YANTAI, Shandong, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) — China will soon launch its fourth national survey on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) resources to secure the industry’s sustainable development, according to a senior health official.

The preparatory work has been completed and a pilot program for the survey will commence soon, covering Continue Reading

By Xinhua writer Shi Shouhe

JIUQUAN, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) — Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, who supervised the Shenzhou-8 blastoff on site, said here Tuesday morning the successful launch signals one key step closer to a victory of China’s first space docking.

A modified Long March-2F rocket carried, starting from 5:58 a.m. Tuesday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the unmanned spacecraft into the orbit, which was live broadcast nationwide.

Shenzhou-8 is expected to dock, after a two-day flight, with Tiangong-1 or “the Heavenly Palace,” the Continue Reading

BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) — China’s Minister of Culture Cai Wu expects value-added output of the cultural industry to account for 5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016.

Cai made the remark during a recent interview with Xinhua. The interview came after a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which concluded Tuesday, adopted a landmark Continue Reading

by Xinhua writers Ji Shaoting and Mou Xu

BEIJING/CHONGQING, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) — A team of Chinese and American scientists have discovered the world’s only evidence of co-existing human beings and dinosaur tracks in a remote county in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, according to a paper published Saturday in the Geological Bulletin of China, a Chinese core academic journal.

Qijiang County’s Lianhua Baozhai, which means “Lotus Mountain Fortress” in Chinese, has a large number of dinosaur tracks as well as a well-preserved fortress and historical epigraph, forming a direct line of evidence that ancient Chinese people built a residence and lived there for a long time, said Xing Lida, one of three researchers with the project as Continue Reading

BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) — China’s appetite for electronic products continued to grow this year despite downturns in economies around the globe, with domestic producers recording a robust leap in new orders.

“We did not feel any negative impact from the economic downturn,” said Huang Huili, sales manager of Hali-Power, a company that produces mobile phone accessories. Continue Reading

WENZHOU, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) — A prominent business leader who fled the country amid a debt crisis in east China’s Zhejiang province returned home on Monday after Premier Wen Jiabao promised to help private firms during the current liquidity crunch.

Hu Fulin, president of China’s largest eyeglass manufacturer, the Zhejiang Center Group, fled to the United States from the city of Wenzhou on Sept. 21, leaving 1.5 billion yuan (236 million U.S. dollars) in debt owed to both Chinese banks and individual creditors. Continue Reading

DALIAN, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) — Decades after Chairman Mao declared that “women hold up half the sky,” today’s Chinese women are surprising the world with their actions and ambitions, turning an age-old image of Chinese women as gentile and virtuous homemakers on its head.

The evolving role of women in China is a hot topic at the ongoing 2011 World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also known as the Summer Davos Forum, in Dalian, a coastal city in northeastern Liaoning Province. Continue Reading

SHANGHAI, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) — Over the last seven years, the Shanghai-based 99 Online Bookstore has developed into south China’s largest online book retailer. However, the store’s owners are not satisfied with stopping there.

The Shanghai 99 Readers’ Culture Co., Ltd., the owner of the store, plans to sell an e-reader application through Apple’s App Store by the end of this year in an effort to capitalize on the increasing popularity of tablet computers and mobile devices. Continue Reading

XIAMEN, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) — Hong Kong is exerting efforts to build itself into an offshore center for RMB or yuan, China’s currency, which, experts say, will accelerate the currency’s internationalization process.

Hong Kong will be dedicated to developing cross-border settlement in RMB and establishing an offshore center accordingly, Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah said Wednesday at a forum in the southeastern city of Xiamen. Continue Reading

BEIJING, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) — ConocoPhillips China (COPC) is facing the wrath of the Chinese public after deceptively announcing that it had cleaned up oil spills in north China’s Bohai Bay.

China’s State Oceanic Administration (SOA) said on Friday in a statement that COPC failed to meet the SOA’s requirements for finding potential sources for oil spills and sealing previous oil leaks before an Aug. 31 deadline. Continue Reading

ZHENGZHOU/XINING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) — Just a half a year ago, Zhao Zuohai was hailed as a hero battling judicial injustice. Now, he has once again roused public attention, but this time for his misguided participation in an illegal pyramid scheme.

In 1999, Zhao was tortured into giving a false murder confession and then given a suspended death Continue Reading

by Xinhua writers Li Sibo, Tian Ying

BEIJING, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) — Parting is such sweet sorrow, and the time has nearly arrived for Beijing’s legion of Harry Potter fans to bid farewell to Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and the rest of Hogwarts and its wands, broom sticks and spellbooks.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2,” will premier at 0:00 a.m. on August 4, the finale of the eight-film saga that began in 2001. Continue Reading