Accompanied by a piercing whistle, the ship Ganghang Runyang 6002 was loaded with 96 TEUs, 2,000 tons of wheat and rice, and set off from Chunjiang Port of Jiangbei Modern Grain Logistics Park in Jining City, Shandong Province. Seven days later, this high-quality grains will arrive at Taicang Port along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and then be transported to Xintian Port in Wanzhou, Chongqing via the Yangtze River waterway, while the vessel will return to Jining with southern fertilizers and other goods. This marks the official opening of the first container route of "Jining-Wanzhou," and it is also another big step for Jining Port to develop westward. Jining, as the "Canal Capital" and the "Ridge of the Canal", based on the unique advantages of the golden waterway of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, and the staged completion of advanced infrastructure . On the east side of Longgong Port is a customs supervision site still under construction, which is expected to be completed in December this year. After it is officially put into use, Jining will become "an estuary in the doorway."
Longgong Port is strategically located at the intersection of Longgong River and Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, with a linear distance of only 7 kilometers from Jining West Railway Station. It can realize the combined transportation of public iron and water. The construction and commissioning of Longgong Port is a major initiative in promoting energy transformation in Shandong. The service team of power supply company is at the port construction site. Jining Longgong Port is the first container port in the inland river in China to realize unmanned intelligent duty. By the end of 2023, a total of 10 berths will be built, turning the port into the largest inland river shipping center in the northern China. Jining Power Supply Company of State Grid has set up a service team to guide the construction of special railway lines and ensure that one project and one team can provide full life-cycle services. In order to ensure the normal use of electricity in port construction, the company intervened in advance, followed up the service, completed the construction task of Longgong power supply project, and upgraded the lines involved in the port, transforming 4.9 kilometers of 10 kV lines and 21.4 kilometers of 110 kV lines
A total of 826 million domestic passenger trips were made in China during the 8-day Mid-Autumn Festival & National Day holidays, a year-on-year increase of 71.3%. Holiday tourism generated 753.43 billion yuan ($104.68 billion), up 129.5% year-on-year, official data showed on Friday.
The first convertor transformer using China-made on-load tap changers have successfully been put into operation on Sunday at a crucial west-to-east power transmission project located in South China's Guangdong Province, according to a report published by xinhuanet.com.
Feng Dong, a senior executive at a subsidiary of the China Southern Power Grid, was quoted by the report as saying that China had completed the technological breakthrough from scratch in field of convertor transformer on-load tap changers, and has achieved full localization of components and other products' industrial chains.
This marks the fact that China has officially broken through the restrictions of this core technology in high-end electric equipment, Feng said.
Previously, long-distance, large capacity and high voltage direct current facilities are required for the transmission of electricity from western to eastern areas in China, and both terminals for transmitting and receiving power need to use the equipment of converter transformer that weighs more than 300 tons.
On-load tap changers of a convertor transformer are used to adjust the voltage, power load and current, similar to the function of a gearbox in a car.
Deng Jun, a senior technical expert at the aforementioned company, also said that an on-load tap changer of a convertor transformer has about 1,000 components, and is a highly complex and sophisticated piece of equipment.
According to the Xinhua report, this technology used to be grasped by only a few overseas companies, and when technical fault took place previously, Chinese companies had no choice but to replace the products with imported goods of the same model, whose ordering cycle took about three to four months, thus posing challenges to the safety of power operation in the country.
The report also cited a deputy general manager of the company as saying that the company has established a team in partnership with upper stream and downstream companies along the industrial chains.
After more than two years' of efforts, the team has broken through vacuum switch tubes and other technical bottlenecks to successfully research the large capacity convertor transformer on-load tap changer with rated capacity of 6,000 kilovolt-ampere, maximum voltage of 6,000 volt and maximum rated current of 1,300 ampere.
Using the domestically made on-load tap changers could save nearly 40 million yuan ($5.56 million) In the building of ultra-high voltage direct current power transmission projects, the manager said.
The discovery of a new species of gammaridea in the Irtysh River of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region proves that Tianshan Mountains and the surrounding areas are the world's origin of cold-water organisms, according to a press conference held by the information office of the region on Tuesday.
