A window on today's China for Southeast Asia
Kucha City is known for amazingly distinctive scenes of China’s western regions, but also for its peace and tranquility. Its senior residents enjoy chatting in the sun. Children and young people on electric bicycles wave as they pass.
On solidarity among ethnic groups in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, President Xi Jinping noted, “All ethnic groups should remain closely united like how the seeds of a pomegranate stick together.” The sentence deftly illustrated the close connection between the various ethnic groups in the vast Xinjiang region in northwest China. Here, people from Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture and Kucha share their stories.
The new year dawns amidst unprecedented changes in a century, including the COVID-19 pandemic in particular. It will be a milestone year for China and ASEAN, as it ushers in the 30th anniversary of China-ASEAN dialogue relations.
Two days ago, I announced that China would provide Cambodia with 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines,” wrote Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen in a January 17 Facebook post. “To boost confidence in the vaccine, I declare that I will be the first to be vaccinated in Cambodia. I must be at the forefront of this campaign.”
The office building of Beijing Institute of Biological Products Co., Ltd. (BJIBP) under China National Biotec Group (CNBG) in Beijing’s southeastern outskirts was still brightly lit at 9:00 p.m. on December 25, 2020. Dong Jianchun, head of engineering support, his deputy Shi Wei, and technical team leader Zhang Yu were feverishly pouring over a design plan for the company’s second production facility for the inactivated COVID-19 vaccine. They were checking implementation details related to the project as construction work entered the final stage and testing of production equipment was about to commence.
On a hot morning in July 2020, Liang Hongyang, deputy director of the No. 6 Vaccine Office of the Beijing Institute of Biological Products (BJIBP) under China National Biotec Group (CNBG), a subsidiary of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm), rushed into the lab working on the COVID-19 vaccine. When he left the BJIBP building, Liang saw tents were pitched and people were waiting in a long queue to get vaccinated. He overheard someone say, “I finally feel safe after getting vaccinated.”
