Residents of Nanshan village in Kazuo Mongolian autonomous county in northeast China’s Liaoning province have been able to live better lives thanks to a relocation project.

An old house in Nanshan village. (File photo)

Due to its location in the mountains, Nanshan village in Gongyingzi township lacked water and farmland. Residents lived in shabby houses and had difficulty obtaining drinking water, medical care and education.

109 out of the total 284 households in the village were stricken by poverty and the poor population in the village had reached 253.

Jiang Xiurong, a villager, receives interview from People’s Daily Online in her new house. (People’s Daily Online/Tong Zongli)

This all began to change in July 2016, when Gongyingzi township launched a relocation project in the village. With a total investment of 6 million yuan, the town constructed 2,100 square meters of housing and relocated 28 households in the village, including 12 registered poverty-stricken households.

About one year later, it also built 1.9 km of roads, laid 3.2 km of water supply pipelines and 4,260 square meters of greenbelt in Nanshan village in a bid to improve the local facilities.

Residents now have better access to safe water, a heating system in winter, education as well as medical care.

Aerial view of the old Nanshan village. (People’s Daily Online/Wei Qingcheng)

Aerial view of the new Nanshan village. (People’s Daily Online/Wei Qingcheng)

By making the most of its local advantages, Nanshan village has developed photovoltaic power generation, characteristic planting and breeding industries to help the residents become more prosperous.

It has developed a standardized snow peach orchard with an area of about 200,000 square meters, planted tobaccos and gourds, and also bred cattle and sheep, leading local villagers onto the road to wealth.

China announced the completion and commissioning of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) on July 31, 2020, which means that users across the world can now access Beidou’s open, free, high-quality navigation and positioning services.

A tractor equipped with Beidou navigation system sow seeds in Anzhong village, Dengzhou city, central China’s Henan province. (Photo/Xinhua)

More than 70 percent of the smart phones connected to networks in China provide services offered by Beidou, and the positioning accuracy of shared bicycles has improved, from the former 1-10 meters to 10 centimeters-1 meter.

Every morning, Beijing resident Zhao uses a Hello Bike shared bicycle from downstairs in her residential community to ride 4 kilometers to work, which she has been doing for the last year. From the end of March this year, she felt that her shared bicycle experience has improved.

“In the past, sometimes when the APP on my smart phone showed that there was a bike outside the wall, I would find that the bike was actually behind the wall. As I was in a hurry to get to work, I had no choice but to give up on the ride,” said Zhao, adding that these days, the positioning is much more accurate.

This change is a result of technological updates to the positioning services of bicycles. Currently, Beidou positioning devices have been installed in each Hello Bike bicycle’s smart lock.

Services delivered by Beidou cover all aspects of life, from industrial to public applications.

Right now, Beidou navigation and positioning services have been adopted by fields such as e-commerce, mobile intelligent terminal manufacturing and intelligent wearable devices. More than 70 percent of smart phones connected to networks in China provide services offered by Beidou, showing that it is being widely used by ordinary people.

Huawei’s mobile phones have supported the BDS-2 since 2013. But compared with GPS, Beidou mainly played an auxiliary role at that time. After 2017, mobile phones were able to receive more and more Beidou satellite signals, as the system became increasingly stable.

At present, the latest Honor 30pro mobile phones from Huawei provide support for the use of BDS-3 signals. Mobile phone engineers may not be familiar with the construction progress of the Beidou system, and only feel the changes through the change of signals.

“For mobile phone manufacturers, the algorithm is not biased towards the signals. Mobile phones attach great importance to the user experience, so manufacturers will definitely choose the signals that are best for users,” an engineer from Huawei pointed out.

Beidou is also capable of perceiving subtle changes in the hidden dangers of geological disasters and issue early warnings.

“This year, the Beidou monitoring system gave an early warning in my hometown of Shimen county, Hunan province, and ensured the safety of people’s lives and property,” said Ran Chengqi, director of the China Satellite Navigation system Management Office, adding that “Beidou has played a good role in supporting science and technology in terms of deformation monitoring, early warning, and transfer of people.”

Mountain torrents are the main cause of casualties in floods, and accurate prediction can buy time to relocate people, so “early warning” ability has become a top priority. At present, provinces such as Jiangsu, Guizhou, Guangxi and Sichuan have also established disaster monitoring systems based on Beidou, which can automatically monitor changes in hidden danger points 24 hours a day. Beidou enables preparations for disaster prevention and mitigation to be carried out in advance.

Beidou can also be applied in agriculture. After trucks are connected to Beidou data, information such as the actual location, operation route, cargo capacity, fuel consumption and mileage can be easily accessed.