The person in charge of the scientific research department announced the initial results of the third comprehensive scientific investigation in the Xinjiang region during the conference.
According to Zhang Yuanming, director of the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and head of the leading unit of the expedition, the third comprehensive scientific expedition in Xinjiang, conducted in 2022, has yielded significant achievements.
In the wild fruit forest of Tianshan Mountains, the expedition discovered two new species of moss, 39 new species of parasitic natural enemies, and a new species of gammaridea.
New discoveries have been made in the study of the formation and evolution of the Taklimakan Desert, and a new understanding has been proposed that the Taklimakan Desert may have been formed 300,000 years ago.
Furthermore, the expedition clarified the superimposed effects of wind dynamics, underlying surface, and sand sources on aeolian sand geomorphology, and confirmed that the Tarim Basin dust can affect North China and the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau.
In addition, researchers participating in the expedition built 26 automatic monitoring stations for ecosystems in no man's land by integrating drones, satellites and the Internet of Things.
The databases of the first and second comprehensive scientific expeditions in Xinjiang were rebuilt, and the data sharing service for scientific expeditions in Xinjiang was established.
Moreover, the expedition's researchers determined the overall water flow status of many important rivers and provided decision-making suggestions for regional water resource development.
According to open date, the third comprehensive scientific expedition to Xinjiang was officially launched in December 2021. The scientific research was designed to focus on the green and sustainable development of Xinjiang, get a comprehensive picture of Xinjiang's resources and environment, scientifically evaluate the carrying capacity of Xinjiang's resources, propose strategies and road maps for Xinjiang's future ecological construction and green development and cultivate a strategic scientific team rooted in Xinjiang and engaged in resources and environment research in arid areas.
From space robots to greenhouse gas remote sensing, from placing fish on the space station's dinner table to mutagenesis of rose essential extraction… The first International Space Science and Scientific Payload Competition kicked off in Foshan, South China's Guangdong Province on Thursday, attracting youths from across the world to vie for a "ticket" to participate in the China Space Station and the International Space Station (ISS).
Despite an ever complex world where tensions are rising among global players, space cooperation and people-to-people exchanges remain robust and vibrant, bringing a channel for connection that transcends differences and promotes the building of a shared future for mankind, students and experts from the US and Europe told the Global Times at the event.
The competition is the first international aerospace competition in China aimed at gathering and nurturing outstanding global talents and projects in space science and payload technology. The winning projects will be recommended as candidates for flights to the China Space Station and the ISS, the Global Times learned on Thursday.
The competition is jointly initiated by the Chinese Institute of Electronics, Beijing Institute of Technology, the International Academy of Astronautics, Chinese Society of Astronautics, and China Space Foundation.
Themed "A Shared Space for a Better Future," it is committed to promoting significant scientific discoveries and innovative technological breakthroughs in the aerospace field, driving the civil use of aerospace technology and promoting a sharing mechanism for innovative achievements to benefit all humanity.
Olivier Contant, the French-American Executive Director of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), emphasized the academy's longstanding commitment to promoting peaceful collaboration among countries during an exclusive interview with the Global Times. "The IAA has been dedicated for over 60 years to enabling all nations to participate in space programs. Our mission is to foster global unity through research, conferences, technologies, and collaboration, all focused on the peaceful use of space. In the scientific world, you don't have these boundaries, politics."
"Competition always happens, but that's normal. Our focus remains on promoting peaceful collaboration for the benefit of mankind regardless what's happening. One way for the Academy to do it is by conducting more than 100 space studies with world class experts based on international consensus." he said.
The competition has attracted student groups from more than 30 countries including Spain, Italy, Egypt, Russia, Pakistan, Argentina and Mexico. There are 116 teams - 81 from China and 35 from abroad. Thirteen high school groups were invited to participate as well.
úrsula Andrea Martinez álvarez and Gigor Dan-Cristian, PhD students in aerospace engineering from the Technical University of Madrid, Spain, told the Global Times that their project, thermocapillary-based control of a free surface in microgravity, has been selected to enter the final round of the competition.
"China's advance in space has been real fast, and it would be amazing to internationally cooperate among different countries and also use the Chinese space station as a platform to perform experiments from people worldwide," úrsula told the Global Times.
