China fuelled fears over a flagging global recovery yesterday as the world's second-biggest economy showed its weakest pace of growth since 2009 in the opening three months of the year.

The succession of comments this week by the Chinese leadership on the sudden sacking of the Communist Party boss of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, suggests both a nervousness about the public response to the fall of this popular leader and a determination to ensure a stable transition to a new leadership this autumn.

Communist party chief in Chongqing dismissed after his right-hand man visits US consulate

The bright lights of the economic juggernaut are fading. In Guangzhou, Ben Chu finds out what could lie ahead

China's annual legislative session opens today amid a challenging leadership transition and a day after the country unveiled the latest in string of boosts to defence spending.

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One of Britain's largest lobbying companies has been secretly recorded boasting about its access to the heart of the Government and how it uses the "dark arts" to bury bad coverage and influence public opinion.

The Chinese economy, increasingly seen as the saviour of global economic well-being, grew by a less-than-expected 9.1 per cent in the third quarter, prompting fears that the world's second-largest economy may badly affected by the effects of slowdown in the US and Europe's debt crisis. Gross domestic product grew by 9.1 per cent in the three months to 30 September from a year earlier, down from 9.5 per cent in the previous quarter.

Sport, they say, is a bridge between nations. If so, then China and the United States should be worried, after a "goodwill" exhibition game in Beijing between an American college basketball team and a local club descended into an on-court mêlée that overshadowed the diplomatically sensitive visit by the Vice-President, Joe Biden.

Evidence of the crash was buried and newspapers were told to restrict reports to officially sanctioned or good news

When David Cameron signed a £1.4bn trade deal with China yesterday, he might have been forgiven for wondering which China he was dealing with. Until recently, a new revolution appeared to be taking place in the country. Meteoric economic growth seemed to be bringing a greater openness to the world, greater freedoms for China's emerging middle-classes, a fairer legal system and a new awareness of individual rights. But since Mr Cameron went to Beijing last November and gave a tentative thumbs-up, things have been moving in the opposite direction. There is a new nervousness and uncertainty inside China. Its peculiar brand of authoritarian capitalism seems to be reverting to a greater authoritarianism all round. In the struggle between conservative and liberal factions within the leadership, hardliners are firmly in the ascendancy.

BG signed a $1.5bn (£940m) agreement with the Bank of China yesterday to fund an expansion of the oil and gas giant's activities in the country.

North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong-il, toured east China yesterday, continuing a visit that suggests he is taking fresh interest in the success of reforms in Asia's biggest economy and his isolated country's only major benefactor.