President of Southeast University’s Zhongda Hospital, Teng Gaojun, along with two U.S. experts, has been awarded the SIR Gold Medal, the highest honor presented by the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) during its Annual Scientific Meeting in Washington, D.C., on March 5, 2017.

The award aims to acknowledge “distinguished and extraordinary service to SIR or to the discipline of interventional radiology (IR).” Dr. Teng, as a Chinese pioneer in IR, had been nominated for his continuous hard work during the past 30 years, which has greatly contributed to the standardization of practice, education and research in the field as well as the relations between Chinese Society of Interventional Radiology (CSIR) and many foreign institutions.

Prof. Teng is the first Chinese mainland SIR Gold Medal recipient in the society’s history. As for him, the medal means more than recognition of his personal achievements, but also serves as an acknowledgement of China’s advanced-level status in the IR treatment domain.

Interventional radiology pioneers minimally invasive image-guided (X-rays, CT, ultrasound, MRI, etc.) diagnosis and treatment of diseases in every organ system, which means reaching the source of a medical problem through blood vessels or directly through a tiny incision in the skin to deliver a precise, targeted treatment. With an obvious advantage of less risk, less pain and less recovery time than traditional surgery, it is, to some extent, a synonym of modern medicine.

Beginning in the 1980s, China’s IR practice is among one of the nation’s most rapidly developed medical specialties, and has formed its own therapy system.

The Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) is one of the world’s earliest and most influential academic societies in IR treatment, with a core purpose of improving patient care through image-guided therapy. Every year, the society bestows its ultimate accolade on two or three interventional radiologists. The SIR Gold Medal was established in 1996.

Along with Dr. Teng, this year’s Gold Medal recipients include Katharine L. Krol and Jeanne M. LaBerge, who “embody the inspiration and promise of IR’s limitless potential,” according to SIR 2016–17 President Charles E. Ray Jr.

International experts have once again contributed their insights into the drafting of the latest annual Government Work Report – now the third year in a row – as the Chinese government values their opinions and treats them as an important force for innovation.

This year’s special panel, consisting of 11 experts from six countries including Britain, Japan, and the United States, were invited to speak at a symposium on Jan. 12, around two months before the opening of this year’s National People’s Congress (NPC) session, when the annual Government Work Report was still at its drafting stage.

Among them is John Ross, director of Economic and Business Policy in the administration of the Mayor of London (2000-2008) and currently a senior fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.

He warned that an economic slowdown may be caused by “a decline in fixed investment,” alluding to the government’s effort to reduce capacity in steel, cement, among other sectors. In turn, he tried to soothe the Chinese government’s worry over sluggish consumption growth, saying that it was “impossible to have a high growth in consumption without a high growth in GDP.”

He also urged Chinese economic regulators to pay closer attention to the consumption growth rate, rather than the proportion of consumption in GDP, because the higher the proportion in isolation, the less deposits and investment – leading to a lower GDP growth rate.

Ted Tokuchi, former managing director and chairman of CITIC Securities and board member and Researcher of CIDEG, Tsinghua University was the only Japanese expert invited to the panel. He aired his general objections to administrative industrial policies quoting similar, failed examples in Japan in the past decades.

He noted that the Japanese government introduced industrial policies, remedial instead of directive in nature, in the decades after World War II. He said that the Chinese government should work on improving fairness and transparency of the business environment since industrial policies essentially legitimize unfair competition.

Aware of a recent debate between two prestigious Chinese economists – Zhang Weiying and Lin Yifu (Justin) – on whether China should abolish industrial policies, Tokuchi said that he personally favoured total abandonment of industrial policies, but understood that China’s imperfect business environment for market competition would still require administrative support for the industries most vital to the country’s core strategic interests.

Apart from raising market fairness, Tokuchi added that China’s industrial policies should focus on the transformation and phasing-out of industries that have major social impacts.

Other experts shared their thoughts on seeking new growth engines, preventing systematic financial risks, monetary policies, responses to the aging population, among other matters of great importance to the Chinese government in the era of a “new normal” of economic development.

Huang Shuhong, head of the State Council Research Office and leader of the report’s drafting team, told international experts that the Chinese senior leadership greatly values their wisdom.

“China will always be a great country learning from others. Whichever stage of development it reaches, China will always learn from people of other countries in the world in a humble manner,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said to foreign experts in May, 2014.

Huang assured these experts that their contributions would be well received by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, as opinions gathered at previous years’ symposium were highly valued in the drafting of the Government Work Report.

The symposium was jointly organized by the State Council Research Office and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, the agency responsible for seeking international talents for China’s overall development.

The learning process is a mutual one. While sharing their professional insights with the Chinese government, many also said that they were also learning from how China keeps reaching its development goals despite uncertainties and challenges.

