Lu brings back horrors of the Nanjing Massacre by highlighting the resilient spirit of the Chinese people, rather than the weakness and hopelessness of the victims facing aggression of Japanese forces.

"Chinese people were frequently portrayed as weak and helpless victims in the massacre. It's not totally true. There was resistance. That part of history was more or less left out," Lu said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency before the movie's release.

Lu, 38, is a self-funded filmmaker, who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy with a master's degree in directing. His major works, The Missing Gun (2002) and Hoh Xil (2004) are both acclaimed by critics.

Wealth Fund Safe—Investor

Lou gave a speech on April 18 at the annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia, a nongovernmental platform for discussing economic issues, in China's southern island province of Hainan. Lou, Board Chairman of the China Investment Corp. (CIC) that manages $200 billion of China's foreign exchange reserves, said that state assets under his supervision would seek more overseas investment as the market rallies. He noted that the economic crisis has made other markets reconsider investment from sovereign wealth funds that was not that volatile.

Lou, 59, had served as vice minister of finance and deputy secretary general of the State Council, China's cabinet, before he assumed the chairmanship of CIC, the world's fourth largest sovereign wealth fund, in 2007.

Mainland Artist Debuts in Taiwan

Fang Lijunhas become the first mainland-based contemporary artist to

hold an art exhibition in Taiwan in decades. The exhibition, Endlessness of Life, which debuted at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum on April 18, is therefore seen as a milestone of cultural exchange across the Taiwan Straits.

Fang, 46, graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1989. The image of a baldheaded youth that first appeared in his paintings in the early 1990s has been a symbol of his cynical realist style.

Fang's paintings often evoke the spiritual contemplation of disillusionment, solitude and rebellion of the individual against the masses in contemporary China. This is done by contrasts between the prominent main figure and dazed conformity of the background, but expressed in a humorous manner.

"China strives to take good care of its own people and maintain sound economic growth, and is working hard to keep itself from being a burden on the international community. "

Zeng Peiyan, Vice Chairman of Board of Directors of the Boao Forum for Asia and a former Chinese vice premier, saying that China is still not capable of "saving" the world, all by itself, from the ongoing financial crisis during a speech at the forum's 2009 annual session

"The advancement and growth of the PLA (People's Liberation Army) Navy are consistent with China's economic advancement and its role in a globalized world."

Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations who was in China to attend Chinese navy's 60th anniversary celebrations, speaking to reporters in Beijing on April 20

"The world didn't prepare for globalization...There weren't any measures or policies, or international supervision installed."

Liu Mingkang, Chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, attributing the lack of a firewall between banks and capital markets a major causes of the global financial crisis

"Having just one day for the environment suggests that for the other 364 days, the environment takes the back seat to economic growth."

Michael Shellenberger, environmental consultant and Co-Director of the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland-based think tank, before Earth Day (April 22)

"Bitter budget battles in recent years have taken us further from what we need: an effective and empowered instrument of service capable of meeting the dominant global challenges of the 21st century."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, calling for strengthening the UN as part of international community's efforts to address common challenges in a speech at Princeton University in New Jersey on April 18