A newly banned ad from the European Commission titled "Growing Together" managed to ruffle a few feathers, due to its arguably racist portrayal of the national identities of China, India and Brazil as fearsome martial arts warriors surrounding a lovely-cheekboned white lady in peril (her imagined capture would result in the colonization of her discount bargain events and universities, presumably) who looks like a shanzhai Uma Thurman from Kill Bill (thanks Bruce!). more ›

Phil Inman argues on The Guardian: "China is a one-trick pony. Without the US and Europe to soak up its factory output, it doesn't have a growth plan. Except that isn't quite true. Like Japan in the 1980s and the UK in the decade before the boom, it has a liking for property investment. As a sideline to its enormous manufacturing sector, there is an ever-expanding apartment and office-building craze." more ›

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Part of a series of 12 audiovisual productions on show at the Belgian-EU pavilion to illustrate long-standing exchanges between China and the EU in the fields of education, science, technology, trade and lifestyle:
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This weekend, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was charged with ‘inciting subversion’. Today, facing a barrage of criticism over its handling of the case, the PRC responded with a gentle reminder for the West to not interfere. more ›

He may not have won the Nobel Peace Prize that he was tipped to win, but Chinese dissident Hu Jia has just been awarded the Sakharov Prize, the top human rights award given out by the European Parliament. China had lobbied hard for Hu Jia to be passed over for the award, as it did during the Nobel selection, with Song Zhe, the Chinese ambassador to the EU delivering a stern warning that this "would inevitably hurt the Chinese people once again and bring serious damage to China-EU relations". For all the work he's done, Hu Jia remains relatively unknown in China today, although he is a favourite posterboy for Chinese dissidents among EU lawmakers because he once addressed the European Parliament via webcam while he was under house arrest. Next week's EU-China summit in Beijing will be a fun one to watch. more ›