XI URGES ALL-OUT EFFORT TO PROTECT PEOPLE FROM FLOOD

Nearly 38 million people have been affected by floods, with 141 dead or missing, China's flood-control authorities said on Monday.

A total of 433 rivers nationwide have seen alert-triggering floods since June, and the water level in 33 has hit record highs, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

Besides, 2.25 million people have been evacuated due to floods, it said.

President Xi Jinping urged more effective flood response measures and all-out efforts to protect people's lives and assets as China upgraded its national emergency response for flood control to level II, the second-highest in the country's four-tier response system.

In an instruction released on Sunday, Xi pointed out that waters in the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River, as well as the Dongting Lake, Poyang Lake and Taihu Lake, had exceeded warning levels, and the flood control situation is grim.

Xi said the severe flood disaster in Chongqing municipality and Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces has caused casualties and losses of assets.

At this critical time for flood response work, Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, instructed Party committees and governments of all levels to shoulder their responsibilities and take more measures to monitor the floods and relocate people in flood-hit areas.

Xi required the relevant authorities, including the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, the Ministry of Emergency Management and the Ministry of Water Resources, to enhance coordination and mobilize rescue forces and flood relief materials.

The People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police should take an active part in the flood relief work in the areas where they are stationed, he added.

Xi instructed the relevant authorities to make plans for rebuilding work and restoring normal life and production as soon as possible and to help prevent people in the flood-hit areas from falling back into poverty.

A total of 212 rivers nationwide have seen alert-triggering floods since July 4, and the water level in 19 of them has hit record highs, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.

Meanwhile, with the water level of Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake, exceeding its previous record high seen in 1998, Jiangxi has activated its highest level emergency response on Saturday, and military forces are participating in local flood control efforts.

A total of 190 boats, 3,000 tents, 10,000 folding beds and 10,000 blankets have been sent to Jiangxi to facilitate flood control and disaster relief work, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

Early on Sunday morning, the water level at Poyang Lake's Xingzi hydrological station had risen to 22.53 meters, 1 centimeter higher than the record in 1998, according to the province's water resources department.

Incessant downpours and upstream inflows have kept the water level in the lake above its danger level since July 5, it said.

ETHNIC-STYLE HOMESTAYS BOOST TOURISM IN GUANGXI

The Jinxiu Yao autonomous county, located in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, has built a batch of homestays incorporating its mountainous terrain, geological conditions and Yao ethnic culture.

The homestays have attracted tourists from around the country and achieved good economic results as well.

MAJOR RIVERS, LAKES SEE SURGING WATER LEVELS

Major rivers and lakes in China have seen their water levels rise due to continuous downpours, local authorities said on Sunday.

In Central China's Hubei Province, as of 7 am on Sunday, water at six rivers had exceeded the warning level after heavy rains continued to lash the province, said the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.

Meanwhile, water at three lakes has exceeded the warning level and has risen above the guaranteed level at another two lakes. The guaranteed water level refers to the upper limit of the safe water level.

Hubei's nine major reservoirs have also exceeded safe limits.

According to the local emergency management department, as of 7 am on Sunday, intense rains since Friday had affected 58,200 people, displaced 1,220, and caused direct economic losses of 60.34 million yuan (about $8.6 million) in the cities of Jingmen, Xiaogan, and Huanggang.

Meanwhile, Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake located in the eastern province of Jiangxi, has seen its water level rise to a record high on Sunday, according to the provincial department of water resources.

At around 12:00 am on Sunday, the water level at the lake's Xingzi hydrological station rose to 22.53 meters, 0.01 meters higher than the record in 1998, and continued going up, said the department.

A recent round of rainfall and upstream inflows have led to a sharp rise in the river water level in Jiangxi. The incessant downpours have also pushed the lake water to exceed warning levels since July 5.

So far, 34 hydrological stations in the province have seen water currents exceed warning levels.

The Changjiang Water Resources Commission issued a red alert for floods in the Poyang Lake area on July 10, and a day later Jiangxi province raised its flood-control response from Level II to Level I, the top level of China's four-tier emergency response for floods.

Floods since July 6 have affected over 5.2 million people in the province, with 432,000 people evacuated from flood-prone areas. A total of 167,000 people are in urgent need of living assistance. The floods have also damaged over 455,700 hectares of crops and caused a direct economic loss of 6.49 billion yuan (nearly $930 million).

CONTINUOUS ECONOMIC RECOVERY OF CHINA GIVES CONFIDENCE TO THE WORLD

Amid instability and uncertainty in the world, China has the confidence and competence to realize a continuous high-quality economic development, injecting constant confidence and growth to the global economy, the People's Daily said on Monday.

"China is the only economic power in the world expected to realize growth in the world in 2020," the newspaper said, citing the latest World Economic Outlook update by the International Monetary Fund, adding that the public opinion in the international community widely backed such inspiring confidence.

Standing against the pandemic "pressure test", China set an example in prevention and control of the COVID-19 outbreak and economic development. Recent economic data verified the positive prediction from the IMF on China. The growth of industrial value-added of enterprises above designated size rose for two consecutive months. The growth rate for industrial firms rebounded from negative to positive. The production index of the service sector turned from decline to rise. Industrial electricity consumption surged. Electricity consumption in service sector and railway freight volume rose from dropping. These figures show the effect of work resumption in China are emerging, with the economy starting to revive.

The work resumption in China is a strong support for the recovery of global industrial chains, as the pandemic's impact on the world's economy continues. The World Bank projected a minus 5.2 percent drop in the global economy, calling it "the greatest recession since the World War II".

TANGSHAN EARTHQUAKE AFTERSHOCK OF 1976 TREMBLOR, EXPERT EXPLAINS

No casualties or serious damage were reported as of Sunday night after a 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit Tangshan, Hebei province, at 6:38 am, the city's publicity department said.

Rescue teams have conducted a survey in the city's Guye district, the epicenter of the quake, which was also felt by residents in neighboring Beijing and Tianjin.

The quake struck at a depth of 10 kilometers, the Ministry of Emergency Management said. The district is about 170 km southeast of Beijing and around 130 km northeast of Tianjin.

There was no need for residents to be too worried about the quake, the Beijing News reported, citing an expert at the China Earthquake Networks Center.

Tangshan was destroyed by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 1976 that killed more than 240,000 people and injured over 160,000.

The 5.1 magnitude quake on Sunday was an aftershock of the 1976 one, and another quake of more than 5 magnitude was unlikely to occur in the area in the short term, Liu Jie, the center's deputy head, told a news conference in Beijing on Sunday afternoon.

He said the epicenter of Sunday's quake was 28 km from the epicenter of the 1976 quake, well within the aftershock zone, and was considered a normal fluctuation.

"The aftershock zone of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, with a long axis of 140 kilometers, covers some areas in Tianjin and Hebei, but Beijing is not in the zone," Liu added.

According to international research on earthquakes, the slower a seismic structure is formed, the longer the aftershock will last.

"The energy accumulation of Tangshan's earthquake in 1976 took thousands of years, so it's a normal phenomenon that the aftershocks of the quake can last for dozens of years," Liu said. "The frequency and magnitude of aftershocks of earthquakes will decrease with time."

Data from the center show Sunday's quake was the strongest to hit the area within 200 kilometers of its epicenter in the past five years. The area witnessed 17 quakes above magnitude 3 during the period.

A total of 332 aftershocks of more than 4 magnitude have been recorded since 1976, but they have been weak since May 1977.

Since then, only five earthquakes above 5 magnitude have been recorded, including the one on Sunday. The last major aftershock, another 5 magnitude quake, was recorded in Guye in 1995, according to the center.

Following Sunday morning's quake, two aftershocks−one of 2.2 magnitude at 7:02 am and the other of 2 magnitude at 7:26 am−hit the district, Hebei Daily reported.

According to Tangshan's emergency management bureau, no casualties or serious damage were found. There were reports that several old houses in the district had developed some cracks after the quake.

Local residents remained calm, and transportation, communication, and electricity supplies were stable, the bureau added.

Railway authorities halted the operation of trains that were scheduled to pass through the quake zone and conducted a thorough check of railway facilities and equipment, Hebei Daily reported. At around 10 am on Sunday, suspended trains had mostly resumed operation.

HK OPPOSITION SEEKS 'SECESSION'

Hong Kong's new national security law will curb secessionist activity by the local opposition camp, former Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying said on Sunday.

Speaking on public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong's Letter to Hong Kong program, Leung referred to conduct by the local opposition camp, including obstruction of the enactment of Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law in 2003, the "Occupy Central" movement in 2014 and the recent attempt to frustrate passage of the national anthem law, which outlaws insults to China's national anthem.

By doing so, they were attempting to remove the central government's authority over Hong Kong, Leung said. He characterized such conduct as "secession"-one of the four types of conduct proscribed by the Law of People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Leung said the central government appoints Hong Kong's elected chief executive and it, not the electorate, grants the broad powers that give Hong Kong its high degree of autonomy. Removing the central government from that equation but maintaining the powers of the chief executive was not democracy, Leung said. "It is secession by any definition."

After the program, Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, a leading Hong Kong affairs think tank, said that even if some in the opposition camp did not publicly advocate "Hong Kong independence" through their speech and actions, they regarded Hong Kong as an "independent political entity "rather than part of the country.

A common scenario was that once the central authorities exercised their power according to the Basic Law, such people would "fly into a rage", claiming "interference" or "overreach", Lau said.

The central government had stepped in with the national security law to reverse the situation, helping local patriotic forces overcome opposition resistance, he said, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government should make good use of the legal basis provided by the central government to safeguard national security.

Leung told the RTHK program that contrary to what Western media and politicians have said, Hong Kong's national security law did not "terminate" the "one country, two systems" principle.

He said that if not for the "one country, two systems" principle, Beijing would have simply extended the coverage of the national security laws in force on the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong.

"'One country, two systems' is alive and well. So are the freedoms that Hong Kong people enjoy," Leung said.

ROBOTS SAFEGUARD STUDENTS' HEALTH

COVID-19 may have pushed many of China's troubled export-oriented firms to sell their products in the domestic market for sheer survival, but Suzhou Walklake Smart System Co Ltd, a Jiangsu province-based robot manufacturer, is a glorious exception, its top executive said.

The company has made notable inroads into overseas markets by exporting its health-screening robots used in schools.

With precise and medical-grade sensors, the robot can check students' body temperature, and examine their eyes, hands and mouth in seconds.

The novel coronavirus outbreak has brought new growth points for the sales of this product. But it has also created several challenges for the company.

Suzhou Walklake has received a large number of buy orders from overseas markets such as Russia, Spain, Turkey, India, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates over the past four months.

Consequently, shipments have surged as many countries stepped up efforts to buy more epidemic prevention and control supplies, including face masks, ventilators, pharmaceutical products and service robots, said Zhang Ziyang, chairman of Walklake.

"We didn't expect to enter the international markets at such short notice because the commercial potential in the home market itself is big and attractive. So, we were trying to go global step by step," he said, adding the unexpected pandemic has forced educational institutions in both China and other parts of the world to raise their budgets for anti-epidemic materials and buy more intelligent products, in order to safeguard students' health.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. - Helen Keller