Today's Links: Everest tourism, shoddy steel and the boxer shorts rebellion

• The boxer shorts rebellion [Mara Hvistendahl, The New Republic]
  "You'd think that the younger, Internet savvy generation of Chinese twenty- and thirtysomethings would be the ones guiding China into better relations with the West. Instead, they seem to have glanced toward the rest of the world and turned back, appalled."
• Avoid tall buildings [Adam Minter, Shanghai Scrap]
  "Half the steel material sold at wholesale markets and now being used in construction has failed quality tests."
• Shanghai-Hangzhou express railway to be completed before 2010 [China Daily]
  "The Shanghai-Hangzhou express railway project plan has been submitted to related authorities, and the project is expected to be completed during the 11th Five-Year Program (2006-2010)"
• Shanghai Expo has record entries [China Daily]
  "The Shanghai 2010 World Expo already has 24 more confirmed participants than the record 172 at 2000 event in Hanover, Germany."
• Olympic-2008: China limits tourists, climbers for Everest torch relay [DPA]
  "China is restricting trips by foreign tourists and climbers to Mount Everest before an Olympic torch relay to the summit of the 8,844-metre peak, sources said on Thursday, as pre-Olympic protests against Chinese rule of its Tibet region continue to grow."
• Chinese Activist to Be Tried Soon [AP]
  "An outspoken Chinese civil rights activist who dedicated himself to chronicling the plight of other dissidents will be tried soon on a subversion charge, his lawyer said Wednesday."
• China overtakes U.S. as top Web market: researcher [Reuters]
  "China has surpassed the United States to become the world's largest Internet market by number of users, a research firm said on Thursday."

Photo from vis-a-v.