The Ezhou Huahu Airport in central China's Hubei Province, China's first cargo-focused airport, launched its 100th cargo route on Sunday, linking China, the U.S. and Canada.
A cargo aircraft operated by SF Express landed at the airport on Sunday afternoon, after flying from New York in the United States via Halifax, Canada. This newly opened route is the airport's first Canadian route.
"China and the U.S already have established freight exchanges. Leveraging the fifth freedom rights, we can now fly from the U.S. to Canada, and bring Canadian fresh and aquatic products back to China," said He Fei, Deputy General Manager of the Hub Development Department under Hubei International Logistics Airport Co.
The main outbound cargoes on this route include garments, electronic products, and electromechanical equipment, while inbound shipments primarily consist of machinery, health products, and fresh seafood.
The route is expected to provide more than 100 tons of weekly air capacity for Canadian seafood exports to China.
This year, Huahu Airport has established forward cargo stations in provinces such as Jiangsu and Guangdong. It will soon open overseas warehouses in locations including Hong Kong and Milan, Italy. These efforts aim to integrate air logistics with cross-border e-commerce.
China's first cargo-focused airport launches 100th route, connecting US, Canada
Attempts to curb China's scientific and technological advancement are futile, a fact that has already been proven, said Kishore Mahbubani, former permanent representative of Singapore to the United Nations, in an interview aired Friday.
In an exclusive interview with China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing, Mahbubani said he had stated this position in one of his articles published in the United States.
"Actually, I published an article, you know the two, I guess two leading journals in the United States on international relations. One is Foreign Affairs and the other is Foreign Policy. And last year I co-authored an article with two other co-authors, saying that all the efforts to stop China's scientific and technological development will fail. And it has failed always. You know, for example, the Soviet Union tried to prevent the spread of nuclear technology to China, China develops its own. The United States didn't want to share its technology on international space station with China. China develops its own space station. So clearly, efforts to stop China in the area of scientific innovation and technological development have failed. And so it'd be wiser for the West, including United States, to work with China other than to try and stop China seek development," he said.
Regarding China's progress on robots, Mahbubani said China is leading the world in the sector and hopes the country will share its expertise with the rest of the world.
"If there's one country that is preparing for the future well, it is China, because one in six human beings in the world is Chinese. But one in three robots in the world is Chinese, and one in two baby robots being born every day is Chinese. So China is producing far more robots than any other country is. So clearly it's preparing for the world of the future when we will have, for example, labor shortages, as you know, as you develop an aging society. So China is wisely investing in robots. But I hope that China will also share its learning and expertise with other countries. Also because the robots like that can also be helpful even to developing countries cause you can enhance the productivity of their populations, of their factories and so on so forth. So the world should be happy that China is leading the world in manufacturing, producing robots," he said.
Attempts to stop China's sci-tech development doomed to fail: former Singaporean diplomat
