Reuters reports: "China and Taiwan began operating the first telephone hotline between the two nations on Wednesday, set up as a confidence building and tension reducing measure, with senior officials exchanging New Year's greetings. The step was agreed during a historic meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore last month. Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, said the first call was between Zhang Zhijun, director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, and Andrew Hsia, head of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, who wished each other happy New Year. Zhang and Hsia also talked about the important achievements both sides had made in the past year in promoting the peaceful development of relations, spokesman Ma said."
The Wall Street Journal reports: "China Telecom Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Chang Xiaobing has resigned days after the country's antigraft watchdog said it had detained him, one in a series of moves against executives at top state-owned enterprises...Mr. Chang was detained on suspicion of 'severe disciplinary violations,' according to a one-sentence statement posted Sunday on the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist Party's top anticorruption agency. The phrase is the agency's byword for corruption allegations."
Bloomberg News reports: "China will stop approving new coal mines for the next three years and continue to trim production capacity as the world's biggest energy consumer tries to shift away from the fuel as it grapples with pollution. China will suspend the approval of new mines starting in 2016 and will cut coal's share of its energy consumption to 62.6 percent next year, from 64.4 percent now, Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday, citing National Energy Administration head Nur Bekri. It's the first time the government has suspended the approval of new coal mines, according to Deng Shun, an analyst with ICIS China."