Xinhua News Agency

Founded in 1931, Xinhua News Agency is one of the largest news organizations in the world, with over 10,000 employees across the globe. As the main source of news and information for China, Xinhua plays a key role in shaping the country's media landscape and communicating its perspectives to the world. The agency produces a wide range of content, including text news articles, photos, videos, and social media posts, in both Chinese and English, and its reports are widely used by media organizations around the world. Xinhua also operates several international bureaus, including in key capitals like Washington, D.C., Moscow, and London, to provide in-depth coverage of global events.

A new corridor discovered in Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza

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A discovery of a nine-meter-long and 2.10-meter-wide corridor behind the Great Pyramid of Giza, known as Khufu Pyramid, was announced on Thursday.

Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa said that “the discovery is a result of the international ‘ScanPyramids’ project that was launched in 2015 by Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities to study the structure of the pyramids without using harmful drilling methods.”

It will lead to further findings, he told a press conference in front of the Khufu Pyramid. 

An international team, consisting of experts from Egypt, France, Germany, Canada, and Japan, has been working on analyzing a cavity behind the pyramid’s north face that was first discovered in 2016, he added.

Scientists used non-invasive and non-destructive surveying techniques called muons radiography.

The discovered passage was likely designed to help relieve the weight of the vast structure of the 4,500-year-old Khufu’s Pyramid, which was built as royal burial chambers, according to the official.

Chinese, Russian FMs meet on ties, Ukraine crisis

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Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday over bilateral ties and a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held here in New Delhi.

Under the strategic guidance of presidents of the two countries, the China-Russia relations have maintained sound and steady development, setting a new paradigm for a new type of major-country relationship, and playing an important role in promoting solidarity and cooperation among emerging markets and developing countries, Qin said.

The two sides should maintain exchanges at all levels and step up communication and coordination between their foreign ministries, he said.

In the face of the complex and grave international situation, China stands ready to work with Russia and other members of the international community to safeguard peace, security, development and prosperity, and join hands to build a community with a shared future for mankind, the Chinese foreign minister said.

For his part, Lavrov said he is willing to work with the Chinese side to implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state, intensify high-level exchanges and plan cooperation in various fields.

Noting that both Russia and China are members of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, Lavrov said Russia is willing to strengthen strategic communication with China to inject more stability into the international system.

Russia supports and will actively participate in the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative, and will continue to strengthen coordination and cooperation between the two sides within the frameworks of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS and other multilateral organizations, Lavrov said.

The two sides also exchanged views on the Ukraine crisis.

Qin expounded on China’s basic position, calling for joint efforts to uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, support a political solution to the crisis, oppose fanning the flames and disrupting the peace talks, and object to double standards, sanctions and pressure.

China supports all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis and will continue to play a constructive role in this regard, he said.

Lavrov appreciated China’s objective and impartial position and constructive role, saying that the Russian side is always open to negotiations and dialogue.

The two sides also signed a consultation plan for 2023 between the foreign ministries of the two countries.

(Xinhua)

China-IMF cooperation beneficial to world to meet challenges, says Chinese premier

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Faced with a complicated international and regional situation, China’s ongoing friendly cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not only beneficial to both sides, but also to the international community as a whole to jointly meet the challenges it faces, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday.

Li made the remarks during a phone conversation with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

Noting that China is the world’s largest developing country and an active promoter of South-South cooperation, Li said that China is committed to closing the North-South divide.

Addressing low-income countries’ debt problems necessitates the participation of all creditors, Li said, noting that China remains ready to play a constructive role in resolving relevant countries’ debt issues within a multilateral framework.

At the same time, he said, China urges all parties to work together and share the burden fairly in order to assist low-income countries in overcoming economic challenges and achieving sustainable development.

Last year, unexpected factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on China’s economy, Li said, noting that the government responded quickly and decisively, implementing established policies and measures ahead of schedule, and introducing a package of policies and ongoing measures to stabilize the economy, thereby also stabilizing the macroeconomic market.

Throughout the year, cities and towns have added over 12 million new jobs, Li said, adding that in the face of high global inflation, the consumer price index increased by only 2 percent.

