Q&A: ‘Close to Breaking Point’

Who speaks for the Chinese people? With the advent of the blogosphere in China, the Communist party is no longer the uncontested spokesperson for the Chinese nation. A myriad of voices are vying for space and attention, but most of those, according to one of the country's most famous bloggers Wang Xiaofeng, are just "letting off steam" and indulging a penchant for rant long suppressed in traditional media by the party's ruthless censors.

China Confronts its Own Greece

Europe has its Greece moment and China has its Wenzhou crisis. When European leaders were calling on China to step in and provide a lifeline to the eurozone by investing in its bailout programme, voices inside China were saying Beijing should save Wenzhou and forget about Europe.

U.S.: Pacific Pivot or APEC Misstep?

President Barack Obama intended to use the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting last weekend in Hawai'i to signal a shift in U.S. foreign policy away from the Middle East and toward the Asia-Pacific region.

CHINA: Only Business Occupies Shanghai

As China's financial centre and a pinnacle of domestic wealth, Shanghai could have been in the forefront of a home-grown movement against income disparity of the like sweeping New York's Wall Street and London's City.

China Will Need Many More Singles Parties

In a country of 180 million single people and a growing gender imbalance, tens of thousands of people across China went looking for love on Singles’ Day Nov. 11. But events on the day may only have helped point to the continuing and growing difficulty of being single.

Can BRICS Make a Difference at Busan? – Part 2

While experts are hopeful that blocs of emerging market economies like BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will play a major role in the upcoming aid effectiveness conference in Busan, South Korea, others fear that the new players do not yet have the fiscal power to make a serious intervention in fora generally dominated by rich donor states.

China Steps in to Patrol the Lawless Mekong

China plans to send armed patrol boats down the Mekong River and assert its authority over a corner of Southeast Asia infested by warlords and drug traffickers.

Can the BRICS Make a Difference At Busan? – Part 1

As shock waves from Greece's economic crisis emanate across the Eurozone and the Occupy protests in the U.S. grow bolder in their critique of the dominant neoliberal system, it seems clear to many observers that the old hegemonic economic order is fading fast.

CHINA: Tibetan Self-Immolations Rise

A Tibetan monk set himself on fire last week while shouting slogans calling for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet during a religious ritual watched by hundreds, the advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) reported last week.

CHINA: New Laws to Crack Down on Uyghurs

China is contemplating new legislation to define terrorism more precisely, raising fears that the government is using the so-called ‘war on terror’ to crack down on Uyghur separatists in the country’s restive Muslim region of Xinjiang.

Chinese Film Festival Forced Underground

A Chinese independent film festival showcasing the work of some of the most daring Mainland directors has been forced underground following a police visit to the event’s launch last Saturday.

Moana Nui Set to “Undress” APEC

This November, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum holds its annual rotating summit in Honolulu, it will attract more than the attention of the world's media.

Dubious EU Integration Inspires Taiwan

The European Union’s economic alliance may be embattled and on the verge of collapse but in some parts of the world its integration model is still a beacon. Experts from both sides of the Taiwan Strait – one of the world’s potentially most explosive areas - are studying the conflict resolution experience of the European Union in the hope of taking the precarious relationship between China and Taiwan forward.

CORRUPTION: China Begins to Watch Out

When Internet activist ‘Huaguoshan Zongshuji’ published a survey of luxury watches worn by Chinese government officials this month, the move was commended by the state media. Yet weeks later the survey was censored - shooting the one-party state’s uneasy relationship with corruption into the spotlight.

HEALTH: China Scrambles Against Mutant Bird Flu

Veterinary experts in China and Vietnam are scrambling to produce a vaccine capable of beating a new strain of the deadly avian influenza (AI) virus, reports an official of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

China Breaks Latin America’s ‘Hundred Years of Growth Solitude’

With a shifting global landscape breeding strange bedfellows in the realm of international trade, analysts and economists gathered at the World Bank headquarters Tuesday to discuss what will likely be one of the defining partnership of the decade – China's connection with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

U.S.: Obama Chooses Caution on Taiwan Arms Sale

Eager not to provoke a new round of tensions with China, U.S. President Barack Obama has reportedly decided to sell Taiwan upgraded versions of its main fighter jets instead of the new, more advanced models that the island state had preferred.

China Increasingly Central to Caribbean Development

By the time Wang Qishan, China's vice premier, arrived in Trinidad for the Third China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum earlier this week, Beijing had already ramped up its involvement with most countries in the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping.

China, India Score With Untied Aid

Armed with a smile, Don Marut exposes the pitfalls of Western aid to developing countries. At a conference here, the Indonesian recalled the story of how 40 electric-train carriages were sent from Germany to his country for a journey to nowhere.

China May Not Be Long-Term Engine of Latin American Growth

China's burgeoning presence as a leading trade and investment partner in Latin America is still an overriding concern for some observers in Washington, as the East Asian giant appears to have changed the focus of economic development in countries south of the U.S.'s border.

CHINA: Microbloggers Launch Long March to Freedom

China’s rapidly growing legion of microbloggers is proving a worthy foe against ongoing government efforts to monitor, influence and censor information on the country’s vast Internet. Government efforts have failed to curb an outpouring of anger and grief in the wake of the recent Wenzhou train disaster.