CONSENSUS URGED FOR NEW ERA RELATIONS

President Xi Jinping underlined on Monday the need for China and Japan to implement their political consensus that they "treat each other as cooperative partners instead of threats" in developing bilateral ties.

While meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Xi said the two countries should keep moving their relations forward along the right track in the spirit of "turning competition into coordination".

Xi told Abe that Sino-Japanese relations in the new era call for a clear strategic consensus. Both countries should actively advance mutually beneficial, win-win cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, Xi said.

Both nations should adhere to the principles of the four political documents they signed in 1972, 1978, 1998 and 2008, to properly handle major sensitive issues and consolidate the political basis of bilateral ties, Xi said. He added that these are fundamental for developing the Sino-Japanese relationship in the new era and must not be lightly treated and undermined.

He called on the two countries to advance high-quality collaboration in jointly building the Belt and Road, as well as third-country market cooperation, and to strengthen pragmatic, mutually beneficial cooperation in such sectors as artificial intelligence, big data and the internet of things.

Both countries should also proactively foster a two-way, transparent and nondiscriminatory environment for innovation cooperation, Xi said, and he called for tourism cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, as well as mutual support for hosting the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2020 and the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.

Xi underscored the importance of enhancing mutual trust in security issues, and called on Japan to shoulder its international responsibilities, uphold multilateralism and promote free trade to advance the building of an open world economy.

Abe said frequent high-level exchanges between Japan and China this year have enhanced mutual understanding.

He said Japan-China relations have maintained good momentum for development, which is greatly significant for the peace, stability and prosperity of the region and even the world.

Japan considers Xi's state visit to Japan in the spring to be very important, and Tokyo is willing to keep close communications to ensure the visit is a full success, Abe told Xi.

Japan stands ready to work with China to advance third-country cooperation, and intensify communication and coordination on regional issues, he added.

Bilateral trade between China and Japan reached more than $327 billion in 2018, rising 8.1 percent year-on-year. Since 2007, China has been Japan's largest trade partner.

Abe arrived in Beijing on Monday. He will attend the eighth China-Japan-ROK leaders' meeting in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Tuesday.

XI CALLS FOR ADVANCING TIES TO HIGHER LEVEL

President Xi Jinping called for a deeper strategic cooperative partnership between China and the Republic of Korea when meeting with ROK President Moon Jae-in on Monday in Beijing.

Faced with global changes unprecedented in a century, China and the ROK should accommodate each other's core interests and major concerns and promote bilateral ties to a higher level, Xi said.

For more than two years, the Sino-ROK relationship has maintained a general direction of steady development, he said, adding that the two sides should aim for high-quality integrative development and further tap potential to strengthen pragmatic cooperation.

Xi called on China and the ROK to push for early progress in synergizing the joint building of the Belt and Road with the ROK's strategic development planning, speed up second-phase negotiations on the China-ROK free trade agreement and deepen cooperation in innovation and research to complement each other's advantages.

Xi also urged better use of the China-ROK Joint Committee on People-to-People Exchanges as a platform to carry out exchanges in such areas as education, sports, media, youth and local governments.

China and the ROK should also strengthen cooperation in law enforcement and security to jointly crack down on cross-border crimes and safeguard the two countries' social stability and harmony, he said.

Xi noted that rising trends of protectionism, unilateralism and bullying have disrupted global governance and threatened world peace and stability. He said he hopes China and the ROK will continue to enhance coordination within multilateral frameworks, including the United Nations, the G20 and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, to safeguard international fairness as well as the two countries' legitimate rights and interests.

Moon said that the ROK believes that affairs in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region are China's internal affairs.

He also said that the ROK understands China's position on major issues, supports free trade and is willing to enhance communication and cooperation with China on regional and international affairs.

The two leaders also exchanged views over the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Xi said China supports the ROK's efforts to improve ties with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and inject new impetus into promoting peace talks.