In the three years since COVID-19 broke out, China has pursued innovative macroeconomic regulation, focusing on stimulating market vitality and social creativity through measures such as tax and fee cuts, Li said.

The Chinese economy has grown at an average annual rate of 4.5 percent, higher than the world average. Currently, China’s economic growth is stabilizing and rebounding, with vast development potential in the future, the premier said.

Georgieva said that China’s economy, which has been faring well recently, has contributed to the world’s economic development, and will continue to be the main driver for global economic growth, adding that the IMF has significantly raised its expectations for China’s economic growth.

Georgieva thanked China for its positive and constructive attitude, as well as its efforts to assist developing countries in dealing with debt crises, adding that the IMF is ready to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China on this issue. 

India’s growing civil aviation industry sees greater scope for growth

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India’s aviation industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the past two-and-a-half decades, as air travel has come within the reach of the middle class, which till early 2000s was considered a luxury exclusiveness only to the rich and upper class.

Over the years, air travel has become accessible to those with an annual income bracket of roughly 8,536-14,500 U.S. dollars, i.e. the middle class, and even the next strata of Indian society down the line, the lower-middle class.

Most people belonging to the middle class are government employees who have begun opting for air-travel for family vacations while availing the Leave Travel Concession (LTC) offered by the government. Besides, practitioners in lucrative industries such as Information Technology (IT) and Telecommunications are increasingly taking to air travel instead of the traditional road or rail transport means.

This ever-expanding strata of Indians, who all the more choose flights for domestic travel, has given impetus to the consistent growth of civil aviation in the country.

According to the Indian government’s data, domestic air traffic has more than doubled from around 61 million passengers in the 2013-14 financial year to around 137 million in 2019-20. International passenger traffic has jumped from 47 million in 2013-14 to around 67 million in 2019-20 with an annual growth of over 6 percent.

The number of daily domestic air passengers in India was 398,579 during pre-COVID-19 years. Whereas this year, nearly 445,000 people boarded flights on Feb. 19, the maximum number ever, said Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.

The phenomenal growth is also driven by factors including the explosive growth in IT sector accompanied with high incomes, constantly decreasing gap between train tickets and air fares for long distances, significant rise in incomes of the salaried class (particularly of government employees by way of regular pay commissions), the West’s attraction towards the Indian civil aviation market, and a forward-looking civil aviation policy laid out by the Indian government, according to aviation experts.

In terms of civil aviation infrastructure, India has witnessed a marked improvement since the early 2000s, particularly over the past decade. The number of airports in the South Asian country has doubled to more than 140 in the past eight years, with Karnataka state’s newest Shivamogga Airport just inaugurated on Feb. 27.

As per an estimate, India is currently the 7th largest civil aviation market in the world, and is expected to become the third-largest civil aviation market within the next decade.

Renowned civil aviation expert Harsh Vardhan told Xinhua that the robust growth of the Indian economy due to liberalisation and privatisation policies shows there is a greater scope for growth in civil aviation in the coming years, as the number of aircraft and flyers per day of India still lags behind the developed nations.

Indians’ income growth over the years entails a shift in their work culture and traveling habits, encouraging them to fly instead of having prolonged travel by train or road. Meanwhile, with the cut-throat competition among the private airlines leading to low-cost flying, the paying-capacity of Indians has risen manifolds, which left a positive cumulative effect leading to an immense growth of the Indian civil aviation, said Vardhan.

Talking about the recent orders placed with Boeing and Airbus by Air India for 840 new aircraft, he said, “With the healthy competition in the aviation market up there, we can surely expect such big orders from other private airlines too. No doubt India’s civil aviation industry is destined to grow at a faster pace in the years ahead.”

The National Civil Aviation Policy 2016 aims to create an ecosystem to make flying affordable for the masses and witness 300 million domestic ticketing by 2022 and 500 million by 2027, and enable international ticketing to rise to 200 million by 2027. Similarly, cargo volumes should increase to 10 million tonnes by 2027.

