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The behind-the-scenes story of how Kofi Annan and the Americans shaped the accord that averted a war over Baghdad. Now, can the pact hold? Kofi Annan had heard stories about [...]

Ever since Operation Desert Storm, standoffs with Saddam Hussein have played out with a kind of unthreatening predictability. He huffs and puffs; the United States lobs a few cruise missiles [...]

At a windswept grave outside Shanghai, villagers still gossip about the day D.H. Tung came home. In 1990, more than four decades after the future leader of Hong Kong sailed [...]

IF THERE WAS A SINGLE moment when Madeleine Albright took her place in the Old Boys' Club, it came in March 1998. She was throwing a party for the new [...]

A LIGTHOUSE KEEPER ON A LONELY coastal headland may have been the only civilian witness to the event. Shortly after midnight, at his post on Taiwan's northeastern tip, Su Teh-tsun [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Pastor Bob Fu knows about life on the run. Back in 1996, when he and his wife lived in Beijing, they spent two months behind bars because [...]

Each day in Iraq, bodyguards knock on the front doors of more than a half-dozen homes. Then they announce: 'You'll have a guest tonight.' They allow the startled residents a [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu A top diplomat on a tough assignment. Wang Yi is urbane, multilingual, pragmatic, and, when needed, a wily negotiator. In short: he is everything a top diplomat [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Car ownership is out of control. So is pollution. 'Killer smog' has overtaken the Chinese capital. Authorities blamed the shockingly high pollution levels--the worst since records began [...]

Last week's summit, dominated by the debate on human rights, demonstrates just how far apart Washington and Beijing remain on key issues IT BEGAN, AS POSTSUMMIT PRESS conferences are apt [...]

At next week's summit, the Chinese president is determined to make America love him JIANG ZEMIN IS CURSED BY HIS cue cards. Under their spell he sounds like the Soviet-trained [...]

The early line on Albright: a secretary with great style, less substance. Now the Mideast looms. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is known for meetings as long and [...]

BY THE TIME THE flight to Hong Kong had reached 30,000 feet, Jerry Stuchiner's right eye bad stopped its nervous twitching. The 45-year-old officer for the Immigration and Naturalization Service [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu China's fabled Mogao Grottoes turn to digital tourism. Among China's greatest art treasures are the Buddhist caves near Dunhuang, a Gobi Desert oasis on the fabled Silk [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu And how holograms can help. among china's greatest art treasures are the Buddhist caves near Dunhuang, an oasis on the fabled Silk Road that once linked China [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu A glamorous spouse shrinks from the limelight. For proof of how weird political culture can be in China when compared with the West, consider this: in the [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu A love affair culminates in the Galaxy SOHO. with the benefit of hindsight, Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid's story about her first visit to China sounds like a [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Political uncertainty roils the Chinese military. 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,' Mao Zedong once famously said. Though China's post-Mao leaders have struggled [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Mo Yan and the magical realism of Weibo. As China prepares for its once-in-a-decade political transition, propaganda just isn't what it used to be. In the bad [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Can Beijing's incoming leaders resolve Tibet's crisis and stop the spate of fiery suicides? Students of Buddhist history and literature know well the ancient fables about Buddha's [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Can a new president in China bring much-needed reforms? Within weeks Hu Jintao is expected to kick off a succession process that will end his tenure as [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu China remains divided over reviving its ancient sage. In Tiananmen Square last year, when the stolid National Museum of China reopened its doors following a costly renovation, [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu A bribery probe casts a spotlight on an ancient Chinese term. A strange mix of glitz and sleaze, Macau is the only city in China where gambling [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu In China, crooked governance takes its toll. Nearly a decade ago, Liu Zhijun became China's railway minister with dreams of leapfrogging ahead of the world by building [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu China sends a woman to the final frontier. Chinese Air Force Maj. Liu Yang, 33, made history June 16, when she became her country's first female astronaut [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Meet our man in Beijing--the calm in the China storm. The American ambassador Gary Locke was at an afternoon meeting in Beijing, away from his office at [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu The true story of a dissident's life-and daring escape. As my longtime friend, the Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, recounted his daring escape, I joked to him that [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Hong Kong's new headman. Is he or isn't he? Leung Chun-ying--the new chief executive-elect of Hong Kong--wooed crowds on the campaign trail with his charisma, his champion-of-the-poor [...]

Byline: Melinda LiuChina's communist party is about to undergo its biggest shakeup ever. Meet Xi Jinping, the go-getter who will lead Beijing's new political generation.When U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu China's 'red restaurants' turn the Cultural Revolution into dinner theater. It's a typical Saturday night at the Red Scene restaurant, which is packed with well-to-do Chinese diners. [...]

You're Hired! When Lobsang Sangay was sworn in as the next prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile last week to take over the Dalai Lama's political duties, it marked a [...]

To those conditioned to think that a beautiful young woman married to a multibillionaire twice her age could be motivated only by money, Wendi Deng Murdoch--as the world now knows--has [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu The City of Dali is a traveler's Dream: a taste of old China in an idyllic setting. But is it destined to be ruined by tourism? For [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu The City of Dali is a traveler's Dream: a taste of old china in an idyllic setting. But is it destined to be ruined by tourism? For [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu And Isaac Stone Fish Artist Ai WeiWei is freed. But China continues its harshest crackdown on political dissidents in decades. It was his most closely watched performance, [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu; With Lisa Movius in Shanghai The Chinese repressed personal style during the Mao Years. Now they're ready to express themselves with elan. When Angelica Cheung was growing [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Jin Xing was once a man and a soldier. Then he had a sex-change operation, and became a mother and one of China's premier dancers. Jin Xing, [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu It's probably best not to even try making sense of Beijing's pronouncements on the 14th Dalai Lama and other Tibetan spiritual leaders: you'll only make your head [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Parallels between Tahrir Square in 2011 and Tiananmen Square in 1989 haven't been lost on China's media censors. Last week two of nation's biggest Internet portals, Sina.com [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu With China in the spotlight last week during President Hu Jintao's U.S. visit, Beijing's spinmeisters launched a campaign to present its friendliest face to America. Through mid-February, [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Hu Jintao's wife is, by many accounts, stern but low-key, the latest in a long line of near-invisible first ladies of China. Since the death of Mao's [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu; With Isaac Stone Fish Chinese President Hu Jintao comes to America with plenty of disputes to resolve--if that's what he's here for. From outside the Hu Clan's [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu As bad as North Korea's behavior was in 2010, the coming year could be even worse. The North Korean regime is in a state of upheaval as [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Chinese officials used to say their alliance with North Korea was 'as close as lips and teeth.' Now, as Pyongyang continues to bite the hand that feeds [...]

Byline: Andrew Bast And Melinda Liu East Asia may be reveling in its unprecedented economic growth, but old-fashioned territorial feuds continue to fester. The latest reminder came last week at [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Beijing's announcement that it will shutter more than 2,000 polluting steel mills, cement plants, tanneries, and other industrial energy hogs by the end of September may seem [...]

Byline: Melinda Liu Beijing's announcement that it will shutter more than 2,000 polluting steel mills and other industrial energy hogs by Sept. 30 might look like one more sign that [...]