"Broadening its challenge to the United States, the Chinese government on Thursday announced an ambitious five-year plan for space exploration that would move China closer to becoming a major rival at a time when the American program is in retreat."

NYT: China Unveils Ambitious Plan to Explore Space.

FT: Yuan rises to new high as China stands aside →

China’s yuan soared on Monday to close at its highest level against the dollar since its July 2005 revaluation, as the central bank stepped aside and tolerated broad gains on the first trading day after it ditched the currency’s two-year peg to the dollar.

The effect of China’s new policy of no longer pegging the yuan to the dollar will be two-fold: Chinese consumers will find that they are able to purchase more foreign goods/services with their money and Chinese manufacturers will see the prices of their goods/services in foreign markets increase (thereby making Chinese goods slightly less cheap than they used to be prior to the policy change).

It will be interesting to see for how long the Chinese central bank will be willing to take the hit on their exports just to appease the United States. China is, after all, an export-driven economy.

[via The Economist]

NYT: Xinhua Official Shares Details of China’s News Cleanups →

An interesting piece on the basically-upfront news censoring done by China’s state news agency, Xinhua.