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Britain has relaxed stringent rules for Chinese banks willing to set up in London. Beijing in turn opened up its markets to British-based investors, marking the latest move to establish the yuan as one of the world’s key currencies. “A great nation like China should have a global currency,” said UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, during his official five day visit to China. And the UK is gladly willing to contribute “through the international center of finance: London”. Under the agreed pilot program, China sanctioned London-based investors to buy up to 80 billion yuan ($13.1 billion) of stocks,...

China has seen a surge in the number of lawsuits against government agencies for their failure to disclose information, according to a report released Tuesday. Administrative cases about government information disclosure in Beijing increased to 551 in 2012 from 10 in 2008 when a regulation came into force, said the report, adding similar growth occurred in other Chinese cities. The report was carried out by the center for public participation studies at Peking University and was based on research in cities including Beijing, Shenzhen in southern China's Guangdong Province and Cangzhou in northern China's Hebei Province. The surge in the...

London mayor Boris Johnson rides the Beijing subway Line 1 on Tuesday, October 15, 2013. [Photo: CFP]

Despite the rise in China's consumer prices to a seven-month high in September, economists say inflation doesn't pose a risk for the world's second-largest economy. The CPI rose 3.1 percent in September, well above expectations for a 2.8 percent rise. The outlook for China's economy was called into question again this weekend after trade data showed exports unexpectedly contracted by 0.3 percent in September. Macro-economic data due out on October 18th, including third quarter GDP and industrial production, will provide further insights into the health of the economy.

The first subway running from Shanghai to Kunshan City, east China's Jiangsu province, started its trial operation this morning. The subway is actually an extension stage of Shanghai Metro Line 11, which combined 3 subway stations in Kunshan to the original metro line. After it begins operation, it will only take about 70 minutes to travel from Huaqiao Station in Kunshan to Xujiahui Station in downtown Shanghai, which only costs 7 yuan. The subway will make the journey between the cities easier for residents. It is known that transit cards in Shanghai can be used in the 3 stations in...

DAEGU, South Korea — Asia’s large-scale gas importers, long saddled with premium prices, say a cheaper alternative lies several thousand feet below North American soil, where companies are unlocking enormous gas reserves from shale rock. The shale boom has already revolutionized the gas market in the United States and Canada, giving both countries not only a reliable domestic supply but also the ability to sell overseas. Asian utility and gas company executives, speaking this week at a global energy forum here, have said that North America’s gas wealth could prove nearly as transformative across the world, leading to the first...

The 2013 edition of the Forbes China Rich List published today identifies a record 168 billionaires from the country, surpassing the previous high of 146 in 2011 and last year’s total of 113. The increase adds to China’s standing as a country with one of the world’s fastest-growing number of billionaires in the past decade. Real estate tycoon Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, ascends to the No. 1 spot from No. 3 with a fortune worth $14.1 billion, an increase from $8 billion year, amid a recovery in the country’s real estate market. Underscoring his wish to make...

Only two and a half hours away from the business hub of Shanghai is an outlet from the urban pressure. Naked Stables Private Reserve is set in a valley in the rolling Moganshan (“Mount Mogan”) area of Zhejiang Province that was a getaway for expats before China’s Communist revolution. Today the region illustrates how well-off Chinese themselves enjoy the good life. A quirky blend of kid- and eco-friendliness and Chinese-African themes yields a boutique resort that doesn’t need an internationally known brand name such as Aman or Banyan Tree. “There is a shift in toward lifestyle spending in China, but...

(Reuters) - Chinese authorities in the northern city of Tianjin have punished 13 medical workers for taking bribes from Danone S.A. to recommend the French food maker's infant formula, the local government said on Monday. The move comes after the official China Central Television (CCTV) reported in September that Danone bribed doctors and nurses to recommend its Dumex milk powder brand at one Tianjin hospital. The CCTV report led to Tianjin's government and police launching an investigation into the bribery charges. Danone also said it had launched an investigation. The "serious violators" received penalties ranging from cancellation of medical licenses...

China has sealed a deal with the U.K. allowing investors around the world to trade directly in Chinese shares and bonds through London's banks and financial institutions. The agreement is the first of its kind in the western world and will allow as much as 80 billion yuan ($13 billion) to be invested in Chinese securities via approved London institutions. Previously, foreigners could only make these kinds of investments through Hong Kong, where a similar arrangement allows investors to buy up to 270 billion yuan ($44 billion) in securities in mainland China. The agreement should shore up London's dominant role...

