Dahebao Dahe Finance Cube Trainee reporter Chen Yuxi Ren Bing

In the past 100 days in 2018, Zhongyuan Expressway’s six rounds of financing of 6.4 billion yuan is very eye-catching, and its accumulated loan has reached 38.6 billion, nearly three times its net assets! Behind the high-frequency opening of the "borrowing" model, on the one hand, the financing skills can be seen, and the thirst for funds under the diversified and rapid development can also be seen.

Financing again! In 2018, six rounds of financing have reached 6.4 billion.

On the morning of April 12th, Zhongyuan Expressway announced its second corporate bond coupon rate in 2018. According to the announcement, the issuance scale of corporate bonds is 1.3 billion yuan, with a term of five years, accounting for 5.21% in coupon rate. Zhongyuan Expressway said that the funds raised this time are mainly used to repay the company’s debts.

Just 10 days ago, the first phase of corporate bonds of Zhongyuan Expressway in 2018 was just listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, with a bond issuance scale of 1.5 billion yuan, which is also a term of 5 years. In addition to corporate bonds, Zhongyuan Expressway also issued two issues of ultra-short financing, raising 2 billion yuan. In addition, Zhongyuan Expressway also borrowed 1.6 billion yuan from Henan Communications Investment Group Co., Ltd., the controlling shareholder of the company. In just over three months, Zhongyuan Expressway has carried out six rounds of financing, with a total financing amount of 6.4 billion yuan.

According to statistics, as of April 12, 2018, the accumulated loan balance of Zhongyuan Expressway has reached 38.6 billion yuan, and according to its latest quarterly report, its net assets are only 13 billion, accounting for only one third of its loan balance. At present, among the expressway listed companies, Zhongyuan Expressway ranks first with an asset-liability ratio of 74.97%.

Corporate bonds+ultra-short financing, Zhongyuan high-speed financing logic can be seen.

By combing the financing process of Zhongyuan Expressway in the past two years, it is found that this corporate bond and ultra-short financing are the continuation of its previous financing behavior.

In December 2016, Zhongyuan Expressway was approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission and allowed to publicly issue corporate bonds with a total face value of no more than 4.8 billion yuan to qualified investors. After receiving the approval of the 4.8 billion quota, Zhongyuan Expressway issued the corporate bonds with a total scale of 2 billion yuan, 5 years and 4.95% of coupon rate in August 2017, and listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on August 14. The 1.3 billion yuan of corporate bonds to be issued this time and the 1.5 billion yuan of corporate bonds in the previous period are also in the 4.8 billion quota.

In addition to issuing corporate bonds for long-term financing, issuing short-term financing bonds and ultra-short-term financing bonds for short-term financing is also handy for Zhongyuan Expressway.

In February, 2015, China Banking Market Dealers Association accepted the registration of Zhongyuan Expressway short-term financing bonds with a validity period of 2.7 billion yuan for two years. After obtaining the registration, Zhongyuan Expressway issued 500 million yuan in March and December 2015 respectively, and then issued 500 million yuan and 1 billion yuan in March and September 2016 respectively. After the first two issuances expired, Zhongyuan Expressway recycled the quota before the end of the validity period, and issued another 1.2 billion yuan in January 2017 with the maturity date of January 24, 2018. That is to say, more than two months ago, Zhongyuan Expressway just paid a short-term debt of 1.2 billion.

In addition, in May 2016, Zhongyuan Expressway also applied for approval of 3 billion ultra-short-term financing bonds, and quickly issued 1.5 billion in May and August 2016 respectively, and all the quotas were used up. These two sums of money were paid after 270 days, and Zhongyuan Expressway carried out circular issuance, namely, 1 billion yuan 90-day ultra-short financing issued in May 2017, 1 billion yuan 270-day ultra-short financing issued in July, and two 1 billion yuan 90-day ultra-short financing issued in January 2018.

Combing the above bond issuance process, we can see that Zhongyuan Expressway has made full use of the two short-term financing registration quotas, without wasting them, and borrowed the old ones for the new ones and seamlessly connected them. However, in May 2018, the registration period of 3 billion ultra-short-term financing is coming, but Zhongyuan Expressway still needs to pay a total of 3 billion ultra-short-term financing bonds in April and June, so it can’t wait to apply for registration of 5 billion ultra-short financing to make up for this funding gap.

Highway+real estate+finance, diversified layout behind high-frequency financing

Although borrowing heavily, it does not affect its outstanding performance. In fact, the large amount of capital demand of Zhongyuan Expressway stems from the acceleration of the company’s engineering construction and the continuous extension of diversified business chains.

Since the 2017 annual report has not been disclosed, the relevant data of the 2017 semi-annual report is taken as a reference.

According to the subsidiaries, joint ventures or joint ventures of Zhongyuan Expressway shown in the following figure, it can be seen that apart from the construction and operation management of the traditional main business toll roads, Zhongyuan Expressway has a layout in real estate development, property services, oil products management, engineering project supervision business and financial industry, and various investment fields have led to its strong capital demand.

Then, what is the investment situation of Zhongyuan Expressway in various fields?

The first is the highway project. In the first half of 2017 alone, Zhongyuan Expressway newly invested 535 million yuan in 14 road and bridge projects, including Zheng-Luo Expressway reconstruction and expansion project and Zheng Xin Yellow River Bridge project. By June 30, 2017, the accumulated actual investment of these 14 projects was as high as 39.214 billion yuan. And this is not all the road and bridge assets of Zhongyuan Expressway.

Followed by real estate. In recent years, Zhongyuan Expressway has carried out real estate development projects in Zhengzhou and Xuchang through subsidiaries such as Yingdi Real Estate. As of June 30, 2017, the ending balance of Zhongyuan Expressway’s investment in two real estate subsidiaries, Henan Yingdi Real Estate Co., Ltd. and Henan Junyi Real Estate Co., Ltd., was 393 million yuan and 99.33 billion yuan respectively.

Finally, the financial sector. Zhongyuan Expressway has continuously increased its financial business for many years, while investing heavily in financial institutions such as Zhongyuan Agricultural Insurance and Zhongyuan Trust, while vigorously developing its "Bingyuan Department" finance. With two legs, Zhongyuan Expressway has become an invisible "financial control giant" in Henan. The semi-annual report of 2017 shows that the investment balance of Zhongyuan Expressway in Zhongyuan Trust and Zhongyuan Agricultural Insurance is 2.498 billion yuan and 187 million yuan respectively, while the investment balance of its subsidiary Bingyuan Holdings Co., Ltd. is as high as 700 million yuan.

In the latest performance forecast of Zhongyuan Expressway, the net profit of Zhongyuan Expressway is expected to increase by 260 million to 560 million in 2017, with an increase of 35% to 75%. In this regard, Zhongyuan Expressway said that it is precisely because of efficient multi-channel financing that all the funds needed by the company can be successfully put in place and its performance can achieve rapid growth.

Economic Observer reporter Cai Yuekun 　"I don’t want it!" On June 6, Master Xi, who was in his fifties, spoke to reporters while driving a car online: a branch of a construction enterprise owed him more than 100,000 yuan, which has been more than ten years, and there is no hope of recovery.

Master Xi is an individual boss, who has long provided stone for the construction party. Nowadays, the whole industry is getting more and more depressed, and it is more difficult to get back the money for the construction enterprises. Using his spare time, Master Xi started a network car.

It is not only Master Xi who is difficult to collect debts, but also the construction industry in the upstream of individual enterprises is also bearing the burden that the accounts are increasingly difficult to recover after the advance payment for Party A..

According to the reporter’s incomplete statistics of listed construction enterprises in various provinces, by the end of 2022, the accounts receivable of Shanghai Construction Engineering had increased to about 62.489 billion yuan, accounting for 17.04% of the total assets; The accounts receivable of Chongqing Construction Engineering Co., Ltd. is 21.378 billion, accounting for 26.05% of the total assets; The accounts receivable of Anhui Construction Engineering Co., Ltd. is 36.191 billion yuan, accounting for 24.28% of the total assets & hellip; …

The rising accounts receivable, like a sword of Damocles, hangs over the heads of construction enterprises.

Li Chuan, who works in a large construction enterprise, has a deep understanding of this: "For construction enterprises, although accounts receivable are hard to get, the current payments of small and medium-sized enterprises in the upstream and downstream cannot be defaulted, and the wages of migrant workers cannot be defaulted. Affected by the high pressure of accounts receivable, even some enterprises can’t rely on credit to support cash flow. "

After the accounts receivable are defaulted by Party A, it will cause some construction enterprises to default on suppliers and other payment. In addition, the reporter’s investigation found that there are also illegal subcontracting, subcontracting and other industry chaos in the construction industry, which makes the problem of "triangular debt" in the construction industry extremely prominent. "Triangle debt" is a "difficult hurdle" in front of many construction enterprises, which has troubled the healthy and benign development of the whole industry.

In addition, the level of accounts receivable of construction enterprises is also related to the customer’s region. Comparatively speaking, the state-owned construction enterprises in economically developed areas, such as East China, are relatively less dragged down by accounts receivable, while the state-owned construction enterprises in the central and western regions are relatively more dragged down by accounts receivable.

In Li Chuan’s view, construction enterprises work hard, hard and painful. The construction industry is not only a labor-intensive industry, but also an industry of national economy and people’s livelihood. Therefore, how to solve the problem of "triangle debt", how to achieve high-quality, healthy and long-term development, and how to solve the problem of settlement of accounts receivable of construction enterprises is imminent.

High accounts receivable

The high accounts receivable of listed construction enterprises has become a common problem in the whole construction industry.

In addition to listed construction enterprises in various provinces, the reporter noted that China Construction’s 2022 annual report also revealed that by the end of 2022, the company’s accounts receivable amounted to 210.43 billion yuan, up 27.5% year-on-year. The main reason for the increase was that the overall business scale increased and the volume of accounts receivable increased. Accounts receivable accounted for 7.93% of total assets.

Li Chuan said that accounts receivable mainly correspond to two types of customers: one is that accounts receivable are difficult to recover due to the increase in defaults of real estate customers in the past two years; The other category is government investment and construction projects, accounting for a higher proportion. Because there is no settlement for construction enterprises in the upstream, there are many problems such as wage arrears for migrant workers and supplier lawsuits.

For construction enterprises, accounts receivable are hanging high. On May 25th, relevant persons of Chongqing Construction Industry analyzed to reporters that the increase of accounts receivable of construction enterprises is closely related to the macroeconomic downturn, and the real estate market is depressed in the past two years, and there are many enterprises that have exploded, and real estate development is one of the important customers of construction enterprises. In addition, it is an indisputable fact that the macro-economy has been in a downturn in the past two years, and the accounts receivable of construction enterprises have increased significantly.

