Society

Like a college student emerging battered and bleary-eyed from an usually vigorous Spring Break bender, China has come through its latest Lunar New Year holiday wondering whether or not it might be time to consider abstinence.

The intoxicant in question isn’t alcohol—although plenty of that gets consumed over the holiday—but fireworks.

China’s traditional New Year fireworks frenzy is among the most visually and aurally stunning experiences on Earth. It is also, however, extremely destructive. Between Feb. 2 and Feb. 8, the country saw nearly 12,000 fires, which led to 40 deaths and more than 56 million yuan, or roughly $8.5 million, in economic losses, China Daily reports citing statistics from the Ministry of Public Security. Those figures, the paper says, have “reignited” debates in a number of Chinese cities about whether fireworks should be banned.

A Lunar New Year without fireworks is a sobering thought indeed. Prior to the lifting of a previous fireworks ban in 2005, Beijing during the holiday was like the set of a post-Apocalyptic movie: stores shuttered, restaurants closed, streets empty except for the occasional stray cat or stranded foreigner lost in a haze of loneliness and boredom. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, virtually the only sound was the muffled echo of TV sets tuned to the annual Spring Festival gala on CCTV, also virtually the only source of light.

The emotional meeting of a man in southern China and a young boy believed to be his missing son has drawn fresh attention to the country's problems with child abductions and to new efforts to use the Internet to find lost children.

Peng Gaofeng had been searching for his son Wenle since 2008, when the boy, then three years old, disappeared from a public square near Mr. Peng's small payphone shop. Earlier this month, his family got a tip from an Internet user saying he saw a boy resembling Wenle in photos posted online, and on Tuesday Mr. Peng was united with the child—who had been in the care of a supposedly adoptive father who died last year. "I knew it was him immediately, though he didn't recognize me at first," a jubilant Mr. Peng said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Details of the case remain unclear and a DNA test is pending. Local police couldn't be reached for comment. But video of Mr. Peng's tearful meeting with the boy, filmed by a Chinese journalist, has become a nationwide sensation on China's Internet and in local media.

The incident has put a spotlight on widespread problems with child abductions in China, where state media reports have said there are thousands of human-trafficking gangs and where many kidnapped children have been sold to other families or forced to participate in organized begging rings in big cities, a phenomenon also relatively common in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere in Asia.

ZTE Corp.'s finance chief said Washington should promote a fair business environment with less government interference, expressing frustration at the Chinese telecommunications-equipment maker's efforts to expand in the U.S.

ZTE and rival Huawei Technologies Co. have faced concerns in the U.S., Europe and India about potential Chinese government influence over the companies. ZTE encountered political obstacles when trying to supply network equipment to U.S. operator Sprint Nextel Corp.

Meanwhile, officials in China and the U.S. have called on each other to open their markets further.

"For Sprint last year, we should have had the qualifications to become their key partner. The government should promote a fair, equitable, normal and free commercial environment and it shouldn't interfere," Chief Financial Officer Wei Zaisheng said in an interview Wednesday.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry said it arrested a military general on suspicion of spying for China in the most high-profile cross-Strait espionage case in decades.

Taiwan government officials and some experts said the case highlights a determined effort by China to infiltrate the island's military despite warming economic and political ties between the two sides.

The Ministry of National Defense confirmed on Wednesday it arrested Maj. Gen. General Lo Hsien-che on suspicion of leaking confidential information to Chinese intelligence sources after he was approached by Chinese operatives in 2004 while he worked in Thailand as a military attache.

Although it remained uncertain just what information Gen. Lo might have leaked, the arrest could complicate further U.S. military sales to Taiwan, according to Chih-cheng Lo, president of the Taiwan Brain Trust, a think-tank that advocates independence for the island, which China claims as its own.