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By 2022, China Will Have 9.2 Million Hepatitis B Patients

Guangming Daily reported that, on July 25, 2015, World Hepatitis B Awareness Day, there were 6.9 million Hepatitis B patients in China. According to the vice chairman of the China Foundation for Hepatitis Prevention and Control, that number will reach 9.2 million by 2022. The article also disclosed that among 400 million Hepatitis B and C carriers in the world, China accounts for 25 percent of the population while the number of liver cancer patients in China accounts for half of the world’s population.

Source: Guangming Daily, July 26, 2015
http://politics.gmw.cn/2015-07/26/content_16424619.htm

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

China’s Draft Cybersecurity Law Allows Cutting Off Area-wide Internet Access

China’s recently proposed draft cybersecurity law makes it clear that the national Internet information authorities should perform the duties of supervision and management of network security. Once a publication or transmission of information that is prohibited by laws and regulations occurs, the authorities must demand the service provider to stop the transmission network operator, take measures to eliminate the information, and save the relevant records. When the above mentioned information comes from abroad, the authorities must notify the relevant agencies to take technical and other necessary measures to block the dissemination of the information.
The Draft emphasizes real name registration, requiring that Internet service providers should require the users to submit real identity information at the time of signing an agreement or confirmation or service. If the user does not submit real identity information, the service provider is not allowed to provide the related services. Any service provider who does not require users to submit real identity information, or who provides service to users who have not submitted their real identity is subject to a fine between 50,000 yuan (US$8,053) and 500,000 yuan (US$80,530). That provider may also be ordered to suspend all relevant business, stop or close operations, or have its relevant business license revoked.
The Draft classifies the websites or online systems that have a large number of users into the category of critical information infrastructure. It requires that the operator of the critical information infrastructure should collect and store important data such as citizen’s personal information within its borders. Any operator that stores Internet based data overseas, or provides data to overseas organizations or individuals without security assessments is subject to a fine between 50,000 yuan (US$8,053) and 500,000 yuan (US$80,530). It may also be ordered to suspend all relevant business, stop or close its operation, or have its relevant business license revoked. Executives directly responsible and other personnel directly responsible are subject to a fine between 10,000 yuan (US$1,611) and 100,000 yuan (US$16,110).
The Draft makes provisions for Internet security monitoring and an early warning and emergency response system. It requires that, when an Internet security incident occurs, the authorities at government offices above the county level should immediately start the network security emergency response plan and release the public-related warnings and relevant information. The Draft makes provision for Internet control: "For safeguarding national security and maintaining public order, out of the need to deal with major emergency social safety incidents, the State Council or provincial governments under the approval of the State Council can adopt temporary measures including limiting Internet communications in some areas."
Source: People’s Daily Online, July 9, 2015
http://it.people.com.cn/n/2015/0709/c1009-27275737.html
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China Consumes Half of the Antibiotics in the World

Xinhua reported on a research study that the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, which is part of Chinese Academy of Science, had recently conducted. The study found that the consumption of antibiotics in China was 162,000 tons (147 million Kilograms) in 2013 which accounted for half of the total usage in the world. Of this total, 52 percent was for animal use and 48 percent was for human use. The study also found that over 50,000 tons (45 million Kilograms) of antibiotics was discharged into soil and water each year. The statistics also revealed that China’s average antibiotics consumption per person was 5 to 8 times higher than in Western countries and that antibiotics were found in close to 60 percent of children’s urine samples. The expert stated that the over usage of antibiotics was driven by two factors. One is that doctors like to prescribe antibiotics in order to seek a speedy recovery for their patients and the other is the higher profit margin of antibiotics which can bring economic benefits to the hospital.

