China Focus: Technological innovations help brighten China's overseas image

China's rising power of technological innovation is among the best things that helped brighten its images overseas in 2015, according to a report released by Xinhua News Agency on Thursday.

Xinhua gathered 5.2 million overseas online articles and comments from media and social networking services that reflect foreigners' impressions of the Chinese.

Technology featured prominently. Of 365,000 items on China's high-speed rail network, the world's largest, nearly 200,000 were deemed to be positive and more than 111,000 neutral.

Nuclear power won about 164,000 favorable and 78,000 neutral reviews in 301,000 items on the topic, while nearly 60 percent of 15,000 items on cloning offered praise.

Chinese Nobel Prize-winning pharmacologist Tu Youyou, who discovered malaria-fighting drug artemisinin, generated nearly 22,000 items, with 17,000 of them positive.

For the Belt and Road Initiative, the regional trade and infrastructure network proposed by China, about 126,000 of 249,000 items were positive, in addition to 69,000 neutral ones.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank got about 99,000 positive and 50,000 neutral items out of a total of 197,000, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the overseas media and Internet users showered likes on China's UN peace-keeping work, its medical assistance to African nations and withdrawal of nationals from conflict-hit Yemen. For instance, the authors of more than 74 percent of the 27,000 pieces of information on Chinese peace-keeping missions spoke highly of them.

Other big focuses for overseas commentators were Chinese cuisine and giant pandas. About 354,000 items were related to the former, with 54 percent offering praise and 30 percent neutral. Endi