By Ben Blanchard BEIJING (Reuters) - A much diluted version of a Chinese newspaper supplement banned for its provocative content appeared on Wednesday in what a former deputy editor said represented a compromise.

By Philip P Pan, Washington Post Foreign Service BEIJING -- The top editors of the China Youth Daily were meeting in a conference room last August when their cell phones started buzzing quietly with text messages. One after another, they discreetly read the notes. Then they traded nervous glances.

By Benjamin Kang Lim BEIJING (Reuters) - A group of 13 Chinese academics and editors have written to President Hu Jintao and other Communist leaders, joining a chorus of protest against a decision by censors to demote the top two editors of a progressive weekly.

By Chris Buckley BEIJING (Reuters) - The editors of a bold Chinese weekly purged by censors issued an impassioned call for free speech on Friday, but propaganda officials fought back by accusing them of insulting the country's ardent patriotism.

Chinese Communist Party elders and U.S. lawmakers fired shots at China's powerful censors this week, but Li Xinde says muck-raking campaigners like himself are undermining the country's barriers to free speech every day.