Jul

1 A ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of China's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong is held in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. President Jiang Zemin delivers a speech and Tung Chee Hwa is sworn in for his second term of chief executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

4 China launches the massive west-to-east natural gas transmission project, which is designed to transfer 12 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year to the country's east from the northwest through a pipeline 4,200 km long. PetroChina Co. Ltd. and an overseas consortium including Shell, Exxon Mobil and Russian Natural Gas Co. jointly invest in the construction of the 40-billion-yuan pipeline, which starts from Lunnan in south Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and runs through 10 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities to end at Shanghai.

16 Shanghai conducts its first anti-terrorist combat exercises with live ammunition.

25 A 16-member scientific research team sets off for a 40-day expedition to the Arctic. It is the largest-ever research project of Chinese scientists in the region.