The Great Wall: Across China's great divide

Built to keep out the Mongols, it's now facing a new kind of invader: tourists. Visit a crowd-free stretch and behold the legendary barrier in its natural state.
At Badaling, the Great Wall rides the ridgelines like a dragon, its gray brick scales glinting and its crenelated spine writhing. Built at a strategic pass in the mountains north of Beijing, it crosses stout gates, plunges into narrow defiles, climbs back up to the heights and seems to go on forever.Long after this month's Olympic Games end in Beijing, people will flock to Badaling, where seeing is believing in the Ten Thousand Li Long Wall of ancient annals and legend. ut contrary to the impression it makes at Badaling, the Great Wall may never have crossed China in one mighty, continuous span, nor is its length precisely known. (Some say it's 4,500 miles, others a mere 3,100.) Experts now think of it as a series of disjointed segments built at different times in the last two millenniums and scattered in a maze all over northern China.

Chinese border assault kills 16

Sixteen Chinese policemen have been killed in an attack on a border post in the restive Muslim region of Xinjiang, state media say. Two attackers reportedly drove up to the post in a rubbish truck and threw two grenades, before moving in to attack the policemen with knives. The attack came four days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Both attackers were captured during the raid near the city of Kashgar, Xinhua state news agency reported. Kashgar, known as Kashi in Chinese, is some 2,500 miles (4,000km) from Beijing, near the border with Tajikistan. Xinhua said the attack happened at Fourteen policemen died at the scene and two on the way to hospital. Another 16 policemen were hurt. One of the attackers was reported to have been injured in the leg.
Xinjiang, in the north-west of the country, is home to the Muslim Uighur people. Uighur separatists have waged a low-level campaign against Chinese rule for decades. about 0800 (0000 GMT), as the policemen were jogging outside the compound. "China has focused on strengthening security and protection around Olympic venues and at the Olympics Village, so Beijing is already prepared to respond to any threat," Sun Weide was quoted as saying. Last week, a senior Chinese army officer warned that Islamic separatists were the biggest danger to the Olympics.

Freedom to travel in China

As international journalists jet in to Beijing for the start of the Olympic Games, Hugh Sykes takes a rather slower route on the overnight train from the west of China.

"What time is it?""Twelve o'clock." "Beijing time or Xinjiang time?" You hear that a lot in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in the far west of China, near Pakistan and Afghanistan and Kazakhstan. A long way west, in other words, but officially, it is the same time zone as Beijing in the far east, near North Korea. Imagine the US having the same time zone right across the country, from Miami to Los Angeles. But in hotels and offices in Xinjiang there are sometimes two clocks, because Xinjiang does have its own unofficial time zone, two hours behind Beijing.
This makes sense, it means it gets dark at 2030 not 2230 at this time of year, and light at 0600 not 0800. But it is confusing. "What time is the flight to Urumqi?" "One o'clock." "Beijing time or Xinjiang time?" "Beijing time, of course. Planes and trains stick to Beijing time but buses run on Xinjiang time." "What time do you start school in the morning? "Eight o'clock." "Beijing time or Xinjiang time?" "That depends. If it is a Han Chinese school, it is 0800 Beijing time. If it is a Uighur school, it is 0800 Xinjiang time, which is two hours later. And if it is a mixed school, they stick to Beijing time."