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Spot the Fake

                                                    A mortifying lapse of security around the famed terracotta warriors that stand as they have for centuries -- although now on display in a huge hangar-like museum.

They were joined at the weekend by a young German arts student said to be obsessed with the figures. The trouble was, after his daring leap down into the pit the security guards had some trouble finding the fake warrior and then evicting him.

The Unavoidable Panda

China can report a baby boom. A record 25 pandas have been born in captivity so far this year.

It's pretty hard to argue about the cuteness quotient of the panda. And China certainly doesn't even try.

Marx and Markets. Money and Media.

Question: What are the choices for a state-controlled news agency that wants to make some money while at the same time ensuring its stories toe the government line? It's a tough situation. And it is the predicament of China's Xinhua news agency.

Answer: Play to your strengths. Set yourself up as both regulator and competitor. Take a cut of the earnings of foreign information providers.

    

To Be a Banquet or To Be a Dinner

Chinese film director Feng Xiaogang has been responsible for a string of hits. But he is scarcely known outside China and has placed his hopes in the his latest release "The Banquet" to win over international audiences.

But it seems that even with Zhang Ziyi, of "Memoirs of a Geisha" fame, as its star, China's newest blockbuster has not wowed critics at home.

Mao's 100 Kuai Note

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the mausoleum. It has been many years since I last joined the crowds to traipse past the body of Chairman Mao Zedong, lying in state in a blockish pillared building in Tiananmen Square. Little had changed. The queue was long, the guards bossy and officious. But something was a little different.

Mao currency counts for plenty, I found. Corruption, it seems, has penetrated to the very foot of the chairman's crystal sarcophagus.

Lost in Translation

This morning China's premier, Wen Jiabao, granted a rare audience to five news publications. The Times was one of those fortunate enough to be chosen for the small group interview before he sets off on a European tour that will take him to Finland, Britain and Germany.

The interview lasted an hour. It was only 13 hours and 43 minutes after it was all over that the government issued its official transcript in Chinese and in English.

Justice is Blind

Why does China's exercise of justice this week seem far from blind? The courts sentenced two men who in their different ways had challenged the system. Both were convicted of crimes that appear to be somewhat petty. The jail terms handed down by the courts appeared to be rather long when considering the offences of which they were convicted, raising howls of anger from their lawyers.

Did the case of rural legal activist Chen Guangcheng and the case of journalist Zhao Yan in fact put the Chinese justice system itself on trial?

 

Seek Truth From Facts

Deng Xiaoping urged China to do just that.

The China Daily, the country's premier state-owned English-language newspaper, had a similar suggestion today. Although perhaps with a slightly updated approach. It is one that Deng appeared to espouse in an early youthful incarnation working in the media but which seemed to bother him less in later years. Is the newspaper hinting that his successors may not remember his maxim?

E Gao Ergo Parody

It seems a little too good to be true. From China to be able to amble around the Internet glimpsing videos of pretty much anything via YouTube. There's that glimpse of George W. Bush giving Angela Merkel a quick shoulder rub, or a view of the most famous head butt in modern sporting history and time to pore over clips of Asia's leading heartthrob, the bespectacled Korean star Bae Yung Joon.

Yes, it looks as if those days are numbered. And this young man, Hu Ge, and his passion for parody may have played a role.

Protesters, Police and Diplomacy

It was a beautiful day for a protest. The sun was shining for the first day in what feels like weeks, the smog had lifted, the sky was blue and it wasn't even too hot.

But the demonstration outside the Japanese embassy this morning drew a crowd of scarcely more than a dozen protesters. They were vastly outnumbered by plainclothes police, uniformed police, police cars, vans and buses. I would guess the ratio was around 15 to one. Were the police perhaps overdoing it?

Passagiata A La Mongolia

Nightlife in one of the remotest cities in China is clearly worth investigating.

And here it is.

Pull Up a Deckchair for a Hot Read...

Here it is, China's hottest new summer book.

The Selected Works of Jiang Zemin. It may not have the kind of cover that would be likely to lure buyers in their droves, but it does have the merit of following in the tradition -- at least in colour and calligraphy -- of the works of Chairman Mao.

Just 730 more days....

The Beijing News carried a front page picture today of the construction of the "Bird's Nest" -- the National Stadium that will showcase the 2008 Olympics. An astonishing and daring structure. But what about the weather on the eighth day of the eighth month -- two years to the day when the Olympics will launch?

There Goes the Neighbourhood

The bulldozers are gouging out the alleys around my home. Yet another ancient corner of Beijing is being trampled underfoot by the march of modernity. Only this time I can almost hear from my own small courtyard the sound of bricks tumbling as yet another once-proud aristocratic house and the grimy single-storey homes surrounding it disappear.

Flagging the Need for Education

Humiliation in front of the world's biggest television audience. That was the fate of Chinese shepherd Shi Zhanming when he took part in a popular singing contest on state-run television. His singing was fine, it was the quiz section of the competition that let him down.

And his failure to recognise the Chinese national flag has transformed him into a figure of fun and fury ever since.

Coffee and the Spirit of Enterprise

The spirit of the Chinese entrepreneur has materialised before my eyes and offered me a cappuccino. The name of this blithe spirit is Xu Bin. He is a young man who has seen an opening in the market -- literally -- and set up a tiny enterprise of great service to the weary Beijing shopper.

Mr Xu has opened a cappuccino stall in the great sprawling weekend flea market in the Panjiayuan suburb of Beijing.

Camels, Cars and Chaos

Long gone are the days when the drive into the city from Beijing airport traversed a narrow two-lane road lined with poplar trees and the cars dodged horse-drawn carts, camels and flocks of sheep. However, travellers on Monday must have yearned for a cart or a camel when a ferocious rainstorm brought all traffic along the airport expressway to a sodden halt.

And it must have meant some serious Monday morning blues for Beijing Olympic planners.

Love or Commerce?

It's Chinese Valentine's Day. The idea was utterly unavoidable today, with headlines plastered across the front pages of major newspapers and web sites devoting acres of the ether to the event. Chinese Valentine's Day?

What has happened to the centuries-old legend of young star-crossed lovers? What of the Weaving Girl and the Cowherd who can meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month?

   

A Flash Too Far?

A complete unknown is causing a furore in China for a performance that could be styled China's Janet Jackson moment.

No, there was no nudity involved. But would-be singer Sun Yixin came pretty close to it on primetime television in the Chinese version of Pop Idol. The censors are unimpressed. In fitting with Communist Party processes, the cumbersomely named State Administration for Radio, Film and Television has launched an investigation.

The Sky High High Rise

New regulations out this week mean I could buy my own home in Beijing. These rules are specific to foreigners and seem to be part of a series of measures to try to cool the property market in China.

How effective can all these measure be? Is China seeing a property bubble? Or is it just encountering the consequences of decades of pent-up demand and years of saving?