China's President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday that their countries should step up efforts to reach a climate change deal, state media said, as leaders try to bridge gaps between rich and developing countries at talks in Paris.

Chinese officials are lowering the import taxes on a number of consumer goods–ranging from clothing and sunglasses to bags and blankets–starting next year, according to a statement Wednesday by the Ministry of Finance.

China's military is paying "close attention" to an agreement between the United States and Singapore to deploy the U.S. P8 Poseidon spy plane to the city state and hopes the move does not harm regional stability, the defense ministry said.

China’s trade with the rest of the world continued to shrink in November, in the latest negative sign for growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

The United States has deployed a P-8 Poseidon spy plane in Singapore for the first time, amid heightened tensions in the region over China's expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea.

U.S. and Chinese officials on Tuesday kicked off talks aimed at improving cooperation on commercial cyber espionage investigations. In the first official cybersecurity dialogue between the two countries since early 2014, Beijing representatives joined the heads of the Justice and Homeland Security Departments, and FBI and intelligence community officials, to discuss the logistics of responding to reports of commercial espionage.

To see China’s evolving foreign policy, look to Africa, where a desire to protect economic investment is leading to a revision of the country’s hands-off approach to the internal affairs of other nations.

The International Monetary Fund on Monday is adding the Chinese yuan to the basket of elite currencies comprising its lending reserve, marking a milestone in the country’s ascendancy as a global economic power.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is attending the opening session of a major United Nations climate change conference here, met with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on Monday, discussing issues from bilateral ties to climate change talks.

In their first top-level trade talks since President Obama hosted China’s leader in September, the United States and China said on Monday that they had made progress on sticking points, including preventing the theft of trade secrets and opening the Chinese market more broadly to American multinationals.