May the New Year "Set you free" by Kristin
The Year in Pictures 2000

Chinese walk along the Great Wall of China at Badaling, north of Beijing, just before midnight on New Year's Eve Sunday, Dec. 31, 2000.-(AP Photo/Greg Baker)

A Day of Chinese Beauty With Vivienne Tam
"No wrinkling if you do this," Ms. Chen had assured her, and seeing Ms. Chen's own translucent complexion, one was inclined to believe it. - Ruth La Ferla

Shanghai Rising
Forty years ago, Mao and his acolytes embarked on a disastrous economic plan called the Great Leap Forward. Today China is truly in the midst of a great leap, and De Perlinghi has captured it hurtling forward with both feet awkwardly in the air, uncertain where it will land. - Steven Mufson

Publisher views Taiwan as a battleground of ideas
"Taiwan is the future of China, because Taiwan is part of China, Chinese culture, and Chinese people, and yet Taiwan is a true democracy. Whatever Taiwan is going to evolve into, it will have a great input in influencing China." - Dirk Beveridge

Chinese Look Foward to Taiwan Links
Residents of the lively Chinese port of Xiamen are hoping for a windfall when Taiwan lifts a 51-year-old ban Monday and allows ships and people from two Taiwanese-controlled islands to travel to nearby China to trade, visit relatives or just have fun. - Christopher Bodeen

Century's 20 Top Historic Events in China
The Xinhua News Agency has listed the following 20 major events as having impact on China's history in the 20th century, after consulting experts and scholars from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. - People's Daily

Opinion 2000 By the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily

Do you know 'The Way'?
"While Taoism is well-known as a philosophy, it is a lesser known fact that it functioned as a religion as much as a philosophy, which is a very important contribution to Chinese culture and to Chinese art at the highest level," - Sakura O. Keast

In pictures: China's winter wonderland - BBC
Football: Great Wall of China comes to defence of Palace

Island May Help China, Taiwan
It's a small, confidence-building step, but one that could lead to a huge change -- the beginning of direct shipping and air links between China and Taiwan, separated by 100 miles of water and a huge load of ideological baggage. - Willian Foreman

China at Gate of Profound Shift
Allowing private companies to compete with the state for capital is part of a sweeping overhaul of China's economy accelerated by the country's effort to join the World Trade Organization early next year. - Craig Smith

Chinese gangs target U.S. from Canada
"The international criminal threat posed by ethnic Chinese criminal networks has become more complex as crime groups originating in mainland China have joined the traditional triad societies of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in expanding . . . beyond China's borders," - August Gribbin

Extended detention, forced confession still salient in Chinese Judiciary - Chinadaily

Shanghai Show Short on Avant-Garde
The painting of Mao Tse-tung as a Renaissance saint was too risky for the Shanghai 2000 Biennale. The photo of a man eating a dead baby was too disturbing. - Joe McDonald
(Have you seen these pics on the Web?)

U.S. Seeks Chinese Domain Name Cooperation
The domain name issue suggests that China could, in essence, create its own system of Internet addresses, without cooperating with American IT merchants or domain registrars. - Elizabeth Kiggen

China plans world's first maglev train
According to Wu Wenqi, a professor at Shanghai's Tonji University and consultant for the city's planning bureau, the price tag for the maglev line -- estimated at RMB 150 million ($18 million) per kilometer, or well over 1 billion dollars -- is well worth the results gained from the experimental technology. - C.M. Wade

Chronology of the Year 2000
A month-by-month look at notable news in 2000 - AP

Thoroughly Modern Women Disconcert Many in China
And suddenly, it hit her: Artificial insemination could solve her problems -- and those of other Chinese women, too. - Philip Pan

Chinese Pigs Feed a Western Fashion Boom
But Chinese pigs do figure in to perhaps the biggest contributor to lower leather prices: new technologies that can metamorphose cheap animal hides -- scratched cow, pocked sheep or porous pig -- into supple leather. - Leslie Kaufman and Craig Smith

China clamps down on corrupt police
"The longer we try to cover up our problems, the more serious they become," Jia Chunwang, minister of public security, said - AFP

China Widening Crackdown on Corruption
In one of China's most politically sensitive corruption cases, the former chief of military intelligence has reportedly been sentenced to 15 years in prison for embezzlement and bribery. - Erik Eckholm

Fight against corruption only just beginning
The campaign to fight corruption is expected to continue next year following Chinese prosecutors' pledge to track down dishonest officials. - Shao Zongwei

Corrupt system cheats China of its real potential
However, the worst flaws in the execution of the reforms are the result of crass selfishness of individual cadres than a mere failure of philosophy. - Christopher Lingle

