At the docks here, the stacks of shipping containers that used to loom above the highway overpass are gone. Logistics managers say they negotiate deeper discounts every week on ships that are leaving half empty.

In nearby Guangdong Province, so many factories are closing without paying employees that some workers are resigning pre-emptively and demanding immediate pay before their employers go bankrupt.

Members of the 50 Cents Party are an acknowledged cyberpolice force: they serve as the eyes and ears of the Communist Party, act as its attack dog against “unacceptable” online content on politically sensitive issues, and steer bulletin board and blog debates with posts that reflect the opinions of the Communist Party, the report said.

Three earthquakes jolted China's southwestern provinces on Friday, injuring 19 people and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands more, state media said, citing local authorities.

China plans to crack down on pyramid schemes and illegal banking services more severely as the nation's senior legislators on Monday began to discuss a law draft targeting such scams.

It is hard to tell exactly what is going on, but Russia and Iran seem to be bracing for a countermove in the event of the Obama administration pressing ahead with the present US policy to isolate them or cut them out from their "near abroad".

In the United States, the danger of debt insolvency is growing, putting at risk the currency reserves of foreign countries, China chief among them.

Local experts say they are confused as they believe the tomb had been undisturbed since it was created during the Ming dynasty 400 years ago.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for stronger military ties with Russia in talks with visiting Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, state media reported.

"As the strategic partnership between China and Russia develops, the relationship between the two militaries has also continued to become more consolidated and stronger," Xinhua news agency quoted Hu as saying.

With next year's 60th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral relations approaching and economic relations between them at historic highs, the two nations should also advance ties in other areas, Hu said.

China looks like it will soon slip into deflation. But will it be the good kind or the bad kind?

Chinese officials urged the U.S. to do everything possible to restore calm to financial markets and said they are preparing for a “worst-case scenario” as the global crisis deepens.

The chairman of China’s sovereign wealth fund said on Wednesday that China had no plans for further investments in Western financial institutions, nor did it have any plans to “save” the world through economic policies.

The Chinese Communist party’s mouthpiece — the People’s Daily — has carried a news article, indicating involvement of Hindu radicals in the Mumbai Terror attacks. The article has based its argument on a “red thread” worn by the attackers on their wrists.

The pagoda is believed to contain a sarira of Sakyamuni Buddha, a bone section of Buddha's cranium.

Two Silicon Valley engineers from China have been sentenced to prison for stealing chip designs and attempting to smuggle them back into their native country

A take-over of a large overseas auto maker would fit perfectly into China’s plans. As reported before, China has realized that its export chances are slim without unfettered access to foreign technology. The brand cachet of Chinese cars abroad is, shall we say, challenged. The Chinese could easily export Made-in-China VWs, Toyotas, Buicks. If their joint venture partner would let them. The solution: Buy the joint venture partner. Especially, when he’s in deep trouble.

China surpassed Japan in September to become the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, as foreign investors sought the relative safety of government debt as stocks plunged 9.1 percent that month.

President Hu Jintao of China is set to meet Cuban leader Raul Castro later in the day as part of his multi-stop tour of the US and Latin America.

The two nations are agreeing multiple deals on trade and loans as China bid to strengthen its links with Latin American and Caribbean nations.

English author G K Chesterton rhymed about "the night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier", and it may seem no less whimsical to argue that the United States' road to recovery, as well as Barack Obama's path to presidential greatness, run through China.

Wang Denggui, father of three, arrived more than a year ago in the palm-lined streets of this southern Chinese town with a single goal: toil in a factory to save for his children's school tuition.

But the plans of Wang and thousands of co-workers unraveled at noon on Nov. 1, when the Taiwan chairman of their ailing shoe factory climbed over a factory wall to flee the country and his debts. That left several U.S. shoe companies with unfilled orders and 2,000 workers without jobs.

"He just ran without telling anyone," Wang said.

North Oil, an Iraqi-owned company, has signed a contract with a Chinese state-owned oil corporation, CNPC, that was first negotiated during Saddam Hussein’s government, an official in Iraq’s Oil Ministry said Tuesday.

China's announcement of a stimulus package that will pour more than half a trillion dollars into its economy will have repercussions far beyond its borders in a time of global crisis, economists say.

China unveiled a $586 billion stimulus package Sunday in its biggest move to inoculate the world’s fourth-largest economy against the global financial crisis.

Beijing and Washington should "accommodate each other's concerns," Chinese President Hu Jintao told US president-elect Barack Obama in a phonecall that stressed good Sino-US ties, state media said Sunday.

Many people argued that China would "decouple" from Western economies, weather the financial crisis relatively unscathed, and thus help to give the world economy some stability.

Tao Shoulong burned his company's financial books. He then sold his private golf club memberships and disposed of his Mercedes S-600 sedan.

And then he was gone.

And just like that, China's biggest textile dye operation -- with four factories, a campus the size of 31 football fields, 4,000 workers and debts of at least $200 million -- was history.

While Western space experts may be divided over the exact purpose of the BX-1 mission, it is clear that China has every intention of driving its dynamic "dual use" space agenda as far as it will go. BX-1 could well be little more than a peaceful probe merely engaged in "close proximity" operations with cameras and transmission equipment aboard. Or it could be a prototype satellite attack dog, a space surveillance and Space Situational Awareness (SSA) platform with anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities, all rolled into a single menacing platform ready to pounce.