It also aims to provide safe, secure, affordable and sustainable air travel for passengers and air transportation of cargo with access to various parts of India and the world. Besides, it plans to establish an integrated ecosystem which will lead to an significant growth of the civil aviation, which in turn will promote tourism, increase employment and lead to a balanced regional growth.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently allocated 31 billion Indian rupees (around 376 million U.S. dollars) for the civil aviation ministry in the Union Budget for the 2023-24 financial year (April 2023 – March 2024). “Fifty additional airports, heliports, water aerodromes and advance landing grounds will be revived for improving regional air connectivity,” the minister said in her Budget speech earlier this month.

Moscow opens world’s longest subway line

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Moscow on Wednesday opened the 70-km Big Circle Line (BCL), the longest subway line in the world.

The metro line was constructed from 2011 to 2022. The first section of the BCL opened in 2018, and another 20-km section, which is the longest in the history of the capital’s metro, was launched in December 2021.

The BCL has 31 stations, with 24 of those providing 47 interchanges to existing and future stations of the capital’s metro.

Maksim Liksutov, deputy mayor of Moscow for transport, said that the BCL will serve as an impetus to the capital’s development for decades to come, adding that it would help decrease the traffic flow on the city’s highways by up to 15 percent, and would decongest metro lines by up to 25 percent.

CPEC plays pivotal role in promoting green development in Pakistan, say experts

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The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has been playing a pivotal role in promoting green development in Pakistan, highlighting China’s commitment to harmonious coexistence of human beings and nature, Pakistani officials and experts said.

Talking to Xinhua, Convener of National Parliamentary Task Force on Sustainable Development Goals, Romina Khurshid Alam, said the cooperation between Pakistan and China under the CPEC in the fields of energy, transport, agriculture and industrial production has helped Pakistan boost green, low-carbon sustainable development.

Besides assisting Pakistan in overcoming energy crisis and infrastructure upgrading through the CPEC, Chinese companies in Pakistan have been strictly following international and local standards on safety and environmental protection, Alam said.

In implementing infrastructure projects, ecological factors have been fully considered and a number of green and clean energy projects including solar, wind and hydropower have been completed across the Asian country over the past several years, reducing carbon emissions and contributing to economic development, environment protection and improvement of living standards of the locals, said the official.

Citing the example of recently completed 720-megawatt Karot hydropower project, Alam said that a comprehensive biodiversity management plan was developed for construction and operation stages of the project to protect environment and wildlife around the project site.

Pakistan and China have further stepped up their cooperation in green energy for the benefit of the region under the CPEC, helping Pakistan mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change, said Hassan Daud Butt, senior advisor at the China Study Center of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank.

“Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, with the country facing the worst climate-induced catastrophic floods recently. As the CPEC is making progress, it can help the country to tackle the climate change issue by increasing investment in renewable energy, green building construction, decreasing energy loss, and innovative practices such as green finance and other measures,” Butt told Xinhua.

Photo taken on Sept. 6, 2021 shows a view of the Lahore Converter Station of the ±660kV Matiari-Lahore high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) on the outskirts of Lahore, in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province. (State Grid Corporation of China/Handout via Xinhua)

Calling the CPEC a game changer and a green corridor, Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, chief executive officer of the Asian Institute of Eco-civilization Research and Development, said that the flagship project of the BRI is people-centric, environmentally friendly, inclusive and green and sustainable initiative.

China has been utilizing new technologies and making investments in BRI partner countries to support green development. Pakistan can learn from the Chinese experience and technology to realize its vision of high-quality green and sustainable development, Ramay told Xinhua.

“The CPEC has changed the landscape of Pakistan and has accelerated growth while bringing about socio-economic benefits for the people of Pakistan … China’s commitment to promoting carbon-free global economy is commendable,” he said.

Delay in Finland, Sweden’s NATO approval harms alliance’s credibility: Finnish PM

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The delay in the ratification of Finland and Sweden’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership bid harms the alliance’s credibility, Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin said here on Tuesday.

“We (Finland and Sweden) would have hoped to become members of NATO already,” she said. “Finland and Sweden fulfill all the criteria as it has been mentioned, and we are yet waiting. Of course, this strains the open-door policy of NATO; it’s also to do with NATO’s credibility,” Marin said during a joint press conference with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin (L) speaks at a press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Stockholm, Sweden, on Feb. 2, 2023. (Ninni Andersson/Government Offices of Sweden/Handout via Xinhua)

Finland and Sweden jointly submitted their NATO membership bids in May last year. So far, 28 of NATO’s 30 current members have ratified the applications. Türkiye and Hungary have yet to formally endorse the two countries’ accession.

