TUESDAY, May 1, 2018


Xi salutes national model workers
Working hard the most ’honorable,
noble, great and beautiful virtue’
By AN BAIJIE
anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
Working hard is the most
honorable, noble, great and
beautiful virtue, President Xi
Jinping said ahead of Inter-
national Workers’ Day, which
falls on Tuesday this year.
Xi, who is also general sec-
IT’S GAME ON
FOR E-SPORTS
AT COLLEGES
More Chinese universities are
embracing gaming as they see big job
opportunities in the development of
the sector, as Shi Futian reports.
E -sports and education
have long been regard-
ed as incompatible in
China, with gaming consid-
ered the No 1 enemy of aca-
demic performance. But that
is changing as the healthy
development of e-sports gains
more recognition.
The inaugural 2018 Univer-
sity Cyber League, co-orga-
nized by Tencent Sports, is one
example. The only e-sports
tournament approved by the
Federation of University Sports
of China, it is one of the biggest
of its kind in China, boasting
the most teams and the
nation’s top university players.
The tournament wrapped
up its north, south, east and
west division competitions in
late April. More than 8,000
spectators attended the divi-
sional competitions, which
also attracted over 50 million
online viewers.
The divisional champions
are now preparing for the
league’s first national champi-
onship, in Suzhou, Jiangsu
province, on Sunday.
The winners of the four divi-
INSIDE
Beauty of
sandstone
Travel, p10
Foreign minister to visit DPRK this week
By ZHANG YUNBI
zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn
State Councilor and Foreign
Minister Wang Yi will pay a
visit to the Democratic Peo-
ple’s Republic of Korea from
Wednesday to Thursday at the
invitation of DPRK Foreign
Minister Ri Yong-ho.
The upcoming trip,
announced by Foreign Minis-
try spokesman Lu Kang on
Monday, is another in a series
of recent high-level
exchanges and contacts
between Beijing and Pyong-
yang, including the visit to
China in March of top DPRK
leader Kim Jong-un.
During that visit, President
Xi Jinping, who is also general
secretary of the Communist
AZALEAS
BLOSSOM
Botanical wonderland
is about to explode >p6
retary of the Communist Par-
ty of China Central
Committee and chairman of
the Central Military Commis-
sion, made the remarks in a
reply letter to national model
workers who are studying at
the China University of Labor
Relations.
National model workers
X Representative Robert Light-
sions — 20 teams representing
16 universities around China,
including top ones like Ren-
min University of China and
Fudan University — will com-
pete in five different arenas:
soccer game FIFA Online, bas-
ketball game Strongest NBA,
first-person shooter CrossFire,
multiplayer battle game
League of Legends and home-
grown hit King of Glory.
“University plays a vital role
in facilitating the standardiza-
tion and industrialization of a
healthy e-sports industry in
China,” said Ewell Zhao, gen-
eral manager of Tencent
Sports.
“Through tournament oper-
ation and promotion, Tencent
will ensure UCL is a profes-
sional, university-level
e-sports tournament, which
will help facilitate e-sports’
development in China.”
Although the inaugural
UCL is groundbreaking, the
development of university-lev-
el e-sports remains in its
infancy. “We started the
See E-sports, page 3
Party of China Central Com-
mittee, reached a consensus
with Kim on developing bilat-
eral relations and on promot-
ing the peaceful settlement of
the nuclear issue on the Kore-
an Peninsula.
Zhang Liangui, an expert on
Korean studies at the Party
School of the CPC Central
Committee, said Wang’s
upcoming visit will enhance
efforts at the working level to
translate the consensus into
reality. Zhang said that Pyong-
yang will likely brief Wang on
the outcomes of the latest
meeting between Kim and
President Moon Jae-in of the
Republic of Korea.
The visit will reinforce
mutual understanding at a
time tensions on the Korean
are individuals recognized by
the CPC and central govern-
ment from around the coun-
try who exemplify an
outstanding work ethic.
More than 2,000 national-
level model workers were
named in 2015 from all walks
of life.
In his letter, Xi extended
greetings to all workers in the
country and spoke highly of
the contributions that the
model workers have made to
Zhou Li (seventh right), editorial board member of China Daily Group and publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily Asia Pacific, joins
the China Daily Hong Kong Edition winners’ line-up at the Hong Kong News Awards 2017 ceremony on Monday. EDMOND TANG / CHINA DAILY
Lam praises impartial media for role in HK
By ASKA CHEONG
in Hong Kong
askacheong@chinadailyhk.com
Chief Executive Carrie Lam
Cheng Yuet-ngor on Monday
lauded Hong Kong’s media as
“the motivation” to her daily
work as it has effectively
monitored the government
through impartial reporting.
Addressing the Newspaper
Society of Hong Kong’s annu-
al awards ceremony, Lam
emphasized that freedom of
press and speech were
among the city’s core values
and strengths.
The Hong Kong News
Awards recognizing achieve-
ments for last year drew 594
entries from local Chinese
and English newspapers. Chi-
na Daily Hong Kong Edition
led all other print titles with
14 prizes.
Inside
See more > p4
Peninsula are being eased,
and it will be conducive to
denuclearizing the peninsula,
Zhang said.
Senior officials of the two
sides have also maintained
frequent contacts.
In early April in Beijing,
Wang met and talked with Ri
when the senior DPRK diplo-
mat had a stopover for a flight
transfer.
Wang said China hails the
DPRK’s commitment to the
denuclearization of the pen-
insula and the efforts it has
made for easing tensions.
Ri said the DPRK will work
as guided by the meeting
Online retailers go offline to find success running a family theme park
the development of the Party
and the nation.
Since 1992, the university
has provided an undergradu-
ate education to national
model workers as a reward
for their hard work.
Those currently studying
at the university wrote a let-
ter to Xi recently to report on
their studies of Xi Jinping
Thought on Socialism with
Chinese Characteristics for a
New Era. In the letter, they
“We need impartial and
in-depth reporting to better
develop our economy,
improve governance and
enhance people’s livelihoods.
I think the media in Hong
Kong did a great job in moni-
toring the government and
public sector with their inde-
pendent, impartial and com-
prehensive reporting,” Lam
said.
She encouraged journal-
ists to keep up the good work
while protecting their health
and safety.
Describing herself as a
loyal fan of print media,
Lam spends 45 minutes
reading nine newspapers
every day.
The special administrative
region government has also
been supportive of local
media. Lam said the city’s
internet media has been
between the two top leaders
and maintain close strategic
communication with China.
Song Tao, head of the Inter-
national Department of the
CPC Central Committee, led a
Chinese art troupe to the DPRK
in mid-April and met with Kim.
Kim told Song that he hoped
the two countries would rein-
force their exchanges and coop-
eration in various fields. The
DPRK is ready to learn from
China, Kim said.
Kim visited the Chinese
embassy in Pyongyang and
also greeted Chinese people
who had been injured in a
deadly bus crash in the coun-
try’s North Hwanghae prov-
ince. The crash killed 32
Chinese tourists and four
DPRK citizens.
HOLIDAY
expressed their determina-
tion to work hard to achieve
more going forward.
Providing a university
education for national mod-
el workers is a way of
rewarding them and recog-
nizing their selfless contri-
butions, Xi said, adding that
it also shows how much the
Party and country care about
them.
“Socialism is built through
hard work, and the new era is
allowed to attend govern-
ment press conferences in
her tenure; there is now a
question and answer time
during the conference.
Apart from extending con-
gratulations to awardees,
Lam also called on journal-
ists to cover topics related to
major infrastructure pro-
jects which will come on
stream within 12 months.
It is unprecedented for a
small city like Hong Kong to
have three large-scale infra-
structure projects — the
Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao
Bridge, the Hong Kong sec-
tion of the Guangzhou-
Shenzhen-Hong Kong
Express Rail Link and the
Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai
Boundary Control Point —
all coming into operation in
one year, Lam noted.
China Daily Hong Kong
Planting time
Farmers work in the Longji Terraces, in the Guangxi Zhuang auton-
omous region’s Longsheng county, on Monday. It was the start of
the rice seeding season in the area. WANG ZICHUANG/ XINHUA
© 2018 ChinaDaily ,All Rights Reserved
Vol. 22 — No.
A member of the
Asia News
Network
EDITION
www.chinadailyhk.com
also achieved through hard
work,” the president wrote in
his reply, adding that he
hopes the workers will “cher-
ish the honor, study hard and
continue your endeavors in
various positions to make
more progress”.
The model workers are
also encouraged to share
their spirit of diligence and
inspire workers across the
country to work hard in the
new era.
Edition secured a record 14
prizes in 11 categories at last
year’s news awards competi-
tion — including a first-time
Best Young Reporter win.
This is also the second
time China Daily Hong Kong
won four top awards — a
record set last year.
This impressive result had
made China Daily Hong
Kong the biggest winner in
the overall awards tally
among the 12 newspaper
outlets which participated in
the competition. The awards
were chosen from 594
entries from most Chinese
and English newspapers in
the city.
China Daily has won 72
prizes in the Hong Kong
News Awards since 2003,
making it a constant winner
in the city’s annual prestig-
ious news awards.

 $7
>p9
US envoys
coming to
negotiate
on trade
By ZHONG NAN
zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn
China must prepare more
measures to counter new trade
moves by the United States if
the two parties fail to reach an
agreement during bilateral
economic and trade talks in
Beijing later this week, econo-
mists said on Monday.
The trade dispute, which
was initiated by US President
Donald Trump, has already
generated strong domestic
opposition in the US.
Trump announced on Thurs-
day that Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin and US Trade
hizer would travel to Beijing for
talks.
The US delegation will also
include Trump’s top economic
adviser, Larry Kudlow, and
trade adviser Peter Navarro.
The talks are expected to take
place on Thursday and Friday,
according to media reports.
“Even though China’s firm
stance has prompted Trump to
send all his top economic offi-
cials for trade negotiations to
avert a trade war, it will be a
tough talk between the two
sides. Otherwise the Trump
administration and the presi-
dent himself will appear weak,”
said Tu Xinquan, a professor at
the University of International
Business and Economics.
In addition to trade, Tu said,
the US wants to limit China’s
ability to attract foreign direct
investment. The US is also
deeply concerned about Chi-
na’s industrial upgrades, tech-
nology transfers, talent flows
and intellectual property pro-
tection. It also wants to relieve
the downward pressure on its
stock market, Tu said.
“The US used to be an ideal
destination for investment
because it offered global inves-
tors stability and asset security.
But the unstable leadership of
Trump has put international
capital in the US at risk and
made investors in the US mar-
ket nervous,” he said.
Mei Xinyu, a senior research
fellow at the Ministry of Com-
merce’s Chinese Academy of
International Trade and Eco-
nomic Cooperation, said the
escalating trade dispute has
angered US farmers and com-
panies — especially those in the
high-tech manufacturing and
service sectors — and has put
Republican political candi-
dates under pressure as the US
midterm congressional elec-
tions approach in November.
China has become more
sophisticated in handling trade
disputes with timely and effec-
tive countermeasures, he said.
Since March, the ministry has
said several times that China will
not abandon its rights and inter-
ests, and will take all necessary
measures to firmly defend them.
Long Guoqiang, vice-presi-
dent of the State Council’s
Development Research Center,
said that because China and
the US are both major econo-
mies involved in global value
chains, exports from both sides
include a large value inflows
from other economies.
“The upcoming negotiations
therefore cannot be considered
as a meeting to resolve bilateral
trade issues,” he said. “It is
about maintaining the rules-
based multilateral trading sys-
tem of the world.”
2 HOLIDAY | Nation Tuesday, May 1, 2018 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION

Cancer drug imports now tariff-free

Briefly

Health official says manufacturers
in China can manage competition
By YANG WANLI
yangwanli@chinadaily.com.cn
Supportive policies have
been released by the central
government to reduce the pri-
ces of cancer drugs and fur-
ther relieve financial stress for
patients, health officials said
on Saturday.
Beginning on Tuesday, Chi-
na will exempt 28 drugs from
import tariffs — including all
cancer drugs — as part of
broader market-opening
measures.
Prices of imported cancer
drugs will be reduced via
negotiations with both for-
eign suppliers and domestic
distributors, said Zeng Yixin,
deputy director of the Nation-
al Health Commission.
For those drugs already
covered by the State medical
insurance program, health
departments will organize
pricing bids or negotiations
with pharmaceutical manu-
facturers for lower prices,
Zeng said.
Since 2016, the commission
and the Ministry of Human
Resources and Social Security
have both conducted drug
price negotiations. Their joint
efforts have led to the prices
for 39 drugs falling 50 percent
on average. Of those, 17 are
cancer drugs.
According to the ministry,
the lower prices negotiated for
the cancer drugs saved
patients 6.2 billion yuan ($979
million) as of April 18.
Chen Jinfu, head of the med-
ical insurance department of
the ministry, said the govern-
ment will work to include
more anti-neoplastic drugs —
which help prevent cell divi-
sion — into the country’s medi-
cal insurance reimbursement
catalog.
“Other drugs not covered by
the medical insurance pro-
gram might be included in
State medical insurance if the
drugmakers are willing to low-
er prices,” he said.
Moreover, efforts have been
made to accelerate review and
approval procedures for new
drugs, lower distribution costs
and improve diagnoses in
order to reduce the overall bur-
den on patients and their fami-
lies, according to Li Jinju, an
official with the China Food
and Drug Administration.
In 2014, the administration
received 155 clinical test appli-
cations for cancer drugs, and
19 were approved. Last year,
applications rose to 279, an
increase of 80 percent over
2014, with 29 gaining approv-
al.
The average duration for
cancer drug clinical test
approvals shrunk from 243
days in 2014 to 111 days last
year, Li said. And the time it
takes for drugs to reach the
market was cut from 420 days
in 2014 to 111 last year.
The State Cancer Center
released the country’s latest
cancer data early this year. It
shows that 3.8 million new
cancer cases were diagnosed
in 2017. Last year, an average of
seven people per minute were
diagnosed with cancer in Chi-
na.
The prevention and treat-
ment of cancer have received
great attention from health
authorities. A total of 703
research projects have been
launched in recent years, with
a total central government
investment of nearly 2.6 bil-
lion yuan.
Admitting that the tariff cut
on imported drugs may chal-
lenge China’s domestic phar-
maceutical industry by
making foreign drugs more
competitive, Liu Dengfeng of
the commission said local pro-
ducers were up to the task.
China’s medical research
and development have pro-
gressed in recent years, with
the talent pool getting strong-
er and innovation booming, he
said.
According to Zeng, domes-
tic innovation of new cancer
drugs will receive strong finan-
cial support in the future.
Drugs in urgent demand and
the production of generic
drugs will be top priorities and
will benefit from the new poli-
cies, he said.
“Some new drugs made in
China are now undergoing
clinical testing, and I believe
that patients will soon see
benefits from our own inno-
vation over the next two
years,” Zeng said.
TAIWAN
Seven dead in
factory blaze
Taiwan is mourning the deaths
of five firefighters and two
Thai migrant workers after a
weekend blaze at a computer
equipment factory. The fire
broke out on Saturday night in
a plant belonging to Chin Poon
Industrial Co in Taoyuan, just
south of Taipei, the Central
News Agency reported. It said
the firefighters inside the plant
lost contact with their col-
leagues outside and became
trapped under heavy equip-
ment. Another seven firefight-
ers were injured in the blaze, it
said.
BEIJING
Sector expands
at rapid pace
China’s nonmanufacturing
sector expanded at a rapid
pace for a second consecutive
month in April, according to

Tencent again denies Cutting things down to size the National Bureau of Sta-
tistics on Monday. The sec-
tor’s purchasing managers’

WeChat snooping index rose from 54.6 in

By ZOU SHUO
zoushuo@chinadaily.com.cn
Tencent denied again on
Sunday that it stores or analy-
zes chat histories of users of
WeChat, China’s most popu-
lar messaging platform.
“WeChat does not store any
chat histories. They are stored
only on users’ phones, com-
puters or other devices,” Ten-
cent said in a statement on its
own WeChat account.
Neither does WeChat use
chat histories for big data
analysis, it added.
“Respecting user privacy
has always been one of the
most important principles of
WeChat,” it said. “We have
neither the authority nor the
motive to look into users’ chat
histories.”
The company’s statement
came after anti-graft watch-
dog groups in Hefei, Anhui
province, announced in a
WeChat post that authorities
in neighboring Chaohu had
obtained deleted WeChat
conversations from a user of
the chat platform.
“The Chaohu city disci-
pline inspection and supervi-
sion commission retrieved a
series of deleted WeChat chat
histories from a suspect in
March,” the post said.
The authorities then
began investigating the case
based on the chat histories,
which helped to extract a
confession of wrongdoing
Nine dead in Shanxi landslide
A landslide in North Chi-
na’s Shanxi province killed
nine people on early Monday
morning, local authorities
said.
The disaster took place at
4:57 am in Caijiazhuang vil-
lage, Lishi district, Lyuliang
city, according to a release
from the city government’s
information office.
More than 100 firefighters
and police officers were dis-
patched for search and res-
cue operations. Four large
excavators and five ambulan-
from the violator, according
to the post.
“Information technology
has improved the efficiency
and quality of investigative
work,” it said. “From January
to April, the commission pun-
ished 63 cadres.”
According to Tencent’s
statement, Chaohu authori-
ties used data recovery soft-
ware to retrieve chat histories
from the violator’s phone.
“It is the same technology
used to recover important
files on computers,” the state-
ment said, adding that the
technology can also be used
for useful tasks such as
restoring contacts, short mes-
sages and call records on
smartphones.
With more than a billion
active users worldwide,
WeChat has developed into
an all-encompassing system
for just about everything in
China. There is growing con-
cern about how Tencent han-
dles user information.
Early this year, the messag-
ing app came under scrutiny
when Geely Auto Chairman
Li Shufu accused Tencent of
invading user privacy.
Tencent Chairman Pony
Ma was “definitely looking at
our WeChat messages every
day”, Li said at a business
forum on Jan 1.
Tencent issued a state-
ment at the time, denying
the accusations as “pure
falsehood”.
ces were also brought in, the
release said.
There was no immediate
word on what may have trig-
gered the landslide, nor were
identities of any of the vic-
tims provided. The local gov-
ernment said rescue efforts
had been halted and it was
now a recovery operation.
The mountainous Lyuli-
ang city has been hit by a
number of landslides over
the years, including one in
2008 that killed 19 people.
CHINA DAILY — AP
Workers dismantle a 180-meter-tall smokestack at a Huaneng electric power plant in Huaian city, Jiangsu province, on Sunday. They will
shorten the structure down to 120 meters before demolishing it with explosives. HE JINGHUA/ FOR CHINA DAILY
Precision aircraft parts fitter hopes to keep flying high
By CAO CHEN in Shanghai
caochen@chinadaily.com.cn
For Hu Shuangqian, a
skilled senior aircraft parts fit-
ter for nearly four decades, a
minor oversight in his work
can have drastic consequen-
ces.
The 58-year-old heads a
team working on computer-
ized controls at Shanghai Air-
craft Manufacturing,
subsidiary of Commercial
a was fortunate enough to find
Aircraft Corp of China. Hu
won the National Labor Med-
al in 2009 and was named a
national model worker in
2015.
Although most aeronautical
engineering work is now per-
formed by computer-con-
trolled machines, some parts
of Hu’s job still haven’t been
programmed and rely instead
on his delicate touch.
“The work is ideal for me, as
I have been interested in
planes since my childhood,”
said Hu, who was born in
Shanghai in 1960.
He said he liked to look at
aircraft photos as a youngster
and often walked long distan-
ces from home to see planes
landing and taking off.
For him, aircraft manufac-
turing is a respectable job as
well as a labor of love.
After graduating from a
Shanghai technical school
with a major in riveting, Hu
a job as a fitter at Shanghai
Aircraft Manufacturing in
1980.
“I was excited to have an
opportunity to grow with the
country’s civil aviation indus-
try,” he said.
Hu then joined the manu-
facturing team of the Y-10, a
four-engine narrow-body jet-
liner developed from the early
1970s to the mid-1980s.
The plane, which was
designed for 149 passengers,
made a successful test flight
in September 1980 and even-
tually connected a number
Hu Shuangqian at work
of Chinese cities to Shang-
hai.
“Unfortunately, the project
was canceled in 1985 due to
viability and budgetary issues,
and business at the factory
slowed down,” said Hu. Many
workers accepted job offers
from other booming private
industries.
“A boss from a private enter-
prise even offered me a
monthly salary of 4,000 yuan
($633), three times higher
than my income at that time,”
Hu said. But he refused.
“I believed that Shanghai
Aircraft Manufacturing, the
only place in China produc-
ing civil aircraft at that time,
would never close, and that
it had a bright future,” he
said.
His choice to stay, however,
initially brought him and oth-
ers like him many hardships,
and they had to make a living
by manufacturing more ordi-
nary items like vehicles and
electric fans.
Although China and the
United States later cooperated
in manufacturing McDonnell
Douglas aircraft at the factory,
that project was also canceled.
Then the workers started to
produce aircraft parts for Boe-
ing and Airbus on contract
beginning in 1996.
“I cherished that period as a
nice break to polish my basic
skills so that even the simplest
and smallest product was
absolutely guaranteed to be
top quality,” Hu said.
His efforts eventually paid
off when he joined to team to
March to 54.8 last month, the
bureau said. A reading above
50 indicates expansion, while
a reading below reflects con-
traction. The pace of expan-
sion was also above 54 for
April 2017. The subindex for
new orders rose one point
from the previous month to
51.1, showing growth in mar-
ket demand.
Partnerships
to be promoted
China will improve services
for tourists through public-
private partnerships, accord-
ing to a guideline released by
the Ministry of Culture and
Tourism and the Ministry of
Finance. The partnerships —
collaborative projects
between government and pri-
vate entities — will support
national tourism projects and
poverty alleviation through
tourism.
AGENCIES
build China’s first domestical-
ly developed regional jetliner
— the ARJ21-700 — in 2003,
one year after the project was
launched.
Hu’s craftsmanship also
contributes to the assembly
and maintenance of the C919
— China’s homegrown nar-
row-body jet — a project
launched in 2008.
“Participation in production
made me so proud and emo-
tional, especially when I saw
the plane’s first successful
flight from Shanghai in 2017,
which marked a great
improvement in China’s inno-
vative capability and high
technology in aviation,” he
said.
“In this era of advanced
technology, I’m sure safer,
more comfortable and envi-
ronmentally friendly aircraft
will be built in China.”
Despite soon reaching Chi-
na’s retirement age of 60, Hu
said he still hopes to work for
another 20 years.

