Chinasage : All about China

Beijing already has the world's second busiest airport - Beijing Capital International. As traffic continues to expand a huge new airport has been built at Daxing (Beijing Daxing International) which is a little further out from the capital - in fact on the border of Beijing metropolitan area with Hebei province 27 miles south of central Beijing. It covers 47 square kilometers and is due to be formally opened in June before taking passenger aircraft in September.

On May 14th the first aircraft have tested it out for landing (just crew without passengers). Four different types were used (Boeing 747-8, Airbus 350, Airbus 380 and Boeing 787-9) to check suitability for all the current types large aircraft. A new expressway has been built to the airport which will have seven runways. It is expected to handle 45 million passengers by 2021 and 72 million by 2025.

There are clear signs of a shift of preferences for Chinese students studying abroad. A foreign degree is still seen as a passport to a good job and so wealthy families seek to get there children a university degree from a foreign university. One side effect of the Trump trade wars is that these students are looking for places other than the U.S.. This trend has also been accelerated by the scandal over the buying of places ➚ at top U.S. universities for millions of dollars. In this case millions were donated for supposedly charitable purposes but actually used to bribe admissions staff. Students with a poor academic record were able to be admitted due to made-up claims that the candidate was a gifted athlete.

The U.S. still retains top spot with 43% for aspiring Chinese students but the U.K. is now hard on the heels at 41%. These nations are followed by Australia and Canada - fluency in English is still a top requirement from parents. The fees paid by Chinese students is a very important source of income for financially strapped institutions.

Meanwhile there is an increasing trend for students to study in Chinese universities as it is building up to be the largest trading nation.

University graduates

The centenary of the May fourth movement is being celebrated in China. President Xi has given a speech at the Great Hall of the People applauding the mass movement that succeeded in changing China's future direction. His speech noted ’the May Fourth Movement was a great patriotic and revolutionary campaign pioneered by advanced young intellectuals and joined by the people from all walks of life to resolutely fight imperialism and feudalism.With its mighty force, the movement inspired the ambition and confidence of the Chinese people and nation to realize national rejuvenation’. Back in early 1919 the Chinese government had acquiesced to many of the demands of Japan and seemed to agree with the ceding of Shandong to Japan during the Versailles Treaty negotiations.

The movement began in Beijing with students but soon spread to Tianjin and all the major cities. The protests only died down when the government conceded to many of the protestors demands. The students turned to Marxism (Russia had had its revolution only 2 years before) and many key future leaders of the Chinese Communist Party became involved in the student protests - in particular Zhou Enlai. May 4th is now celebrated as 'Youth Day' each year. Our web site has a full description of these revolutionary events here.

29th November 1919. More than 30,000 male and female students from 34 schools in Beijing gathered in front of Tiananmen Square to denounce the Japanese imperialists for killing the people of Fuzhou and protesting against Japanese ships invading Fuzhou. After the meeting, demonstrations were held, and slogans such as "Strive for Fujian" and "Resist Japan" were sloganed along the way, and more than 100 kinds of flyers were distributed, totaling 78,000. When the brigade went through the General Chamber of Commerce, it also sent representatives to the inside to ask the Beijing Business Bank to boycott Japanese goods and to break the Japanese economy. Image by Sidney D. Gamble available under a Creative Commons License ➚

Many people think that slavery was abolished in the 1820s. While it is true that the African slave trade dwindled rapidly the plantation owners turned to new sources of slaves. These were the 'coolies' from India and China that were normally tricked into signing a contract and were treated just as appallingly as the African slaves they replaced. Mercifully the Chinese coolie trade came to an end in the late 1870s after the intervention of the Chinese government. The tale of these lost million people is rarely told, particularly the Chinese laborers. We have added a page summarizing this ignoble trade and also the treatment of the many Chinese immigrants to California in the late 19th century when racial discrimination reached fever pitch.

The picture on is a tolerably fair representation of a manager's house on its brick pillars. To the left, at the bottom of the picture, is a free Coolie driving his cattle. To the right a rural constable is seizing an unhappy pigtail to convey him to the lock-up, being absent, as we see, from the band just above him, with his arms unbound. This indicates that he is trying to avoid the restraints of his indenture, and for this he is liable to punishment. Above him, on the right of the picture, is a group of Chinese, and on the left of the steps a group of Coolies, represented with their arms bound, an emblem of indentureship. They always speak of themselves as bound when under indenture. At the foot of the steps, on either side, is a Chinaman and a Coolie, from whose breasts two drivers are drawing blood with a knife, the life fluid being caught by boys in the swizzle-glasses of the colony. A boy is carrying the glasses up the steps to the attorney and the manager, who sit on the left of the verandah, and who are obviously fattening at the expense of the bound people below them. A tatwife and children look out of the windows. 1871. Image by The Coolie - his rights and wrongs ➚ available under a Creative Commons License ➚