In a seminal speech to mark Human Rights Day which commemorates the 1948 signing of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton challenged leaders of the world to “be on the right side of history” and to recognise that "gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights". It's a moving, impassioned speech which totally earned her the standing ovation at the end, and it's worth 30 minutes of your time. Read the full transcript of the speech here. more ›

TV host and entrepreneur Yang Lan spoke earlier this year at Ted and gave the audience a glimpse into the world of young Chinese citizens today. Regular Shanghaiist readers probably won't find any of the stuff she's talking about new, but still it's a good summary of what's been happening in China over the past year. more ›

Gary Locke -- the US Ambassador who buys his own coffee AND flies cattle class -- gave an important speech yesterday in which he laid out his vision for the future of the U.S.-China economic and trade relationship. Here are a few excerpts: more ›

Insightful as always, John Garnaut, China correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age, speaks at the University of Southern California's US-China Institute on whether China is becoming a mafia state: more ›

Speech by H.E. Hu Jintao President of the People's Republic of China At Opening Plenary of Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2011 Boao, 15 April 2011 more ›

Journalist, author and Arthur Ross Director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations, Orville Schell, urges the United States to learn how to deal with a more confident and assertive China. Read the full transcript here. more ›

Remarks by Ambassador Jon M. Huntsman Jr. at the Barnett-Oksenberg Lecture more ›

Transcript of remarks as prepared for delivery by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner made at the G20 conference in Nanjing earlier today, via WSJ / China Real Time:

I welcome this seminar on reform of the international monetary system. This is a good time to assess the strengths and limitations of the current system, because the world economy is going through very substantial changes. more ›

Because we know you've all been searching high and low for it, here's a video of President Obama's inaugural address with Chinese subtitles that we found on Chinese video site Youku. The video is complete and includes Obama's references to "fascism and communism" (censored by Chinese media) but the Chinese subtitles leaves "fascism" intact, editing out only the "communism" [insert whatever joke you like here]. For your convenience the full transcripts of Obama's speech, in English and Chinese are included after the jump: more ›

If you were jam packed into Glamour Bar with 600 other people earlier this morning, watching President Barack Obama being sworn in, you might have been a little too dizzy with euphoria (and possibly heatstroke) to notice particular segments of his 18-minute inauguration address -- specifically, ones that likely caused the head honchos in Beijing to collectively cringe. more ›

What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than to read "U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s election day victory speech translated into '半白化文,' a version of written Chinese considered somewhere between the classical and modern-day scripts, maybe closer to the former"? OK, there are likely much better ways to celebrate Turkey Day. But aren't you curious? Click here. [56minus1.com] more ›

Just in case you were looking for it. more ›