TUE - WED MAY 1-2

-2/5 Beijing 14/24 C 13/25 D Shanghai 21/30 D 20/28 D
12/23 0/13 Changchun 9/20 C 7/20 C Shenyang 12/24 C 10/19 Sh
10/28 Changsha 22/29 Sh 22/27 Sh Shenzhen 24/29 O 23/30 C
Chongqing 20/30 D 21/25 R Shijiazhuang 13/24 O 12/22 T
14/24 Dalian 11/17 T 10/15 T Suzhou 21/29 O 17/32 D
13/25 Fuzhou 22/29 D 23/30 D Taipei 24/30 C 24/30 O
14/24 Guangzhou 23/29 F 24/30 D TUESDAY
Taiyuan 11/27 C 12/26 C
15/25 Guilin 22/28 Sh 21/28 Sh Tianjin 16/21 O 14/26 D WEDNESDAY
16/25
16/26 Guiyang 17/23 Sh 18/25 T Urumqi 12/23 S 10/28 S
18/29 Haikou 25/32 T 25/33 T Wuhan 20/30 D 20/27 R
19/28 21/30
20/28 Hangzhou 21/28 Sh 23/28 Sh Xi'an 13/29 O 11/24 C
23/40 Harbin 3/19 C 2/19 C Xiamen 23/31 O 23/32 C Abu Dhabi 23/35 S 24/35 S BuenosAires 18/22 D 16/21 D
24/40 24/30 Hefei 19/30 C 17/30 D Xining 1/18 C 1/17 C
23/29 24/30 Bangkok 26/34 D 27/34 D Caracas 25/27 D 26/27 C
24/30 Hohhot 7/24 O 3/18 C Yantai 14/23 D 13/21 D Colombo 24/32 D 23/32 D Chicago 10/10 C 16/16 S
24/33 Hongkong 24/29 O 24/30 C Yinchuan 9/24 C 5/21 C Dubai 26/35 S 26/35 S Houston 21/22 C 22/25 C
24/29 Jinan 17/30 C 13/26 T Zhengzhou 18/30 C 16/28 D
23/35 24/30 Hanoi 23/27 D 24/30 D Las Vegas 17/21 C 16/22 C
Kunming 14/25 C 13/26 S Zhuhai 24/29 O 24/29 O Islamabad 22/35 S 20/36 S Los Angeles 14/16 C 14/16 D
Lanzhou 10/20 C 8/21 S Jakarta 25/33 D 24/33 D Mexico city 17/17 D 17/17 C
26/34 Lhasa 3/15 Sh 4/15 O
27/34 Karachi 26/36 S 26/35 S New York 6/11 D 7/9 S
Lijiang 12/20 C 11/22 C Kuala Lumpur 26/29 D 26/30 D Ottawa 2/4 D 1/5 C
24/32 Macao 24/29 O 24/29 C Rio De Janeiro 23/24 S 23/24 S
25/30 24/32 26/35 Manila 26/35 D 26/34 D
26/34 Nanchang 21/27 D 21/28 D Mumbai 24/33 D 25/34 S San Francisco 11/14 S 12/15 S
24/33 Nanjing 20/29 O 20/28 T Athens 16/25 C 16/26 D
Berlin 16/17 S 13/16 S New Delhi 23/40 S 24/40 S Sao Paulo 14/21 C 14/23 S
Nanning 23/28 O 23/31 Sh Pyongyang 13/24 O 13/26 D Vancouver 7/9 D 7/10 D
26/29 Qingdao 12/18 C 12/16 Sh Brussels 7/13 D 6/7 D
26/30 Geneva 8/16 D 7/11 D Riyadh 19/31 D 20/32 D Washington 7/12 S 10/17 S
Sanya 25/32 C 26/33 C Seoul 14/24 O 15/25 D
Istanbul 13/22 D 14/21 C
26/28 London 4/7 D 7/10 O Singapore 26/28 D 26/28 D
26/28 Madrid 3/11 D 1/8 R/Sn Sydney 17/20 D 14/21 D Cairo 26/38 S 25/41 S
Moscow 10/21 D 9/22 D Teheran 9/15 D 13/15 D CapeTown 14/21 C 13/22 O
25/33 Paris 7/11 D 5/8 D Tokyo 16/25 S 16/26 C Johannesburg 10/20 D 8/16 D
24/33 Rome 17/18 O 15/18 O Wellington 13/16 D 12/16 C Lagos 26/28 D 26/29 O
Vienna 18/21 C 15/19 C Yangon 24/33 D 23/35 R Nairobi 15/23 D 14/24 D
 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION Tuesday, May 1, 2018
E-sports: College courses prove popular
From page 1
e-sports society at our univer-
sity three years ago, and it was
organized by students with no
help from teachers or the
school,” said Li Jiyun, captain
of the Renmin University
team that was crowned north
division League of Legends
champion.
Li’s team, with members
from various years and back-
ing from what is now a univer-
sity sanctioned e-sports club,
is in better shape than the one
at prestigious Peking Universi-
ty, whose captain, Ge Jiadi,
said it was made up only of
freshmen and had received no
help from anyone. No Peking
University team won through
to the national championship.
Despite the fact that many
university e-sports teams and
clubs in China are managed by
students themselves, gaming
has earned a place in the aca-
demic world, with many uni-
versities starting e-sports
classes.
In September 2016, the Min-
istry of Education listed
“e-sports and management” as
a major for colleges, paving
the way for higher-education
institutes to offer e-sports-re-
lated courses and official
diplomas.
However, creating more
world-class e-sports gamers is
not China’s priority, with the
courses focusing on the need
to produce more game design-
ers, tournament managers
and e-sports broadcasters.
According to an e-sports
industry survey released by
internet giant Tencent’s Pen-
guin Intelligence think tank in
June, 570,000 positions will
need to be filled in league
management, media produc-
tion, data mining, commentat-
ing and training. It also said 85
percent of positions in the
industry were understaffed.
Fourteen years ago, Com-
munication University of Chi-
na became one of the first
colleges in the country to offer
degrees in game design, and it
added an e-sports-dedicated
subject, digital media art, last
year aimed at further develop-
ing gaming management and
design talent.
The Shanghai Theater
Academy, meanwhile, is offer-
ing an e-sports commentating
course. Forty students signed
up for its launch in the fall.
Among all the universities
offering e-sports classes,
Peking University has received
the most attention.
Chen Jiang, associate pro-
fessor at Peking University’s
School of Electronics Engi-
neering and Computer Sci-
ence, started an e-sports class
in the spring semester that
proved extremely popular.
“The class was originally
designed for 120 students, but
about 160 showed up on the
first day,” Chen said. “The stu-
dents asked me to bring more
people into the class and
change to a bigger classroom,
which I did. Two weeks later,
Violence proves a barrier to
gamers’ Olympic dreams
By SHI FUTIAN
shifutian@chinadaily.com.cn
The evolution of e-sports
has been the subject of much
debate: Some see a brighter
future, while others warn of
looming danger.
To address the healthy
development of e-sports, the
Asian E-sports Collaboration
Summit was held in Shanghai
on April 11.
Asian E-sports Federation
President Kenneth Fok Kai-
kong, who attended the sum-
mit, said he believed in the
positive value of e-sports’ evo-
lution.
Fok said e-sports will evolve
beyond people’s imagination
and he can imagine the combi-
nation of e-sports and
advanced technologies such as
artificial intelligence and vir-
tual reality.
“We must actively embrace
The 2018 King Pro League spring season kicks off in March. Live online broadcasts of the e-sports competition, which is based on Tencent’s homegrown hit King of Glory,
have attracted billions of views each year since its launch in 2016, highlighting the dramatic development of China’s e-sports market. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
The Renmin University of China team that won the League of Legends championship competes at the
University Cyber League’s 2018 north division finals in Beijing in April. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
We’re trying to cre-
ate a model that
combines sports,
Chinese culture
and technology.”
Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, presi-
dent of Asian E-sports Federation
new technologies,” Fok told
the Titan Sports newspaper at
the summit. “E-sports have
shifted the battleground from
personal computers to mobile
devices, and it is constantly
changing. New technologies
like AI and VR will become
more mature. Even drones
and robots could evolve into
the e-sports of the future.”
Chen Jiang, an associate
professor at Peking Universi-
ty’s School of Electronics Engi-
neering and Computer
Science who started an
e-sports class in spring, said
e-sports have advantages that
traditional sports lack.
“Some sports can remain
unchanged for decades, but
e-sports can evolve much
more quickly,” Chen said.
“There will always be upgrad-
ed versions of games and even
new types of games coming
out, which will always bring
there were about 200 stu-
dents.”
Chen said the course was
not a gaming training camp,
but included in-depth study of
the gaming industry, technical
designs and user experience.
“When I prepared the class
before the semester, I did a lot
of research on how foreign
universities have incorporated
e-sports courses,” Chen said.
“A typical example is the
University of Southern Cali-
fornia, one of the best univer-
sities in the United States.
Students there can earn
around 14 academic degrees at
different levels associated
new excitement to players and
fans.”
Amateur gaming competi-
tions have existed since the
1970s. Arguably the first
e-sports event took place at
Stanford University in the
United States in 1972, when
students battled each other in
the game Spacewar for the
grand prize of a year’s sub-
scription to Rolling Stone
magazine.
The e-sports landscape has
changed dramatically since
Spacewar, with the emergence
of different types of games and
changing platforms.
According to the 2017 China
Game Industry Report
released by Tencent’s Penguin
Intelligence in June, mobile
games had a 49.5 percent
share of China’s gaming mar-
ket in 2016, while games on
personal computers had 35.2
percent.
with games and e-sports,
including game design.
“I was totally shocked when
I saw how far USC has come.
They were already offering so
many degrees, and we didn’t
even have an e-sports course
in any of our top universities.”
Booming market
Although university-level
e-sports development has just
got started in China, the coun-
try’s e-sports market is now
huge and its value has sky-
rocketed in recent years.
According to Penguin Intel-
ligence’s 2017 China Game
Industry Report, released in
A gamer takes on the opposition in the inaugural 2018 University Cyber League, the latest example of
the development of university-level e-sports in China. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
In terms of game types, 63
percent of Chinese e-sports
fans like multiplayer online
battle arena, or MOBA, games
such as League of Legends, 31
percent like shooting games
and only 7 percent like sports
games.
China's
e - s p o r t s
market
20
billion yuan
estimated market
value in 2016
570,000 positions to be filled
in league management, media
production, data mining,
commentating and training.
Only 15 percent of positions within the
industry have sufficient human resources
University Cyber League
Divisional competition: 8,000 spectators on
site and over 50 million viewers online
National championship: 16 universities
around China, including top ones like Renmin
University of China and Fudan University, will
compete against each other in five different
games at the national championship
Source: 2017 China Game Industry Report released by Penguin Intelligence
June, the annual market value
of China’s e-sports sector
reached 20 billion yuan ($3.19
billion) in 2016, generated by
gamers’ spending, copyright
distribution, merchandising
and e-commerce. The number
of registered online gamers
jumped to 220 million in 2017
However, some of the most
popular types of games could
endanger the healthy develop-
ment of e-sports.
The Olympic Council of Asia
has confirmed that e-sports
will be part of the 2018 and
2022 Asian Games, while the
Cover | HOLIDAY 3
220 million
registered online
gamers, up from
170 million in 2016
CHINA DAILY
from 170 million in 2016.
Another report, from market
researcher Niko Partner,
showed China’s e-sports mar-
ket topped $1.26 billion in 2017,
while the total prize money at
Chinese tournaments was $64
million — up from $51 million
the previous year.
International Olympic Coun-
cil has said e-sports “could be
considered a sporting activity”.
But one of the preconditions
for adding e-sports to the
Olympics is that they should
share Olympic values — in oth-
er words, no violence.
Tencent’s King of Glory has
amassed over 200 million
registered users since its
launch in 2015, and an
e-sports competition based
on the game — King Pro
League — has taken the coun-
try by storm since its estab-
lishment a year later.
The fall season final of the
2017 KPL attracted over 11,000
excited fans at Shenzhen Bay
Sports Center in Shenzhen,
Guangdong province, in
December.
The KPL’s live broadcast,
video and other media content
notched a staggering 10.3 bil-
lion online views last year.
Its 2017 spring season live
broadcasts were viewed 2.68
billion times, while the live
broadcasts of the fall season
were viewed 3.6 billion times
— a 33 percent increase within
six months.
The KPL’s 2018 spring sea-
son kicked off in March, and
with a new competition for-
mat and an upgraded version
of King of Glory, organizers
hope to attract even more
fans.
“A year before, nobody knew
if the KPL can go this far,” said
KPL President Zhang Yijia, the
general manager of Tencent’s
mobile e-sports department.
“But a year later, we have wit-
nessed the growth of the KPL
from zero. At the very begin-
ning there were no spectators.
Then there were 100. Then
1,000. Now, we have heard the
roar of over 10,000 spectators
cheering for their heroes at the
stadium.”
China’s professional e-sports
teams play at a much higher
level than the university teams.
QGhappy, the team that
completed a clean sweep of
KPL titles last year, calls its
system of cultivating future
champions “The Sickle”, and
it carefully manages its play-
ers, even providing them
with physicians and psychol-
ogists.
Apart from clubs them-
selves, the league is also help-
ing out. To ensure its
sustainable development, the
KPL has been working with
the clubs to nurture talent,
with players assigned profes-
sional training sessions,
coaches and data analysts.
“The KPL and the clubs are
in a win-win situation,” said
Zhu Bo, QGhappy’s founder.
“The league is becoming a com-
munity of shared interests, and
introducing regulations like
the salary cap is beneficial.”
Apart from Tencent, Ali-
sports, the sports arm of
e-commerce giant Alibaba,
has also joined the party
after launching the Ali-
sports World Electronic
Sports Games in March
2016, with 1,200 events
planned across 15 Chinese cit-
ies. Another Chinese tech
giant, NetEase, is also trying to
develop an e-sports league
based on its own games.
Contact the writer at
shifutian@chinadaily.com.cn
However, violence remains
the main attraction of gaming,
with the basic aim of the most
popular MOBA and shooting
games being to rack up the
kills.
The violence problem could
block e-sports’ road to the
Olympics and harm the
younger generations that
make up most of the e-sports
fan base, Fok warned.
“We have to make e-sports
embrace the Olympic spirit,”
he said.
“We need to promote the
positive values of traditional
sports and try our best to deal
with the violence problem of
e-sports.
“We need to regulate it and
have an industry code.”
Apart from dealing with the
violence problem, Fok has big-
ger ambitions for e-sports.
“We want to promote Chi-
nese culture through e-sports,”
he said.
“We’re trying to create a
model that combines sports,
Chinese culture and technolo-
gy. We will dig out content
from Chinese history and cul-
ture and use it to create better
products.”
4 HOLIDAY | World
Pyongyang to align time with Seoul
DPRK takes latest steps toward
reconciliation with the ROK
By CHINA DAILY
The Democratic People
Republic of Korea will shift its
clocks 30 minutes earlier to
align its time zone with the
Republic of Korea, and Seoul
said it will remove loudspeak-
ers that blared propaganda
across the border, according
to reports on Monday.
The moves come after Fri-
day’s historic summit at
which DPRK top leader Kim
Jong-un and ROK President
Moon Jae-in agreed to end
hostilities and work toward
“complete denuclearization”
of the Korean peninsula.
The Presidium of the
May appoints Javid
as interior minister
LONDON — British Prime
Minister Theresa May
appointed a former banker of
South Asian origin as interior
minister on Monday, trying to
draw a line under an immi-
gration scandal threatening
her authority as she negoti-
ates Brexit.
Sajid Javid, the son of
immigrants from Pakistan,
replaces Amber Rudd, who
quit as Home Secretary after
acknowledging she had
“inadvertently misled” parlia-
ment by denying the govern-
ment had targets for the
deportation of illegal
migrants.
For two weeks, British min-
isters have been struggling to
explain why some descend-
ants of the so-called “Win-
drush generation”, invited to
Britain to plug labor short-
falls between 1948 and 1971,
had been denied basic rights.
Javid, the first lawmaker
from Britain’s Black, Asian
and Minority Ethnic commu-
nity to become interior minis-
ter, tried before his
appointment to defuse public
anger over the scandal by say-
ing his own family could have
been caught up in it.
His appointment could
change the balance of May’s
top team in negotiating Brit-
ain’s departure from the
European Union in March
2019.
Rudd was one of the most
outspokenly pro-European
members of May’s cabinet.
Javid was a lukewarm cam-
paigner to stay in the bloc and
has said the referendum
result in 2016 meant that “in
some ways, we’re all Brexit-
eers now”.
“We are going to have a
strategy in place ... about
making sure that we have an
immigration policy that is
fair, it treats people with
respect and with decency, and
that will be one of my most
urgent tasks,” Javid told Sky
News.
A spokesman for May said
Javid, who had been minister
for housing, communities
and local government, “is one
Overnight strike on Syria kills 26 fighters
DAMASCUS — As many as
26 pro-government fighters,
mostly Iranians, were killed
in the overnight missile
attack that targeted Syrian
military sites in northern
Syria, a monitor group
reported on Monday.
Syrian official media outlets
have yet to disclose who was
behind the missile strike that
targeted military bases in the
countrysides of Hama and
Aleppo provinces on Sunday
evening.
The opposition monitor
group, Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights, held Israel
responsible for the attack,
adding that surface-to-surface
missiles hit the Regiment 47
base that houses Syrian gov-
ernment and allied Iranian
forces in the countryside of
Hama province.
The United Kingdom-based
Supreme People’s Assembly of
the DPRK adopted a decree
“On Resetting Pyongyang
Time” to “unify the times of
the north and the south,” Xin-
hua News Agency quoted the
Korean Central News Agency
as saying.
KCNA reported on Monday
that the decree urged the Cab-
inet and relevant organs to
take steps to implement it.
The move, starting from
Saturday, is “the first step for
national reconciliation and
unity”, KCNA quoted Kim as
saying.
During his summit meeting
with Moon at Panmunjom on
Friday, Kim proposed unify-
We are going to
have a strategy in
place ... about
making sure that
we have an immi-
gration policy that
is fair.”
Sajid Javid, UK interior minister
of the most experienced min-
isters around the Cabinet
table”.
“At housing he has proved
his drive, his ambition and
determination to get to grips
with difficult subjects, and
these are abilities which will
all be required at the Home
Office.”
Javid seemed to set out his
stall for the job in the Sunday
Telegraph newspaper when
he described his response to
the scandal.
On learning about the
treatment of the post-war
migrants, he said: “I thought
that could be my mum ... my
dad ... my uncle ... it could be
me.”
But he also called on voters
gearing up for local elections
on Thursday, when the Con-
servatives could lose councils
in London, to look at the gov-
ernment’s attempts to “put
things right” and its efforts to
“deal with the injustices in
society”.
One senior Conservative
source had a warning for Jav-
id: “Careful what you wish
for.”
Britain’s interior ministry,
or Home Office, is known in
government as one of the
toughest departments to
lead, charged with immigra-
tion, the police and security at
a volatile time of public
spending cuts, Islamist
attacks and Brexit talks.
REUTERS
watchdog group, which moni-
tors the Syrian war, added that
missiles also hit positions near
the Nayrab air base in Aleppo
province.
Meanwhile, the explosions
that followed the attack on the
Hama military base was big as
the European-Mediterranean
Seismological Centre record-
ed a 2.6-magnitude earth-
quake in the area following
the explosions that resulted
from the attack, which hit
weapons depots.
Israel has repeatedly target-
ed Syrian military positions,
where Iranian fighters or posi-
tions are located, with its offi-
cials stressing they will not
tolerate any military presence
of Iran in Syria.
Earlier in April, Israel car-
ried out a missile strike on the
T-4 air base in the countryside
of the central province of
Clocks showing Seoul time (left) and Pyongyang time.
YONHAP NEWS AGENCY
ing the times of the DPRK and
the ROK before doing any-
thing else, saying: “It was a
painful wrench to see two
clocks indicating Pyongyang
and Seoul times hanging on a
wall of the summit venue.”
Previously, the DPRK and
Border climb
A man climbs the border fence between Mexico and the United States as a part of a demonstration, as members of a caravan of
migrants gather prior to preparations for an asylum request in the US, in Tijuana, Mexico, on Sunday. EDGARD GARRIDO/ REUTERS
Leaders pledge to save Iran nuclear deal
PARIS / LONDON — French
President Emmanuel Macron
and his Iranian counterpart
Hassan Rouhani agreed on
Sunday to work together in
the coming weeks to preserve
the 2015 Iran nuclear agree-
ment, according to a state-
ment released by the French
presidency.
In an hour-long telephone
conversation, Macron hoped
that the achievements of the
negotiations would be pre-
served and discussions
opened on three additional
subjects, the Elysee Palace
said, citing Iran’s ballistic mis-
sile program, its nuclear activ-
ities beyond 2025, and the
main crises in the Middle East.
The French president has