“Beidou navigation meets the needs of accurate operation of agricultural machinery equipment and precise implementation of agronomic prescriptions,” said Tian Yongchao, Professor of Nanjing Agricultural University.

“Thanks to the combination of Beidou navigation and the intelligent wheat farming system… we can automatically receive system instructions and obtain spatial location information, and then plan the operation route,” Tian added.

Transportation is also a typical industry in which Beidou can be applied.

Liao Xining, general manager of Hunan Hongsheng Logistics Co., Ltd., is most concerned about how to prevent speeding and fatigue driving and improving the level of safety management in the process of urban distribution and dangerous goods transportation. Liao is deeply impressed by the changes that Beidou has brought to the freight industry.

“Last year, a rear-end collision occurred in the Hengyang section of the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway, from which the driver escaped unharmed. Through the Beidou vehicle terminal, the traffic control department tracked down our company’s vehicle, which happened to be passing through the road section of the accident, and quickly located the vehicle that caused the accident through the camera installed on our truck,” Liao recalled.

The Beidou vehicle terminal that Liao mentioned is a typical digital application in the field of traffic logistics.

“The speed limit of dangerous goods transport vehicles is 80 kilometers per hour. When the speed is about to reach this limit, the Beidou terminal will automatically issue a reminder. If you drive continuously for more than three and a half hours, the driver will also be reminded to have a rest,” Liao said, noting that active management through the Beidou system has greatly reduced the incidence of speeding and fatigue driving.

Small home appliances have become increasingly popular among Chinese consumers, thanks to young people’s higher expectations for quality of life and online marketing channels.

(Photo/Pixabay.com)

When Chen Wei, a post-90s woman who works for a company in Beijing, prepares breakfast for herself, she usually toasts a sandwich in three minutes with her newly bought breakfast machine, fries an egg in one minute, squeezes a cup of juice with her juicer, and then enjoys a nutritious meal.

“I can make a quick and healthy breakfast and meet the standards for a high quality of life,” Chen said.

Chen is just one of the many fans of mini home appliances in China. Small home appliances devised for a specific function, such as breakfast machines, juicers and multifunctional glass kettles, are enjoying increasing popularity among Chinese consumers.

With the “homebody economy” gaining momentum in the country during the COVID-19 epidemic, advertisements for these small home appliances can be seen all over Chinese social media, livestreaming platforms, and short video platforms.

Last year, the total value of exports of large home appliances exceeded $25.7 billion, a decline of 1 percent year on year, while that of small home appliances hit $32.4 billion, up 6.2 percent year on year, according to a report compiled by the National Household Appliance Industry Information Center.

Due to the epidemic, sales of small home appliances dropped slightly. However, some leading enterprises in the sector saw a significant increase in revenue. For example, the revenue of Bear Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. in south China’s Guangdong province grew 17.3 percent year on year in the first quarter this year, while Guangdong Xinbao Electrical Appliances Holdings Co., Ltd. witnessed a year-on-year increase of 4.1 percent in its revenue during the same period.

Statistics from Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba show that the overall sales volume of mini kitchen appliances in the first quarter of this year reached 13.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.8 percent.

China’s booming market has led to the emergence of more and more small household products, and countless new mini household products have sprung up in recent years.

Joyoung, a long-established kitchenware brand, has launched a series of new small home appliances such as juicers, air fryers, and food processors in the last few years.

“We found that pretty mini kitchen appliances with simple-to-use features that clean easily have become popular in recent years, with more application environments including living rooms, offices and hotels,” said Pan Zhifeng, the operation manager of Joyoung’s e-commerce sector, adding that the company will continue to launch new products to meet consumers’ needs.

China’s online government administration platforms have flourished, providing more convenient services for companies and individuals.

A citizens uses an government service app to search for information in Chongqing. (Photo/Chinanews.com)

According to statistics, the number of users of online government services in the country hit 694 million as of March, up 76.3 percent from the figure at the end of 2018. The users account for 76.8 percent of the number of internet users in China.

While local governments have advanced the transformation of online services, 29 provincial governments have set up special “sections” on their online government service platforms to provide better services to meet the needs of the public more efficiently.

South China’s Guangdong province has set a great example in this regard. Relying on its integrated online government service platform, the province has provided online services for enterprises during the period of COVID-19 epidemic control, facilitating work and production resumption, and invigorating the market.

“I stayed at home and got things done. Now electronic certificates, seals and signatures are all that I think about,” said Jiang Weikai, an executive of Guangzhou Haoyang Electronic Co., Ltd., a lighting equipment producer in the southern coastal province’s capital city Guangzhou. Jiang benefited from the contactless government services during the period of the outbreak.

