Echo Huang

It’s been almost a year since Nobel peace prize winner, writer, and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo passed away of liver cancer in custody in China, with Beijing rejecting pleas for the dissident to be allowed to travel abroad for treatment. After his death, his wife Liu Xia—who was with him in the hospital in his last days—disappeared back into the state of house arrest she’d lived in for years.

It’s been quite a ride for Tesla buyers in China for the past few months.

China responded as expected today to US tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports (pdf) taking effect, with Beijing quickly announcing roughly equivalent retaliatory measures. But while those came as no surprise given earlier warnings, the tone and wording seen in official statements, state media, and elsewhere were perhaps stronger than anticipated—and revealing.

“Over the years since I became ill, the drugs have cost me my home and bled my family dry. Sir, can you tell me which family doesn’t have a patient, and can you guarantee that you’ll have a lifetime free of illness?”

China’s naming and shaming its debt defaulters—to the accompaniment of rhythmic beats.

If there’s one worldwide food guide that everybody knows, it’s the Michelin Guide. Invented over a century ago at the dawn of the road trip age in France by the two brothers who founded the Michelin tire company, it now guides foodies across 25 countries. Chefs cook for stars—and cry when they lose them.

Forty years ago, the architect of China’s economic reforms Deng Xiaoping adopted the philosophy of “crossing the river by feeling the stones” in his approach to opening up China’s economy. That idea—which refers to cautiously testing out new methods before expanding them—shaped the reforms that turned China into an economic giant and has been directing China’s development since.

It’s not just Tesla. Chinese electric vehicle battery makers are frantically building lithium-ion battery gigafactories—capable of producing massive amounts of power. The “giga” comes from gigawatt-hour, which is enough energy to power one million homes for an hour.

People in Shanghai don’t want to be told how they should address their grandmothers.

The US has regained its crown of owning the world’s fastest supercomputer—the machines that can achieve medical and scientific breakthroughs thanks to their enormous processing power—for the first time in six years. But China’s leaving the US in the dust when it comes to their respective shares of the world’s top supercomputers.

Half a century ago, China launched its first satellite, the very first object to be sent into space by the Communist party-ruled country. Now, satellites have become a central part in China’s ambitious globe-spanning infrastructure push.

When Albert Einstein traveled to China as part of his tour of Asia in the 1920s, the physicist, known for his criticism of racism, turned into something of a xenophobe. In his private diaries, he described Chinese people as “industrious, filthy, obtuse,” along with other uncharitable observations—which people in China are receiving rather charitably.

Ahead of the historic meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, Ivanka Trump tweeted a quote she attributed to a supposed Chinese proverb—but people in China are struggling to figure out where it came from.

The much-anticipated meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un is happening today (June 12) in Singapore.

Of the global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) last year, China contributed more than half. And that trend is very likely to continue. Just look at this one sign—in Beijing alone, the number of people who applied for a license to own an electric car already surpassed this year’s allowed number more than five times.

The Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen already has an all-electric bus fleet. Soon it’s going to have an all-electric ride-hailing car fleet as well.

The remote wilderness of Antarctic isn’t immune to human pollution after all.

It’s not uncommon to have meteorites slamming into the earth. To scientists, these space rocks can reveal the stories of planets and asteroids. But some Chinese people instead see them as small fortunes.

Uber has been rolling out new safety features for riders in the US. But in China, those same features—or ones very similar to them—are nothing new. They were introduced much earlier by the same company that defeated Uber in China: Didi Chuxing.

Guatemala’s Volcán de Fuego, one of Central America’s most active volcanos, erupted Sunday (June 3), killing an estimated 25 people, including three children, and injuring more than 300.

People in China are taking a lot more flights, thanks to their growing spending power and the rise of a slew of Chinese budget airlines. In some cases, passengers new to flying have been behaving, well, badly. China’s turning to one of its favorite gambits to deal with this headache: a blacklist.

Metal robot arms can help us assemble cars and make cocktails, but they don’t yet have the flexibility of human arms, hands, and fingers. Advances in “biohybrid” robotics, which combine biological elements with mechanical ones, are paving the way for machines that will move a lot more like humans one day.

China’s going to start sending parts of its future space station into space as soon as 2020, with the aim of having it up and running by 2022. The country’s space agency this week invited countries to come and carry out out research on the facility.

Humans often extol the necessity of hard work in getting ahead. But stork leaders are a little different—they manage to get further with less flapping than other storks, new research shows.