Attention, anxious highly-skilled proletarians of Western Civilization! New plans to attract overseas professionals to Shanghai have just been announced, with companies looking for specialized talent to offer minimum yearly salaries of 300,000RMB ($47,160 USD) and benefits. In addition, newly arrived foreign experts would also be granted preferential visa treatment and priority status for permanent residency permits, according to local officials. more ›

The long-time governor of Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, has been removed from his post and replaced by Zhang Chunxian, the 57-year-old party chief of Hunan province. more ›

• Corporations, nonprofits and government alike are throwing down major yuan to prevent the imminent extinction of 4,000-year old Nushu, a Hunan dialect that may have inadvertently started its own feminist movement. [Guardian]
• So, it seems the Chinese criminals behind that whole Google hacking business found their way into the system through a loophole Google deliberately wrote into the Gmail code in order to facilitate the US spying on its own citizens. [CNN]
• Six of eleven mainland Chinese companies listed on Singapore's stock exchange have defaulted on their bonds. The most notable offender? A Heilongjiang operation that produces bull semen and cow embryos. [Business Insider]

So, apparently China’s expressway system has more than doubled in length in the past decade. It’s so long, in fact, that it should soon overtake the interstate highway system of the United States as the world’s longest. What's the impetus for such rapid lengthening? more ›

It's no secret that housing prices are intensely inflated in China. But as the economy picks back up, people are beginning to pay attention and even worry about the consequences of a housing bubble similar to the one that's ravished the U.S. economy. more ›

We don't particularly like it when Time Magazine chooses abstract notions or groups to give its "Person of the Year" award to: it feels contrived and too nebulous to really serve as an honor to anyone, and shows a little too much sensationalism for our clearly refined palates. Then again, we might just be bitter that we didn't get a special mention for 2006's social media-centric "You" Person of the Year award when Wang Xiaofei got one. In any case, the shortlist of this year's candidates is out, and some very notable Chinese people are on it. By our count, there's nearly 800 million on the list. more ›

We all kind of figured that it would happen someday, but it might be a little sooner than you could have imagined: Shanghai is becoming a dominant world financial center. Law firm Eversheds released a survey of over 600 economic leaders from around the world weighing in on their companies economic prospects in the coming year: those in the west had a far gloomier outlook than their eastern counterparts, and if that trend continues, international opinion could have Shanghai and London battling for the title of "world's second most significant financial center" behind New York within the next decade. Sounds crazy and/or a bit far fetched to us, especially coming from an economic outlook survey, but with China, you never know. more ›

Hey, guess who paid a visit over the weekend? Wen Jiabao, who came to Shanghai as part of an inspection tour of east China. The Premier took the opportunity to call for a more balanced and energy-efficient economic development model, especially important considering China's plans to cut CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45% by 2020. How? Through the magic of better technology. While we've never been quite convinced that tech would be the easy button on our environmental problems, we're always happy for a chance to see Grandpa Wen! more ›