Chinese train engineers challenge pilots to a race

CHINESE ENGINEERS SET a new record for the fastest train in the world, and are eyeing their ultimate target—to create railway transport that’s faster than commercial aircraft. The country’s next-generation high-speed train recently set a record of 453 kmh (281 mph) during a test run along a section of the railway from Fuqing to Qianzhou…

August 10, 20230Comments ByNury Vittachi

China news Chinese history

Forbidden City cats become celebrities in their own right

CATS AT THE FORBIDDEN CITY in Beijing have become celebrities. They now regularly appear in TV programs and on social media. They also count as part of the historical tale of the complex. In ancient times, emperors and other royal family members owned cats which they pampered, just like modern cat-lovers. In the Ming…

August 1, 20230Comments ByH.C. Lu

China news Chinese history

Teacher Ye refused to retire

MEET AN ACTUAL COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBER. When teacher Ye Lianping hit retirement age, he felt he was still able to contribute to society, but had been left behind by the world. So he turned part of his home into a school and re-started work as a teacher, focusing on children “left behind” by society because…

July 5, 20230Comments ByNury Vittachi

China news

Joy as China’s endangered ‘smiling dolphin’ seen growing

THE SMILING DOLPHINS are back! This critically endangered marine mammal is breeding in China’s legendary Yangtze river, new studies say. Scientists are cautiously optimistic that the tiny group of finless porpoises (江豚), has grown slightly, reversing a decades-long shrinkage in its numbers. The tiny group of finless porpoises has grown in Yangtze River in…

June 14, 20230Comments ByH.C. Lu

China news Features

Secret global empire: First whistleblower’s last interview

THE UNITED STATES is still running a covert global empire, said Daniel Ellsberg, known as the “father of whistleblowing”. And we are “on the edge of blowing up the world over Crimea or Taiwan or Bakhmut”, he warned. The U.S. has a long history of creating needless conflicts for its own advantage, and it is…

June 12, 20230Comments ByNury Vittachi

China news News

Social channels give alternative to media misinformation

A FORMER BBC reporter tried to politicize the tragic recent fire in Beijing by claiming that it was being covered up – there was no press coverage or videos or chat posts, Vivian Wu announced on Twitter. Except people in China are quite smart now. They quickly found lots of references to the fire in…

April 26, 20230Comments ByNury Vittachi

China news

New giant dinosaur makes giraffe look tiny

A HUGE DINOSAUR that makes a giraffe look small roamed northwest China 160 million years ago, scientists said yesterday. The massive beast had an enormous neck and would have weighed about 70 tons. The news came from a new analysis of bones found in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 1987. Scientists realized they were…

March 16, 20230Comments ByNury Vittachi

China news

Chinese train engineers challenge pilots to a race

Forbidden City cats become celebrities in their own right

Teacher Ye refused to retire

Joy as China’s endangered ‘smiling dolphin’ seen growing

Secret global empire: First whistleblower’s last interview

Social channels give alternative to media misinformation

New giant dinosaur makes giraffe look tiny

Starmer meets Xi today, hopes to rebuild UK’s relationship

Treasures from 800-year-old sunken vessel exhibited in Hong Kong

At the Great Wall, I learned how the Chinese dealt with their enemies