The New York Times reports: "For months, China's leaders have worked to improve relations with North Korea, its loyal but unpredictable ally to the east. They dispatched a top official to the North for a military parade, rejected calls to isolate it with tough economic sanctions, and spoke glowingly of its leader. But on Wednesday, Beijing's hopes of keeping its neighbor in check appeared to diminish, as the North said it had completed a test of a hydrogen bomb about 50 miles from the Chinese border, the fourth nuclear weapon test in a decade. Officials in Beijing were furious. 'China strongly opposes this act,' Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in unusually harsh remarks at a news conference on Wednesday. 'China will firmly push for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.' The decision to detonate a bomb suggested a serious falling-out in the relationship between North Korea and China."
Bloomberg News reports: "Wanda Group, the closely-held conglomerate controlled by Asia's richest man, Wang Jianlin, is investing 15 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) to build three hospitals in China, seeking to tap rising demand for high-end health-care services in the country...The projects announced today help meet 'the growing health-care needs of the country's affluent population,' Wang said in the statement, adding that the hospitals will 'serve as role models for the development of premium health care in China.'"
The New York Times reports: "A few months ago, Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, hosted a technology summit meeting at the company's headquarters near Seattle with some of China's most powerful political leaders. He smiled for a photo while flanked by Xi Jinping, the country's president, and Lu Wei, its Internet czar. On Tuesday, though, that harmony faded, as one of China's regulators saidit would demand answers to new questions about Microsoft's business practices there. The announcement, related to electronic data that the government collected in an antitrust inquiry, shows how a sustained effort by Microsoft to cozy up to China's leadership has done little to relieve the regulatory challenges that it faces in the country. At best, the company is getting mixed messages...A Microsoft spokesman, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity as a matter of policy, said on Tuesday that the company was 'serious about complying with China's laws and committed to addressing SAIC's questions and concerns.'"