The BBC and the Antipodean press are reporting on the sentencing of a child trafficking ring in Fujian Province.

There seems to be nothing on this in the American papers, which I personally find a little disturbing. But not as disturbing as the stories themselves:

BBC: Five people in eastern China have been sentenced to between seven years and life in jail for kidnapping and selling children, state media has reported.

The gang kidnapped four children in the city of Longyang in Fujian province... more

China's stock market continues to do awesome things.

Chinese stocks rose to a fresh record Monday, with the benchmark Shanghai composite index topping 3,100 for the first time on lively demand from securities funds and strong 2006 corporate earnings results.

Among the most actively traded companies, China United Telecommunications... more

Scarred Giant by Chris Harman.

its 500 day countdown to the Beijing games with yet another ... more

Indiana Readers: an agency in Indianapolis is offering informal seminars as part of their "International Adoption Week".

Meanwhile, most news out of China has been about their athletic successes at the World Championships and, um, related events.

Kelly Scott and her Canadian team showed yesterday they can... more

In case you haven't been keeping up with Brian Stuy, on his Research-China blog he's running a series on birth parents called China Abandonment from the Inside.

From the first entry, dated March 8:

Over the next few weeks, Research-China.Org will be publishing a series of articles recounting interviews with birth parents who abandoned their children, and the Chinese individuals that found them. These articles will hopefully allow us to gain some insight into the motives and reactions of these individuals. These interviews were obtained by Chinese reporters, and represent a new trend in Chinese... more

The latest Wired has some unpleasant things to say about Yahoo and the Chinese government.

And a fellow named Wang Xiaoning, who wrote a blog. Or, more likely, a Yahoogroup. It seems ironic (to me) that these are also the main way I've seen adoptive parents get to know each other during the process -- the long wait. Because some parents write about family stuff, these are often protected,... more

The Northwest Alabama Times Daily is unafraid to opine about the One-Child Policy and the coming gender imbalance crisis.

Over time, demographers predict that China will face upward of 40 million males unable to find mates. This has led some Western academics to boldly predict the increased likelihood of Chinese military aggression as the government is forced to "burn off'' all those excess males through wars of conquest. If not, internal tumult must surely follow.

Here are four solid reasons why that feared scenario will not come to... more

Faithful readers will remember this story from a few weeks back, about the Starbucks coffee shop in the Forbidden City closing. Possibly.

The story was just on National Public Radio, with a long interview with Rui Chenggang, the Chinese journalist who started the crusade to kick the capitalists out of the imperial precincts. He's an interesting,... more

What happens when you don't sell to developers in China.

No man is an island. But a man's home? That can be an island....

Sun Ming Ming is the world's tallest basketball player.

He's actually the second-tallest person in the world (or possibly the third by about three inches).

Like tall guy Xi Shun and pro athlete Yao Ming, he's from Northern China. He's also a little on the slow side:

The requisite YouTube highlight videos—including ... more