Speaking of recent tensions between China and the US in space, she said that "historically as space advancement is such a difficult matter, it has always needed collaboration between nations, and history has demonstrated that we have been able to surpass the political tensions for the good of science. I believe that this is actually a channel to show that we can cooperate and understand each other."
Other projects from the college student teams include an intelligent snake-shaped space robot presented by the Beijing Institute of Technology. Equipped with flexible pillars, it is lightweight and compact, providing technical support for internal structural monitoring and surgical functions that involve human-robot collaboration.
A team from Islamabad, Pakistan presented research on the impact of high speed and high altitude on the positioning of the BDS GNSS receiver, while Samara National Research University from Russia presented a study on antibiotic resistance in intestinal bacteria in a space environment.
High school students also impressed the audiences with a number of brilliant ideas. A team from Beijing presented the idea of space-induced mutagenesis breeding for roses to increase their oil production, as rose essential oil is one of the most expensive oils in the world.
The team from Foshan's Dali High School brought researches on the cultivation of multi-generation mudskippers in the space station. The experiment aims to study amphibious fish that can be cultivated in the space station for long periods. The fish is a tasty and nutritious dish to enrich astronauts' menus on their dinner table.
Li Shiyi, a freshman at Dali High School, told the Global Times that the project was inspired by the experiments taught by Shenzhou-13 taikonaut Wang Yaping while in orbit.
"During the Tiangong classroom, Wang talked about experiments involving fish and rice cultivation, and we extended it to the mudskipper. We noticed that the food they ate was always from vacuum-sealed bags brought from the ground, which may not be very fresh. So I hope that by conducting this experiment, they can eventually enjoy a hot bowl of fresh fish soup in space one day," Li said.
Li said that she wants to become a taikonaut like Wang after she grows up. "My wish is for China's space station to develop faster and better. I also hope to have more exchanges with countries like the US that have more advanced space technology. By doing so, we can use our mature and advanced technology to help countries that have relatively lagged behind in space development, making the world a better place."
At the opening ceremony of the finals, Zhang Feng, Chairman of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, said they will continue to utilize such conference platform to comprehensively showcase cutting-edge technologies in the field of life electronics, explore future visions, and promote extensive collaboration in the field of life electronics.
"Young talents are where the national innovation vitality and the hope for technological development lie. In the process of continuously creating new history in China's aerospace industry, a large number of young aerospace professionals have taken on major responsibilities, showcasing the spirit of Chinese youth in the new era with their radiance and vitality," Yu Miao, Director of the International Cooperation Center of China Aerospace, said while addressing the opening ceremony of the event.
Beijing's local government unveiled a new action plan on Wednesday for industrial innovation and development in the robot industry from 2023-2025, aiming to boost self-development across the supply chain in key technology areas.
The plan comes as a follow-up to government efforts to take an active approach in the preparation for future industry development in areas like robots and artificial intelligence (AI), experts said.
The plan aims to ramp up the industry layout of humanoid robots and support enterprises and universities in developing key robot components. The capital also aims to support the establishment of an innovation center for humanoid robots.
Specific goals are included in the plan. By 2025, Beijing's innovation capability in the robot industry will be greatly improved and 100 types of high-tech and high value-added robot products will be cultivated, along with 100 application scenarios.
The city's robot industry is expected to generate revenue of more than 30 billion yuan by 2025.
The application scenarios for humanoid robots are wide-ranging, with potential demand in industries ranging from the services sector to municipal firefighting, Xiang Ligang, a veteran technology analyst, told the Global Times on Wednesday. "We need to proactively plan and prepare for the future in order to be in the front league of the world," Xiang noted.
Talking about the importance of developing humanoid robots and AI, Xiang said that it requires high levels of technological integration and represents the core of technological development.
For example, the robots need to be able to move and maintain balance, and they should be able to sense and react to the surrounding environment, while demonstrating certain levels of artificial intelligence and understanding.
China has been an active player in technology development in this area, which gives the country an advantage for reaching its ambitious goals.
In January 2022, fifteen government departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission rolled out a plan for China to become a global leader in robot technology innovation by 2025. China's development in the related industries has been conspicuous in terms of expansion and technology advancement. For example, from 2016 to 2020, the scale of the country's robot industry grew at an average annual compound rate of about 15 percent.