The Chinese sure are doing a lot of worrying these days about the stalemate in Washington. Li Keqiang, China’s Premier, told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that he was watching the tussle over raising the government’s debt ceiling with “great attention” in a meeting last week. He has good reason to be concerned. With a stash of nearly $1.3 trillion in Treasury securities, China is the world’s largest foreign owner of U.S. government debt. If the U.S. Congress fails to lift the ceiling to allow the government to borrow more by Thursday, Washington may not have enough money to...

Ever since China emerged as the world’s rising economic power, Western governments have been wrestling with how to approach the last major state on earth still ruled by a Communist party. George Osborne and Boris Johnson, visiting the People’s Republic this week, have demonstrated their answer: forget about political issues, let alone human rights, and go for the money. By all means, is their clear message, increase your already extensive investments in our country. It is an approach that Beijing is very much in favour of, and the Osborne-Johnson trip has been crammed with smiling photo opportunities and expressions of...

According to a report in the Yangtse Evening Post, a Nanjing-based Chinese language newspaper, the authorities in East China's Jiangsu Province are considering reforming college entrance examinations, also known as gaokao, in 2016. It is possible that English tests will be excluded from the rating system for the overall mark. Instead, there will be two English tests every year and a grading system will be introduced. Universities can then make their own requirements of English proficiency for applicants. Although the plan is still a draft, the reform lowering the importance of English should be applauded. Gaokao is a prerequisite for...

A Chinese grassroots official in flood-hit Zhejiang Province was removed from his post on Monday after a picture of him being given a piggyback sparked public uproar online. A post with the picture on Twitter-like Sina Weibo said an official in the city of Yuyao was carried on a villager's back while visiting flood victims because he was wearing a pair of top brand shoes. The Sanqishi Township government, for which the official surnamed Wang worked, said he had been removed from his post -- director of the town's construction office. The government said Wang was wearing cloth material shoes...

BEIJING — Armed with tens of billions of dollars in investment deals and romantic tales of ancient explorers, Chinese President Xi Jinping has spent much of the past month promoting his vision of two new “Silk Roads” to connect his country to the West and secure its energy supplies — one by land and another by sea. In the process, he has eclipsed an American vision of a New Silk Road that was advanced with much fanfare by then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton two years ago and was supposed to revitalize Afghanistan as the link between Central and South...

“As U.S. politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world,” writes Liu Chang in Xinhua, China’s official news outlet. But can China build a de-Americanized world? Can China lead the global economy? As we wrote in previous pieces, the answer is most likely not, as China lacks four conditions that make its economic growth sustainable. First, China...

Britain must show more respect for China and stop treating the country like a “sweatshop on the Pearl River”, George Osborne has said. Chinese leaders are determined to tackle corruption and organised crime and Britain must take advantage of their booming economy, Mr Osborne said, as he announced a radical relaxation of visa rules intended to boost the number of Chinese business travellers and tourists to Britain. Under plans revealed by the Chancellor in China today, Chinese visitors will be able to apply for a British visa using the same form as that used to enter the EU's 'Schengen' zone....

The UK Chancellor George Osborne said this morning that Britain tends to view China as a "sweatshop on the Pearl River". In reality, he told the Today programme, "it's at the forefront of medicine and hi-tech and computing". An official tweeted a picture of him, headphones on, gazing out at the grey urban landscape of Beijing. To coincide with his visit - and that of science minister David Willetts - a new report calls for China to be seen as a land of scientific opportunity not a black hole of intellectual theft and cybercrime. The study is by Nesta, a...

While there are always many currents roiling the waters for foreign currency (FX) traders, two broad trends now heaving up over the horizon are set to change the game fundamentally. Today, everyone takes it for granted that the U.S. dollar is the deepest pool of liquidity on the planet, and therefore the world's dominant reserve currency. There is no doubt that the Federal Reserve's succession of quantitative easing (QE) programs has deeply irritated countries with large U.S. dollar reserves - who wouldn't be irritated if someone else's actions took, say, 20% off their wealth without them being able to do...

The rising value of the yuan has had a curious side effect: It is often cheaper for Chinese tourists to travel to exotic foreign destinations than it is to travel to China's popular resorts. A Beijing resident looking for an island break, for example, may find it more economical to go to Sri Lanka than to Hainan. Over the next year, the number of outbound trips from China will top the 100 million mark for the first time in history. The rising number of Chinese people traveling abroad has grown even faster than predicted. The UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)...

Anchor babies turn to the US After Hong Kong banned so-called anchor babies last year, many Chinese nationals are now said to be turning to the US, which still offers birthright citizenship. Agencies have been promoting US birth programs which can cost perspective parents over 500-thousand yuan. So-called anchor babies are foreign nationals born in countries or regions which offer citizenship at birth. This then makes it easier for the parents to immigrate to the place their child has citizenship.