On May 25, Zhang Wen, an analyst with the rating department of CSI Pengyuan Industrial and Commercial Enterprise, told the Economic Observer that the construction market in China has continued to grow for a long time, and the phenomenon of capital construction is widespread in the industry, which makes a large number of accounts receivable in the accounts of construction enterprises, and its scale keeps growing with business expansion; In addition, in recent years, the deterioration of the liquidity of housing enterprises and the intensification of the contradiction between local government revenue and expenditure have also lengthened the payment cycle of construction enterprises.

Relevant persons from Shaanxi Construction Engineering told reporters that since its listing, the company has entered a stage of rapid development, and its operating income has achieved rapid growth, which has also driven the growth of accounts receivable. Although such projects generally have a long repayment period, many projects are mainly government and state-owned assets, and the repayment is guaranteed.

Viann, an analyst in the rating department of China Chengxin International Industrial and Commercial Enterprise, told the Economic Observer that the proportion of two funds in assets of construction enterprises is relatively high, and the high asset-liability ratio is also a common phenomenon in the industry. After the housing enterprises are out of danger, the bigger problems faced by construction enterprises are the problem of clearing debts and bad debts. How to recover and monitor the two funds during the follow-up project, how to prevent and control risks and reduce losses are difficult.

Real estate thunder drag

According to many investigations, the increase of mine explosion in real estate enterprises in recent two years has become one of the important reasons for the high pressure of accounts receivable in construction enterprises.

For example, on May 22nd, Duanheng Construction applied to Chongqing No.5 Intermediate People’s Court for reorganization of Jinke Real Estate Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jinke Shares", 000656.SZ). As a construction party, Duanheng Building is the corner where many construction enterprises recover debts from real estate enterprises.

According to Pengyuan’s credit data, in 2022, there were 27 new default subjects in the real estate industry, and the number of default bonds was 188, up by 125% and 176% year-on-year, accounting for 56.3% and 76.1% respectively, and the risks in the industry accelerated. According to overseas market data, after 2021, real estate enterprises have become the main risks in the overseas bond market, and the proportion of default subjects has increased significantly, accounting for 89% in 2022, up 34 percentage points year-on-year.

The default of housing enterprises also dragged down the accounts receivable of construction enterprises. For example, Chongqing Construction Engineering’s 2022 annual report shows that more than half of the customer names with bad debt provision are housing enterprises.

In addition, the 2022 annual report of Shanghai Construction Engineering pointed out that in 2022, the newly signed contract was 451.687 billion yuan, and the operating income was 286.037 billion yuan, an increase of 1.77% year-on-year; However, the net profit of returning to the mother was 1.356 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 64.03%.

Regarding the reasons for the change in net profit, Shanghai Construction Engineering pointed out that the company was affected by force majeure factors, and the gross profit margin of construction business declined. Affected by the downturn of the real estate industry and regulatory policies, the gross profit margin of real estate development business has decreased, and some inventories have been depreciated by a large amount. The fair price of financial assets in hand fell.

In this regard, Viann said in an interview that it is true that some risks and financial pressures have been transmitted to the construction enterprises, but the overall impact is controllable. The construction enterprises that have undertaken more private housing projects are mainly affected, such as some private regional leading housing construction enterprises in Nantong, which are relatively deeply bound to Evergrande, resulting in their own liquidity risks.

Long cycle of state-owned accounts

In addition to being dragged down by the explosion of housing enterprises, the more important types of accounts receivable of construction enterprises at present are: government investment projects and state-owned enterprise investment projects, which are hard to become the pain that construction enterprises cannot express.

Li Chuan said frankly, "Now the payment cycle of state-owned enterprises or government projects is too long. At the same time, we can’t default on the payment of small and medium-sized enterprises, let alone the wages of migrant workers. In the middle, we can only squeeze our own profit margins. "

Li Chuan said that although there is less possibility of bad debts in accounts receivable of government investment projects, the time period will be longer. At present, there are many lawsuits in construction enterprises, most of which are accounts receivable disputes with private owners. For government investment projects, it is more reported to the SASAC through the group, and the SASAC coordinates the settlement of accounts receivable.

According to the disclosure of Shaanxi Construction Engineering’s 2022 annual report, the reporter found that there are mainly state-owned enterprises according to the accounts receivable of the top five at the end of the period. The details are as follows: Xixian New Area Qinhan New Town Development and Construction Group Co., Ltd., Xi ‘an International Football Center Operation Management Co., Ltd., Xixian New Area Fengxi New Town Development and Construction (Group) Co., Ltd., Xixian New Area Jiaotong University Science and Technology Innovation Port Development Co., Ltd. and Yan ‘an University. The ending balances of accounts receivable are 3.045 billion yuan, 2.141 billion yuan, 1.578 billion yuan, 1.332 billion yuan and 1.267 billion yuan respectively. Five entities account for 5.63% of the accounts receivable of Shaanxi Construction Engineering.

Although the account period of government investment projects and state-owned enterprise investment projects is long, for construction enterprises, such projects basically account for most of the company contracts.

According to the Chongqing Construction Engineering Annual Report, in 2022, the company continued to strengthen strategic marketing and deepen strategic cooperation with local governments, state-owned investment platforms and survey and design consulting units. In the whole year, 43.55 billion yuan of government and state-owned investment projects were newly signed, accounting for more than 59%.

In addition, the annual report of Shanghai Construction Engineering revealed that in 2022, the company signed a total of 451.687 billion yuan of new contracts, of which construction business and government investment projects accounted for 29%, an increase of 11 percentage points over the same period of the previous year; State-owned enterprise investment projects accounted for 55%, and the total ratio of the two reached 84%, which continued a good business pattern.

Regarding the problem that the account period of government investment projects and state-owned enterprise investment projects is too long, Zhang Wen told reporters that the main reason for the increase in the arrears of accounts receivable of construction enterprises in urban investment and PPP cooperation projects is the decline in land transfer income, tax reduction and fee reduction, which has increased the financial pressure on local governments and urban investment companies; Secondly, in recent years, the supervision of PPP projects has become stricter, and some PPP projects have hidden debt risks, which affects the timely payment of projects. For construction enterprises, this phenomenon undoubtedly increases the pressure of capital turnover, especially for construction enterprises located in weak areas.

Viann also told reporters that according to the investigation, the increasing financial pressure of some city investment platform companies has really impacted the repayment of construction enterprises. Construction enterprises generally encountered the situation that some government platform customers delayed the payment of the project funds, and the account period was lengthened as a whole. Even some city investment platform companies with weak qualifications and weak regions have begun to show arrears in the project funds or other default signals, especially for PPP projects and investment and financing construction projects with long cooperation periods. Most of them still rely on the payment mode of the government, but there are many influencing factors such as the change of government, the change of financial situation and the change of policy, and the uncertainty of payment is further increased.

"Construction enterprises should combine their own conditions and resources, take risk control as the bottom line, not blindly expand the scale of investment and financing projects, carefully select regions and owners, pay more attention to the source and availability of project funds, and strictly isolate risks from project companies to prevent risks arising from issues such as capital advance." Viann said.

Say "No" to the huge amount of money!

Another important reason for the high accounts receivable is that the "advance payment" of construction enterprises after undertaking projects belongs to the normalization phenomenon of the industry.

Li Chuan told reporters that it is convenient for a department project to ask: "Can it be funded?" If the contractor answers no, it may be difficult to take down the project.

Li Chuan said that because of the increasingly fierce competition in the construction industry, the cost of adding various materials and labor costs is also increasing. In this context, if construction enterprises frequently advance capital, it will greatly affect the company’s profit rate and other indicators, and compress the profit space of enterprises. Even if the enterprise lacks temporary working capital, huge accounts receivable may become the last straw to crush the normal operation of the enterprise.

A person in charge of the construction legal affairs department of a central enterprise once told reporters that the problem of advance payment is closely related to the business model formed by construction enterprises and developers for a long time. Private real estate enterprises have exploded one after another, and the macro-environmental impact of the overall real estate industry has been superimposed, which has affected the recovery of accounts receivable of construction enterprises. Some private construction units such as Nantong Liujian even went bankrupt and reorganized because of debt problems.

With regard to the advance payment in the construction industry, Zhang Wen told reporters that the project owners (local governments, state-owned enterprises and real estate developers, etc.) have the demand for advance payment for construction due to the consideration of capital turnover and scale expansion, while the threshold of the construction industry is low, the degree of homogenization of enterprises is high, and the competition is fierce, forcing construction enterprises to make concessions through payment terms to undertake projects.

Viann told reporters that, on the whole, for most enterprises, the problem of advance payment is still within the tolerable range, and the profit growth and financing channels are relatively smooth, which can cover some related losses. Enterprises with strong financial strength will have more obvious advantages in project contracting, and enterprises with weak financial strength may lose opportunities in project expansion, or they may be gradually eliminated due to the untimely collection of accounts, and the Matthew effect of the industry will be further highlighted.

The chaos of subcontracting still exists.

Behind the problem of "triangular debt" in the construction industry, it is closely related to the chaos of illegal subcontracting and subcontracting in the construction industry.

Li Chuan told reporters that illegal subcontracting in the construction industry still exists, but it is relatively formal for state-owned enterprises, and some private construction enterprises subcontract more.

The reporter noted that on January 3, 2019, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the Notice on Printing and Distributing the Administrative Measures for the Identification, Investigation and Punishment of Illegal Acts in Construction Project Contracting and Contracting, which regulates the contracting of projects by the construction unit to individuals and the contracting of projects by the construction unit to units without corresponding qualifications.

Li Chuan said that at present, the management of project subcontracting is becoming stricter and stricter in the country, so enterprises themselves will pay attention to avoiding risks in this respect.

Secondly, talking about subcontracting, Li Chuan said that adopting subcontracting system is a common phenomenon in the construction industry. For example, after a construction enterprise bids for the project, it cooperates with many downstream subcontractors through market competition. In addition, part of the cooperation is with labor service companies. In the process of cooperation with labor service companies or subcontractors, the payment method depends on how the contract is agreed. For example, according to the progress of the project, when Party A pays a certain percentage to the construction enterprise, the construction enterprise will also pay a certain percentage of the project payment to the labor service company according to the time node agreed in the progress of the project. "But in general, when the project is completed, the construction enterprise must settle the arrears of the labor service company. Because labor service companies also have to pay wages to migrant workers. Therefore, when Party A is in arrears with accounts receivable for a long time, for construction enterprises, it is necessary to pay the funds of the labor service company, and sometimes it is necessary to borrow money to alleviate the financial pressure. " Li Chuan said.

Li Chuan said that for some construction enterprises, when the scale of accounts receivable reaches a certain level, faced with a large number of Party A’s inability to pay in time, there may be a large number of arrears owed by labor service companies or subcontractors, which is also one of the reasons for a large number of "triangular debts" in the construction industry.

Li Chuan said that in terms of specific construction, in the 1990s, enterprises generally managed their own construction employees, and then subcontracting gradually appeared, separating the labor service layer from the management layer, and pushing the labor service layer to the social level for cooperation. However, twenty years later, many construction enterprises began to set up their own labor industrial parks, and employees were paid by enterprises, so the project construction was not carried out through subcontracting, so as to avoid risks caused by subcontracting cooperation in the later stage.

