The quasi-official urban law-enforcement squad, or chengguan, is soon going to be supervised by an intermediate-level official from the Beijing Public Security Bureau.

Citizens of Guangdong province in South China are steadfastly defending their local Cantonese dialect after a politician proposed earlier this month that a local TV station broadcast Asian Games related events in Mandarin.

China has shouldered greater responsibilities in the international arena over the past 60 years, chiefly by providing increased humanitarian aid to foreign countries through multilateral channels.

On Wednesday, the maximum temperature in Beijing touched 36 C, the 11th consecutive day in July when the mercury hit such a high level and the second longest stretch of warm days since year 2000, when the blistering run lasted 14 days during the same month.

Gestures aimed at reviving stalled military level contacts with China seem blatantly insincere on the part of the US, coming, as it does, at a time of heightened tensions in the region.

The International Monetary Fund's lavish approbation of China's determined policy response to the worst global recession in more than half a century seems well deserved. Had China not reacted so quickly and effectively to the crisis two years ago, the IMF would not have been able to revise upward its world growth forecast, which have been largely underpinned by strong Chinese growth data.