China | featured news

On 11 October, when the Nobel Committee announced that they had decided to award this year's Nobel Prize for Literature to Mo Yan, the Chinese writer was in hiding in his hometown Gaomi, of Shandong province, some 600km (370 miles) from Beijing.

Tony Clift's family has plowed the rich black soil of Australia's Liverpool Plains for six generations. The thought of selling never crossed his mind — until a Chinese company came to town. Shenhua Watermark Coal offered to buy farms at unheard-of prices. The decision wasn't easy, Clift says. His pioneer ancestors settled the land in 1832. But farming is a business nowadays, and selling his 6,500 acres (2,600 hectares) made business sense.

Chinese archaeologists say they have unearthed the palace of China's first feudal emperor, best known for the terracotta warrior army guarding his tomb.

A fire in a clothing factory apparently caused by arson killed 14 people in southern China on Tuesday, state media reported.

Russia and China urged North Korea on Monday not to go ahead with a plan for its second rocket launch of 2012, with Moscow saying any such move would violate restrictions imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

Shin Cheol-soo no longer sees his future in the United States. The South Korean businessman supplied components to American automakers for a decade. But this year, he uprooted his family from Detroit and moved home to focus on selling to the new economic superpower: China.

China's official news agency says the country has successfully landed a fighter jet on its first aircraft carrier.

China's "Beijing Blues" has won the best film award at Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival, an event considered the Chinese-language Oscars. Hong Kong's Johnnie To is taking home the best director's award. "Beijing Blues" portrays the lives of the ordinary urban dwellers through the work of a squad of plainclothes crime-hunters.
At Saturday's ceremony, To won the award for directing "Life Without Principle," a movie about ordinary citizens' struggles in hard economic times.

The Philippines and Vietnam condemned Chinese passports containing a map of China's disputed maritime claims on Thursday, branding the new design a violation of their sovereignty.

China's vast manufacturing sector saw expansion accelerate in November for the first time in 13 months, preliminary results from a factory survey showed, a sign that the pace of economic growth has revived after seven consecutive quarters of slowdown.