Job seekers wait to enter the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regional career fair in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province, on March 1. Photos provided to China Daily

Minister warns of rising jobs pressure

China's employment market could come under greater pressure this year as the country faces a record number of college graduates and is expecting economic growth to hit a 25-year low, a government minister said on March 10.

Urban employment fell by a large margin year-on-year in January and February, Yin Weimin, minister of human resources and social security, said at a news briefing on the sidelines of the ongoing National People's Congress annual session.

About 15 million young people are expected to enter the labor market this year, including an estimated record number of 7.49 million college graduates.

"The large numbers in the new workforce will pose immense pressure (on the labor market) and there is also an acute structural imbalance," Yin said.

In his annual Government Work Report to lawmakers at the opening of their annual plenary session on Thursday, Premier Li Keqiang pledged that another 10 million jobs will be created this year.

IS recruiting Xinjiang residents

A top official from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region confirmed for the first time on March 10 that Xinjiang residents have joined the radical group Islamic State.

"Some Xinjiang residents have crossed the border illegally to join IS. The group currently has a growing international influence, and Xinjiang is affected by it, too," said Zhang Chunxian, the region's top leader.

"We recently broke up a terrorist cell run by those who returned from fighting with the group," Zhang said at a news conference on the sidelines of the annual National People's Congress session.

He said IS, which has seized large areas of eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq, is a threat to countries worldwide and joint international efforts are needed to fight it.

Xinjiang has been hit by religious extremism, leading to an increasing number of terrorist attacks in the region and elsewhere in China in recent years.

Last year, Chinese authorities arrested some of those attempting to cross borders illegally to join terrorist or extremist groups.

In southern Xinjiang's Hotan prefecture, some people have been influenced by IS, but measures taken to eliminate religious extremism can handle the new situation, according to Eziz Musar, the prefecture's commissioner.

Domestic jet 'to make maiden flight this year'

The COMAC C919, China's homegrown passenger jet, will make its maiden test flight before the end of the year, according to a senior official, who said assembly of the first prototype is progressing well.

The fuselage and major parts of the C919 have been assembled, Li Jiaxiang, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said on the sidelines of the annual meetings of China's top political advisers and lawmakers.

The narrow-body airliner is being manufactured in Shanghai by the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China, also known as COMAC.

Installation of equipment is scheduled to be completed later this year, Li said, adding that aviation authorities will work with the manufacturer to ensure the plane makes its maiden flight before the end of December.

"The administration will place every production process and each component under the strictest scrutiny to ensure the aircraft is safe and reliable," Li said.

It is the first time the nation's top civil aviation official has confirmed a timetable for the C919's test flight.

Going green for St. Patrick's Day

The embassy of Ireland in China is planning a series of celebrations to give Chinese people a taste of Irish culture to celebrate St. Patrick's Day on March 17.

Music is an important part of the Irish culture and world-renowned Irish accordionist Sharon Shannon will perform in Beijing's Forbidden City Concert Hall on March 10 and Shanghai Grand Theater on March 12.

Popular Irish folk singer Cara Dillon will tour the country for the second time since her first visit to China in 2013. This time she is bringing her new album A Thousand Hearts to her Chinese fans in five cities - Chengdu, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan from March 11 to 15.

Irish folk music group Cuisle will be giving a concert in Beijing on the night of St. Patrick's Day. They will be playing together with students from China Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing on March 18, and take part in an informal traditional Irish music session in Beijing on March 20.

Another highlight of the celebration is Ireland's Global Greening Initiative, where landmarks around the world turn green on St. Patrick's Day.

This year, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower in Shanghai and the Canton Tower in Guangzhou will turn green.

Art exhibitions "Golden Fleece" and a "Meditation in a Time of War" will take place in Beijing this month, both of which present visual art inspired by the poems of Ireland's W.B. Yeats.

Protecting nature tops agenda

Achieving ecological civilization tops the agenda of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which, under the leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping, has strived to enhance environmental qualities, Xinhua News Agency said on March 10.

Xi has stressed the importance of environmental protection by saying that "we should protect the environment like we protect our eyes and treat the environment like it is our lives," according to Xinhua.