Strain over the hurdle

"Triangle debt" has also become a difficult hurdle for many construction enterprises.

On June 8, a construction enterprise executive told reporters that the biggest problem facing the company at present is that the money for government projects will not come back, and it has to be funded to continue to take over the project. The advance funds for individual projects are also borrowed from banks.

State-owned project accounts will become the "last straw" to crush enterprises? Construction enterprises should pay enough attention to the problem of difficult accounts for state-owned projects.

For how to reduce the problem of accounts receivable from the source, some construction enterprises have adjusted their business ideas.

The relevant person in charge of the above-mentioned Chongqing Construction Engineering told reporters that at present, when a new project is accepted, it will be judged whether the project can be accepted according to the expected profit of the profit project and the fund planning of the project. If the advance payment is too high, many projects may be rejected internally and no longer participate in the competition. At present, the company’s business philosophy is that projects that have no expected profits or need huge advances will no longer participate.

"Because the market construction industry is not good, although a large number of projects regardless of cost will be beneficial to the company’s scale expansion, it will have an impact on the risk control and quality development of enterprises. Therefore, for projects that require huge advances, new projects are not accepted now. " The source said.

Li Chuan also said that the company began to be very cautious about the management and control of real estate. There are prudent principles when choosing the source, such as real estate development in first-tier cities.

At the same time, Li Chuan said that the company is constantly stepping up the collection efforts, generally adopting hierarchical promotion. From the group to the responsible department of the company, there are certain planned tasks to pay off debts every year, so as to increase the collection efforts of accounts receivable in an all-round way. For some accounts receivable with bad debts, the company also communicates with Party A to relieve the pressure of accounts receivable through litigation, debt in kind, creditor’s rights replacement and other ways.

The reporter noted that the policy level has also been concerned about the arrears of project funds in the field of engineering construction. For example, the Regulations on the Protection of Wage Payment for Migrant Workers (Order No.724 of the State Council), which came into effect on May 1, 2020, has made relevant provisions on the punishment responsibility of the construction unit for implementing the construction funds, failing to implement the project payment guarantee, and the responsibility for paying off wages.

Many construction enterprises also told reporters that the problem of huge accounts receivable should be treated from the source. For example, we should strengthen the standardized management from the source for the policy norms of the construction enterprise’s advance payment problem.

Viann told reporters that under the current market situation, construction enterprises should first change their business ideas, focus on high-quality development, stop blindly expanding their business scale, and put more emphasis on how to realize new contracts with income, profitable income and cash flow profits.

Viann believes that "nowadays, construction enterprises generally pay more attention to the risk control of the front-end and marketing end, such as strengthening the role of pre-evaluation of projects, strengthening due diligence on owners, and implementing business terms in detail, so as to provide a contractual basis for future settlement payments and grasp risks from the source. In addition, in the middle and back end, we should also strengthen the control of the whole process of the project, so that we can monitor the related risks in the process of project implementation in real time and make a good plan. The collection and management of "Two Funds" are no longer just considered by the Finance Department and the Treasury Department, but need the full cooperation of the departments such as market, risk control, fund, project management, finance and risk control, and all of them pay more attention to it. It is suggested that the proportion of the pressure drop of "Two Funds" in the assessment index can be increased, and the target responsible person should be implemented and the relevant rewards and punishments should be given to the collection tasks such as the payment of completed projects, the payment of projects under construction, and the expected bad debts but the collection realized.

(At the request of the interviewee, Li Chuan is a pseudonym in the article.)

Cctv newsIn order to conscientiously implement the spirit of the 20th Party Congress, China Education Modernization 2035 and the State Council’s Opinions on Implementing Healthy China Action, comprehensively strengthen and improve students’ mental health work in the new era, and improve their mental health literacy, it was reviewed and approved by the Central Education Leading Group meeting. Recently, the Ministry of Education and other 17 departments jointly issued the Special Action Plan for Comprehensively Strengthening and Improving Students’ Mental Health Work in the New Era (2023— 2025) (hereinafter referred to as the Action Plan).

　　The Action Plan adheres to the guidance of the Supreme Leader’s Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought in the New Era, comprehensively implements the Party’s educational policy, persists in educating the Party and the country, implements the fundamental task of educating people by virtue, adheres to the educational concept of putting health first, puts mental health work in a more prominent position, promotes the coordinated development of students’ ideological and moral quality, scientific and cultural quality and physical and mental health quality, and trains new people of the times who are responsible for national rejuvenation.

　　Eight key tasks are deployed in the Action Plan: First, promoting mental health with five educations, persisting in the unity of learning knowledge and improving overall quality, and cultivating socialist builders and successors with all-round development in morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor. The second is to strengthen mental health education, offer related mental health courses, give full play to the role of classroom teaching, pay attention to individual differences of students, and help students master mental health knowledge and skills. The third is to standardize mental health monitoring, adhere to prevention first, move forward, and regularly carry out students’ mental health assessment. Fourth, improve the psychological early warning intervention, improve the early warning system, strengthen the construction of physical defense and technical defense, find serious mental health problems of students as soon as possible, unblock the channels for prevention and referral intervention, and timely refer, diagnose and treat. Fifth, strengthen the team of psychological talents, improve the quality of personnel training, equip mental health teachers and smooth the channels of teacher development. Sixth, support mental health research, carry out basic, cutting-edge and international research on students’ mental health, and promote the application of results. Seventh, optimize social psychological service, improve social psychological service ability, strengthen family education guidance service and strengthen the protection of minors. Eighth, create a healthy growth environment, extensively carry out popular science on students’ mental health knowledge and prevention of psychological problems, popularize students’ experience and practices in mental health work, and strengthen daily supervision and management.

　　The Action Plan emphasizes the improvement of various safeguard measures. First, strengthen organizational leadership, and incorporate students’ mental health work into the evaluation of the provincial people’s government’s performance of educational duties, into the overall planning of school reform and development, into the talent training system and supervision and evaluation index system, as an important part of the evaluation of running schools at all levels and the annual assessment of leading bodies. The second is to implement funding, increase overall planning, optimize the expenditure structure, and effectively strengthen the funding guarantee for students’ mental health work. The third is to cultivate and popularize experience, support qualified regions and schools to innovate students’ mental health work mode, and play a leading and driving role.

　　Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 9-Zhou Qiang, President of the Supreme People’s Court delivered a report on the work of the Supreme People’s Court to the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress on the afternoon of the 9th. The summary is as follows:

　　In the five years since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with the Supreme Leader as the core, the Supreme People’s Court adhered to the guidance of the Supreme Leader’s Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought in the new era, fully implemented the spirit of the 18th and 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, faithfully performed the duties entrusted by the Constitution and laws, closely focused on the working goal of "making people feel fair and just in every judicial case", adhered to the principle of justice for the people and justice, and constantly improved the quality and efficiency of trials, the quality and ability of the team and the judicial credibility. From 2013 to 2017, the Supreme People’s Court accepted 82,383 cases, and concluded 79,692 cases, up by 60.6% and 58.8% respectively over the previous five years, formulated 119 judicial interpretations, issued 80 guiding cases, and strengthened supervision and guidance on the trial work of courts across the country. Local people’s courts at all levels accepted 88.967 million cases, concluded and executed 85.984 million cases, and the amount of closed cases was 20.

　　一、认真贯彻总体国家安全观，深入推进平安中国建设

　　各级法院依法惩治刑事犯罪，审结一审刑事案件548.9万件，判处罪犯607万人。

　　严惩危害国家安全、暴力恐怖等犯罪。加大反恐怖反分裂反邪教斗争力度，依法严惩煽动分裂国家、颠覆国家政权等犯罪。会同有关部门出台办理暴力恐怖和宗教极端刑事案件意见，依法严惩天安门“10·28”、昆明“3·01”等暴恐犯罪。

　　严惩贪污贿赂犯罪。对腐败犯罪始终保持高压态势，健全职务犯罪案件审判机制。会同最高人民检察院制定办理贪污贿赂案件司法解释，审结贪污贿赂等案件19.5万件26.3万人，其中，被告人原为省部级以上干部101人，厅局级干部810人。依法审理周永康、薄熙来、郭伯雄、令计划、苏荣等重大职务犯罪案件，在白恩培案中首次依法适用终身监禁。依法惩治行贿犯罪，判处罪犯1.3万人。依法审理贪污扶贫款、农资补贴等犯罪案件。完善犯罪嫌疑人、被告人逃匿、死亡案件违法所得没收程序，依法审理任润厚等案件。依法审理“红通1号”杨秀珠等案件。

　　Severely punish crimes that seriously endanger people’s lives and property. We formulated judicial interpretations for handling criminal cases such as theft, extortion, looting and robbery, concluded 1.315 million related cases and sentenced 1.538 million criminals. Severely crack down on crimes committed by evil forces, and conclude cases in which 36 people, including Liu Han and Liu Wei, organized, led and participated in underworld organizations according to law. Severely punish major accidents, dangerous driving and other crimes that endanger public safety, and conclude 1.271 million related cases. Actively participated in the anti-drug struggle and concluded 571,000 drug-related criminal cases. In conjunction with relevant departments, we will issue opinions on maintaining normal medical order and punish crimes of violent medical injuries according to law. In conjunction with relevant departments, they issued opinions on handling pyramid schemes and concluded 282,000 cases of economic crimes such as pyramid schemes and illegal business operations.

　　Severely punish crimes against the rights and interests of women and children. In conjunction with relevant departments, we issued guidance, resolutely punished violence, abuse and sexual assault against women and children, and concluded 131,000 related cases. We formulated judicial interpretations for the trial of cases of trafficking in women and children, and concluded 4,685 cases of trafficking in women and children. In conjunction with the Ministry of Education, opinions on prevention and control of school bullying were issued.

　　Severely punish crimes that endanger food and drug safety and pollute the environment. We intensified punishment for crimes endangering food and drug safety, and courts at all levels concluded 42,000 related cases. We formulated judicial interpretations for handling criminal cases of environmental pollution, severely punished environmental pollution crimes according to law, and concluded 88,000 related cases.

　　Severely punish telecommunication network crimes. In conjunction with relevant departments, we will issue opinions on handling cybercrime cases, punish online rumors, disseminate obscene articles and other crimes according to law, and try cases such as "fast broadcast" companies spreading obscene articles for profit according to law. Resolutely crack down on telecommunication network fraud, issue applicable legal opinions together with the Ministry of Public Security and other departments, and conclude 11,000 cases of Xu Yuyu being defrauded. Judicial interpretations on cases of infringing citizens’ personal information were issued, and criminal acts such as revealing personal information and illegally buying and selling information were severely punished.

　　Actively participate in the comprehensive management of social security. Timely put forward judicial suggestions to promote the prevention and control of social risks. Conscientiously implement the responsibility system for popularizing the law and strengthen the interpretation of the law by case.

　　Second, adhere to strict and fair justice and strengthen judicial protection of human rights.

