Why China might turn on North Korea [CSMonitor] "China has long seen its national interests served by the status quo on the Korean Peninsula. According to a cold-war perspective about strategic balance and a post-cold-war emphasis on internal development, Beijing prioritized maintaining a buffer state and preventing North Korea's problems from spilling over China's border. While Beijing retains these priorities, the chances of it getting tough with Pyongyang are low. However, the China of today is not the China that came to Pyongyang's aid during the Korean War - its national identity has evolved over decades of rapid development...

Yesterday night, after enjoying a drink at one of our favorite pubs, we were strolling home along Fuxing Lu in the Luwan district. At one o' clock the streets were empty except for the odd beggar or 串-seller. It was then we noticed a middle aged man in a white shirt who seemed to be fiddling with something like a cage. As we came closer we saw that it was indeed a cage, about 30cm high and around 50cm long. Inside the cage, two small, live sparrows (or some similar kind of bird) were hung upside down from the...

Because of the ethnic violence in Xinjiang, President Hu Jintao has cut his trip in Italy short, abandoning plans to attend the G8 summit and rushing back to Beijing this morning. State Councilor Dai Bingguo will sub for him at the summit. At this point, none of China's top leaders have come forward with statements about the incident yet, so it will be interesting to see what Hu has to say when he gets back. Meanwhile, Rebiya Kadeer of the World Uyghur Congress - who's been categorically denying orchestrating any of the unrest - has a ton of things...

China is planning on putting its first woman into space, just months after sending its first women fighter pilots up into the air. According to Yang Wei, China's first astronaut, "I believe Chinese women will be seen in space in the near future." Each astronaut-to-be will undergo two to three years of training and will probably complete their journeys into the great beyond by 2012. As China Daily is wont to do, it included a questionable and unintentionally funny quote about the suitability of women in space. A researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology told the paper...

Photo compiled by China Digital Times We've entered into the fourth day of the Xinjiang incident, and it seems that - at least for now - Chinese officials have finally gotten everything under some semblence of control. Wednesday was marked by sporadic violence as Han mobs continued their Tuesday front, arming themselves with meat cleavers, shovels and other makeshift weapons for - depending what side you're on - protection or revenge killings. The body count for the last two days has not yet been released. But thousands of PLA soldiers and riot police streamed into the area, screaming "protect...

Photo by Jonathan Haeber As the ultimate tribute to Jacko, Shanghai's getting a little wacko by building a smaller version of the ex-King of Pop's Neverland Ranch on Chongming Island. The real ranch, located in California, contained an amusement park, a zoo, lakes, cinemas and an "Indian village" and housed Jackson from 1998 to 2005, when he moved out after police investigations into allegations of child molestation caused him to feel that Neverland Ranch had been "violated." According to the planners of the project, Shanghai's mini Neverland Ranch will have the same layout, and include a farm with an...

So we get that Google's really keen to gobble a little more market share from its rivals in China, and one of the most ingenious ways they've figured to do so is their free mp3 download service. We applaud that. What we don't applaud is their ads promoting the service, which seems to have taken the DIY ethic of viral videos to mean "crappy flash creations evoking the earlier parts of this millennium." Add that to Chinese history tales and you get G.cn's newest ad rush: This one follows the story of Zhu Geliang, the brilliant Three Kingdoms strategist, as...

Not to be missed for tech geeks, armchair anthropologists and designers alike. Join Nokia's behavioral pattern expert <a href="http://www.janchipchase.com/">Jan Chipchase</a> as he discusses the challenges of exploring patterns in human behavior, culture and technology, and the art of finding opportunities where they collide....

As the dust settles on the Xinjiang unrest of the past few days, reports are coming out about acts of kindness shown by both Uighurs and Han Chinese, presumably in a PR move to show solidarity between the two ethnicities. The Shanghai Daily printed a story today about a math teacher from Shanghai who was attacked in the riots on Sunday: "A woman of Uygur ethnicity came up and tried to stop the mob. She helped us to the roadside and told us in Mandarin to run for it," Zhao said. "Another cluster of rioters ran at us again....

The South China Morning Post has an interesting feature on Deng Yujiao, the folk heroine waitress whose story of stabbing a violent and lusty official rocketed her to national fame. In a Chicago-esque twist, Deng, a high school dropout, is now being approached with offers to work in everything from botanical research to movies. Professor Fu, a professor in botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that she should become his student and work for a PhD. Meanwhile, some film and television producers have "cast their eyes on Ms Deng to star in a movie." How will all...