Anti-graft agenda on the right track

Corruption is a cancer to which no society is immune. It raised the death toll of Iran's recent earthquake, owing to substandard housing construction 10 years ago. It has afflicted the United States Navy, which is now investigating more than 60 admirals and hundreds more officers for fraud and bribery. And it has brought down countless governments.

Trump's tax cut bill more of a political game

The year 2017 is coming to an end amid a couple of economic shocks. With the Conference Committee of the US Congress passing the bill for the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 on Dec 15, worries are mounting across the world on its possible ramifications, including global tax competition, capital flows into the United States, possible shift of manufacturing investment back to the US, and the rise of the dollar against other currencies, especially the renminbi.

China in Australia and the accounts of soft power

"Now is the winter of our discontent", laments the cold wind wafting south to Australia. This follows Australian media having expressed outrage at possible inducements to politicians, by some Chinese Australians, inducement being a form of coercion for political scientist Joseph Nye Jr.

US' national security strategy is still a work in progress

While highlighting the areas of cooperation with China, US President Donald Trump also identified it as a strategic competitor when he unveiled his national security strategy on Monday.

China no longer willing to pay environmental cost

Only those who profit from the practice are likely to disagree with the proposition that those who damage the environment should bear the costs of remedying the harm they cause.

Practical move to get NGOs to play bigger role in poverty alleviation work

THE STATE COUNCIL, China's Cabinet, recently issued guidelines for governments at all levels to encourage social organizations to more widely participate in the ongoing poverty-alleviation work, so as to finish the job of lifting all poor people out of poverty by 2020. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

The unbearable lightness of obligations

A 42-YEAR-OLD PROGRAMMER threw himself out of the window of the 26th floor of an office building of a telecommunications company in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, last week. Beijing News commented on Monday:

Barrier-free cities require more than govt investment

A RECENT SURVEY of more than 100 cities by the China Consumers Association and China Disabled Persons' Federation found the construction and management of barrier-free facilities still leaves much to be desired. Yanzhao Metropolis Daily comments:

Hot words

Shanghai-London Stock Connect

Cartoon

Time to make the best of carbon trading

Since the Kyoto Protocol, the idea of trading carbon emission quotas has been generating high hopes for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. During the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, last month, China's special representative on climate change Xie Zhenhua said the country's carbon market is near completion and will be probably the world's largest.

Easing Beijing's burden a long-term process

Editor's note: Tongzhou, Beijing's new administrative sub-center, will receive its first batch of "newcomers" and officially start functioning on Dec 20. An estimated 400,000 people are expected to shift east of Beijing to Tongzhou. Two experts share their views with China Daily's Zhang Zhouxiang and Liu Jianna on what the administration's shift means for Tongzhou and Beijing. Excerpts follow: