China announced on Wednesday it will launch a joint mission with Russia to Mars in 2009, marking ”an important milestone” in space cooperation between the two countries. A small Chinese satellite will take off on a Russian rocket, according to the agreement signed on Monday between the China National Space Administration and the Russian Federal Space Agency.
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/ 6 November 2006
China’s foreign exchange reserves officially hit a record-shattering -trillion on Monday, and they could top -trillion sooner rather than later, economists said. Even if Chinese officials have vowed to slow the growth in this huge stash of cash, they are up against vast and inexorable economic forces and, just as important, a national policy of keeping the currency stable.
China has called on its 31 provinces to rein in their economies, state media said on Sunday, in a sign the central government has yet to persuade local bureaucrats that red-hot growth is bad. Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan emphasised that investment in factories, residential buildings and other fixed assets must be cooled down, according to the Xinhua news agency.
Chinese authorities were warned against cover-ups on Saturday after the death toll from Tropical Storm Bilis more than doubled overnight. A week after Bilis made landfall, the official number of people killed in gales and floods was given at 518, nearly 300 more than the 228 previously reported, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday the international incentive offer to curtail his nation’s nuclear programme was a ”step forward” that would be carefully considered. ”We will give a response in due time in line with the international interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Ahmadinejad told a press conference.
China’s Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River, the world’s largest hydropower project, shows the nation at its most powerful, but also makes it vulnerable in entirely new ways. For the past nearly two decades, during design and construction of the dam, planners have engaged in a low-key effort to make sure it is protected from hostile forces.
Li Shuanlin remembers the sweltering hot August day nine years ago when his mine shaft collapsed and, with it, life as he knew it. A coal miner since the age of 24, he was fully aware of the dangers of his profession, but always thought it would happen to someone else.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Tuesday called on Japan’s leaders to stop visiting a controversial Tokyo war shrine, comparing their actions to the worship of Germany’s Nazis after World War II. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has made five visits to the Yasukuni Shrine since taking office in 2001.
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/ 8 February 2006
With vibrant economies and more than a billion people each, China and India might seem obvious candidates for the Group of Eight (G8), but analysts say the road to membership will be long. Russia is now heading the G8 for the first time, inevitably triggering questions about why the two Asian giants have not joined long ago.
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/ 26 January 2006
Google and other Western internet companies are competing in a ”race to the bottom” as they bow to Chinese censors in order to gain a slice of the world’s most promising market, critics said on Thursday. The Silicon Valley-based online search engine has agreed to censor websites and content banned by China’s propaganda chiefs.