Following North Korea's artillery attack on South Korea, the U.S. has asked that China put pressure on its ally. While China did not respond as quickly or forcefully as hoped, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei - also the special representative for Korea peninsula affairs - proposed that delegation heads from the six-party talks be held in Beijing early next month. While this is a step in the right direction, China's tentativeness to address the issue head-on with North Korea has drawn criticism from critics around the globe.
On the economic front, China continues to purchase U.S. treasuries. While some believed that China, the largest creditor of the U.S., might be scaling back their purchases, for the third straight month they were a net purchaser of U.S. debt, raising its holdings by $15.1 billion. This recent string of purchases has relaxed some of the fears sparked by low sales to China during late 2009 and early 2010. Read more about China's economy, politics and other current events in the Daily Updates section of our website.
Our most recent feature article, "Chinese Students Pour Into the United States" by staff writer Vivian Lin, explores the growing trend of Chinese students studying abroad in the U.S. The most recent "Open Doors" report, released by the International Institute for Education, showed that the number of Chinese students going to study abroad in the 2009-2010 year increased by a whopping 30 percent from the previous year. This cements China as the top source of international students out of any country in the word.
In addition, in October we published "American Import Players Dominate the Chinese Basketball Scene" by Alex Zhou, an article on the dominance of American "import players" in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). In fact, 9 of the 10 top scorers in the 2009-2010 CBA season were originally from America. The article takes a deeper look at why this is the case, and features a variety of different interviews with some of the most notable American import players and their coaches.
Please forward this to friends, colleagues, and anyone else who might be interested. To receive this newsletter, go to uschina.usc.edu and "Subscribe to our Newsletter." Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/uschinatoday. You can also become a fan on Facebook.
Please consider supporting US-China Today at http://www.usc.edu/giving/.