A slightly bizarre story here out of the United States about differing reactions to the news that China’s first swine flu victim is a graduate student at the University of Missouri. Here in Beijing, the health authorities have indeed gone into overdrive. I have received three sets of text messages asking anyone who was on board the …

Beijing’s official response to the latest confrontation between Chinese “fishing boats” and a U.S. navy surveillance vessel (see our post below) goes some way to confirming that this problem is going to be around for a while and could get ugly. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the ship was breaking international and Chinese law by …

During a press conference in Chengdu today the Sichuan provincial government announced that 5,335 students died or remain missing after last year’s devastating earthquake. The collapse of a large number of schoolhouses was one of the most significant and sensitive stories in last year’s quake. Many parents alleged that official …

Quarantine mania is abating in China. Most of the 71 Mexicans who were isolated after arriving in China for fear they could spread swine flu have flown back to Mexico City on a government-chartered plane. Likewise, a group of Canadian students in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun has been released.

But like a wily virus, …

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China has troubling news today of three attacks on journalists in the Sichuan earthquake region. What reporters are facing there now in the days before the one-year anniversary of the May 12 disaster pales with what families seeking answers about why their children died in collapsed schools are dealing …

The level of distrust between China and the overseas Tibetan community is evident. You can see it in the plodding nature of talks between Dharamsala and Beijing, the sharp criticism coming from both corners, or even in the comments sections of this blog, where supporters of the two sides frequently spar. So it was refreshing to read an …

…and once again the U.S. ship is a submarine hunter. As I have said in the past these incidents not only signal an increasingly assertive Chinese stance, they also make me wonder about how much the People’s Liberation Army Navy is pushing things, given the much more aggressive comments made by senior naval officers about these clashes …

For TIME Asia’s recent Best of Asia issue, I wrote a short piece on the Nu River, which was subtitled the “Best Place to Visit Before It’s Gone.” When my mother visited last month, she said she wanted to visit a place off the tourist trail, so we went to northwest Yunnan province, near the Burmese border, to see the river.

By …

Here’s our time.com piece on the quarantine of Mexicans arriving in China following the first reported case of swine flu here.

In recent weeks it has appeared that China’s deadly experience with SARS has helped ready the country for the arrival of swine flu. Last week A/H1N1 arrived on Chinese soil. After failing to diagnose the 25-year-old Mexican man who carried the virus upon his arrival in Shanghai, health inspectors finally diagnosed him after a flight to …

This year’s TIME 100 list of the world’s most influential people includes two Chinese leaders, vice president Xi Jinping and vice premier Wang Qishan. Wang’s profile was written by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who says:

I know Vice Premier Wang, 60, to be decisive and inquisitive. He is an avid historian, enjoys philosophical

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Here’s my latest story on why China’s economic recovery efforts are helping state-owned enterprises at the expense of the private sector. From Hong Kong, Michael Schuman has a look at the latest trade numbers, which offer Asia’s exporters their first cause for optimism in months. And from Lin Yang, here’s a piece on why the downturn is …

Here are a couple of stories on time.com that should be of interest to China Blog readers. From Hong Kong, at look at what advice the region hit by the last major killer contagion—SARS—can offer to countries faced with the spread of swine flu. And from Brussels, our take on the likelihood of a trade war over Chinese steel.