China

NANNING, March 19 (Xinhua) -- China and Vietnam officially opened a new cross-border bridge on Tuesday linking the city of Dongxing in China and the city of Mong Cai in Vietnam.

The 27.7-meter-wide Beilun II bridge has four main lanes and two auxiliary ones. Its opening means that the busy port of Dongxing will have two bridges, and improved capacity to serve booming border trade between China and Vietnam.

BEIJING, March 18. /TASS/. China’s private businesses are interested in involving Crimea in the implementation of projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, head of the association of Chinese compatriots on the peninsula Ge Zhili reported on Monday.

BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay state visits to Italy, Monaco and France from March 21 to 26, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced Monday.

Xi was invited by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Head of State of the Principality of Monaco Albert II and French President Emmanuel Macron, Lu said.

18 Mar 2019; AFP: China on Monday defended its controversial security crackdown in the fractious far west region of Xinjiang, saying nearly 13,000 "terrorists" have been arrested there since 2014.

Beijing has come under international criticism over its policies in the region, where as many as one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are being held in internment camps, according to human rights groups.

BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Beijing plans to complete an afforestation project of about 16,667 hectares by the end of this year, according to the Beijing Gardening and Greening Bureau.

The project includes tree planting in a forest park in the Tongzhou District, where a number of key municipal organs have moved their offices to, and areas near the Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is scheduled to be put into operation before Sept. 30.

XI'AN, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Xi'an, a historical city in Shaanxi Province, will place traffic restrictions on the use of vehicle on weekdays.

The popular tourist city said the restriction would be imposed on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. starting March 18. Vehicles are restricted in one out of five weekdays based upon the last numbers of their license plates in certain areas in the city, where the number of motor vehicles hit 3 million as of May 2018.

Beijing, Mar 15; PTI/GANASHAKTI: China's population above 60 years has touched 420 million and that of children over six years to 100 million, putting heavy pressure on nursing services and day care centres, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday.

After implementing the decades-old 'one-child policy', the world's most populous country China is facing demographic crisis with rapidly ageing population. It permitted to have the second child in 2016.

14 Mar 2019; DW: The human rights situation in China has "never been better," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing on Thursday, a day after the US issued a report criticizing human rights violations in the Asian country.

"We hope the US will remove the colored lenses and discard the Cold War mentality," Lu said, adding that he hoped Washington would "stop interfering in China's internal affairs with human rights as a pretext."

Beijing, Mar 14; PTI?GANASHAKTI: China on Thursday defended its fourth "technical hold" on the designation of Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the move would give it time for a "thorough and in-depth assessment" of the case and help the parties concerned to engage in more talks to find a "lasting solution" acceptable to all.

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- A longtime U.S. observer on China has said the draft foreign investment law being deliberated in Beijing is "definitely a step forward" in the country's continued reform and opening-up.

David Dollar, a senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua in an interview on Monday that he believes the draft law will attract more foreign investment.