Source: Xinhua, July 6, 2015
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2015-07/06/c_127988141.htm

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RFI: China Issues Internet IDs to Chinese Citizens

Radio France International (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that the Chinese government has initiated a program of rapid issuance of “Internet IDs” to its citizens at a speed of 100,000 issued per day. The “Internet ID,” also known as the “eID,” will be integrated into the Ministry of Public Safety’s Citizen’s Online Identification System and the personal identification systems of the banking industry. The eID system was certified by the National Passcode Administration in 2013, with a pilot program going into effect in the City of Karamay in Xinjiang. Starting in 2012, the Ministry of Public Safety worked closely with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to use a “strategically” embedded eID in the ICBC-issued IC (Integrated Circuit) debit cards and reached its capacity of producing 300,000 cards daily. In the market value of its assets, ICBC is generally considered the largest bank in the world.
Source: Radio France International, June 9, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/p3lt529
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China to Require Censoring Personnel for Internet Video Providers

On June 10, Beijing city’s local newspaper, Jinghua Times (京华时报), reported that the State Council Legislative Affairs Office called for public comment on the "Administrative Approaches to the Dissemination of Audio-visual Programs via the Internet or Other Information Networks (revised draft)" (hereinafter referred to as the "draft"). According to the draft, Internet video broadcasters should be staffed with professionals who review the program contents. If broadcasters do not do so, they should be given a warning for correction and subject to a fine up to 30,000 yuan ($US 4,834). In addition, the current affairs audio-visual news programs that the Internet service providers broadcast should be those programs that regional or city level radio stations or TV stations already produced and broadcast. This means that homemade current affairs news programs are to be banned from the Internet.

Source: Jinghua Times, June 11, 2015
http://epaper.jinghua.cn/html/2015-06/11/content_206133.htm
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People’s Daily: The U.S. Military Hurried to Replace IBM Servers

People’s Daily recently reported that the United States Military is actively planning to replace all IBM blade server computers, which are used in the U.S. Navy’s Aegis destroyers. This happened after last October when the Chinese IT vendor Lenovo had just completed the acquisition of IBM’s low-end x86 server division. Lenovo is now the third largest sever computer manufacturer in the world. The U.S. Navy is very worried about the potential information leakage to Chinese hackers via this Chinese equipment; it assumes that, sooner or later, they will need maintenance. This is part of the typical U.S. national security measures and may trigger concerns about the impact on Lenovo server sales in the U.S. market. However, now the question becomes: when the Chinese government inspects U.S. made equipment for national security reasons, why does the United States whine about unfair treatment?
Source: People’s Daily, May 23, 2015
http://world.people.com.cn/n/2015/0523/c157278-27044603.html

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People’s Daily: Apple Watch Faces Copycats

People’s Daily recently published a report based on news from RFI (Radio France International) and Agence France-Presse that Chinese mobile device manufacturers released a large number of Apple Watch look-alikes before Apple started selling its long-awaited Apple Watch. All of these Chinese watches appeared to look just like Apple Watch, even with identical user interface and icons. However they all ran the Android mobile operating system and they were priced at around one sixth the cost of the lowest priced Apple Watch model. One owner of these Chinese factories told a French reporter that his smart watches match the Apple Watch in both appearance and performance and have a much lower price – his products even offered slightly more functionalities than Apple. One of his factories can manufacture around 2,000 smart watches a day, with a monthly volume of 50,000. Even Apple Stores didn’t carry Apple Watches on the release date of April 24. They were only available via online reservations or in certain luxury stores in a few cities around the globe.
Source: People’s Daily, April 24, 2015
http://it.people.com.cn/n/2015/0424/c1009-26900110.html
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People’s Daily: Market Penetration Rate for Mobile Users Reached 94.6 Percent

People’s Daily reported that, according to the statistics that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently released, by the end of March, the number of mobile users in China was close to 1.3 billion with a market penetration rate at 94.6 percent. Meanwhile the number of broadband users had reached 640 million. In the month of March alone, the number of 4G broadband users went up by 23 million and reached 162 million. The statistics also suggested that total mobile Internet users surpassed 899 million in the first three month of 2015, up by 5.7 percent compared with the same period in 2014.

Source: People’s Daily, April 20, 2015
http://it.people.com.cn/n/2015/0420/c1009-26869500.html

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