If local unrest swells into national protest, will they choose liberalisation or repression

Li Keqiang, set to become China's premier in March, said the nation must deepen its rural-urban population shift to support growth while avoiding the economic stagnation associated with middle-income countries.

China's president Hu Jintao has stepped aside as ruling party leader to clear the way for vice president Xi Jinping to take over as part of only the second orderly transfer of power in 63 years of Communist rule.

China has denounced a report in The New York Times detailing the vast riches accumulated by Premier Wen Jiabao’s family, and today it blocked the newspaper’s English and Chinese language websites.

Wang Lijun, the police chief who triggered China's worst political scandal for two decades when he sought sanctuary at the US consulate in Chengdu with revelations about his ally and mentor Bo Xilai, will be charged with treason as early as next month.

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.