas to the rural areas through 5G-enabled health programs.

Digital technologies have not only improved rural public services, but also lowered the cost of extending public resources to rural areas, thus providing new approaches to the equalization of public services in rural and urban areas.

Digital technologies, featuring precision and quick response, are able to make rural governance more science-based.

For instance, Yubei district in southwest China’s Chongqing municipality has integrated data on primary-level Party building, industry, rural tourism and villagers’ information, and built intelligent governance platforms in villages, thus making it easier for residents to enjoy government services.

Deqing county in east China’s Zhejiang province has built a map of digital villages that collects 282 types of basic data from 58 local departments. All 137 administrative villages in the county have shared their data with a “city brain,” which automatically generates data reports and trend analyses for relevant departments to guide the industrial development of villages in a more targeted manner.

These practices prove that digital technologies can make rural governance significantly more efficient and targeted, and constantly modernize rural governance, so as to bring “digital dividends” to more rural residents.

By Wu Qiuyu, People’s Daily

According to annual reports of Chinese listed banks, greenness has become a defining character of the high-quality development of China’s banking sector.

Multiple banks have reported growing businesses of green credit, and their green financial products such as green bonds and green wealth management have been constantly enriched.

For instance, the balance of green loans of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China stood at 3.98 trillion yuan ($580 billion); the China Construction Bank has been working to advance green leasing, inclusive leasing and digital upgrading; the Bank of China has issued 87.7 billion yuan of green bonds.

Under the guidance of the philosophy that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,” Chinese financial institutions have been actively engaged in green finance, offering various types of financing support for ecological progress.

Statistics released by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank of the country,  outstanding green loans in China has so far exceeded 22 trillion yuan, about 10 percent of the country’s total loan balance. Besides, the country’s green bonds have hit more than 2.5 trillion yuan, among the highest in the world.

Aquaculture is a traditional business of rural residents in Ma’an community, Nan’an neighborhood, Gaoyao district of Zhaoqing, south China’s Guangdong province. It was because of green loans that the community has witnessed rapid development of photovoltaic (PV) power generation. Today, fish farms in the community, together with the PV panels above them, are bringing both economic and ecological benefits to local residents.

Promoting green and low-carbon economic and social development is a key step in achieving high-quality development. It is estimated that fulfilling carbon peak and carbon neutrality commitment will require an enormous amount of financing of about 100 trillion yuan. Therefore, green financing enjoys huge space of development and bright prospects, and provides important opportunities for the high-quality development of the financial sector.

The development of green financing couldn’t be achieved without a complete policy system and market environment.

Over the recent years, the PBOC has launched a carbon-reduction supporting tool and a special re-lending program for supporting clean and efficient utilization of coal to advance green development in a science-based manner.

As of the end of 2022, the central bank had lent more than 300 billion yuan via the carbon-reduction supporting tool and helped banks lend 600 billion yuan to green projects, contributing to about 100 million tons of carbon reduction.

Practices proved that structural monetary policy tools have not only supported the development of green financing in a targeted manner, but also mobilized financial institutions to allocate financial resources in a way that’s market-oriented.

Innovation remains an important approach to improving green financial services. Green development is related to every aspect of people’s work and life, and thus financial institutions need to develop more new products to meet the demand of the society.

It is shown in the annual reports of listed banks that many of them have started developing green financial products and making innovation in relevant services. For instance, the Ping An Bank has launched a personal carbon account program on its mobile application to promote green lifestyles, and the China CITIC Bank has issued green and low-carbon themed debit cards and launched a personal carbon account program to encourage green consumption.

To realize the goals of carbon peak and neutrality is not a 100-meter dash, but a marathon. Compared with traditional financing projects, green projects usually have longer investment cycles, lower incomes and need large investment, which require financial institutions to be patient and provide green development with more long-term capital assistance that’s lower-cost and sustainable. They should realize that green financing projects are not designed for quick return.

Besides, it should be noticed that green transition is a process that cannot be achieved at one stroke. It calls for well-coordinated relations between green and traditional projects and appropriate financial support based on economic and social development, so as to make the transition smooth and avoid potential financial risks.

Multiple banks vowed to keep working in the green financing sector in their 2022 annual reports. Green financing is an important propeller of high-quality economic and social development, and a stable source of energy for the transition of the financial industry. It is believed that the constant development of green financing will make more contributions to China’s ecological progress.

By Ouyang Jie, People’s Daily

This year, the Chinese department store Intime released a calendar that made an impression.

The calendar and its packaging were made of environment-friendly materials. Its stand and packing box were made of biodegradable kraft paper, and the calendar card can grow flowers if it is placed in the soil and watered.

According to an employee of Intime, the surprising innovation made calendars that would otherwise be discarded be reused.

“We hope to promote green consumption as a part of our everyday life,” the employee said.

Besides, the chain brand has also adopted biodegradable courier bags in its stores across China, which helps reduce the use of nearly 150 tons of plastic in total.

In Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong province, a shopping mall named Rock Square under CapitaLand Group has built a rooftop garden to offset the urban heat island effect. With water-conserving facilities, it boasts a comprehensive water-saving rate of 55.7 percent. The mall also improves its equipment maintenance and upkeep, lowering its comprehensive energy consumption by 43.8 percent.

In southwest China’s Chongqing municipality, Raffles shopping mall has created a fresh environment for consumers with multi-layer landscaping. Outside the shopping center, a rainwater recycling system has been installed to irrigate plants and reduce energy consumption.

According to a report on the development of China’s store retailing recently issued by the China Commerce Association for General Merchandise, although the revenue and net profit of the industry experienced contraction last year, many department stores had reinforced digital management to lower cost and improve efficiency, and constantly optimized their cost structure, following a green and environment-friendly philosophy.

