Chinese people are about to usher in the Year of the Ox, starting from Feb. 12, 2021, and lasting until Jan. 31, 2022. Why is 2021 the year of the Ox? What does the ox mean for Chinese people? And what is the spirit of the ox? Keep reading below to find the answers.

The Ox and Twelve Chinese Zodiacs

As an essential part of Chinese folk culture, the Twelve Chinese Zodiacs, a classification system based on the Chinese lunar calendar, assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating 12-year cycle. These twelve animal signs are the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.

Benign interactions between China and the U.S. in climate governance are highly anticipated as humanity is faced with mounting global climate change challenges and climate governance has entered a crucial stage.

Climate change concerns the welfare of people around the world and mankind’s future. Various parties need to jointly address the issue with ambition and determination.

The National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, on Thursday adopted a decision on improving the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

The decision was passed by an overwhelming majority vote at the fourth session of the 13th NPC.

The decision is another major step taken by the state to improve the HKSAR's legal and political systems since the Law on Safeguarding National Security in the HKSAR was adopted in June 2020.

China has seen new highlights in its financial industry. FTSE Russell, one of the world’s three main bond index providers, announced recently that it will add Chinese government bonds to the FTSE World Government Bond Index.

The move will enable international investors to enter the Chinese bond market through FTSE Russell’s flagship index. So far, the world’s three major bond index providers have successively included Chinese sovereign bonds into their main indexes.

China's third-quarter (Q3) economic growth "shines a ray of light" on what is possible for other countries and the global economy, a Kenyan expert has said.

"As the second-largest economy and global growth engine, China's economic growth has the potential to power and accelerate global economic recovery and growth," Cavince Adhere, an international relations researcher with a focus on China-Africa relations, told Xinhua.

China's total value of foreign trade in goods in the first two months of 2021 reached 5.44 trillion yuan ($836.1 billion), up 32.2 percent year on year. In particular, the country's exports registered a remarkable 50.1-percent growth rate from the same period last year. China's foreign trade has maintained momentum since resuming positive growth last June.

As China makes constant efforts to push forward with higher-level opening up, the country is obtaining greater competitive edges in global markets with the help of such growth drivers as technology research and development, talent cultivation, China-Europe freight trains, as well as cross-border e-commerce.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday held a video talk with New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta, calling for the promotion of cooperation on high-quality development.

Wang said that China attaches great importance to its relations with New Zealand and cherishes the mutual trust that has been established between the two countries.

"My People, My Homeland," a five-part film depicting China's achievements in the fight against poverty, has generated total box office revenues of more than 2.7 billion yuan (403 million U.S. dollars).

The star-studded comedy was released on Oct. 1, the beginning of an eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.

The 8,993 proposals which were submitted to China's annual legislative session this year were transferred to relevant departments for research and handling today, a vivid example of Chinese democracy transforming people's voices into concrete plans and actions.

The National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee has set 22 priority topics, which can be categorized into six aspects including ensuring the livelihoods of the people, planning the work of the NPC Standing Committee, accelerating the development of a modern industrial system, comprehensively advancing rural vitalization, implementing the regional development strategies and promoting green development, according to the data made public Tuesday.

The Chinese market has remained open to European companies, including Sweden's. Sweden, largely characterized by an open and export-oriented economy, should also provide Chinese companies with an open and fair business environment, like the one it allegedly provides to other foreign investors.

Banning Chinese 5G suppliers in Sweden will hurt the principle of fair competition and jeopardize the interests of Swedish consumers.

As China wraps up its 13th Five-Year Plan (FYP) this year, all eyes are on the new FYP for 2021 to 2025 – a period that poses new domestic and international challenges.

A WORLD OF UNCERTAINTIES

China issued guidelines on its 13th FYP in 2015, preparing the country for a "complicated" international environment, but no one expected at that time what the world would be facing.

Why do some Western politicians and scholars show much more intention to demonize the Communist Party of China (CPC) when they know very little about the largest political party in the world? To understand China today, one must first know more about the CPC. As the Chinese people are about to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, the Global Times reporter Bai Yunyi interviewed the country's top political scientist Zheng Yongnian, presidential chair professor, acting dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science and the Founding Director of the Advanced Institute of Global and Contemporary China Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. He talked about how to see the legitimacy of the CPC and how it reached reforms goals through non-Western ways.

NASA is targeting early Monday for the first flight of its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, according to NASA.

The helicopter is scheduled to lift off at approximately 3:30 a.m. Eastern Day Time on Monday.

China had administered nearly 82.85 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of Tuesday as it prepares a campaign to vaccinate its entire population, the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism said on Wednesday.

More than 100 million doses of domestically made vaccine have been delivered in China and overseas, and they have proved safe and effective, it added.

The World Health Assembly (WHA), the highest decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), on May 24 refused to include a proposal on Taiwan’s participation in its agenda, which fully indicated that adherence to the one-China principle is a universal consensus of the international community.

There is only one China in the world. The Government of the People’s Republic of China is the only legal government representing the whole of China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory.

If dropping two studio albums within five months in 2020 wasn’t enough of a surprise, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is now serving her fans a third one. Fearless (Taylor’s Version), released on April 9, is a remake of her 2008 country album Fearless, which follows in the wake of the singer’s contract battle with her former label Big Machines back in 2019. Upon its release, the album sold 205,000 digital copies in China in less than five minutes and instantly topped the charts on Chinese song streaming platforms, including QQ Music and NetEase Music.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Saturday launched the Chinese-constructed 104-km Musita-Lumino-Busia-Majanji road linking the eastern part of the country to the border district of Busia in Kenya.

Katumba Wamala, minister of Works and Transport, said the road was upgraded from gravel to bitumen standard.

Almost half a year after Chinese President Xi Jinping's pledge to make the country carbon-neutral before 2060, the roadmap to achieve the goal is getting clearer under Xi's push as authorities and industries scale up their green efforts.

China aims to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, Xi announced at the general debate of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly via video in September last year.