A favorite meal during Christmas is ham, and Americans this year will be eating more ham from a company based in China. One of the most famous pork companies in America, Smithfield Foods Inc., has just been bought by a Chinese company called Shuanghui International Holdings Limited.

Beijing's Tsinghua University has landed a scholarship program potentially worth USD300 million to indoctrinate foreign students about the importance of China ties.

Alipay.com, the Internet payment subsidiary of Alibaba Group, confirmed that the company has formally established a new rural business unit, aiming to reach non-e-commerce users in third- and fourth-tier cities as well as in rural areas.

Chinese B2C e-commerce website 360buy.com and the Beijing branch of Bank of China are jointly launching a supply chain financial service platform.

Chinese social networking website Renren.com has announced that it will launch an interest-free housing scheme, and employees can apply for loans of between CNY200,000 and CNY400,000.

Chinese B2B e-commerce group Alibaba has announced plans to launch a CNY3 billion housing loan scheme for its employees and a CNY500 million education fund to solve the preschool and primary education problems of children of its employees.

In the middle of flak concerning alleged securities fraud, Chinese financial services software firm Longtop Financial Technologies Limited announced that its chief financial officer, Derek Palaschuk, who was previously CFO at Chinese Internet firms Sohu.com and eLong.com, has resigned.