At least 2.7 million factory workers in southern China could lose their jobs as the global economic crisis hits demand for electronics, toys and clothes, according to industry estimates.

China's powerful economic machine is losing steam, raising significant concerns for many businesses that are counting on the Asian nation to help them ride out the global financial crisis.

The US says it has discussed NPT issues with China and Pakistan amid reports that Beijing is aiding Islamabad in building new nuclear reactors.

China Shipping Container Lines Co. forecast traffic will decline for the first time in at least four years as the global economic slowdown and a stronger yuan curb demand for Chinese-made toys, electronics and clothing in North America and Europe.

At issue in the lawmakers' demands was the DEA's operation where 147 of 187 arriving passengers on a Shanghai Airlines flight were subjected to intensive body searches at the Saipan International Airport. Tour operators report that agents corralled the passengers-all Chinese-into a small room and searched even the most private parts of their bodies, in addition to checking every piece of luggage they carried.

According to a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report, China denied reports that it would buy up to $200 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds to partially finance the Bush Administration’s $700 billion rescue package.

While Chinese companies are in line to benefit directly from U.S. taxpayers' $700 billion-plus bailout of Wall Street, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other financial institutions, Beijing is stiffing the U.S. for $100 billion or more in unpaid debt.

The status of the Chinese economy, including its repudiated debt, has prompted one analyst to warn of an "ominous threat" involving China's finances and suggest the possibility of "a dramatic reversal" for the "so-called Chinese Miracle."

I received an email this morning from a reader in China. He cannot access my Blog any longer because it is on WordPress….

In his own words…. “The main reason why I suspect it’s not available in China is that all of wordpress.com is blocked here, almost certainly because that website hosts anti-China websites. China used to do that for geocities too, but recently I’ve noticed that I can get some geocities sites from here.”

The "tsunami" in the US financial system was touched off by short-sighted monetary policy and lax regulation, a leading Chinese state ne
wspaper said on Wednesday. The front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily is the latest in a stream of critical articles that have lashed US policy even as the Chinese central bank has said it endorses a Washington bailout plan.

AMID chaos on Wall Street, the question looms — who wins? Increasingly, eyes are flickering towards China.

Even as the stock market is hitting new record highs almost every day, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department are quietly coordinating a devaluation of the dollar that the Bush administration hopes will be a slow decline rather than a dollar collapse.

This week, in an unusual move, the Bush administration is sending virtually the entire economic "A-team" to visit China for a "strategic economic dialogue" in Beijing Dec. 14 and 15.

Three Chinese astronauts landed safely back on earth on Sunday after a 68-hour voyage and space walk that showcased the country's technological mastery and were hailed as a major victory by its leaders.

According to military sources, during his five-day official tour to China he would meet with his Chinese counterpart People Liberation Army Chief Gen Chen Bingde in which matters related to enhancing Pak-China Defense and military cooperation would be discussed. Besides this Gen Kayani would also meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao who is also the commander in chief of the PLA.

Hundreds of angry Lehman Brothers investors rallied in Hong Kong on Sunday to demand the government help secure their money after the U.S. investment bank collapsed this past week.

The investors, many of them nearing or at retirement age, waved investment papers and chanted slogans outside the territory's government headquarters as they accused regulators of not doing enough to safeguard their interests.

China, which holds a fifth of its currency reserves in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt, may cut the portion held in US dollars, according to China International Capital Corp (CICC), one of the nation's biggest investment banks.

Israel's sole medallist at the 2008 Olympics stirred a diplomatic row after describing the Chinese as shits, complaining they had funny accents and grumbling he could not buy hummus in China.

The U.S. Treasury's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is good news in the short term for China, the biggest holder of the giant mortgage lenders' debt, but Beijing's huge U.S. exposure still poses a serious risk, a prominent government researcher said on Monday.
China owned $376 billion of debt issued by U.S. government agencies, principally Fannie and Freddie, as of mid-2007.

China’s central bank is in a bind.

It has been on a buying binge in the United States over the last seven years, snapping up roughly $1 trillion worth of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Iraq and China have agreed the terms of a $3 billion oil service contract, Iraq's oil minister says, announcing the first major oil contract with a foreign firm since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

China and Iraq have signed a $3 billion deal revising an earlier agreement for China's biggest oil company to help develop the Ahdab oil field, an official at the Iraq's Oil Ministry said Thursday.

RUSSIA today won support from China and Central Asian states in its standoff with the West over the Georgia conflict as the European Union said it was weighing sanctions against Moscow.

China is set to overtake the US next year as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods, four years earlier than expected, as a result of the rapidly weakening US economy.

-Iraq and China are set to revive a $1.2 billion oil deal that was canceled after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the Iraq's oil ministry said Sunday.

The largest US/EU naval armada assembled since the start of Gulf War I now is taking up station just outside and inside the Persian Gulf, with significant battle groups just coming off an extensive joint military exercise timed to end just now. America never will be more ready to take on Iran, or so it thinks.

The US has announced its intention to emplace a naval blockade of Iran. That, in itself, is an act of war under international law. Never mind that Iran has done nothing to deserve this. Neither Russia nor China, strategic trading partners of Iran's will take this lying down.