China and Australia Reach Consensus on WTO Disputes Ahead of Australian President’s Visit
China and Australia Reach Consensus on WTO Disputes Ahead of Australian President’s Visit
On October 22, the Ministry of Commerce of China announced that China and Australia have recently conducted friendly consultations on their WTO disputes concerning issues like wine and wind towers within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and reached a consensus for proper resolution.
Ahead of the visit of the current Australian Prime Minister Albanese to China, consensus has been reached to resolve all three WTO dispute cases between China and Australia. Since taking office last year, Albanese has expressed intentions to restore relations with China.
On 11 April, China and Australia reached a consensus on the WTO dispute over barley through friendly consultations, and on 5 August, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), in response to an application from the industry, decided to terminate anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties on Australian barley after a review investigation.
The current Australian Prime Minister Albanese is scheduled to visit China from November 4 to 7. Chinese experts believe that the current China-Australia relationship has moved beyond mere “warming” and can be described as “rebooted,” entering a positive trajectory.
Chinese Sci-Fi Writer Awarded “Hugo Award,” the “Nobel Prize for Science Fiction”
On the evening of October 21, at the 81st World Science Fiction Convention held in Chengdu, Sichuan, Chinese author Hai Han won the 2023 Hugo Award for “Best Novelette” with his work, “The Space-time Painter.” The award was presented by Liu Cixin, who himself won the Hugo Award in 2015.
In this novel, “ghost” appeared on the closing day of the Palace Museum, and the protagonist of the criminal police intervened in the investigation and found that it might be related to an ancient painting of the Song Dynasty. This book adopts the writing method of mystery novels, combining China’s traditional culture, history, reasoning and science fiction. It tells the story of a fictional famous painting creation and the power struggle between the ruling and opposition parties back to that time.
This year’s World Science Fiction Convention in Chengdu marks the first time the convention is held in China and the second time in Asia.
With the rise of Chinese science fiction literature, readers are looking forward to more Chinese sci-fi writers appearing on the international stage. Their works not only introduce Chinese culture to the world but also bring new perspectives and innovations to the development of global science fiction literature.
Chinese Top Brewery Tsingtao Beer In Trouble After A Worker Caught Peeing In Raw Materials
On October 19, a video of a worker urinating in a raw material warehouse of Tsingtao Brewery caused great attention on Chinese social media and concerns among consumers. Tsingtao Brewery is China’s second largest brewery. On the following stock market opening day, Tsingtao Brewery’s market capitalization shrank by 6.7 billion yuan. Tsingtao Brewery officials made a statement immediately after the video went viral, saying that they have called the police and sealed this batch of materials to ensure that it will not reach the market. However, most of the netizens don’t buy it. They insist that it doesn’t matter what the outcome of the investigation is, the incident exposed problems in Tsingtao Brewery’s quality control of the entire production process. There are also some people see this incident as another conspiracy attack launched by foreign capitals against China’s old state-owned enterprises. It was not rare to see private capitals embezzle state assets through beating down old SOEs and then launching cheap takeovers in the past. They suggest to learn from the hard lessons of the Wall Street capital harvesting Soviet state enterprises.