Dick Groves, a retail consultant based in Hong Kong, said the failure of the New South China Mall was down to inexperience in leasing business and an undisciplined financial system.

'When it's easy to get financing without having to convince someone of the project's feasability, and without having to show pre-leasing commitment, you can start to get into trouble,' he told The National.

Alarm bells are ringing for liner firms as one of the most accurate gauges of the container index fell for the first time in more than four months Friday.

President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department -- a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development.

The president issued a little-noticed "presidential determination" Sept. 29 that delegated authority for determining whether missile and space exports should be approved for China to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

Premier Wen Jiabao said Thursday that China intends to strengthen its cooperation with Iran, an indication Beijing would oppose growing calls in the West for additional sanctions against the Islamic regime for its nuclear program.

Chinese trade with Africa has grown from less than £6.3bn at the beginning of the decade to pass £60bn at the end of last year – only the European Union and the US do more business.

There are now some 800 Chinese companies operating in Africa and the investors in talks in Conakry are not from Beijing but from the Hong Kong-based China Investment Fund. Yet only two months ago officials in Beijing said that China would not be investing in Guinea.

In the case of the US, it is precisely the lack of economic ties that is driving its confrontation with Iran. One only has to ask the question: what would happen if relations with Iran were normalised and sanctions lifted? Immediately there would be a scramble for economic position and political influence in Tehran by all the major powers. The US, which has no diplomatic relations with and virtually no trade and investment in Iran, would be starting with a major disadvantage. Confrontation and sanctions, on the other hand, serve to undermine the position of US rivals.

Chinese banks defaulted. They may have been partially motivated by U.S. malfeasance in the capital markets that caused losses in Asia. The U.S. squandered its credibility and our cover-ups have done nothing to restore it.

China's resource nationalism is on the rise as it hoards minerals essential for batteries, cell phones, computers, and the green revolution.

Anger over troop deployments, reports of border incursions, and a high-pitched media debate have reignited strains between China and India over long-festering border disputes in the Himalayas.

The details of whether boots actually crossed borders are murky, but experts in both countries agree that tensions have risen, highlighting the fragility of relations between the giant neighbours jostling for dominance.

China's increasingly advanced weaponry could undermine US military power in the Pacific, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.

Echoing US intelligence guidelines released on Tuesday that warned of Beijing's military modernization, Gates said US naval carriers and air bases in the Pacific faced new threats from China.

Recent incursions by Chinese troops into Indian territory have created anxiety about China's aggressive designs in some quarters in India.

The Indian government has, however, sought to play down the incursions, saying these are routine incidents that occur due to differences in perception about the Line of Actual Control.

Consequent to the reports about Chinese troops trespassing into the Indian territory, Bimal Gurung, chief of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) asserted that his party would form a special force to remain alert along the India-China border to keep away any kind of foreign intrusion.

Indian internet connections to servers in China appear to have been cut with no ability for Indian web users to access websites hosted in China.

The breach also appears to have affected corporate email with Indian employees are unable to connect to their colleagues and friends in China. Users in India have had to use services based overseas like Gmail to connect to China

China apparently seriously escalated the ongoing border conflict between itself and India as reports in the Indian press indicate that two Indian military personnel were shot and wounded after coming under fire from Chinese troops in the Indian-controlled Kerang area of Sikkim.

The injured soldiers were apparently members of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, India’s regional border force patrolling the Line of Actual Control (LAC). They were injured in bullets fired from the Chinese side.

The Chinese Army has reportedly carried out some construction activities along the international border across the Karakoram ranges in the Ladakh sector for the first time since the 1962 war. A J&K government report claims the Chinese PLA has been taking "land in inches ... and not in yards".

Official sources said this could be either for stationing additional personnel or to mount cameras to monitor Indian troop movement.

Delhi may play down Beijing’s posturing in Arunachal Pradesh but a concerned Indian Army is raising two more divisions, or about 30,000 men, in the Northeast.

The army has sounded an operational alert on the India-China Line of Actual Control (LAC) after reports of a Chinese military exercise involving 50,000 troops in Tibet, where Beijing has increased its activities. Correspondingly, the Indian Army is said to be conducting an operations exercise in Arunachal.

A full-blown trade row erupted on Sunday night between the US and China after Beijing accused Washington of “rampant protectionism” for imposing heavy duties on imported Chinese tyres and threatened action against imports of US poultry and vehicles.

In 2009, China opened up various exchanges for investment in both gold and silver to the Chinese public, which previously was not allowed to invest in gold and silver. The opening of silver exchanges to the Chinese public is the most recent development and was accompanied by a ban on silver exports. The Chinese government is actively touting both gold and silver as an investment to the Chinese public, and with good reason.

The last thing the US needs now is a trade war, with anyone. We have already upset Canada, and now have our eyes set on China.

