So President Sarkozy of France (currently occupying the rotating presidency of the EU) met as expected with the Dalai Lama over the weekend. Beijing had already cancelled a China-Europe summit that was scheduled to start today in protest. Sarkozy was unapologetic, defending his right to meet anyone he wants. He also tried to strike a …

Here’s a Youtube grab that’s floating around from a Shenzhen TV station about one resident of their city, Mark Ndesandjo. He is Obama’s half brother, has married a Chinese from Henan province and spent the last six years in China. The report states that when his brother won the election Mark texted some of his Chinese friends: …

Some worrying numbers from economist Ben Simpfendorfer at the Royal bank of Scotland. As the government is aiming to get the Chinese consumer to be one of the planks of its economic stimulus plan, some optimists (Ok. ok. I did write a story about a possible soft landing including these figures; the basic points remain valid, though) have …

Last week Belgian TV reporter Tom Van de Weghe was in the province of Henan with a crew attempting to report on the situation of the hundreds of thousands of HIV sufferers (and the many orphaned children of victims) who contracted the disease while donating blood or receiving transfusions in the late 1990s and early 2000s. (See past …

The latest in a wave of taxi strikes throughout the country took place in Hong Kong last night. Angry about a new urban-taxi fare structure, about 1,000 Hong Kong drivers from the city’s rural New Territories region launched an impromptu strike at the city’s airport, paralyzing traffic for several hours. The issues in Hong Kong are …

Today was China’s annual “law day,” when the adoption of the 1982 constitution is marked. Officially the day is meant to publicize the country’s legal system, but for some it is a day to bring attention to their claims of injustice. China’s petition system, which dates back to imperial times, is the last resort for citizens who …

Last month I mentioned my piece on falling scrap prices in China and how that was affecting the people living in a recycling village outside Beijing. The latest issue of the Atlantic has a nice story on the situation from the perspective of international scrap metal traders at a meeting in Shanghai.

So why does the price of scrap …

Lin Yang writes:

There was a curious sight on the expressway leading to the southwestern city of Chongqing on the morning of December 2nd. According to the Chongqing Evening News, four beat-up electric tricycles carrying 11 people were trying to pass a tollgate. The drivers were farmers without licenses. They and the riders were covered

…

From our colleague Bruce Crumley in Paris, a look at why China reacted so strongly to Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to meet with the Dalai Lama but did little after the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader’s recent talks with British premier Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In the entry of the building where TIME’s Hong Kong offices are located, there is a statue of a man squatting on a pedestal. Presumably the artist envisioned a work depicting a person deep in thought. To anyone who has used a squat toilet in China, the statue clearly depicts a man engaged in one of life’s necessary activities. Whether …

As my colleague Liam Fitzpatrick has volubly complained in the past, the powers that be of world cuisine, or rather the self-appointed powers that be, don’t seem to register that Chinese cooking is right up there with French and Japanese as one of the world’s greats. He was particularly miffed that a purported ranking of the world’s best …

China’s Ministry of Health announced yesterday that six infants may have died in the country’s tainted-milk scandal, up from the previously declared total of three, the state-run Xinhua news service reported. The number of children sickened also grew dramatically from 60,000 to 294,000. Their illnesses were caused by the illegal addition …

From Bill Powell, here’s a look at the recent layoffs in south China and why they have the government so concerned.