Stoltenberg reiterated that Finland and Sweden’s rapid admission is now the alliance’s number one priority. He said that representatives of Türkiye, Finland and Sweden are scheduled to meet at NATO headquarters in Brussels next week. However, this does not guarantee a breakthrough and the final decision rests with Türkiye and Hungary, Stoltenberg said.

Stoltenberg was in Helsinki to attend the annual meeting of SAMAK, the co-operation committee of the Nordic Social Democratic parties.

Istanbul launches program to check buildings’ safety following deadly quakes

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Türkiye’s largest city Istanbul has launched a program to provide rapid scans of buildings as many residents worry about the safety of their residences in the wake of recent devastating earthquakes that have killed over 44,000 people in the country.

As the country’s financial and cultural hub with over 16 million residents, Istanbul is located at the west end of the North Anatolian Fault Line, which has produced many major earthquakes throughout history. The city government launched the scanning program in a bid to soothe the nerves of local residents.

The service, which includes measuring the consistency of concrete and counting the number of rebars with X-ray scan, will evaluate the strength of the ground and rate the safety level of the checked building accordingly.

Ozlem Tut, head of the Municipality’s Earthquake Risk Management and Urban Improvement Department, told reporters last Thursday that they received 85,000 applications for the test since the deadly dual tremors took place on Feb. 6.

“There has been a lot of concern after the earthquakes,” Tut said, “we will respond to all of it.”

The municipal teams prioritize structures built before 2000, checking 150 buildings per day.

If the concrete’s strength is reported as “weak,” then it will be reinforced. If reinforcement is not possible, then the building will be demolished before a new one is built. In case of demolition, the city provides up to 4,500 Turkish liras (238 U.S. dollars) in rental assistance to its residents.

In 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake rattled the industrialized Marmara region, home to Istanbul, killing more than 17,000 people and leaving some 300,000 homeless. The devastation forced the authorities to adopt regulations with nominal construction quality after 2000.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu urged residents to cooperate on the issue, as there is considerable work in the megalopolis of over 1.16 million buildings. According to the 2021 building inventory, about half of the buildings do not meet earthquake resistance standards.

“This is a call for mobilization,” Imamoglu announced on his social media accounts. “Thousands of buildings in Istanbul must be demolished and constructed to be earthquake-proof.”

Meanwhile, Istanbul University Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty Hospital suspended all the health and education services in its 17 buildings in the compound in the Fatih district on the city’s European side after an earthquake risk examination.

On Monday, Faculty President Nuri Aydin told reporters that the test results revealed that the buildings were at risk and the evacuation had started. This state-owned hospital is one of the most comprehensive health facilities in the city.

In the wake of the deadly tremors in early February, many Istanbul residents plan to move to earthquake-proof buildings, while the authorities are scrambling to evaluate the buildings’ strength.

Kerem Koramaz, a resident living in the Bakirkoy district on Istanbul’s European side, told Xinhua that he had applied for testing the safety of his apartment, built in 2005, in case of an earthquake strike.

“What we as citizens need most is technical support from local administrations and public institutions, which will be there for us during this process,” Koramaz said.

As a result, the rents of new apartments have skyrocketed in the city recently.

The rents of new apartment buildings have increased 10 to 20 percent in the past 15 days, said Muttalip Iscan, a real estate agent in Istanbul.

Racism against Asian Americans — a long, ugly chapter in U.S. history

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On the morning of Feb. 13, 2022, 35-year-old Christina Yuna Lee was found dead in her bathroom stabbed 40 times after a man, Assamad Nash, silently followed her up six flights of stairs into her lower Manhattan apartment, only because of her Asian descent.

Following the random yet violent murder, mourners placed flowers, candles, photos and cardboard signs condemning anti-Asian hatred outside the residential building. However, the makeshift memorial for the Korean-American victim was repeatedly vandalized.