　　Resolutely correct and prevent unjust, false and misjudged cases. We strengthened trial supervision, retried 6,747 criminal cases, among which 39 cases with 78 people were corrected according to law, such as Hugjiler pattern and Nie Shubin case, and the state compensated them according to law. We issued guidance on preventing criminal wrongs and wrongs, implemented the principles of legally prescribed punishment for a crime, judging by evidence and never suspecting a crime, and acquitted 2,943 defendants in public prosecution cases and 1,931 defendants in private prosecution cases according to law.

　　Improve judicial safeguards for human rights. According to the law, 31,527 criminals were pardoned. We will implement litigation systems such as public trials and court debates, and effectively protect the litigation rights of the parties. Carry out the criminal policy of combining leniency with severity. Strictly control the quality of death penalty cases and ensure that the death penalty is only applicable to a very small number of criminals with extremely serious crimes. Jointly with the Ministry of Justice, we launched a pilot project of full coverage of lawyers’ defense in criminal cases and carried out the work of lawyers on duty in legal aid. We strengthened the trial of cases involving minors, and the number of juvenile criminal cases decreased for five consecutive years. Opinions on strengthening judicial assistance were issued, and 2.67 billion yuan of judicial assistance was issued.

　　Standardize commutation, parole and temporary execution outside prison. Formulate judicial interpretations for the trial of commutation and parole cases, build a unified information-based handling platform for commutation and parole with relevant departments, and try related cases openly and fairly according to law. A comprehensive inspection of criminals temporarily executed outside prison was carried out, and it was decided to put 6,470 people in prison for execution.

　　Third, thoroughly implement the new development concept and serve to ensure sustained and healthy economic and social development.

　　Structural reform of service supply side. Courts at all levels concluded 16.438 million commercial cases of first instance, up 53.9% year-on-year. Actively carry out bankruptcy trials, properly dispose of "zombie enterprises" according to law, and conclude 12,000 bankruptcy cases. Formulate judicial interpretation of company law. 4.106 million cases of sales contracts were concluded. 1.321 million cases of real estate disputes were concluded.

　　Major strategy of serving economic development. Sixteen measures were introduced to provide judicial protection for Chinese enterprises to participate in overseas trade and investment, and to serve the construction of the "Belt and Road".

　　Prevent and resolve financial risks according to law. Opinions on strengthening financial trials were issued, and 5.03 million cases of loans, insurance and securities were concluded. 7.059 million cases of private lending were concluded. 152,000 Internet finance cases were concluded. Severely punish financial crimes such as illegal fund-raising and insider trading.

　　Strengthen the judicial protection of property rights. We issued 17 opinions on strengthening judicial protection of property rights, tried all kinds of cases involving property rights according to law, resolutely corrected cases involving property rights wrongs, and equally protected the legitimate rights and interests of all kinds of market entities. Properly handle historical property rights cases, the Supreme People’s Court decided to retry three major property rights cases. Opinions on improving the business environment and protecting the non-public economy equally were issued, and 10 specific measures were formulated to ensure entrepreneurs’ innovation and entrepreneurship.

　　Service innovation drives development. The Outline of Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in China was issued, and courts at all levels concluded 683,000 cases of intellectual property rights in the first instance.

　　Serve the construction of beautiful China. We issued opinions on providing judicial protection for the construction of ecological civilization and green development in the Yangtze River basin, formulated judicial interpretations such as environmental public interest litigation, and concluded 487,000 environmental civil cases. In accordance with the law, 11,000 cases of compensation for ecological environmental damage, 1,383 cases of environmental public interest litigation initiated by procuratorial organs and 252 cases of environmental public interest litigation initiated by social organizations were tried.

　　A new pattern of comprehensive opening of services. 75,000 foreign-related civil and commercial cases were concluded, and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese and foreign parties were equally protected. Improve the judicial review procedure of arbitration. 72,000 maritime cases of first instance were concluded. Handled 15,000 cases of international judicial assistance.

　　Four, adhere to the people-centered development thought, and strive to meet the people’s growing demand for pluralistic justice.

　　Properly handle cases involving people’s livelihood. Courts at all levels concluded 31.397 million civil cases of first instance, up 54.1% year-on-year. Formulated judicial interpretations on labor disputes, food and drug disputes, and protection of consumers’ rights and interests, and concluded 2.325 million related cases. Clarify the standards for determining work-related injuries and protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers. Punish malicious wage arrears according to law and recover "hard-earned money" of 29.44 billion yuan for migrant workers. Properly handle 1.261 million cases involving "separation of powers" and land acquisition compensation in contracted land.

　　Maintain the harmony and stability of marriage and family. The Supreme People’s Court, together with the All-China Women’s Federation and other 14 units, established a joint conference system for family trial reform, and carried out pilot reforms of family trial methods in 118 courts in Shanxi, Jiangsu, Guizhou and Xinjiang. Recover alimony for the elderly according to law, and conclude 126,000 related cases. Formulate a judicial interpretation of the trial of husband and wife debt disputes, and clarify the criteria for determining the joint debt of husband and wife. The anti-domestic violence law was fully implemented and 2,154 personal safety protection orders were issued. 8.546 million marriage and family cases were concluded.

　　Properly resolve administrative disputes. Courts at all levels concluded 913,000 administrative cases of first instance, up 46.2% year-on-year. Support the reform of "streamline administration, delegate power, strengthen regulation and improve services" through judicial review. Properly handle cases such as land acquisition and demolition. Cooperate with the promotion of the person in charge of the administrative organ to appear in court and respond to the lawsuit, and promote the substantive settlement of administrative disputes.

　　Strive to facilitate mass litigation. 86% of the courts in China have set up information litigation service halls. The majority of judges went deep into the fields and grassland forests to resolve disputes on the spot. Formulate regulations to protect lawyers’ practice rights, and establish a lawyer service platform to facilitate lawyers to participate in litigation. Make full use of the national court remote video interview system and the online complaint and petition platform to facilitate the masses to express their demands according to law. 1.99 billion yuan in legal fees for the parties.

　　Protect the legitimate rights and interests of compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and returned overseas Chinese. 81,000 cases involving Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and overseas Chinese were concluded, and 58,000 cases involving Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan were handled. Sign two arrangements, namely, mutual recognition between the Mainland and Hong Kong and execution of civil judgments on marriage and family. Four judicial interpretations and documents were issued, including the provision for mainland residents serving sentences in Taiwan Province to return to the mainland to serve their sentences.

　　Strengthen the work of safeguarding rights related to the military. Opinions on safeguarding national defense interests and the legitimate rights and interests of military families were issued. Military courts and local courts tried 6,491 cases of destroying military facilities and military marriages, and properly tried cases of the PLA and the Armed Police Force completely stopping paid services.

　　Vigorously carry forward the socialist core values. The judicial interpretation of medical damage liability disputes was introduced. Trial of a series of cases of infringement of the reputation right of "Five Strong Men of Langyashan" according to law. According to the law, "the case of discouraging smoking in the doctor’s elevator" and "the case of Zhu Zhenbiao chasing the traffic accident escaper" will be tried, and the rules of conduct will be established by fair judgment to lead the social fashion.

　　V. Overcoming difficulties and making significant progress in "basically solving implementation difficulties"

　　Courts at all levels accepted 22.246 million enforcement cases, and executed 21 million cases, with an amount of 7 trillion yuan, up 82.4%, 74.4% and 164.1% respectively.

　　Promote the formation of a difficult work pattern for comprehensive management implementation. In March 2016, "it will take two to three years to basically solve the implementation difficulties" in the national courts. Local party and government organs at all levels generally incorporate solving implementation difficulties into the key work of rule of law construction, effectively forming a joint effort to solve implementation difficulties.

　　Effectively solve the problem of finding people, finding things and realizing property. Established a network execution inspection and control system with more than 10 units including the Ministry of Public Security and the China Banking Regulatory Commission, with a total of 39.1 million cases inquired and 202.07 billion yuan frozen. A national unified online judicial auction platform was established. Since it was launched in March 2017, a total of 369,000 online auctions have been conducted, with a turnover of 254.53 billion yuan and a premium rate of 52%, saving the parties 7.8 billion yuan in commission.

　　Continuously improve the implementation management system and mechanism. In Zhejiang, Guangdong, Guangxi and other places, pilot reforms were carried out to separate judicial power from executive power. The execution command center was established, and the information management of the whole execution case was carried out. The execution command system of the four-level court was basically completed. Formulate 15 judicial interpretations such as property preservation and 33 guiding documents such as "Ten Prohibitions" to standardize execution behavior.

　　Strongly implement joint credit punishment. Establish a list system of people who have lost their trust, and build a credit punishment network in conjunction with more than 60 units including the National Development and Reform Commission. Courts across the country have publicized 9.961 million people’s information about people who have lost their trust, restricted 10.148 million people to buy air tickets, restricted 3.912 million people to take motor trains and high-speed trains, and 2.215 million people took the initiative to fulfill their obligations because of credit punishment; The punishment for resisting execution was intensified, and 9,824 criminals were sentenced for refusing to execute judgments and rulings.

　　Six, deepen the reform of the judicial system, and promote the modernization of the trial system and trial capacity.

　　The 18 reform tasks led by the Supreme People’s Court have been completed, and 65 reform measures put forward by the people’s court reform opinions have been comprehensively pushed forward.

　　Deepen the reform of the court organization system. The Supreme People’s Court has established six circuit courts. In 2017, the circuit court concluded 12,000 cases, accounting for 47% of the total number of cases handled in the Supreme People’s Court. The circuit court received 46,000 people’s visits, and the total number of visits received by the headquarters in the Supreme People’s Court decreased by 33.2%. Promote the construction of courts across administrative divisions. Set up intellectual property courts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and 15 intellectual property courts in Tianjin, Nanjing and Wuhan.

　　We will fully implement the reform of the registration system. From May 1, 2015, the registration system was fully implemented, and the registration rate on the spot exceeded 95%. Strengthen supervision. Punish false litigation according to law. Piloting cross-domain filing in courts such as Fujian and Ningxia.

　　Comprehensively promote basic reforms such as the judicial responsibility system. The national courts selected 120,138 post judges from 211,990 judges, among which the Supreme People’s Court selected 367 post judges. Actively carry out the reform of the job sequence of judge assistants and clerks, and realize that more than 85% of the personnel are concentrated in the front line of handling cases. We will improve the responsibility system for handling cases by judges and collegiate panels, and reform the operational mechanism of trial power, so that judges will be responsible for the quality of handling cases for life. Improve the guarantee mechanism for judicial personnel to perform their duties according to law. Promote the reform of provincial-level unified management of people and property.

　　Actively promote the reform of the criminal procedure system centered on trial. In conjunction with relevant departments, reform opinions were issued, and three rules, namely, pre-trial meeting, exclusion of illegal evidence and court investigation, were tried out in national courts to promote the substantive trial.