been making efforts to salvage
the Iran nuclear deal, formally
known as the Joint Compre-
Homs, killing Syrian soldiers
and allied Iranian fighters.
Days later, specifically on
April 14, the United States,
the UK and France launched
a series of missile strikes on
Syrian military positions in
retaliation for an alleged toxic
gas attack on the former
rebel-held area east of
Damascus.
The overnight missile
strikes come at a time, when
the Syrian government
reached deals with an array of
rebel groups south of Damas-
cus to evacuate to rebel-held
areas in the northwestern
province of Idlib.
The first stage of the deals
is being prepared, Syrian
state TV said on Monday, air-
ing some footages of bulldo-
zers removing rubble from
the entrances of Yarmouk
Camp area south of Damas-
the ROK used an identical
standard time. But in August
2015, when inter-Korean rela-
tions deteriorated, the DPRK
pushed back its standard time
by 30 minutes, Xinhua report-
ed.
“It is not an abstract mean-
hensive Plan of Action, which
the United States has threat-
ened to leave under President
Donald Trump.
Macron visited Washington
last week, hoping to persuade
Trump not to impose sanction
on Iran before a May 12 dead-
line.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin and Macron agreed in a
phone conversation on the
need to preserve and fully
implement the Iran nuclear
deal, the Kremlin said in a
statement on Monday.
The phone call took place at
the initiative of the French
administration, the Kremlin
statement said.
Meanwhile, the leaders of
the United Kingdom, France
and Germany agreed the Iran
nuclear deal is the best way of
stopping Teheran from gain-
cus as a prelude for the evacu-
ation process.
The deals include the
towns of Yalda, Babila and
Beit Sahem south of Damas-
cus, and it will see the evacua-
tion of rebels and their
families toward rebel-held
areas in Idlib.
The evacuation will be for
rebels who refuse to reconcile
with the government, while
the militants who want to
remain in the three towns will
have to reconcile with the
government and hand over
their weapons.
The evacuees will only be
allowed to have light weap-
ons, said the report, adding
that the Syrian government’s
institutions will return to the
three towns after the process
is completed.
XINHUA
ing that the north and the
south become one but it is
just a process in which the
north and the south turn
their different and separated
things into the same and sin-
gle ones,” Kim said, accord-
ing to KCNA.
At their summit on Friday,
Kim and Moon declared they
would take steps to formally
end the 1950-53 Korean War,
which ended only with a
truce, and work towards the
“denuclearization” of the
Korean peninsula. They also
agreed to end hostile acts
against each other along
their tense border, establish a
liaison office and resume
reunions of separated fami-
lies.
The ROK will remove
propaganda-broadcasting
They committed to
continue working
closely together
and with the US.”
Statement from UK Prime Min-
ister Theresa May’s office
ing nuclear weapons, UK
Prime Minister Theresa May’s
office said in a statement on
Sunday.
May had phone calls with
French President Macron and
German Chancellor Angela
Merkel where they agreed the
deal may need to be broad-
ened to cover other areas such
Tough race
A man takes part in a “Bison race” competition with different kind of obstacles in a field near the town
of Lahoysk, Belarus, on Sunday. VASILY FEDOSENKO / REUTERS
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION
loudspeakers from the bor-
der with the DPRK this week,
officials said on Monday.
Seoul’s Defense Ministry
said it would pull back doz-
ens of its front-line loud-
speakers on Tuesday before
media cameras. Ministry
spokeswoman Choi Hyun-
soo said Seoul expects Pyong-
yang to do the same,
Associated Press reported.
“We see this as the easiest
first step to build military
trust,” Choi said
The ROK had already
turned off its loudspeakers
ahead of Friday’s summit
talks, and the DPRK
responded by halting its own
broadcasts.
Xinhua, AP and Reuters con-
tributed to this story
as ballistic missiles, what hap-
pens when the deal expires,
and Iran’s destabilizing
regional activity, the state-
ment said.
“They committed to contin-
ue working closely together
and with the US on how to
tackle the range of challenges
that Iran poses — including
those issues that a new deal
might cover,” the statement
said.
This comes as a deadline
looms next month for Trump
to decide on whether to
restore US economic sanc-
tions on Teheran.
Trump has criticized a 2015
agreement which effectively
lifted some Western sanctions
on Iran in exchange for curbs
on its nuclear program.
XINHUA—REUTERS
Briefly
UNITED STATES
Trump floats DMZ
as meeting venue
US President Donald Trump is
questioning whether a poten-
tial meeting with Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea top
leader Kim Jong-un could be
held in the Demilitarized Zone
that divides the DPRK and the
Republic of Korea. Trump said
on Twitter on Monday that
Peace House on the DMZ may
“be a more representative,
important and lasting site
than a third-party country.”
Trump said over the weekend
that the time and location of
the meeting with Kim are
being set. It is tentatively
scheduled for May or early
June.
RWANDA
Heavy downpour
kills nine people
Nine people were killed and
two others were missing in
western Rwanda on Monday
morning due to a heavy down-
pour as rains continue to
wreak havoc in the east Afri-
can country, a local official
said. The victims were killed
when their houses collapsed
and buried them under debris
in three different sectors in
Ngororero district due to the
rain starting at about 4 pm on
Sunday local time until Mon-
day morning, district mayor
Godfrey Ndayambaje said.
JAPAN
Inmate recaptured
after escape
A convicted thief was recap-
tured on Monday three weeks
after a rare escape from a Japa-
nese prison and a manhunt he
may have eluded by swimming.
Tatsuma Hirao, 27, escaped
from a low-security prison in
Ehime prefecture on April 8
during a work assignment.
ARMENIA
Opposition names
PM nominee
The Armenian opposition on
Monday nominated Nikol
Pashinyan as its candidate for
prime minister, reported
Armenpress. Armenia’s
National Assembly will vote on
Tuesday for a new prime min-
ister. The ruling Republican
Party of Armenia announced
on Saturday that it would not
nominate any candidate for
prime minister.
ITALY
Five-Star leader
calls for snap polls
The leader of Italy’s anti-estab-
lishment Five-Star Movement
on Monday called for early
elections in June, saying
efforts to form a coalition gov-
ernment after last month’s
inconclusive vote had failed.
“At this point for me there is no
other solution. We have to go
back to the polls as soon as pos-
sible,” Luigi Di Maio said. Ital-
ian politics have been in limbo
since an inconclusive vote on
March 4, which saw a center-
right alliance led by the anti-im-
migrant League win the most
seats and the Five-Star emerge
as the biggest single party.
AFP—REUTERS—XINHUA—
ASSOCIATED PRESS
 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION Tuesday, May 1, 2018
The art and craft
of paper cutting
By HUO YAN and LI YANG
The first thing that greets
visitors at Gao Fengying’s
home is a stocky, floccose
burro foal. “It was born just
last week … ,” says Gao Laili-
ang, Fengying’s father, apol-
ogetically. “Even Fengying
has not seen the new mem-
ber of our family. She is too
busy with her paper-cutting
course in the town,” Gao
Senior says.
The cave-house of the Gao
family is no different from
others on the Loess Plateau
in Ansai, Northwest China’s
Shaanxi province, except for
the eye-catching red-col-
ored paper cuttings on the
walls and windows, whose
reflection lits up the dark
inside of the cave.
“My daughter was born in
this cave. She dropped out
of school because of poverty
and has worked as a farmer
since childhood. She started
learning paper cutting from
the age of 8. She is a bright
girl … (but) I didn’t think
she can make a living out
paper cutting ,” Gao Sr. says.
The art of paper cutting has
a history of more than 1,500
years on the Loess Plateau.
Paper cuttings are used to
decorate the windows, beds,
rice containers and flour vats,
and exhibit the homeowners’
longing for good luck.
In fact, Chinese paper
cutting is on the UNESCO
Intangible Cultural Heri-
tage List thanks mostly to
farmers, who in their spare
time used either scissors or
knives to create intricate
designs, patterns and fash-
ion fascinating objects. Scis-
sors are used by most paper-
cut artists, though.
The dedication and hard
work of the farmers-cum-
artists have transformed
what originated as a meth-
od of cutting patterns on
paper for embroideries into
a rich folk art form.
“I learned paper cutting
first from my mother when
I was 8,” says Gao Fengying,
36. “My work was liked by
the whole family and neigh-
bors. That encouraged me
… and boosted my confi-
dence.”
Gao Fengying fine-tuned
her skills under the guidance
of Li Xiufang, a 70-year-old
paper-cut artist in 2012, who
also inspired her rise to
greater heights. Without her,
she says, she might not have
been so “innovative, and …
win provincial and national
awards.”
After achieving fame as a
“paper-cut master”, she
founded the first paper-cut-
ting company in neighbor-
ing Ganquan county, and
soon bid farewell to her
Gao Yingfeng (fourth from left) shows some of her paper cut-
tings to students in her workshop. HUO YAN / CHINA DAILY
Tuo Zhenqin, a student of Gao in her paper-cutting workshop,
displays one of her works on April 6. HUO YAN / CHINA DAILY
Gao
Yingfeng,
paper-cut
artist from
Ansai,
Shaanxi
hand-to-mouth existence.
Later, she submitted a pro-
posal to the township gov-
ernment to run a workshop
to train local farmers in the
art of paper cutting, so as to
help them emerge out of
poverty. Her proposal was
endorsed by the govern-
ment, and the workshop has
become very popular among
the local people.
The dramatic improve-
ment in people’s livelihoods,
however, means paper cut-
tings might no longer adorn
the cave-houses. And that
will endanger the survival of
the folk art form.
So why did Gao Fengying
set up the company and the
workshop.
“I want to pass down the
folk art form to future gener-
ations. But I also want to
show it can be used to make
money … and change peo-
ple’s lives. Only when the
business is sustainable can
the art form live,” she says.
Thanks to the support of
the local government, her
workshop started operation
on March 5 in Xiasiwan of
Ganquan. She is happy to see
the classroom is full of peo-
ple, mostly unemployed
rural women, with some
standing and listening to her
instructions.
“I like drawing pictures
since childhood,” says Liu
Dongdong, 29. “I am very
happy to attend the work-
shop. Ms Gao’s teaching
method is lively and informa-
tive. It is easy to understand
… she wants to help us. I
want to acquire the skill and
ability to design and operate
independently … so that I can
increase my income.”
And Tuo Zhenqin, a
34-year-old mother of three
children who is a reserve
drum performer for tourists,
says she has always wanted
to learn paper cutting, and
the workshop provides her
with that opportunity. “If I
master the skill I can sell my
works to tourists. She (Gao
Fengying) teaches a skill …
she also teaches local culture
to the young people.”
Gao Fengying is happy to
learn that her burro back
home has given birth,
because she has “a new mod-
el in the paper cutting”.
“I cannot wait to see it”
she says about her new
“model”.
Contact the writers at
liyang@chinadaily.com.cn
People | HOLIDAY 5
Yan Zi’s works are about humans and nature, with crested ibis being the true representative of nature. HUO YAN / CHINA DAILY
BEAUTY IN WHITE AND RED
Her fascination with the only member of the genus Nipponia capture these beauties
on canvas, write Huo Yan and Li Yang
A
rtists in Xi’an,
Shaanxi prov-
ince, who know
Yan Zi usually
introduce her
somewhat like this: O, she
belongs to no circle of oil
painters in the city … she is
unique, quiet.
That’s also exactly how Yan
describes her favorite model,
muse, inspiration, call it what
you will. The crested ibis, an
endangered “bird of paradise”,
as she calls it, are found in the
wild only in the southern part
of Shaanxi today.
Yan still remembers her first
encounter with the bird at the
foot of Qinling Mountains
years ago while she was
engrossed in capturing the
landscape on the canvas: “I
saw two unique big white
birds flying to and fro. They
had long red beaks, and the
tips of their tails and wings
also radiated red luster under
the sun.”
“I had painted peacocks and
cranes before … but not seen Yan Zi narrates a story about her life-changing encounter with crested ibis while displaying one of her paintings at her home in Xi’an. HUO
an elegant a bird as the crested YAN / CHINA DAILY
ibis. Love for beauty and pro-
fessional impulse have
inspired me to walk into the
world of this special bird”, she
says.
From then on, she has spent
a lot of her spare time in the
mountains painting the birds.
Her love for the bird once led
to a cliff where she slipped and
fell down, breaking one leg
and hurting an eardrum,
which has damaged her hear-
ing permanently. But she says
a quieter world saves her a lot
of time that, otherwise, would
be squandered on social
engagement.
What makes the crested ibis Yan Zi introduces an oil painting explaining the relationship between
special to Yan is not only its Yan Zi’s birds in full glow on a canvas. HUO YAN / CHINA DAILY crested ibis and humans at her home in Xi’an. HUO YAN / CHINA DAILY
beauty but also the local peo-
ple’s emotional attachment to
it, not to mention their belief the number of crested ibis in call it. The daughter of a Rus- images on canvas influenced nious coexistence of birds and
that it is an “auspicious and the wild has increased from sian father and Chinese moth- her understanding of the art. humans in times gone by. As
psychic” creature. just seven nearly 40 years ago er, Yan learned oil painting “The objects should be ana- an artist, Yan creates a quiet
Almost all residents in to more than 1,500 in Shaanxi, from her father’s uncle, a stu- lyzed and understood by a world that immerses the view-
Huayang, Yangxian county of Henan and Zhejiang provinces dent of socialist realist painter painter, and she or he should ers in the beauty of nature and
Hanzhong city, now the core today — with another 500 in Konstantin Maksimov, in St first draw the objects in her or inspires them to protect
range of the crested ibis, the breeding centers in Petersburg from the age of 5 to his mind, not simply copy nature.”
where Yan often captures Shaanxi. 14. Her Russian name is Nata- them straight from the real And when her relatives and
them on paper or canvas, When Yan paints the birds in sha Seryozha. world,” Yan says. friends in Russia saw her
adore it. Some senior citizens the open where they fly, glide, “When my great-uncle took Her first series of oil paint- paintings, they said Natasha
even call the bird the “infinite- rest and nestle not far from his students to the banks of ings, which focuses on the har- has brought the birds from
ly merciful Bodhisattva”. her, she can feel them commu- the Neva River in St Peters- monious relationship between paradise back to the human
The range of the crested ibis nicating with her on the emo- burg, I followed them. He gave the people and the crested ibis, world.
shrunk from the vast expanse tional and spiritual level. me paint, brush and canvas has been exhibited in many “I use oil painting as a spe-
of East Asia in the late 19th An employee of a State- when I was 5 and encouraged places nationwide, and many cial language to communicate
century to only the mountains owned electricity company, me to draw the things I liked experts say her works can with the world, in the hope
in Yangxian in the late 1970s. Yan spends almost all her in my heart, whatever they awaken people to the need to that the people will join hands
The last wild crested ibis in weekends painting. Her home were. That’s how I fell in love protect flora and fauna, nature to protect not only the birds
Japan died in 2003, and the is like a studio, full of her with oil painting,” Yan recalls. as a whole. but also the whole range of
only bird in the genus Nippo- works, both finished and That her great-uncle Li Ning, an environmental- fauna,” Yan says. “Because
nia was thought to be extinct unfinished. stressed the importance of ist and former Olympic gym- each one counts.”
even in China. However, She calls the crested ibis a using paint lumps and texture, nastics champion, says: “Yan’s
thanks to the government’s “bird of paradise” because not lines as many artists in works create a dreamland, Contact the writers at
support for captive breeding, that’s how people in Russia China do, to reconstruct the where we can see the harmo- liyang@chinadaily.com.cn
6 HOLIDAY | Read
An aerial photograph shows blooming azaleas that have turned a slope in the Shennongjia scenic area in Hubei province into a sea of flowers.
Azaleas’ allure The botanical wonderland in Shennongjia
is about to explode with blooms
By WANG KEJU in Beijing
and LIU KUN in Hubei
Marvelous masses of
amazing azaleas make Shen-
nongjia blossom during the
ongoing season — in every
sense.
The forest in Hubei prov-
ince hosts over 4,000 species
of plants — actually, it takes
its name from a quasi-myth-
ological botanist who’s said
to have dwelled in the area
while experimenting with
pharmacology and eventual-
ly accidentally poisoned
himself during his trials. Oh,
and he’s often depicted as a
human with horns.
The only well-preserved
subtropical forest ecosystem
in the world’s middle lati-
tudes became a UNESCO
World Heritage Site in 2016,
making it China’s 50th.
Over 150 million azaleas
cover about a third of the
3,250-square-kilometer wil-
derness. About 35 varieties
of the flower color the land-
scape in reds, purples, yel-
lows and whites.
Azaleas bloom for a rela-
tively long time because of
the area’s altitude.
Those in the lower eleva-
tions bloom from late March
until early June.
The blossoms that flower at
over 2,000 meters above sea
level are encased in ice and
snow during the May Day hol-
iday, which falls on May 1.
A wooden plank road stretches onto a slope dominated by rhododendron trees.
Tourists pose with azaleas in the scenic area.
XUE YANG / FOR CHINA DAILY
Azaleas are considered a
symbol of pure and unre-
quited love in Shennongjia.
Droves of young couples
arrive during the season to
enjoy the blooms.
The flower variety also
represents hospitality and
happiness, which adds to its
appeal, says Lin Tinghong, a
resident of Qingtianpao vil-
lage, which is near Shen-
nongjia.
Lin noticed the influx of
visitors that peaks with the
blooms and consequently
turned his home into a hotel
where he provides meals,
rooms, local products and
activities.
“Visitor numbers increase
by around a third around
when the blossoms are at
their best,” he says.
“We had to hire three
more staffers to meet
demand this year. The azale-
as do, indeed, bring more
happiness to our business
and lives.”
Shennongjia has 23 travel
agencies, and about 1,110
hotels and restaurants, that
create more than 7,500 jobs
for locals. It can receive up to
32,000 visitors at the peak
time.
The forestry district’s dep-
uty Party secretary, Liu
Qijun, says plans for a high-
speed railway and highway
system are under considera-
tion. It may soon take less
than five hours to reach the
destination from Beijing and
other cities.
“Shennongjia is consid-
ered a treasure trove of wild-
life that’s renowned for its
botanical diversity. In addi-
tion to the beautiful azaleas,
it’s also an important habitat
JIANG YONG / FOR CHINA DAILY
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION
JIANG YONG / FOR CHINA DAILY
for such rare animals as Chi-
nese giant salamanders,
golden snub-nosed mon-
keys, clouded leopards and
Asian black bears,” he says.
It received over 13 million
travelers, generating a reve-
nue of 4.7 billion yuan ($745
million) in 2017, a 20 percent
year-on-year increase in
both visits and revenue.
Tourism is expected to
continue to boom during the
May Day holiday, Liu says.
“The UNESCO designa-
tion makes Shennongjia
more attractive. But it also
means local authorities
must boost efforts to protect
the environment,” Liu says.
“We will use a scientific
approach to keep visitor
numbers at a reasonable lev-
el. We stick to the bottom
line that economic develop-
ment will never come at the
expense of the environment.
When investment projects
conflict with ‘green moun-
tains and hills’, we will
always choose the environ-
ment to sustainably protect
it for future generations.”
The eighth annual Shen-
nongjia Alpine Azalea Festi-
val will open in mid-May.
It seems likely its photo
competition should prove
visually stunning — as
should the actual sights.
Contact the writers at
wangkeju@
chinadaily.com.cn
Top: Blossoming azaleas with dewdrops. Above: Two rhododendron trees in Shennongjia are
in full bloom. PHOTOS BY JIANG YONG / FOR CHINA DAILY
CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION Tuesday, May 1, 2018 Image | HOLIDAY 7

