Beijing: 170,000 couples married in 2006

More than 170,000 couples married in Beijing in 2006, up 77 percent over 2005, a year witnessing the most weddings in the past 25 years. (File Photo)

  BEIJING, Feb. 13 -- More than 170,000 couples married in Beijing in 2006, up 77 percent over 2005, a year witnessing the most weddings in the past 25 years.

    Beijing Evening News reports the Beijing administrative office of marriage says the annual number of weddings totaled only 70,000 to 120,000 in the past five years.

    The wedding peak in 1981, in which year more than 200,000 couples married, ushered in the birth peak in the 1980s. The generation born in the 1980s is now reaching legal age for marriage in recent years.    

    Beijing also attracts talents into the high-tech industry and college graduates from other provinces and cities, who add to pool of marriageable youth.

    In 2001, about 28 percent of marriages were combinations of local residents and citizens from other provinces. That number rose to 40 percent in 2006.

    Remarriages have also increased. About 20,000 couples divorced and returned to being single in 2006.

    An official with the Beijing administrative office of marriage told a journalist at Beijing Evening News that couples prefer auspicious days in traditional Chinese culture for their wedding days. The administrative office always sees the busiest times on such days. On an auspicious day in last December, about 4,400 couples registered marriage in the office.

    The year of 2006 was thought to be a good year for wedding and 2007 good for having children. Some even pushed their weddings forward to marry in 2006.     

    (Source: CRIENGLISH. com)

North and South Korea hold talks on joint team for Beijing Olympics

Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea -- Sports officials from North and South Korea met Tuesday to discuss forming a single team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a South Korean official said.

During the one-day meeting in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, the two sides hoped to make progress on fielding a unified team, the official with South Korea's Olympic committee said on condition of anonymity.

The two countries, which have never fielded a unified team for an Olympics, are still at odds over how to compose a single team for the Beijing Olympics since their agreement to do so in 2005.

South Korea has insisted athletes should be selected based on performance, while the North wants equal representation.

Athletes from South Korea and North Korea marched together at the opening ceremonies of the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, and at the 2002 and 2006 Asian Games, but competed separately.

The Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, but their ties have warmed following a 2000 summit between their leaders.

Polish composer to write music for Beijing Olympics'opening ceremony

World famed Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki will write a piece of music to be played during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, deputy head of the Polish Olympic Committee Ryszard Parulski told reporters yesterday.
Penderecki is one of the most important contemporary musician and is honoured as "the living Bethoven" by commentators. His best known pieces include Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), oratorio Dies Irae to the memory of people murdered in Auschwitz (1967) and religious works like St Luke's Passion (1965), among other pieces.
Penderecki's career as a conductor began in 1972 and has conducted almost all the famous orchestras around the world. He has long been the conductor of the Norddeutsche Philharmonie and the Warsaw Philharmony and is the chief guest conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1961, Penderecki won the highest prize offered by the UNESCO with his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. He was granted the Grammy Awards in 1988 and in 1999 and was entitled the Best Contemporary Composer in Cannes, France in 2000.

Xinhua 

Beijing's New Internationalism

As an increasingly powerful China involves itself with the world, its devotion to absolute sovereignty is starting to evolve.

By Orville Schell
Newsweek International
Feb. 19, 2007 issue - In many respects Hu Jintao's recent dash through africa—he traveled to eight countries in over a week, signing trade deals, forgiving debt, extending loans and securing rights to natural resources—looked like business as usual for Beijing. For years, China has courted new business partners and tried to gain access to oil and other raw materials around the world while scrupulously avoiding controversial issues such as human rights and good governance. Beijing has long stuck to a strict, 19th-century view of sovereignty, which holds that whatever a government does at home is no one else's business. Its mantra has been reciprocal "noninterference." "We never impose on other countries our values ... and we do not accept other countries imposing their values on us," declared Deputy Foreign Minister Zhai Jun last November.

This model has seemed good for business—Chinese trade with Africa skyrocketed from $10.6 billion in 2000 to $40 billion last year (for perspective, U.S.-Africa trade is now about $60.6 billion). The don't-ask, don't-tell approach held special appeal for regimes of dubious character. Sudan's strongman, Omar al-Bashir, must have been cheered by Hu's stop in Khartoum on February 2, when he gave the dictator a $13 million interest-free loan for a new palace and forgave a $70 million debt. Hu also called on other nations "to respect the sovereignty of Sudan"—the genocide in Darfur notwithstanding.

But China's unsavory partners should take note: Beijing may soon start phasing out such rhetoric. As an increasingly powerful China involves itself more and more with the complex global marketplace and political scene, the ground is shifting under its feet, and China's dedication to absolute sovereignty may be starting to evolve.

The key to this change is respect: the one commodity Beijing seems to crave more than any other. Respect in the modern world does not come simply from international aid or trade. It also stems from an assessment of a nation's willingness to yield certain sovereign prerogatives in the interests of becoming a better global citizen.

During the heyday of Mao Zedong's fevered collectivization of Chinese agriculture in the 1950s, the Great Leader once said that he thought he could see the first tender "green shoots" of communism emerging. Today the "green shoots" of a very different evolution are starting to sprout. China is slowly shedding its strict interpretation of sovereignty for a new, more involved brand of internationalism.

Consider, for example, China's behavior after North Korea tested a nuclear weapon last October. Beijing quickly condemned the test and called for "punitive efforts" against Pyongyang: a sign China may have recognized that protecting its national interests sometimes requires what appear to be infringements on its own, or someone else's, sovereignty.

