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Chinese village protests test regional leader’s liberal stance

From afar, the huge banners draped across the village square of Wukan on Saturday seemed to herald a town fête. When a man stood up on a scooter to straighten a 20ft banner, however, its message suggested the inhabitants were under siege: “If all the farmland is sold, we will be slaves, losing our village.” [...]

Plan for China’s Water Crisis Spurs Concern

DANJIANGKOU, China — North China is dying. A chronic drought is ravaging farmland. The Gobi Desert is inching south. The Yellow River, the so-called birthplace of Chinese civilization, is so polluted it can no longer supply drinking water. The rapid growth of megacities — 22 million people in Beijing and 12 million in Tianjin alone [...]

Advice for China

FROM: Ministry of State Security   TO: President Hu Jintao SUBJECT: The Arab Spring Dear President Hu: You asked for our assessment of the Arab Spring. Our conclusion is that the revolutions in the Arab world contain some important lessons for the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, because what this contagion reveals is something [...]

AIDS Funds Frozen for China in Grant Dispute

BEIJING — The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has frozen payments on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of disease-fighting grants to China, one of the charity’s biggest recipients, in a dispute over China’s management of the grants and its hostility toward involving grass-roots organizations in public health issues.   The dispute [...]

China’s Plan to Cut Taxes Puts Burden on Wealthy

BEIJING — China is considering an income tax cut, but its impact may be smaller than expected. The initiative, which was taken up by the country’s legislature on Wednesday and could become law this year, would raise the minimum income required to pay the tax to $450 a month from $315. News reports have said [...]

Chinese Truck Drivers Protest Rising Fees and Fuel Prices

SHANGHAI (AP) — The police on Thursday clamped down on a demonstration by hundreds of truck drivers upset over rising fees and fuel prices in Shanghai, China’s busiest port city, in the latest display of public resentment over surging inflation. The police acted after the drivers blocked a dock in the Pudong district of eastern [...]

World’s major emerging powers meet in China

SANYA, China — Leaders of five of the world’s major emerging economies kicked off a summit in southern China on Thursday that will see them push for developing nations to have greater international influence. Chinese President Hu Jintao will chair the meeting with his South African, Brazilian and Russian counterparts Jacob Zuma, Dilma Rousseff and [...]