Working as an overseas tour guide for the past decade, Song Xiaobing has made two key observations: more and more Chinese tourists are traveling abroad, meaning he must increasingly ensure they don’t embarrass themselves – or their compatriots. As a senior tour guide working in one of China’s largest travel agencies, China International Travel Service, Song leads dozens of Chinese overseas tour groups each year to destinations in Europe, the [...]

It seems we are in an age when almost everyone can speak some Chinese. Many non-native speakers are even able to converse with their Chinese friends about xiangsheng, also known as cross talk. Some of them, represented by the household personality Dashan (Mark Rowswell), are taking advantage of their non-Chinese faces but fluent Chinese tongues. It seems to be an encouraging sign that the enthusiasm for learning Chinese has continued [...]

China’s hope for sustained peace and stability in this region and stress on dialogues and consultations for the sake of peace by no means denotes unconditional compromise, said Qi Jianguo, deputy chief of general staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China. “Our resolve and commitment to safeguarding core national interests always stands steadfast,” Qi said in a speech at the 12th Shangri-La Dialogue, a multilateral forum organized by [...]

In the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games, on the 11th of every month, tens of thousands of volunteers in Beijing would be dispatched to encourage people to queue up to use public transportation. Under posters promoting the number 11 (to signify two orderly queues), groups of volunteers formed queues at subway stations for commuters to follow their example. On one such day, Olympians draped in slogan-bearing ribbons thanked passengers [...]

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his entourage flew from India to Pakistan yesterday for a two-day visit. The plane was escorted by six Pakistani Air Force JF-17 fighter jets after entering Pakistani airspace. Both Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso welcomed Li at the airport in person, which clearly reflects the “all-weather” friendship between China and Pakistan. Developing friendly cooperation with both India [...]

Only weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping had a much-publicized meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Durban on the sidelines of a BRICS summit, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is heading for New Delhi on Sunday on the first leg of his maiden tour abroad. Such a short time interval in top-level contacts between the two Asian giants gives the impression the Chinese dragon and the Indian elephant are [...]

While the debate about the Chinese dream continues to echo throughout the country, elsewhere in the world, more and more countries are expressing disenchantment with China. In some places, this sentiment has been translated into the loss of major projects by Chinese companies who have invested billions in relatively friendly countries, only to see their efforts go up in smoke. Governments from Myanmar to Nigeria, Zambia to Kenya and others [...]

Although US political scientist Joseph Nye, who recently slammed China and Russia for their soft power failings, developed the concept of soft power, he was not the first to realize the existence of such power. Many international political theoreticians, including Hans J. Morgenthau, have pointed out over half a century ago that besides the measurable powers such as military and economic strength that play a part on the international political [...]

China’s budding multi-dimensional financial diplomacy is not only helping promote its own economic transformation, regional development, but also propelling reforms of the global economic governance favorable for sustainable development. The 2008 financial crisis has rattled the old economic order dominated by developed countries, as emerging markets and developing countries have played an increasingly important role in tackling the crisis and become a driving engine for global economic growth. The turmoil [...]

China’s economic growth of 7.7 percent in the first quarter fell short of market expectation, triggering jitters in the global markets. Some investment gurus expressed pessimism about the Chinese economy and short sold Chinese stocks, while Fitch led the chorus by cutting China’s sovereign credit rating earlier in April, citing “underlying structural weaknesses.” However, analysts say China’s slower growth, down from 7.9 percent in the final quarter of 2012, was [...]