China, Asia | featured news

Figured another way, the 2010 toll meant the loss of 25 million healthy years of life from the population, researchers said.

...The country has no recent precedent for the role of first lady, and also faces a tricky balance at home. The leadership wants Peng to show the human side of the new No. 1 leader, Xi Jinping, while not exposing too many perks of the elite. And it must balance popular support for the first couple with an acute wariness of personality cults that could skew the consensus rule among the Chinese Communist Party's top leaders.

After a week of acrimonious accusations between China and Vietnam, the Chinese military has admitted that one of its ships fired at a Vietnamese fishing boat, though it insisted that only flares were shot and that Vietnam’s claims of fire damage to the fishing boat were a “sheer fabrication.”

Pig carcasses — about 14,000 of them — have been floating down rivers that feed into Shanghai for nearly two weeks. The city’s residents have been told not to worry, and not much else. Where the pigs came from, how they died and why they suddenly showed up in the river system that supplies drinking water to a city of 23 million has not been explained. Officials have told residents that their drinking water is safe and have censored microblog posts suggesting that the public organize peaceful protests.

In their first meetings with China’s new leaders, U.S. officials this week pushed for an acknowledgment of the unusual nature of cyberattacks originating from China aimed at stealing U.S. corporate secrets to benefit the Asian giant’s state-owned enterprises.

Suntech, one of the world's biggest solar panel manufacturers, was forced in bankruptcy court Wednesday, becoming the latest casualty of a painful slump in the global solar industry.

The FBI said Tuesday it is actively investigating a Chinese man arrested Saturday with a one-way ticket out of U.S. -- a scientist potentially carrying highly confidential military secrets and rocket technology from NASA labs.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - In a break from months of saber rattling, China under new President Xi Jinping appears to be moderating its approach to a potentially explosive territorial dispute with Japan and taking measures to prevent accidental conflict.

Street signs in English, not-so-spicy cuisine, locals who don’t stare, contemporary art galleries, modern youth hostels and even interpreter hot lines for cabdrivers who don’t speak English. For independent travelers about to start an expedition into the huge, mysterious nation of China, I have some advice: stop in Shanghai and take a deep breath.

China’s new leader Xi Jinping capped his rise Thursday by adding the largely ceremonial title of president, though he will need cautious maneuvering to consolidate his power.