"China's President Xi Jinping will visit Pakistan this year in what will be the first trip by a Chinese head of state to its western neighbor in nine years, as Beijing looks to take a bigger role in South Asia. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the announcement on Thursday in Pakistan's capital, where he spoke of the two countries' 'all-weather' friendship...Afghanistan and its Western backers have been trying to bring Taliban figures to the negotiating table to end years of war in the country. Pakistan is key to the process because of its historic ties to the Taliban leaders, who have used the Pakistani border region as a safe haven. Those concerns have become more pressing as Washington is trying to wind down the role of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, which were sent in to topple the Taliban in 2001 but have failed to end their insurgency," reports Reuters. 

According to The Wall Street Journal, "U.S. officials have held high-level discussions with Beijing over proposed Chinese banking rules that U.S. technology companies say would force them to turn over sensitive intellectual property, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Officials from both countries have discussed the issue in Beijing and Washington, D.C. after U.S. trade groups asked China to postpone the rules. The groups say U.S. companies serving Chinese banks would have to turn over proprietary software source code to Chinese officials under the rules, which are aimed at blocking foreign spying. China's banking regulator said in a statement dated Thursday that it would take different opinions into consideration before implementation. The China Banking Regulatory Commission also said it is still considering the source-code provision." 

Reuters writes, "China needs to slash emission levels by as much as half before any obvious improvements are made to its environment, a senior government official said on Friday, underscoring the challenges facing the country after three decades of breakneck growth. Zhai Qing, China's deputy minister of environmental protection, told a briefing that pollutants had been cut by just 'a few percentage points' since 2006 and had to drop much further if any progress is to be made. 'According to expert assessments, emissions will have to fall another 30-50 percent below current levels if we are to see noticeable changes in environmental quality,' he said...Last November, it imposed draconian restrictions on industry throughout northern China in order to guarantee air quality during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Beijing. Zhai said emissions in the region fell by more than 50 percent during the meeting."