The Global Poverty Reduction Online Knowledge Sharing Database was launched on Friday at the 2017 China Poverty Reduction International Forum in Beijing being attended by officials and representatives from international organizations, embassies as well as businesses.

Created by the Global Poverty Reduction & Inclusive Growth Portal (GPIG), the database (http://case.iprcc.org.cn/) is a platform to share successful models of poverty reduction from both China and the international community, which is distinguished by its use of tree diagrams, standardized templates and a strong network of contributors.

Designed for worldwide use, its systematic presentation of poverty alleviation cases is unprecedented. Through the use of the tree diagrams, it provides a clear depiction of how China and other international bodies are seeking to address the problem, in particular focusing on cases with a high degree of technical applicability for various countries. To facilitate social participation, the platform contains a guide to help users upload cases in standard templates.

The Chinese poverty reduction cases are divided into three categories: market-oriented, government-led, and community-driven. The international cases are classified as poverty reduction through increasing opportunities, improving human capital and capacity, and through reducing vulnerability. Each has various subcategories.

By analyzing factors impacting poverty reduction, the diagrams extract experiences in a more intuitive way, inspiring the international community, low-income nations in particular, to rapidly grasp specific successful practices so as to be able to learn from or even replicate them. It is hoped that the process will generate new solutions to poverty alleviation problems.

The database benefits from a strong network of contributors. While the International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC) is taking the lead on the Chinese side by leveraging its own resources and its partnerships with universities and research institutes, a raft of international organizations also play their part.

With major contributions from the World Bank, GPIG is also building strong partnerships with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The public are also encouraged to upload cases that they believe could be valuable.

As a systematic project, it is planned to summarize new poverty alleviation strategies, develop new representative cases, and add them to the database on a regular basis in the future. It is expected that, after years of efforts, the database will evolve into a knowledge-sharing center in the fields of poverty reduction and south-south cooperation.

China has recorded tremendous achievements in poverty alleviation by lifting more than 700 million people out of backwardness. However, there is a lack of comprehensive or systematic publicity of China’s experience in the existing research.

Meanwhile, in the process of building a well-off society in an all-round way, China has been constantly exposed to new challenges. Hence, it is necessary to build an exchange platform that provide China with successful models from the international community while introducing China’s own achievements to the world.

The Global Poverty Reduction Online Knowledge-sharing Database has transformed GPIG from an information sharer into a producer, which was officially launched at the forum last year. Initiated by the World Bank and supported by ADB, it is co-hosted and co-managed by IPRCC and China Internet Information Center (CIIC).

With one year of development, the portal now brings together information from different sources in a standardized way, promoting knowledge-sharing online and offline. It contributes to the successful achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well, gaining a positive response from the poverty reduction community.

Five people died and another person was injured after a fire broke out in a residential house in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, early Friday morning.

The fire began at around 2:50 a.m. in the house located in an industrial cluster area. The fire has been put out. An investigation is under way to probe the cause of the fire.

China will continue to meet promises made at the Paris Climate Change Conference and take effective measures to tackle climate change, no matter what kind of choices the U.S. new administration makes on the issue, a top Chinese climatologist said.

He Jiankun, an expert from the Specialist Committee on National Climate Change, made the remarks during a seminar on “China-U.S. Action and Cooperation in the New Age of Global Climate Governance” held in Beijing on May 24 by the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, Tsinghua-Berkeley Joint Research Center on Energy and Climate Change, and World Resources Institute.

The seminar provided an opportunity for experts from home and abroad to discuss the new age and trends of global climate governance, and also share progress made in China-U.S. cooperation on controlling global climate change.

He Jiankun, also director of the Institute of Low Carbon Economy at Tsinghua University, devoted much of his speech to China’s policy on climate change.

He said that, in order to keep China’s promises in signing the Paris Agreement, a series of plans and strategies on energy development had been formulated. According to the 13th Five-Year Plan, the aim is to put in place measures that can ensure, by the end of 2030, that carbon emissions per unit of GDP will decrease by 60 percent to 65 percent from the 2005 level, and non-fossil energy will account for 20 percent of primary energy consumption.

“China will, as always, seek to ensure progress to be made regarding the Paris Agreement whether the Trump administration withdraws from the agreement or not. Under the international climate governance mechanism, China will strengthen its cooperation with other countries and speed up energy production and consumption reform, greatly reducing carbon emissions,” He said.

