XI: NO NATION SHOULD ACT LIKE BOSS OF WORLD

China firmly supports the United Nations' central role in global affairs and opposes any country acting like boss of the world, President Xi Jinping said on Monday.

Xi made the remark in a video speech delivered at a high-level meeting in honor of the UN's 75th anniversary.

"No country has the right to dominate global affairs, control the destiny of others or keep advantages in development all to itself," Xi said.

Noting that the UN must stand firm for justice, Xi said that mutual respect and equality among all countries, big or small, is the foremost principle of the UN Charter.

No country should be allowed to do whatever it likes and be the hegemon or bully, Xi said. "Unilateralism is a dead end," he said.

Xi pointed out that it is imperative that the representation and voice of developing countries be increased so that the UN is more balanced in reflecting the interests of the majority of countries in the world.

Big countries should lead by example in advocating and upholding the international rule of law and in honoring their commitments, Xi said.

International laws should not be distorted or used as a pretext to undermine other countries' legitimate rights and interests or world peace and stability, he added.

Xi said that a Cold War mentality, ideological lines or a zero-sum game are no solution to a country's own problems, still less an answer to mankind's common challenges.

"What we need to do is to replace conflict with dialogue, coercion with consultation and zero-sum with win-win," he said.

Xi called on UN members to focus on real action, rather than just talk, to put into practice the principle of multilateralism.

The UN should aim at problem-solving and move toward tangible outcomes as it advances security, development and human rights in parallel, he said.

Xi reaffirmed China's commitment to following multilateralism, saying that the country will stay actively engaged in reforming and developing the global governance system.

Xi spoke highly of the role played by the UN in promoting peace and stability of the world since the organization's establishment in 1945, with a great many countries having gained national independence and over 1 billion people having emerged from poverty since then.

Noting that problems facing the world are big and global challenges are on the increase, Xi said the problems can only be resolved through dialogue and cooperation.

"The understanding that we are all in the same boat is now the popular consensus in the global community," he said.

CHINA WARNS US ON RECENT TAIWAN MOVES

China vowed to take legitimate countermeasures against political provocations by the United States, including measures targeting relevant individuals, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin made the remarks at a regular news briefing in response to recent visits by high-ranking US officials to Taiwan.

US Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment Keith Krach visited the island last week, just over a month after US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar visited Taiwan in mid-August. Azar was the highest-level US official to visit the island in decades.

During his stay in Taiwan, Krach met business and political officials including Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen, and attended a memorial service for former Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui.

China opposed and condemned the visits, Wang said. "The US move will further damage bilateral coordination and collaboration on major international and regional issues, and the US has to bear full responsibility for this."

China always opposes official exchanges between the US and Taiwan in any form, he said, adding that their visits seriously violated the one-China principle as well as the three China-US joint communiques, and have emboldened "Taiwan independence" forces.

Wang noted that China is determined to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, oppose any external interference in its internal affairs and realize reunification.

"'Taiwan independence' will only lead to a dead end and attempts to condone and support 'Taiwan independence' are doomed to fail," he said.

Practices that undermine China's core interests and intervene in China's domestic affairs will be met with forceful countermeasures and will not impede the historical trend of China's reunification, he added.

Wang urged the US to immediately correct its mistakes, stop any official exchanges and military relations with Taiwan or interference in China's internal affairs, and avoid words and deeds that undermine bilateral relations and cross-Straits peace and stability.

LUNAR MISSION DUE BY END OF THIS YEAR

Chang'e 5, the next mission in China's lunar exploration program, will demonstrate and test the country's technological and engineering capabilities in space, according to a key figure in the project.

Yu Dengyun, deputy chief designer of China's lunar exploration program, said on Sunday that Chang'e 5 will be launched by a Long March 5 heavy-lift carrier rocket at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province by the end of 2020.

The 8.2-metric-ton robotic probe has four components−an orbiter, lander, ascender and re-entry module. After the probe reaches lunar orbit, the components will separate into two parts, with the orbiter and re-entry module remaining in orbit while the lander and ascender descend to the lunar surface.

The lander and ascender will make a soft landing and then get to work on tasks such as using a drill to collect underground rocks and a mechanical arm to gather lunar soil.

After the surface operations are completed, the ascender's rocket will lift it to lunar orbit to dock with the re-entry module. It will transfer lunar samples to the module, which will carry them back to Earth.

