As Beijing ratchets up its urban development to a frantic pace six years before it hosts the Olympic Games, the city is facing what appears to be tidal wave of choking traffic.
Despite warning cries from experts at what they condemn as a wholesale destruction of old Beijing beneath new roads as well as heavy pollution and near-gridlock, the policy remains steadfast.
Beijing's municipal authorities insist the city must become a modern capital, and in keeping with that ambition the population should travel around in cars, rather than the army of bicycles which formerly characterized the city.
PHOTO: AFP
The policy, first introduced in the mid-1990s, is set to gather pace in coming years, with an official target of three million vehicles on Beijing's already packed roads by 2008.
This figure is not far short of double the 1.7 million cars already in use, of which a million are privately owned.
"I bought a Fukang [a Chinese version of the Citroen ZX] for 104,000 yuan [US$12,500] last year on a loan repayable over five years. There was nothing else I could do," said Li Beidong, an employee of a foreign firm who owns an apartment 25km west of Beijing.
Rather than spending 90 minutes each way commuting by bus, in his new car Li can make the trip in around 30 to 40 minutes, "as long as the traffic jams are not too bad," he said.
Like Li, tens of thousands of Beijingers, exiled to distant suburbs following the destruction of their old-style homes in the centre of the city, have taken driving tests and bought cars in recent months -- to the great satisfaction of authorities.
Apart from modernization, the government is counting on the sales of cars and apartments to boost consumption, which is stalling despite years of expensive economic measures to stimulate demand.
China's consumers are being particularly encouraged to buy on credit, helped by low interest rates of around five percent.
Beijing, where almost 12 percent of households own a vehicle, is at the forefront of car ownership in China and currently absorbs one seventh of all autos sold in the country.
In the first three months of this year alone, 50,000 new cars were registered in the capital, 36 percent up on the same period last year, while 70,000 people learned to drive.
The phenomenon has been accelerating due a rapid drop in the price of domestically-made cars.
This has come as local automakers begin facing up to cheaper foreign imports following tariff reductions obliged under the terms of China's recent membership of the WTO.
Amid the torrent of vehicles hitting Beijing's roads, municipal authorities have been building roads at a frantic rate in an attempt to ward off complete gridlock.
These include a quartet of multi-lane orbital ringroads spaced concentrically from the city center around Tiananmen Square, with two more set to be built within the next few years.
These and other vast new avenues are slicing through the city's historic heart, a policy mainly driven by political imperatives, experts say.
"The automobile is on the way to becoming the method by which the city's urban spaces are organized, a genuine car-based system is being put in place to replace that of the bicycle, which existed up until the 1980s," said Jean-Francois Doulet, a French specialist in urban transport who has made a study of Beijing's road-building.
Despite the criticism, the Beijing authorities vigorously defend their policy.
Shan Jixiang, director of Beijing's planning commission, said he had no worries at all about the increase in car numbers, the state Xinhua news agency reported.
However, he added that the city would rely mainly on rail transport during the 2008 Olympics, particularly planned new additional lines on the city's underground railway system.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)