The Chinese Air Force will continue to transform from a territorial air defense unit into an extended arm capable of protecting national interests wherever they exist, according to its new commander.

Lieutenant General Ding Laihang said that as China becomes stronger and security challenges continue to emerge, the military is striving to ensure it can safeguard national interests anywhere in the world.

“In the past, our strategies and guidelines focused on territorial air defense. Now we have been shifting our attention to honing our ability in terms of long-range strategic projection and long-range strike,” he told China National Radio for an article published on Sunday.

“A strategic force must go out,” he said. “We will continue to carry out long-distance training over oceans.”

Ding’s predecessor, General Ma Xiaotian, who stepped down in late August, had earlier said the Air Force “cannot simply guard on land and not fly out” in response to questions on Japan’s concerns about the People’s Liberation Army’s “increasing activities” over the Sea of Japan.

Ma said it is normal for the PLA Air Force to conduct training exercises over the sea, adding that “the Sea of Japan is not Japan’s sea”.

Not long after Ma’s comments, six Chinese H-6K bombers flew through the Miyako Strait between the islands of Okinawa and Miyako in the East China Sea and approached the Kii Peninsula. This was the first time the PLA Air Force had flown that route, Japanese media reported.

In Sunday’s article, Ding pledged that the Air Force will intensify its realistic aerial combat drills and continue to carry out exercises with foreign militaries.

Wang Yanan, editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, said the Air Force will have two priorities as it moves toward becoming a capable strategic force.

“First, as a lot of new aircraft have been delivered, it must figure out how to make these new planes combat-ready as soon as possible and how to maintain them, as they are different from the old types,” he said.

“For instance, the Air Force now has Y-20 heavy-lift transport jets, but it needs to design methods and gain experience when it comes to airdropping armored vehicles,” he said. “Owning advanced weapons doesn’t equate to being able to use them well.”

The second priority is that the Air Force must improve its capabilities in coordinating different types of aircraft and air defense missiles in an operation, and also nurture joint operation capabilities with other services, like the PLA Navy and Rocket Force, Wang added.

Citing the new-generation strategic bomber that is under development, Wang suggested the Air Force start studying the plane’s usage in future warfare and work closely with designers to make sure the engine and flight-control system are good and reliable.

A helipad for transferring patients in emergency cases was put into service on Aug 29 at a top hospital in downtown Beijing, which is often congested by traffic.

The helicopter apron, which is atop a newly built four-story car park at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, is the only one specially for medical services in the capital’s urban area that integrates aviation and land rescue.

Using the facility, the hospital will be able to cooperate much more frequently with emergency rescue centers to save patients in critical condition from more than 500 kilometers away, said Wang Chen, president of the hospital.

“Based on the experiences of developed countries, transferring patients by helicopter can increase their survival rate by 25 percent,” he said.

The helipad, which has a diameter of 20 meters, is designed to handle helicopters up to 17 meters in length and with a maximum takeoff weight of 8 metric tons.

“We launched the facility to improve healthcare services, especially to facilitate patient transfers, which have been impeded due to heavy traffic congestion around the hospital,” said Ying Jiaoqian, head of the hospital’s medical affairs department.

Ying said there are a few hospitals in Beijing that are equipped with similar apron facilities, but the one at China-Japan Friendship Hospital is the only one in the central urban area.

She said a middle-aged man was flown from Shenyang, Liaoning province, to Beijing for medical treatment by helicopter on Wednesday, making him the first patient to benefit from the new facility.

The patient, who suffered multiple bone fractures after falling from a building, was first transported to the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in a flight that lasted under two hours and then sent by ambulance to Beijing Jishuitan Hospital, which specializes in bone injuries.

Ying said the patient, who paid for the transfer, is now in stable condition.

Hospitals around China have been urged to improve services for patients during the new round of medical reforms, aimed at universal coverage of healthcare services.

Most major public hospitals in Beijing have opened online or mobile registration services, so patients can make appointments using smartphones rather than having to wait in long lines in hospitals.

In October, 132 major hospitals in Beijing and neighboring Tianjin and Hebei province started to recognize 27 clinical test results, such as cholesterol level and hepatitis B, so patients do not have to pay for repeat testing at different hospitals, according to the Beijing Health and Family Planning Commission.

All the dormitories have installed facial recognition system in Beijing Normal University, reported the Beijing News on Sept 4.

A student at Beijing Normal University has her facial information input into a new facial recognition security system. [Photo/bjnews.com]

The Beijing Normal University greeted 2,626 freshmen on Sunday, aged 14 to 28, who need to register with the facial recognition system to enter the dormitories.

The system requires the facial information from all the new comers–they need to stand in front of the machine for two seconds to register.

The campus first tried facial recognition system in May and later installed it in every dorm.

It is said there’re three ways to launch the system. Students can swipe their campus card, shout out their name, or put in last four digits of campus card passwords to enable the system to proceed with facial recognition.

The system can identify 26 kinds of dialect when students use voice to launch the system.

It is reported 62 percent of the new comers were born in 1999, with the youngest born in 2003 and the oldest in 1989.