Mo Ming, a 23-year-old folk artist, has performed Monkey King on livestream for more than six months to promote traditional Chinese culture. PHOTOS BY ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY

LIVING IN
LIVESTREAM
N
ew internet industries have
emerged in China with the devel-
opment of smartphones. Lives-
treaming is one such industry that
has sprung up in the world’s largest internet
market, creating a sector worth over 10 bil-
lion yuan ($159 million), more than 300 lives-
treaming platforms and over 300 million
users.
Many people use the platforms to demon-
strate their musical talent or performance
skills, while some show off their possessions
or pets.
The proportion of users who are middle-
aged and elderly is growing in the livestream-
ing space, which was previously dominated
by the young, showing it is a platform for all
kinds of people to show all kinds of things
just for fun, as well as to make money from
the business.
However, since vulgar and illegal per-
formances have also appeared with the suc-
cess of livestreaming, oversight of the
sector has been strengthened.
Stricter rules on content supervision and
examination have been introduced to
online livestreaming management regula-
tions that were formed in 2016.
This year, the Cyberspace Administration
of China has punished several livestreaming
platforms and anchors that severely violated
regulations.
Supervision is improving to become
more effective, so that livestreaming can
undergo proper and continuous develop- Huang Xiuli, a 32-year-old knife-carving artist taught by the founder of the art form, Zhang
ment. Xiaoming, says talking with audiences on livestreaming platforms has made her more outgoing.

Li Kewen, a 40-year-old professional clown, spends two and a half hours every day livestreaming, Zhang Ping, a 36-year-old pet lover on the right, has attracted 400,000 followers within three years.
performing vaudeville, magic shows and singing for his fans. She raises more than 100 dogs and shows them via livestreaming platforms.

