Analects

THEY have fired diplomatic rows and auctions reaching as high as $40m. They have inspired an exhibit by dissident artist Ai Weiwei, as well as a tepid action film starring that born-again Chinese patriot by way of Hong Kong, Jackie Chan. They were even once cheekily offered up in exchange for Tibet. Now the bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit—part of a collection of 12 Chinese-zodiacal figures looted when foreign troops burned the Yuanmingyuan imperial gardens outside Beijing in 1860—are coming home at last.

They had long languished in the collection of Yves St Laurent, a French fashion magnate.

AS BINYAMIN NETANYAHU and Mahmoud Abbas visit Beijing, our correspondents ask whether China is moving away from its traditionally isolationist foreign policy

Disgruntled Chinese citizens petition the White House for help

CHINA’S internet users can quickly form a mob. Leaders sometimes have to decide equally fast whether to block calls for justice or accede to them, sometimes by throwing an official to the pack.

On May 3rd one online movement added an unusual twist: taking its case to the American government by setting up a petition on the White House’s official website. More than 135,000 people have signed, demanding that President Obama “investigate and deport” a suspect in the unsolved case of the poisoning of a university student in China in 1994.

The case involves Zhu Ling, then a promising student at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.

EVEN before Xi Jinping’s began his dreamy sloganeering in earnest, the notion of a “China dream” or a “Chinese dream” was bobbing along the surface of the oceanic conversation about what China is today, where it is going, and so on. The tidal surge of books on this theme was well under way even before the weibo chatter of 中国梦 had reached its peak.

Suppose that the Chinese dream were to become something very much like the American dream, wherein the prosperity of happiness-pursuing individuals is paramount. One might begin by observing that Chinese society is not what it used to be.

THE long winter is over, the smog has relented, for a few days at least, and now it’s festival season in Beijing. Large crowds are taking advantage of the May 1st holiday sun to see the Midi and Strawberry music festivals, both held far out on the outskirts. Home-grown acts share the stage with international guests; an opening night saw a Chinese punk band, New Pants, which was formed in 1996, warm up for Scottish rockers, a band called Travis. Later in May there is to be a folk festival, one electronica festival at a waterpark—and another on the Great Wall.

But the music scene isn’t just for fair weather.

WHEN Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman of Blackstone Group, a private-equity firm, announced in Beijing on Sunday the $300m Schwarzman Scholars programme to send students to China to study, it was a testament to China’s place in the world as a new centre of gravity. Its gravitational pull on corporate money is already fearsome: Behind Mr Schwarzman himself, a long list of companies and individuals with substantial business interests in China have lined up to contribute to the programme: Boeing, an airplane maker; Caterpillar, a maker of bulldozers and excavators; BP, an oil company; and several large banks.

Did Xi or didn’t Xi? What do you want to believe?

CHINA’S president, Xi Jinping, began his time in office insisting that officials do away with red-carpet treatment when they travel. His speechmaking has been more plain-spoken and direct than his predecessors. Some people have started thinking he has a common touch.

So it meant something on April 18th when a Hong Kong newspaper reported that Mr Xi had, like a commoner, taken a taxi ride in Beijing incognito in early March, when he was already party chief and shortly before he took the presidential title as well. When Xinhua, an official news service, later declared the story false, that meant something too.