Exports dropped 3.1 per cent in June from a year earlier, the first decline since January last year while imports went down 0.7 per cent, General Administration of Customs said on Wednesday.
President Xi Jinping on Tuesday pushed China's free trade vision for the Asia Pacific region and asked APEC to "break open closed doors" as leaders of the grouping held talks on forging consensus over opening up commerce in the resource-rich and economically dynamic region.
A round-up of our favourite photographs of the week gone by.
'The first time that China alleged the Dalai Lama was 'anti-national' and 'unpatriotic' was after he affirmed that Arunachal Pradesh and Tawang are part of India,' points out former RA&W official Jayadeva Ranade.
China's first lunar rover on Saturday successfully landed on the moon, making the communist giant one of three world powers to make a "soft landing" as part of an ambitious programme that aims to put a Chinese astronaut on the moon.
This and more from the happenings in the world of footbal.
Xi and Modi met soon after their arrival at a summit of the BRICS group of emerging powers. Xi said the two countries should join hands in setting global rules and suggested he attend the November meeting of the 21-nation APEC in Beijing, as well as take part in Chinese-led regional initiatives.
'China's moves are of direct significance to India, which will closely monitor Chinese naval activity in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean not least because of Chinese maps depicting claims over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.'
At least three industry bodies have alleged counterfeits remain widespread on Alibaba's sites
India and China on Friday agreed to set up a dedicated communication channel to boost security cooperation as Home Minister Rajnath Singh held talks with China's security czar on issues like cross border terrorism from Pakistan and the Afghan situation.
The readouts by the Indian and Chinese sides on the meeting on Monday between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow bring out that divergences are crowding into the centrestage of their relationship, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Thirty-two of the 36 people killed in the New Year eve stampede at Shanghai's iconic waterfront area have been identified, authorities said on Friday, as Chinese media and public criticised the administration's failure to prevent the tragedy that marred the gleaming financial hub's image.
The BRICS Summit tonight decided to establish the new development bank with an initial authorised capital of $100 billion.
The explosions took place as rescuers began cleaning hundreds of tonnes of cyanide at the blast site, most of which was unaffected raising fears of the possibility for contaminating air and water sources.
A Chinese high court on Friday rejected the appeal of disgraced Communist Party leader Bo Xilai and upheld his life sentence for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power in the country's biggest political scandal.
'How can a State, which claims to be a responsible power, unilaterally grab a "disputed" area to build a road on it?' asks Claude Arpi.
The venture is seen as a rival to the World Bank.
A cruise ship carrying over 450 people, mostly elderly, capsized because of a cyclone in the murky waters of Asia's longest Yangtze River in China's Hubei province as rescuers on Monday raced against time to find survivors with hundreds missing and at least five dead.
The decision was taken during the annual 19th round of boundary talks in Beijing between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.
Faced with sluggish economic growth and dwindling exports, China on Wednesday devalued its currency for the second consecutive day.
'Islamic State has declared that the liberation of Islamic Xinjiang from China is an objective. Beijing may well find that Pakistan is unable to assist in any meaningful way,' says China expert Jayadeva Ranade.
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.
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.
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.
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
An international tribunal in the Hague has ruled in favour of the Philippines.
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.
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.
Communist China has recently developed a great expertise in 'soul reincarnation', feels Claude Arpi
'China might soon have to seriously consider whether it prefers an Indo-US hyphenation to a Sino-Indian one.'
Will China's new military reforms endanger Xi Jinping's rule?
Fires are still burning at the site of the two massive explosions some 36 hours after the blasts as another 6,200 people were evacuated to prevent further casualties.
Armed with data and statistics, Congress leaders refute every point made by Narendra Modi as part of its new strategy to take on the firebrand Gujarat chief minister. Renu Mittal reports
Domestically, China's 'strike hard' policy is alienating Uighurs further in Xinjiang. China's quid pro quo with the Taliban is hardly any lasting solution to the Afghanistan crises or to regional security, says Srikanth Kondapalli.
'The question remains: Was the Obama visit truly a success? Only the future will tell us if the "breakthrough" in the nuclear liability issue will concretise into electricity.' 'As importantly, it will be interesting to watch how India's relations with China will evolve in the months to come.'
'If the dimensions of the strategic partnership worked out by India and the US seem like a grand alliance targeted at you-know-who, China had better realise that it has fathered it,' says B S Raghavan, a long time observer of China.
There is speculation that China released the White Paper on Tibet in a hurry after a Spanish court agreed to hear charges of genocide against former Chinese president Hu Jintao. Ajai Shukla reports
New Delhi and Beijing are the only two regional capitals that have commented on US President Donald Trump's speech on August 21 outlining the way forward in Afghanistan. The Indian foreign ministry statement was effusive in praise, while the Chinese statement has been one of cautious and guarded hope. Delhi has identified itself with Trump's Afghan strategy, whereas the Chinese stance is calibrated -- observant and objective, keeping a distance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India needs to build its Grand Narrative, and its cultural power, which conquered all of ASEAN (then known as Indo-China), needs to be forcefully projected while simultaneously hard economic and military power are also emphasised, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
India and China decided to seek a fair and rational solution to their border dispute on Saturday as they focused on the proposed border defence cooperation agreement to avert incursions like the one witnessed in Leh region last month.
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