Multilateralism for Interests of All Parties By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-7-28 16:00 Multilateralism is about pursuing consensus through consultation and managing common affairs through cooperation with the purpose of achieving shared benefits and win-win results. Both the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have achieved early success in practicing multilateralism and China has learned a lot from them. At the beginning of China's reform and opening-up, modern multilateralism was a relatively new concept that it spent time learning, accepting, and finally, firmly upholding it. For instance, China embarked on its journey of participating in multilateral diplomacy and regional cooperation in Asia by becoming a dialogue partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Under the framework of ASEAN Plus China and ASEAN Plus Three, the trade volume between China and ASEAN countries has increased from $8 billion to $684.6 billion, growing by more than 80-fold. The two sides have become each other's major trade partners, and forged a strong strategic partnership. China and the European Union have also established highly interdependent relations. China's trade with the EU hit $649.5 billion in 2020, making it the EU's largest trading partner. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the China Railway Express delivered huge quantities of anti-pandemic supplies to European countries, contributing to their fight against the pandemic. Watching on TV the arrival of CRE trains carrying a variety of European goods and products, it's certainly that despite the geographic distance, both sides stand close together and have great potential for cooperation. History of multilateralism The trend of multilateralism was driven by the urge to stop war and forge amicable ties. The early form of multilateralism appeared long before modern international relations took shape. Modern multilateralism, aimed at safeguarding peace and promoting cooperation, was developed in the 20th century after the bitter lessons of two world wars. Those conflicts compelled people to explore a multilateral mechanism that could coordinate interstate interests, end wars and ensure lasting world peace. Since the 1990s, driven by the trend of peaceful development in the post-Cold War period, multilateralism has been more broadly and effectively practiced. It can be argued that multilateralism has gained broad recognition and support as a basic norm for safeguarding the international order. China, a member of many multilateral institutions. China is also taking the initiative to design and build multilateral mechanisms. For instance, China organized and promoted the Six-Party Talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, hosted summits for BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and initiated the cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries. Regarding security, China has participated in the United Nations' Conference on ...

Technology Doping in Sport Requires Clear Regulation By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-7-27 16:00 International sporting competitions are always paralleled by anti-doping technology. Many will not be alien to high-profile cases in which athletes trying to gain the upper hand by abusing drugs have been caught out. The possibilities of testosterone, EPO, or anavar have run out of places to hide inside an Olympian's bloodstream. However, recently, other choices have emerged. Technology doping is a more obscure and contentious method but one, nevertheless, that governing sporting bodies are equally concerned about in the ongoing Tokyo Olympics. Whether it be the material of a sprinter's shoe, or the thickness of a swimmer's head cap, a race to regulate elite-level sporting equipment is also underway behind the scenes. The definition of technology doping is utilizing equipment to gain an advantage, deemed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is known as WADA, to be performance-enhancing, or against the spirit of the sport. While this may leave some room for interpretation, ensuring athletes do not have an unfair advantage based on their equipment is significant. For instance, every long-distance running world record, from the 5 km all the way up to the marathon, without exception, has been broken since the introduction in 2016 of carbon fiber plates in shoes. Carbon fiber offers a high amount of energy return in the runner's foot,bringing a pushing effect on the rolling behavior of the forefoot to drive the athlete forward almost as if powered by a spring. Upon the material's debut at a major international level in the 2016 summer Olympic Games, all six marathon medals were won by athletes wearing the same type of carbon fiber plated shoes. Concerns were then raised that significant advantages were clearly evident for some athletes to enjoy. Funding for such sophisticated equipment at the time was not equal, and concerns over technology inequality in the sport grew. In the swimming pool, a technology arms race was also underway. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, many swimmers adopted the Speedo LZR swimsuit, specifically designed to improve speed. The material covers the whole body reaching all the way down the leg to the calf muscle, optimizing the hydrodynamics of the swimmer. Drag was reduced by nearly 40 percent, which was calculated to lead to a tangible 4 percent difference in speed for swimmers. Again, world records were broken in quick succession with 23 achieved at that event alone. Technology in sportswear no doubt plays a crucial role in improving performance. New innovations to improve safety and reduce injuries, however, are now clearly crossing the line with the dilution of athletic feats derived from talent and hard work. Athletes who do not have access to such equipment or who are from less privileged backgrounds or less well funded national teams may find that the fruits of their labor become less sweet as time goe...

