How do Africans see China after all? Based on 163 interviews and over a decade of living in Africa, I shall argue that both views are wrong and right, depending on to what region of Africa and to which group of Africans one is referring...

...From this small sample, hailing from Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde and Zambia it becomes apparent that African elites clearly welcome the Chinese presence, while the people are growing increasing ambivalent.

China's anti-corruption chief He Guoqiang Thursday urged authorities to utilize the public's online comments and postings in the country's ongoing attempt to fight corruption.

He, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said channels should be expanded to solicit public opinions and efforts be made to give full play to the positive role that the Internet has had in the fight against corruption...

..."The top officials of the CPC have realized that online opinion is a weapon to curb graft, but it is a tough decision for them to make as the Party had been very cautious about handling information against a Party member," Ye [Duchu, a senior professor with the Central Party School] said.

American Jews are known for their formidable lobbying power in the US. How is this accomplished? What can Chinese learn to launch an effective lobby within US politics? [This] is an interview by Global Times reporter Lu Jingxian with Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress (AJC) and the American Council for World Jewry, on the issue.

Part 2

A wealthy industrial boss and his family were rescued after a hostage taker was shot dead by police after a 24-hour standoff.

The hostage taker, identified as a migrant worker from Jiangxi province surnamed Lin, had demanded a ransom of 3 million yuan ($439,000).

Early Monday morning, armed with a pistol and two bags of self-made detonators, Lin barged into a private villa in Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang province.

The villa's owner, Chen Anle, is the boss of Wenzhou Jinsheng Shoes Industry Co Ltd, a key enterprise of Wenzhou's shoe-making industry.

In our reporting, we heard sincere commitments to deal with these issues by frustrated executives who struggle with these complex economic realities. We also learned of a groundbreaking project to improve conditions at a Taiwan supplier for HP that appeared to have excellent results. Though limited in scope, the project offers some degree of hope that the big electronics brands can do more to fix the problem.

Mr Feng, a Chinese human rights activist on behalf of individual Chinese complaining of illegal mistreatment at official hands, says Shanghai police, assisted by an ANA employee, physically forced him on to a flight back to Japan after he was barred from returning home for the eighth time.

“I refuse to enter Japan. For a Chinese to be kidnapped and taken to Japan like this is a humiliation for me and a humiliation for China,” he told the Financial Times during an interview in a Narita corridor.

The morning after arriving back in Shanghai from overseas, I felt distinctly unwell. Facing pressing deadlines and a worsening condition, I went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with nothing other than H1N1 – swine flu...

...Officially ... I wasn't diagnosed with H1N1, and the doctor instructed me that – officially – I had never been to see him. He gave me a course of Tamiflu and sent me on my way, with instructions not to leave my apartment for a week. If I noticed no improvement, I would be required to go to a fever clinic, but I was not to say that I had been to see a doctor before. (I'm now out of self-imposed quarantine, and no longer suffering from H1N1.)

Since NDRC told Xinhua that they were not responsible based on the type of deal, I’m thinking it was indeed the NDRC that Tengzhong first talked to (apparently provincial level, which then consulted with the State-level NDRC). Apparently NDRC, if you will pardon the American football reference, has punted.

Moreover, from what I understand, Tengzhong is neither a listed company nor a State-owned Enterprise, so I’m thinking neither CSRC (securities regulator) nor SASAC (State-owned enterprises and assets) would be in the picture. So how to approach this deal?

Suntech Power, China’s largest solar panel manufacturer, plans to open its first American plant near Phoenix, the company announced on Monday.

The plant is to begin production in the third quarter of 2010 and will initially employ 75 people, probably rising over time to 200, according to Roger Efird, a managing director of Suntech.

Mr. Efird said Suntech had been publicly considering a manufacturing site in the United States for several years. Solar panels are heavy, he said, so as the American market grows, the company decided to place a factory closer to its customers.

That sounds like China and the United States are not going to share much more than goodwill on this trip. Will China go further than that?
Sometimes expectations can have a gap, but both sides are used to this. I don’t think that President Obama will say, “If China does not agree, then I will be angry about everything else.” The Chinese are used to this, too; on some issues they will go a long way to meet Americans, but on some issues they will stay in the same place.

The arrest occurred just two hours after Zhao and Wang Gang, the father of a baby stricken by Sanlu's poisoned milk powder, successfully received an official apology from Haidian police.

Zhao and Wang were invited by the Haidian police on Friday to address a previous dispute. Officers, who conducted the controversial detention of Wang, gave the father an apology and paid for Wang's physical examination.

"A police car followed us all the way from my home to the Haidian police headquarters," Zhao said. He even took a picture of the car that followed him.

Two hours after Zhao returned home, Daxing police arrested him.

At a joint press conference with Obama after the talks, Hu said he had "very good talks" with the U.S. president, and that they made a deep exchange of views on the China-U.S. relationship and major international and regional issues of common concern and reached consensus on many important issues.

And while it is accepted that little more can be done to protest the raising of the vessel, there are hopes that China might be encouraged to conduct a new investigation into the remains of the crew, which experts believe would have been recovered.

After all, they point out, the CSS Hunley, one of the first submarines ever built and sunk in 1864 during the American Civil War, contained eight skeletons that had been almost perfectly preserved when it was recovered from Charleston harbour in April 2004.

As Ran Yunfei ... put it: "As we use the Internet every day, it changes us - It has made me more tolerant and taught me to play by a set of rules... As we train ourselves we are also training the government.. hopefully one day they will understand that they don't need to be afraid of us, that we can all legally and rationally coexist."

Oiwan Lam has also written a review on Global Voices here.

An official from the state Supreme People's Court said that petitioners' rights will be safeguarded as many of them are camping out in the capital in temperatures as low as -4 C and are at constant risk of being carted out against their will by thugs sent by provincial authorities. Zhao Suocheng, 57, has been camping along the sidewalk of that alley for nine years, living in a tent with all of his belongings...

...An out-of-town officer punched the reporter in the chest. The officer swore to break the camera and warned:

"You know these petitioners are a violent mob, they'll beat you to death if you don't leave."