In the Middle East, too, China has started to play an increasingly active role in helping ameliorate the Arab-Israeli conflict through negotiation, suggesting that it is willing to redefine, albeit very cautiously, the way it thinks of diplomacy.

And then there's Africa. Despite Hu's unhelpful comments in Khartoum about the need to respect Sudan's sovereignty, events there are slowly nudging it toward a new approach. Some African leaders, including South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, have begun warning China against becoming a new "colonizer." These statements, and the fact that some African governments have finally joined the West in calling for action on Darfur, have sent a clear signal to Beijing that its old tactics may no longer work there. China has already taken note, and not only obligingly abstained in August on a vote at the U.N. on a measure that called for a new joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force to replace the weak and ineffective AU force in Darfur, but through its U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, helped negotiate Sudanese acquiescence. And on Hu's trip to Khartoum, after warning other countries to stay out, he hastened to remind al-Bashir that, "Darfur is a part of Sudan, and you have to resolve this problem."

Taken together, these measures do not yet suggest a radical new Chinese policy. But they do represent encouraging signs of increasing confidence, maturity and a sense of responsibility in China's deportment on the international stage. The world would benefit from having a few "great" nations (besides the one superpower) capable of and interested in not simply defending their own narrow self-interests, but constructively leading groups of nations in solving some of the world's many daunting challenges. Beijing may not be there yet. But as it grows in power and wealth, China could and should come to play such a role—becoming a true leader for the first time in many years.

Schell is the incoming director of the Asia Society's new Center on U.S.-China Relations.

2007 Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17081612/site/newsweek/

Beijing's "Stand-In-Line" Days

Laura Robertson
CBN News
February 11, 2007

What's so special about February 11th?  It's the birthday of Thomas Edison, the day Robert Fulton patented the steam engine, and National Youth Day in Cameroon.  But this year, on the 11th of February, and the 11th of every month this day, Beijing has instituted a special "stand-in-line day."

The recent advent of these "holidays" brings up two important questions: why on earth would Beijing institute a stand-in-line day, and why did they choose the 11th day?

Generally, Chinese people don't stand in line, but during these special days, everybody will have to wait their turn.  In an elaborate and elegant government proclamation, Beijing leaders express their views on how citizens standing in line will create a more harmonious society.   This means that in places like subway stations and bus stops, special guards will be around to make people line up. 

Of course, it can't just be any day that people have to stand in line, but it must be the 11th day.  Why?  Because 1-1 looks like people standing alone in line.  In the same vein, China's Singles Day is 11-11. 

In general, Beijing residents aren't too thrilled with this idea, and on some radio call-in shows, people were wondering: why tackle this issue specifically?  Why not take a more aggressive stance against crime or littering or jaywalking?

Furthermore, while standing in line at a place like a movie theater, department store, or airport seems pretty equitable and efficient, what about other places, like the subway or bus?  Yes, there are crowded subway stops and bus stops, and in an ideal world, the first to arrive will be the first to board, but with multiple doors, and multiple trains that could go to different places, is it practical to make everybody line up?

So while Beijing officials hope that these days will create a more orderly society, my bet is that especially for busy commuters, convenience will ultimately win out over the desired "harmonious" order of mandatory lines.

Beijing 2008 To Feature “Tasty Restaurants”

(GamesBids.com)

Xinhua reports that Beijing plans to develop a list of about 300 "tasty restaurants" featuring various types of cuisine that will be recommended to foreign guests attending the Beijing Games.

Wang Weiping of the city's Commerce Bureau said Beijing has selected the first 148 restaurants to make the list as part of a drive to meet different palates of athletes and guests attending the Games. He said, "these restaurants, mostly selected via online voting, are famous for providing distinctive Chinese cuisines, Muslim and foreign food, adding that Beijing will introduce another 150 "tasty restaurants" this year.

The restaurants were nominated by netizens who recommended their favourite eating establishments. Between January 17 to 27 one million people voted in a poll by sohu.com's "eating and drinking" channel which attracts millions of visitors.

Wang said, "the bureau and food associations have reviewed the recommended restaurants and looked into their facilities, sanitation, environment, services and management. Restaurants that fail to meet standards in future checks will be urged to carry out improvements or (be) deleted from the list".

US airlines wins approval for daily flight between Washington, Beijing

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) yesterday confirmed United Airlines has won the final approval for a daily non-stop flight between Washington DC and Beijing.
"Today's action finalizes DOT's tentative decision to award the seven weekly frequencies to United, whose bid the department determined would serve the most customers and provide the best service to the traveling public," the department said in a statement.
The new nonstop service would begin on March 25 between Washington Dulles International Airport and Beijing's China Beijing Capital Airport.
Four US carriers, American, United, Continental and Northwest, had been rallying support to win the rights for the only flight opening to the fast-growing China market. And at last, United Airlines won the approval.
"If there are two countries in this world that understand the need for fast, efficient and convenient service, it's the United States and China," Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters said. "That's why we are making it a lot easier to travel between the capital cities of the world's two most dynamic economies starting later next month."
The US and Chinese governments each are awarding rights to a local carrier for seven flights a week connecting the two countries, under an aviation agreement signed in July 2004
But Secretary Peters said that recent talks between the two countries aimed at increasing flight frequencies for both passenger and cargo service, and said she plans to travel to China this spring to discuss liberalization of the US-China aviation agreement.
"It is clear that the market could support much more service, so we are redoubling our efforts to liberalize our aviation agreement with China," she said.
english.eastday.com