Best-seller Queried

(CFP)

Han Han, one of China's most renowned young writers, filed a lawsuit against Fang Zhouzi, who claims that some of Han's novels were written by ghostwriters.

Han asked for a public apology and compensation of 100,000 yuan ($15,860) from Fang for slander. Han is quite confident in the lawsuit because he said he would provide a 1,000-page manuscript that he wrote between the year of 1997 and 2000 to the court to refute Fang's accusation.

Han's first novel Triple Doors sparked a debate about the quality of China's current education system because he dropped out of high school due to too many failed subjects. Besides being a best-selling author in China, the 29-year-old is also a professional rally driver, singer and one of the most popular bloggers in the country.

Farmer Singer

(CFP)

Zhu Zhiwen, a farmer in Shandong Province good at singing, was invited to perform at the 2012 Spring Festival Gala of China Central Television, a popular TV variety show on the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Zhu grabbed the limelight earlier in I'm a Big Star, a talent show produced by Shandong TV, where he perfectly sang the theme song of a well-known Chinese TV series. His talent and strong baritone was almost the same as the song's original singer, leaving the show's judges nearly speechless.

Zhu's performance was uploaded to the Internet and sparked public interest because of the sharp contrast between his powerful voice and his plain appearance on stage. Dressed in an old heavy coat and a wool cap, Zhu was nicknamed by netizens as "Brother Coat."

Zhu, 42, hasn't received any professional training in singing. He just loves singing. When he works in the fields, he often sings for himself, which led other villagers to think he was crazy, but he enjoys it very much.

Agricultural Incentives

Chinese authorities issued their first policy document for 2012 on February 1, underscoring the importance of scientific and technological innovation for sustained agricultural growth.

China will intensify its efforts to encourage the development of both frontier agricultural technologies and basic research, so as to maintain sustainable agricultural growth, said the document issued jointly by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, China's cabinet.

It said the government will lend support to agricultural research focusing on bio-safety, farm product safety, the effective use of farmland, ecological restoration and genetic regulation.

According to the document, the country will continue to expand its fiscal budget for agriculture in 2012 and direct more of the country's fixed asset investment toward the sector.

Government data show China's grain output rose to a record high of 571.21 million tons in 2011. The figure represented a yearon- year increase of 4.5 percent and marked the eighth consecutive year of growth for the country's grain output.

Food Standards

China will overhaul its current food safety standards, integrating new specifications and weeding out others in a move largely aimed at avoiding repetition and contradiction, the Ministry of Health said on January 30.

By the end of 2015, the ministry will have basically completed its work on the mandatory contents of China's current 1,900 national food standards, 1,200 local standards and 3,000 food industrial standards, said a statement.

In the meantime, efforts will be made to revise the standards on food additives, food labels and food contaminants, biotoxins and pesticide residues.

The ministry will also accelerate the formulation and modification of the national standard of food safety, so as to fill certain important gaps in the existing version, resolve inconsistent standards and enhance the standards' scientific base.

Rising Citations

An annual report has revealed that papers on science and technology written by Chinese scientists were cited more than 5 million times over the past 10 years, making China the seventh largest source of such citations.

The report was published on ScienceWatch. com with the support of Thomson Reuters. Twenty countries' citations were recorded in overlapping five-year increments starting from 2001.

Of the top 20 countries, the United States remained first with 48,862,100 total citations, followed by Germany, England, Japan, France and Canada.

According to the report, the number of citations from Chinese scientists' papers between 2007 and 2011 nearly quadrupled compared to citations in the 2001-05 period, with chemistry, material science, engineering and mathematics being the most-cited fields.

However, a separate report released in December 2011 by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China noted that the number of average citations for each Chinese scientific paper, a benchmark for the quality of research papers, remains at a lower level.

In 2011, the average number of citations per paper was 6.21, up by 5.8 percent year on year, but still far below the global average of 10.71 citations, according to the report.

Taiwan Investment Zones

A new state-level investment zone for businesses from Taiwan was established in the mainland's southeastern Fujian Province, local authorities said on January 31.

The investment zone is located along the Taiwan Straits in Quanzhou.

According to related business policies, the state-level investment zone will provide more effective services and a more convenient investment environment with greater limits of authority for examinations and approvals.

Local authorities said the investment zone will focus on wind power equipment manufacturing, photo-electricity, intelligent transportation, and high-end service industries.

In the meantime, another Taiwanese investment zone in Fujian, the Fuzhou Taiwanese Investment Zone (FTIZ), was expanded to 11.46 square km from 1.8 square km.

As one of the first two Taiwanese investment zones on the mainland, the FTIZ will become a major base for metallurgy, electricity, IT, and equipment manufacturing, among others, local authorities said.

Foreign Experts

Some 81,000 foreign experts were working in Shanghai at the end of 2011— 30 percent more than in 2005.

Shanghai has more foreign experts— overseas professionals recognized by a government certificate—than any other city in China, said the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau on January 31.

It's estimated that one in six of the foreign experts in China are based in Shanghai. Certified foreign experts mostly work in the cultural, educational and research sectors. This category does not include other foreigners legally hired to work locally on work permits.

At the end of 2010, some 210,000 foreign nationals were living in Shanghai, according to the latest population census.

Over the past five years, 370,000 foreign expert employment contracts were established or renewed in China, according to official statistics.