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The careful remarks by Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi masked the unparalleled plain-spoken discussions among China’s officials and analysts about the value of supporting North Korea even as it continues to develop nuclear weapons.

Incoming Chinese president Xi Jinping's first trip as head of state will take him to Africa, the government said on Saturday, as China seeks to cement a growing trade and energy relationship that has caused alarm bells to ring in Washington.

Adidas is catching up with Nike in the race to be China's top sportswear company, on the strength of products like high-heeled tennis shoes.

Thousands of Chinese mourned at a candlelight vigil Tuesday night in the northeastern city of Changchun for a two-month-old boy who was strangled to death by a carjacker. Xu Haobo was sleeping in the backseat of his parent's SUV early Monday morning when his father stopped for a few minutes to turn on the heat in a store the family owned, authorities said. "He left his kid in the car with the heat on, and he didn't take the keys," a bystander at the scene in Changchun later told TV reporters. "He was inside for a bit, and when he looked outside, there was nobody there."

In his final address in power, outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao told China's congress Tuesday that China has seen "truly extraordinary" development in recent years and must bolster national security to defend it.

With three humble bows to the audience, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao exited the public stage in an anticlimactic end to his ten-year reign. In his final work report at the opening of the National People's Congress, nary a word was spoken about political reform, which Wen had championed in earlier speeches. Instead, he read a 100-minute statement that was dull even by the standards of the country’s soporific political theater.

U.S. universities have responded to China's exploding demand for American higher education with branch campuses and aggressive recruiting. Now, some are trying to boost their brands by casting photos and other snippets of campus life out into the confounding sea of Chinese social media.

Which country has the largest number of billionaires, China or America? China. According to the latest Hurun Global Rich List 2013, China had 212 billionaires in 2013, compared to 211 in America.

China's factory growth cooled to multi-month lows in February as domestic demand dipped, weighing on firms already hit by slack foreign sales and underlining the patchiness of the country's economic recovery.

China plans major bond market reform to raise the money the ruling Communist Party needs for a 40 trillion yuan ($6.4 trillion) urbanization program to buoy economic growth and close a chasm between the country's urban rich and rural poor.