Sometimes so many headlines relate to China in so many different ways that only a list can do them justice. Or maybe I just want to save time and space, rather than create lenthy and tortuous transitions to link these disparate threads together. Here's China by the numbers, from Oct. 10 headlines:

3.6 percent -- This is today's drop in the Shanghai Composite Index, and that's the good news, if you can imagine it. Virtually everywhere else in Asia plummeted even further, and Wall Street is headed for its worst week in history. The Nikkei 225 stock index closed 9.6 percent lower. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropped 7.2 percent. The ASX 1200 in Sydney closed 8.3 percent down. KOSPI in Seoul fell 4.2 percent. India swooned7.1 percent.

5 -- The number of members on the committee who today announced the Nobel Peace Prize would go to former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari for his diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts from Africa to Aceh.  Chinese authorities were pleased that the prize did not go to imprisoned activist Hu Jia; they had indicated Hu was not the "right person" to be honored in such a way, after his name had been mentioned as a top contender.

27 -- Total for the number of people arrested so far in China's tainted milk scandal, in which four infants have died and more than 53,000 have been sickened by milk formula containing the industrial chemical melamine. Today the state-run Xinhua News Agency warned that "Law-breaking producers will be blacklisted and outed publicly."

800 million, approximately -- The number of farmers who will be affected by reforms affecting rural land use rights, currently being debated at an Oct. 9-12 communist party plenum. Today state media trumpeted rural land reform as topping the meeting's agenda. New measures are slated to make it easier for farmers to lease or transfer management rights for land, which is technically owned by the state (actually by local administrative units) and contracted to individuals or families.

17   -- The number of Chinese Uighur Muslims who've been held for years at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A U.S. district judge in Washington D.C., Ricardo M. Urbina, had ordered them to be released and flown to his courtroom today, when he would discuss logistics for their release to supporters in the area.  However a Federal appeals court intervened to block the decision -- much to the relief of the Chinese government, which had enthusiastically supported the U.S. "war against terror" because it justified a crackdown against Uighur separatist in China's far Western Xinjiang region. The paradoxical twist here is that these 17 Uighurs -- who'd been captured in alleged terrorist training camps in Pakistan -- have been cleared from suspicion of being anti-U.S. "enemy combatants", but Washington is reluctant to repatriate them to China for fear that they'll be tortured back home.

73 years -- The age of the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, who was hospitalized in New Delhi today suffering from gallstones.  Representatives of the Dalai Lama have been involved in delicate talks with Chinese authorities about his campaign for greater cultural and religious autonomy for Tibetans. The exiled leader's state of health had taken great importance after serious anti-Chinese riots broke out in Lhasa and other Tibetan communities in March. Many Chinese officials seem to believe Tibetan unrest will fade away after the death of the Dalai Lama. But a number of Tibet-watchers in the West assert that he is the key to a lasting resolution of anti-Chinese ferment on the roof of the world -- and that more extreme Tibetan activists will have more clout if he passes away before an agreement is reached.