MY IRELAND-SIZED sense of distance had got me in trouble-again.

When farmer James Lynch shared an Irish coffee earlier this year with China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, he thought that he was a “pure gentleman”.

President Hu Jintao has stepped aside as Communist Party leader to clear the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to take the helm in China.

Earlier this week, as the US returned President Barack Obama to the White House for another four-year term, China’s Communist Party gathered in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to orchestrate a once-in-a-decade leadership transition.

It was an ominous start for the 2,268 Chinese delegates at a pivotal congress to initiate a power handover to new leaders.

China’s President Hu Jintao called today for sterner measures against official corruption while urging the Communist Party to maintain firm political control as he prepares to hand over power after a decade in office.

Chinese business leaders are aware of the “long and sorry saga” of corruption exposed by the Mahon Tribunal but that will not stop them investing in Ireland, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said in Shanghai yesterday.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has stressed the similarities between Ireland and China as he began a four-day visit to the country today.

China will continue to invest in eurozone government debt and it remains confident in the euro, the country’s central bank governor said yesterday, while calling on Europeans to produce more attractive investment products for China.

IT WAS a case of “Crouching Taoiseach, Hidden Dangers” as Brian Cowen completed his troubled tour of the Orient last night.

BRIAN COWEN was under pressure last night to fight for the release from jail of the mother of a Cork student when he meets Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.

A QUARTER of humanity held its collective breath and hoped the Taoiseach would change his mind.

Evacuees began returning from temporary camps today after Chinese authorities declared the flood threat over from an earthquake-formed lake drained successfully the day before.

Chinese and European Union leaders launched a high-level dialogue today on tensions over China’s swelling trade surplus with Europe and amid disagreements over how to tackle climate change.

Italian Premier Romano Prodi today said his country was leaning toward supporting the end of a 17-year-old European Union ban on arms sales to China, as he signed trade agreements and pledged stronger ties with Beijing.

Premier Wen Jiabao opened the annual session of China’s figurehead parliament today with promises of massive new social spending to placate the poor, restive countryside and said the sizzling economy will slow this year but should still grow by 8%.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reportedly arrived in Beijing today for talks with President Hu Jintao on resuming stalled negotiations aimed at ending the North’s nuclear development.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush pressed China yesterday to expand religious, political and social freedoms and won renewed promises - but no concrete actions - from Chinese President Hu Jintao.

US President George W. Bush today called on China to expand religious, political and social freedoms and urged steps to reduce Beijing’s huge trade surplus with the US.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the millionaire movie star and governor of California, made a big splash at his first event in China today – perhaps too big a splash for his security detail after dozens of photographers and fans mobbed him in the Chinese capital.

FIVE members of an Oireachtas committee have travelled to China for a 10-day trip that includes visits to many of the country's tourist attraction.

Prime Minister Tony Blair met Chinese President Hu Jintao today at the start of a China-European Union summit focused on boosting trade and tackling global warming.

China today unveiled plans to honour its Second World War veterans with gala celebrations and renewed its call for Japan to take more responsibility for wartime atrocities.

Hong Kong’s new leader was sworn in today at a ceremony in Beijing, completing the first leadership change in the former British colony since it returned to Chinese rule eight years ago.

TAIWAN opposition leader Lien Chan and Chinese President Hu Jintao closed the book on decades of hostility yesterday with a simple handshake in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

Taiwan’s opposition leader and Chinese President Hu Jintao promised today to work together to end hostilities between Taipei and Beijing, during the highest-level meeting between the two sides since they split amid civil war nearly six decades ago.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Taiwan’s opposition leader met Friday in the highest-level contact between the two sides since they split amid civil war in 1949.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa was named a vice chairman of a high-level Chinese government advisory panel today, apparently confirming his departure as the territory’s leader.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern held talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing today to promote closer trade ties between the two countries.

IT is the world’s largest - and most infamous - square, covering more than 100 acres. And at the weekend, China reportedly posted 1,000 extra police officers in Tiananmen Square to prevent any protests.

The President of Ireland was in salubrious company as she met her Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

President Mary McAleese is to meet with the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, while on a state visit to the country today.

With sequins and thundering steps, the flashy Irish sensation Riverdance arrives in China this week for what organisers say will be the biggest foreign production to come to a land where Western entertainment used to be denounced as subversive.

The man expected to be China’s next leader became the only top politician re-elected to the Communist Party’s inner sanctum today, the most solid sign yet of Hu Jintao’s ascent to the acme of Asia’s largest, fastest-growing country.

China's military has honoured the pilot missing and presumed dead after a collision with a US spy plane.

China was preparing a hero’s farewell today for a fighter pilot missing after a mid-air collision with a US spy plane.