China dealt with 541,000 drug crimes, sentencing 543,000 criminals from 2012 to 2016, according to a white paper issued Tuesday.

The white paper, issued by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), revealed that drug-related crimes were among the fastest growing.

In 2012, drug crimes accounted for 7.73 percent of total criminal cases, but by 2016 it had risen to 10.54 percent.

Ye Xiaoying, a chief SPC judge, said that the country’s drug crimes had expanded all over the country, but mainly occurred in southern, southwestern, eastern and central China.

“China had handled more cases involving smuggling, producing and trading drugs, and dealt with cases of new types of drugs,” she said. “The SPC has always adhered to severely dealing with drug crimes in accordance with the law.”

From 2012 to 2016, a total of 119,000 criminals were sentenced to five years or more in prison due to drug crimes, accounting for 21.91 percent of drug criminals.

China has banned online loans to college students following a three-year boom in campus lending, which has been accompanied by outrage over exorbitant rates, violent debt collection practices, porn for payment, and various financial scams.

Financial institutions not registered or authorized by regulators are now banned from offering loans on campus, said a recent notice by China’s Banking Regulatory Commission, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

The notice said existing online lenders must withdraw from the market. Those who refuse will be shut down. Institutions suspected of malicious fraud, violence, and spreading obscenities will be subject to prosecution.

Campus loans have been a brewing problem in schools across China. Some students who fall into this financial trap have been reported to have committed suicide, ran away from their homes, or settled their debts with sexual favors.

Naked loans

Shady Internet lenders in China are coercing female college students to provide nude photos of themselves as collateral, in exchange for higher loan amounts. The pictures will be published online, or to their families if the loans are not repaid on time, often at usurious interest rates.

Sometimes, lenders also propose a “fleshy payback”, for which these students will repay their loan with sexual activities.

Last December, at least ten gigabytes of naked pictures and videos for “naked loans” have been leaked by Jiedaibao, a Chinese online peer-to-peer lending platform. At least 167 females are involved in the case, between the age of 17-23, many of them are attending colleges.

Jiedaibao leaked naked pictures of females who fail to repay their debt in December, 2016.

Exorbitant rates

Online lenders set traps often by releasing the daily interest rate for loans.

Average daily interest rates range from 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent, which means monthly rates can reach three to six percent. This translates to an annual interest rate of 70 to 140 percent.

Last year a young woman at a college in Hefei, Anhui Province, borrowed 2,000 yuan (290 US dollars) in her first year, but her debt spiraled to 500,000 yuan (73,000 US dollars). She faced an interest rate of 30 percent a week.

Chinese banks resume campus consumer lending

China Construction Bank and Bank of China in May initiated new consumer loans tailored for university students, 18 years after Chinese banks stopped issuing credit cards and standard consumer loans to students.

The annual interest rates of the two banks are 5.6 percent and 5 percent respectively.

The state-owned banks are expected to cleanse the campus loan market, which has been controlled by private loan sharks, according to analysts.

China’s public security authorities announced on June 16 that the 2017 version of foreign permanent residence ID card was officially put into use. Eight foreign nationals in Beijing were issued the new ID card last Friday.

The new version of the identity card, which is based on the design of China’s second generation identity card, is embedded with a chip containing information, including their name, gender, date of birth, nationality, registration agencies and ID numbers.

The new ID cards will be machine-readable. Holders can use the card independently as lawful proof of identity for matters related to finance, education, health care, travel, accommodation, communication, employment, tax, social security, property registration, lawsuits and others.

Foreigners can apply for the new version of the permanent residence ID card, while the old version will stay valid until the expiration date. The Beijing public security authorities will streamline the process of issuing the new card, promising to issue it within 20 days of the application from holders of the old card.

According to the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, 598 foreigners were issued permanent ID cards in Beijing in 2016, which is 2.8 times that of 2015. This is partly led by 20 new policies put forth by the Chinese public security authorities to support Beijing’s innovation-driven development.

The Bureau of Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition Coordination recently invited countries along the Belt and Road to participate in the 2019 Beijing Expo.

During the ongoing Astana Expo in Kazakhstan, the Beijing expo bureau sent out invitations to countries and people along the Belt and Road to attend the Beijing Expo 2019, which is the world’s highest-level horticulture exhibition. The expo will be held in Yanqing District in suburb Beijing

The Expo Coordination Bureau is currently visiting Kazakhstan, a key country along the Belt and Road, to promote the Beijing Expo 2019. The delegation of the bureau met with the agricultural ministries of Kazakhstan and Armenia on matters related to the expo participation. The vice agricultural minister of Kazakhstan expressed interests in the expo. Up to now, a number of B&R countries have shown intentions to be exhibitors.

The Beijing Expo has made plans concerning the exhibition space for international exhibitors, including five areas covering Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania and international organizations. The outdoor exhibition space will span 1,000 to 3,000 square meters individually and the indoor booth will each cover 50 to 300 square meters.

Beijing is going all out to build itself into the national center of scientific and technological innovation, and the city has made significant sci-tech achievement in the past five years.

In 2016, Beijing’s expenditure on research and development totaled 147.98 billion yuan (US$21.73 billion), ranking the highest in China and above the average level of developed countries. Sci-tech innovation contributes more than 60 percent to Beijing’s economic growth.

In 2016, Beijing produced 76.8 patents for every 10,000 residents, which was 9.6 times of the national average. The city’s PCT application reached 6,589 last year, 3.5 times that of 2011. Companies in Zhongguancun, the city’s innovation hub, created 229 items of international standard, an increase of 139 on the basis of 2011.

Meanwhile, the value added in the high-tech industry and technology service industry grew by 37.7 percent and 12.8 percent respectively in 2016. Last year also saw the turnover of business concerning technology contracts hit 394 billion yuan, which has doubled within five years. The gross revenue of the Zhongguancun demonstration area totaled 4.57 trillion yuan, 2.4 times of that in 2011.

Beijing is also home to 16,000 national high-tech enterprises (accounting for 16 percent of the total nationwide) and 432,000 scientific and technological enterprises. Last year, 80,000 new scientific and technological enterprises were registered in the city, accounting for 36 percent of all the newly registered enterprises. In addition, the capital city is also home to more than 350 startup incubators at the end of 2016, 125 of which have been recognized as national maker space.