Collaboration on climate change between China and the U.S. has always been a focus of the bilateral relationship. As the leading carbon emitters in the world, the two countries have to fulfill their responsibilities and make their own contributions to reducing the intensity of such emissions.

Manish Bapna, executive vice president and managing director of the WRI, spoke about America’s recent climate action development, and stressed the importance of China-U.S. cooperation on climate change.

“China and the United States should continue to join hands on climate change, cooperation at the state and local level, or within the private sector should be strengthened. Only in this way can the momentum of reducing greenhouse gases in these two countries be maintained,” he said.

In his speech, he introduced data showing carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S had fallen while economic growth had been maintained. When talking about the new changes in America’s climate actions, he said that policies adopted by the previous Obama administration was capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but the new administration led by President Trump has already started to roll back climate and clean energy progress.

He also mentioned that, after signing the Paris Agreement, actions on creating job, investing in infrastructure and trading should be carried out together with climate change governance.

The attending experts then took part in a round-table discussion. Sam Adams, chief representative of U.S. office, WRI, shared his experiences on dealing with the carbon emission-reducing activities in Portland, Maine of the U.S. Manish Bapna and He Jiankun also discussed climate change governance from the perspective of education, technology, job and infrastructure building.

Chinese navy missile frigates identified and expelled a U.S. destroyer entering the South China Sea on May 25, the Ministry of National Defense (MOD) confirmed the same day.

MOD spokesman Colonel Ren Guoqiang told a routine press briefing that the USS Dewey entered waters adjacent to the Meiji Reef, prompting the PLA Navy missile frigates CNS Liuzhou and CNS Luzhou to identify and warn it to leave the area.

Col. Ren’s remark was in response to the request to confirm media reports claiming that the USS Dewey was “within the 12-nautical mile zone of the Meiji Reef” on a so-called “freedom of navigation” mission.

He reaffirmed that China has “indisputable sovereignty” over the Nansha Islands and waters surrounding them. “The Chinese military lodged solemn representations with the United States against such acts of flaunting its forces and boosting regional militarization.”

The MOD spokesman stressed that the United States is a destabilizing factor especially when the situation in the South China Sea was being ameliorated as a result of the joint efforts by China and ASEAN countries.

He said a healthy and stable military-to-military relationship was in the common interests of China and the United States whereas “erroneous acts by the U.S. military will only prompt the Chinese military to strengthen its capacity in order to safeguard the country’s sovereignty and security.”

Earlier this month, the MOD accused the United States of conducting close-in reconnaissance in the airspace over the Yellow Sea. MOD spokesman Senior Colonel Wu Qian said such spying activities of U.S. military aircraft and vessels were the “fundamental causes” of problems in security issues between the two countries.

Meanwhile, Ren rebuffed Japanese media’s allegation that China was deploying HQ-9 air defense missiles in the southern province of Hainan and was about to mark off a no-fly zone in the South China Sea.

He said that deploying weapons in Hainan was China’s own business within the scope of its sovereignty.

“As for the so-called ‘no-fly zone,’ it is a complete fabrication by the Japanese media. I am astonished by how far the fabrication has gone.”

Just days ahead of International Children’s Day, the Showyes Project, together with Voices of the Youth (Chinese: http://qnzs.youth.cn/), launched a fundraising night in Beijing on May 24. The activity is one of a series of charity projects dating back to 2015.

Voices of the Youth, a social networking platform under the All-China Youth Federation, launched the targeted poverty alleviation scheme together with China Social Welfare Foundation’s Showyes Project that year in response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call for “high precision” poverty relief during a Communist Party of China symposium on poverty relief and economic and social development in the 2016-2020 period.

In China’s underdeveloped areas, left-behind children whose parents are migrant workers in big cities, orphans and children from very poor families frequently face the risk of being withdrawn from school and even going hungry. Education and skill training are effective ways to help them shake off poverty.

Aiming at helping needy children with vocational training and reeducation, and further supporting them with careers guidance, the project is seen as hopefully helping plug a skills shortage in poor areas.

The object of this fundraising night is to raise enough money to support as many as 1,000 Chinese children continue their education.

During the fundraising activity, Perfect (China) Co., Ltd, together with other caring companies and individuals donated a total amount of more than 6 million yuan, which will benefit poor students from Jiangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Hubei, Yunnan, Hebei, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces to realize their dream of going to school.

According to Jin Dong, an administrative staff member of Voices of the Youth, the activity is one of many important measures in realizing The Middle- and Long-term Youth Development Plan (2016-2025) released recently by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.