China's GDP growth slowed in the second quarter this year to 7.5 per cent, official data showed on Monday, as the Chinese leadership faced fresh challenges to stimulate and revamp the world's second-biggest economy.
China has been keeping tabs on the restive Tibet province through a 'grid' system and some 600 'convenience police posts' armed with high-tech equipment that monitor the daily life of the citizens of Lhasa and other Tibetan towns. Worse, 'volunteer security groups' known as 'Red Armband Patrols' are roaming around in order to get more information and 'classify' each and every citizen, says Claude Arpi
Vice President Hamid Ansari on Monday held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and conveyed the new Indian government's interest in furthering bilateral ties, even as he flagged off India's concerns over border related issues during his parleys with the top leadership in Beijing.
Why is Xi Jinping visiting Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China this week? Former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade explains the significance of China's outreach to the Middle East.
Modi, who is undertaking his first visit to China as prime minister, will reach the ancient city of Xi'an, the home town of President Xi Jinping, for a summit meeting, an unusual departure from normal protocol and seen as a reciprocal gesture by the Chinese leader who was hosted by Modi in Ahmedabad when he visited India in September last year.
An international tribunal in the Hague has ruled in favour of the Philippines.
All the three issues raised by China at the Modi-Xi meeting are either intractable or peripheral to the bilateral relations and suggest conventional methods to placate the other side without yielding much, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
'China might soon have to seriously consider whether it prefers an Indo-US hyphenation to a Sino-Indian one.'
