Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

The Telegraph: I report on a statement released by a group of Chinese human rights defenders on those people still imprisoned following 6-4 - as the massacre on June 4 1989 is commonly known...

The government has vehemently denied that China has any political prisoners in its jails today and has dismissed any reports that it still jails people for participating in the 1989 movement as fabricated lies.

Huang Ju, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Vice-Premier of the State Council, died of illness at 02:03 a.m. June 2 in Beijing at the age of 69.

An obituary issued by the central authorities called Huang "an excellent member of the CPC, a long-tested and faithful Communist fighter and an outstanding leader of the Party and the state."

Every year around the beginning of June China's ministry of Education offers a nationwide college entrance examination.

This year the test was offered on June 7-8.

A record 9.52 million people registered for ...

Jeremiah's got a great post over at the Granite Studio discussing a recent story in The Nationa and its wonky history. If you've any interest in Chinese history, specifically Qing Dynasty and Western Imperialism - check it out.

Philip Pan slightly disagrees with Minxin Pei's analysis that even though the party-state has successfully resisted change so far, pressure on the system for political liberalization is building.

"No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo.But just as the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents."

Taiwan has revised its high-school history textbooks to show that Taiwan is an independent country and not part of China, media reports said Monday.

The China Times said that on the education ministry's order, the title of the national history textbook for high-school - to be used after the winter vacation - has been changed from 'National History' to 'China History'.

In this textbook, terms like 'our country,' 'this country' and 'the mainland' have been changed to 'China' to indicate that Taiwan is not part of China, the daily said.

A year ago this month, Jonathan Dresner at the great Asian history group blog, A Frog in a Well, came up with the idea of an on-line Asian History carnival. Now in its 7th incarnation, this time hosted by the folks at Mutantfrog Travelogue, it's a great place to catch up on all the Asian history happenings going on in the blogospere and the rest of the world.

Japanese comics are excellent, and the Japanese troops were "a bit cruel" during war... Chinese and Japanese children take a look at history.