A huge forest fire broke out in southwestern China’s Sichuan province at 07:51 UTC (15:51 LT) on Monday, March 30, 2020. As of Tuesday, March 31, authorities confirmed 19 fatalities, including 18 firefighters and one farmer guide. The blaze has spread across 1… Read More ›

Sichuan
China’s paranoia: SWAT given ‘shoot on sight’ orders; commuters frisked as Beijing heightens anti-terror measures
Beijing subjected rush-hour passengers to an extra layer of security checks and gave orders allowing SWAT teams to shoot terrorists on sight, as it ramped up policing after a string of attacks on the mainland. This morning, hundreds of passengers… Read More ›
Seven big problems that China’s large economy can’t solve
China may have topped the U.S. as the world’s largest economy, at least according to the World Bank, but how does that help the country? Here are seven problems China faces that its top ranking will not solve: Corruption China… Read More ›
China: Billionaire Liu Han sentenced to death for organised crime
Hubei’s Xianning City Intermediate People’s Court gave the death penalty to Sichuan tycoons Liu Han and Liu Wei and three of their accomplices for organised crimes. Liu was the leader of a mafia-style organisation, of which 36 members have been… Read More ›
Chengdu man uncovers 800-year-old terracotta figurine after peeing on the side of the road
While peeing in public may be frowned upon in many places, mainlanders apparently take a slightly more tolerant attitude to the practice. In Hong Kong, this cultural clash has led to a number of altercations after mainland parents let their children relieve… Read More ›
China’s first lady attacks US because Michelle Obama ate Tibetan food
The following is a translation from Chinese media: It has been stressed that there was no politics in US first lady Michelle Obama’s China visit, but the arrangement of her last meal at a Tibetan restaurant gave China the message… Read More ›
Man jumps into tiger enclosure in China and asks to be eaten
On February 16, horrified onlookers watched as a Chinese man jumped into a bengal tiger enclosure at Chengdu Zoo in Sichuan province, south-west China. The man taunted the two tigers for twenty minutes, offering his flesh to them and asking to… Read More ›
China launches lunar probe carrying ‘Jade Rabbit’ moon buggy
China launched its first ever extraterrestrial landing craft into orbit en route for the moon in the small hours of Monday, in a major milestone for its space program. The Chang’e-3 lunar probe, which includes the Yutu or Jade Rabbit… Read More ›
Chinese officials apologise for gross Photoshop ineptitude
Shamed by a chorus of outrage and ridicule on social media, local officials in central China have apologized for a very shoddy piece of Photoshop work. A picture posted online by the government of Ningguo, a small city in Anhui… Read More ›
Chinese police rescue 92 abducted children
BBC says in its report today: Chinese police have rescued 92 abducted children and held 301 suspected members of a huge trafficking network, the authorities say. They say two women were also freed in an operation involving police forces in… Read More ›
China: 70 dead in Gansu earthquake
Two powerful earthquakes have struck China’s north-west Gansu province, killing more than 70 people and leaving at least 400 others injured. The first earthquake near Dingxi city had a magnitude of 5.98 and was shallow, with a depth of just… Read More ›
China’s city-sized mall, complete with artificial sun
For years, the race to build the world’s tallest tower has been dominated by the United Arab Emirates with the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, or the Tokyo Sky Tree of Japan. But China recently opened up a few front in… Read More ›
Economic motivation behind China’s dam building
The Chinese government has given preliminary environmental approval for construction of what would eventually be the country’s largest hydroelectric dam. The project, on the Dadu river in the southwestern province of Sichuan, is expected to take 10 years to construct… Read More ›
China gives environmental approval to country’s biggest hydro dam
China‘s environment ministry has given the go-ahead for the construction of what will become the country’s tallest hydroelectric dam despite acknowledging it will have an impact on plants and rare fish. The dam, with a height of 314 meters (1,030… Read More ›
China: Chengdu protest silenced