Forests Help to Solve the Climate Crisis By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-7-26 16:00 The Dixie fire, which started on July 14, had already leveled more than a dozen houses and other structures when it tore through the tiny community of Indian Falls after dark. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency in four northern counties because of wildfires that he said were causing "conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property". The proclamation opened the way for more state support. Such conditions are often from a combination of unusual random, short-term and natural weather patterns heightened by long-term, human-caused climate change. Global warming has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years. More than 85 large wildfires were burning around the country, mostly in western states, and they had already burned more than 553,000 hectares. The Earth's forests play a large role in the global carbon cycle. All the forests in the world store almost as much carbon as there is in the atmosphere. While deforestation contributes between 15 percent and 20 percent of all the carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere annually, the world's forests absorb twice as much each year. Although this positive balance may change if forest burning continue, global warming and deforestation continue, experts are putting much hope on forests helping to solve the climate crisis. Consortia of governments and non-government organizations are promoting planting trees on a massive scale. Scientists from Switzerland, Italy and France recently estimated that if the current world's area of 4.06 billion hectares could be increased by 900 million hectares, this new area of forest could take out one-fourth of the CO2 in the atmosphere and bring atmospheric carbon back to the level it was before the world got hooked on fossil fuels. Since 1990 the global area of planted forest has increased by 123 million hectares, with one-third of this planted in China. As these 123 million hectares are only between less than one year to 30 years old, most of the trees have not yet reached the age at which they absorb most CO2. Recent studies have revealed that even very old trees continue to absorb large quantities of CO2. How much carbon forests can absorb in years to come is hard to predict. Scientists have estimated that from 2000 to 2040, China's forests may capture 25 billion metric tons CO2.At this point in time, China emits about 10 billion tons CO2 every year. A critical issue that needs to be decided is how CO2 absorption by forests is incorporated in environmental accounting. When the United Nation's member countries agreed to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, only wealthy countries were expected to reduce their emissions to below the 1990s levels. The other countries could implement projects to reduce CO2 emissions, or capture CO2 from the atmosphere and sell these as certified emissions reduction cre...

Online Chinese Literature with a Huge Fan Base Overseas By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-7-23 15:00 With the speedy development of China's online literature landscape, Chinese online novels have created a huge fan base overseas. Zhou Yan, known for her pen name Jiong Jiong You Yao, 32, is one of the most popular online writers in the urban romance genre. Her novels, which have been translated into foreign languages, such as English, Indonesian, Filipino and Spanish, have attracted many loyal foreign fans. Her success comes on the heels of China's booming online literary market overseas. By 2020, more than 10,000 online literary works had entered overseas markets and attracted over 100 million foreign readers, according to the 2020 Blue Book of China's online literature released by the China Writers Association. On the website Webnovel, the comment section on Jiong Jiong You Yao's novel is full of users urging new content, highlighting the novel's popularity. In 2016, she wrote a romantic novel, which has since received more than 4 million clicks, and its intellectual property right was licensed to a Vietnamese cultural enterprise for film and television adaptation in 2018. "I usually include content with Chinese characteristics in my writing, such as Suzhou embroidery and kung fu, and I find foreign readers are quite interested in these Chinese elements," she says. "I think Chinese online literature is popular not only because of its mysterious oriental elements, but also because the humanity in the stories transcends boundaries." Fantasy and kung fu novels were once the driving force behind the clamor among foreign readers. Such stories were based on Chinese mythology and traditional culture, and they had a wide appeal. Recently, however, more types of Chinese online novel have found a footing in foreign markets, as the channels for international communication have become more diversified. Urban romance novels, for instance, describe the lives of Chinese city dwellers, and they are increasingly popular in Southeast Asia, including the novels of Jiong Jiong You Yao. She says readers used to prefer stories about domineering male characters and Cinderella-like protagonists, but now the theme has shifted to feature more independent female characters and a glimpse into the everyday challenges faced by such women. "I think it's because of a rising self-awareness among women in Asia, and I have incorporated that change into my creation," she adds. China's online literature has also inspired many foreign readers to start writing. A 25-year-old Filipino author, who goes by the online handle Kazzenlx, wrote the fantasy romance novel Hellbound With You, which was inspired by the English version of Jiong Jiong You Yao's novel. "China's online literature has changed from merely spreading novels to exporting a deep-seated creation system," says He Hong, deputy director of the online literature center at the China Writers Association. St...