China's $300 billion sovereign-wealth fund is eyeing big investments in distressed U.S. real estate, according to people familiar with the matter. To finance some of the deals, China may rely on an old trading partner: the U.S. government.

First, in June, China was a net seller of U.S. Treasury bonds (and shorter term notes) for the first time ever. As Mike Larson writes:

A few days ago, the U.S. Treasury Department revealed that China actually REDUCED its note and bond holdings by $25 billion in June. Although China did NOT sell shorter-term Treasury bills — and isn’t expected to — it’s still the largest amount of Treasuries China has ever sold in a single month.

Second, China will issue a non-Dollar denominated Renminbi bond sale on September 28th (6 Billion Renminbi worth).

Third, China has agreed to purchase $5o billion dollars worth of IMF bonds (denominated in the IMF Special Drawing Rights currency).

China's state-owned enterprises may unilaterally terminate commodities contracts as they try to cut massive losses from financial derivatives, an industry source told Caijing on August 28.

According to the source, China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) has sent notice to six foreign financial institutions informing them that several state-owned enterprise will reserve the right to default on commodities contracts signed with those institutions.

U.S. gold and soybean markets fell on Monday following a weekend report that China's state companies may default on commodity derivative contracts with banks providing over-the-counter hedging services.

A report that Chinese state-owned companies will be allowed to walk away from loss-making commodity derivative trades provoked anger and dismay among investment bankers on Monday as they feared it may set a damaging precedent.

China's top 500 companies outperformed their US counterparts for the first time last year, a survey conducted by a business group has revealed, as the financial crisis wreaked havoc in the United States.

Net profits at the nation's highest-performing firms totalled 171 billion dollars in 2008, compared to 99 billion dollars for the US firms, according to the survey by the China Enterprise Confederation (CEC).

The International Monetary Fund(IMF) said on Wednesday that China has agreed to buy the first bonds issued by the agency for about 50 billion dollars.

Chinese security forces used teargas to disperse protesters in Urumqi today, state media have reported, one day after tens of thousands took to the streets demanding improved security and the resignation of a top official following alleged syringe attacks.

The state news agency Xinhua said more than 1,000 demonstrators confronted armed police, blocking them from approaching government offices today, while a smaller group of around 100 gathered elsewhere in the capital of China's restive northwestern region of Xinjiang. Reuters reported that hundreds of Han Chinese tried to push their way through security barriers to a Uighur neighbourhood earlier in the morning.

Though little known to the outside world, Tawang is the biggest tinderbox in relations between the world’s two most populous nations. It is the focus of China’s most delicate land-border dispute, a conflict rooted in Chinese claims of sovereignty over all of historical Tibet.

China said supplies of dysprosium and terbium, minerals needed to make hybrid cars and televisions, may be inadequate for its own needs, adding to concerns that the largest producer of rare earths may further cut exports.

China, accounting for more than 90 percent of global rare- earth output, “may not have enough supply” of the two minerals as demand increases, Wang Caifeng, deputy director-general of the raw materials department at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said today.

The United Nations and overseas Burmese groups say upward of 10,000 refugees and hundreds of ethnic Kokang fighters are in southern China, presenting a logistical headache for the central government in Beijing.

In the past, Beijing has played down political, social and human-rights problems raised by the West, contending that these were internal Burmese issues that didn't affect regional stability or China's national interest. This stance may be harder to maintain now that the problem has washed over into Chinese territory.

A report that Chinese state-owned companies will be allowed to walk away from loss-making commodity derivative trades provoked anger and dismay among investment bankers on Monday as they feared it may set a damaging precedent.

The privatisation of a state steel group has been scrapped after an executive was beaten to death by workers angry at the threat to their jobs from a takeover of their company, according to a Hong Kong rights group.

The violent riot in north-east China late last week involved up to 30,000 workers, a reminder of the ongoing sensitivity about lay-offs from state companies in industries targeted for consolidation.

"As the global economy continues to falter and Chinese exports plummet, there is growing concern that the stockpiling may soon come to a halt, leading to further, painful drops in commodity prices."

China's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp, plans to invest soon in U.S. taxpayer subsidised investment funds of toxic mortgage-backed securities, Reuters is reporting.

Under the Public-Private Investment Plan launched earlier this year, the U.S. government plans to seed a number of PPIP funds that would combine taxpayer money with private capital to buy as much as $40 billion in toxic securities from banks.

On the surface this is a great play for CIC, since the U.S, would, for all practical purposes, be financing CIC's leveraging up of its investment.

This incongruous Santafest is our doing. Half of Europe's Christmas products are made in or traded through this eastern Chinese city, say officials; even more of America's. To ensure they are shipped to stores in time, western buyers arrive between June and August.