Li Guangfu, 50 years old, livestreams himself playing guitar to share the joy of his lifelong love. He Vivi, a 28-year-old shop assistant, livestreams for over two hours a day, modeling the clothes sold in
has spent tens of thousands of yuan on equipment to improve his performances. her shop.
8 HOLIDAY | Trend
The newly opened China Design Museum in Hangzhou, designed by Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza, is dedicated to modern design.
BAUHAUS SPIRIT LIVES ON
T
he Bauhaus move-
ment was short-lived.
The iconic German
school of design, craft
and fine arts was founded in
Weimar in 1919, relocated to
Dessau in 1925 and closed in
Berlin in 1933. However, its
spirit has lived on for genera-
tions.
With the centennial celebra-
tion of the movement
approaching in 2019, a newly
opened exhibition in
Hangzhou, the capital of Zhe-
jiang province, pays homage to
the rich legacies of the German
school and has raised the cur-
tain for a global celebration.
The China Design Museum
in Hangzhou was inaugurated
on the Xiangshan Campus of
the China Academy of Art in
early April. Bauhaus Imagin-
ista: Moving Away has the
privilege of being its major
inaugural exhibition.
The museum is designed by
Portuguese architect Alvaro
Siza, a winner of the Pritzker
Prize, the world’s top architec-
ture award.
It is described by Hang Jian,
deputy director of the CAA, as
“China’s first museum with a
systematic collection of origi-
nal Western modern design
works” and “a rare example in
the world of a newly built
museum that is specifically
dedicated to modern design”.
The museum’s opening
marked the climax of a series of
events honoring the 90th birth-
day of CAA, one of the major
cradles of Chinese artists.
“Imaginista” in the exhibi-
tion’s title, a word newly
coined by curators of the exhi-
bition, mimics the Latin lan-
guage to describe the
imagination and illumination
created by the bold academic
experiments of Bauhaus.
Nevertheless, the rare display
of original artifacts from not
only Bauhaus but also the rest of
the world tells people the exhi-
bition is not just about playing
with words. Instead, it unrolls a
giant picture of how Bauhaus
greatly influenced the world’s
education, industry design,
social aesthetics and urban
planning in the long term.
There are a few exhibits
reflecting such experiments in
Bauhaus and its development,
as recommended by Grant
Watson, a curator for the exhi-
bition. For example, the 1920s
Bauhaus chairs with avant-
garde designs were inspired by
folk art in Africa and Asia and
gradually developed into futur-
istic styles using modern mate-
rials. Maverick woven fabrics
combining machine manufac-
ture and traditional craftsman-
ship are another highlight.
“It made history for textiles,”
The new China Design Museum lifts the curtain on a global celebration of influential
German art movement. Wang Kaihao reports in Hangzhou.
Frankfurter Kitchen, designed by the Austrian designer Margarete
Schutte-Lihotzky in 1926, is the prototype of the integrated kitchen
of modern time.
Watson says. “The experi-
enced weavers, who were
almost exclusively women,
began to write about and theo-
rize textiles, which had never
happened before.”
He emphasized the great
contribution of Bauhaus in
forming a systematic theory
and methodology.
Another curator, Marion von
Osten, picks some magazines,
old films and advertisements
for the exhibition to show peo-
ple how Bauhaus ideas became
recognized worldwide.
The publicity worked, even
after a crackdown on Bauhaus
by the Nazis, and its interna-
tional reach is illustrated
throughout the exhibit, from
design education in India to
urban design in the former
Soviet Union, and China as well.
Some lesser-known blue-
prints in China with typical
Bauhaus characteristics are
also on display, including the
1940s urban design plan of
Shanghai and the Central Rail-
way Station of Nanjing, today’s
capital of Jiangsu province
and once the national capital.
It’s a pity that none of these
blueprints were finally real-
ized with two exceptions —
Beijing’s 798 factory, which
was designed by architects in
the former East Germany and
is now a famed art zone, and a
school in Shandong province.
Both were built in the 1950s.
“This is an outstanding col-
laboration (through working
with Chinese curators)
because we learn from each
They’re neither
sublime nor
high-end. They’re
close to our
daily life.”
Hang Jian, deputy director of the
China Academy of Art
other, especially about rela-
tions among the (former) Sovi-
et Union, China and GDR (the
former East Germany),” Von
Osten says.
“The modern design of GDR
is often neglected in today’s
Germany, and it’s amazing for
us to rediscover the design of
GDR through China.”
Bauhaus Imaginista: Mov-
ing Away will be on display in
the China Design Museum
until July, and three other
chapters of Bauhaus Imaginis-
ta exhibitions, which were ini-
tiated by the Goethe Institute
and several other German
organizations, will move to
Japan, Russia and Brazil before
the main centennial celebra-
tion exhibition in Germany.
‘Aesthetics for daily life’
Bauhaus is the reason the
China Design Museum was
created in the first place.
In 2011, the Hangzhou city
government spent about 55
PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
Bauhaus Imaginista: Moving Away, the museum’s major inaugural exhibition, features designs with typi-
cal Bauhaus characteristics.
Left: The design of No 14 Chair, by Austrian cabinetmaker Michael Thonet in 1859, is widely used in
pubs around the world today. Right: Works by designer Massimo Osti display how fashion gets mixed
with innovation and functionality.
million euros ($67 million) to
buy around 7,000 artifacts
with modern Western designs,
including about 350 original
design works from Bauhaus,
and temporarily house them
in the CAA.
Consequently, the museum,
covering 16,800 square meters,
offers a place for permanent
custody of these collections.
Nearly 7,000 square meters are
used for exhibitions.
As a result, Life World: The
Collection of Western Modern
Design, which displays 700
artifacts from that collection,
was launched in April as a reg-
ular exhibition at the museum.
“It’s to nurture the public’s
aesthetics for daily life,” says
Yuan Youmin, director of the
new museum.
Yuan says the 7,000 artifacts
bought years ago are unable to
fully reflect the change of
design in the 20th century, so
the museum bought more than
100 key items in the past year
when designing the exhibition.
Wang Jianjun, curator of the
exhibition, describes some of
the displayed artifacts as mile-
stones in the design industry
and “the most highlighted
treasures in the museum”.
No 14 Chair, also known as
the bistro chair, was designed
by Austrian cabinetmaker
Michael Thonet in 1859 and is
his most famous product. The
design is still widely used in
pubs around the world today.
By 1930, 50 million such chairs
had been made, and they were
introduced into China in the
late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
An original 1859 work is set in
the center of one hall of the exhi-
bition to show its crucial status.
Another section of the exhibi-
tion features the stories of 17
influential designers of the 20th
century to recall their great con-
tributions to people’s lives today.
Red Blue Chair, a work from
1917-18 by Dutch designer Ger-
rit Thomas Rietveld, is inspired
by his compatriot, the painter
Piet Mondrian. The chair is
considered to be a pioneering
example of furniture that can
be easily assembled, much like
today’s Ikea products.
Frankfurter Kitchen,
designed by the Austrian
designer Margarete Schutte-
Lihotzky in 1926, is the proto-
type of the integrated kitchen
of modern time.
“We can find that designers
in the 20th century did not
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION
consider themselves as artists
and began to get rid of compli-
cated plans,” Wang says.
“It’s difficult to set a uni-
formed criterion judging fine
art works, but there is such a
yardstick in design — that is,
to make life simpler.”
In the third section, the jux-
taposed Coke bottles and type-
writers from different ages
may also echo this principle,
revealing the connection
between influential brands
and good designs.
According to Yuan, modern
Italian menswear design and
old Hollywood film posters are
two other pillar collection cat-
egories in the museum.
Works by designer Massimo
Osti were first shown to dis-
play how fashion gets mixed
with innovation and function-
ality. Osti is best known as a
pathfinder from the early
1970s, when he designed a
T-shirt collection that used
screen printing.
For the opening of the China
Design Museum, 85-year-old
Siza, who designed its archi-
tecture, also held a solo exhibi-
tion in the venue, in which 26
architecture models, spanning
his earliest works in the 1950s
to unfinished works today,
were displayed.
“And, other than the archi-
tecture and the solo exhibition,
you can find Siza’s designs
everywhere in the museum,”
Yuan says with a smile. “For
example, the chairs you are sit-
ting on (in a conference hall)
are his signature works.”
A bigger role to play
According to CAA deputy
director Hang, who also is in
charge of the museums affili-
ated with the academy, arti-
facts in design museums are
significantly different from
those in art museums.
“They’re neither sublime
nor high-end,” Hang says.
“They’re close to our daily life.
“Through the exhibitions, we
are no more teachers to deliver
knowledge on design history,”
he says. “We want to usher peo-
ple to discover why these arti-
facts were used in the past and
how our life got changed thanks
to development of technology.”
Hang also expects the new
museum to benefit the Chi-
nese design industry and
spark new ideas.
Yuan says upcoming exhibi-
tions will also feature Chinese
modern industry designs,
even though the main collec-
tions are from the West.
“We need a global horizon
because modern design first
rose in the West,” Yuan says.
“However, we also need to fre-
quently look back on our own
traditions and value our own
change from more perspec-
tives.”
In 2015, the CAA’s Folk
Crafts Museum opened on the
Xiangshan Campus to display
traditional Chinese craftsman-
ship.
Yuan says the two neighbor-
ing museums could host joint
exhibitions, because some of
the spirit of modern design
can also be found in ancient
people’s wisdom.
Shortly after its founding in
1928, the CAA launched its
design school, one of the earli-
est among Chinese fine art
academies. In 2016, the acade-
my initiated the annual Design
Intelligence Award to encour-
age young talent from home
and abroad.
Hang, also head of the CAA-
based Bauhaus Institute since
its inauguration in 2012, expects
to establish a research center on
modern design on the campus.
“Design is reinventing itself
as well,” Hang says. “It will help
people to better understand
today when looking upon what
was achieved in 1919.”
Contact the writer at
wangkaihao@
chinadaily.com.cn
 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Children play, moms purchase
— and e-commerce prospers
Online retailers
enjoy success
by operating
offline family
theme parks
By FAN FEIFEI
fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn
Wang Xi, 32, a white-collar
worker in Xi’an, Shaanxi
province, often takes her
3-year-old daughter to a rec-
reation park in a shopping
mall at weekends. While
there, her daughter can play
games, draw pictures and
attend classes.
The indoor amusement
park named Mialand is oper-
ated by an e-commerce plat-
form, mia.com, which is
primarily engaged in selling
maternity and baby products
online. The company plans to
open more than 30 Mialands
— indoor theme parks for
children aged from 0 to 12 —
in major cities across the
country by the end of this
year.
China’s maternal and
infant goods e-commerce
platforms are investing heavi-
ly and speeding up their steps
to expand offline channels,
such as opening indoor
theme parks for children or
brick-and-mortar stores, to
seek new business growth
avenues and enhance their
“stickiness” among consum-
ers.
Founded in 2011, mia.com
offers flash sales of discount-
ed imported diapers and baby
formula on its online plat-
form. It established partner-
ships with Amcare Corp, a
leading private women and
children’s hospital chain in
China, in 2016, enabling
mia.com to reach more par-
ents and would-be parents.
The company launched its
first offline children’s park in
Beijing in July, 2016. While
children are playing and mak-
ing friends, parents can buy
these products directly at the
store or place an order online.
The park adopts two models:
the direct-sale store and fran-
chised outlet.
“The market for baby and
mom products in China is
breaking boundaries by
means of ‘New Retail’ busi-
ness model, which integrates
online with offline shopping,
and provides a refreshing
shopping experience,” said
Liu Nan, founder and chief
executive officer of mia.com.
“On one hand, online retail-
ers could open brick-and-
mortar stores, and on the
other hand, physical stores
could depend on the supply
chain advantage of e-com-
merce platforms.”
Mia.com is dedicated to
helping middle-class families
access the best mom and baby
products, such as diapers,
baby formula, toys and gar-
ments for babies and toddlers
from abroad, in anticipation of
a baby boom in the wake of the
Maternal, infant goods market expected to see 20 to 30 percent growth
By FAN FEIFEI
fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn
China’s maternal and infant
goods market will maintain
an annual growth rate of 20
percent to 30 percent over the
next decade, with the integra-
tion of online and offline
channels becoming an
increasing trend, due to a ris-
ing demand by young parents
for a high-quality lifestyle,
according to a new report.
The market has already
witnessed rapid growth,
reaching 2.7 trillion yuan
($430 billion) in 2017, since
the implementation of the
second-child policy, accord-
ing to Beijing-based internet
consultancy Analysys.
A member of staff organizes imported maternity and baby products at a bonded logistics center last year in Zhengzhou, Henan
province. ZHANG TAO / FOR CHINA DAILY
Audiences listen to the presentations by Yin Gang, operating director of mia.com, an e-commerce
platform of baby products. It also launches indoor theme park for kids. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
50 percent
Sales generated by brick-and-
mortar stores of mia.com,
originally an e-commerce
platform
relaxation of China’s family-
planning policy.
Liu added there is a lot of
potential for growth in the
market for baby and mom
products.
“It is high time we expand
to offline channels as well, as
more than 50 percent of sales
are generated by brick-and-
mortar stores.”
The Beijing-based company
is now purchasing 40 theme
parks owned by Yuyuto
Shanghai Entertainment
Facilities Co Ltd in Beijing,
Shanghai, Guangzhou and
some second-tier cities.
Mia.com said there is a nat-
ural advantage for them to
develop children’s theme park
as the company has accumu-
lated abundant big data
resources from tens of mil-
lions of users, which can pro-
vide a large number of
It is expected that the num-
ber will reach 3 trillion yuan
by 2018, with greater develop-
ment potential in the second,
third and fourth-tier cities
than in the first-tier cities.
The report pointed out that
the majority of customers in
the maternal and infant mar-
ket now centers on the gener-
ations of those born after 1985
and 1990, who value efficien-
cy, technology and product
quality far more than prices
and purchasing channels.
Baby products-focused
online retailers such as
mia.com, Babytree and bei-
bei.com are now seeking new
opportunities to provide
more offline retail experience
and service by opening brick-
$430 billion
The market scale for materni-
ty and infant goods in China
last year
reference information about
where to set up the parks.
For instance, the company
can count the number of
mia.com users in a given area
and the ages of their children,
and the distance of their resi-
dence to a particular shop-
ping mall.
Moreover, it is noteworthy
that mia.com has an eye on
expanding its offline theme
parks in third- and fourth-
tiers cities, as the competition
in the first-tier cities is
increasingly fierce.
According to the Beijing-
based internet consultancy
Analysys, the market for
maternal and infant goods in
China has witnessed rapid
growth, reaching 2.7 trillion
yuan ($430 billion) in 2017.
The size is expected to reach 3
trillion yuan in 2018.
Daniel Wei, general manag-
Children go on a tour with their moms and teachers in Nantong,
Jiangsu province, in April. XU HUI / FOR CHINA DAILY
$476 billion
The expected market scale
for maternity and infant
goods in China this year
er of mia.com’s offline busi-
ness, said that in the past,
indoor theme parks in China
were homogenized, the cus-
tomer experience was insuffi-
cient and the industry
threshold was low.
He added that with the
upgrade of consumption,
there’s growing demand for
high-quality indoor theme
parks or amusement parks in
line with the international
standard.
China’s second-largest
e-commerce platform JD said
its offline franchise operating
organization JD Baby Bei-
quan aims to open 5,000
stores in the next three years,
with its sales revenue surpas-
sing 100 billion yuan by 2020.
The brick-and-mortar
stores will utilize JD’s advan-
tages in big data, supply chain
and cutting-edge technolo-
gies to offer integrated solu-
tions covering intelligent
retailing, early education,
amusement and prenatal and
postnatal guidance for moth-
ers.
Moreover, Redbaby, a
maternity and infant goods
e-commerce website owned
by Suning Commerce Group
Co Ltd, is speeding up its
expansion in offline stores. It
is estimated the total number
of its brick-and-mortar stores
will reach 503 by 2020.
The newly added stores will
integrate the sales of infant
goods with the children’s
entertainment facilities, and
expand into the third- and
fourth-tier cities, Suning said.
“Parents often take their
children out to play at week-
ends, and it is very natural that
some maternal and infant
goods e-commerce platforms
have layouts in children’s
amusement facilities consider-
ing offline consumption
upgrading, especially the
strong demands from third-
and fourth-tier cities,” said Cao
Lei, head of China’s E-Com-
merce Research Center.
Cao added this is a trend for
the maternal and children’s
supplies industry. As the chil-
dren’s parks are heavy-assets
projects, the franchises should
have abundant capital.
“The online retailers should
have strict requirements for
franchise investors, and pay
attention to their brands pro-
tection.”
Zhou Changqing, the gener-
al manager of real estate servi-
ces provider RET’s Shanghai
company, said e-commerce
platforms engaged in selling
maternal and infant goods
own a specific customer base
and unique sales channel, and
could leverage that to provide
comprehensive services and
products.
and-mortar stores.
“The maternal and infant
goods market has extended to
the healthcare, education and
tourism sectors, creating
more consumption scenari-
os,” said Chen Yu, an analyst
from Analysys.
With the change of house-
hold consumption concept,
the consumption upgrade
does not necessarily indicate a
rise in prices, but does mean
an overall improvement of
product quality and service,
Chen said.
With a rising middle class,
more Chinese consumers
have started to choose the
maternal and infant products
of international brands,
which has greatly stimulated
Biz Life | HOLIDAY 9
Babytree, Mattel
expanding early
learning centers
By FAN FEIFEI
fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn
Babytree, China’s largest
online parenting communi-
ty, is leveraging the growing
demand for early childhood
education by expanding its
presence in offline early
learning centers.
The company has
announced an offline expan-
sion plan as one of its key
strategies. It inked a strate-
gic partnership with Mattel
Inc, the world’s biggest toy-
maker, to co-develop an ear-
ly childhood learning and
development online plat-
form and launch early-stage
education centers for chil-
dren last year.
Fisher-Price, a subsidiary
of Mattel and also a toymak-
er, has carried out coopera-
tion with Babytree to design
related curricula, activities
and classroom materials for
children. There will be day
care centers featuring edu-
cational services and small
retail areas in or near office
buildings.
The early-stage education
centers aim to become a
place for children to play as
well as a place for moms to
exchange ideas and
thoughts on child care, thus
paying more attention to the
physical and emotional
needs of mothers.
For example, the center
will be equipped with gyms,
libraries and coffee shops for
mothers to relax. The moth-
ers can buy toys, children’s
products and even furniture,
as well as seek psychological
counseling.
“Until now, early-stage
education resources have
been scarce and unequal in
different tiers of cities,” said
Wang Huainan, founder and
CEO of Babytree, which
plans to open 3,000 centers
in the next three years across
the country.
“The new strategic part-
nership with Mattel enables
Babytree to engage with par-
ents and families in new
ways, providing parenting
coaching and solutions
across numerous metropoli-
tan areas in China.”
There are 20 million chil-
dren born every year in Chi-
na, and mothers and
children are the core of mil-
lions of families. The
demands of those young
families are rapidly upgrad-
A kid folds a paper box in a booth at the Shanghai Parent-Child
Expo in March. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY
the development of cross-bor-
der e-commerce, said Lyu
Haoze, an analyst at China
E-Commerce Research Cen-
ter.
“Currently, large, compre-
hensive e-commerce plat-
forms still dominate the sales
and market share of maternal
and infant products, so the
competition in the vertical
e-commerce platforms is
intense,” Lyu said, adding the
integration of online and off-
line channels will continue to
grow.
Among the consumers who
buy products from cross-bor-
der e-commerce platforms
providing maternal and
infant products, 77 percent of
them are middle and high-
Until now, early-
stage education
resources have
been scarce and
unequal in differ-
ent tiers of cities.”
Wang Huainan, founder and
CEO of Babytree, China’s larg-
est online parenting community
ing, creating a need for rapid
development of the mater-
nal and infant family service
industry in China.
According to a report
from Qianzhan Industry
Research Institute, China’s
early-stage education mar-
ket is in an initial stage of
development, with the sales
revenue reaching 489.1 bil-
lion yuan ($78 billion) last
year, an increase of 17.9 per-
cent year-on-year.
The development poten-
tial for early-stage education
in third and fourth-tier cities
is huge due to the relaxation
of China’s family-planning
policy, the report said.
Wang said in an earlier
interview that 80 to 90 per-
cent of families would like
their kids to receive early-
stage education, but only 15
percent of moms took their
children to the education
centers. Among those
moms, only 40 percent of
them were satisfied with the
quality of educational cours-
es.
With nearly 200 million
monthly visitors, Babytree is
China’s largest online par-
enting community and kids
and family platform. Estab-
lished 10 years ago, Babytree
now reaches more than 90
percent of Chinese parents
who have access to the inter-
net; the company’s goal is to
provide young mothers with
resources that enable them
to better enjoy their family
life after pregnancy.
The company’s offering
extends beyond the online
platform with innovative
products and services,
including early-stage educa-
tion, healthcare, finance,
tourism and family services.
end people who pay more
attention to the quality of
products than price, accord-
ing to Analysys.
In addition, the consultan-
cy said in the future, the inte-
gration will not be restricted
to online and offline prod-
ucts. Offline medical care and
early childhood education
will become a new break-
through for acquiring user
traffic.
The industry will rely more
on advanced technologies
such as big data and artificial
intelligence to drive the inte-
gration of online services and
offline experiences.
Fan Hang contributed to the
story.
10 HOLIDAY | Travel Tuesday, May 1, 2018 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION

MYSTERIOUS BEAUTY OF
GANQUAN CANYON’S
SANDSTONE SCENERY
A series of towering ravines are one of the natural wonders of the Loess Plateau. Huo Yan and Li Yang report.

G
anquan Canyon in Ganquan humans. Walking at the bottom of the canyon
county, Northwest China’s feels like diving deep into the ocean,” said Liu
Shaanxi province, earned over- Hulin, chairman of Ganquan county writers’
night fame as “China’s Antelope association, who often organizes photography
Canyon” after Chang Bo’s photos trips to the canyon.
went viral online last year. “Sunshine casting into the canyon through
The only three lodges in Xiasiwan town, the the fissures turns the rock surface into differ-
nearest major settlement 20 kilometers from ent tones after being refracted between the
the canyon, and 80 km from Yan’an, have been two sides of the canyon wall. And the angle of
full of tourists and photographers ever since. the light rays changes throughout the day,
It was beyond Chang’s wildest expectations making the views of the canyon become more
that his photos made such a difference to the lively,” Liu adds.
people’s lives there. He Zhou Caiye, a 58-year-
first visited the canyon old farmer from Yucha vil-
when he was working as a lage, a small hamlet 3
welder in a local oil extrac- kilometers away from the
tion plant in 2005. Chang
If You Go canyon, where she set up
felt his way through the the area’s first cave-dwell-
eight slot canyons strung Xiasiwan town is 40 kilometers from ing homestay for visitors,
together in the meander- Ganquan, and 80 kilometers from said the villagers have
ing Ganquan Valley on the Yan’an. It is better to stay in Ganquan, lived near the canyon for
Loess Plateau, after a where there are better hotels costing generations, and just took
friend told him about this around 200 yuan a day for a twin room. it for granted.
place of “unknown myste- The temperature in the mountains is Tourists suddenly start-
rious beauty”. markedly lower than elsewhere in the ed to arrive in large num-
Chang uploaded the province. Warm clothes and sturdy shoes bers last April. They said
photos he shot of the can- are necessary. they knew about the can-
yon onto his blog, but few It takes about six to eight hours to see yon from their mobile
people saw them. But all eight canyons in the valley, where no phones, and showed the
when he shared some of mobile phone signal is available. Hiring a photos to the farmers.
the photos on social media villager as a tour guide for a day costs “We carry spring water
last year, the images around 200 yuan. For safety reasons, the from the canyon home
became an instant internet local government closes the mountain almost every day. We call
sensation — and evoked pass to the canyons on rainy days, so the canyon lanshigala
comparisons with Arizo- checking the weather forecast, especially (riprap nook). It is a big
na’s Antelope Canyon. during the rainy season from June to surprise that people like to
“It is not the photos, but August, is essential when planning your visit such a boring place,”
social media that makes trip to Ganquan Canyon. Zhou said.
the canyon something,” “Nine British backpack-
Chang says. ers lived in my home for
It is also called Yucha nine days only to see the
Canyon by locals — yucha canyon last year. Although Ganquan Canyon is popular with photographers. Ganquan Canyon takes a darker hue in the rain.
means “where the rainfall I cannot speak English, I HUO YAN / CHINA DAILY HUO YAN / CHINA DAILY
splits” in Chinese — was could see how much they
formed by the erosion of loved the canyon.”
local Danxia sandstone, Zhou has received about
primarily due to flash Ningxia 6,000 visitors since April,
flooding, over a period of Yan’an whose payment to her for
100 million years. The arid room and board, amount-
Loess Plateau used to be a 200 km Ganquan ed to hundreds of thou-
rainy region covered by sands of yuan, has lifted
thick forests just 500 years the Zhou family — who
ago, and the rainwater previously lived on about
flowed into the basin 400 yuan ($64) a year
above the slot canyon sec- Shaanxi from planting corn — out
tions, picking up speed and of abject poverty. Many
sand as it ran through the farmers now work as tour
narrow passageways creat- guides, or run homestays
ed out of fissures left by CHINA DAILY to meet the increasing
earthquakes, experts say. demands of the deluge of
As time passed by, the sightseers.
passageways eroded, the corridors became The number of tourists’ cars has grown so
deeper and the hard edges smoothened out, fast that the small village witnessed its first ever
leaving layers of stripes on the surface of the traffic jam earlier this year. The county govern-
rocks. This happened in such a way as to form ment built a parking lot at the mountain pass
the visual effect of “flowing” shapes across the and now runs minibuses to carry travelers to
surface of the rocks, which themselves take on a and from the canyon.
distinctly red hue on sunny days. Zhou Caiye introduces her cave-dwelling homestay to tourists. A local farmer looks for spring water at the bottom of the
“The gigantic size of the cliffs dwarfs Contact the writers at liyang@chinadaily.com.cn HUO YAN / CHINA DAILY canyon. HUO YAN / CHINA DAILY
 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION Tuesday, May 1, 2018 Sports | HOLIDAY 11
BOXING

OFF THE ROPES AND

FIGHTING FIT AGAIN
After decades in the doldrums, Nigerian pugilism is enjoying a major resurgence as ratings, purses and participation soar

W
hen Saleh
Fawaz decided
to organize his
first boxing
match in Lagos, he didn’t
expect more than 500 specta-
tors. In the end, over 800 tick-
ets were sold and he had to
turn away dozens of fans at the
door.
The stands were full, music
pounded at full blast and the
green and white Nigerian flag
fluttered during the most
eagerly awaited bouts.
Fawaz, 31, is passionate
about boxing and, in the space
of two months, went from
young oil industry entrepre-
neur to full-time professional
boxing promoter.
“I started meeting with box-
ers and I realized at the same
time that they don’t have
enough money to pay for their
license or even to feed them-
selves, or access to train,” the
young owner of the Saleh Gloves
Promotions company said.
“There are not enough
events. What they really need is
a stage to showcase their talent.”
As a result he decided to Clockwise: Kenya’s Michael Nyawade (left), aka ‘Shaka Michael’, lands a body shot against Nigeria’s Waheed Usman during a GOtv featherweight title fight at the National Stadium in Lagos, Nigeria, on April 15.
help them, buying equipment Nigeria’s Millicent Agboegbulem (far right) poses with the bronze medal she won in the women’s 75 kg division during the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in Australia on April 14. Nigeria’s Rilwan ‘Baby-
and even paying their 10,000- face’ Babatunde (left), shows off his new belt after beating Benin’s Djossou Agoy Basile during a West African Welterweight GOtv title fight at the National Stadium in Lagos, on April 15. AFP
naira ($28) licenses to fight.