Every attack on the memorial is pretty much anti-Asian and “it is very scary now,” said Brian Chin, Lee’s former landlord, whose family came to the United States from China six decades ago. “They’re doing it with hate.”

Lee’s tragedy and similar racist incidents are just the tip of the iceberg regarding anti-Asian racism in the country.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, some U.S. politicians have blatantly spread and hyped up conspiracy theories to shift the blame for their failed response to the contagion onto Asian Americans, causing a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes.

Over three years into the pandemic, the U.S. government, turning a blind eye to science and basic facts, recently introduced discriminatory restrictions targeting tourists arriving from China, raising concerns about further aggravating the situation.

“THEY DON’T DARE GO OUTSIDE”

In the past few years, shocking racist attacks against Asian Americans have occurred frequently in the United States.

For instance, on July 14, 2020, in New York City, an 89-year-old Chinese American woman was slapped in the face by two male strangers on the street, and when she tried to escape, the men set her clothes on fire from behind.

On Aug. 30, 2021, an elderly Filipino woman was pushed down the stairs by a white man in Rego Park Subway Station in Queens, New York, resulting in her sustaining serious facial and physical injuries.

Jenny H., in her 60s, has been living in San Francisco for more than 30 years. She didn’t give her full name to Xinhua for fear that she would again become a target of racial assaults after the interview.

The lady used to like going outside, doing voluntary work, talking to strangers on buses … though such a life is now nothing but a distant memory to her.

In 2020, she had her bones broken in a subway station after someone violently pushed her to the ground. Furthermore, she was once hit in the face by a bus passenger, leaving permanent damage to her eye. Nowadays, she must go to the hospital every three months for a medical checkup, but other than that, she doesn’t dare to go outside amid the spike in Asiaphobia.

Some U.S. politicians bear a great deal of responsibility for this situation, as they tend to scapegoat the Asian community and deliberately stoke xenophobia and racism to cover up their own incompetencies in solving domestic political problems.

Haipei Shue, president of United Chinese Americans, an Asian American advocacy group, told Xinhua that the United States is regressing in the fight against racial discrimination at an alarming rate.

In 2021, hate crimes against Asian Americans rose sharply by 339 percent compared with 2020, showed data from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, a U.S. nonpartisan research and policy center.

Between March 2020 and December 2021, nearly 11,000 hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were reported to the national coalition Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate. One in five incidents occurred as an attacker attributed the impact of COVID-19, income volatility and other problems to Asians and Asian Americans.

In March 2021, Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, opened fire in three Asian Massage shops and spas in Atlanta with a gun, killing eight people, including six Asian women.

When addressing a speech at Emory University, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said, “Racism is real in America, and it has always been there. Xenophobia is real in America, and always has been.”

“Asian Americans have been attacked and scapegoated,” she said. “People with the biggest pulpits spreading this kind of hate.”

In May 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. Yet a study published by Pew Research Center in May 2022 showed about six in ten Asian adults see violence against Asian Americans in the United States as increasing, while 19 percent say there has not been much change.

ANTI-ASIAN AMERICAN RACISM IN U.S. HISTORY

In June 2005, construction crews unearthed bones and artifacts while widening a road to make room for the Gold Line rail extension to east Los Angeles. Archaeologists later found 174 burial sites, some dating back as far as the 1880s. A few had headstones with engravings in Chinese, and some contained artifacts such as teapots and jade jewelry.

Historians believe the site was once a potter’s field, a cemetery for the poor, that was lost to developments in the 1920s. Many Chinese were buried there because they were not allowed to be buried among whites in the nearby Evergreen Cemetery.

In 1863, the United States embarked on the Pacific Railroad project, North America’s very first transcontinental railroad, and recruited some 12,000 Chinese workers to construct the project under extremely dangerous and challenging conditions.

Over five consecutive months between late 1865 and early 1866, more than 3,000 Chinese railway workers were killed in avalanches caused by frequent snowstorms. The victims, in ragged clothes and barefoot, were not discovered until the snow melted months later.

Despite their historical contributions to U.S. development, Chinese Americans have become victims of social repulsion and racial violence.

