Reform consensus must be acted on

Premier Li Keqiang's Government Work Report has outlined the roadmap for China's economic and social reforms in 2014, which are regarded as the beginning of the comprehensive deeper reforms that are the consensus as well as the expectation of Chinese society.

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Trade agreements should not be political

US President Barack Obama has such good intentions, but his lofty goals often become bridges to nowhere. The latest is international trade. This time the problem is not the Republicans, but his own party.

Faster financial reforms

Had the game-changing YU'EBAO not come from nowhere to shake up the Chinese banking sector so vehemently, Chinese policymakers may have taken more time to weigh and implement all-important financial reforms.

Battling to be green

In his Government Work Report to the opening session of the National People's Congress earlier this month, Premier Li Keqiang said China would declare war on pollution with the same determination it has strived to reduce poverty over the past decades.

Ukraine needs deft handling

The political upheaval in Ukraine has turned into an international crisis. The crux of the problem lies in whether Russia recognizes Ukraine's interim government and whether Crimea will secede from Ukraine to become a part of Russia. This is a thorny problem for China's diplomacy, too.

Housing market faces division

House rents have increased significantly in major cities in the past year, which has seriously affected people's livelihood and deserve more attention in the ongoing Two Sessions.

The delicate issue of sexual orientation

The year 2014 could be transformative for China's reform, as some analysts say, but it may not be so for those seeking more rights for homosexual groups and legalization of same-sex marriage.

Building a stable housing market

Chinese people have become accustomed to their premier mentioning "real estate regulations" in the Government Work Report delivered to the annual session of the National People's Congress, given that "housing regulations", "to curb the rise of housing prices" and other such phrases were buzzwords at previous NPC sessions.

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Social media are self-correcting

Three days have passed since contact was lost with Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Like many people, once the news broke I followed the latest developments through micro blogs and the popular instant messaging service WeChat. There was good and bad news, but much of it has proved to be rumor as nothing is yet known of what happened to the plane and its passengers and crew.

For judicial fairness

Last year, 825 defendants were acquitted of the offenses they were charged with, according to the report the president of the Supreme People's Court delivered to the current session of the National People's Congress. During the same period, the Supreme People's Procuratorate urged the withdrawal of 25,211 cases that should not have entered the process of litigation, an increase of 25 percent over the previous year, according to the SPP's report to the session.