Shanghai made a major breakthrough last year toward its goal of becoming an internationally influential science and technology innovation center, as an annual innovation index registered a record high of 224.9 points in 2016, according to a report released on Saturday.

The 2017 Shanghai Science and Technology Center Index report, released by the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science during the Pujiang Innovation Forum in Shanghai, which ends on Monday, has measured Shanghai’s innovation quotient for seven years. The index uses a weighted formula that takes into account a number of developmental factors. An index value of 100 represents no change year-on-year.

Shanghai saw a fruitful 2016, the report said. About 30 percent of China’s top science and technology achievements have come out of Shanghai. More than a third of the national-level awards have been won by people and institutions in the city, and more than 30 percent of new Category 1 drugs were produced there, it said.

The city has also seen an improvement in its ability to export technology and high-value-added products. The report said about 69 percent of technology contracts last year involved transfers to domestic and overseas companies.

A total of 729 technologies were transferred last year, with transaction volume reaching 20.3 billion yuan ($3.1 billion), up 9.7 percent year-on-year. About 90 percent of that went to Asia, North America and Europe. Electronic information, advanced manufacturing and advanced pharmaceutical industries registered the most transfers.

Automatic data processing equipment and components, and integrated circuits were the two leading exports from Shanghai in 2016, accounting for more than 20 percent of the city’s total.

Investment in research and development reached 104.9 billion yuan in 2016, up 10 percent from a year earlier. However, companies in Shanghai only contributed 64.5 percent to the total R&D amount, which was significantly below the national average of 78 percent.

However, according to Chang Jing, deputy director of the innovation policy research office at the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science, the companies “have become more outbound, making direct investments in overseas markets in the science and technology sector”.

Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang said during his keynote speech at the Pujiang forum that investment in basic scientific research coming from companies in China is not yet adequate when compared with leading developed countries.

“It is basic scientific research that has provided strong support to mass innovation and entrepreneurship,” he said.

There are two back-to-back months of June this year－a quirk of a leap year in the Chinese lunar calendar－bringing Shanghai its hottest summer since the city started recording weather 140 years ago. The double Junes have also propelled residents to a five-year record for the number of mooncakes consumed.

A worker displays Disney-themed mooncakes at a store in Shanghai earlier this month. Tang Yanjun/China News Service

The mooncake industry－traditionally dominated by gift buyers－has experienced a 20 percent sales decline nationally each year since 2013, when the central government introduced an anti-corruption measure. That law strictly bans the use of public money to buy the pastries or other gifts considered luxuries, such as Moutai, the specialty baijiu liquor.

Thanks to the double Junes, which postpones Mid-Autumn Festival－the primary season for mooncake-eating－by a month to Oct 4 this year, sales of mooncakes in Shanghai are likely to be back on track with significant growth. Projections by the Shanghai Confectionery Industry Association place the increase at 15 percent.

The city is expected to consume 22,000 metric tons of mooncakes this year.lu

“On one hand, the late festival is giving consumers more time to buy and enjoy the pastry; on the other, restaurants and bakeries are taking advantage of the occasion to develop diversified products to boost sales and make up for the massive losses since 2013,” said Chen Fengwei, secretary-general of the association.

The association calculated that there are more than 200 types of mooncakes available this year, up from 150 last year.

Among the new offerings, more than two-thirds are the Su-style cakes－with flaky and crispy shells and savory fillings－baked to order at a low price. This means they are catering to the “real consumers”, according to Chen.

By contrast, mooncakes for gifts are usually the sweet types that have a preservation date extending for months and are luxuriously packaged with liquor and sometimes even gold bars.

Zhang Wen, the manager of Shanghai First Food Mall, said the newly introduced mooncakes－with fried bullfrogs and pickles as fillings－have been so popular that they are usually sold out by noon. Because of the capacity of the kitchen, bakers manage to provide about 10,000 cakes per day, which makes them even more appealing.

“The new types are what get people back to our stores. And once they are coming, the traditional types, like pork-filled mooncakes, also sell better,” Zhang said.

Chef Tang Chi-keun of the Michelin-starred Cantonese restaurant Yi Long Court at the Peninsula Hotel in Shanghai, said the mooncake scene in the city has been so competitive in recent years that even though the restaurant’s pricey egg-custard mooncakes were barely affected by the anti-corruption law, his team has to keep introducing new offerings to keep up the momentum.

Even the most unlikely companies are joining the competition. Disney, for example, has introduced a variety of mooncakes themed around its cartoon characters, and a popular Chinese astrologer is partnering with the century-old Wufangzhai, which used to dominate the rice dumpling market for the Dragon Boat Festival, to launch a pack of 12 mooncakes centered on the zodiac.

China’s national weather observatory on Sunday continued a yellow alert for rainstorms, as heavy rain is expected in eastern and southern regions.

From Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon, heavy rain is expected in parts of Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Hainan, Guangxi and Guangdong, according to the National Meteorological Center (NMC).

Precipitation is expected to be up to 140 millimeters in some areas.

The center warned local residents to reduce outdoor activities and take precautions against geological disasters, including flash floods and mudslides.

China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

A giant wind turbine developed by China has rolled off the production line in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing.

The turbine, coded H140-3MW, has a diameter of 140 meters, according to HZ Windpower, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation.