HONG KONG - When Chinese President Xi Jinping hails the "Chinese dream" as a "national rejuvenation for the Chinese people", he clearly does not have Tash Aw's latest (and most ambitious) novel in mind. In Aw's Five Star Billionaire, five vividly drawn characters, all outsiders who have recently arrived in China's throbbing financial capital of Shanghai, desperately search for love and riches amidst the city's towering skyscrapers and equally imposing dreams. There is Phoebe, the illegal migrant worker; Gary, the down-and-out former pop star; Yinghui, the one-time social activist turned hard-working businesswoman; Justin, the clinically depressed scion of a wealthy...

(Reuters) - China's monthly data spray is likely to show a pick-up in the world's second-largest economy but precious little evidence of a shift in growth towards consumption from credit-fuelled investment. Rebalancing in China is one of three major preconditions of sustainable global growth in the longer term. The others are a plan to rein in and finance U.S. entitlement spending and, in the euro zone, the construction of a solid institutional foundation for the single currency, including a banking union. Frustratingly little progress is being made on any of these fronts. Wrangling in Washington over a new budget and...

As Australia moves to scrap its pioneering carbon-pricing scheme, China is expected to have seven pilot pricing systems in place no later than 2015, followed by a national scheme, according to a new survey from the Australian National University. The survey, a joint initiative between the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy in the university's Crawford School of Public Policy and Beijing-based NGO China Carbon Forum, collected the opinions of 86 China-based carbon pricing experts. The survey found strong confidence that China will introduce carbon-pricing mechanisms in coming years, that the price of emitting carbon will rise over time and...

Beijing prosecutors had approved a police application to arrest Liu Hu, a journalist suspected of fabricating rumors online, Beijing News reported on Oct 10. But prosecutors did not announce what crime Liu is charged with, the report said. Zhou Ze, Liu's lawyer, said on his micro blog that Liu was arrested for defamation, according to the report. Before Liu's detention in August, Liu, working for a newspaper in Guangdong province, used his real-name Sina micro blog account to make corruption allegations against Ma Zhengqi, vice-minister of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

Health bureau says registration is to improve detection and management Zhengzhou health centers do have a quota to fill for registering people with severe mental health problems, but it is not compulsory, authorities said on Thursday. Communities are required to register 0.2 percent of the population as mentally ill and add them to a national monitoring network, as stipulated by the city health bureau last year. But doctors throughout the Henan provincial capital complained this week of being unable to meet the quota. "We have 35,398 residents, which means, according to the quota, we should have found at least 71...

The clinical trial of the world's first artificial biological cornea has proved successful in China. The artificial biological cornea was developed by Chinese scientists. The breakthrough of this technology may bring great hope to many visually impaired people throughout the country. Li Dong has the details. According to statistics, visual impairment for one forth of China's blind population was caused by problems with the cornea. For these people, a cornea transplant is the only hope they have of seeing again. In the past, cornea transplants relied solely on donation, making corneas is a scare resource. Scientists around the world have...

BALI, Indonesia — Viewed from this fabled tropical paradise of dazzling beaches and shimmering rice terraces in the Indonesian archipelago, the so-called Pacific Century is really the Chinese century. As recently as five years ago, the Balinese relied almost entirely on tourists from Australia, Europe and North America. A few Japanese and South Korean travellers washed up here, but visitors from China barely existed. Yet global economic dynamics have been changing so rapidly that one million Chinese tourists are expected to swamp Bali in the next few months. The European manager of a five-star beach resort told me that from...

BEIJING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's ChiNext Board, a Nasdaq-style index tailored for growth enterprises, is facing increasing bubble risk in a profit frenzy, the China Business News reported on Thursday. During Wednesday's trading, the ChiNext Index hit a historical high of 1,418.48 points before retreating slightly to close 2.03 percent up at 1,415.83 points. Compared to the start of the year, the index has increased more than 98 percent. The jump of the secondary market came against a backdrop of sluggish performance of the main board this year and almost one year of suspension of initial public offerings. The...

As the world tries to recover from the financial crisis, China has once again astonished everyone with its exorbitant and frequent overseas buying. Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd., China's largest meat producer, offered to buy U.S. pork giant Smithfield Foods Inc. The deal was given the go-ahead from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. If completed, the deal worth $7.1 billion will be the largest acquisition of an American firm by a Chinese company. Numerous Chinese firms made a name globally by acquiring their more renowned foreign peers. Chinese IT firm Lenovo acquired IBM's PC division in 2005,...

