Forbes China has released its first overseas investment "risk list" for Chinese investors. Like all risk rankings, they gauged things like regional political stability, government corruption, legal system factors, and indicators of social stability and economic opportunities. Whether the Chinese follow these risk assessments is another thing entirely. more ›

An Amazon user named Xuemin Lin has gone ahead and helpfully provided a list of must-read China books, though that likely wasn't his intention. Including such banned-in-China favorites as Zhao Ziyang's Prisoner of the State, Richard Macgregor's The Party, and Jung Chang's massive Mao: The Unknown Story, Lin goes to some pains to stress the same classic governmental talking points ad nauseam. more ›

Here's the first major poll to call bullshit on North Korea's "Global Happiness Index" which found earlier this year that China was the happiest nation in the universe and the DPRK was a very close second. In a survey of 155 countries around the world, Gallup has found China to be a rather unhappy nation. more ›

Hurun released yesterday its list of richest women in mainland China yesterday. Topping the list this year is Wu Yajun, 47, of Longhu Real Estate Development Co Ltd, with an estimated family fortune of 420 billion yuan ($6.6 billion). more ›

The Hurun Report has published the top 50 names of this year's Hurun Rich List 2011. Liang Wen'gen, co-founder of heavy machinery company Sany, rose from fourth place to top the list this year with a wealth of $11billion, buoyed by China's economic boom. He edged last year's list-topper Zong Qinghou of drinks conglomerate Wahaha into second place. Zong has seen his wealth shrink from $12 billion to $10.7 billion following profit margin squeeze in the industry, this despite Wahaha chalking up an impressive 30% sales increase. Robin Li Yanhong of Baidu continued his rise on the list to finish at third place this year with a fortune of $8.8 billion. He was helped in no small part by Google's quasi-withdrawal from the Chinese market which allowed Baidu to consolidate its position in the online search market. more ›

• After six hours of surgery, a pair of 4-month-old conjoined twins were successfully separated yesterday at the Shanghai Children's Medical Center. The twins shared a liver and pericardium, but thankfully each had their own heart.
• Supposedly somebody somewhere is thinking about extending the 48-hour transit visa length in Shanghai. They wont tell us when or for who or how long, but hey, here's hoping!
• And hey, did you guys know we have a 48-hour transit visa on arrival in Shanghai?

The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Asian University Rankings for 2011 are out, and the top ten positions have all been filled by universities from Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. more ›

While President Hu Jintao may be the captain of the world's second largest economy, he pays himself a very modest salary of approximately US$10,633 per annum. That's a tiny fraction of the US$184,000 that Ma Ying-Jeou, the President of Taiwan, and the US$530,000 that Donald Tsang, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, take home each year. more ›

The Shanghai Airport Authority announced yesterday that Shanghai Pudong International Airport has been ranked 5th in the world according to the Airports Council International (ACI) customer satisfaction ratings. Surveys found that passengers were particularly happy with the toilets and the waiting areas, but think transportation between the airport and downtown could use improvement. Beijing's Capital International Airport came in just ahead of us in 4th place. But what's more impressive is how in a few short years, Asian airports have managed to almost sweep the top ten. more ›

There is often a time and a place for toilet humour, but in China, it appears that there is nothing funny to be found in the lavatory department. Doug Lanksy of the Huffington Post reports that China has topped the "World's Worst Toilet" survey. more ›

NeochaEDGE is a daily-curated, bilingual website and discovery engine dedicated to showcasing leading-edge creative content and emerging youth culture in China. Beyond the website, NeochaEDGE is also a full-service idea and execution house passionate about helping clients understand, engage, and co-create with Chinese creative communities, trendsetters, and youth culture opinion leaders. Today they introduce us to five animations that caught their eye in 2009. more ›

Brush up on your superlatives, because there may have just been a shift of power: Jay Chou has been dubbed one of Asia's 25 most influential individuals or groups by CNNGo. more ›

Via Micah Sittig on Twitter we learned of this spreadsheet that compares tuition fees for international high schools in Shanghai. Fourteen schools are included on the list and they range in annual cost from US$11,319 (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation Private School), up 30% from last year, to US$30,689 (British International School), up 7% from last year. The only school whose tuition went down this year was the Shanghai American School, down 7% to US$22,092. Time to stock up on the ol' birth control. more ›

In the new Worldwide Centers of Commerce study conducted by MasterCard, Shanghai emerged as the top city driving growth in emerging markets worldwide. Other Chinese cities that made it to top ten in the list were Beijing in 2nd place, Guangzhou (6th) and Shenzhen (10th), with Budapest, Kuala Lumpur, Santiago, Mexico City, Warsaw and Bangkok filling the rest of the slots. Xiamen, Chengdu, Dalian, Tianjin, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing, Qingdao, Xi'an and Harbin also made it to the list of 65 cities. [h/t to China Law Blog] more ›

One of our favorite Chinese sites seems to have run afoul of the net nanny: vip.bokee.com has been on again off again, but perfectly viewable with a proxy. Using the proxy we saw an article about a list published in a Chengdu newspaper of the top-grossing authors in China, at least based on royalties from the sales of their books. At the top of the list was a Guo Jingming, a young author (born in... more ›