This is NEWS Plus Special English.
A simplified procedure for short visits by foreign employees to China has taken effect.
The regulation allows local bureaus of the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs to review and approve applications submitted by employers. Invited foreign employees can apply for a visitor visa for China within 90 days after receiving positive feedback.
Required material includes application forms, invited foreign experts' identity information and an invitation from the employers. All the review and approval work can be carried out online.
Now the news continues.
China needs innovation and further ability to turn innovative ideas in order to fuel its sustainable development. That's the view of a renowned Chinese science fiction writer.
Innovation has been a cornerstone of China's economic policies in the quest to shift the economic growth model. Liu Ci-xin, the 2015 winner of the prestigious Hugo Prize, made the remarks in an overflowing auditorium at the University of Sydney in Australia.
Liu said that if a major power in the world wants to rise, there must be a breakthrough to some extent, which is similar to a science fiction event that has been turned into reality. Liu, arguably a 21st century philosopher of sorts, was speaking to 700 awe-struck students.
Liu warned that if China continues to develop by using traditional and existing methods and trends, its current social and economic problems could not be eliminated.
Creating solar fields in outer space and transferring the energy back to earth might be a way out, an idea that has come from China's sci-fi writers that Liu is yet to develop.
He explains that space exploration is the only way to radically solve the problem of environmental protection and this may unexpectedly open a new market. He noted it may create a significant economic growth point, not only for China, but for the whole world.
