Leaders from China and the European Union are reportedly meeting for talks likely to be dominated by Europe’s debt crisis.

Premier Wen Jiabao is set to meet EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Beijing.

Europe is China’s biggest trade partner and the EU has courted investment in its bailout fund. Beijing has so far made no specific pledges of assistance. Greece passed a package of severe cuts late on Sunday demanded by the EU and IMF in return for a 130bn euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout.

Read more here (BBC)

Alibaba Group has hired a Washington lobbying firm in a sign that the Chinese e-commerce company would be willing to make a bid for all of Yahoo Inc, Reuters has confirmed.

Japan’s Softbank Corp, which owns a 30 percent stake in Alibaba and is a partner in Yahoo Japan, is also listed as an Alibaba affiliate in the disclosure by the lobbying firm, Duberstein Group Inc. Alibaba Group’s founder, Jack Ma, said in September he was keen to buy all of Yahoo if the opportunity presented itself.

Read the full story here.

The Backstreet Boys may Want It that Way,but China’s ministry of culture most certainly does not.

Read the rest of this article here. (via The Mail and Guardian)

In a note to clients Friday, Ticonderoga’s Brian White reported that the new MacBook Air — which was launched in the U.S. more than four weeks ago — was greeted with long lines and stock outs when it finally arrived in Hong Kong this week.

Not only did stores run out of certain MacBook Air models, but also some iPads and iPhone 4s, presumably through a Chinese version of the halo effect. This, White says, bodes well for the launch of the Air in mainland China, perhaps as early as next week.

Read the full story here (via Fortune Magazine)

China denounced a Pentagon report that warned its military modernization could destabilize the region

Beijing and Washington have sought to rein in their quarrels this year, and a recent visit to China by US Vice President Joe Biden brought vows of cooperation and goodwill.

Read the full story here. (via Times Live)

Schools in China have been told to run more classes in calligraphy because computer use and text-messaging are ruining children’s writing style.

Younger students should have classes every week specifically in writing Chinese characters, the education ministry said.

Read the full story here (via BBC News)

Imports now command the majority of the South African car tyre market, causing inevitable downsizing in the industry

But if the tyre industry wins a case currently before the Supreme Court, it could create a legal precedent that would give it — and all other South African industries — a better chance of success in applying for anti-dumping action against cheap Chinese imports. Read the rest of this article here. (via Mail and Guardian)

China will appeal a World Trade Organisation (WTO) rejection of its curbs on exports of industrial raw materials

China will appeal a World Trade Organisation (WTO) rejection of its curbs on exports of industrial raw materials, the government said on Wednesday, in a case that Washington and Europe hope will lead to an easing of its restrictions on rare earths sales. Read the rest of this article here. (via The Mail and Guardian)

China has long used access to its giant customer base and cheap labor as bargaining chips to persuade companies to open factories within its borders

Now, corporate executives say, it is using its near monopoly on certain minerals — in particular, scarce metals vital to products like hybrid cars, cellphones and energy-efficient light bulbs — to make it difficult for foreign manufacturers of high-tech materials to build or expand factories anywhere except China. Read the rest of this article here. (via The New York Times)

Groupon Inc.’s China joint venture has fired a large number of workers for poor performance

The Gaopeng.com site is financially viable and still hiring, said the person, who declined to be identified because the moves weren’t announced publicly. The firings weren’t made out of necessity, the person said. Read the rest of this article here. (via The Washington Post)

China probably overtook the U.S. as the largest personal-computer market last quarter, after three decades of American dominance

Personal-computer shipments in China rose 14 percent to 18.5 million units during the second quarter, the first time they surpassed the number in the U.S., where they fell 4.8 percent to 17.7 million, Bryan Ma, an analyst at research firm IDC, said in an interview today. On a full-year basis, China will likely pass the U.S. in 2012, he said. Read the rest of this article here. (via The Washington Post)

Hackers probably based in China tried to break into hundreds of Google mail accounts, including those of senior US government officials

The unknown perpetrators, who appeared to originate from the city of Jinan in Shandong province, recently tried to crack and monitor email accounts by stealing passwords, but Google detected and “disrupted” their campaign, the world’s largest web search company said on its official blog. Read the rest of this article here. (via Mail and Guardian)

Surveys of industrial managers released Tuesday showed that growth could be slowing in China and Germany

raising questions about whether two of the world’s most dynamic economies could continue to underpin global output and compensate for weakness in the United States and the rest of Europe. Read the rest of this article here. (via The New York Times)

In the West, electric cars appeal to a do-it-yourself environmentalist personality

One who believes in taking individual actions to help address the collective problems of air pollution and global warming. Read the rest of this article here. (via The New York Times)

Artists’ songs among 100 that music websites must remove because they had not been submitted for approval.

Officials have placed the boy band’s anodyne 1990s hit on a blacklist of 100 songs that music websites must remove by 15 September, alongside hits by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Britney Spears.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)

The market tumult in recent weeks has inspired some pretty dire readings of the U.S. economy’s future.

With the country’s anemic growth prospects back in the spotlight after a jolting credit downgrade, the biggest concern now is that neither Washington nor the Federal Reserve has the ammunition to reverse what feels like a bottomless downward spiral. So where will the misery end? Even if the bickering in Washington continues and the maxed-out Fed lays low, some welcome relief — albeit in small doses — could come from a friendlier China.

Read the rest of this article here (via Time Magazine)

BEIJING — At least 15 people were killed when a blaze ripped through a dormitory building belonging to a ceramics factory in southern China early Tuesday, the local fire department said.

The fire engulfed a four-storey building of the Shengfeng Ceramics Factory in Foshan city, a manufacturing centre in the southern province of Guangdong, the local government said in a statement on its website.

Read the rest of this article here (via AFP)

United States Vice-President Joe Biden, who is visiting China, has said the US would never default on its debt

In a speech on the last day of his visit, he reiterated that China’s large holdings of dollar assets were safe. Read the rest of this article here. (via BBC)

Legendary Entertainment’s Chinese partnership bypasses limit on number of foreign films released, and their box office takings

The Hollywood producer behind the Hangover movies and Inception has joined forces with a Chinese studio to create a $220.5m (£134m) venture aimed at China’s increasingly lucrative film market. Read the rest of this article here. (via The Guardian)