Rise and fall
Boxing used to be the most
popular sport in Nigeria until
the 1950s and 1960s but com-
pletely disappeared from view
until the beginning of the
2000s.
Michael Gennaro, a boxing
historian at Bossier Parish
Community College in the
southern US state of Louisi-
ana, said he was “shocked”
when he flicked through local
newspaper archives.
“Boxing was in the newspa-
pers almost every day, kids
had scrapbooks of their favor-
ite boxers, and Nigeria had
two world champions already
in 1957 and 1962,” he added.
Hogan Bassey was feather-
weight champion of the world
in 1957 while Dick Tiger was
the middleweight title holder
in 1962 and also held the light-
heavyweight belt in 1966.
Boxing was popular across
many former British colonies
but Nigeria differed in its
wealth of generous local spon-
sors.
The arrival of military gov-
ernments from the late 1960s
however brought an abrupt
end to boxing’s popularity as a
succession of leaders saw no
international prestige in it.
Tiger brought politics into
the sport by preferring to rep-
resent secessionist Biafra,
whose unilateral declaration
of independence in 1969
sparked a 30-month civil war.
“At the same time that
Muhammad Ali refused to
enrol in the US Army to go to
Vietnam, Dick Tiger became
public enemy number one,”
said Gennaro.
“Boxing had the image of a
revolutionary sport.”
Within a few years, Nigerian
boxing had collapsed due to
lack of sponsorship.
“If there is no money, there
is no reason for boxing,” said
Gennaro.
TV boost
Everything changed
because of Adewunmi Ogun-
sanya, the head of the satellite
television platform Multi-
choice Nigeria.
His GOtv channel broad-
casts an annual “Boxing
Pacquiao primed to roll back the years
Philippine boxing legend Man-
ny Pacquiao insisted on Friday
that his advancing years are no
barrier to success as he gears up
for a showdown against world
champion Lucas Matthysse.
Pacquiao, 39, will fight the
Argentine — four years his junior
— for the World Boxing Associa-
tion welterweight belt on July 15
in Malaysia’s capital Kuala
Lumpur.
The Filipino has won an
unprecedented eight world titles
in different weight classes but
some have raised questions
Night” since 2004, which is
watched by millions across
Africa.
The 2016 winner, Olaide
“Fijaborn” Fijabi, took home a
cheque for one million naira.
The super-lightweight told
media that before his victory
he never wanted to turn pro-
fessional because there were
few opportunities to fight and
about his ability to box at the top
of his game due to his age.
But at a joint press confer-
ence with Matthysse in Kuala
Lumpur, he dismissed such con-
cerns.
“It’s not about a number, it’s
not about age, that doesn’t mat-
ter,” he said.
“It depends how you disci-
pline yourself in training, how
you prepare.”
Pacquiao said that the fight
against Matthysse would not be
his last, as he wants the final
bout of his career to take place
no promotions.
But he added: “I hope to be a
billionaire boxer, win the
world title and be talked about
the way great boxers are talk-
ed about. That is my aspira-
tion.”
Jenkins Alumona, boxing
promoter for Flykite Produc-
tion, said popularizing boxing
again will lead to the discovery
in his homeland.
“Definitely this is not my last
fight,” he said. “I think I still have
got a couple of more fights until I
retire.”
Pacquiao is currently a sena-
tor in the Philippine parliament
and many in the country believe
he will one day run for president,
although the boxer has insisted
he is happier in the ring than
politics.
He conceded that it was “not
easy” to juggle being a top-level
boxer and politician.
AFP
of Nigeria’s next world cham-
pion.
Currently, there are some
300 professional boxers in
Nigeria, added the former
sports journalist.
Cynthia, a 17-year-old from
the poor Lagos suburb of Bari-
ga, decided to give the sport a
go after watching the televised
bouts.
She now trains under the
trees of a state-run school at
weekends with the help of her
coach, Always Kazee, a former
barber-turned-professional
trainer.
“I want to become a champi-
on. I want to become rich and,
by God’s grace, I know I will
make it,” said Cynthia, with a
look as determined as her
right hook.
“Boxing already changed a
lot of things in my life. I went
to places where I thought I
would never go, like Elite Box
in Victoria Island for exam-
ple.”
Wealth of talent
The wealthy Lagos suburb
of Victoria Island is only a doz-
en or so kilometers from the
teeming crowds on the mean
streets of Bariga.
But in a country of more
than 180 million, where the
gap between rich and poor is
among the widest in the
world, it might as well be light
years.
Rehia Osagie, who founded
the Elite Box club two years
ago for the city’s monied upper
classes, has also opened it up
to professionals who don’t
have equipment to train.
“There is talent in this coun-
try and we are kind of working
our way back (to where boxing
was) but it’s very tough to
make a living from it,” he said.
“At the moment, the main
people who are being success-
ful are actually the ones who
leave the country.”
Top British boxer Anthony
Joshua is said to have wanted
to represent Nigeria — where
his parents are from — at the
2008 Olympics in Beijing.
But the Nigerian federation
turned him down because he
was late for qualification.
At the London Games in
2012, he became super-heavy-
weight champion wearing
British colors.
In March in Welsh capital
Cardiff, Joshua — who in
recent fights has arrived in the
ring flying the Union Jack and
the Nigerian flag — beat New
Zealand’s Joseph Parker to
unify the WBA, IBF, WBO and
IBO heavyweight titles.
12 Tuesday, May 1, 2018

SPORTS
SOCCER
CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION

BASKETBALL

LeBron leaves
it all on court
as Cavs prevail
CLEVELAND — LeBron
James wasn’t ready to go
home or to Philadelphia or
Los Angeles.
He’s heading to Toronto,
bringing a Cavaliers team
that isn’t done yet.
Unwilling to sit despite
battling leg cramps in the
second half, James scored 45
points and got some much-
needed help from his team-
mates in Game 7 to stay
unbeaten in the opening
round of the NBA playoffs,
leading the Cavaliers to a
105-101 win on Sunday over
the Indiana Pacers, who
pushed the game’s best play-
er to breaking point.
Following the game, an
Lionel Messi celebrates scoring Barcelona’s third goal during Sunday’s 4-2 league title-clinching victory at Deportivo La Coruna. REUTERS exhausted James said the
series took a physical toll.
“I’m burnt right now,” he
confident after a 34-point
win in Game 6.
But James, who at times
seemed to be playing the Pac-
ers by himself in the series,
pulled the Cavs back from the
brink of elimination and at
least delayed any more talk
about impending free agency.
“Amazing,” Indiana’s Vic-
tor Oladipo said of James.
“He did what he always does.
It’s not really shocking. He’s
the best in the world, and
that’s what the best does and
now I gotta work to get on
that level.” The Cavs will
open the conference semifi-
nals on Tuesday at top-seed-
ed Toronto.
Early in the game, James
looked at agent Rich Paul sit-
ting courtside and told him
he wasn’t coming out. James

Little wizard Messi revels in

said. “I’m not thinking about
Toronto right now until
tomorrow. I’m ready to go
home. Can we? I’m tired. I
want to go home.”
James added nine
then played the first 35 min-
utes before heading to the
locker room with one minute
left in the third to be treated
for what he said was “a little
minor injury”. James said he

yet another magical moment

rebounds, seven assists and
played over 43 minutes
while improving to 13-0 in
the first round. He kept
Cleveland’s strange season
alive for the time being but it
took everything the 33-year-
Argentine superstar says Barcelona ‘far superior’ after hat-trick helps seal La Liga title old and the Cavs had to hold
off the Pacers, who came in
was urged to get IV fluids but
turned them down.
Nothing was going to keep
James off the floor in what
some Cleveland fans feared
could have been his last
game with the franchise.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MADRID — Lionel Messi

revelled in Barcelona’s sev-
enth La Liga title in 10 sea-
sons on Sunday, saying his
team was “far superior” to its
domestic rivals during their
double-winning campaign.
The Argentine star scored
a brilliant 30th La Liga hat-
trick as Barca survived a
scare to beat Deportivo La
Coruna 4-2, wrapping up the
club’s 25th league title with
four matches to spare and
keeping its hopes of an
unbeaten season alive.
“We have been far superior
to our rivals, we haven’t lost a
match during the whole sea-
son,” Messi told Barcelona’s
in-house television channel.
“It’s a very special Liga in
that sense, because we haven’t
lost a single match. We’ve had
some tough times and we’ve
overcome everything without
losing, which is unbelievable.”
Regaining the top-flight
crown from Real Madrid also
secured Barcelona its third
double in four years after
thrashing Sevilla 5-0 in the
recent Copa del Rey final.
The only blemish on its
season was a stunning
Champions League quarter-
final loss to Roma when it
blew a 4-1 first-leg lead to be
dumped out at Stadio Olim-
pico in the Italian capital.
“We lost just one in the cup
and disappointingly another
in the Champions League,”
added Messi, who leads the
Liga scoring charts with 32
goals this term.
“That was an unexpected
result in view of our shape.
We’ve had some
tough times and
we’ve overcome
everything without
losing, which is
unbelievable.”
Lionel Messi, after winning
Barcelona’s 25th league title
But we take a lot of merit to
win a title as difficult as this
without losing a game.”
The five-time Ballon d’Or
winner also paid tribute to
captain Andres Iniesta.
The 33-year-old midfielder
came off the bench in the
87th minute at Deportivo to
make his 670th Barcelona
appearance just two days aft-
er announcing that he will
leave the club at the end of
the season having been heav-
ily linked with Chinese Super
League side Chongqing
Dangdai Lifan.
“It’s a shame for us and the
club, but he deserved to go
like that,” said Messi.
“We deplore what hap-
pened in the Champions
League, it prevented him
from going out with a treble,
but he’s leaving in an
impressive fashion.
“This double is more than
deserved for Andres, for all
Do the math
Barcelona won La Liga for
the third time in four years on
Sunday after winning 4-2 at
Deportivo La Coruna.
Here, AFP Sport looks at
the numbers behind the Cat-
alans’ season so far:
Played: 34
Wins: 26
Draws: 8
Losses: 0
Goals scored: 87
Goals conceded: 21
Yellow cards: 54
Red cards: 1
Biggest wins: 6-1 v Eibar,
Sept 19, 2017; 6-1 v Girona,
Feb 24, 2018
Most goals: Lionel Messi
(32), Luis Suarez (23),
Paulinho (8)
Most assists: Lionel Messi
(12), Luis Suarez (9)
Most minutes played:
(Goal-keeper) Marc-Andre ter
Stegen (3,060), Lionel Messi
(2,793), Luis Suarez (2,603)
he has given to this club. I am
very happy for him and wish
him all the best.”
Midfielder Sergio Bus-
quets also rued the missed
treble opportunity.
“This season was very
good, almost excellent. The
Champions League is a
regret but we managed a
double, it’s fantastic,” he told
Movistar.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Iniesta overcome by Depor reception

Departing Barcelona icon
Andres Iniesta admitted he was
overcome with emotion after
receiving a standing ovation as
Barcelona won the La Liga title
at Deportivo La Coruna on Sun-
day.
The 33-year-old confirmed on
Friday that he will leave Barcelo-
na at the end of the season,
bringing the curtain down on a
phenomenally successful career
at the club he has served since
he was 12.
On Sunday, he came off the
bench for a brief cameo as Bar-
ca defeated Deportivo La Coru-
na 4-2 at Riazor Stadium, where
the crowd stood to honor him.
“This feels good. The champi-
onship is a competition that
lasts all year, it is about consist-
ency and the team deserved this
title,” said Iniesta.
“It has been a great season
with the Copa del Rey and now
La Liga.”
Iniesta said he was over-
whelmed by the ovation he
received from Deportivo fans
when he made his 87th-minute
entry, especially considering the
home side was relegated as a
result of the defeat.
“These are indescribable
emotions. On a personal level, as
a sportsman, there are no words
when you receive such affection
in such a difficult situation for
the fans,” the Spain international
said.
“I am eternally grateful for all
the messages received from the
heart. In all my career, I tried to
be a good sportsman, a good
person, being respectful.”
AFP