Smoking spat on fast trains

SHANGHAI – There have been a number of complaints during the past few days about staff members smoking on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed trains. Sun Honggang, a researcher from the Center for the Study of Contemporary…

Passenger car sales hit speed bump in July

An auto market in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. Passenger car prices have fallen 3.26 percent since last year, according to the Price Monitoring Center of the National Development and Reform Commission. [Photo / China Daily]  Industry body says automakers and dealers will see…

China’s July CPI rises to 37-month high

BEIJING– China’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, accelerated to 6.5 percent in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday. China’s inflation accelerated to a 37-month high in July…

Red Cross questioned over luxury vehicles

BEIJING – The top charity in China denied on Monday that officials at the organization use cars that are too extravagant for government standards, saying such claims are “nothing but rumors”. “A well-informed person disclosed…

China becoming even more male

BEIJING – Census figures show an increasingly imbalanced sex ratio at birth on the Chinese mainland, Deputy Health Minister Liu Qian said at a news conference on Tuesday. However, Liu did not respond to a…

Draft may expand lawsuits against government

BEIJING – Chinese people may soon be able to challenge unreasonable administrative legislation – which is currently excluded from the scope of court hearings – in an attempt to ease intensified relations between officials and…

Shark fin soup: The taste of extinction

A pending state bill would prohibit the sale of shark fin and help protect the threatened fish. The ban would affect Chinese Americans disproportionately, but Cantonese culinary culture would easily survive.   I still remember…