The four great inventions of modern China
A summary of the top news in Chinese society and culture for August 11, 2017. Part of the daily The China Project newsletter, a convenient package of Chinaโs business, political, and cultural news delivered to your inbox for free. Subscribe here.
The โfour great inventions of ancient Chinaโ are papermaking, gunpowder, movable type printing, and the compass. Xinhua News Agencyย has now drawn on results from a surveyย (in Chinese) on youths from 20 countries along the Belt and Roadย to create a list of the โfour new great inventions.โ The โfour greatsโ are the subject of Xinhuaโs top Chinese language news itemย for August 11.
High-speed railways
Though the technology originated in Japan and Europe, China now has the worldโs largest high-speed rail network,ย covering more than 20,000 kilometers; it is expected to more than double to 45,000 kilometers by 2030. According toย Reuters, Chinaโs ability to build high-speed rail projects more cheaply than its competitors also granted the technology a central place in the Belt and Road Initiative.
Online shopping
Ecommerce was not invented in China, but some might say it was perfected in China. With a massive online populationย of 751 million, China has the worldโs biggestย and fast-growing ecommerce market, with sales reaching $752 billion in 2016, accounting for roughly 13.8 percent of the countryโs total retail sales. A series of online shopping eventsย is scheduled throughout the year by various online shopping platforms. The extraordinary rise of ecommerce has also brought new opportunitiesย to rural China. In 2016, online business owners in rural villagesย reached 8.11 million, creating more than 20 million jobs.
On-demand bikes
As we noted in March this year, Chinaโs bike sharing โ or, more accurately, on-demand bike rental โ is a real Chinese innovation, and it continues to grow rapidly. In July, Ofo, one of Chinaโs bike-sharing companies valued at around $2 billion (the other one is Mobike), announcedย a $700 million funding round from investors led by ecommerce giant Alibaba, Hony Capital, and CITIC Private Equity. On August 9, after launching its bikes in six overseas markets, including Singapore, the United States, and Britain, Ofo announcedย its expansion into Japan in cooperation with SoftBank, which will back the venture with $1 billion funding.
Electronic payments
Again, this was not invented in China, but China now leads mobile and internet payments in terms of user numbers and seamless technology. Alibabaโs Alipay and Tencentโs WeChat Pay are leading the charge toward a cashless society. The two of them together enabledย $2.9 trillion in Chinese digital payments in 2016. However, even though electronic payments have become an essential part of daily life in China, the country โhas not left cash behind completely,โ according toย a report by the Financial Timesย (paywall).
Earlier this week, Alibaba promoted a โcashless weekโ event to encourage use of its payment services, causing the Peopleโs Bank of China to send a noticeย to its regional offices, ordering them to tone down such promotions for fear of misleading customers and interfering โwith the normal currency flow of the yuan.โ Meanwhile, the central bank has released a new regulationย that requires online payment companies to connect to a centralized clearinghouse by October 15.
- Tourism โ North Korea
Undaunted by tensions, Chinese tourists flock into North Koreaย / Reuters
โI just want the sense of nostalgia, to see a country that is poor, like (China was) when I was young,โ said one man. - Jiuzhaigou earthquake
Struggling to cope in a quake-hit tourist townย / SCMP
Toll low from China quake but villagers fear high cost to tourismย / Reuters - Legal issues
Guizhou prosecutor under fire for praising negligent cadreย / Sixth Tone - Airlines
Net users slam airline boasting of priority treatment for cadresย / Sixth Tone - Pollution
Air pollution suspected for sharp rise in China lung cancer rateย / SCMP - Abandoned children
Chinese mother tries to mail her baby to an orphanageย / CNN