Also featured in the newspapers:  China's rejection of the "pittance" offered by the U.S. as payment for costs resulting from the collision of an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter; Japanese memorials to their war dead with no acknowledgement of their guilt for atrocities in World War II; fighting in the Middle East and stem cell research; and such cartoons as Blondie, Garfield, and Peanuts.

The main thrust of the news, however, is the continued pace of economic development. For 20 years, the world's most populous nation has seen its economy grow more rapidly than any in history. Poverty has been halved as production soars. Where once bicycles and feet were the dominant forms of transport, now every make of automobile joins the flow of traffic in every metropolis. New buildings of blue, gold and orange reach skyward, and Shanghai at night is a brilliant Christmas tree. Architecture assumes new forms—cubes, bifurcated towers, slim columns and "space needles."