China will make more efforts to supervise and prevent duty-related crimes on 69 poverty alleviation projects, said a circular Tuesday.

“The projects cover villages that need to be relocated to another place so as to get rid of poverty,” said the circular, issued by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

“Duty-related crimes should be prevented during identifying poor population, operating central and local funds, handling loans and resettlement housing construction, and bidding,” the circular said.

It also urged procuratorates, development and reform organs, and poverty reduction departments at all levels to increase efforts in punishing violators, and providing judicial protection to project operations and funds security.

A total of 43 former officials suspected of corruption were brought back from more than 19 countries and regions to face justice in the first 11 months of last year, according to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate.

National prosecutors also confiscated about 548 million yuan ($79.5 million) of illegal assets, said Song Hansong, a senior official with the SPP’s Anti-Corruption and Bribery Bureau.

Among the 43 fugitives, 11 were repatriated and the others were persuaded to return to confess to their crimes, Song told China Daily.

The charges mainly involved corruption, bribery and embezzlement, with a total of 16 of them returning from the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, he said.

Since 2016, as part of a national anti-corruption campaign, the SPP has conducted a special action targeting corrupt officials who are still at large abroad.

“We’ve strengthened law enforcement cooperation with overseas counterparts, especially those in Western countries, to share intelligence and conduct joint investigations,” Song said, adding that intensified cooperation has been effective.

In September, Jiang Qian, a former senior executive with State-owned Wuhan Urban Drainage Development Ltd in Hubei province, returned from Canada to confess to his crimes.

Jiang, who fled to Canada in 2011, was accused of abusing his power and of corruption. After he left the country, the prosecuting department in Hubei launched a probe into Jiang, beginning procedures to confiscate his illegal funds left in China and seeking assistance from Canada.

In December 2015, a local court in Wuhan ruled to confiscate Jiang’s ill-gotten assets worth 14 million yuan, and Jiang is currently awaiting trial.

According to the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, the top anti-graft watchdog, China will start a new round of action in April to continue its hunt for corrupt officials and economic fugitives.

As part of the action, national prosecutors will deepen judicial cooperation with the international community, especially Western countries, to locate and recover illicitly acquired assets and capture fugitives. Taking measures to prevent corrupt officials from fleeing China will also be a priority this year, according to the SPP.

“Uncovering ill-gotten funds involves presenting solid evidence to our foreign counterparts when asking them to assist in discovering, freezing and confiscating dirty money,” said Huang Feng, a professor of international criminal law at Beijing Normal University.

The ashtrays and matches in the guest rooms at Jingxi Hotel, one of the designated hotels for deputies to the National People’s Congress, have been removed this year.

The small move, for Shen Jinjin, an NPC deputy and a longtime anti-tobacco campaigner, is a big step forward in tobacco control.

As an NPC deputy for the past decade, he brought forward various suggestions to combat smoking, some of which have been accepted, such as the 100 percent smoking ban in public places introduced by Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai.

“We’ve seen strong restrictive measures over tobacco advertising in the new Advertising Law,” added Shen, head of the Disease Control and Prevention Center in Yancheng, Jiangsu province.

“At the two sessions over the years, positive changes can be seen,” he said.

Previously, participants in the two sessions even smoked during group discussions in the meeting rooms, and ashtrays and matches were widely placed.

In that scenario, “I would stop people politely and deliver anti-smoking messages, particularly the proven health-related hazards,” he said. “NPC deputies are usually influential and I don’t want to miss the opportunity to spread the message of tobacco control.”

As a veteran public health worker, Shen knows well the negative health impacts from smoking and the huge medical bills from treating smoking-related diseases.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission estimates that more than 1 million Chinese die from smoking-related diseases each year.

With more information becoming available to the public, a consensus about smoking control has been gradually reached in China, the world’s largest cigarette producer and consumer.

In 2015, Beijing passed the country’s strongest anti-smoking law, and delegates to the two sessions thereafter became able to enjoy a truly smoke-free environment in the city.

“Now they can only smoke outside the hotel, despite the chilly and windy weather here in early March,” he said.

Also, they began to accept a controlled way of smoking and “some smoking deputies even co-signed my motion urging the country to pass a State-level anti-smoking law,” he noted.

Beijing pioneered the introduction of strong smoking bans in public places, which should be expanded nationwide, he urged.

“We have the knowledge that smoking harms health and we have wide support from the public for smoking controls. Why is it so difficult to make a national law?” he said.

In November, Mao Qun’an, spokesman for the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the nation’s top health authority, said a national law would be enacted in 2016－and though the commission was charged to draft such a law, it didn’t.

Shen blamed that on interference from the tobacco industry, a major source of tax revenue for the government. “The fight is not over, and I will keep up the effort,” he said.