China

Polls show that frustration with Washington has never been higher — and who could argue? Most Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Most lawmakers openly concede that nothing will get done before the November elections. The leaders of both parties are already trading threats over the possibility of a national debt default next year. Barack Obama got elected by promising to change the tone in Washington, but clearly he's failed, as George W. Bush did before him. That should be a clue that the partisan animosity consuming the political system doesn't originate in the White House.

A U.S. clampdown on visas for instructors at China's flagship cultural program overseas has incensed Beijing, with state media pouncing on it as an attempt by Washington to frustrate Chinese global ambitions. The crisis flared last week with a U.S. directive saying many Chinese instructors had the wrong kind of visa, though it appeared largely resolved by Thursday when U.S. officials said they were working on a way for teachers to update their status without returning home. The commotion has underlined China's sensitivity about the more than 300 Confucius Institutes it has...

With the school year winding down, Tufts University administrators met recently with students planning to study abroad, outlining what they should do before they leave and what to expect when they arrive. Above all, they stressed the risks - and ways to minimize them. But with an audience of young adults eager to see the world and seize adventure, it was hard to know whether the warnings truly hit home. "I think the message gets through," said Sheila Bayne, who directs the university's study-abroad program.

Li Na's life changed dramatically a year ago, when she won the French Open to become the first Grand Slam singles champion from China. Even dining out back home has become a big deal. "I was in a restaurant, and suddenly, like, one lady (screamed): 'Oh, she's eating!"' Li said with a smile Friday. "They think (I am) different. " Play at Roland Garros begins Sunday. Li will face Sorana Cirstea of Romania in the first round. Li's French Open triumph in 2011 is expected to spur the development of tennis in China.

In late 2009, Dassault Systèmes, France's largest software company, launched a search for a location to establish a headquarters for its rapidly expanding operations in North and South America. It already had operations in Los Angeles, Charlotte, N.C., and Auburn Hills, Mich. But ultimately, the global technology firm decided there was only one place to be: Route 128. Dassault creates software that helps companies conceive, design, make, and improve products, and Route 128 has become the world's undisputed epicenter of this fast-growing technology, known as Product Lifecycle Management, or...

SOLAR STORM: China rejected a U.S. antidumping ruling against its makers of solar power equipment. The conflict has worsened U.S.-Chinese trade tensions. The two governments have pledged to cooperate in developing renewable energy but accuse each other of violating free-trade pledges by subsidizing their own manufacturers. GOVERNMENT BOOSTS: Foreign competitors complain Chinese manufacturers get too much government support. Beijing admits it gives them research grants and tax breaks but says they are in line with practices by other governments.

NEW YORK — Not long ago, the choices facing Robert and Julie Garrett would have been simpler. Once they set their hearts on adopting a child from China, the odds were high they could soon bring home a healthy infant girl. It’s different now. Faced with a long wait — and a smaller pool of healthy orphans available to foreigners — the Garretts have decided after much soul-searching to adopt one of the special-needs children who now abound in China’s orphanages. “It’s really hard, and we want to make the right choice,’’ said Julie Garrett, of...

The process of adding fluoride into the municipal drinking water supply is supposed to be simple, say Amesbury city officials. But since 2005, the powdered sodium fluoride has clogged filters at the city's water plant, puzzling city workers who have been unable to determine why. Earlier this month, Amesbury residents voted to eliminate the city's water fluoridation program. The service began more than 40 years ago but has been discontinued since 2009, after growing concerns about the clogging and about the inability to measure just how much fluoride officials...

BEIJING — On a balmy weekend last fall, more than 600 elderly Chinese people, some leaning on canes or walkers, gathered in a Beijing hotel for one of the world's most extraordinary college reunions. Their school, St. John's University in Shanghai, hasn't existed for 60 years. Its last students graduated in 1952, the year the missionary-founded school was shuttered by China's Communist leadership. The members of that class — the youngest at the reunion — are now in their early 80s. They have been held together over the years by a...

SHANGHAI - In the Minhang district of this city of 20 million, amid industrial stacks spouting clouds of steam, workers in red, blue, and yellow hard hats moved from pipeline to pipeline, monitoring the flow of chemicals that Cabot Corp.'s plant would turn into carbon black, a material used to make tires. China already represents 18 percent of the Boston company's global sales, but chief executive Patrick Prevost has another number on his mind: the 1 billion people he expects to make up the Chinese middle class within two decades.

