China’s Reserves Swell More Slowly

The country’s foreign exchange reserves grew in the first quarter by less than they did in the fourth quarter of last year. Reserves stood at $1.95 trillion at the end of March, the People’s Bank of China reports, up $7.7 trillion since the end of December, when they had shown a more than $40 billion [...]

China Executes Most, But Fewer

China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the U.S. comprise a deadly quintet. They accounted for nine out of ten of all known executions last year, according to Amnesty International’s latest yearly tally. China tops its list with 470 executions, almost two in five of the 1,252 Amnesty found.
China’s total is down from 1,860 in 2006. [...]

New Reports Of Tibetan Protests In Western China

New reports of continuing Tibetan unrest despite the crackdown following mid-March’s Lhasa protests.
Police fired on hundreds of protesters in Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, killing eight people, according to the London-based Free Tibet Campaign and the International Campaign for Tibet. The protesters were demanding the release of two monks who were detained after 3,000 [...]

China’s Corporate Web Sites Getting Better

Effective corporate web sites are fewer and further between than you might expect. Bowen Craggs, a communications consultancy that bills itself as “website effectiveness experts” draws up a ranking of those from 75 of the world’s biggest public companies by market capitalization.
Six Chinese sites make its second annual list, thanks to a raft of bank [...]

Paulson’s Flying Trip To Beijing Provides Little Cheer

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s flying visit to Beijing to prepare for the next round of strategic economic dialogue due in June was a glummer than usual affair.
Squeezed in between Washington appearances on Monday to announce his plan to restructure America’s financial regulation and a Thursday U.S. Senate hearing on the Bear Stearns bailout, Paulson [...]

Philips To Undertake Medical Imaging Research At West China Hospital

This story in the FT caught this Bystander’s eye: Philips is set to announce a seven-year research agreement with West China Hospital aimed to help doctors better interpret medical imagery in diagnosing heart disease, strokes and mental illness. It will be the first such project by a multinational in the country, according to the FT.
West [...]

Shougang Blocked From Australian Iron Ore Acquisition

Australia’s Takeovers Panel has given Chinese companies another sharp lesson in the ways of cross-border M&A. This time: no concert parties.
It has ruled that Shougang Concord can’t go ahead with buying a 19.7% stake in Australian iron ore company Mount Gibson because Apac Resources, in which Shougang Hong Kong holds an 18% stake, already owns [...]

Inflation More Than Washington Behind Yuan’s Rise Against Dollar

When U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson arrives in Beijing on Wednesday, the Chinese currency might coincidental break through the symbolic seven to the dollar level. As Richard McGregor writes in the FT “the currency has become a litmus test of Chinese responsiveness to U.S. complaints on trade.”
Yet what really is driving the recent strengthening of [...]

Olympic Flame Comes With Tibetan Protests

Despite unprecedented attempts to ensure a protest-free hand over of the Olympic flame to the organizers of the Beijing Olympics, Greek police scuffled with pro-Tibet demonstrators gathered outside the Athens stadium where the ceremonial transfer was due to take place.
On Tuesday the flame formally sets off from Beijing for the Kazakhstan capital, Almaty, the [...]

Li Ka-shing, Facebook and QQ

East Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, has pumped another $60 million into the social networking site Facebook run by Mark Zuckerberg, a fellow billionaire if one less than a third Li’s age.
Li said during a Hutchison Whampoa earnings conference call on Thursday that he was upping his previous $60 million investment, made last November and [...]