　　Promote diversified solutions to contradictions and disputes and the diversion of complicated cases. Strengthen the docking of litigation and mediation and give full play to the role of people’s mediation. Jointly with the Ministry of Justice, we will carry out pilot projects of lawyer mediation and improve the lawyer mediation system. Courts at all levels handled 13.961 million cases through mediation. Establish a national court online mediation platform to resolve disputes in a timely and convenient manner. Guiding opinions on the diversion of complexity and simplification were issued, and 32.416 million cases were concluded by grass-roots courts across the country by applying summary procedures and small claims procedures. Under the authorization of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), the pilot reform of the system of quick criminal adjudication and leniency in confession and punishment was carried out in 18 areas, including Shenyang, Changsha and Xi ‘an.

　　Promote the reform of the people’s jury system. Authorized by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), the people’s jury system was piloted in 50 courts in Heilongjiang, Guangxi and Chongqing. We improved the jury participation mechanism, and jurors participated in 12.957 million cases nationwide.

　　Seven, further promote the construction of smart courts, open, dynamic, transparent and convenient sunshine judicial mechanism has basically taken shape.

　　Significant progress has been made in judicial openness. Open four public platforms: trial process, trial activities, judgment documents and execution information. As of the end of February this year, 646,000 court trials were broadcast live on the China Court Trial Open Network, with a viewing volume of 4.85 billion; China Judgment Document Network published 42.783 million documents, with 13.34 billion visitors, covering more than 210 countries and regions, making it the world’s largest judgment document resource library.

　　Informatization construction realizes leap-forward development. The wisdom court was initially formed. 3525 courts and 10759 people’s courts across the country have realized "one network" to handle cases. Through electronic litigation, 12368 litigation service hotline and other information means, reduce mass travel, save litigation costs, and promote energy conservation and emission reduction.

　　Big data applications continue to advance. Build a big data management and service platform for people’s courts. Promote the research and development of artificial intelligence in the field of trial. In Jilin, Zhejiang, Hainan and other 14 provinces and cities, the pilot reform of "online data integration processing" for road traffic accident damage compensation disputes was carried out. Set up the world’s first Internet court in Hangzhou, Zhejiang.

　　Eight, adhere to the comprehensive and strict management of the party and the hospital, and build a loyal and clean team of people’s courts.

　　Taking the "five excellent" requirements put forward by the Supreme Leader General Secretary as the goal, we will vigorously strengthen the team building of the people’s courts and effectively improve the level of regularization, specialization and professionalism.

　　Strengthen political construction. Resolutely safeguard the authority and centralized and unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee with the Supreme Leader as the core. Strengthen the party building in the people’s courts, be serious about the political life within the party, and promote the trial with the party building leading the team. Seriously accept the central inspection and pay close attention to the implementation of rectification. The vast number of police officers worked tirelessly and selflessly, and 85 judges broke down from overwork or suffered violent injuries and died in the line of duty.

　　Strengthen judicial capacity building. Courts at all levels have trained 2.416 million police officers. Train bilingual judges to protect the litigation rights of ethnic minorities. We will increase assistance to courts in Tibet, Xinjiang and Tibetan areas in Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces.

　　Resolutely punish judicial corruption with a zero tolerance attitude. Courts at all levels investigated and dealt with 1,011 police officers who violated the spirit of the eight central regulations, and seriously held accountable 1,762 court leading cadres who failed to perform their duties. We will continue to improve the judicial style and prevent the "four winds" issue from rebounding. Strengthen warning education and draw profound lessons from Xi Xiaoming and other cases of violating discipline and law. The Supreme People’s Court investigated and dealt with 53 police officers who violated discipline and law in our hospital, and courts at all levels investigated and dealt with 3,338 police officers who used the power of trial execution, of which 531 were transferred to judicial organs for handling.

　　Nine, consciously accept supervision, and constantly improve the work of the people’s court.

　　Consciously accept the supervision of the NPC. The Supreme People’s Court conscientiously implemented the opinions and suggestions put forward by the deputies at the successive sessions of the 12th National People’s Congress. Report to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) on comprehensively deepening judicial reform, deepening judicial openness and standardizing judicial behavior. We handled 1,381 suggestions from deputies, and listened to 4,530 opinions from deputies by attending court hearings and holding symposiums.

　　Seriously accept democratic supervision. Actively participate in Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference special consultation and other activities. Visited and received 620 CPPCC members, and handled 539 CPPCC proposals.

　　Accept the litigation supervision of procuratorial organs according to law. In conjunction with the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, we will formulate regulations on legal supervision of death penalty review and civil execution, and try protest cases filed by procuratorial organs according to law.

　　Widely accept social supervision. Carry out 360 activities such as special supervisors and special consultants’ research and discussion, and attend the audit Committee as nonvoting delegates. Through the "Dean’s Mailbox" and other platforms, the communication channels of public opinion will be unblocked. Held 117 press conferences and took the initiative to accept public opinion supervision.

　　The achievement of these achievements lies in the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with the Supreme Leader as the core, the scientific guidance of the Supreme Leader’s Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought in the new era, and the leadership of the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the whole party.

　　There are still many problems and difficulties in the work of the people’s courts: First, there is still a big gap between the judicial concept, judicial ability and working mechanism and the development of the new era and the needs of the people. Second, the reform of the judicial system still needs to be further deepened. Third, there are still weak links in grass-roots infrastructure construction, and grass-roots judicial ability needs to be further improved, and the Supreme People’s Court’s supervision and guidance mechanism needs to be improved. Fourth, the internal supervision mechanism needs to be further improved. The problems of improper judicial style and irregular judicial behavior still exist, and the risk of judicial integrity is high. Some judges, bending the law, seek personal gains by taking cases, which seriously damages judicial justice. Fifth, the number of cases accepted by the people’s courts is increasing year by year, and some courts are under great pressure to handle cases. Sixth, the guarantee for judicial personnel to perform their duties needs to be strengthened, and the judicial environment needs to be further improved.

　　In 2018, the people’s courts will adhere to the guidance of Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought of the Supreme Leader in the New Era, thoroughly implement the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Plenary Sessions of the 19th National Congress and the Central Political and Legal Work Conference, closely focus on the overall layout of the "Five in One" and the coordinated promotion of the "Four Comprehensive" strategic layout, closely focus on the work goal of "making people feel fair and just in every judicial case", earnestly implement the resolutions of this conference, and earnestly.

　　First, thoroughly study and implement Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought of the Supreme Leader in the New Era. Carry out full-time rotation training in national courts, continue to study the spirit of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and work hard to understand and do it. Insist on arming the mind, guiding practice and promoting work with Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought of the Supreme Leader in the new era, earnestly strengthen the "four consciousnesses", constantly strengthen the "four self-confidences", and resolutely safeguard the authority of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Supreme Leader as the core and centralized and unified leadership. Accurately grasp the new requirements of Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, closely integrate with reality, pay close attention to the implementation of the work, and ensure that the decision-making arrangements of the CPC Central Committee are carried out to the letter in the people’s courts.

　　The second is to punish crimes according to law and fully safeguard national security and social stability. Severely crack down on criminal activities such as infiltration, subversion, violent terror and ethnic division, actively participate in the special struggle to eliminate evil, severely punish crimes involving guns, explosives, pornography, drugs, pyramid schemes and trafficking, and safeguard the long-term stability of the country. Punish duty crimes according to law, severely punish corruption crimes that occur around the masses, and promote the organic connection between judicial trials and state supervision. Punish stakeholder crimes such as fund-raising fraud and illegal absorption of public deposits according to law, and maintain a good social order.

　　The third is to try all kinds of cases in the economic field according to law and create a good legal environment for high-quality economic development. We will improve judicial policies, try cases of bankruptcy and reorganization, financial disputes and equity disputes according to law, and serve the construction of a modern economic system. Strengthen judicial protection of property rights, protect honesty, trustworthiness and fair competition according to law, resolutely prevent economic disputes from being treated as crimes, and resolutely prevent civil liability from being turned into criminal liability. Improve the intellectual property litigation system and optimize the legal environment for scientific and technological innovation. Improve the trial mechanism of environmental resources and promote green development. Strengthen foreign-related commercial and maritime trials, set up the the Supreme People’s Court International Commercial Court, and promote the construction of the "Belt and Road" diversified dispute resolution mechanism. Strengthen the trial of cases involving Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and overseas Chinese, and actively handle cases of mutual legal assistance. Ensure the implementation of the strategy of regional coordinated development, support the development of old revolutionary base areas, ethnic areas, border areas and poverty-stricken areas, and serve the construction of xiong’an new area, Pilot Free Trade Zone and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

　　The fourth is to uphold justice for the people and earnestly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the people. To handle cases of education, employment, medical care, consumption, marriage, old-age care, etc. in accordance with the law, and promote the protection and improvement of people’s livelihood. Try all kinds of agricultural disputes according to law and serve the implementation of rural revitalization strategy. Try administrative cases according to law and effectively resolve administrative disputes. We will try military-related cases in accordance with the law and earnestly safeguard national defense security and the legitimate rights and interests of military personnel. Adhere to and develop the "Maple Bridge Experience" and provide the people with judicial services that combine online and offline, litigation and mediation. Respect and guarantee lawyers to perform their duties according to law and jointly promote fair justice. Ensure that the goal of "basically solving the implementation difficulties" is achieved as scheduled, and resolutely overcome this stubborn disease that hinders fairness and justice and harms people’s rights and interests.

　　Fifth, deepen the reform of the judicial system and improve the judicial system in Socialism with Chinese characteristics. We will deepen the comprehensive reform of the judicial system and promote the experience of pilot areas such as Shanghai in a timely manner. Fully implement the judicial responsibility system. Accelerate the reform of the criminal procedure system centered on trial. Deepen the pilot reform of the system of pleading guilty and accepting punishment. Unswervingly safeguard the legal authority of the constitution, resolutely fight against all acts that violate the constitution, adhere to strict and fair justice, and ensure the independent and fair exercise of judicial power according to law.

　　Sixth, continue to deepen judicial openness and accelerate the construction of smart courts. Expand the trial live broadcast, documents online, trial process and the scope of various judicial information disclosure, and comprehensively expand the breadth and depth of judicial disclosure. Strengthen the deep integration of informatization, artificial intelligence and court work, and improve intelligent auxiliary case handling systems such as intelligent trial support, court trial voice recognition, and electronic file generation with the case. Build a world-class judicial big data research institute, deeply use trial information and promote social governance.

　　The seventh is to build an excellent team to ensure fair and honest administration of justice. Always put political construction in the first place, carry out the theme education of "Do not forget your initiative mind, keep in mind the mission" in a down-to-earth manner, and promote the comprehensive and strict management of the party and the hospital. Strengthen education and training, strengthen the research on the application of law, and effectively improve judicial ability. Strengthen grassroots construction, care for police officers, and further improve the level of grassroots justice. Consciously accept the supervision of the National People’s Congress, democratic supervision, procuratorial organ litigation supervision and social supervision. Adhere to the anti-corruption no-go zone, resolutely punish judicial corruption with a zero-tolerance attitude, and create a clean and honest judicial environment.

