China’s string of amazing hotel openings continues next month with the completion of the Sunrise Kempinski Hotel, Beijing. Due to open in mid-November, the eye-catching 97-meter-high luxury hotel has 21 floors filled with 306 guestrooms and suites. It’s designed by Shanghai Huadu Architect Design Co. and sits on the shore of Yanqi Lake, about 60 kilometers from Beijing’s city center. Behind the design Though “traditional” is the last word that […]

Officials in China this week examined the anuses of 10,000 pigeons that were set to be released today in celebration of National Day, amid government fears of a possible terrorist attack. According to reports from state-run media outlets, the birds had their feathers, legs, and anuses searched for “suspicious objects” yesterday, before being packed onto a truck and sent to Tiananmen Square in Beijing for today’s ceremony. Many reports on […]

The streets have been paved with gold at a shopping centre in China where a walkway has been built using real 24-carat bars. The walk at the indoor precinct in Yichang, in Hubei province, consists of 606 shiny yellow bricks, worth $32m (£20m) in total, the Chinanews.com website reports. The bricks weigh 1kg (2.2lb) each, and are covered with a glass pane. The lavish attraction was created to celebrate the […]

India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, celebrated his 64th birthday on Wednesday by hosting President Xi Jinping of China in his home state of Gujarat, as the leaders of Asia’s two giants lay the foundation for a long-term relationship that carries huge stakes for both. It is the first visit of a Chinese president to India in eight years – only the third in history – and the reasons for […]

China says its land reclamation work in the South China Sea is “totally justifiable” as it has “sovereignty” over the area. Its foreign affairs ministry spokesman Hua Chunying was responding to a BBC report which documented China’s construction work in disputed waters. The Philippines has accused China of illegal building in the area. China is locked in a dispute with several countries over maritime claims in the South China Sea. […]

China is spending billions of dollars to improve infrastructure in Tibet and other parts of its border with India. Claude Arpi explains why New Delhi can’t afford to ignore Beijing’s plans. India dreams to catch up with China in infrastructure. Whether it is highways, bullet trains or airports in remote corners of the Middle Kingdom, China is way ahead compared to India which struggles to develop a decent infrastructure, particularly […]

As India races to catch up on infrastructure, its military is increasingly engaged with the PLA. For the Indian military, this is a time of some fairly fundamental changes. After decades of pursuing Pakistan-centric war planning, the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force are recalibrating their sights towards the hitherto neglected northern frontiers with China, giving a hard push to improving its war-fighting capabilities against its more powerful neighbor […]

A zoo in southern China has unveiled newborn panda triplets, thought to be the world’s first known surviving trio. Guangzhou’s Chimelong Safari Park described the trio, who were born on 29 July, as “a new wonder of the world”. Their mother, Juxiao, was too exhausted to care for them at first but is now nursing the triplets with assistance from feeders throughout the day. Female pandas are able to conceive […]

BEIJING: A Chinese woman who married 26 times is now caught in a legal tangle. Her problem is not the marriage law, but the rules concerning the government’s family planning policy. The 40-year old woman from Shuyang county in Jiangsu province recently discovered she was made pregnant by a former husband. She then rid herself of the then husband and remarried the one who had made her pregnant. When she […]

People wearing Islamic-style clothing and large beards are banned from riding public buses during the Xinjiang Sports Games in northwestern China, a Communist Party-run newspaper reports. The ban went into effect Monday in the city of Karamay, in the country’s restive northwestern Xinjiang region. It applies to passengers who wear veils, large beards, as well as three types of Islamic dresses — including those with the star and crescent symbol […]