Department stores have taken faster steps in digital transformation and upgrading. The report believes that the retailing sector has always been active in digital application due to its diverse business scenarios, and it still needs to improve its digital application and operation.

The report also said 86.5 percent of surveyed enterprises launched online businesses in 2022, and 64 percent of companies that have launched online businesses reported a higher percentage of revenue from their online sector.

Apart from the online business, department store retailers also adopted various technology applications offline.

According to the report, 65.4 percent of respondents have adopted the self-checkout system. Customers could pay at self-service cash registers or with WeChat mini-programs, and enterprises could collect consumption data with the system, so as to manage membership in an intelligent and digital way. The report said 8.7 percent of respondents reported higher foot traffic after adopting more tech-ish applications.

Department store retailers have made green development a part of their operation and management to promote sustainable development and low-carbon transition. Consumers today pay more attention to environmental protection, so department stores have followed the trend to champion green, low-carbon and healthy lifestyles, applying energy-conserving and carbon-reduction measures in their operation.

Department store retailers are confident about their development in 2023. The report said 85.7 percent of surveyed enterprises expect higher sales revenue this year.

They believe the consumption of higher-quality products will increase, and enterprises will keep improving the value of their commodities and services, build a better consumption environment, and provide better experiences to meet consumers’ demands.

Besides, retailers will work to improve operational efficiency and strengthen targeted management through digitalization, so as to enhance their core competitiveness.

By Guan Kejiang, People’s Daily

Saudi Arabia is the largest trading partner of China in the Middle East. Over the recent years, the two countries have witnessed increasingly frequent economic and trade exchanges as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 achieved greater synergy. More and more people in Saudi Arabia are purchasing Chinese commodities on e-commerce platforms.

People’s Daily recently joined logistics personnel in Saudi Arabia and recorded how express delivery parcels were transported from distribution centers in China to Saudi Arabia.

In front of an express delivery transfer center in the southern part of Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, trucks were seen arriving and leaving frequently. It is the first stop of parcels received by the Saudi Arabia branch of J&T Express, a Chinese express company, after customs clearance. Parcels would then be sent from this facility to distribution centers across the country and delivered by couriers.

Sun Jiankai, who’s in charge of the operation of the transfer center, told People’s Daily that the 10,000-square meter facility can handle 200,000 parcels on a daily basis and is one of the largest and most automated logistics centers in the Middle East.

It was the peak season of online shopping. Every day, the transfer center handled about 60,000 parcels. Half of them were from China and the other half domestic.

At 17:30, People’s Daily journalist and an employee of the transfer center randomly selected a parcel from a pile to be shipped to Saudi Arabia’s Al Qassim Province, and followed it to record how the parcel was delivered after getting consent from the receiver.

According to the shipping label, the parcel was an electronic product, and its destination was 40 kilometers away from Buraidah, capital of Al Qassim Province and 500 kilometers away from Riyadh.

It is learned that the Saudi Arabia branch of J&T Express has established a delivery network that covers the entire country since it was found in January 2022.

Sean Xiao, CEO of J&T Express Middle East, noted that the company has decided to settle in the Middle East and provide stable and quality services for local customers.

“Chinese enterprises will invest $2 billion in the Middle East and North Africa together with their local partners in the next 10 years, to build the most advanced and largest intelligent logistics park in the region,” the CEO noted.

At 0:30 the next day, parcels arriving at the transfer center were all sorted and then carried to their destinations by trucks along the wide and flat express way linking Riyadh and Buraidah.

Mohammad, driver of the truck carrying the selected electronic product, told People’s Daily that Chinese commodities were quite popular among consumers in Saudi Arabia.

In Saudi Arabia, there are two prominent challenges faced by the courier industry. One of them is the wide distribution of desert and incomplete address information of receivers. To solve the problem, Chinese express delivery companies designed a three-part shipping barcode, with each part designating one specific area. Finally, couriers would contact the receivers and confirm address information.

The other challenge is the low penetration rate of electronic payment. To accelerate digital transformation of the economy, countries in the Middle East have issued policies to encourage digital payments over the recent years, and many e-commerce platforms have also launched incentive measures for users that pay with e-wallets.

Mohammad told People’s Daily that more and more of his friends have started using electronic payments under the influence of Chinese express delivery companies and e-commerce platforms, adding that a change is happening to their consumption and payment habits.

At around 8:00, Mohammad’s truck arrived at a parcel distribution center of J&T Express in Buraidah, and parcels were soon unloaded and scanned by workers.

“I’ve been working here for eight months. The work efficiency of the Chinese logistics company is laudable,” said Abdulaziz Muhammad Almuhanna, who’s in charge of customer services at the distribution center.

He told People’s Daily that Saudi Arabia hopes to make its economy diversified, and the BRI has brought opportunities.

More than four hours later, the parcels unloaded from Mohammad’s truck were delivered by couriers. The electronic product was received by a young man named Ali Alseqaihi in Unayzah, which sits in the south of Buraidah. The young man signed his name in the app on the mobile phone of the courier and told People’s Daily that he was a big fan of Chinese commodities.

“Look, this is a cooling pad I bought from a shop in Shenzhen, which is the best on the market,” he said while tearing off the package of the product.

The man invited People’s Daily journalist to his home. Many of the home appliances in his house were manufactured by Chinese brands. Ali always follows Chinese news and likes Chinese culture. He said that connected by the ancient Silk Road, Saudi Arabia and China enjoy a long history of friendship.

“Today, the two countries are engaged in close economic and trade cooperation, and China’s economy is developing rapidly, which has benefited the two peoples,” he told People’s Daily.