Emily Feng

ZUNYI, China — Some people splurge for beach vacations or a week in nature. Office worker Huang Ge recently decided to spend his week off touring Zunyi, a remote, mountainous town in southern China that's important to his country's modern political history.

"China's Communist Party influenced my sense of social responsibility," says Huang, who lives in the southern province of Guangdong. "My understanding of the party continues to modernize, and coming to these sites replenishes my faith in the party."

BEIJING — China has accused the United States of mounting cyberattacks against Chinese government, scientific, aviation and other technical institutions for the past 11 years.

The finger-pointing comes the day after the U.S. mounted similar accusations against China, an exchange of blame which threatens to make cybersecurity another rift in an already-fractious U.S.-China relationship.

BEIJING — China's ruling Communist Party is throwing itself a party, kicking off a month of celebrations today to memorialize its founding 100 years ago.

Across China, newspapers and buildings alike have been blanketed in red party propaganda. Three Chinese astronauts in space beamed back congratulations to the party. And online censors and police have been working overtime for the past month to ensure no disturbances mar the heavily scripted ceremonies held in Beijing today.

BEIJING — It took just one year for China's national security law to completely remake Hong Kong's decades-old institutions.

BEIJING – Hong Kong's most prominent pro-democracy newspaper is shutting down.

The paper, Apple Daily, had managed to survive the arrest of its founder and of its editor in chief, and of several top executives. But last week, the government froze its bank accounts, crippling the paper's operations.

Apple Daily will run its last edition on Saturday — signaling the end to Hong Kong's once freewheeling and muckraking reporting environment as well.

BEIJING — Hong Kong police have arrested five editorial executives, including the editor in chief, of media outlet Apple Daily, freezing more corporate accounts and imperiling the future of the region's most feisty, investigative paper.

DATONG, China — The walls and ceiling of the Nanshan mine shimmer black, carved straight into a 200 million-year-old coal seam running 1,300 feet underground. Black veins of Jurassic-era coal deposits still thread Shanxi province in China's north, enriching public coffers and keeping generations of miners steadily employed.

BEIJING — Over the last three years, the U.S. and the European Union have imposed a series of sanctions on Chinese officials and companies. Now China has created a new legal tool to hit back.

Organizations with a foot in both the United States and China may face a tough choice going forward: By complying with American sanctions on China, they face the possibility of tough sanctions in China as a penalty for doing so.

BEIJING - China will now allow married couples to have up to three children as the country attempts to halt a declining birthrate.

BEIJING – Ten veteran Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and politicians have been sentenced to up to three years' prison time for organizing a demonstration in October 2019.

The sentences are the latest in a series of roundups among Hong Kong's beleaguered political opposition for their part in the broader anti-government demonstrations against Beijing's rule that rocked the region throughout 2019.

BAODING, HEBEI, CHINA — Billionaire Sun Dawu built an agriculture empire just outside Beijing. To accommodate approximately 9,000 employees and their families, he created a self-contained company town replete with free hospitals, schools and a sports stadium, all named after himself.

ZHUHAI, China — Feng Daoyou loved her family, even if she never heeded their advice much.

"Marry someone, anyone," her older brother, Feng Daokun, remembers telling her for years. "We kept at it, called her a spinster. She got mad at that."

Feng preferred independence. Then, a few years ago, as her extended family's main breadwinner, she began building a new dream — a new house for her clan of loved ones in China.

BEIJING — Nine veteran activists and lawmakers in Hong Kong have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 18 months because of their participation in anti-government protests nearly two years ago.

Media mogul Jimmy Lai received one year in prison, while prominent lawyers Margaret Ng and Martin Lee received suspended sentences of 12 and 11 months respectively, meaning if they are not convicted of another crime in the next two years, they will not have to spend time behind bars. The heaviest sentence of 18 months was meted out to Lee Cheuk-yan, an activist and former lawmaker.

BIJIE, China — Zipping along Beijing's streets on an electric scooter with sometimes death-defying speed, Chen Guojiang delivered hundreds of take-out food orders a day.

WUHAN, China — In 2019, the U.S. sanctioned two major Chinese telecom firms, temporarily cutting them off from a vital supply of semiconductor chips — bits of silicon wafer and microscopic circuitry that help run nearly all our electronic devices.

BEIJING — The clothing brand H&M has come under a sudden, intense storm of criticism in China over a statement it made more than half a year ago, where it distanced itself from cotton sourced from China's Xinjiang region.

Major online retailers in China have pulled H&M products from their sites or mobile apps. Two Chinese celebrities have already severed deals with the Swedish brand. Chinese state media outlets are now calling out other Western clothing brands — including Nike, New Balance and Burberry — for not using Xinjiang cotton.

BEIJING — When China acknowledged this year that four of its soldiers had died fighting Indian forces on the two countries' disputed mountain border eight months prior, the irreverent blogger Little Spicy Pen Ball had questions.

"If the four [Chinese] soldiers died trying to rescue their fellow soldiers, then there must have been those who were not successfully rescued," he wrote on Feb. 19 to his 2.5 million followers on Weibo, a Chinese social media site. "This means the fatalities could not have just been four."

BEIJING - After more than two years in detention, former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig was put on trial in Beijing for espionage Monday in a case criticized by diplomats and international legal experts as an exercise in hostage diplomacy and for contravening international law.

BEIJING, China — China's legislature is debating draft guidelines that would drastically overhaul Hong Kong's electoral system to give Beijing near total control over the region's election outcomes.

While Beijing has not publicized the details of the proposals, it has outlined broad changes that would effectively allow Beijing to vet candidates for Hong Kong's legislative council and pack an election committee which chooses the region's chief executive.

LULIANG, China — The meteoric rise of aluminum executive Zhang Zhixiong transformed his rural Chinese hamlet into a lucrative mining community. But his fall from grace was even more dramatic.

In March 2018, he and 10 others were sentenced to harsh prison terms for supposedly forming a criminal organization and illegal mining, among other crimes. Zhang, chairman of Juxin Mining Co., was accused of being a crime boss and received a 25-year prison sentence. He denies the charges.

The novel coronavirus outbreak almost certainly did not start in a Chinese lab but its path from animals to humans needs further investigation, a World Health Organization team said Tuesday after wrapping up a visit to China.

The comments came as scientists from the WHO and Chinese health bodies jointly presented preliminary findings after two weeks of investigating in Wuhan, the Chinese city that first detected the virus in late 2019.

For thousands of people, the late Dr. Li Wenliang feels very much alive. They flock to his social media page on Weibo each day to write to him:

"Hey Dr. Li, I just got a second COVID shot. It hurt a little. I miss you."

"Dr. Li, I pet a cute orange cat today! I'm happy!"

"When do you think the pandemic would be over? I long for the days without a mask."

China has approved one domestic coronavirus vaccine for commercial use. Four more are in late stage human trials, and a nationwide vaccination campaign is already underway.