PetroChina is world's top company

PetroChina saw its shares nearly triple from 16.7 yuan to end at 43.96 yuan, giving PetroChina a market value of just below $1 trillion (£480.6bn).

This is almost the twice the $488bn value of oil producer Exxon Mobil.

But some analysts said the PetroChina's Shanghai share price stemmed from speculation and was too high.

State-owned PetroChina already has shares traded in Hong Kong and its flotation on China's mainland stock exchange in the country's largest domestic share sale represented just 2% of the total number of shares it has listed.

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Prescription Drugs From China. Lead toys and dead pets aren't enough.

Stop Importing Food From China

The United States can’t safely import food from China and should only allow imports from that country if the foods are certified by the Chinese government as safe, House Energy and Commerce Committee investigators testified Thursday. The melamine-tainted products that entered the United States from China earlier this year and killed hundreds of cats and dogs lacked that certification but FDA procedures didn’t require agency inspectors to look for it, one of the investigators told a House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee hearing.

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China's Military Nearly Impenetrable

Stone Age Rice Fields Discovered in China Swamp

An 8,000-year-old dugout canoe, pottery made with wild rice as a bonding material, wood and bamboo tools, and the bones of dogs and pigs were also found.

Zong's team analyzed the sediments of the ancient swamp for signs of rice paddies.

The researchers found the land was deliberately managed for rice growing.

Fire was used to clear scrub, while flood-prevention measures helped keep brackish water from getting into the fields, the study suggests.

China ignores 'Car Free Day'

Global warming to decimate China's harvests

The year 2030 is a key date because that is when the nation's population is expected to peak at 1.5 billion people, up from just over 1.3 billion today, requiring an extra 100 million tons of food to feed them. "Global warming may cause the grain harvest to fall by five to 10 percent, that is by 30-50 million tons, by 2030," the China Daily quoted Zheng as saying.

"Warmer weather will shorten the growth period of some grains and their seeds won't have enough time to ripen." Farmland has been shrinking rapidly in recent years due to China's historic urbanisation process, and Zheng's estimate of an extra 10 million hectares is nearly double what is available today.

More on China's Holding US economy over boiling oil with Bush help

"This administration, in order to fund a war that shouldn't be being fought and tax cuts that weren't needed for the wealthy — we're now in debt almost a trillion dollars — a trillion dollars to China. We better end that war, cut those taxes, reduce the deficit and make sure that they no longer own the mortgage on our home."

His comment drew this response from leading Democratic candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton: "I want to say 'Amen!' to Joe Biden, because he's 100 percent right."

The reality is that China is probably going to slow down its investment in U.S. bonds anyway. This is not so much because they don't like us, as it is because they are becoming savvy about where and how to spend their huge nest egg.

Low-interest U.S. bonds? According to an article in USA Today, some Chinese bankers say it would be better to start buying into businesses (U.S., European, Asian), where you get a better return and have long-term growth. Think the Japanese in the 1980s buying U.S. skyscrapers (Rockefeller Center) and golf courses (Pebble Beach).

Back to the nuclear option — oddly enough, many voices in the U.S., especially in the U.S. Senate, are pressing China to re-value its currency up against the dollar, making Chinese goods more expensive and U.S. goods cheaper for the Chinese to buy.

The Chinese are resisting. Their cheap currency helps them sell their goods. And that is where the nuclear (currency) option comes in… the U.S. is being warned to stop meddling in China's internal affairs.
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China's July trade surplus $24.4B

China's trade surplus soared 67 percent in July from a year ago to its second-highest monthly level on record, according to data reported Friday, amid mounting pressure by U.S. lawmakers to sanction Beijing over trade and currency disputes.

The surplus grew in the face of numerous recalls and warnings about faulty or tainted Chinese goods, ranging from toothpaste to tires to seafood.

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Nice Work Bush! China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

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"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.

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U.S. checking all toothpaste imports from China

U.S. health officials are beginning to check all shipments of toothpaste coming from China, following reports of tainted products in other countries, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

The Food and Drug Administration has no evidence that contaminated toothpaste has made its way into the United States but is taking the step as a precaution, agency spokesman Doug Arbesfeld said.

China is the second-largest exporter of toothpaste to the United States behind Canada, according to the FDA.

The FDA's action comes after the lethal chemical diethylene glycol was found in toothpaste sold in the Dominican Republic and Panama.

It follows a wave of concern over pet food from China containing another toxic chemical, melamine, thought to have sickened thousands of U.S. cats and dogs and made its way into livestock feed.

"We are going to be sampling and testing all shipments of toothpaste that come from China," Arbesfeld said. "We're doing this as a precautionary measure. We have no evidence that toothpaste containing diethylene glycol has entered the country."

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t was not immediately clear which brands of toothpaste sold in the Unites States are made in China.

A representative of Johnson & Johnson's McNeil-PPC Inc., which makes Rembrandt toothpaste, could not be immediately reached.

A spokeswoman for Colgate-Palmolive, maker of Colgate toothpaste, said the company did not import toothpaste into the United States from China.

A Procter & Gamble spokeswoman said Crest brand toothpaste was American-made. A spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline Plc's consumer unit, which makes Aquafresh, had no immediate comment.

Chinese officials have said they plan to strengthen domestic food safety even as worries grow about its manufacturers' use of toxins and fake ingredients.

Earlier Wednesday, China called for an investigative team to probe the toothpaste incidents.