Chinese rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng was released from prison on Thursday. He had been serving a 4-year sentence at Linyi city prison in Shandong Province. Mr. Chen, who is blind and a self-taught lawyer, began defending the rights of farmers and the disabled in 1998. He later represented women who were forced to have late-term abortions and sterilizations under the Chinese regime's one-child policy. Mr. Chen was arrested in 2006 after documenting late-term abortions in Linyi city, and charged with damaging public property and gathering people to block traffic. His supporters say the charges were fabricated. A Hong-Kong based advocacy organization, Human Rights in China, says he was beaten and abused in custody. His village and relatives are now under heavy surveillance. At least ten men in plain clothes blocked Associated Press journalists from entering his village. ...Read more

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Friday that Afghanistan's neighbors need to be engaged in order to find a long-term solution to the conflict there. ...Read more

GENEVA (AP) — Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Friday that Afghanistan's neighbors need to be engaged in order to find a long-term solution to the conflict there.

Pakistan, Iran, China and India all have an interest in preventing...

US, China to discuss resuming military exchanges The United States and China are soon to start talks on resuming their military exchanges, which were halted because of US sales of weapons to Taiwan. US Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters on Thursday that China has clearly signaled interest in resuming military-to-military discussions, and that the US is exploring how best to do so. Morrell suggested the exchanges may restart this year. He added that US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao have shown interest in such a resumption, and that the two will meet early next year. The suspension of the exchanges earlier this year also resulted in the cancellation of a scheduled June visit to China by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates. 2010/09/10 16:58(JST) (JST: UTC+9hrs.)

In Burma, official media are weighing-in on a story that rarely gets covered in the government press: crime. The story involves a clash between soldiers and civilians that left two men dead. The incident reportedly had witnesses and comes at a sensitive time ahead of the country's first election in two decades.  

And now the Burmese government is accusing foreign media of distorting the incident to encourage public unrest.

Its mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper, has described the shooting as a "drunken brawl."  It reports the two men were shot and killed last week when young soldiers opened fire on a group of youths following a traffic accident in the city of Bago. The story explicitly states the incident was not a fight between the military and the public. ...Read more

The Chinese government released figures Friday showing the country's trade surplus remains high, but is shrinking as imports outpaced exports in August.  Two economists, who watch China closely, expect Beijing to continue to resist American pressure to allow its currency to appreciate more rapidly to makes its exports more expensive and help accelerate the slow growth in the U.S. economy.

The August figure was slightly more than $20 billion with imports outpacing exports.  The figure is lower than July's of nearly $29 billion. Yet, it is the third consecutive trade surplus in excess of $20 billion and, according to chief China economist Ben Simpfendorfer of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong, it is likely to exacerbate trade friction with the United States over claims the Chinese currency, the yuan, is undervalued: ...Read more

The rivalry between China and India in the information technology sector has grown more intense this year, but Gartner analyst Partha Iyengar said they're missing the forest for the trees.

Read this article on the community site

The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression by James Mann is a short, quick-hitting book about, as Mann says in the first sentence of his book, the "China he has encountered outside of China." Mann is a China hand who's spent much of his life watching China from news rooms in the United States. The goal of his book is to make his readers re-think their conceptions about China's political system and the direction China it is heading.

...Read more

Ying Ying crying and vomiting .....another dragged a few meters away from the table and the wall, staggered..... bitten by another child(?) .....said must have rabies vaccine (later said "children are human beings", why have animal vaccine?)..... grabbing arm, slapping face, poking head..... crying petrified! Ying Ying: not go to school "We were not that child for his injuries. That night, my grandmother take a bath to Ying Ying, found Ying Ying back, buttocks with multiple soft tissue contusion, streaked with blood." Wang told reporters: the past few days, the child has been vomiting, sweating, night sleep talking, dreams that "Renee's mother hit me!" talking on the whining cry, and after, Grandma Xia Xing said, "She (Renee mom) scary eyes!" See Ying Ying, the reporter asked her softly: the teacher hit you? Afraid? Angela's eyes filled with fear: "Fear! When I was in tears! ...Read more

Read this article on the community site

Maybe, maybe not, but I think there's a far more important story here.

There's a great article by Keith Bradsher in today's New York Times, "On Clean Energy, China Skirts the Rules". Bradsher compares the extent to which clean tech firms in China and in the US receive government support. The upshot of the article is, as has become de rigeur recently, to paint a picture of a China that is getting ready to clean America's clock (pun intended).

Bradsher quotes the CFO of a US-based clean tech company on difficulties:
"You can’t get a penny in the United States, it doesn’t matter who you call — banks, government. It’s awful," he said. "Therein lies the hidden advantage of being in China." ...Read more