Japanese Veteran Testifies in War Atrocity Lawsuit
"But all these years I've thought about who received the germs I created, and how much they must have suffered. I thought about the bereaved, and about the survivors, people whose lives were forever damaged. I thought about the victims of vivisection, and I felt these acts must not be buried away, or else we are condemned to go from darkness to darkness." - Howard W. French

Top 10 Chinese News Events of 2000 - China.org

Go west, young Han
Plans to develop China’s western provinces are about more than economics - Economist.com

Farewell to the land of the Little Red Book.
Prematurely opening up an economy that is not ready to cope with international competition will have a huge social cost.- Roland Lew
WTO: a warning for citizens

A Matter of Tryst
Chinese government officials have traded in their little red books for black ones by taking expensive concubines. A crackdown is under way. - Hannah Beech

China's Tiger Is a Pussycat to Bushes
How many nations can send to America an ambassador who has been a personal friend of the Bush family for nearly a quarter -century? - Jim Mann
China-Taiwan

Hong Kong's 'White Christmas'
"It's a really good idea," said Audreas Pauleschitz, an Austrian stall sales assistant. "But there are more people looking than buying!" Tong Siu, a 70-year-old grandmother helped explain why. "Things are a bit expensive, but it's an interesting taste of foreign culture," she said. -ITN

Chinese authorities try to dampen Muslim unrest as resentment simmers: The authorities were Monday trying to contain the religious violence rocking a corner of northern China, but resentment was still simmering among the Muslim Hui community...descendants of Arab and Persian traders who settled down from the 7th century onwards, are represented in most parts of China, but are among the most assimilated and are virtually indistinguishable from the Hans.- AFP

Award dispute over Chinese 'Schindler'
Plans to honour "China's Schindler", a diplomat who saved thousands of Jews from concentration camps, are being overshadowed by long-buried accusations surrounding Nationalist China's wartime Nazi links. -David Rennie
China to restore its Jewish heritage
Jews Assists Ancient Chinese to Make Earliest Paper Money.

China's prostitution capital stirred, not shaken by vice crackdown: "The police cannot go on like this forever and they cannot control the problem, because it is rooted in Chinese society. You had this in feudal times and you have it again now that people have a bit more money," he explains.- AFP

Chinese immigrants sue Ottawa over head tax
After 16 years of fruitless negotiations for a settlement, victims of Canada's infamous head tax and exclusionary immigration policy have finally taken the federal government to court.-Nicholas Keung
Chinese Immigration

The basic model will sell for about 100,000 renminbi (US$12,096.29), and the best-equipped model will not be more than Rmb 125,000 (US$15,120.36). All three models have 1.6L engines, antilock braking system (ABS), double airbags and standard five-seat seatbelts, the article said.- Chinaonline

Some functionaries protect counterfeiters, beat up law-enforcment people and "shelter" fake product manufacturers -Liu Yuan

Riots mark Nanjing anniversary
The protest, which took place on Wednesday, was sparked by the removal of a memorial to victims of the massacre, apparently to make way for a new hotel. - BBC
Scarred by history: The Rape of Nanking
WWW Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre

Chinese rioters destroy restaurant in row over Nanjing memorial
Several hundred rioters tore through the three-story Dheng Dao Grand restaurant causing one million yuan (120,000 dollars) of damage on Wednesday, the 63rd anniversary of the Nanjing massacre, a restaurant employee told AFP.

Consuming Problem
Tuberculosis is rampaging through China, claiming 250,000 lives a year. But despite the scale of the problem, there's little political will to do anything about it. -Jiang Xueqin

Silk Workers in Standoff With Beijing Over Union
Workers at an ailing state-owned silk factory in eastern China are in a tense standoff with the authorities over their daring proposal to form a worker-run trade union in place of the official body that they say has failed to defend their interests.-Erik Eckholm

Religion Runs Deep in China
The story of this solid stone church in Cizhong, and of the Catholic communities that cling to the valleys and hillsides near the Mekong and Salween rivers, is either unknown or forgotten in the West. But it is a reminder of some enduring lessons about China as it enters a new century.-John Pomfret

China Sentences Queens Woman
"What surprised me was that she apparently didn't stop to consider what the ramifications could be." -Emily Gest

Chinese journalists flex some muscle
"They have responded in the only way possible - by listening to what readers want, and giving it to them. This is an exciting time to be in the media."...They see themselves as pushing the limits of what is permissible rather than issuing an open challenge.-John Gittings

Animals, forest get a judicial boost
Two Supreme People's Court judicial interpretations (clarifications on the specific functions of a law) took effect Monday, aiming to better protect wild animals and the nation's forestry resources. -Shao Zongwei

China's most wanted lived like a king
And then, after nearly a year in Canada - indeed, almost as an afterthought for a man who claims to have fled political persecution after a lifetime of high living - Lai got around to applying for refugee status. -Martin Regg Cohn

