New York Times writes that two young Chinese tourists carve their names on the Great Wall. Hundreds of picnickers leave their garbage moldering on the banks of the Yellow River. Such episodes during the recent National Day holiday have produced a flurry of photographic postings and a spasm of soul-searching in China, highlighting anxieties over the habits and image of tourists at home and abroad in a nation that is increasingly cash-rich but, some say, short on manners and experience with the outside world. They are also raising questions as to why a "tourism blacklist" the government set up last year to name and shame misbehaving travelers does not seem to have had a greater impact...The list is unavailable on the website of the China National Tourism Administration. But according to the Shenzhen Metropolis newspaper, only 24 people are on it.

Financial Times reports that the Chinese government has approved a controversial programme that will allow struggling companies' bank debt to be swapped for equity, as Beijing moves to address growing concerns over the country's massive debt pile.The State Council signed off on debt-for-equity swaps — the subject of a fierce policy debate this year — as part of a broader effort to reduce corporate indebtedness in the world's second-largest economy. Chinese companies have accumulated about $18tn in debt, an amount equivalent to 170 per cent of gross domestic product.The State Council said it would also encourage mergers, bankruptcies and debt securitisation to help reduce leverage across the corporate sector.Debt-for-equity swaps were touted in March by Premier Li Keqiang, who heads the State Council, but drew fire from critics who worried that Chinese banks would simply end up swapping bad loans for shares in "zombie" companies that would be kept on life support.