News stories by Antoaneta Becker, page 3

China's rebel artist Ai Weiwei had intended a political message. And may be a truly memorable metaphor for the state of modern China and humanity as a whole. But the final outcome of his multimedia installation at the London's Tate Modern may have been rather unexpected, for what he got was a striking symbol of the 'Made in China' effect on the world.

The headlines of the day’s newspapers strike passersby as being strangely out of sync with today’s events: ‘China’s quick deployment in the war with India astonishes the world’. Or ‘Corruption dealt with the bullet by Mao Zedong’, and ‘The true reason why Stalin repeatedly postponed Mao Zedong’s visit to the USSR’.

Europe delivered a lesson in universal values to outraged Beijing on Friday, awarding the world's most prestigious peace prize to a jailed Chinese dissident, who had boldly called for political reforms in the communist country.

In the rich depository of Chinese expressions dealing with the issue of unrest, none is more sensitive than the word ‘qiyi’ or rebellion. After all, Chinese imperial dynasties have lost mandates because of peasant rebellions and the mere mention of the word in China brings associations with calamitous change.

Irked by accusations that it is the new coloniser of Africa, China is looking to use soft power and historical evidence of its ancient links to the continent to justify its economic embrace of Africa.

German Chancellor Angel Merkel's weekend visit to China has put a positive spin on the increasingly complex economic relations between China and the European Union, but the flurry of deals signed has not disguised the fact that Beijing faces challenges over its EU policies both at home and abroad.

In a country like China, that regularly exorcises the ghosts of the past, few understand the importance of oral history better than Chinese writer Xinran.

Adapt at navigating through politically sensitive anniversaries, the Chinese government has one more socially volatile date marked in its calendar: this year’s 30th anniversary of its one-child policy.

Just as the death penalty is becoming a hot public issue in Taiwan, here in China it remains so much a matter of state secrecy that the numbers of those executed are kept under wraps from the public.