In order to whitewash her academic history, Liang Ying of Nanjing University "silently" removed all published Chinese papers.

However, this is not the most "malicious" because-

We recently found that the organizer of an academic conference had also "silently" removed 1258 manuscripts! Yes, you are not mistaken.

In a meeting, 1,258 manuscripts were withdrawn.

This is the "2011 International Conference on E-commerce and E-government" jointly sponsored by IEEE and Shanghai University in 2011.

Many people are familiar with IEEE. Its Chinese name is "Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers", which is an international association of electronic technology and information science engineers and is considered as "the largest non-profit professional technical society in the world at present".

However, we are going to talk about the above academic conference later. Because-

IEEE quietly withdrew, far more than the papers of this meeting!

In the past ten years, IEEE, as a conference organizer, has withdrawn more than 7,000 papers and abstracts of its own conferences, almost all of which were written by China.

The reporter dug up the retraction of conference papers by IEEE from 2008 to 2017 from the retraction observation database, which scared skr people.

A total of 7,263 papers were withdrawn, of which 6,866 were from China.

Emmmm…… … Who can tell me what happened in 2010 and 2011? !

As a result, the reporter dug out the papers from China in the withdrawn manuscripts in 2010 and 2011 from the massive database information, and vomited blood to sort out the following chart:

The number of conference papers/abstracts withdrawn by IEEE in 2010 from China (data source: TheRetractionWatchDatabase).

The question is, what was this peak in September 2010?

Continue searching

From September 1 ST to September 6 th, everything was calm and no draft was withdrawn. But this is just the calm before the storm.

No, on September 7th, IEEE withdrew 455 conference papers and abstracts, including-

In 20103, 348 articles of rdinternational conference on computerscience and information technology were published.

In the next few days, it was withdrawn—

129 articles of International Conference on Management and Service Science in 2010.

In 2010, there were 289 articles in The2NdConference OnenvironmentScience and Information Application Technology.

Please pay attention to these three meetings, because their names will appear later.

Look at the situation in 2011:

The number of conference papers/abstracts withdrawn by IEEE in 2011 from China (data source: TheRetractionWatchDatabase).

The question comes again. What was this peak in June 2011?

The reporter then searched, and found the conference mentioned at the beginning of this article-"2011 International Conference One-Business-Government" (2011 International Conference on Electronic Commerce and E-Government), and the peak in June completely "relied" on this conference.

According to ten years of data retrieval and analysis, the reporter compiled a list of meetings with more than 100 articles withdrawn:

See, the three meetings that attracted everyone’s attention before are all on the list, ranking fifth, ninth and eleventh.

Through this table and the previous retrieval, we draw the following conclusions:

1. Among more than 7,000 conference manuscripts withdrawn by IEEE in the past 10 years, these 12 conferences accounted for "half of the country".

2. The meetings with serious retraction were concentrated in 2010 and 2011.

3. The venues of 12 international conferences are all in China.

Of course, we haven’t finished here, and we have also "deeply" these meetings.

For example, the first meeting, which is mentioned at the beginning of the article, has such a brief introduction in "Baidu Entry".

Screenshot source: Baidu Encyclopedia

Pay attention to the words in the red box, "EI full-text core retrieval was completed within two months after the meeting, which shocked the academic circles and won the praise and praise of the majority of authors."

The second-ranked meeting doesn’t seem to be "praised and praised by the majority of authors" like the first-ranked meeting:

Screenshot source: Baidu Encyclopedia

The fifth conference introduced itself on the official conference blog:

Screenshot source: official blog of ESIAT2010 conference

It seems that whether it can be included in EI and how high the retrieval rate is are matters that contributors and conference organizers are very concerned about!

Of course, we also pay attention to the repeated name of the conference organizer in the table-International Association for Computer Science and Information Technology:

Screenshot source: IACSIT official website.

For many contributors from China, the last sentence in the introduction-"The papers received at our meeting will be published in famous journals and submitted to major indexing service platforms for retrieval" may be very attractive.

After the shock and sigh, we continue to uphold the rational tradition-

Why are all Chinese’s papers withdrawn? Why is this happening? With these questions, we interviewed some experts.

During the interview, most experts asked for anonymity.

After refusing to be interviewed, an expert told a bunch of heartfelt truths-

However, despite this, we have heard many people’s voices, including many experts who dare to face the problem directly and answer questions with their real names.

Question 1: Why are conference papers/abstracts prone to problems?

Anonymous expert a:

"Compared with journals, the publication time of conference papers will be faster, and the review and revision will be less rigorous. Conference papers are usually only reviewed in the first instance, and some good conferences will have two trials, but journals generally have two or even three trials, and the papers in journals will be more rigorous and fewer.

There are special editors in charge of the periodical review process, so the quality is generally controllable, and many periodicals are time-tested and mature. The meeting is generally aimed at some hot issues. As soon as some people propose it, they will hold a meeting, and then the meeting will set up an organizational Committee to review the manuscript through the procedural Committee. If the program committee members are not so strict, quality problems will easily occur. "

Question 2: Why do most of the papers of the withdrawn conference come from China? What does this phenomenon mean?

Professor Li Daguang, Department of Science Communication, Chinese Academy of Sciences:

"The problem of international conferences in China: Now the conferences have a bad trend, and they are getting bigger and bigger. By this, I mean the large scale, strong publicity and great effect. The bigger the conference, the lower its value. I call it’ legal academic corruption’, which costs a lot but has almost no high-value academic achievements."

Zhang Baiping, Researcher, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences:

"Some so-called publications are fooling Chinese, and they are useless except to prove that Chinese is a fool. All the publications that can be published in large numbers are bad publications. "

Anonymous expert b:

"This phenomenon shows: quick success and instant benefit (administration)+too much evaluation (administration)+insufficient groups with high academic appreciation = counting evaluation = pursuing quantity = scientific research is untrustworthy."

Anonymous expert c:

"Publishing articles should be a natural description of scientific research, not a demand for benefits. When it becomes a benefit, it is not surprising that there are moths."

Question 3: IEEE told the media that a committee composed of employees and volunteer experts has been set up to serve as the "gatekeeper" of conference materials and provide additional quality control. What should China do next?

Feng Qi, a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics and Systems Science, China Academy of Sciences:

"If the country is talking about scientific research integrity, it should clear those who like to make fakes out of the scientific research team, because people who make fakes are not suitable for living in the field of science and technology, and the act of making fakes violates the most basic and most natural principle that people engaged in scientific research should abide by-seeking truth from facts."

Anonymous expert a:

"There were many conferences aimed at retrieving the number of papers in the first decade. In recent years, with the improvement of everyone’s level and the strengthening of academic norms, such meetings have been much less.

Generally speaking, judging the influence of the conference depends on the citation rate, admission rate and citation of the paper. The better the citation of papers, the lower the admission rate, indicating that the quality of this conference is relatively high. However, the number of papers admitted is not an important indicator of this conference. On the contrary, there are many high-quality and influential conferences with few papers.

It should be noted that if the manuscript is withdrawn only because there is no strict peer review process, this is different from the nature of bad academic behaviors involving plagiarism and fraud. "

Li Daguang:

"According to the response of IEEE, it is certain that these papers do not meet the requirements of international journals. This may not be the same as plagiarism of journal papers.

When attending international conferences or publishing foreign periodicals, Chinese didn’t quite understand their specifications and requirements for several reasons. First, he didn’t know much about foreign conference papers and periodicals. Second, students or researchers receive less relevant training. Thirdly, the content of culture and policy is mixed in the paper, and the typical Chinese expression will not meet the requirements of international conference submission.

When it comes to plagiarism, in fact, most researchers are unintentional. They think they are quoting other people’s content, but they make mistakes because they don’t understand the relevant citation norms. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they need to strengthen the training of students and researchers in academic norms and accept the training of paper expression in the international context, which can be trained by old editors, scientists of academic journals or scientific communicators who are familiar with this field. "

In May this year, the general offices of the General Office of the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council issued "Several Opinions on Further Strengthening the Construction of Scientific Research Integrity", proposing to establish a lifelong investigation system, and to investigate and deal with acts that seriously violate the requirements of scientific research integrity in accordance with the law.

In addition, on October 23, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other five departments also issued a document to carry out a special campaign to clean up "only papers, only professional titles, only academic qualifications, only awards".

How will our relevant departments deal with so many situations discovered this time? We will continue to pay attention to …

Science report address:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/what-massive-database-retracted-papers-reveals-about-science-publishing-s-death-penalty

Database address:

http://retractiondatabase.org/

further reading

Editor-in-Chief of springer Nature Group: The withdrawal of papers is part of the scientific process.

"I think retraction is part of the scientific process. Many problematic papers can only be discovered after publication, and at this time, the phenomenon of retraction will inevitably occur. "

-Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature

Text | Zhao Guangli

This article is reproduced from China Science News’ WeChat WeChat official account "Science Network" (ID: sciencenet-CAS). The original text was first published on November 4, 2018. The original text has been deleted, which does not represent the view of the think tank.

one

On the withdrawal of forged papers: the phenomenon of withdrawal is "inevitable"

Q: Would you like to comment on the recent incident of "withdrawing manuscripts" at Harvard University? Under what circumstances will Nature request to withdraw its manuscript? What measures will academic publications take to avoid similar things to the maximum extent?

Philip Campbell: I won’t comment on the specific events, but I can really comment on the retraction.

For Nature, as soon as we find something incorrect in the manuscript, we will withdraw it-I think this is part of the scientific process.

In fact, as far as retraction is concerned, only 50% may be due to academic misconduct, but many of them need to be retracted for very honest reasons.

We will be happy to comply with these retraction, and we are glad to be able to withdraw the manuscript for those cases that have been retracted due to dishonest reasons.

Because for scientific journals, we should correct these records instead of focusing on finding out who to blame in related events.

You also asked what we can do to reduce this phenomenon? It should be said that this is very difficult.

Because in fact, many other scientists will try to repeat his experiment only after the publication of the paper. When they can’t get the results of the corresponding experiment and realize that the experiment can’t be copied, we may find that there may be problems with the paper at that time.

For journalists, editors or peer reviewers, they can only trust what the author describes in their own papers.

In this case, most of the time, only after the first publication, in the later development of events, I realized that there might be problems at that time, that is to say, this phenomenon will inevitably occur.

I think there may be a way to reduce the probability of this happening, that is, our journal will continue to insist that authors describe and disclose their work in their papers comprehensively, because if authors can do so, it will greatly reduce their chances of hiding fraud or cheating.

Q: Speaking of peer review, it seems that there are few peer reviewers in developing countries.

Philip Campbell: We will find more peer reviewers by attending academic conferences, visiting laboratories and listening to academic reports. We should see these scientists with our own eyes and communicate with them at the same time. Moreover, we should hear others mention these scholars and scientists.

There are more and more papers published now, and once we find new peer reviewers, we will seek their help.

As for the number of peer reviewers, there is indeed some imbalance between different countries, and we are committed to changing this situation, but we can only do what we can now.