Breakthroughs in key technologies and components such as precision reducers and intelligent controllers have also accelerated, and innovations and application scenarios are constantly emerging.
"We have already made significant progress domestically in terms of technological foundations. As the government takes the lead, providing funding and policy support, we can see that opportunities in the new industries - robots and AI - are about to emerge," Xiang said.
"Surely, this will require long-term investment, and it may take years to see significant results, but in order to take the lead, we must start preparing now," the expert said.
China successfully sent the Land Exploration-4 01 satellite, the world's first high-orbit synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite, into a preset orbit via a Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China's Sichuan Province at 1:26 am on Sunday.
The Global Times learned from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) which oversaw the organization of the launch and manages the satellite program, that the newly launched satellite is the world's first high-orbit SAR satellite that has entered the engineering implementation phase. Able to provide all-weather and all-day observation of China's territory and surrounding areas, it will further improve the country's space-based disaster monitoring system and is of great significance for comprehensively boosting the country's disaster prevention, reduction, and relief capabilities.
The Land Exploration-4 01 satellite is a remote sensing research satellite listed in the country's Medium and Long Term Development Plan for Civilian Space Infrastructure (2015-2025.)
The satellite operates in an inclined geosynchronous orbit and is equipped with a synthetic aperture radar payload with high resolution, wide coverage, multiple modes, and lightweight advantages, the CNSA revealed.
Compared with low-orbit satellites and optical satellites, the Land Exploration-4 01 satellite combines the advantages of a short revisit period and large imaging swath in high-orbit observation with the advantages of microwave observation that is not limited by weather conditions (all-weather) and not limited by lighting conditions (all-day), which can improve the accuracy and efficiency of identifying abnormal changes in weather and enhance the nation's comprehensive disaster prevention and control capabilities, the CNSA said in a press release sent to the Global Times on Sunday.
With the satellite now in orbit, it will enrich China's key regional observation methods and provide all-weather and all-day observation of China's territory and surrounding areas, meeting the needs of disaster prevention and reduction, earthquake monitoring, land and resources surveying, as well as applications in industries such as the marine, water conservancy, meteorology, agriculture, environmental protection, and forestry industries, according to the press release.
State departments led by China's Ministry of Emergency Management, including the Ministry of Natural Resources, Ministry of Water Resources and China Meteorological Administration, are key users of the satellite and they will carry out construction of ground systems and operation systems according to their specific needs.
The satellite was developed by the China Academy of Spacecraft Technology (CAST.)
This was the second disaster prevention-related satellite launched within a week by China, following the codenamed Environmental Surveyor 2F, launched by a Long March 2C rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in North China's Shanxi Province on Wednesday.
Also developed by CAST in Beijing, the satellite is tasked with using its synthetic aperture radar to obtain images and data to support disaster prevention and mitigation, ecological monitoring and emergency response efforts. Its users are the Ministry of Emergency Management and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
On Sunday, space industry observers hailed the country's innovative strength in the space domain, which they say has been increasingly creating value in civilian applications and shows that the country's space development upholds the concept of "putting people first."
During the recent heavy rainfall that impacted the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in North China as well as Northeast China's Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, 16 satellites, including Gaofen-3 remote sensing satellites, were deployed to provide rapid imaging services to assist disaster monitoring, according to the state-owned aerospace giant China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) on Saturday.
The CASC told the Global Times on Sunday that these near real-time satellite images taken over the hardest-hit flood areas have provided scientific data services to support disaster relief work.
Three men from Southwest China’s Guizhou Province who attempted to illegally cross the border into Myanmar to engage in telecom fraud have been handed prison sentences ranging from four to six months, a local intermediate people’s court announced on Monday.
Before the three men surnamed Wu, Huang and Yang were apprehended by police in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province when they attempted to illegally cross the border into Myanmar this February, it was discovered that the group had already crossed the border and entered Myanmar on multiple occasions.
Wu had successfully illegally crossed the border between China and Myanmar in July of 2019, October of 2019, March of 2020 and October of 2020. He was rejected by the local crime syndicates there because he could not type and was unable to be part of the syndicate’s local telecom fraud operations.