In 1854, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Asian Americans were not and could not be citizens in a case, and such restrictions on Asian Americans’ access to citizenship were not finally abolished until around the 1940s.

The earliest record of organized violence against Asian Americans was in 1871, when a group of whites rushed into an Asian community near Los Angeles’ Chinatown, shooting and hanging 21 Chinese Americans to death, burning down the community, and driving the residents out of the city.

The severe prejudice against Asian Americans eventually led to the prohibition of Chinese immigrants in the United States with the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which stayed in force until 1943.

The sin of racial discrimination is deeply rooted in U.S. history, with the Chinese Exclusion Act being one epitome, said Shue, head of the above-mentioned Chinese Americans advocacy group. Targeting and suppressing a specific ethnic group, the law has caused irreparable harm to Chinese Americans.

On the night of June 19, 1982, 27-year-old Chinese American Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two white autoworkers in the U.S. city of Detroit at a time when local politicians, union leaders and auto executives blamed Japan for the decline of the U.S. auto industry, and Chin was mistaken as a Japanese.

The two criminals were eventually fined 3,000 U.S. dollars and sentenced to probation. Charles Kaufman, a former U.S. judge who ruled the case, said, “These weren’t the kind of men you send to jail … You don’t make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal.”

“In 1982, Mr. Chin was made into a scapegoat not only for Japanese autoworkers and executives but also a deteriorating way of life for those once solidly in the middle class but quickly falling out of it,” wrote David Shih, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, in an opinion piece published in The New York Times last year.

Today, Asian Americans are also “the scapegoat for a fading sense of well-being in a market-driven and hypercompetitive society,” Shih said.

“IT’S A DEEP-ROOTED PROBLEM”

Earlier this year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instituted discriminatory entry restrictions against China, requiring travelers flying from China to the United States to provide negative COVID-19 test results taken within two days of departure or proof of recovery from the disease within 90 days.

Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at the George Washington University School, tweeted in response that “The U.S. plan to require travelers from China to be tested prior to departure is mostly performative,” adding “The Chinese testing is just a gesture.”

The policy itself isn’t the main concern, but rather the larger anti-Chinese environment under which the rule has been imposed. And it’s an issue that extends beyond the pandemic, said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

“We are concerned that that is another place where it will be an excuse to China-bash and thereby cause a backlash against Chinese Americans and the Asian American community as a whole,” Yang said.

Just about a week after the entry restrictions took effect, an 18-year-old Asian woman at Indiana University Bloomington was attacked and stabbed several times in the head by a 56-year-old white woman with a knife on a bus. The suspect told police that her target was “Chinese” and it “would be one less person to blow up our country.”

Huping Ling, a renowned U.S. historian focusing on Asian American studies, said xenophobic violence against Asian Americans has deep historical roots in the United States. She pointed out in her book “Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia” that driven by racially biased and discriminatory laws and policies, xenophobic violence began with the first wave of Chinese immigrants to the United States and has been repeated ever since.

Li Minjin, an Asian-American writer who grew up in Queens, New York, said in an interview with American media that no matter how educated Asian Americans are or how safe their communities are, they are likely to encounter insults and attacks, and may even be killed. This is the historical result of the long-term persecution of the Asian community.

Some scholars argue that unlike discrimination against African Americans, discrimination against Asian Americans in U.S. society has been xenophobic historically. At its core, from its psychological roots, is a view of “alienating Asians permanently.”

Chinese-American historian Erika Lee wrote in the book “The Making of Asian America: A History” that while the discriminatory laws of the past have been repealed, Asian Americans have not achieved full equality in American society. Many Asians settled in the United States generations ago but are still considered outsiders, which has allowed discrimination against them and made them the target of violence, murder, and hate crimes.

Chinese-American writer and journalist Katherine Chen admitted in a review article that for many years, she has felt like an outsider in the United States, with no choice but to alienate her ethnic traditions and culture. Asian-American groups were beaten, stabbed, or pushed onto subway tracks, but “what happened to us was not noticed among our peers, nor in history textbooks and civil rights speeches,” she said.

