Japan overtly meddling

In this year's "shoulder-to-shoulder" military exercises between the United States and the Philippines, Australia is sending 80 soldiers to participate, and Japan has sent two frigates and one submarine, showing its eager desire for larger involvement.

Thorough investigation needed to get to bottom of Guilin official's suicide

TANG TIANSHENG, director of the food and drug administration of Guilin in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, committed suicide by jumping from the eighth floor of a local hospital building on Monday, one day after he went there to receive neurology treatment. The Beijing News commented on Tuesday:

Public must keep eye on use of taxpayers' money

PENG YINGLONG, an official from Hengyang, Central China's Hunan province, was recently expelled from office for suspected corruption. He reportedly bought almost everything in daily life, from paper diapers of his granddaughter to the wood for his future coffin, using public money. Beijing Youth Daily commented on Tuesday:

Deducting wage for trees voluntarily

TEN PERCENT of the monthly wage of civil servants in poverty-stricken Lintao county in Gansu province, Northwest China, is being deducted to subsidize tree planting in the county. Xinhua Daily Telegraph commented on Tuesday:

Hot words

Replace business tax with value-added tax

Cartoon

China, Myanmar to broaden engagement

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is paying an official visit to Myanmar on Tuesday and Wednesday at the invitation of Myanmar's new Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi.

Reduce packaging, make deliveries greener

The rapid growth of online shopping and express delivery services has given rise to huge amounts of rubbish in China, says a recent cankaoxiaoxi.com report. Last year alone, 16.95 billion meters of adhesive tape and 9.9 billion boxes were used to deliver the purchases of online shoppers.

When will Chinese TV dramas play their part?

While Chinese people have started recognizing the value of soft power in expanding national interests, our neighbor to east, South Korea, has been using its TV plays to further its image for quite some time now.

Taking a page from Europe's book to prosperity

After holding intensive political meetings, engaging in lively exchanges with young football and ice hockey players, and signing cooperation documents during his March 28-30 visit to the Czech Republic, President Xi Jinping and his Czech counterpart Milos Zeman visited the 850-year-old Strahov Library in Prague. After being introduced by the museum curator to the collections on Chinese-Czech exchanges dating back to 300-500 years, the two presidents stepped onto the veranda to get a bird's eye view of Prague while sipping their farewell beer.

Thai railway project offers cautionary tale

Thailand has reportedly decided to solely fund the construction of a 250-kilometer high-speed railway between Bangkok and the city of Nakhon Ratchasima.

Tainted objectivity of credit ratings

Moody's and Standard & Poor's recently lowered their ratings on the outlook for China's government credit from "stable" to "negative", citing China's slower-than-expected efforts to advance economic rebalancing, a deteriorating leverage rate for both the government and enterprises, arduous reform challenges, and uncertainties involving its capability to carry out the needed reforms.