Considering these highly sophisticated operations, Chang'e 5 will be more difficult and challenging than previous Chinese lunar expeditions, Yu said.

"First of all, its most important task will be collecting lunar samples. The environment on the lunar surface, like the gravity there, is very different from that on Earth. So, we must ensure that our technologies are functional and reliable during the collection and packing processes," the designer explained.

"The next challenge will be lifting the sample-carrying ascender from the moon. All of our launches so far were made from Earth, but the coming launch will take place on lunar soil and use the Chang'e 5's lander as the launchpad. Consequently, the challenge will be whether our equipment can handle the complicated operation as it was designed to do."

After the capsule is sent into orbit, it will approach the re-entry module and dock with the latter, he said.

"Previous rendezvous and docking by our spaceships occurred in low-Earth orbit, but this time it will take place in a lunar orbit," Yu said.

The designer said the last challenge will emerge during the re-entry process as the re-entry capsule will descend through Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 11.2 kilometers per second, much faster than previous Chinese spacecraft's re-entry speeds.

"The ultrafast speed will verify the aerodynamic design, heat-resistant materials and flight control system on our probe," he noted.

If the Chang'e 5 mission is successful, it will make China the third nation in the world to bring lunar samples back after the United States and the Soviet Union, and will also make Chang'e 5 the world's first lunar sample-return mission in more than four decades.

MARS PROBE MAKES MIDCOURSE MANEUVER

China's Tianwen 1 Mars probe carried out its second midcourse correction maneuver on Sunday night, according to the China National Space Administration.

The robotic spacecraft ran its four 120-Newton thrusters for 20 seconds at around 11 pm after receiving control signals from its ground controllers, the administration said in a statement on Monday morning.

By Monday morning, Tianwen 1 had traveled 160 million kilometers in an Earth-Mars transfer trajectory toward the red planet and was nearly 19 million km from Earth, it added.

China launched Tianwen 1, the country's first independent Mars mission, on July 23 at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, opening the nation's planetary exploration program.

On July 27, the probe sent back a photo of Earth and the moon, which was taken by its optical navigation sensor when it was about 1.2 million km from Earth. The photo was the only image from the spacecraft that has so far been made public.

The probe made its first midcourse correction on Aug 2 when it was about 3 million km from Earth. Next, it will conduct three more midcourse corrections and one deep-space maneuver to ensure it is precisely aimed at Mars.

If everything goes according to schedule, the 5-metric-ton Tianwen 1, which consists of an orbiter and the landing capsule, will travel more than 470 million km before being captured by the Martian gravitational field in February.

The mission's ultimate goal is to land a rover around May 2021 on the southern part of Mars' Utopia Planitia−a large plain within Utopia, the largest recognized impact basin on Mars and in the solar system−to make scientific surveys, the space administration said.

In another development, China launched its latest oceanographic research satellite, the HY-2C, on a Long March 4B carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on Monday afternoon, the administration said.

Developed by the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing, HY-2C is the third in the HY-2 series marine satellite fleet, and, like its two predecessors, is tasked with studying the marine dynamic environment.

In 2021, the next satellite in the series, HY-2D, will be launched to join those already in orbit to form a network monitoring the marine dynamic environment around the clock, according to the administration.

LPR SWITCH SET TO BE COMPLETED SOON, SAYS PBOC

A majority of the banks in China have started using the Loan Prime Rate as the benchmark for new lending, marking a milestone in the country's interest rate reform, according to the People's Bank of China, the central bank.

The LPR transformation, achieved over a one-year period, led to over 92 percent of the outstanding floating interest rate loans of banks, amounting to 67.4 trillion yuan ($9.98 trillion), shifting to the new benchmark by the end of August, the PBOC said in a report released on Sept 15.

With interest rates still in a downward cycle, it is an opportune time to promote the benchmark transition, the central bank said.

"When the financing costs of companies start decreasing, the LPR will start dropping continuously for a certain period. As a result, interest repayment costs will also decline for companies."

With most of the banks having shifted to the LPR, the former benchmark lending rate, which is at 4.75 percent now, is likely to be abandoned, said experts.

"The PBOC said that the LPR reform has helped with the liberalization of deposit rates, as banks adjusted deposits and the rates of the negotiable certificate of deposits downward to match the falling lending rates. This has further lowered the likelihood of benchmark deposit rate cuts," said Maggie Wei, an analysts with Goldman Sachs (Asia).

