Edward Wong New York Times

• With edge, US greets China's heir apparent

  China's vice president and likely future leader, Xi Jinping, embarked on a get-to-know-you tour of the United States on Tuesday, with a day of meetings from the White House to the Pentagon. But he was met with blunt criticism from his host, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who declared that the United States and China could cooperate "only if th...

• China's president lashes out at western culture

  President Hu Jintao has said China must strengthen its cultural production to defend against the West's assault on the country's culture and ideology, according to an essay in a Communist Party policy magazine published this week.

• Space plan from China broadens challenge to US

  Broadening its challenge to the United States, the Chinese government on Thursday announced an ambitious five-year plan for space exploration that would move China closer to becoming a major rival at a time when the American program is in retreat.

• To liberalisation of popular culture, China says 'enough'

  Communist leaders in China are proposing new limits on media and Internet freedoms that include some of the most restrictive measures in years.

• Chinese aircraft carrier may be near completion

  The Chinese state news agency has posted photographs of an aircraft carrier under reconstruction that appears to show the warship near completion. Captions with the photos said that the work would end soon and that the carrier was expected to sail later this year. The photos of the carrier, the Varyag, which China bought from Ukraine in 1998, appea...

• China tracks foreign journalists

  Western journalists have lately been tolerated in China, if grudgingly, but the spread of revolution in the Middle East has prompted the authorities here to adopt a more familiar tack: suddenly, foreign reporters are being tracked and detained in the same manner -- though hardly as roughly -- as political dissidents.On Sunday, about a dozen Europea...

• China bans searches for 'Egypt' on web

  In another era, China's leaders might have been content to let discussion of the protests in Egypt float around among private citizens, then fizzle out. But challenges in recent years to authoritarian governments around the globe and violent uprisings in parts of China itself have made Chinese officials increasingly wary of leaving such talk unchec...

• Top Chinese artist's studio torn down

  The studio would have stood at the heart of an embryonic arts cluster on the outskirts of Shanghai, drawing luminaries from around the world. It took two years to build, and one day to tear down. The new Shanghai studio designed by Ai Weiwei, a protean artist who is one of the most outspoken critics of the Chinese Communist Party, was completely ra...

• China flexes military muscle for US

  Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, on a mission to resuscitate moribund military relations with China, will not arrive in Beijing for talks with the nation's top military leaders until Sunday. But at an airfield in Chengdu, a metropolis in the nation's center, China's military leaders have already rolled out a welcome for him.It is the J-20, a r...

• China extending its footprints deep into Central Asia

  On the outskirts of this wind-scoured town, founded in 1893 as a Russian military post, the construction of a new customs compound heralds the return of another major power.When it opens this year, the sprawling new lot will accommodate much larger caravans of Chinese trucks than the existing trade depot, speeding the flow of clothing, electronics ...

• Celebrating Eid on China's watch

  Barbershop floors were littered with the remains of men's haircuts and beard-trims. Women in head scarves walked the dusty streets carrying plastic bags stuffed with food from the bazaars: melons, grapes, fried sweets, Frisbee-shaped bread, chunks of freshly butchered sheep. Children with generous parents strutted around in new clothes: suits for t...