The year has started off on a high note for all of us here at US-China Today. We have a brand new website that went live just yesterday. With our new design, we hope to serve our readers better. As always, we welcome your feedback on our effort.
For China, the beginning of the year has sparked off several important discussions about democracy and trade. The most-discussed issue right now is about Google planning to exit China after an investigation found that the cyber attacks which hit the company in mid-December last year, originated from China.
In a related issue, some Chinese human rights activists claimed recently that their Google emails were hacked into by "unknown visitors" and their emails were read and copied. The activists included, among others, Ai Weiwei, who helped design the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing, Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer and a 20-year-old student in the U.S. whose parents are Tibetan exiles.
This follows a copyright issue that unfolded last year, when Chinese writers expressed concern about Google having scanned Chinese books for its online library, without permission from the writers.The fourth in a series of negotiations between the search engine giant and China writers were postponed.
On a brighter note, the online game market in China expanded to 25.8b yuan in 2009. This was a 39.5 percent increase over the previous year, according to a white paper on online game development released by the Ministry of Culture (MOC). Tencent was reported to be the largest online game operator in the country, followed by NetEase.com.
On the social front, though China’s first official gay pageant, scheduled for January 15, was cancelled hours before it was due to begin, the country is experiencing a gay rights revolution. Senior officials seemed more willing to educate the Chinese population about gay rights. The reasons for this range from the need to inform China’s youth about sexual issues to potential economic growth resulting from erecting gay establishments. Read more about China`s economy, politics and other current events in the Daily Updates section of our website.
In our most recent multimedia article "The 21st Century Family of Man - China," we discuss the "Family of Man" exhibit that brought understanding of the world and its people through the power of photography. The pictures in this collection aim to capture some of the complexity behind the lives of its 1.3 billion people. Read this and other articles at our website.
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