ZGBriefs | January 7, 2016

ZGBriefs is a compilation of news items gathered from published online sources. ChinaSource is not responsible for the content, and inclusion in ZGBriefs does not equal endorsement. Go here to support ZGBriefs.

Featured Article

Video: Drinking the Northwest Wind (December 30, 2016, China File)
Lovell and Wang’s focus is on the direct human costs of the transfer—who has won, and who has lost. On the winning end are residents of Beijing’s ever-sprawling suburbs, hoping for reliable showers and clean water to cook with. On the short end of the stick are the people who live in the areas giving up their water, who, without choosing to have had to leave their homes, find new work, leave behind the comforts of community and family, and fathom how their lives fit into the grand and ambitious plans their leaders have devised to solve a nation’s problems.

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Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

China Says It Is Building Its Second Aircraft Carrier (December 31, 2016, The New York Times)
China is building a second aircraft carrier, the country’s Ministry of National Defense confirmed on Thursday. But unlike the first, this one will be produced entirely using China’s own designs and technology, the ministry said.

China Frees 2 Brothers of U.S. Reporter for Radio Free Asia (December 31, 2016, The New York Times)
Two brothers of an American journalist who United States lawmakers say were jailed by China in retaliation for his reporting on ethnic tensions in the country’s Xinjiang region have been freed, the reporter’s employer said. Another brother remained in custody.

Xinjiang Seethes Under Chinese Crackdown (January 2, 2016, The New York Times)
A recent 10-day journey across the Xinjiang region in the far west of China revealed a society seething with anger and trepidation as the government, alarmed by a slow-boil insurgency that has claimed hundreds of lives, has introduced unprecedented measures aimed at shaping the behavior and beliefs of China’s 10 million Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority that considers this region its homeland.

Will China's new law tackle terror? (January 2, 2016, BBC)
China's long-discussed counter-terrorism legislation, passed this week, frames the way the country will counter terrorist threats at home and abroad. But it is capable of getting to the root of the problem?

Tensions surge as China lands plane on island in S. China Sea (January 4, 2016, Christian Science Monitor)
Analysts say China's increasing military presence in the disputed sea could lead to a Beijing-controlled air zone, ratcheting up tensions in one of the world's most volatile areas.

Mystery of five missing Hong Kong booksellers deepens (January 5, 2016, Christian Science Monitor)
Five people associated with publisher Mighty Current, which specializes in books critical of China's Communist Party, have disappeared. What's going on?

Summing up 2015 in China (January 5, 2016, China Media Project)
One of my favourite year-end reflections is this darkly humorous one, shared across Chinese social networks since late last month. The piece, “2015: Whose Grief?”, was apparently posted first to Qzone Diary (QQ空间日志), a blog-like service added in 2013 to Tencent’s Qzone (itself developed in 2005). I first saw the post when Chinese friends on WeChat shared it, remarking that it was “an excellent summary.”

Religion

Made in China: The Next Mass Missionary Movement (December 31, 2016, Christianity Today)
Five years ago, more than 200 Chinese Christian leaders were detained before they could board flights to the most diverse gathering of evangelicals ever. Among the 4,000 leaders gathered in South Africa’s Cape Town for the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, their empty seats signified the Chinese church’s challenges in engaging world missions. But instead of tamping down the Chinese church’s desire for missions, the Cape Town 2010 incident acted as a catalyst, bringing together the right leaders inside and outside China, ChinaSource president Brent Fulton says.

1000 Attend Christmas Worship, 100 New Comers Convert to Christianity, Shanxi (January 5, 2016, China Christian Daily)
Churches in different parishes and gathering places held activities to celebrate Christmas, reported by Linfen Church. More than 1000 people attended and about 100 new comers converted to Christianity.

3 Questions: Spiritual Formation in China (January 6, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
In the final segment of the “Walking with Leaders” series on ChinaSource Conversations, our monthly podcast, we looked at the spiritual formation of leaders. One of our guests was John, an expat and trained coach whose14 years of service in Asia have included facilitating retreats and leading people through creative spiritual exercises. Here John shares his thoughts on spiritual formation among Christian leaders in China.

Society / Life

Video: China's one-child policy ends (January 1, 2016, BBC)
The first day of 2016 marks the end of China's controversial, 40-year-old one-child policy. Although families will still require government-issued birth permits, or face the sanction of a forced abortion, couples in China can now request to have two children.

