Today's Links: Drinking water, ghost wives and seafood bans

• Chinese Communist Party turns 86
  China's ruling Communist Party turned 86 on Sunday vowing to make itself stronger, cleaner and more responsive in order to take on fresh challenges and meet the people's new expectations. The party, which boasts 73 million members, needs to enhance "self-construction" in the face of "unprecedented opportunities and challenges" facing China's development, said an editorial in a Chinese newspaper, the People's Daily.
  


• China adopts new drinking-water standard
  China's new national standard for drinking-water quality will take effect as from today to ensure clean tap water supply to the country's urban and rural residents.
  


• Xi'an's terracotta tomb site hides mystery building
  The tomb of China's first emperor, guarded for more than 2,000 years by 8,000 terracotta warriors and horses, has yielded up another archaeological secret. A 30-metre-high building is buried in the vast mausoleum of Emperor Qinshihuang.


• China looks on at the US-India lockstep
  As India and the US deepen their strategic partnership through ship visits, arms sales, joint exercises and the as yet unconsummated nuclear power deal, China views these developments warily. New Delhi doesn't mind giving the leaders in Beijing something to worry about by hosting a top Taiwanese politician, either.


• Hong Kong: The humbling of the white man
  Ten years after its return to the mainland, Hong Kong's face is overwhelmingly Chinese. The number of Caucasian residents, never more than 10% of the population, has steadily declined as the city becomes more "sinified". But those who stay and work in the special administrative region find little has changed since the British Union flag was hauled down.


• China on the march in Latin America
  While Beijing's primary focus in the Americas is energy and trade, its political and military influence is growing. From arms sales to defense and military education, China is establishing meaningful connections with the region's armed forces - and all this while trying not to antagonize the United States.


• China's grave offense: Ghost wives
  With about 13 men - many of them having failed to find wives - dying in China's coal mines every day, business is booming in the "ghost wife" industry, whereby deceased bachelors are buried with a female corpse. It's an old tradition, but with a macabre modern twist: some "brides" themselves meet untimely deaths at the hands of suppliers.


• China protests seafood ban
  A key Chinese official criticized a U.S. block on its seafood as "indiscriminate" and urged closer cooperation on food safety between the two trading partners, state media said Saturday.

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