In the mid-1980s, Crystal (1985) lamented that there were no reliable figures available for the number of learners to whom English is taught as a foreign language in many regions of the world, and that ‘China has always been excluded from the statistical reviews, because of the shortage of information from inside the country’ (Crystal, 1985: 9). More recently, Bolton (2008: 6) similarly notes that because of ‘the absence of accurate language surveys’ academics have to make educated guesses regarding the total number of those learning/knowing English. The figure of the total English learners/users in China has been estimated to be somewhere between 200 and 350 million (cf. Bolton, 2003: 48; Kachru, 1997; McArthur, 2003; Zhao & Campbell, 1995; Graddol, 2006: 95). Fortunately, a national language survey in China conducted at the turn of the century does provide some hard statistics on the number of English language learners/users in the world's most populous country, and also sheds some light on the realities of use of English and English proficiency among the Chinese people.

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Although the Survey of Language Situation in China ( , Zhongguo yuyan wenzi shiyong qingkuang diaocha), involving 475,000 respondents was conducted over a decade ago, it can still provide insights into the sociolinguistic situation of English in the world's most populous country. The present paper analyses data from this survey concerning respondents' (1) use of English, (2) English reading proficiency, (3) English spoken proficiency, and (4) attitudes towards foreign language-medium instruction at primary and secondary schools, with special reference to seven major cities; Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Dalian. Future research directions include collecting more comprehensive data concerning English and/or through approaches more objective than self-reporting. One policy implication is that government departments might consider formulating a more coherent language policy for English-medium instruction at pre-tertiary level.

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This study investigates how party and nonparty newspapers in China frame sensitive political issues differently, depending on their geographic relevance. Extant studies indicate that political control influences how news organizations present an issue. The assumption is that the framing of nationally sensitive issues is similar across Chinese news outlets, while the framing of locally sensitive issues diverges. An examination of the news frames used by six newspapers in Guangzhou in their coverage of a nationally sensitive issue and a locally sensitive issue confirms this assumption. In the coverage of the nationally sensitive issue, all newspapers use more leadership frames and factual information than responsibility, conflict and human interest frames. Contrastingly, the party newspapers use more leadership frames, whereas nonparty newspapers use more conflict frames in the reporting of the locally sensitive issue.