Moon said his country appreciated the significant role that China has played in solving the peninsula issue. The opportunity for a peaceful resolution of the issue is hard-won, and the ROK stands ready to make joint efforts with China to push forward the peace process on the peninsula, he said.

Moon is in China to attend the eighth China-Japan-ROK leaders' meeting, which will be held in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Tuesday.

LI SUPPORTS BOLSTERING GROWTH

China is considering further cutting the reserve requirement ratio of banks and boosting their relending and rediscount quotas to reduce actual interest rates and financing costs for small and micro businesses, Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday.

Li's remarks came as he made an inspection trip to Chengdu, Sichuan province, where he is hosting the eighth China-Japan-Republic of Korea leaders' meeting on Tuesday.

The country is further researching measures such as across-the-board reserve requirement ratio cuts or targeted cuts of RRR−the proportion of cash that banks have to set aside as reserves−to solve the difficulties and high costs of financing faced by small and micro businesses, he said during a visit to a branch of Chengdu Bank.

He pledged greater support to small and medium-sized banks, which offer direct services to small and micro businesses, saying that the sharing of information on businesses will be promoted to facilitate more loans.

The evaluation mechanism for banks will be refined, and a proper mechanism for work division among big, small and mediumsized banks will be established, he said.

He also voiced his hope that small and medium-sized banks will further boost lending to small and micro businesses, a key pillar for job creation.

The premier visited an online administrative service center and was briefed on the development of the free trade zone in the province as well as the Tianfu New Area.

There is immense potential for growth in the western region and unleashing the potential for growth requires greater strides in reform, opening-up and refining the business environment, he said.

The key is to further reform to streamline administration and bolster compliance oversight and services, he added.

He said the services offered by staff workers should be warm as the sunshine, and they should help develop the area to a new height in offering more accessible services to businesses and individuals.

Li underlined bettering the environment for starting businesses and making innovations as he visited a park for entrepreneurship and innovation.

The abundance of human resources and a rich supply of talent have been China's unique edge in development, and more measures must be adopted to stimulate market vitality and social creativity and to incentivize more people to start successful businesses, he said.

The premier also learned from some migrant workers at a construction site about their wages and living conditions.

Migrant workers should be given full credit for the country's development, and the government must ensure that their wages be paid in full and on time, he said.

INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT GROWTH PEGGED AT 5.6%

Industrial output is forecast to grow about 5.6 percent year-on-year this year, hitting its annual growth target range of 5.5 to 6 percent, despite the growth pressure and global uncertainties, the nation's top industry regulator said on Monday.

Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei said in the face of significantly bigger risks and challenges at home and abroad, the ministry has fulfilled the objectives and tasks of the whole year in a relatively good manner.

According to him, the software and information technology service industry will see revenue growth of 15 percent year-on-year, while the internet sector will grow by 20 percent in revenue this year.

"Revitalizing the real economy, especially manufacturing, has become a consensus. Concrete steps have already been made to promote the high-quality development of manufacturing, and industrial management capabilities have been honed to better safeguard risks and better pounce on opportunities," Miao said.

Next year, the ministry will ratchet up resources to ensure the industrial economy grows in a reasonable range, with focus on stabilizing the investment into manufacturing.

More efforts will be made to attract money into advanced manufacturing, infrastructure and other areas that can have multiplier effects. The ministry will also pour more resources into boosting the industrial and consumption upgrade, Miao said.

China kicked off the commercialization of 5G in late October and so far, more than 126,000 5G base stations have entered services across the country. In accordance with the wider use of 5G across the country, more efforts will be made to popularize the application of technologies including 4K/8K TVs as well as virtual reality and augmented reality goggles, the ministry said.

The commercialization of 5G in China is expected to generate a direct economic output of 10.6 trillion yuan ($1.5 trillion) from 2020 to 2025, plus an indirect economic output of about 24.8 trillion yuan, while directly creating more than 3 million jobs, according to a report from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a government think tank.