Solar Power Brings a Brighter, Greener Future By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-7-22 16:00 Energy drives economic development and helps improve people's lives, but extracting fossil fuels and generating electricity also cause environmental pollution. So China has pledged that its carbon dioxide emissions will peak before 2030 and it will achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. This is a difficult pledge to fulfill, especially because the national campaign to eradicate poverty achieved initial success only last year after decades of efforts. So China needs to take stricter and more effective measures to reduce the use of fossil fuels while promoting clean energy such as hydropower, and wind, solar and nuclear power. Official data show that by 2019, clean energy accounted for 23.4 percent of the total energy consumption, up 8.9 percentage points from 2012. For instance, the development of the solar photovoltaic industry over the past two decades provided China with increasing amount of clean energy and, as expected, greatly reduced its carbon emissions. What was unexpected, however, is the way it helped China control desertification and reduce poverty. When China decided to promote the solar PV industry 20 years ago, one of the most important questions was where to build bases for the solar panels. Despite its 9.6 million square kilometers of land area, China has always faced a shortage of cultivable land－it has been feeding nearly 20 percent of the world's population with just 7 percent of the cultivable land. So farmlands couldn't be turned into solar panel bases. Mountain slopes was also out of the question given that China was spending billions of yuan every year to plant trees to improve the environment. So the authorities decided to set up solar PV panel bases in deserts. It was then that an entrepreneur from Kubuqi, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, visited the planners and offered to provide space for such a base in the desert. The entrepreneur and his company, Yili Group, had spent billions of yuan and many years in fighting desertification. Now in Kubuqi, the base covers nearly 7,000 hectares and has an annual generating capacity of 900 million kilowatthours. Apart from helping generate electricity, the panels performed another miracle. In many years since the setting up of the base, plants and grass began to grow between and under the panels. To prevent the grass from growing too tall, the managers raised flocks of ducks, which fed on certain types of grasses. And soon after the generators began producing electricity, Yili Group announced the desert area covered by the panels had turned green. The Kubuqi model has since been introduced in other Gobi areas. While large-scale solar PV bases have been built in deserts and other remote areas, usable spaces in villages, too, have caught the authority's attention. Also, the central government and the power companies combined solar energy development with the national pover...

Tokyo 2020, an Unusual Olympics By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-7-21 17:00 Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with several people having tested positive, some new rules and unusual practices have been adopted by the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This stands as a reminder that, as the athletes strive for medals, everyone wins by ensuring the safety of all participants. Winners will put on their own medals by themselves On July 14, International Olympic Committee (IOC) chairman Thomas Bach said winners themselves will pick up their medals and put them on in order to prevent and control the COVID-19 pandemic. They will not shake hands or hug. Both winners and awardees are required to wear masks. Athletes forbidden from engaging in some typical habits To prevent the spread of COVID-19, some of the athletes' typical habits will be forbidden. For instance, Liu Guoliang, president of the Chinese Table Tennis Association, said during an interview that players will not be allowed to touch the tables by hand or towel, or blow on the balls. These behaviors are subconscious habits for table tennis players during matches. Liu Shiwen, Chinese table tennis player, admitted it was difficult to accommodate to the new rules at first, but she has to follow them since they are implemented during Tokyo 2020. Only three venues allow audiences, but digital measures adopted Because of the spread of COVID-19, audiences are only allowed in three venues, which will hold track cycling and football matches. However, for those venues which have banned audience members, the IOC said they are considering using a system that can transfer the sound of applause to allow interaction with simultaneous interpretation when necessary. Besides, according to Bach, screens with online audiences watching matches could be placed in venues, so supporters can cheer for their favorite teams. Audience members are encouraged to shoot videos and share them with the whole world. Athletes also are provided opportunities to communicate with their families and fans after matches. New norm for media interviews A new norm for media interviews has been instituted, keeping teams isolated in "bubbles" from the outside world over concerns for their health and safety amid the pandemic. Two COVID-19 tests must be carried out within 96 hours before arriving in Japan. In the first 14 days after landing, media personnel cannot utilize public transport, and will only be allowed to go to the venues and business addresses submitted prior to their arrival. During their stay in Japan, they will be monitored through the GPS function of their smartphones. The frequency of testing will be specified for various media workers, with photographers working near athletes and in the competition area requiring daily testing. Media personnel who may have contact with athletes need to be tested every four days, while those who have no contact with athletes are required to be tested every seven days. Tokyo ...