Q: In September, Nature published a report, saying that thousands of authors publish a paper every five days, many of them from China. What’s your comment on this?

Philip Campbell: I saw the relevant report. I don’t know how they did it. We do try our best to identify the authors-those who have contributed to the paper.

The situation you mentioned may be that some people just added a name to other people’s papers. We are trying our best to avoid this situation.

Now I don’t know if the person mentioned in this report has the author of Nature, but this matter really needs to be studied and investigated, and those universities involved should also take measures to investigate.

Q: How to avoid similar academic misconduct or fraud?

Philip Campbell: For academic misconduct, we can only take immediate action whenever we find or receive relevant information.

(For academic misconduct) Sometimes reviewers will find problems before publication, and sometimes someone will find problems after publication.

But in any case, we will contact the author or the author’s unit to see what happened. If academic misconduct really happens, we will take action, for example, asking to withdraw the manuscript in serious cases.

2 Talk about innovation and entrepreneurship: Young scientists should do whatever they want.

Q: Many young scientists are more willing to focus on the publication of papers than on the transformation of scientific research results. What do you think of this phenomenon? For young scientists, should we balance the relationship between publishing academic papers and transforming scientific research results?

Philip Campbell: I want to say that young scientists should do whatever they want.

Some young scientists want to know how the world works and improve their knowledge in this field. These scientists have received great support, including support from donors and the scientific community. There are also some young scientists who are willing to help develop products or start companies to achieve the goal of making our world healthier, fairer and more environmentally sustainable, but they have not received much support.

I think the academic system should be adjusted now to provide support for all kinds of young scientists. Some young scientists are not fully respected for doing such work, and this situation needs to be changed.

I encourage researchers to do the research they want to do and take their brains with them-this passion is very important, whether he or she wants to solve a fundamental problem or a specific practical problem, if he or she is good enough, he or she can do it as long as he or she has passion.

However, as a member of academic circles, young scientists really need to publish papers and communicate their research results with the world in the form of papers.

Q: China has ranked second in the world in terms of scientific research input and output, but we still feel that there is a big gap compared with the most advanced level in many fields. How do you evaluate the present situation and level of scientific research in China?

Philip Campbell: I have been dealing with China for 20 years. I have visited China many times, and I have been deeply impressed by the China government’s investment in science and technology for many times.

I think all efforts will pay off, even in the most competitive scientific fields.

If you look at the articles published in the academic journal Nature, there may be only four or five papers from scientists in China a year 10 years ago, but now it even reaches hundreds a year.

Therefore, I have no reason not to think that this situation will continue to develop, and the level of scientific research in China will continue to expand and deepen.

3 Talking about the memory of the editor-in-chief of Nature: full of expectations for the discovery of extraterrestrial life

Q: What do you think is the biggest change you have brought after leading Nature magazine for 22 years?

Philip Campbell: I think the biggest change is that Nature, as a magazine, has greatly expanded and increased in scale.

When I first became the editor-in-chief of Nature, its content as a magazine was very limited, and most of it focused on scientific policy. Now, Nature has a lot of other contents, including opinions and news reports.

It is also very important for readers to realize that Nature is also a magazine, at least as heavy as its weight as a periodical.

Moreover, we are now allowed to promote these changes within Nature, such as promoting more reliable science, promoting better management and treating young scientists. These are some of the work we are doing now.

In addition, as an academic journal, Nature has now published more fields than in the past, and has also published fields that have not been published before, such as organic chemistry, social science, high-energy physics and so on.

In this sense, this part of Nature as an academic journal has also expanded.

Q: In the post of editor-in-chief of Nature for 22 years, what are the most exciting breakthroughs in natural science in the near future? What is the latest Internet product that makes you feel attractive?

Philip Campbell: I said that Nature is both an academic journal and a magazine. I have special memories in both aspects.

Dolly, the cloned sheep, is a good example. At that time, I had just been the editor-in-chief of Nature for a short time, and this incident surprised us very much at that time.

Of course, for researchers, they don’t think so But everything that happened afterwards, including all kinds of debates around cloned sheep, surprised everyone.

I was also very excited about the "Human Genome Project" since then, including the Flores discovered later in Indonesia.

Many unexpected things happened, which also left a very deep impression on me.

As for what excites me recently, I think it is the discovery of extraterrestrial planets.

Before, we only knew the planet Earth, but we didn’t know the planets orbiting other stars, but now we know that there are billions and billions of such planets.

I especially hope to find life on such an extraterrestrial planet in the future.

Perhaps, they are not intelligent beings who can communicate with us directly, but at least they may be able to find some signs in the atmosphere of a planet, indicating that there may be some microorganisms or other types of life on this planet, which will make me very excited.

In the field of Internet, I think Wikipedia is a particularly great achievement, which has a great influence on me.

In all fields of science, Wikipedia provides people with a huge treasure house of knowledge, which is not only for me personally, but also for everyone. It makes knowledge very extensive and accessible.

Chief producer: Chloe Wang

Producer: Yu Xia

Editor: Dai Lili Li Yibo

Editor: Xie Fang

Text | Ni Sijie Han Yangmei

This article is reproduced from China Science Journal’s WeChat WeChat official account "Science Network" (ID: sciencenet-CAS). The original article was first published on October 28, 2018, and the original title was "A meeting removed 1258 papers! Withdraw the manuscript, there are more malicious than Nanda Liang Ying! ",does not represent the view of looking at the think tank.

(Original title "A meeting removed 1258 papers! Withdraw the manuscript, there are more malicious than Nanda Liang Ying! 》）

　　Beijing, May 13 (Leng Yuyang) Recently, the standard of free tickets for children has once again aroused social concern. With the changes of children’s physical development level in China, is the current standard line of children’s height free of charge still scientific? How to balance between age and height in order to protect children’s social welfare?

　　Children’s tickets are controversial based on height.

　　Recently, the standard of children’s ticket purchase has once again aroused public concern and discussion. Some of them think that the ticket purchasing method based on height is to "punish" the big man in disguise, but at the same time, some people think that it is more convenient and faster to use height as the standard.

　　Ms. Shi, who lives in Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, told the reporter of Zhongxin. com that because she and her lover are relatively tall, her son Huanhuan is over 1.2 meters when he is less than 5 years old, and many free tickets can’t be enjoyed.

　　"I think it’s quite unfair. It’s not the child’s fault to grow tall." Ms. Shi told the reporter of Zhongxin. com that many children are now free of charge, and they have to buy half-price tickets for fun.

　　However, some parents also believe that it is reasonable to continue to adopt the height-based ticket purchase method. "I often take my daughter out to play by public transportation and find it convenient to use the height standard. If we adopt the age standard, we can’t take our household registration book with us every time we go out. " Ms Liu, who lives in Beijing, told reporters.

　　Why is height the standard?

　　China seems to have a long history of taking height as the standard for children’s tickets, so what are the considerations behind it?

　　Zhang Dongguang, deputy director of a law firm in Beijing, said in an interview with Zhongxin.com that in the early days of liberation, the household registration system and identity information were not easy to determine, so it was more convenient to look at the height and distinguish and charge according to this.

　　In some areas of practical operation, taking height as the standard also has more obvious advantages than age.

　　Take public transportation as an example. According to a bus driver in Beijing, it can be directly judged whether children are within the preferential range based on their height, but if every child has to provide documents to check his age when getting on the bus, it will lead to low efficiency.

　　Nearly 70% of parents agree to take age as the standard.

　　In April this year, China Youth Newspaper Social Investigation Center conducted a survey on 1969 parents of children, which showed that 56.7% of the parents interviewed thought that it was unreasonable to take height as the standard for collecting children’s tickets, and 67.1% of the parents interviewed agreed that collecting children’s tickets should be based on age.

　　The data also proves the views of these parents to some extent. According to media reports, the data of China CDC show that from 1992 to 2002, the average height of six-year-old urban male children in China increased by 4.9 cm, and in 2012 it increased by 3.7 cm, reaching 1.2 meters. The average height of 12-year-old children has exceeded 1.5 meters, and the average height of 14-year-old children has reached or approached 1.6 meters.

　　Ms. Beijing folk song is very much in favor of collecting children’s tickets according to their age. In her view, children’s nutrition is better now, and it is not only "outdated" to ask children now according to the previous standards, but also easy to produce contradictions in the process of ticket purchase.

　　What worries her even more is that when children see that other children can enjoy discounts but they can’t, they will even leave a psychological shadow in their children.

　　Is it scientific to take age as the standard?

　　Since nearly 70% of parents are in favor of taking age as the standard, is it scientific to take age as the unified standard?

　　According to Zhang Baoyi, director of the Institute of Sociology of Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences, the original intention of adopting preferential policies is to create a healthy environment for children’s growth, so no matter what kind of standards, they should be formulated around this original intention.

　　"Compared with height, it is indeed a better way to adopt age as the standard, which will be more conducive to maintaining a healthy environment for children’s growth and social equity." Zhang Baoyi said.

　　"The main problem now lies in the operational level. Nowadays, many children don’t apply for identity cards very early, and we can’t ask them to take their household registration books with them when they go out to play. " In Zhang Baoyi’s view, many departments are aware of the irrationality of taking height as the standard, but there is no effective way to solve it at present, so they can only use the old method.

　　The results of local exploration are hardly satisfactory.

　　As for the purchase standard of children’s tickets, as early as 2012, the Notice on Further Implementing the Preferential Policies for Youth Tickets issued by the National Development and Reform Commission put forward the youth ticket price policy: children under 6 years old (including 6 years old) or 1.2 meters tall (including 1.2 meters) are free of charge; For minors aged 6 (excluding 6 years old) to 18 years old (including 18 years old), half-ticket is implemented.

　　In recent years, some places have also explored their own preferential standards for children’s tickets.

　　For example, in Chengdu, starting from 2017, the free height line for children to take public transportation within the city will be raised to 1.3 meters; For another example, in January this year, the Measures for the Administration of Tickets and Related Services in Scenic Spots in Jiangsu Province issued by the Jiangsu Provincial Price Bureau further clarified that children under 6 years old (including 6 years old) or under 1.4 meters tall (including 1.4 meters) are exempt from tickets with valid identity documents.

　　But in reality, whether such standards are strictly implemented still needs to be marked with a question mark. According to media reports, Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower, Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, Taishan Mountain in Shandong and many other famous scenic spots only take height as the standard.

　　How to determine the standard of children’s discount tickets?

　　In the public controversy, where will the standard of children’s discount tickets eventually go?

　　According to Chen Guangjin, director of the Institute of Sociology, China Academy of Social Sciences, both of them have their advantages. If the ticket seller continues to judge by height, it is necessary to constantly improve the height standard line according to the average height of children in China.

　　"And if age is the criterion, you can make identity certificates for school-age children with reference to the experience of old-age certificates." In Chen Guangjin’s view, although this may bring higher social costs, it is more conducive to protecting children’s legitimate rights and interests.