Huang also illegally crossed the border between China and Myanmar in January of 2019, July of 2019 before being apprehended when he attempted to cross the border in August of 2020.
Yang illegally crossed the border in March of 2019. He illegally crossed the border again in May of 2020 but turned himself in December of 2020 upon returning to China.
The three defendants had planned to travel to Myanmar together in February but were discovered on route in Yunnan.
Their behaviors violated the laws and regulations governing border management and committed the crime of illegal border crossing.
According to China’s Criminal Law, Wu was sentenced to six months in prison and was fined 7,000 yuan ($965). Huang was handed five months in detention and was fined 6,800 yuan while Yang was sentenced to four months detention and fined 6,800 yuan.
The local judge noted in the decision that the public must remain vigilant to the pitfalls of high-paying jobs abroad and that overseas jobs should be sought through normal employment channels.
China's top anti-corruption watchdog has stepped up its anti-corruption efforts in the medical and pharmaceutical industry with the release of a public education animation on anti-corruption efforts in the industry.
The release of the short film comes as market watchdogs in multiple places have joined in the nationwide campaign to crack down on corruption in the industry.
In the short film released by the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), pharmaceutical salespersons offer rebates to medical personnel based on the number of drugs prescribed by doctors, while some Party members and officials take advantage of their positions to illegally collect and sell prescription data and accept illegal benefits from pharmaceutical salespersons.
The CCDI warns that such behavior will eventually face serious investigation and punishment and urges local discipline inspection and supervision organs to strengthen the daily supervision of personnel in key positions to ensure their proper conduct.
Recently, the market supervision bureaus in localities including Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Nanchang in East China's Jiangxi Province and Datong in North China's Shanxi Province have recently started to solicit tip-offs on bribery in the pharmaceutical industry.
These tips include people giving kickbacks to medical practitioners in the form of consulting fees, lecture fees, promotion fees, the illegal act of transferring benefits in the name of academic conferences and benefits in other non-monetary forms such as domestic and overseas travel.
Fighting against corruption is a comprehensive process which requires the coordination of multiple supervision and regulation departments to address both the symptoms and the root causes of the problem, a Beijing-based anti-corruption expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Sunday.
Together with other nine departments, the National Health Commission (NHC) has launched a one-year campaign to crack down on corruption in the healthcare sector across the country to ensure high-quality development of the medical and healthcare sector, the NHC announced on Tuesday.
Since China started the anti-corruption drive in the public health sector in mid-July, at least 184 Party chiefs or heads of hospitals had been put under investigation as of Thursday, according to media estimates.
These officials in the healthcare sector come from 24 provinces and regions with the most personnel in question from South China's Guangdong Province, Southwest China's Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, according to chinanews.com.cn.
Also, 53 among the 184 come from the third-tier (top level) hospitals.
The anonymous expert stressed that the investigation of the officials in the healthcare sector shows the Party's resolution to combat graft since high officials shoulder the core responsibility to prevent corruption as well as the Party's strict attitude toward solving this issue related to people's livelihood.
China on Tuesday released implementation guidelines as part of standards for new emerging industries, vowing to continuously improve the technical level and internationalization of new industry standards, and to provide solid technical support for accelerating the high-quality development of new industries by 2035.
The guidelines, released by four ministries including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, have been divided into three steps.
The guidelines said that by 2025, the standard system that supports the development of emerging industries will be gradually improved, and the standards that will lead the innovation and development of future industries will be accelerated.
By 2030, the standard system that meets the high-quality development needs of new industries will continue to improve, and the standardization work system will become more complete.
By 2035, the supply of standards to meet the high-quality development needs of new industries will be more sufficient, and new industry standardization work will be fully formed.
The emerging industries include eight major fields: new generation information technology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment, new energy vehicles, green environmental protection, civil aviation, ships and ocean engineering equipment.
As for future industries, the plan said it will focus on the metaverse, brain-computer interface, quantum information, humanoid robots, generative artificial intelligence, bio-manufacturing, future displays, future networks and new energy storage.
To ensure sound implementation, the plan said it will take concrete measures including increasing resource input and promoting national science and technology projects.