Chinese president concerned as the son also rises
He boasts a track record of success that few Chinese citizens can match and would ordinarily be the subject of thousands of laudatory articles in the Chinese press, praising him for his role at the forefront of economic reforms. -Damien McElroy

Century Memories of Rural China
For most Western audience, rural China is only scenes in famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou' s film, and although China as a whole is no longer so remote, its vast rural areas continue to have some sense of mysterious. - Xinhua

China mulls removing 25,000 township governments
Reform should include the removal of some 25,000 township governments across China which would also work to invigorate county-level governments while giving farmers a bigger say in village-level management, he said.-Chinadaily

China hides its Muslim separatist war
Documentary evidence and eyewitness testimony obtained by The Sunday Times make it clear that China is facing the most dangerous resurgence of Muslim separatist violence since Mao Tse-Tung's communist armies crushed the life out of the nascent Republic of East Turkestan in a deal with Stalin after the second world war. -Michael Sheridan, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Taiwan tops Chinese tourists' list
Members of China's tourism industry have already begun jostling for positions in attaining a share of the Taiwan-bound tourist market since the Legislative Yuan amended related statutes on Dec. 5, easing existing restrictions and allowing Chinese citizens to travel, trade and teach legally in Taiwan. -Taipei Times
Traveling, a new choice for more ordinary Chinese

War on drugs
Mayor Ma is on a mission to rid Taipei of the drug ecstasy but, so far, police raids on nightclubs and dance parties have resulted only in moving the drug deeper underground - Jules Quartly
Tripping on the wild side

The minister of arbitrary power
Wu Jichuan rules China’s booming telecoms industry. That gives foreign investors good reason to think twice before piling in.-Economist.com

Chinese cities 'will give S'pore a run for its money'
Shanghai again senses its potential
Taiwan's "Silicon Valley" faces Chinese challenges in 20th year

Chinese delegation visits high school
"American schools lay emphasis on creativity, while Chinese schools attach great importance to the study of elementary or primary knowledge. Both of these have their advantages," he said. - Jennifer Rose Marino

Chinese lawyers study American system
"The Chinese are reforming their government, and need to understand more about the American style of law,'' Lepinske said. "These are all very prominent attorneys in their country."- Sharon Porta

Legendary Chinese rocker Cui Jian creeping back into the spotlight. Earlier this year, following a concert in central Henan province, the conservative Guangming Daily, the party's official newspaper for intellectuals, remarked that Cui Jian was the only person in China who could unify -- in song -- a stadium of 30,000 screaming youths.- AFP

Etch A Sketch production may move to China
The toy lets kids scrawl artwork or messages, then erase with a quick shake. The classic Etch A Sketch is a red plastic box the size of a standard piece of paper. But the toy also comes in all colors and shapes, including a key chain version. - AP

HMMM, SAY WE WERE IN CHINA
As a sinologist I can't help but think that if the events of election eve had transpired not in the United States but in a place like China, voters and TV viewers would not have been surprised by the results.- Lee Feigon

A walk through Beijing's black forex
It reads almost like the proposal for a new situation comedy: two cub reporters from the Beijing Youth Daily try to change renminbi into U.S. dollars on the black market.- Chinaonline

Japan Police End Campaign to Report Chinese
"If you think a person is Chinese, call the police," "If you hear someone speaking Chinese, call the police," were printed on the flyers, police said. -LATimes

Bird-size dinosaur may be missing link
Paleontologist Xing Xu, who led the research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said the newly discovered creature "eliminates the size disparity." Small size is viewed as necessary for flight in birds. - Jeff Donn
"My, How Far We've Come"

Chinese-born scholar Ha Jin strives for greatness in his new language-English - "China has been distant for me and I'm not that attached to the land as I used to," he says. "I don't mean I don't care about China. I do. But I think, for me, the immigrant experience is much more valuable, much richer than my life in China."...Yet to capture the ever-shifting contours of life in America, he knows he will have to become even more comfortable in the American idiom. - Dan Cryer

China faces media sleaze
"There's a demand for real news in China," said Mr Zhai. "So much news is deceptive that people want to know the naked truth for balance." - Richard McGregor

The forgotten Tibetan realm of Yushu

Chinese worker's plight moves Colo. readers
They say Americans should buy more and more so they can continue to work, and doubted consumers would think about workers or try to influence working conditions.- Bruce Finley

Back from China
Bayh urges fostering of China's capitalism
Trip to China proves learning experience

Escaping China's watchful eyes
We came away with a little more evidence to prove what many suspect - in places, China's rural economy is teetering on the brink of crisis. - Adam Brookes

'What does it take to be an American?'
But Women Did Come...150 years of Chinese Women in North America