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I read an American magazine that usually contains three or four articles each week about the business climate in China.

  1. This week, however, the magazine did not have any Chinese news.
  2. This week, however, the magazine did not have any China news.

Which sentence, semantically speaking, is better?

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    I would suggest that "news from China" would be better than either of your options. "Chinese news" could imply about the language and/or Chinese people (e.g. those living in America).
    – TrevorD
    Jul 7, 2013 at 15:12
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    "Chinese news" would be news written in the Chinese language or originating from a Chinese source, but they need not relate to anything Chinese, e.g. with "Chinese news" you could refer to a Chinese language newspaper in New York, covering American topics in Chinese.
    – user32638
    Jul 7, 2013 at 15:46

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To answer your question, out of the two it would be

'1. This week, however, the magazine did not have any Chinese news'

However it would be much better to say

This week, however, the magazine did not have any news regarding China

Or if there was a special section dedicated to news regarding China, or a feed from a Chinese news agency you could say

This week, however, the magazine did not have any news from China

My reasoning: There are Chinese communities outside of China. Also and especially in the UK, 'Chinese' is used to describe Chinese cuisine. And more loosely, 'Chinese' is used to describe the Mandarin and Cantonese languages combined.

Hope that helps.

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  • I recently read this sentence in a scholarly book: "The Times, which in India matters is almost the only journal that really counts ...." (It was referring to the days when England ruled India. You notice that it does not say "Indian" matters.)
    – james
    Jul 7, 2013 at 17:26

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