The article below by Fox News is a very insightful, albeit quick look, at the ongoing struggle for transparency and reform in China. The tone of the piece is focused on a key idea – If China’s government would be… Read More ›
China Red Cross admits redirecting 80 million yuan, but amazingly denies misuse
The scandal-plagued Red Cross Society of China has admitted that more than 80 million yuan donated (HK$100 million) by more than 100 Chinese artists to build an art school and fund other reconstruction work after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake was… Read More ›
Uneven economic growth in China’s regions
When looking at Chinese growth, it’s easy to think of the country as one entity, and one figure. Will GDP expand by 8 per cent this year, or “just” 7? However, China is a bit bigger than just one number. With… Read More ›
China quake kills scores in rural Sichuan
A powerful earthquake has killed more than 150 people and injured several thousand in China’s rural south west, officials say. The 6.6-magnitude tremor sent people fleeing from buildings across Sichuan province, which was devastated by a massive quake five years… Read More ›
1000 dead ducks found in Sichuan river
Much like the 16,000 dead pigs found floating in a different part of the river, the discovery of over 1000 dead ducks in the Nanhe has raised some serious questions. Foremost amongst them is how they died and why they… Read More ›
China’s taste for pork serves up a pollution problem
Fan Jianjun points to a concrete pipe jutting from the lake bank. Sludge spews from its mouth and arcs across the water, the surface bubbling with the bodies of flies. Fan has lived in Houtonglong village all his 31 years…. Read More ›
First arrests for inciting Tibetan self-immolations since crime ruled murder
Police detained a monk and his nephew in Sichuan province and accused them of instigating the self-immolations of eight ethnic Tibetans on the instructions of the Dalai Lama and his followers, state media reported yesterday. Xinhua did not detail what… Read More ›
Western China’s rise set to ecplise that of the East; Chengdu seeks to become a global financial hub
Chinese development has always been a tale of two nations. There is the China we read about in the news, a booming 21st century metropolis primed to dominate the world economy and finance the expansion of the Communist Party. But… Read More ›
China at crossroad: risk of disintegration
The disintegration of the giant Soviet Union took everyone by surprise. The reasons for the disintegration remain a mystery for most analysts. Perhaps we Chinese, with a history of quite a few disintegrations, may understand it better. Like China with… Read More ›
Post-90s generation dare to rise up; China’s future hopeful
Thousands of students, supported by their parents and teachers and mobilising through online social media, played a central role in the recent protests against plans for a heavy-metal plant in Shifang , Sichuan province. Now some people are asking whether… Read More ›
The mystery of China’s security tsar Zhou Yongkang
SCMP reports on China’s security tsar Zhou Yongkang’s speech, carried yesterday in Qiushi Journal, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s political theory magazine. SCMP says that Zhou condemns “the use of torture and the suspicious deaths of suspects” in a speech… Read More ›
County got huge funds by overstating earthquake damages
According an exclusive report by Hong Kong’s Ming Pao on May 7, a few days before the fourth anniversary of Wenchuan Earthquake, Shehong County cheated the central government out of more than 100 million yuan ($16,000,000) of reconstruction funds by… Read More ›
Migrants at work, tourists at home in China
Xu Guanghui is one of many economic migrants who are strangers in their own homes, but the flood heading east is ebbing as development spreads west. He had not seen his family for two years when he sat down for… Read More ›
Frog invasion spawns fears of earthquake
Tens of thousands of frogs have appeared on suburban roads in Wuhan and Nanjing , prompting fears among residents that they could be signalling an imminent earthquake. However, earthquake authorities in both cities say that massed ranks of the amphibians… Read More ›
Tibetan quake victims fight China government land grab
For two years after a cataclysmic earthquake struck a remote and wild part of China’s northwestern Qinghai province, Baobao and 29 other homeless ethnic Tibetan residents occupied the area outside several government buildings to denounce a land grab. But no… Read More ›