CHINA US Focus - Perspectives shaping the world's most important bilateral relationship

Faced with a sharply slowing economy, weak exports and faltering investment, China unexpectedly announced late Thursday that it would cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point.   The action, by the People’s Bank of China, represents the strongest measure by the Chinese government to counteract an economic malaise that has infected Europe [...]

Ahead of U.N. discussions on Syria, a conference of Central Asian nations Thursday rejected outside military intervention to end the violence there and called for a domestic resolution.   China and Russia, both attending the Beijing summit, have been seen as protecting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, blamed for a harsh crackdown on a [...]

Health experts are calling for faster testing of the 9 million people worldwide estimated to be infected with tuberculosis each year after a study in China found drug-resistant strains were rife.   The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, gives the first nationwide estimate of the scale of the tuberculosis [...]

China needs to improve its tax system to stimulate spending, Finance Minister Xie Xuren said Thursday.   The central government will study measures to expand a value-added tax trial, and improve China's consumption tax to "guide reasonable consumption" more effectively, Mr. Xie said in a statement on the ministry's website.   An experimental value-added tax [...]

China released proposed changes to its Internet law on Thursday that aim to further eliminate anonymity on the Web and expand control over the companies behind the country's boisterous microblogging scene.   In a draft update of the government's "Methods for Governance of Internet Information Services", China is proposing to widen the definition of Internet [...]