China’s Homeless Find Shelter Under McDonald’s Golden Arches (December 31, 2016, The New York Times)
By day, the McDonald’s restaurants host birthday parties and book clubs. By night, when the floors have been mopped a final time and the pop music turned down, they become sanctuaries for the downtrodden, who pounce on half-eaten hamburgers and stale French fries, and stake out prized sleeping spots in padded booths. Often called McRefugees, they vanish at sunrise, some combing their hair with plastic forks before slinking outside into the masses.

This Year in China (January 1, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
Here are a handful of working assumptions about trends shaping China’s future that the ChinaSource team and board came up with during a strategic planning process conducted prior to 2015, along with some “reality check” comments about their relevance heading into this year.

Shenzhen landslide disaster: 11 arrests for negligence (January 1, 2016, BBC)
Eleven people in China have been arrested for their alleged role in the Shenzhen landslide disaster. Shenzhen prosecutors, late on Thursday, said a dispatcher and supervisor of the landfill, the chief and deputy manager of a company in charge of it, and seven other people were arrested. They said they have been charged with negligently causing a serious accident.

The Honeymoon Is Over: China’s Late Marriage Leave Cancelled (January 4, 2016, What’s on Weibo)
As of January 1st, the Chinese government has canceled the ‘late wedding leave’ that allowed China’s twenty-five-somethings to take a 30-day paid leave when getting married. With the policy’s cancelation, newlyweds can now take no more than a 3-day wedding leave. Chinese netizens are angry about the sudden reversal: “Who wants to get married if we don’t even have time for a honeymoon?”

China’s Top 5 Censored Posts in 2015 (January 5, 2016, China File)
From Deadly Explosions to Winnie the Pooh: The Online Speech Censors Worked Hardest to Silence.

Arson suspected in deadly Ningxia, China bus fire (January 5, 2016, BBC)
Seventeen people have been killed in a suspected arson attack on a public bus in the northern Chinese province of Ningxia, say local authorities. Officials in the city of Yinchuan said the bus suddenly caught fire at around 07:00 local time (23:00 GMT Monday), trapping some people inside. Amateur footage posted online showed the bus engulfed in flames.

Giant statue for China's Chairman Mao (January 5, 2016, AFP)
A gargantuan gold-painted statue of Communist China's founding father Mao Zedong has been erected in open countryside by a group of capitalists at a cost of 3 million yuan ($460,000), reports said. The statue towers some 37 metres (121 feet) over empty fields in the central province of Henan and shows the man who ruled China with an iron grip for nearly three decades seated in thoughtful repose, his hands crossed.

Shanghaiist's favorite photo series of 2015 (January 6, 2016,  Shanghaiist)
Now we bring you a selection of our favorite photo stories from the past year.

3 important new laws you need to know about (January 6, 2016, The Beijinger)
In 2016, we'll see a whole load of changes, some of which will affect Beijingers directly. Below are three we all need to be aware of.

China border residents evacuated after N. Korea test (January 6, 2016, Shanghai Daily)
CHINESE border residents were evacuated from buildings after feeling tremors from North Korea's nuclear test on Wednesday, China Central Television reported. […] The areas included Yanji, Hunchun and Changbai in Jilin province, it added — some of the counties closest to the North's nuclear test site.

Is it Too Late for a ‘Two-Child Policy’? (January 6, 2016, China File)
When, in October, word spread that China’s government would end its longstanding one-child policy, Xiaoran Zhang posed the following questions to a group of Chinese reporters, scholars, and other observers who have spent time in the United States. She compiled the responses and posted them on the main social media account of U.S.-China Dialogue, a Chinese-language website that regularly convenes groups of commentators to discuss issues pertaining to China and the U.S. Within an hour, Zhang’s WeChat posts were viewed 3,000 times, before Chinese censors swooped in to block them.

Economics / Trade / Business

Opinion is divided on state of Chinese economy, but not on its importance (January 1, 2016, The Guardian)
It is difficult to gauge true fragility of China, but economists agree it will have profound impact on the rest of the world in 2016.

Top 8 China Business Trends for 2016 (January 1, 2016, China Law Blog)
So without any further ado, the below are the key trends my firm’s China lawyers see gaining ground in China in 2016.

China bolsters markets with $20bn injection and hints at curbs on share sales (January 4, 2016, The Guardian)
On a second successive day of volatile trading, the authorities pumped more liquidity into the markets and suggested institutions may face restrictions.

Denials and devaluation as China's currency tumbles to five-year low (January 6, 2016, The Guardian)
Weaker yuan revives fears of a currency war, a global conflict by other means that directly affects millions of workers.

China Laws As Written Versus China Laws in Real Life (January 6, 2016, China Law Blog)
And here is the thing about China bankruptcies. We have never been involved in one and whenever I ask other China attorneys about their experience with China bankruptcies they look at me like I have two heads and mumble something about how there pretty much is no such thing.