It is the first time that those born in 2000s are entering college.

Guangdong province was battered by its third typhoon in 12 days on Monday, with torrential rains again flooding urban areas in several cities.

People walk across a flooded street in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Monday. Kindergartens and primary and middle schools were closed after Typhoon Mawar battered the city.[Photo/Chinanews.com]

Typhoon Mawar, the 16th typhoon formed in the northwest Pacific this year, made landfall in Lufeng at 9:30 pm on Sunday, packing winds of up to 72 kilometers per hour.

Although weaker than the previous two typhoons in recent weeks, Hato and Pakhar, authorities issued red alerts for rainstorms, while kindergartens and primary and middle schools were closed in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Shanwei, Shantou, Chaozhou and Guangzhou.

Many roads in Zhuhai and Shenzhen were flooded, cutting off traffic. More than 20 bus lines were suspended in Zhuhai, a city that felt the full force of Typhoon Hato on Aug 23.

The wind caused by Mawar was not very strong but rain was heavy, said Zhou Shuying, a resident in the city.

Roads were seriously waterlogged and many cars were submerged by water. Traffic was brought to a standstill on some roads.

Water and power supplies remained normal in Zhou’s neighborhood and the floodwater began to retreat gradually after 3 pm on Monday, she said.

Police officer Tan Jiaguang waded in water up to his waist in Zhuhai’s Nanyangpu village to reach a gong, which he rang to warn residents to relocate to emergency shelters. His station helped transport about 600 people, including in speed boats, Zhuhai Daily reported.

A minor landslide occurred in Jigongsan Street in Zhuhai on Monday morning and people living in adjacent areas were evacuated. No casualties were reported.

Several students were rescued and taken to safety in a dinghy by firefighters after their school bus stalled in a flooded street in Huangjiang town, Dongguan.

Mawar, which forced the evacuation of 57,120 people in Guangdong before it made landfall, affected power supplies to 115,000 homes and businesses. Services were fully restored by 10:30 am, according to China Southern Power Grid.

The arrival of Mawar marks the fifth time Guangdong has witnessed three typhoons in half a month since meteorological records began, with the previous case in 1993, Wu Zhifang, chief forecaster for the Guangdong Meteorological Observatory, told Xinhua News Agency.

In the past two weeks, subtropical high pressure and southwestern monsoons have remained stable, which has seen tropical depressions formed near the Philippines mostly move northwestward onto the Guangdong coastline, said Zhang Ling, chief forecaster for the National Meteorological Center.

Beijing’s smog is expected to arrive earlier this year, said China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).

The smog, which often occurs in late autumn and winter, has already returned to the capital city in early September. Air quality started to worsen Saturday morning, with PM 2.5 density reaching 176 micrograms per cubic meter of air, indicating heavy air pollution, according to data from the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Monitoring Center.

The Forbidden City in Beijing, is shrouded in smog in early April, 2017. [File photo/Chinanews.com]

The smog will persist until Tuesday, when rain and a northerly wind are forecast to hit the city.

The new round of air pollution is a result of unfavorable air conditions and high local vehicle emissions, the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau explained.

Nitrate has been confirmed as a main pollutant, accounting for 30percent of PM 2.5 as of Monday noon.

“Our monitor shows the concentration of nitrogen oxide, which can turn into nitrate, at night is two to four times that of the day, indicating diesel trucks only allowed to enter Beijing at night are the main culprits,” said Liu Baoxian, senior engineer at the monitoring center.

Beijing’s 5.8 million vehicles produce more than 10 tonnes of nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbon compounds annually. Heavy-duty diesel vehicles only account for 4 percent of the total vehicles in the capital, but discharge half of the nitrogen oxide, and 90 percent of particulate matter of car exhaust.

The case is even worse if non-local heavy-polluting diesel trucks are counted.

The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau has therefore partnered with 13 departments to improve supervision of heavy-duty vehicles. As of August, more than 12,000 vehicles had been fined for excessive discharge on the road.

“Beijing is introducing a smart monitoring system that can capture high-emission vehicles in real time,” said Su Xuetian, from the city’s environmental protection bureau.

According to the MEP statement Sunday night, the possible earlier smog is forecast based on the melting of Arctic sea ice and the temperature variation of the Pacific Ocean.

It also said a weaker Siberian High was expected to bring fewer cold fronts in the following months, resulting in a more humid, warmer winter, which also means earlier heavy air pollution.

The MEP said that it would launch a campaign against heavy air pollution in autumn and winter.

In the plan, the country should improve its forecast calculation capacity to extend the forecast period from seven to 10 days, and emergency response plans should be improved in 28 cities in northern and central China to ensure the effectiveness of measures to cut emissions.

MEP will also set up a Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei air environment management agency to help deal with heavy pollution in autumn and winter.

Density of PM2.5 nationwide dropped 6.9 percent year on year in July, while Beijing reported an average PM2.5 density of 64 micrograms per cubic meter in the first seven months of 2017, down 34.7 percent from the same period in 2013.