Today, the United States, the largest economy in the world, is the biggest debtor to the world's most authoritarian Communist regime that is also the world's third-largest economy, holding more than $800 billion of U.S. debt and the largest reserves of foreign exchange of more than $2 trillion, much of it in U.S. dollars.

Workers at a Chinese steel factory upset with a possible merger kill their manager. CNN's John Vause reports

Tonghua employees attacked Jianlong's general manager, Chen Guojun, during the protest and beat him to death, the centre said.

Workers were angry that Mr Chen was paid about 3 million yuan ($538,500) last year, while some retirees received as little as 200 yuan a month, the centre said.

China will again press the United States at high-level talks next week to protect Beijing's extensive U.S. investments by pursuing sound policies and keeping the dollar stable, a senior official said on Wednesday.

China holds an estimated 70 percent of its $2.13 trillion in currency reserves in dollar assets, mainly government bonds, and officials have expressed worries that massive U.S. pump-priming to revive the economy could sow the seeds of inflation.

The bloody riots on Sunday show just how deep the mistrust between Han Chinese and other ethnic groups runs, and how quickly a seemingly minor disagreement can escalate. The violence began with a false Internet rumor about the rape of two Han women by Uighur workers. That led to a fight in a toy factory in the southern Chinese city of Shaoguan that left two Uighurs dead.

As noted previously, China experts say that the Chinese government has been blowing a huge bubble (and see this).

But the government is apparently going to switch off the bubble-blowing machine.

China’s rush to secure MiddleEastern and African energy supplies intensified as Sinopec, its state-controlled oil refiner, sealed a £4.4 billion takeover of the British-listed Addax Petroleum.

Apart from anger at Pyongyang's disobedience - and fears that its nuke program could endanger China - Beijing is worried that the latest development would hand a pretext to countries including South Korea and Japan to procure or produce more sophisticated weapons. Former senior director of the US National Security Council Dennis Wilder pointed out that Kim's nuclearization gambit could be "a game-changer in Northeast Asia security dynamics".

Other, former Chinese officials have been less polite in their public statements. Yu Yongding, a former Chinese central bank adviser, recently referred to the US Federal Reserve “as the world’s biggest junk investor… ridden with rubbish assets,” and to Chairman Ben Bernanke as “helicopter Ben.”

Here's a surprising fact to ponder: This year, it's projected that China will overtake Japan as the world's largest automobile producer. It already tops U.S. carmakers in sales.

China's sudden surge to the top is no accident. While American auto honchos and economic policymakers stayed mired for years in the old business model of ever-bigger, expensive, fuel-gulping, unreliable vehicles, China's industrial and political leaders have been planning for and investing in smaller, well-built, fuel-sipping cars.

A Chinese submarine accidentally collided with an underwater sonar array being towed by a U.S. military ship, CNN reported on Friday, quoting an unnamed military official.

The incident occurred on Thursday near Subic Bay off the coast of the Philippines, according to the CNN report.

The destroyer USS John S. McCain was towing the array, deployed to track underwater sounds.

A Chinese government official was hacked to death by villagers when he tried to demolish a tea pavilion which was built without planning permission.

China Nonferrous Metal Mining Corp. (CNMC) on Saturday pledged to invest $400 million in Zambia's Luanshya Copper Mines (LCM) after formally taking over the running of the mines, officials said.

Mines and Minerals Development Minister Maxwell Mwale said CNMC would also develop the Mulyashi project, which previous owners of LCM had said could start producing 60,000 tonnes of copper cathode by 2010.

Throughout 2008, only 3,500 enterprises formally filed for bankruptcy in China. Hiding behind this tiny number however is the approximately 800,000 businesses that exited the market by either cancelling their registration or having their business license revoked.

The head of China's second-largest bank has said the United States government should start issuing bonds in yuan, rather than dollars, in the latest indication of the increasing importance of the Chinese currency.

Jaysus, as if we didn't have enough to worry about over imports and toxic things in our food. Now, you can eat healthy.. grow your own foods and when you go to grate something for your salad, dump radioactive carrots into the bowl.

This resolution "calls on the People's Republic of China to invite full and independent investigations into the Tiananmen Square crackdown, assisted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross..."

Where do we get the authority for such a demand?

I wonder how the US government would respond if China demanded that the United Nations conduct a full and independent investigation into the treatment of detainees at the US-operated Guantanamo facility?

The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

It’s widely known that China runs a pretty tight ship - to put it mildly - on what its citizens get to see online, especially that content which exists outside of China. YouTube has been blocked for some time and although Wikipedia was blocked for a while, it’s gradually become more available. However today Chinese authorities have come down like a tonne of bricks on a number of services including Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live.com, Hotmail.com, Blogger and a number of other sites. And that’s no joke, given that we’re talking about the Great Wall of China here.