Chinese authorities arrested a man and his girlfriend in the death of an elderly woman he knocked down while driving drunk and whose body was later found buried at a construction site. Police say the woman likely was alive when buried. The official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday the couple was intoxicated and returning home from a bar in the eastern city of Cixi on April 30 when the man ran over the 68-year-old woman. Xinhua cites a witness as saying the couple carried the woman into their car saying they would take her to a hospital.

When architect Wang Shu accepts his field's richest prize in a ceremony Friday at the seat of China's legislature, a symbolic second winner will be waiting in the background — Hyatt Hotels. The Pritzker Architecture Prize has special resonance for communist leaders who want to promote China as a global cultural power. Receiving it made Wang a celebrity in China. Until now, the 49-year-old had been little known outside architecture circles. The $100,000 prize is sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation, a separate entity from the business, Hyatt Hotels, which has no role in picking the...

China's leadership is hitting a rough patch with ally North Korea under its new leader Kim Jong Un, as Beijing finds itself wrong-footed in episodes including Pyongyang's rocket launch and the murky detention of Chinese fishing boats. The testy state of China-North Korea affairs became public this week after Chinese media flashed images of the fishing crews, some of the 28 crew members stripped to their longjohns, returning home after 13 days in North Korean custody accused of illegal fishing.

A European envoy held out a possible compromise in a fight with China over carbon emissions charges on airlines, saying Wednesday that Europe might alter its system if Beijing helps negotiate global regulations. China, India, the United States and Russia oppose the European Union charges that took effect Jan. 1. Beijing has barred its carriers from cooperating and has suspended purchases of European aircraft. Talks on a global system have begun in the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. body, said Matthew Baldwin, director of aviation...

The Philippines is accusing China of sending more government and fishing vessels to a contested shoal in the South China Sea despite ongoing talks to resolve the 2-month-old standoff. Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez says that the number of Chinese vessels at Scarborough Shoal increased to 96 on Tuesday. They include four government ships and fishing and utility boats. He said Wednesday that the Philippines has only two vessels in the area, which both countries claim. The Chinese Embassy did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

A branch of city governments China set up to monitor everything from unlicensed street vendors to unauthorized construction is rife with abuse of power, stoking already high social tensions, a rights group said Wednesday. The report by New York-based Human Rights Watch catalogs alleged abuses by officers with the urban management bureaus: beatings — sometimes fatal, forceful seizing of property and illegal detentions. The group interviewed 25 people who said they were "slapped, shoved, pushed to the ground, forcibly held down to the ground, dragged, punched, kicked, and thrown from...

WASHINGTON - China has abruptly canceled a series of military and diplomatic contacts with the United States to protest a planned $6.5 billion package of US arms sales to Taiwan, American officials said yesterday. Beijing has notified the Defense Department that it will not go forward with several senior-level visits and other cooperative military-to-military plans, said Marine Major Stewart Upton, a department spokesman. "In response to Friday's announcement of Taiwan arms sales, the People's Republic of China canceled or postponed several upcoming military-to-military exchanges," Upton said,...

KLAGENFURT, Austria - A court yesterday found an engineer guilty of stealing wind turbine technology from American Superconductor Corp. and giving it to a Chinese turbine maker that is a former customer of the Devens company. After a three-hour trial, Dejan Karabasevic, 38, was sentenced to one year in jail and two years probation for passing proprietary turbine control software to Sinovel Wind Group Co., based in Beijing. Karabasevic, who worked in American Superconductor's subsidiary in Austria, was also ordered by Klagenfurt district court...

The S&P 500 had its biggest gain in two months as China's premier pledged to focus on bolstering economic growth and German and French officials said they'll do everything necessary to keep Greece in the eurozone. Commodity, tech, and industrial shares gained the most. $1 trillion was erased from US market value this month over Europe's crisis.

A China-based employee of MKS Instruments, an Andover company that makes measurement and control systems for manufacturing facilities, was arraigned in US District Court in Boston Tuesday for conspiracy to violate US export laws. The employee, Qiang Hu, also known as Johnson Hu, is a Chinese national and is based in the company's Shanghai offices. MKS is in the process of terminating Hu, according to a company spokesman. MKS itself is not being targeted for investigation. The US attorney's office in Boston confirmed that Hu was arrested and charged, but had no other comment.