So far, Guangdong has published 2,106 items of government services that individuals and businesses can access without providing certificates, according to Gao Shangsheng, deputy head of the Guangdong Government Service Data Management Bureau.

Guangdong also launched a WeChat mini program called Yueshitong, roughly translated in English to “saving the trouble in Guangdong” for the construction of digital government.

When Wang Jun from northeast China had a dispute with his employer over compensation, he sent an application to the program for labor mediation to solve the problem. A mediator immediately communicated with his employer, and Wang received the compensation on the third day upon his application.

According to Gao, the program has handled over 900 million cases since its launch. At present, on average, half of the residents in the province have used the program to access government services.

The program has provided 1,195 items of government services, including 988 ones that allow people to complete tasks without going to government offices, and 105 items residents can handle without the need for a second visit.

The province has also ensured information sharing and connectivity among departments at different levels to remove “isolated islands of information.”

Jin Yuepin is more than just a chef. He is also the chairman of an ecological agriculture development company in east China’s Zhejiang province pioneering a unique method of farming.

Jin Yuepin (right) checks the growth condition of rice. (Photo/Lin Dajun)

After living in France for 29 years, he has come back to China and has been awarded the title of “Model Farmer” by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

In February 2007, Jin came back with his parents to visit their relatives in China during the Spring Festival. When Jin saw the farmland in his hometown and the fish swimming in the pond, he felt a strong sense of nostalgia and the impulse to come back to China after living in France for 29 years.

At that time, the rice-fish farming system in Qingtian, Jin’s hometown, had just been designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as one of the first batch of Globally Important Agricultural Heritages in the world. This further prompted him to make up his mind to return to his hometown and start a business raising fish in rice field waters.

Just half a year later, Jin took care of his foreign assets and returned to his hometown.

“At that time, it was easy for me to earn millions of yuan a year in France,” Jin recalled, adding that most of his relatives and friends could not understand his decision to go back to his hometown.

Thanks to his many years of entrepreneurial experience abroad, Jin was aware of the need to “manufacture products with their own brands and trademarks”. While others hesitated, he started thinking about how to start a brand for “raising fish in rice field waters”.

“At first, I rented 50 mu (about 3.3 hectares) of rice fields and built a base to raise fish,” Jin said, noting that at the time, fish were traditionally bought at a high price from local farmers and spawned. Although many fish did spawn, few survived.

He consulted several people, but was unable to find a solution. In order to master the skill of raising fish, he made a special trip to a university in Shanghai to learn how to cultivate and spawn fish fry.

After half a year of study, he finally mastered the skill of raising fish in rice field waters. The survival rate of his fish fry began to increase year by year, and Jin became a fish culture expert in the village.

In 2010, Jin organized a rice-fish farmers’ cooperative, established a 2,000-square-meter fish breeding base and contracted more than 400 mu of rice fields from villagers to set up a rice-fish farming base.

Thanks to his efforts, more than 80 members of the cooperative have made profits from the rice fields, with each reaping a per capita net income of over 15,000 yuan ($2,196).

He also registered trademarks for the products and helped to win national certification for both the rice and the fish as “green food” in recognition of its natural qualities and environmental value.

In 2014, Jin was awarded the title of “Model Farmer” by the Food and Agriculture Organization for his contribution to meeting the requirements of consumers for product quality and safety, increasing farmers’ incomes, protecting the agricultural ecological environment, and optimizing the agricultural industrial structure.

As for his future plans, Jin said that he is preparing to apply for quality certification for dried fish, and plans to build an experimental base for middle school students, and create one-stop services for experiments, sightseeing, and farm music. At the same time, he will also help with efforts to sell agricultural products from his hometown overseas.

The tourism industry of south China’s island province Hainan accelerated its recovery during the summer vacation.

Customers shop at a duty-free store in Riyue Plaza of Haikou, capital of Hainan Province on July 30. Photo by Wang Chenglong/People’s Daily Online

From Aug. 1 to 23, about 2.5 million tourists visited the island by 17,299 flights, basically returning to the level of the same period last year.

As overseas travel almost came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many domestic summer vacationers have been drawn by the province’s favorable offshore duty-free policies, while the unprecedented policy adjustment has ignited a wave of offshore duty-free shopping on the island.

Since July, daily average sales of duty-free goods in Hainan had surpassed 100 million yuan ($14.6 million). Cosmetics were the best-selling products at duty-free shops, with the per capita consumption ranging between 1,000 yuan and even more than 30,000 yuan. The newly introduced duty-free electronic products, such as mobile phones and computers, have been welcomed by customers.

Total sales of four offshore duty-free shops in Hainan have exceeded 5 billion yuan from July 1 to Aug. 18, up 250 percent year-on-year. During this period, 740,000 customers bought duty-free products on the island, 70 percent more than those from a year ago.

In addition to the favorable policies, the province’s promotional activities since the Spring Festival holiday have also attracted visitors.

Local governments’ promotional activities and cooperation with major domestic tourism platforms helped boost the rebound in tourist arrivals, said Liu Cheng, deputy head of the Hainan Provincial Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports, the province’s tourism authority.

Hainan has also become a hot destination for family trips during the summer vacation. More than 90 percent of the rooms at hotels in Yalong Bay and Haitang Bay, two luxury clusters in Sanya, were booked.

Car-renting trips and nighttime tourism activities were popular among tourists. According to a manager of a vehicle rental company in the province, his company could rent out about 120 to 130 cars per day.

Statistics from Hainan’s tourism authority show that tourists’ per capita consumption stood at around 5,000 yuan during this summer.

“Bark of fallen trees and rotten wood can be turned into beautiful handicrafts through the deft hands of our local sisters. These skills are our secret of becoming rich,” Li Yanhong, a 44-year-old bark painting instructor, told People’s Daily.

Li Yanhong (middle) teaches people bark painting techniques. (File photo)

Li teaches her fellow villagers in Linsu village, Bailang township, Arxan, Hinggan League, north China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, to create bark paintings and handicrafts with materials such as white birch bark, pine bark, and moss.

Their bark paintings featuring beautiful women, flowers and birds depicted in traditional Chinese style and landscapes are so lifelike that many tourists are attracted to these products.

Li was born in the family of forestry workers and has been interested in bark painting since her childhood.

Endowed with rich forest resources, local people in Arxan often create various articles of everyday use with bark, such as cigarette cases and containers.

Since she was young, Li has seen local women make bark paintings with white birch bark to give to their relatives and friends as gifts or to decorate their home.

Under the influence of the older generations, Li has also created quite a lot of bark paintings featuring beautiful woman and cartoon characters when she was young.

After studying tailoring at a vocational school in the 1990s in Ulanhot, Inner Mongolia, Li worked in a garment factory after graduation.

Although she did not give up bark painting, she couldn’t earn a living through her craftsmanship, for there was no stable market for her products then.

Thanks to China’s natural forest protection project, forests in Arxan were rehabilitated after the year 2000. When tourism industries in the city started to embrace rapid development, many local forestry workers turned from lumbering to tourism for income.

In her spare time Li started to sell her bark paintings, increasing her income significantly each year.

At the end of 2017, Xie Caiyun, general manager of a local culture company based in Linsu village, saw Li’s works and persuaded her to return to her hometown to help people in the village achieve prosperity through bark painting techniques.

Li became an instructor of the company in May 2018, but found that there were not enough trained people on the job, and the bark painting products of the company could find no buyer at all because of their poor quality, outdated style, and high prices.

Realizing that the key to a breakthrough in the business of the company is to find outstanding bark painting craftsmen, Li and Xie started to look everywhere for capable artists and invited them to work full-time on bark paintings. Zhao Guihua, a 48-year-old local villager, is one of them.

Zhao could make bark paintings since she was young. She has become one of the first-class masters of the company in merely two years since she joined the company.

“I devote most of my time to bark paintings. My works are paid by piece. Now I can not only enjoy flexible work hours, but earn 40,000 ($5,864) to 50,000 yuan a year, which is much more than I used to make,” Zhao said.

In 2018, bark painting of Linsu village was included on the list of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of Inner Mongolia. Later in March 2019, the region held a pilot training course for the integration of ICH into poverty relief efforts, inviting experts from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology to train local bark painting producers.

“We have learned knowledge about various aspects of the handicraft, including innovation in techniques, proportioning of colors, integration of styles, and utilization of materials. The training broadened our vision,” Li said, disclosing that she and her colleagues are adding new materials to their products and developing various cultural and creative products based on bark painting techniques.

In an effort to involve more people in the business and guarantee stable growth in people’s incomes, Li has designed bark painting products that are easy to make and can be produced in large quantities.

At present, over 100 local people are working in the local bark painting industry, with their works being sold to several cities across the country. Each worker in the business can now earn an average of 1,000 to 2,000 yuan more per month than they could make in the past.

“We hold training courses every month and teach students in accordance with their aptitudes,” disclosed Li, who has tried to improve the artistry of bark painting works by integrating traditional Chinese painting styles, traditional Chinese cultural elements, and the characteristics of the local forests.

“As our products become more beautiful, our sales volume and prices can surely rise. With more people being attracted to learning the techniques, incomes of our fellow villagers have increased significantly,” Li shared.