The turbine has the longest diameter among all the turbines of the same level. It can generate 3,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per hour at a wind speed of 9.6 meters per second, the company said.

Besides its sheer size, the turbine is quite adaptable to the environment. It can operate between 40 degrees Celsius and minus 30 degrees Celsius, and can work in high, windy, salty and frosty environment.

The turbine is a breakthrough for the company, and it will contribute to the development of the wind power market, said a staff with the company.

About 800,000 foreigners living in China have shared both the hardships and benefits of the country’s development, and a look at China through their eyes provides insights into how the nation has been transformed and what it can offer the world.

An American in Xiamen

After living in China for 29 years, William Brown, an MBA professor at Xiamen University, is often considered something of a China expert.

Back in 1988, William sold his company and moved to Xiamen, a coastal garden city in east China’s Fujian Province, with his wife and two sons.

“I chose Xiamen University because it was the only university that allowed foreigners to take their families with them to learn Chinese at that time,” said the former U.S. military man, once stationed in Taiwan.

The Brown family flew from California to Hong Kong, where they took a miserable 18-hour boat ride to reach the coastal city.

Back then, there were only three bus routes in the whole city.

“The floor of the buses were made of wood, and the bus exhaust fumes could come into the bus,” he said.

Brown said he has witnessed China changing from being “really backward” to moderately prosperous over 30 years.

In addition to teaching, he has been committed to developing English websites and has published more than 10 English books about Xiamen.

Brown said he was excited when he once walked into a bookstore and found that several young students were reading his books with a dictionary in their hands.

“The young people love their city and want to know a foreigner’s perspective on it,” he said.

This inspired him to publish the Chinese edition of the book “Discover Gulangyu.” This small island in Xiamen entered the UNESCO world heritage list in July this year for its cultural history and historic buildings.

Brown said he was more than happy that a traditional Chinese version would be published in Taiwan later this year.

“Only when the youth understand history can they walk into the future,” he said.

He was excited when the city of Xiamen hosted the BRICS summit from Sept. 3 to 5.

“The G7 and G20 are the past, while BRICS is the future,” he said. “BRICS offers opportunities for countries to find a way to do business.”

He said it is right that China has put forward the concept of “BRICS Plus” by inviting Egypt, Mexico, Thailand, Tajikistan and Guinea for dialogue.

A Korean in Hefei

Korean teacher Cho Sung Hye landed in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province, in 1996, and had no idea she would stay for so long. In 2006, she became the first person from the Republic of Korea (ROK) to get China’s “green card” for permanent residence.

“None of my friends back home knew where Hefei is in China, and there was not a single foreigner that I could find in the city,” Cho said, in fluent Chinese.

She remembered that 1996 was just four years after the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping made a series of landmark speeches marking China’s opening up and modernization.

There were only eight students in her Korean language class, which used the smallest classroom in Hefei College. Now the school has four Korean major classes, enrolling 500 students a year.

Over the past 20 years, Cho has seen 3,500 of her students go to the ROK for further studies.

“When I got here, I could not even find a Korean language dictionary. I asked my brother to mail me a dozen dictionaries and asked the consulate people from Shanghai for help to print teaching materials for my Chinese students,” Cho said.

She said it was the students’ thirst and passion for learning a foreign language and new knowledge that inspired her.

“Even at that time, I could feel China’s shining vigor and that it was on the way to rejuvenation into a great international power, and the world needed to establish closer ties with China,” she said.

Cho is now more than a teacher. She still routinely has 10 classes a week at school, but in 2016 the 57-year-old woman started a cultural exchange business, which recruits international talent to Anhui.

“China’s wheel of development won’t stop rolling. Too many foreign people that I know are eager to study, work and live here. I am so lucky that I’ve made it my home,” she said.

Cho said she no longer suffered from homesickness as it takes less than three hours to fly from Hefei to Incheon Airport in Seoul.

A Japanese in Beijing

Toshio Fukuda, a Japanese nano-tech scientist, made his first visit to Beijing in 1995, attending a manufacturing technology summit at the invitation of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

Since then, his communication with China has continued. He has been teaching as a visiting professor in a number of China’s high-tech institutions, including Harbin Institute of Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. From 2000, he decided to completely base his research work at Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) and has stayed ever since.

“As a scientist, I want the micro-nano field to grow bigger and deeper, no matter where my research is based,” he said.

He led the innovation in developing micro-nano robots as small as a particle of dust in the air, and artificial blood vessels as thin as a capillary.

He said that Chinese people worked very hard. When he first came to China, the only computer integrated manufacturing was in a lab of Tsinghua University.

“The Chinese government did not have a lot of funding, but it funded Tsinghua’s research,” he said.

By 2000, he could see research on robotic technology was spreading to science institutes all over China.

Fukuda said he chose BIT as his base because of the research environment, and because the National Science Foundation provided funding for his research.

“The school has a very nice human relationship and facility, and the Chinese I know work harder than the Japanese,” he said.

China is his home now, and many people tell him that he is already half-Chinese. Indeed, his favorite food is hot-pot, a spicy Sichuan-style food, and his youngest daughter also speaks Chinese.

“In 2025, micro-nano robotics will be very important for China to realize its modern industrial manufacturing goals. How can we make it different from countries? Better performance, higher efficiency and lower cost. That’s what micro-nano robotics are going to do,” Fukuda said.