“China” on The Daily Caller

U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring China’s Internet say that from March 14 to Wednesday bloggers circulated alarming reports of tanks entering Beijing and shots being fired in the city as part of what is said to have been a high-level political battle among party leaders – and even a possible military coup. (more)

A mixture of political and economic motives has moved the Obama administration to haul China before the World Trade Organization over its control of global stocks of rare earth metals. Consumer electronics companies rely on the heavy elements, including neodymium, europium, yttrium and molybdenum, for the manufacture of iPads, smartphones, and LCD televisions. (more)

The United States just filed a case with the World Trade Organization, alleging that China was unfairly restricting exports of 17 rare minerals, in violation of treaty obligations. This is the latest move in the long-running, low-level trade war between the two countries, following the passage of a bill in Congress which allows the Commerce Department to slap countervailing duties on Chinese imports, while retaining the non-market economy designation China so ardently wishes to shed. (more)

Rare earths are a group of 16 elements used in the hi-tech and defense sectors. Demand for rare earths is expected to rise to 170 kilotons in 2015, from 125 kilotons in 2010. (more)

President Barack Obama on Tuesday sought to burnish his polls among white working class voters by touting a complex new trade-related lawsuit against China. (more)

BEIJING (AP) — China’s top two video websites announced plans Monday to merge in hopes of creating the dominant competitor in a fast-growing industry that is drawing viewers from bland state television. (more)

PARIS (AP) — The Arab Spring is changing the face of Internet freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders, which released its latest “Enemies of the Internet” list Monday. (more)

This post originally appeared in Global Post. (more)

Is the stock market rally of 2012 already over? (more)

China continues to push for a glide-path, soft landing for the economy. (more)

Congress will soon consider legislation to fix a pillar of the president’s China trade policy that has been ruled illegal by federal courts and the World Trade Organization. The bill’s passage will please the White House and the domestic industries and unions that have used the policy to deter foreign competition, but it will do little to solve the underlying flaws in the administration’s approach to China trade. Fortunately, there is a better way forward, and it simply requires Congress to do what it does best: nothing. (more)

Army Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, disclosed new details of China’s space weapons programs last week, including information regarding China’s anti-satellite missiles and cyber warfare capabilities. (more)

SHANGHAI (AP) — Apple’s dispute over the iPad trademark deepened Monday after the Chinese company that claims ownership of the name said it won a court ruling against sales of the popular tablet computer in China. (more)

WASHINGTON — Twenty-three years ago this week, Iran’s self-appointed supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, broadcast a religious edict declaring that author Salman Rushdie and his publishers were “hereby sentenced to death.” The fatwa also called for “all the intrepid Muslims in the world” to “execute them quickly, wherever they find them.” The U.S. State Department acknowledged the proclamation and issued a statement “condemning this threat in the strongest possible terms.” Rushdie, then living in London, did the sensible thing; he went into hiding and rarely has been seen in public since. (more)

In an op-ed in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that China remains the biggest obstacle to making the 21st century “an American century.” (more)

President Barack Obama welcomed China’s vice president Xi Jinping to the White House Tuesday, as hundreds of protesters gathered just outside the windows from where the two met. (more)

Chinese hackers are suspected of enjoying at least 10 years of unfettered access to Nortel Networks’ computer system with help from seven stolen passwords, reports the Wall Street Journal. (more)

Apple on Monday announced that the Fair Labor Association will be conducting audits of its suppliers, and the investigation will include Foxconn’s factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China. (more)

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping is meeting U.S. President Barack Obama in the White House on Feb 14, Valentine’s Day. Their talks are likely to turn on Tibet and trade. But China’s veep isn’t expected to deliver a box of chocolates to the American president. China’s enormous trade advantage, now the largest nation-on-nation trade deficit in the history of the world, has put it in the enviable negotiating position of being able to say “bu” — that is, “no” — to most American demands. (more)

In this period of “exceptional uncertainty” (to quote Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke), where can investors turn for a considered perspective on the current environment? Produced to feed the beast of the 24-hour news cycle, the bulk of financial journalism and commentary today isn’t worth the servers it is stored on. One notable exception to that rule is Buttonwood, the financial markets column of The Economist. Philip Coggan is the columnist — arguably the most influential position in financial journalism (along with the head of Lex at the Financial Times). (more)