　　"But no matter which way you choose, you must insist on giving priority to children’s social welfare." Chen Guangjin said. (End)

　　Salt, as the first taste, is closely related to people’s life and health. In order to help consumers buy high-quality salt that suits them, today I will focus on the knowledge of food additives commonly used in salt production, such as potassium iodate, potassium ferrocyanide and potassium chloride.

　　Iodization of salt is used to prevent and treat iodine deficiency disorders.

　　Iodine is an essential micronutrient for human metabolism and growth. In most parts of China, the external environment (water, soil, etc.) is almost short of iodine, and it is difficult to change the current situation of iodine deficiency in the external environment. If iodine supplementation is stopped, the iodine stored in the human body can last for up to 3 months. Insufficient iodine intake will cause a series of diseases, collectively known as iodine deficiency disorders. Iodine deficiency disorders can be prevented, and eating iodized salt is the simplest, safe and effective way to prevent iodine deficiency disorders. Iodized salt refers to the edible salt after adding iodine fortifier, and potassium iodate is a commonly used iodine fortifier in salt production.

　　Pregnant women, nursing women, infants (from birth to 36 months old) and other people are the special needs of iodine; Children and adolescents are the key groups in the prevention and treatment of iodine deficiency disorders. Iodine deficiency in infants and young children can seriously cause cretinism and intellectual damage; Iodine deficiency in children and adolescents can lead to mental impairment, physical retardation, goiter and so on.

　　It is suggested that people who eat iodized salt include patients with hyperthyroidism and residents in high-water iodine areas who have taken enough or even excessive iodine from drinking water.

　　Salt and anti-caking agent are used to prevent salt from caking

　　Potassium ferrocyanide is commonly used as an anti-caking agent in salt, in order to prevent granular or powdery salt from agglomeration and keep it loose or free flowing. Cyanogen of potassium ferrocyanide is closely combined with ferrous ions, and its stability is very good. Toxic cyanide ions can hardly be detected in the solution of potassium ferrocyanide, and the decomposition temperature of potassium ferrocyanide is above 400℃, while the temperature when we cook food is usually lower than 340℃. When it exceeds 400℃, the food will become carbon blocks.

　　According to the national food safety standards, the salt produced by using potassium ferrocyanide as anti-caking agent will not bring harm to human body, so you can buy it with confidence. Of course, in order to meet the higher demand, many high-quality salt without anti-caking agent have been introduced in the market at present, such as Guangdong salt ecological sea salt series products.

　　Salt and potassium chloride are used to produce low sodium salt.　

　　Potassium chloride is often used to produce low sodium salt. Low-sodium salt is an edible salt made from one or more of refined salt, crushed washing salt, sun-dried salt, etc., and food additives (such as potassium chloride, etc.) allowed by the state are added to reduce the concentration of sodium ions. The content of potassium chloride in low sodium salt is (10-35)g/100g, and the corresponding content of sodium chloride is (65-90)g/100g.

　　In low sodium salt, potassium chloride with the same salty taste is used to replace part of sodium chloride, which realizes "reducing sodium without reducing salinity". In addition, after adding potassium chloride, the content of potassium ions is increased, the balance of sodium and potassium in human body can be maintained, and the risk of diseases such as stroke, hypertension and heart disease can be significantly reduced, so that "low sodium is healthier" can be achieved. It is recommended that healthy people eat low sodium salt.

　　The salt purchased through formal channels in the market, with or without potassium iodate, potassium ferrocyanide or potassium chloride, is safe food produced in strict accordance with national food safety standards. Consumers should correctly understand the food additives in salt and choose the appropriate salt according to their own health needs.

　　Many female friends are keen on the "three-piece set" of Chinese New Year: perm, manicure and eyelashes. A new look for the New Year, welcoming a good mood, and a sense of ceremony before the New Year is full. Thick, slender and curled beautiful eyelashes can make eyes bigger, more beautiful and more beautiful. No wonder they are "essential beauty artifacts" for beauty lovers in Chinese New Year holidays and important occasions.

　　The most common use of false eyelashes is pasting and grafting.

　　Sticking false eyelashes is to stick false eyelashes near the root of their own eyelashes with glue, which is generally closer to the eyelid margin. It lasts for a short time, and it usually comes loose after cleansing on the same day.

　　Grafting eyelash is also called "planting/attaching eyelashes" or "semi-permanently extending eyelashes". In fact, false eyelashes are not really implanted into the skin, but are forcibly bonded to real eyelashes one by one with glue. About 40 to 80 false eyelashes will be attached to each eye. After carefully adjusting the radian of each false eyelash, it can make the eyelash natural and thick, and the grafting lasts for 2~6 weeks at a time. Although the small false eyelashes are small in size, the cost is not low, and the consumption per planting ranges from hundreds to thousands.

　　In recent years, there has been a prevailing wind of magnetic eyelash attraction. Magnetic eyelash attraction is said to be fixed on the eyelid margin by its own magnetism without glue, which is similar to the first two in beautifying the eyes.

　　Which is better to use and which is healthier? Today, let’s talk about false eyelashes together, so that we can be healthy while becoming beautiful.

　　false eyelashes

　　Is the invisible killer of eye health.

　　The main components of false eyelashes are synthetic fibers (such as polyester fibers), and the chemical components of the adhesive used at present are complicated. From the current standard product labels, we can see the following main components: latex, acrylate copolymer, lauryl alcohol, methylparaben and so on.

　　The eye is an extremely sensitive visual organ, and these chemical components are highly irritating, and long-term use has a great impact on the health of the eye surface.

　　What’s even more frightening is that if bad merchants use inferior false eyelashes and glue, formaldehyde, lead and benzoic acid may be added. Lead is a heavy metal, long-term cumulative effect can lead to heavy metal poisoning, and the harm to the body is well known.

　　Formaldehyde is a colorless irritating chemical. In the list of carcinogens published by the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2017, formaldehyde belongs to Class 1 carcinogen. Benzoic acid has long been used as a dye carrier and preservative in industry, and long-term contact has no small irritation to skin and eyes.

　　In addition to these, let’s take a concrete look at what eye problems will be caused by long-term use of false eyelashes?

　　one

　　Keratoconjunctivitis, blepharitis and dry eye

　　Usually manifested as eyelid tingling, dry red eye, foreign body sensation, photophobia and tears. Within a few hours after the false eyelashes are grafted, the glue containing formaldehyde may be directly dispersed to the eye surface, or the glue may directly penetrate into hair follicles or block the opening of meibomian gland at the eyelid margin, resulting in folliculitis and abnormal lipid secretion for lubricating the eyeball.

　　A population study of 32 people in grafting eyelash in 2023 found that after one hour in grafting eyelash, 84.44% of them reported eye discomfort, and the most common foreign body sensation accounted for 59.38%.

　　With the extension of the use time, the tear film rupture time of the population is significantly reduced, and the incidence of corneal staining is greatly improved.

　　From a professional point of view, the reduction of tear film rupture time is an important indicator for the diagnosis of dry eye, while ocular surface staining means that the corneal conjunctival epithelium on the surface of the eyeball is damaged, and those who are jealous and tearful will cause visual impairment, which is extremely unfavorable to eye health.

　　2

　　Eye allergy

　　Usually manifested as redness, tingling, itching, tears and so on. These symptoms may not appear until a few hours or days after using false eyelashes. The main reason is that the stimulation of various chemical components causes allergic reactions to eye skin or keratoconjunctiva.

　　Of course, some people may mention, didn’t you have an allergy test on your skin before using glue? What needs to be reminded is that the nerve endings in the eyes are extremely rich, and their sensitivity is not the same as that of the skin. According to ophthalmologists, almost every day, patients with eye problems caused by various allergens come to see a doctor, but not all of them are accompanied by skin allergy symptoms.

　　three

　　subconjunctival hemorrhage

　　The main manifestation is scattered flaky bleeding spots in bulbar conjunctiva (white eye). This usually happens after grafting eyelash or mechanical damage caused by violence in the process of removing false eyelashes. Slight bleeding may not be serious after slow absorption, but obvious bleeding block means that the eye is mechanically damaged by greater force and should be avoided as much as possible.

　　four

　　Primary eyelash damage

　　The position where false eyelashes are pasted and grafted is near the hair follicle at the eyelid margin. Long-term chemical stimulation causes hair follicle damage and affects eyelash regeneration. Many people will find that real eyelashes and planted false eyelashes will gradually fall off together, and their eyes will be bare and their eyelashes will not grow again. Even if there is growth, it may appear very sparse and even have the risk of damaging the cornea with inverted eyelashes.

　　Some time ago, there were news reports that girls actually grew white eyelashes after long-term use of false eyelashes. These consequences are not worth the loss because of the damage of harmful chemicals to hair follicles.

　　Is it healthy to magnetically attract eyelashes without glue?

　　In recent years, the magnetic false eyelashes advocated by merchants that can be stuck without glue have gradually become popular, and its selling point is said to have the following advantages:

　　The main principle of magnetic attraction of false eyelashes is to apply magnetic black eyeliner on the eyelid margin, and then fix the false eyelashes at the eyelid margin by magnetic attraction.

　　The main components of magnetic eyeliner are iron oxide black, propylene glycol, decamethylcyclopentasiloxane, silane, hydroxymethylimidazolidinyl urea, etc. Although these industrial chemical raw materials have no definite carcinogenicity, they are also highly likely to cause eye allergy or block meibomian glands or hair follicles due to their irritation, causing eye infection or dry eye.

　　In addition, magnetic eyelashes have an unexpected "killer": it will seriously interfere with the magnetic resonance examination.

　　Through research, it is found that magnetic eyelashes can not only produce a large number of artifacts, which affect the clarity and accuracy of magnetic resonance images, but also may have the risk of falling off and being adsorbed on magnets during scanning, and may even burn the examinee.

　　Therefore, these potential risks deserve our attention and avoidance.

　　Pay attention to these 6 points when using false eyelashes.

　　Knowing that false eyelashes are so harmful, many people will definitely ask: Is it impossible to use false eyelashes? Of course not, but we must pay attention to the following points:

　　Minimize the frequency of false eyelashes. If you occasionally plant false eyelashes, you must choose a formal beauty medical institution and choose experienced personnel to operate;

　　Choose false eyelashes and glue with qualified quality, and resolutely give up inferior products containing highly toxic ingredients such as formaldehyde and lead. If the product doesn’t even have a component list, it is recommended not to use it;

　　Customers with a history of eye diseases or allergies should try to avoid using false eyelashes;

　　Make-up remover should be thorough, and there should be no glue or eyeliner residue. Always use special eye wipes to keep the root of eyelashes clean.

　　Don’t wear false eyelashes all day at ordinary times, and see a doctor immediately if your eyes are itchy, red and swollen.

　　People who wear magnetic eyelashes must remember to remove false eyelashes before MRI.

　　No matter whether the eyelashes are long or short, more or less, your own is the best. Beauty cannot be achieved at the expense of health. Let’s take good care of our eyelashes, and like eyes will protect our eyes.

　　Transferred from: Popular Science China