SHANGHAI (Xinhua) — The first batch of vehicles produced by U.S. electric carmaker Tesla Inc.’s overseas plant in Shanghai was delivered Monday.

Fifteen Model 3 cars built in Shanghai were handed over to company employees at the Shanghai facility Monday. And deliveries to customers will start in January, company officials said at a ceremony to mark the delivery.

Tesla signed the agreement with the Shanghai municipal government in July 2018 to build the factory. In October 2018, the company was approved to use an 864,885-square-meter tract of land in Lingang Area, a high-end manufacturing park in the southeast harbor of Shanghai, for its Shanghai plant.

Tesla broke ground on Jan. 7 in Shanghai on its first overseas factory. The Shanghai plant is designed with an annual capacity of 500,000 electric cars.

The Shanghai mega factory now can produce 280 electric cars per day and will increase its production capacity, said Song Gang, the plant’s manufacturing director.

The proportion of the car parts produced in China will also be increased from the current 30 percent to 100 percent at the end of 2020, Song added.

BEIJING (Xinhua) — The high-speed railway line connecting Beijing and Zhangjiakou, the co-host city of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, went into operation Monday, the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. said.

With 5G signals, wireless charging and intelligent lighting, the smart train G8811 departed from Beijing North Railway Station at around 8:30 a.m. to Zhangjiakou in north China’s Hebei Province.

The railway is 174 km long, with 10 stations along the line. Several underground tunnels were built on the route so trains can avoid traversing through scenic spots.

With a maximum design speed of 350 kph, it will reduce the travel time between Beijing and Zhangjiakou from over three hours to 47 minutes, facilitating inter-city traffic and crucial for the co-host of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Chongli railway, a branch line of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway, also went into service Monday. It is 53 km long, with a maximum design speed of 250 kph.

Yang Yang, a Winter Olympic champion and chairwoman of the Athletes’ Commission of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, was among passengers on the high-speed train G8811.

Yang said Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway is important to the preparation of the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. “It can improve the efficiency of our work, promote China’s winter sports, and boost the ice and snow economy.”

Construction of the high-speed railway lasted around four years. The railway underwent test runs earlier this month.

“The Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway is a milestone in China’s railway development,” said Wang Hongyu, chief designer in charge of this railway project with Railway Engineering Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

He said the railway construction has adopted China’s latest achievements in railway development from equipment manufacturing, new materials to new artificial intelligence technology.

The trains on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed rail line can automatically start and stop, run between stations, open and close doors, as well as handle emergencies. It is the first time for China to have an autonomous high-speed train.

For the athletes, an area for snowboards and other ski equipment is also available on the train. E-ticket services have been launched to enable passengers to use their ID cards or scan QR codes for authentication instead of waiting in line for paper stubs.

Designed by Zhan Tianyou, known as the “father of China’s railroad,” the original railway linking Beijing and Zhangjiakou was put into operation in 1909. It was known as China’s first independently designed and built railway.

The construction was considered impossible at the time without foreign assistance. Zhan, together with his colleagues, however, strived to complete its construction two years ahead of schedule, inventing a zigzag railway design using two locomotives instead of one to power trains on a steep mountain slope.

From 35 to 350 kph, the 110-year-old Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway is a witness of “China speed.”

The length of China’s railroad lines in service has exceeded 139,000 km, including 35,000 km of high-speed rail, ranking first in the world.

“It only takes 47 minutes of the train trip from sports venues in Beijing to those in Zhangjiakou, providing safe and convenient transportation for athletes and spectators,” said Li Yan, chairwoman of the China Skating Association.

High-speed trains are not just a means of transport but also a key driver of economic development.

The completion of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou line is expected to facilitate the integrated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, a regional city cluster called “Jing-jin-ji.”

It also connects with other high-speed routes across north China’s Shanxi and Hebei provinces and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Zhan Xin, the great-granddaughter of Zhan Tianyou, was among the first batch of passengers who took the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed train Monday morning.

“The fast trains reflect China’s economic and technological development. If my great-grandfather could have seen today’s high-speed rail network, he would be very proud,” she said.

(Reporting by Cheng Lu, Ding Jing, Luo Xin, Fang Ning, Li Dexin, Ji Xiaobo)

BEIJING (AP) — China has sentenced a prominent pastor who operated outside the Communist Party-recognized Protestant organization to nine years in prison for subversion.

Wang Yi had led the Early Rain Covenant Church and was arrested a year ago during China’s ongoing crackdown on all unauthorized religious groups in the country. The government requires Protestants worship only in churches recognized and regulated by the party-led Three-Self Patriotic Movement. A separate body regulates the Catholic church in China, which has no formal relations with the Vatican.

The People’s Intermediate Court in the southwestern city of Chengdu on Monday convicted Wang of incitement to subvert state power and involvement in illegal business operations and said he was fined and his personal assets were seized.

Si Weijiang, a lawyer hired by Wang’s mother, said the charge of illegal business operations involved printing of books about Christian culture.

“It is actually about the freedom of publication and there has been no social harm,” Si said in a phone interview.

The charge of incitement “involves preaching and is an issue of speech, which has also inflicted no social harm,” he said.

Even within the narrow confines it has established, China’s officially atheist ruling party has been seeking to rein in religious expression, including removing crosses from official and unofficial churches.

More widely, the party has demolished places of worship, barred Tibetan children from Buddhist religious studies and incarcerated more than a million members of Islamic ethnic minorities in what are termed “reeducation centers.”

Early Rain is believed to have had several hundred members who met in different locations around Chengdu, the sprawling capital of Sichuan province. Many of those were taken from their homes overnight in lightning raids, including Wang’s wife, Jiang Rong, who was later released on bail.

Wang had been critical of Communist Party leader and state President Xi Jinping and made a point of holding a prayer service on June 4 each year to commemorate the 1989 bloody assault on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Beijing’s hard line on religion has underscored its contrast with other culturally Chinese societies, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, where most follow Buddhism and traditional Chinese beliefs, but where Christianity and other religions also thrive.

At least two members of Early Rain fled to Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that China claims as its own territory.

Wang’s sentencing was condemned by Amnesty International China researcher Patrick Poon as making a “mockery of China’s supposed religious freedoms.”

“Wang Yi was merely practicing his religion and peacefully standing up for human rights in China,” Poon said in an emailed statement. “Wang Yi is a prisoner of conscience and must be immediately and unconditionally released.”