The British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, judges Augusto Pinochet mentally incapable to stand trial and returns him to Chile

Ang Lee directs Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a martial arts film notable for its magical special effects

Hu Jintao succeeds Jiang Zemin as president of the People's Republic of China

Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, after sheltering since 2000 in Japan, arrives unexpectedly in Chile

Structural work is completed on China's Three Gorges Dam, by far the largest hydroelectric dam in the world

China carries out a successful test of a ground-based missile that can destroy satellites in orbit

The civil rights group Reporters Without Borders demands improvement in civil rights abuses and censorship in China before the Beijing Olympics

Demonstrations in Tibet turn violent as protesters target Chinese buildings and individuals

In the Beijing Olympics swimmer Michael Phelps wins 8 gold medals, beating Mark Spitz's record of 7 in the 1972 games

Riots break out in Urumchi, in northwest China, in hostilities between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese

Russia and China use their Security Council veto to block a UN resolution to end the violence in Syria

Russia and China again veto a UN Security Council attempt to apply economic sanctions on Syria

Xi Jinping is elected the President of the People's Republic of China

State media in China announce a new plan to modify the country's rigid one-child policy dating from the late 1970s

China announces a new air defense zone over disputed islands in the East China sea, a measure immmediately challenged by Japan and the USA

China and Taiwan hold high-level talks, the first between the two countries since the defeated Chiang Kai-shek set up a government in exile in 1949

North Korea test-fires into the sea two medium-range ballistic missiles, capable of reaching Japan or China

A sudden violent outbreak of Vietnamese resentment of China, over a territorial dispute, causes China to evacuate thousands of its citizens

Barack Obama meets the Dalai Lama after China warns that his doing so will greatly damage US-Chinese relations

COVID-19 pandemic: First known human case of Coronavirus disease 2019 is in Wuhan, Hubei, China