The president also said the demands of development and the need to preserve the Earth's limited resources form an enduring conflict.

"The conflict also occurred in China," Xi said. "The environment in China did not turn bad in one day. All the Party members should have the determination that we should not make it become worse."

The environment has been given unprecedented importance in decision-making since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in 2012, wrote the establishment of ecological civilization into the CPC Constitution for the first time.

Review agencies face tighter controls

The national environmental watchdog will tighten the reins on assessment agencies having close relationships with the ministry officials, a move to fight corruption, the new minister of environmental protection said.

"We will never allow these agencies to make illegal money during the environmental assessment process by taking advantage of their close relationship with the officials and the ministry," Chen Jining said in a news release on March 7.

The eight environmental assessment agencies affiliated with the ministry will transfer their work to commercial companies this year, Chen said, adding that the ministry will promote these reforms gradually, cutting the relation between the local branches and environmental authorities.

On Feb 9, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection issued statements leveling criticism at the Ministry of Environmental Protection for problems including violations of the law, lax supervision and corruption.

It said that some leaders, officials and their relatives interfered with the environmental assessment process of projects and went so far as to set up agencies to seek illegal profit from projects in return for an environmental assessment.

Workplace death toll 'too high'

More than 66,000 Chinese died in workplace accidents last year, a death toll that is "too high", a senior official in charge of the country's work safety issues said.

Yang Dongliang, director of the State Administration of Work Safety, said the death toll has seen a sharp drop compared to its peak in 2002, when 240,000 people died in 1.07 million workplace accidents.

Citing his experience during the ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress, Yang said society should pay more attention to workplace safety and suggested journalists should, too.

A common practice is that when senior officials from key government departments walk through the so-called minister's passage close to the north gate of the Great Hall of the People, they are often intercepted by reporters who stand nearby for interviews.

The administration oversees the country's workplace safety issues and deals with a range of matters, including coal mine explosions.

Beijing's slogan banners out of step, scholar says

Beijing's big Chinese-character slogans, seen at many intersections and subway stations, have been criticized as creating confusion about the city's international image.

Adding to the confusion are the many foreign-language signs, mostly in English, that include mistakes, wrong information or words that might be misunderstood, said Xu Lin, the director of China's overseas Chinese-language teaching program who is among the nation's political advisers now meeting in Beijing.

Slogans painted in Chinese in public places stem from the political campaigns of half a century ago. They are usually ideologically charged and don't fit Beijing's current identity as an open, and dynamic international city, said Xu, director-general of the Confucius Institute headquarters, or Hanban, and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Xu, a scholar who has earned honorary titles from universities in many countries, said Beijing's slogans don't contribute to a good environment because they don't paint an international image true to the change in Chinese people's everyday lives.

Official calls remarks by Dalai Lama 'blasphemy'

The 14th Dalai Lama's recent claim that the religious tradition of reincarnation should be abolished with his death is a blasphemy to Tibetan Buddhism, a senior Tibetan official said on March 9.

"The Dalai Lama has made several different claims about reincarnation in the past. He once said he will reincarnate outside China, and he now says the system of reincarnation should cease with his death," said Padma Choling, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Tibet autonomous region's People's Congress.

"The fact is that it is not up to him, and it is a blasphemy to Tibetan Buddhism," Padma said during a news conference on the sidelines of the annual National People's Congress.

The Dalai Lama, 80, made the comment in December. It goes against the Tibetan Buddhism tradition that the soul of a senior lama is reincarnated in the body of a child upon his death, said Padma, noting that the reincarnation system has been honored for hundreds of years in Tibet.

Padma said the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama should follow strict historical conventions and the required religious rituals of Tibetan Buddhism, and should also be approved by the central government.

Optimism seen for organ donations

Former vice-minister of health Huang Jiefu, a CPPCC member, said China's organ donations won't fall further short of demand after the suspension, which began in January, of using executed prisoners as a source of organs.

In fact, Huang said, the country's organ donation situation in the first two months since the change has given him reason to be optimistic.

