The Communist Party only has one option: it has to avoid a bust at all costs, and continue to make like the fireworks and boom, writes Matthew Clayfield, a freelance correspondent, in Beijing.
China
Russia goes its own way over Syria
Last week there was some hope that Russia might be coming on board with the need to do something about the steadily increasing bloodshed in Syria.
Burma, the outcast, on the long road to reform
The Burmese military-derived government has released hundreds of political prisoners, signed a ceasefire with the country’s largest ethnic rebel group and allowed the opposition National League for Democracy to re-form.
Political snippets: A worry to come for the government.
The sagging public confidence about economic conditions that the pollsters are reporting is unlikely to be improved when workers get their next statement from superannuation funds.
Political snippets: Chinese whispers forecast fast growth
Chinese officials have just finished their annual economic talkfest known as the Central Economic Work Conference with a commitment not to allow global uncertainties to disrupt what it called “relatively fast growth.”
Political snippets: Perhaps Wayne is understating
Gross domestic product figures out this morning give no support at all to those who attacked Treasurer Wayne Swan for being too optimistic last week with his revised growth forecasts.
Political snippets: Whispers of a Chinese slowdown
A serious slowdown in China really would bring Australia back into line with the struggles being experienced by most of the rest of the developed world.
Political snippets: More European doom and gloom
The gloomy headlines about the financial situation just keep coming.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Unemployment in the UK
Crikey readers have their say.
Obama to China: you can’t exploit our fiscal crisis
Barack Obama used his address to Parliament to send an unambiguous message to China.
China’s manufacturing centre’s annus horribilis
For years Wenzhou, China has been the scene of China’s financial and entrepreneurial success, full of fancy cars and new apartment buildings. But slowing exports — thanks to debt-laden Europe — is crushing the city’s manufacturing sector.
Rundle: it’s all in the tone, Mao Turnbull, and apparently the genes
Malcolm Turnbull today refused to deny rumours that former Liberal prime minister Harold Holt was a Chinese agent, in a speech that offered fulsome praise for China’s one-party development model.
WikiLeaks points the finger at Sheridan over China story
A senior Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) official briefed the United States government alleging factual errors in an influential article published in The Australian, writes Grahame Bowland.
The need for speed: test riding China’s new rail network
The Chinese love and admire their trains and ride them in the millions. They now have a $32 billion high-speed line between Shanghai and Bejing and experiencing it is quite something, writes Simon Winchester.
Political snippets: No clear-cut successor to Gillard
So suppose Labor does take the plunge and sack another Prime Minister: who would the party turn to?
The hush-hush oil syndicate between China and Africa
Over the last seven years the ‘Chinese International Fund’ has, while shrouded in secrecy, signed contracts worth billions of dollars for oil and minerals from Africa, says The Economist.
The lesson from S&P: politics DOES matter
The Standard and Poor’s downgrade of the US is a reaction to the political nature of the current economic malaise, write Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane.
Attacking privacy under the cover of ‘cyber war’
The conflation of very different forms of online activity underlies the use of “cyber war” as a pretext for reducing privacy and funding contractors.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Reprehensible reporting of Norway massacre
Crikey readers have their say.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: The private lives of politicians
Crikey readers have their say.
China caught burying crashed train cars and the truth
China’s central censorship failed thanks to social media over the weekend with widespread posting of videos of damaged bullet-train carriages being buried in hastily dug trenches, reports Ben Sandilands.
There’s more than refugee boats on our northern horizon
The disputed sovereignty over the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea, remains an issue for Asia-Pacific leaders.
Travelling Europe with a bus of Chinese tourists
Europe only recently became an affordable destination for Chinese travellers. Evan Osnos hops on board with a busload of them, visiting destinations like the German town of Karl Marx’s birth and discussing ancient Chinese civilisation.
From outspoken to silent: how China gets its critics to toe the line
In the last week China has released artist Ai Weiwei and blogger Hu Jia, both known internationally as fierce critics of the government. They are now strangely silent. How does China do it? asks Kathleen E. McLaughlin.