Education

The Most Chinese Schools in America (January 4, 2016, Tea Leaf Nation)
Now, it’s Chinese students who comprise the largest group of international pupils in the United States, buoyed by a growing Chinese middle class that’s willing to pay top dollar for their children’s educations. According to an annual report by the Institute of International Education (IIE), in the 2014-2015 academic year more than 304,000 Chinese students were enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities, an almost five-fold increase from just a decade earlier.

How China’s Economic Slump Could Hurt American Colleges (January 4, 2016, TIME)
That decline, along with aggressive competition for international students and mounting scrutiny of visas, could mean yet more trouble for American schools that increasingly rely on full-paying foreign students both to subsidize Americans’ tuition and to make up for budget shortfalls caused by drops in domestic enrollment and state government support.

Health / Environment

Beijing air quality improved in 2015 despite pollution alerts, authorities say (January 5, 2016, The Guardian)
Environmental authorities say the Chinese capital’s air quality in 2015 was better than the year before despite the city’s first two red alerts for pollution late in the year.

Science / Technology

When Going to China, Be Paranoid About Your Data and Your Privacy (January 3, 2016, China Law Blog)
When going to China and to many other countries as well, I assume my hotel room and my phones (including my own cell phone) is bugged and my internet is monitored. I assume the worst and I take every measure I can to be careful. I have plenty of stories to tell involving people who were not careful about their data.

History / Culture

A collection: Life in Chengdu in 1959 (January 4, 2016, Everyday Life in Mao’s China)

Photo: Shanghai street scene postcard from 1955 (January 5, 2016, Everyday Life in Mao’s China)

Arts / Entertainment / Media

In ‘Mr. Six,’ China’s Changing and Staying the Same (January 5, 2016, China File)
Playing an aging gangster railing against the “little punks” who kidnapped his son in Beijing, Feng Xiaogang gives a solid performance as the title character of Mr. Six: a gravel-throated vigilante shaken when his go-it-alone rescue effort puts him on a collision course with a world that’s much bigger and more complex than the one he’s used to.

Legendary Deal Will Transform China’s Wanda Into Entertainment Giant (January 5, 2016, Variety)
The impending deal for Dalian Wanda group to buy a majority stake in Legendary Entertainment is poised to create a global entertainment powerhouse that would give China an even more significant foothold in Hollywood.

Travel / Food

Hutong Hawkers: The Fading Food Trade of Beijing’s Vagabond Salesmen (January 2, 2016, The Beijinger)
In an attempt to learn more, I take to the arteries between Beixinqiao and Zhangzizhong Lu to explore the overlapping roles that shangfan play in the fabric of hutong food culture.

In Pictures: The 2016 Harbin Ice and Snow Festival (January 5, 2016, The Atlantic)
Every year, in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, the city of Harbin hosts the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, featuring massive ice and snow sculptures—more than a million visitors are anticipated this year. At night, the sculptures are colorfully illuminated and visitors can climb and play on some of the structures. The festival officially opened on January 5, and will run through the end of February.

China to allow mainlanders to make transit stops in Taiwan (January 6, 2016, Reuters)
China's move to allow transit stops in Taiwan for onward flights for the first time is a sign Beijing is trying to interfere with Taiwan's upcoming presidential elections, the opposition party favored to win the polls said on Wednesday.

UK launches new two-year visa rules for Chinese nationals (January 6, 2016, BBC)
A new two-year visa system for Chinese nationals visiting the UK will begin next week, the foreign secretary has announced. It will enable visitors from China to make multiple trips to the UK for longer periods, the government said.

Language / Language Learning

On the character 乱 (January 2, 2016, The World of Chinese)
It could be any of the harrowing tourist sites in and out of the country on national holidays. It could be the messy, crowded, rage-filled roads of Beijing. It could be the world inside your head. Imagine a handful of tangled threads and you get the character 乱 (luàn) or “chaos, disorder”.

Books

Writing China: Mark O’Neill, ‘The Miraculous History of China’s Two Palace Museums’ (January 1, 2016, China Real Time)
In his book “The Miraculous History of China’s Two Palace Museums,” Hong Kong-based writer Mark O’Neill details the treacherous history of how some of China’s most precious artifacts were rescued from the invading Japanese imperial army in the 1930s and later transported to Taiwan, and the powerful symbolism of the museums. The Journal spoke with Mr. O’Neill by phone.

Image credit: South-North Water Diversion, by Tim Zachurnuk, via Flickr