2006 in China

Incumbents

• Party General Secretary – Hu Jintao
• President – Hu Jintao
• Premier – Wen Jiabao
• Vice President – Zeng Qinghong
• Vice Premier – Huang Ju
• Congress Chairman – Wu Bangguo
• Conference Chairman – Jia Qinglin

  Events

March

• March 3: The 2006 Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference opens in Beijing.

  April

• April 14: A man disfigured in a bear attack becomes the first in China to have a face transplant.
• April 30: 24 miners killed in a mine explosion in the Chinese province of Shaanxi.

  May

• May 11: Baidu Baike, a Chinese collaborative online encyclopedia, is launched in People's Republic of China by Baidu.com, modelled on Wikipedia but heavily self censored. Wikipedia is largely inaccessible without a proxy in China.
• May 20: The construction of the Three Gorges Dam wall, the largest dam in the world, is completed in the People's Republic of China.

  July

• July 1: The Qingzang railway launches a trial operation, making Tibet the last province-level entity of China to have a conventional railway.
• July 6: The Nathula Pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opens for trade after 44 years.
• July 7: An explosion in the village of Dongzhai village in Shanxi province in north China kills 43 people.
• July 11: Liu Xiang of China sets a new World Record for the 110 metres hurdles at the Super Grand Prix in Lausanne with a time of 12.88 seconds.
• July 22: July 2006 Yunnan earthquake: An earthquake measuring 5.1-5.2 in magnitude hits a mountainous region of Yunnan Province in south China killing at least 18-19 people and injuring at least 60 more.
• July 27: More than 80 people dead and missing as a result of Typhoon Kaemi.

  August

• August 10: More than 1.5 million Chinese evacuate while Super Typhoon Saomai, the strongest to land in China in 50 years, makes landfall in Wenzhou, Zhejiang.

  November

• November 13: Nanshan Colliery disaster: A colliery explosion in Shanxi province in northern China kills at least 24 miners.

  Deaths

• December 20: Ma Ji, Chinese actor