Tourism Reform in Italy By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-7-20 16:00 Italy's massive tourism sector has been a study in contrasts in the past two years: first too many tourists crowding the country's most popular spots, then almost none at all. Recently, the sector is managing to strike the right balance between the two extremes. Before the coronavirus pandemic arrived in Italy, the big worry about tourism was overcrowding: the influence on infrastructure, the environment and the quality of life of residents due to the millions of tourists who clustered in a handful of locations, such as Florence, Rome and Venice. Then, with the pandemic, tourists practically vanished amid coronavirus lockdowns and travel restrictions. The tourism sector, which was responsible for pulling in 236.4 billion euros ($280.6 billion) in revenue in 2019, produced just 115.8 billion euros last year, according to the data firm Statista. According to most estimates, the sector is not predicted to recover to pre-pandemic levels until late 2023 or early 2024, but political leaders and many working in the sector are taking actions now to assure that, as the sector strengthens, it avoids the overcrowding problems that damaged tourist centers before. "The goal is to reform the sector so that it offers a higher and more personalized level of service, and options that are less centralized than before," Gianfranco Lorenzo, head of the research department for Florence's Center for Touristic Studies, says. "Italy should de-emphasize the reliance on big tour buses that all pull into parking lots and overwhelm a small town for a few hours, (but promote) more high-quality tourism that shows visitors the country's marvels beyond the few dozen places everyone knows about," says Lorenzo. Valeria Minghetti, the chief researcher at the Center for International Studies on the Economics of Tourism at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, says the problem of overtourism is not unique to Italy. She pointed out that other popular tourist destinations in Europe, like Amsterdam, Barcelona and Paris, have similar problems. "There's no reason people should be lined up to see one famous site when there are many that are just as important and just as impressive that too few people know about," Minghetti says. Those strategies are already in development. This summer, for instance, many Italian cities are trying to focus the attention of visitors on outdoor attractions like sprawling gardens and architectural ruins, where visitors can remain spread out to keep coronavirus infection risks low. Florence's Uffizi Galleries, one of the most visited museums in Italy, has launched the "Uffizi Diffusi" initiative-the name roughly translates to the "Uffizi Scattered"-which includes displaying some of the gallery's collection in museums in smaller towns around Tuscany to help attract tourists who might otherwise have spent their time in overcrowded Florence. Therefore, travel translation can al...

Tax salt, sugar to pursue health By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-7-19 12:00 An independent report commissioned by the government has required a radical overhaul of the food industry in England, with fruit and vegetables to be prescribed by doctors, and additional taxes on sugar and salt. In 2019, the National Food Strategy commissioned the report says money raised by increased taxes could be utilized to offer additional and improved school meals and support better dietary habits among the poorest sections of society. In addition, improved diet would be more environmental friendly and ease strain on the National Health Service. According to the report, inferior quality diet is a factor in 64,000 deaths each year in England alone, and costs the economy 74 billion pounds ($102.8 billion). Businessman Henry Dimbleby, who led the study, told the BBC that the COVID-19 crisis had underlined the wider issue of dietary health, calling it "a painful reality check". "Our high obesity rate has been a major factor in the United Kingdom's tragically high death rate," he added. "We must now seize the moment to build a better food system for our children and grandchildren. "It is well within our power to change the system so it makes both us and the planet healthier." The food industry has expressed concern that increased taxes on sugar and salt, which would be imposed at wholesale level, could lead to increased prices in shops, but Dimbleby rejected this. "We do not actually believe that for most things it will hike the price－what it will do is it will reformulate, it will make people take sugar and salt out," he said. He also told Sky News that hoping improved food education would resolve the issue was not enough, and more interventionist measures were required. "Everyone thinks in this country… the way to solve obesity and dietrelated disease is through education, exercise and willpower and people who don't have the willpower deserve what is inflicted upon them … but actually none of that is true," he said. "There is a strong genetic component in some people that makes them particularly attracted to these foods. "Companies market at them, they eat more and companies spend more money on it－you need to break that commercial cycle and that is what the tax is intended to do." Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick told ITV News that the government would be giving the report "careful thought" before setting out its own food strategy later in the year. "It's right that when we do that, we strike a balance between tackling undoubtedly the challenge of obesity but also ensuring that these things are a question of personal choice and judgment rather than the state telling you what to do," he added. The report's suggestions, which the government says it will respond to within six months, have won the backing of several leading charities, including the British Heart Foundation. "This significant report makes strong recommendations to make everyday ...