Today, China is the second largest economy in the world, a great power with global influence, and its people live in increasing prosperity; average life expectancy has reached 74 years. But the Western media’s discourse on China is dominated by misconceptions.

The first decade of the 21-century has seen a dramatic reversal of fortune in the relative prestige of different political and economic models.

Dictatorships now understand that they have to provide a good economy to keep citizens happy, and they understand that free-market econ­omies work best.

An exclusive preview of an economic report on China, prepared by the World Bank and government insiders considered to have the ear of the nation's leaders, offers a surprising prescription: China could face an economic crisis unless it implements deep reforms, including scaling back its vast state-owned enterprises and making them operate more like commercial firms.

While Asia’s leading economies have been largely immune from the current European economic crisis, the long-term prospects are perilous unless the region uses its strength to assist the global economy. Greater Asian economic integration can stimulate regional demand, boost growth and create more export opportunities for the US and Europe.

Significant groups in both China and the U.S. claim that a contest for supremacy is inevitable and perhaps already underway. They are wrong.

China's economic rise and its newly amplified voice on the international stage unnerve people and governments across the globe, despite Beijing's best efforts to assuage their fears.

China has declared to the rest of the world on many occasions that it takes a path of peaceful development and is committed to upholding world peace and promoting common development and prosperity for all countries. At the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century and on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China declared solemnly again to the world that peaceful development is a strategic choice made by China to realize modernization, make itself strong and prosperous, and make more contribution to the progress of human civilization.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission was created by the United States Congress in October 2000 with the legislative mandate to monitor, investigate, and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action.

U.S. scientists have used satellite data to create the first estimates of ground-level particulate pollution in China.