Society

You could almost hear the roar from Beijing office towers as sports fans following the Australian Open on their work computers learned the news that Li Na was through to the final.

Ms. Li’s semifinal victory in Melbourne over World No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, which makes her the first Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam singles final, is cause for national celebration. Best-selling author Lian Yue, writing on Sina’s microblogging site, declared breathlessly that Ms. Li possessed the qualities to be the new face of China: “Independent, natural, humorous, perserverant and speaking fluent English.”

To that list of attributes, add one more: female.

One of the enduring mysteries of modern sports in China is why the top ranks of tennis are exclusively a female preserve.

As Chinese women storm their way up the global tennis rankings, it’s becoming more than a little embarrassing for the men. Ms. Li now ranks 11th in the world. She’s one of four Chinese women in the Top 100. Meanwhile, the best a Chinese man can manage is 317.

Yu Lianmin, a cotton farmer in Huji, China, harvested 6,600 pounds of cotton this year. Despite record cotton prices, he didn't sell any of it.

Instead, mounds of cotton are piled up in two empty rooms of Mr. Yu's home, and the homes of many of the farmers in his small township of Yujia, which is part of the bigger township of Huji in northern Shandong province, 220 miles southeast of Beijing. The farmers are holding out for higher prices, aiming to help overcome higher costs of labor and fertilizer, which are up about 20% in the past year.

"I think there's still hope for prices to go higher," he said.

The amount of cotton held in hamlets throughout China is unknown, but, with 25 million cotton farmers, a Chinese cotton agency estimates it could amount to about 9% of the world's cotton supply. And the situation is occurring throughout the supply chain. Many ginners and merchants in China are keeping warehouses full, according to the agency, in an attempt to obtain higher prices.

Expectations that prices will rise are driving the apparent stockpiling, which causes short-term shortages and leads prices to rise further. The situation is complicating an already volatile picture for cotton, which has jumped to 140-year highs in the U.S. and has become a symbol of brewing commodity inflation around the globe.

Chinese prosecutors filed only light charges against a man who police say killed a college student while driving drunk and who witnesses say then tried to use his father's position as a police official to avoid punishment, an incident that has come to symbolize rampant abuse of power among the families of officials.

Prosecutors on Wednesday formally accused 23-year-old Li Qiming of "crimes causing traffic casualties" for the October incident, a relatively minor offense that carries a maximum sentence of seven years. The decision not to file more serious charges could further inflame popular anger over the case just as Beijing is stepping up efforts to make regular citizens feel the government is more responsive.

From the ads on Times Square to the 21-gun salute on the White House lawn, everything about President Hu Jintao's visit has been designed to show that China has arrived as a major world power, and its leader deserves to be treated as an equal.

China's state-controlled newspapers and television channels were dominated Thursday by images of Mr. Hu and President Barack Obama, side by side. The official Xinhua news agency characterized China and the U.S. as "two heavyweight players on the international stage [that] have seen their national interests increasingly interwoven." China Daily added: "The rest of the world has been paying close attention to every word and gesture—given the importance of the two countries to the global economic and political landscape."

Even as many Americans appear convinced that China is about to overtake the U.S. economically or militarily, state media outlets called for deeper relations based on mutual respect. The bi-weekly World News Journal said the U.S. should adjust its mentality of "deep suspicion about China." Other publications called for the end of a "zero-sum game" mentality.