In a broader sense, anti-Asian racism is one manifestation of systemic racial discrimination in the United States. Like African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and other ethnic minorities, Asians have all been objects of discrimination and oppression by “white supremacists” in the United States for a long time. They are also the victims of racial hatred and antagonism incited by U.S. politicians who are acting out of their own interests.

“We are a nation of immigrants with a history of discrimination and exploitation of minority groups. We are still learning from the mistakes of the past. Asian Americans have contributed mightily to the success of the United States, but there is still much work to be done to treat Asian Americans as Americans,” said Committee of 100 President Huang Zhengyu.

The fight against racist words and actions of certain politicians and leaders towards the Asian American community as well as long-held stereotypes is staged on a daily basis, Huang added.

Zhang Yunhan, a tea shop owner in Washington, D.C., was subject to anti-Asian attack, and he believes that the surge in hate crimes in the wake of COVID-19 is a culmination of the racism that has plagued the United States for centuries. “It’s not going to go away. It’s a deep-rooted problem,” he told Xinhua.

New pattern crucial for China’s high-quality development – A Chinese Viewpoint

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The Chinese leadership has placed the new development pattern high on the country’s policy agenda, according to which the domestic market is taken as the country’s economic mainstay with domestic and foreign markets complementing each other.

Accelerating the establishment of a new development pattern is a strategic decision for the country’s long-term development and security.

Only by doing so can China consolidate the foundation for its economy and enhance the security and stability of its development. China’s capability to deal with predictable and unpredictable storms and high winds can also be strengthened in the fostering of a new development pattern.

As the world’s most populous country, China enjoys a massive domestic market, on the basis of which a virtuous circle of goods production, circulation, distribution and consumption should be enhanced. That lays a solid foundation for China’s high-quality development.

Over the past Spring Festival holiday, the first since China optimized its COVID response, the country witnessed a booming domestic market and expanding consumption in various sectors such as tourism, box office, retail and catering.

About 308 million domestic tourism trips were made during the seven-day holiday, up by 23.1 percent year on year. The holiday box office generated a whopping revenue of 6.76 billion yuan (about 970 million U.S. dollars), the second highest in history for the same period.

Demand drives supply and supply creates demand. Efforts should be made to coordinate the expansion of domestic demand and the deepening of supply-side structural reform, so as to create a higher-level dynamic balance and achieve a virtuous cycle in the national economy.

Electric vehicle (EV) brands have sprung up across the nation, providing a number of new options for Chinese consumers. China’s production and sales of new-energy vehicles reached 7.05 million and 6.88 million, respectively, in 2022, both registering growth of over 90 percent year on year, according to the China Machinery Industry Federation.

Consumption is a constant driver of the economy. The promising signs mentioned above have ensured a good momentum for China’s economic growth. To further tap into the potential of the domestic market, the country’s vast rural areas, home to hundreds of millions of residents, cannot be neglected.

The coordinated development of urban and rural areas, as well as of different regions, should be advanced. On the one hand, China’s rural areas shoulder the responsibility of producing enough food to feed its population. On the other hand, rural vitalization will unleash a strong consumption power for China’s post-pandemic growth.

Along with the rising income of rural residents, China’s rural consumption is expected to accelerate upgrading, and 2 trillion yuan in new consumption demand is expected to be created annually, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian said.

Emphasizing the domestic market doesn’t mean the international market is no longer important. The various comparative advantages, division of labor, and supply and industrial chain cooperation have made the global economy operate in a more efficient way.

China has benefited greatly from its reform and opening-up over a period of 40-plus years, in terms of exporting and attracting foreign investment. China is determined to continue the policy and improve mechanisms regarding intellectual property rights protection, market access and fair competition, so as to nurture a more favorable environment for all types of market entities.

The rebound of the Chinese economy has attracted new interest among international investors. The foreign direct investment into the Chinese mainland, in actual use, expanded 14.5 percent year on year to 127.69 billion yuan in January, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The year 2023 will mark the 10th anniversary of the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative, a prominent achievement of China’s opening-up and international cooperation in recent years. China has signed over 200 cooperation agreements with 151 countries and 32 international organizations so far. China’s active participation in global trade and economy not only boosts the country’s development, but also contributes to global economic growth.

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