Qin Hailin, a senior industrial economy researcher at the China Center for Information Industry Development, said progress has been made to stabilize growth, optimize its structure, promote integration of the real economy and digital economy, and to create a good business environment during the year. The efforts have laid out a relatively sound foundation for growth next year.

"We are still facing strategic opportunities and have a unique edge to fuel high-quality growth. We have the world's most complete industrial systems, a super-scale domestic market, sprawling talent pool, and competitive industrial and digital infrastructure," Qin said.

The ministry said next year, it will cultivate another four national manufacturing innovation centers to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies. It will also call on enterprises, entrepreneurs, industrial associations to make a joint push to solve the problems of weak industrial foundations.

Cao Zejun, vice-president of Huawei Technologies Co's China branch, said the country's IT industry still faces huge pressure, with domestic operating systems and chips having very low market share in the world.

But with joint efforts, the domestic IT industry can make progress to solve these problems in the long term, Cao said.

LAST 19 IMPOVERISHED AREAS IN TIBET RISE OUT OF POVERTY

Lhasa locals offer barley wine to new neighbors after they moved last year from Nagchu as part of the first ecological relocation project in the Tibet autonomous region. CHOGO / XINHUA

Authorities in the Tibet autonomous region announced on Monday that they have removed the last 19 impoverished areas from the poverty list.

The regional poverty alleviation office said 18 counties in Ngari Prefecture, falling under the cities of Xigaze and Qamdo, and one county-level district of Nagchu have passed authorities' assessments. They now meet a series of delisting requirements, including lowering the comprehensive poverty head count ratio to below 3 percent.

The 19 areas, all in remote, high-altitude locations, were once among the poorest in the region, according to the office.

Tibet has been considered one of China's main battlefields against poverty for geographical and historical reasons ever since China launched its nationwide drive against poverty in 2016.

The regional government has undertaken targeted poverty relief measures. Before the latest 19 delistings, 55 counties and districts had declared themselves out of poverty between 2016 and 2018. That was the result of efforts by the government and by people themselves, who made an effort to improve their livelihoods. In all, 470,000 benefited.

To date, all 74 poverty-stricken counties and districts in the region have been lifted out of poverty.

SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM COULD SEE EXPANSION

For decades, Chinese people prized government-funded jobs for the stability and social security that came with them, even if it meant earning a lackluster salary.

But a new survey has suggested that stable employment is no longer prioritized by younger job hunters−a crucial shift that may drive the development of a social security system that is friendly to more casual job holders. The shift appears to be the result of increasing career mobility.

The Blue Book of China's Society, released Monday by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, described the trend as a departure from the norm, since security and job benefits are heavily dependent upon one's employer.

Workers for small, private employers, or those employed through the casual arrangements offered by the online app-based companies such as the car-hailing or food delivery platforms, are generally covered by fewer or even no security programs.

But the sudden rise of internet-based jobs has rendered the original social security arrangements incapable of safeguarding the rights of those working in the shadow of the gig economy, according to Zhang Haidong, a sociology professor at Shanghai University who studies social mobility.

"That has revolutionized the traditional values in job selection," he said.

The new report signaled that behind the decreasing emphasis on job stability are the growing difficulties facing less-skilled migrant workers as they attempt to secure jobs in cities and get promotions.

They may also face problems in enrolling their children at urban schools because of hukou−the household registration system that excludes outsiders from enjoying local public services, the report said.

Figures offered by the report show 81.4 percent of couriers come from rural areas, and almost one-third choose the job because other jobs are harder to secure.

For food deliverymen, 77 percent of them come from rural areas, and 52 percent had difficulty securing other jobs.

The findings have renewed discussions of extending the security net to cover those working for the less-protected gig economy.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said it plans to revise work injury insurance regulations in light of the tens of millions of people in the sector, but no more details were provided.