- I love this title (translated by China Media Project): Ten arts one-liners from 'Big Daddy Xi' (Original Chinese : ??????????
- China's reform era is over and the country is slowly closing to the outside again, argues Carl Mizner.
- Water availability will determine China's future energy mix.
- China Central Television may finally move into the uniquely shaped building (aka 'big pants') that was built before Olympics to house the organisation.
- Shen Dingli writes that China's leadership system should be truly collective to prevent individuals monopolising power for personal gain.
- China to export its bullet trains for the first time.
- India, China plan counter-terror drills to build trust.
- Sidney Shapiro, a US-born translator who was one of the few Westerners to gain Chinese citizenship and become a member of a high-level parliamentary body, died aged 98 on the weekend in Beijing.
- Over at ChinaFile, there is an extensive discussion on the rule of law, which is the major theme at this week's Party plenum. The discussion is also a response to Carl Mizner's essay on the contradictions of holding the plenum on rule of law while China is in it most repressive state since Tiananmen.
- Ian Johnson interviews prominent rights lawyer Teng Biao on the state of Chinese legal reform. Teng aims this salvo at the plenum:
I don’t care what they talk about; I don’t expect anything. For the past two years they’ve arrested more than three-hundred human rights defenders and intellectuals, such as Pu Zhiqiang, Tang Jingling, and Ilham Tohti. And they have destroyed many Christian churches, they cracked down on the Internet, and they published a series of articles against universal values...