China has put forth new rules to tackle overcapacity in its solar power industry. A document released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) specifies the thresholds needed to enter the (PV) industry and is sure to keep plenty of capital at bay. Under the new rules, access to the industry will be strictly controlled. For instance, investors who wish to enter the industry must now invest a minimum 20 percent of the value of the desired project. There are also minimum requirements for investment in research and development. Only a few domestic PV enterprises can meet the...

Authorities said on Wednesday that, although emissions from cooking activities can lead to air pollution, it is not the main cause for the haze blanketing many Chinese cities. The statement came after Zhao Huimin, director of Beijing's Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, said the amount of emission from cooking activities considerably raised the PM concentration in the air to 2.5. Zhao Huimin's words were soon met with harsh criticism from the internet. The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection says, while exhaust emission from automobiles, coal combustion and industrial dusts remain the biggest sources of PM2.5 pollution, cooking activities can add...

BEIJING: Beijing on Wednesday criticised the US space agency NASA for what it termed "discriminative action" over a decision to exclude Chinese from a forthcoming science conference in the United States. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has announced that Chinese nationals will not be permitted to enter the Second Kepler Science Conference on exoplanets at California's Ames Research Center in November. The decision sparked criticism by some prominent US astronomers. It also led the US congressman who wrote the law on which the restriction was based to call the decision "inaccurate". In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying...

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei – Southeast Asian leaders opened an annual summit with Asia-Pacific counterparts on Wednesday, a gathering where China was expected to take advantage of the absence of the U.S. president to showcase its rising global clout and promote trade yet still talk tough on regional territorial disputes. Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were to first meet among themselves in Brunei before the leaders of eight other countries — including China, Japan, South Korea and India — joined them for two days of closed-door talks, pageantry and photo-ops in this tiny oil-rich kingdom. President Barack...

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang outlined a plan to establish an Asian infrastructure investment bank in a meeting Wednesday with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, an Asean diplomatic source said. The 11-nation summit in Brunei came just days after Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed in bilateral talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to set up the bank to provide financial support for infrastructure construction in developing countries in Asia, including Asean members. The details of the planned bank were not immediately known, but Mr Li, in an interview with Asean media organisations published...

BEIJING： On a balmy spring day in the capital city of China, a China Radio International (CRI) employee had discovered a dead corpse lying beside the radio station’s apartment complex. Yan Yinan, co-host of the gossip talk-radio program, China Drive, had died in an apparent suicide. It occurred on a Good Friday, which is three days before Christians celebrate Easter. Suicides in the Asia-Pacific region are not rare, especially for people aged in their 20′s and 30′s, when some feel as if their personal lives and careers have reached a dead end. One could describe it as a mid-life crisis...

Chinese President Xi Jinping's first tour of Central Asian countries this month has been widely acknowledged as further strengthening Chinese influence in the region. It was the fourth trip abroad by the Chinese leader after he assumed power earlier this year, having previously visited Russia, the Americas and Africa. The Central Asia region is of increasing strategic and economic importance to China, even though it accounts for a small fraction of Chinese global trade. China's total trade with the five countries of the region is only half of its trade with Malaysia, for example, which is around US$100 billion. China...

The Chinese housing bubble. It’s on every investors mind. We’ve all heard of the new developments in China, entire cities built to look like mini-Paris downtowns in some cases, complete with Eiffel Tower replica with one stark difference: they’re mostly empty. What do investors think about these cities? More importantly, will the bursting of China’s housing bubble be as big, and as economically devastating, as America’s? “I think they certainly have their issues in the property sector,” says Marc Tommasi, head of international equity strategy at Manning & Napier in Rochester, NY. ” It’s more an issue of oversupply in...

Photo taken on September 23rd, 2013 shows a villa with a more than 200-square-meter underground palace, where large-scale demolition will be carried out, in Xiwang Community in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu province. The villa owner, who is reportedly the deputy head of a local police station, is suspected of hiring workers to dig the underground palace beneath his villa in order to cheat for relocation compensation.

People who think that Beijing's subway system is a chaotic and claustrophobic nightmare probably never used it prior to the 2008 Olympics. Around that point in time, Beijing introduced subway attendants who stood on the platform all day long, instructing people to form a queue before boarding the subway. They would also inform people that people on the subway should exit the train before people on the platform squeezed in. Five years later, these attendants continue to revolutionize subway etiquette in the capital. In 2003, Han Xuefen had retired from her factory job, but she soon found herself ill-suited to...

China has criticized a Japanese plan to install a cutting-edge U.S. missile defense radar system. China's Foreign Ministry says it could harm regional stability and upset the strategic balance. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said, "Some countries or blocs in the region, under the pretext of a DPRK nuclear threat, have unilaterally set up anti-missile systems or are conducting bloc cooperation. "This is not conducive to nuclear non-proliferation and stability in the region, and will have an extremely negative impact on the global strategic balance." The governor of Kyoto endorsed the radar plan last week. The X-band radar system...

A proposed free-trade zone (FTZ) in Shanghai has fired the imagination of optimistic investors looking to China’s new leaders for pro-market reforms. Backed by Premier Li Keqiang, the 28.8 sq km zone in Pudong district – itself a greenfield site two decades ago – is supposed to be a bold experiment in financial deregulation and trust-busting private industries. Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing is touting Shanghai’s FTZ as a challenge to his home city’s competitive edge. However, the details have remained fuzzy. What exactly will investors be permitted to do inside the FTZ? Will China’s currency be fully convertible? Who...

Ningxia has also become a wine hub in China and, increasingly, wine experts are coming around to the idea of Chinese wine. In December 2011, a panel of 10 wine experts found, in a blind tasting, that of a total of 10 wines made in Ningxia and Bordeaux in France, four out of the top five were Ningxia reds. Ningxia is home to some of the country’s top wineries and they are really make an impact, including Helan Qing Xue and Silver Heights, while the Shanxi-based Grace Vineyard has wineries in Ningxia. “Grape planting is now our main income,” said...

(Reuters) - Police in China on Monday released a teenager detained for questioning on his microblog authorities' handling of a man's death, a move that triggered an Internet outcry over censorship. State media had said that the junior high school student, surnamed Yang, was the first person detained under strict new rules to tackle what the government calls the spread of online rumours. The release of the 16-year-old in the western province of Gansu represents a victory for many microbloggers, who protested online after his detention last Tuesday for comments on his Twitter-like microblog. Yang had said that a man...

BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The State Council, China's cabinet, on Sunday issued a guideline on exploration of coal bed gas. Subsidies from central government shall be raised in the sector, with full consideration on costs and prices in extracting coal bed gas, said the government's website. The specific subsidy standards will be fixed jointly by departments including the Ministry of Finance, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration. Favorable tax policies will also be mapped out to boost coal bed gas exploration.

The Ministry of Defense has issued a number of statements on the question whether China should build its own domestic aircraft carriers. The latest states that the "Liaoning" is China's first aircraft carrier of China, but it will not necessarily be the only one. Military expert Yin Zhuo said in an interview that one aircraft carrier alone would be unable to meet the demands of medium/high-intensity combat. During a routine Ministry of Defense press conference in August, a journalist observed: "According to media reports, China is already building its first domestically-produced aircraft carrier – which would be China's second aircraft...

BEIJING: China's new law against online rumour mongering claimed its first victim when police detained a 16-year-old schoolgirl for raising questions about official investigations in a murder case. The tweet posted by the girl named Yang was picked up and retweeted over 500 times as it evoked a lot of interest in the Twitter-like Sina Weibo. The new law, which was issued last week, stipulates that a person would be punished if a rumour posted by him/her is retweeted more than 500 times. Yang's detention has caused a lot of resentment over the internet with many web users protesting against...

Chinese corporate debt was 113% of gross domestic product at the end of last year according to the widely followed Louis Kuijs of Royal Bank of Scotland Royal Bank of Scotland. That’s worse than the 86% in 2008. J.P.Morgan thinks the 2012 figure was 124%, and BBVA, the Spanish bank, estimates almost 130%. All these figures, in reality, are far too low. They are based on official GDP statistics, which grossly overstate China’s output. Make the proper adjustments to nominal GDP for inflation—this change by itself takes more than a trillion dollars off the 2012 results—and eliminate obvious fakery, and...

QINGDAO, China – China's Wanda Group has unwrapped an $8.2 billion film investment plan to transform the country's movie industry into the world's biggest within five years, and group chairman Wang Jianlin said the company, which bought the AMC theater chain last year, is just starting to expand globally. Hollywood A-listers turned out in force in searing sunshine in Qingdao, northeastern China, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman and Harvey Weinstein there to show moral support for the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis complex, which is slated to open in 2017 in the eastern Chinese port city. The facility will include a...

Typhoon Usagi came closest to Taiwan yesterday afternoon and is moving away from the nation in the direction of Hong Kong, but heavy rainfall is still expected to continue throughout today, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. As of 7:15pm, Typhoon Usagi had weakened slightly, with its center 140km southwest of Oluanpi (�鑾鼻). The wind speed near its center was 48 meters per second in a radius of 280km and the typhoon was moving west-northwest at 19kph. The bureau said that the land alert for Usagi may possibly be lifted as soon as this morning. The center of the typhoon...