About 380 people donated organs between Jan 1 and March 3, with a total of 937 organs donated. Huang said he is confident that there will be more than 10,000 organs donated this year.

Due to insufficient organ donations, executed prisoners had long been the main source of organs to ease the demand, although in recent years they were no longer the major source.

Since the controversial, decades-long practice ended in China on Jan 1, all organs now come solely from voluntary donations from citizens. This has prompted concerns about a greater shortage.

Due to organ scarcity, the organ transplant system has been troubled in the past, with illegal trade frequent on the black market and in some hospitals.

Advisers say nation will weather slowdown

The economy is tough enough to adapt to a lower growth rate without suffering a sharp slowdown provided there is sufficient support for innovative industries, some of the country's policy advisers said on March 9.

"The government and enterprises have the ability to transform the development model in line with market changes, but the government should leave room for the market to self-adjust," said Qian Yingyi, dean of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University and a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

The last thing the government should do is launch an aggressive stimulus policy that would only distort the economic balance by temporarily boosting demand, he said.

"We should not overwhelmingly rely on monetary policy," Qian added. "The government can play a new role by reducing the need for administrative approvals and support the development of innovative industries, such as electric automobile manufacturing. Not by directly investing money, but by improving infrastructure construction."

China's economic growth rate slowed to a 24-year low of 7.4 percent last year, below the 7.5 percent target.

Premier Li Keqiang announced on March 5 that the 2015 GDP growth target is being lowered to 7 percent in order to adapt to the "new normal" rate of expansion. The property sector is experiencing a slowdown, and deflation has intensified in the manufacturing industry.

Yao shrugs off media attention

Basketball legend Yao Ming is arguably both the tallest and the highest-profile political adviser in the country, and his views on sports development always attract attention.

Yao has become a focal point at the annual session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference since being elected to its National Committee in 2013.

Whenever he appears during the session, he stands out among fellow members with his towering 2.26-meter frame, and reporters mob him with questions and ask to take selfies with him.

However, the former National Basketball Association All-Star center says the attention makes him uncomfortable.

"This is a serious occasion, and our proposals and social issues should matter more than who is the star," Yao told China Daily on March 8.

"It's natural that members from sports and entertainment circles attract more headlines than others, but it's important as well to pay equal attention to their suggestions, rather than taking photos and ignoring what they say."

Since retiring from basketball in 2011 because of a foot injury, Yao has become a university student and set up a wine business to go with owning the Chinese Basketball Association's Shanghai Sharks franchise.

Working holiday craze grows

New Zealand is expecting strong demand for its 2015-16 Working Holiday Scheme for Chinese citizens, which opens for applications on May 19, according to the country's immigration office.

Last year, the Immigration New Zealand website crashed due to the volume of traffic when working holiday visa applications for Chinese opened, and the quota of 1,000 visas was filled within nine hours.

The program was launched in 2008 as part of the free trade agreement signed by New Zealand and China. An annual quota of 1,000 working holiday visas is allocated to Chinese aged from 18 to 30, allowing them to travel in the country for up to 12 months and work part time.

"To grab a working holiday visa to New Zealand is like scrambling for a train ticket during the travel rush at Spring Festival," said Wang Lan, chief director of the Australia and New Zealand department at New Oriental Vision Overseas Consulting.

Chengdu aims for 'air Silk Road'

The construction of a second airport at Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, will help to create an aerial Silk Road to Europe, a senior official said on March 7.

Plans for the 69 billion yuan ($11 billion, 10.3 billion euros) airport were approved in January, and construction is due to begin at the end of the year.

"Besides a land Silk Road and a maritime Silk Road, we should have an air Silk Road, with people and cargo flying to Europe from China," said Tang Limin, a deputy to the National People's Congress and the director of Sichuan's Development and Reform Commission.

"Sichuan is an inland province, but it is closer to Europe than coastal areas. With the new airport, Sichuan will be the largest transportation hub in southwest China," Tang said.

A boy plays with his mobile phone as a crowd takes in a folk performance in Zibo, Shandong province, on Feb 28. Wang Bing / China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 03/13/2015 page2)