Society

Air quality in Shanghai has plummeted since the World Expo left town, sliding from “excellent” to “polluted” and now—with levels of airborne particulates up to three times beyond what the government considers safe—downright frightening.

But even as the smog thickens, the question remains whether Shanghai can match a new standard of Sino-smokiness recently set by Beijing—a standard that (as one U.S. authority recently suggested) stretches the bounds of sanity.

According to a report in today’s China Daily, Shanghai’s air pollution index has broken 100 on eight days so far this month, at one point reaching 370—the worst reading in 10 years.

China on Sunday proposed emergency discussions among delegates to the six-party talks to discuss "complicated factors" on the Korean peninsula, as the U.S. and South Korea started a naval drill that has prompted dire warnings of reprisals from North Korea.

The move comes as Beijing engages in high-level diplomacy to try to cool tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul. China's special representative for Korean-peninsula affairs, Wu Dawei, proposed consultations in early December between the heads of the delegations to the stalled nuclear talks, which involve China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and Russia.

"Although this does not mean the resumption of the six-party talks, we hope it can help create the conditions for the resumption of the six-party talks," Mr. Wu told a press briefing.

After a week of alarming news from the Korean peninsula, we have arrived at the only thinkable conclusion: Talks and more proposed talks, with China playing the role of broker. This may be cause for sighs of relief, but not for celebration, regardless of whether six-party talks resume soon as Beijing hopes.

Talks are the logical next step after Kim Jong-il provokes the world; talks are, in fact, what almost every Korea analyst says Kim is seeking whenever he threatens to blow up the neighborhood (which is pretty often). Why? His economically broken country needs a steady stream of oil, food and cash to keep both his weapons programs running and his populace fed enough to avert chaos and collapse.

China wrapped up the Asian Games with a record 199 gold medals, more than double its nearest rival, but team leaders won't relax preparations for the 2012 London Olympics.

The Chinese appear driven to repeat their performance from Beijing two years ago, when they topped the gold medal count for the very first time at the Olympics.

China faced little resistance at the Asian Games, widely seen as an Olympic warm-up event, winning so many golds that the result sometimes just seemed like a foregone conclusion.