• Chinese police rescue 178 children after mass child trafficking ring bust, from The Telegraph, covered the biggest story of the week: Chinese police arrested over 600 suspects connected with trafficking. This issue of child trafficking is one we’ve covered before on the blog, and if you’d like to learn more about it, read my interview with Charlie Custer, who is directing a film on the topic.

• Journalists should be government mouthpieces, Chinese media leader says, from the New York Times, looks at the most widely discussed comment this week. The leader argued that journalists who believed they were anything but propaganda pieces were misguided. Not a good sign for freedom of the press in China.

• The Death – Microcosms, by Eric Fish on Sinostand, is the start of a short series looking to explore whether modern China’s culture has been shaped more by pre-existing traditional values or reforged in the Party’s own image to reinforce ideas relating to authoritarianism. The whole series uses short stories from his time working in a university, and is definitely worth reading.

• China jails Australian businessman, From the New York Times, highlights a case that led to  a 13 year sentence for an individual who fell foul of the law. China law blog has an excellent post on the subject titled, “A very long ‘No comment,'” that stemmed from a flurry of requests for his take on the case.

• A grave matter, from the Global Times, exposes a case of local government officials exhuming and cremating a body after the family refused to pay the 5,000rmb “fine”. The piece goes on to explore traditional Chinese beliefs about death and the after-world.

• ‘It’s really good stuff’: undercover at a Chinese tiger bone wine auction, by Jonathan Watts, is a great bit of journalism mixed with a little activism. The author actually points out half way through the auction, that what they are doing is illegal, and then documents the results. It is very interesting to see the lack of protection given to animals in China.

• China’s quid pro panda, from Foreign Policy, examines the terms of Scotland leasing a pair of pandas from China, as well as the history of such agreements. Pretty much all you’ll ever need to know about panda-diplomacy.

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