SOCIETY

Getting a Head Start

A Miao woman gets ready to take part in the Sisters’ Festival in Taijiang, a county in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China’s Guizhou Province, on April 10. The ethnic festival, regarded as the Miao ethnic group’s Valentine’s Day, is held annually around the 15th day of the third lunar month.

Data Export Control

Chinese citizens’ personal information and important data collected by Internet service providers may need evaluation and permission before being shared with non-domestic entities.

Such information should stay within China and be subject to security assessment before being provided to anyone outside China, according to a draft guideline released on April 11 for public opinion by the Cyberspace Administration of China.

To export personal information, the collector must get consent from the individual concerned, the draft says.

For data related to national security, the economy or public interest, such as information on nuclear facilities, the armed forces or public health, the collector should coordinate a security evaluation with the authorities.

The evaluation will ensure online data is managed legally, the guideline said.

Leaving Big Cities

A newspaper survey has found that many young people who have moved to China’s fi rst-tier cities would like to return to their hometowns.

According to theChina Youth Dailysurvey published on April 11, 54 percent of respondents said they were considering fi nding a new job back home.

The 2,000 respondents are/ were working or studying in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or Shenzhen.

Youngsters from China’s eastern coastal areas were the most likely to return home, with 63.5 percent indicating they would like to do so.

The four fi rst-tier cities abound in job opportunities, but many migrants have diff i culties settling down due to soaring housing prices and fi erce competition.

Undergraduate students are also voicing concerns as to whether they can remain in cosmopolitan cities after graduation.

Cloud Computing Aim

A new government plan aims to increase the scale of the cloud computing industry by more than 2.5 times from 2015 levels by 2019.

The scale will be expanded to 430 billion yuan ($62.29 billion) by 2019, up from 150 billion yuan ($21 billion) in 2015, according to the action plan for 2017-19 issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Other targets include making breakthroughs in core technologies, increasing cloud computing in manufacturing and government affairs, and strengthening the global inf l uence of Chinese cloud computing companies.

The ministry expects that two to three Chinese cloud computing companies will lead the global market within three years.

Cloud computing should be a strong support for China’s manufacturing and Internet industries and help make other social and economic sectors informationized, the ministry said.

The ministry will enhance cloud computing network security and improve security regulation and relevant laws, as many users from key industries are still hesitating to take the plunge due to concerns about safety, reliability and movability.

In the next three years, the Central Government will encourage local governments to work with leading cloud computing companies to build public service platforms.

The plan promises better fi nancial services and personnel training, as well as efforts for the branding of current enterprises and products.

Tackling Obesity

Chinese scientists have extracted a medicinal compound from the natural herbtripterygium wilfodii, popularly known as thunder god vine in Chinese, which boosts cell metabolism and could help tackle obesity.

Celastrol, extracted from thunder god vine, and artemisinin, developed from sweet wormwood, are among the fi ve herbal compounds listed by the scientif i c journalCellas having the most potential to treat illnesses where no cure has been discovered.

A research team led by Zhang Xiaokun, a professor with the College of Medicine at Xiamen University, found that celastrol could alleviate inf l ammation.

The team carried out research on mice and found celastrol could control weight increases in mice feeding on high fat food.

Zhang said his team would continue to research how celastrol regulates metabolism to explore new drugs with low toxicity and high eff i ciency to help people lose weight.

His research has been supported by the National Nature and Science Foundation and Xiamen South Sea Center.

Like sweet wormwood, thunder god vine is native to China though it also grows in other East Asian countries. It has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for treating arthritis and autoimmune diseases.

New Jobs

The fi rst two months of the year have seen 1.88 million new jobs.

“The fi gure was 160,000 more than the number created in the same period last year,” Zhang Yizhen, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security, said at a press conference on April 7.

The employment situation was generally stable in the fi rst quarter with the unemployment rate in 31 major Chinese cities at around 5 percent in January and February, according to Zhang.

More than 11 million jobs would be created this year, 1 million more than last year’s target, according to the latest government work report.

In 2016, 13.14 million new jobs were added and the registered urban jobless rate stood at 4.02 percent at the end of the year.

Medical Reform

Beijing began a reform drive on April 8 that will separate drug sales from medical treatment at public hospitals and is aimed at lowering medical expenses and improving services.

Over 2,600 Beijing hospitals had switched to a new billing system, which replaced a registration and treatment fee with a higher medical service charge. On the other hand, it scrapped the previous markup on drugs, which was as high as 15 percent.

The reform applies to more than 3,600 medical institutions citywide, Gao Xiaojun, spokesperson with the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning, said.

Some 1,000 small village clinics are not yet equipped with the computerized billing system.

Changes in drug and medical test prices were also seen across 435 medical services offered at public hospitals and clinics.

The reform has reduced charges for tests such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging but increased charges for medical services needing a lot of experience, expertise or staff time.

The overall medical costs for Beijing residents will remain balanced and there will be no increased burden on patients, Fang Laiying, head of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning, said.

“Separating treatment and drug sales will stop over-prescribing and ensure better treatment,” Fang added.

To ensure medicine prices are reduced, Beijing has mandated transparent drug purchases, choosing suppliers through open bidding and requiring the full disclosure of drug and producer information.

Community hospitals and medical institutions have been given the same access to medicines that were once to be prescribed only by highlevel hospitals.

More than 90 percent of Beijing’s hospitals have taken action to improve their services since the reform plan was published on March 22, Fang said.

XINHUA

The Kite Runners

A kite fl ying competition underway in Weifang, east China’s Shandong Province, on April 8.

XINHUA

E-nergized

A promotional event is held on the inaugural day of the three-day China International Electronic Commerce Expo in Yiwu, east China’s Zhejiang Province, on April 11. The fair was themed Sharing Economy, Connecting the Future.