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The Jakarta Post, 15 May 2008. As the warm spring breeze sweeps through Northeast Asia, hopes are floating high along with President Hu Jintao's just concluded visit to Japan, the first by Chinese president in a decade. Chinese President Hu Jintao (L) toasts with Japanese Emperor Akihito during a state banquet at the Imperial palace in Tokyo The charming President Hu chatted warmly with Emperor Akihito, enthusiastically posed with teary-eyed Japanese ballerinas after their white-haired lady dance performance that was very popular many years ago in China, visited historic temples that bear ancient bilateral history and amicably told story of Tang Dynasty's great poet, Libai, in front of young Japanese students of Chinese language class. Hu also extended panda diplomacy by offering to lend two giant pandas to Tokyo Zoo, which just lost its 22-year-old "native" panda, Ling Ling. Ping-pong diplomacy followed when he skillfully cracked the bat with China's female

The Jakarta Post, 21 April 2008 In less than four months, the world will witness one of the biggest and widely discussed international events ever hosted by the People's Republic of China -- the Beijing Olympic Games 2008. Beijing is all geared up for the event. You can virtually sense the heightened atmosphere, and, no, I am not talking about the pollution. The Beijing Olympic symbol is virtually everywhere, on pens, on cups, on yogurt bottles, on the bus, on television, in magazines, etc. Poetic rhymed slogans -- such as, Yin ao yun, Jiang wen ming, Shu xin feng, loosely translated as "Welcome the Olympic, speak of civilization, establish new attitude" and You ya yan xing, You liang zhi xu, You zhi fu wu, You mei huan jing, or "Refined words and deeds, civil public order, quality service, beautiful environment" -- are plastered and scattered around the capital and other major cities in China. If there had been any debate about the inexistence of China's mo