China's interest rate reform, which started in the 1990s, seeks to build an interest rate regime determined by the market, to replace the existing system in which the central bank can set the interest rates via administrative orders.

Monetary authorities plan to create a market-oriented interest rate system, the core of the nation's reform in the financial sector, to improve the efficiency of the monetary policy transmission mechanism and further reduce the lending rates. In a market-oriented interest rate system the monetary authorities can adjust the short-term policy rates and inject liquidity by purchasing financial instruments, mainly through the seven-day reverse repos in the open market, said the central bank.

The PBOC switched to the one-year LPR as the benchmark lending rate on Aug 17, 2019. It is formed based on 18 qualified commercial banks' lending rates for their best clients and equals the medium-term lending facility rate, or the MLF, plus a risk premium. The one-year and five-year LPR are updated on the 20th of every month.

POSTAL SERVICES TO HELP CURB RURAL POVERTY

China's postal sector pledges to provide the country's rural population with wider service accessibility and contribute to the country's poverty alleviation, the country's postal service regulator said on Monday.

Ma Junsheng, head of the State Post Bureau, said at a news conference held by the State Council Information Office that the country launched a three-year project in January, aiming to offer express delivery services to all qualified administrative villages by 2022.

The project is designed to promote sales of local farm produce, and specialties will be further developed via rural e-commerce channels and the postal network, which will also provide rural residents with services such as online purchasing, he added.

The bureau will push the project forward in villages in developed areas with better conditions and provide delivery services to 60 percent of administrative villages by the end of this year, he said, adding that 45 percent of villages so far have such services.

Ma also noted that China's postal and delivery enterprises have facilitated the country's anti-poverty efforts by creating jobs and promoting farm produce sales in recent years.

"The postal and express industry has become an important force to support agricultural development, improve rural connectivity and serve the farmers and a new distribution channel to boost the delivery of industrial products to the countryside and the agricultural products to the cities, as well as a vital source to help the poor increase their incomes," he said.

During the first eight months of this year, the postal and express industry has created more than 150,000 jobs in rural areas and helped 100,000 financially-strapped households in 504 national-level poverty-stricken counties increase incomes by over 100 million yuan ($14 million), he added.

The country's delivery companies nurtured 163 projects designed to promote sales of local farm produce and specialties by the end of last year, with each handling more than 1 million parcels annually, he said, adding that 37 of them boasted over 10 million deliveries each year.

Ma also noted that 15 billion parcels were delivered in rural areas last year, and that figure rose to 20 billion in the first eight months of this year.

China has achieved its goal of covering all administrative villages with direct postal services, and express delivery outlets have been set up in 97 percent of the townships across the country, according to the bureau.

'GREEN GREAT WALL' KEEPS POVERTY AND SAND AT BAY

Every autumn in the 1980s, Huang Zhong's farmland in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region was blanketed with heavy layers of sand blown in by strong winds.

"A severe sandstorm could bury mud huts overnight in the village, and sand dunes were scattered everywhere," the 56-year-old recalled.

His home village of Liuyangpu in Yanchi county is on the southern edge of the Muus Sandland. Four decades ago, the harsh climate, a prolonged drought and overgrazing left about 75 percent of the village population stranded as desert encroached into the area, according to statistics from the county government.

Life was difficult for Huang growing up. Following poor harvests, his family survived on millet and buckwheat grown on their farmland.

"We didn't even have grass to graze our sheep," he said, adding that back then they had to migrate to cities to earn a living.

But not anymore. Now the sand and dunes are gone, replaced by lush greenery, including stands of trees and plants used in traditional Chinese medicine, thanks to a project to prevent desertification and soil erosion.

In 1978, China launched the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program. The afforestation project covers 13 provincial-level regions in the northwest, north and northeast and equates to 42.4 percent of the country's total land area. The program will be implemented in eight phases and is expected to be completed by 2050.

Over the past 42 years, over 7.88 million hectares of windbreak trees have been planted, 336,000 square kilometers of desertified land managed, and more than 10 million hectares of grassland protected and restored, according to a report released by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time. - Charles F. Kettering

If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, kindly send a mail to unsubscribe@newsaccess.in with the subject line same as this mail.