ZGBriefs | January 23, 2025

Featured Article

Slithering Through Time: The Evolution of the Snake in Chinese Culture (January 21, 2024, The World of Chinese)
Among the 12 zodiac animals, the snake stands out for its particularly complex and contradictory symbolism. With the Year of the Snake just around the corner, it’s the perfect moment to uncover how this enigmatic creature has inspired worship, fear, and awe.

Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

The Four Main Groups Challenging Xi Jinping (January 17, 2025, China Brief Archives, The Jamestown Foundation)
The supreme leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) faces challenges from multiple groups, including from retired politburo standing committee members, fellow princelings, some of the military top brass, and even from some in the country’s middle class. As a result, his ability to shape policy in the financial, foreign affairs, and other arenas has been truncated. 

Dreams Deferred in Xi’s New Year’s Speech (January 17, 2025, China Brief Archives, The Jamestown Foundation)
As an annual phenomenon, Xi’s new year’s speech provides a useful benchmark that can provide insight into how the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) perceives their performance. While the content is mostly pro forma, any changes in terms of structure, additions, emphasis, or omission may suggest changes in Xi’s outlook.

Southeast Asian Elites Resist a China-Led Regional Order (January 21, 2025, East Asia Forum)
A March 2023 survey of 500 Southeast Asian elites reveals resistance and ambivalence towards a China-led regional order. While China wields substantial economic influence, Southeast Asian elites prefer ASEAN’s leadership and democratic values over Beijing’s hierarchical model. China’s assertive behaviour in the South China Sea and use of economic coercion have undermined its appeal and authority in the region.

Religion

A Joint Statement from Chinese Christians: Against Persecution on Charges of Fraud (January 16, 2025, China Partnership)
There’s no question that, over the last few years, particularly since 2018 and the implementation of the “new religious regulations,” persecution in China has become more intense. One of the main forms this persecution has taken are charges of “fraud” against house church leaders because their unregistered churches accept tithes and offerings. Covenant Home Church is the case profiled in this joint statement, and is a good example of what is happening to believers who are facing these types of charges.

A Time to Pray (January 17, 2025, ChinaSource)
My heart aches as I reflect on the devastation caused by the wildfires burning in the Los Angeles area. Images and videos of the loss of exquisite buildings—churches, senior residences, and even the grand homes of celebrities—all burned to ashes flooded social media. I live fifty miles away, yet the strong Santa Ana winds seem to carry the scent of smoke through the arid, dry air, making it almost tangible. As I watched these moving scenes unfold, I felt both great grief and a strong call to action.

Story of a Christian Fraudster (January 20, 2025, China Partnership)
This is one wife’s plea to the world to recognize that her husband is a good man, innocent of the charges he faces. We share this personal testimony because it is the real-world portrait of the experience published on our blog last week: because his church accepts tithes and offerings, a serious believer and church leader has been charged with theft and deception.

John C. H. Wu on the Incarnation of the Word of God (January 21, 2025, ChinaSource)
The Christian life is lived in real, concrete situations: the union of the transcendent and the immanent, flesh and spirit. It is at times easy for us, especially those (often in the Western world) inclined to think about theological questions in the abstract, to forget that in authentic Christianity we find the union of flesh and spirit.³ The physical world of persons and things is not separate from the spiritual world, it is the spiritual world!

Society / Life

Lunar New Year (January 2025, Smithsonian, National Museum of Asian Art)
Commonly known as the Spring Festival in China, Lunar New Year is a fifteen-day celebration marked by many traditions. At home, families decorate windows with red paper cuttings and adorn doors with couplets expressing auspicious wishes for the new year. Shopping for holiday sundries in open-air markets and cleaning the house are also beloved traditions. The Lunar New Year’s Eve reunion dinner is the highlight that kicks off the holiday, a feast with a spread of symbolic dishes, such as a whole fish representing abundance, that bring good luck and fortune. Immerse yourself in the holiday and the art and culture of China through videos, audio recordings, written sources, and more.

Americans Flock to Chinese TikTok Alternative RedNote: ‘We Have the Same Struggles’ (January 16, 2025, The Guardian)
RedNote is primarily a video-sharing app, though users can also share photo galleries accompanied by questions to spur discussion in the comments. A lot of the content looks similar to what you’d find on Instagram’s Explore page: posts from Chinese influencers and regular people about what they eat in a day, or how they exercise, or what they’re wearing. The app’s Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, translates to “little red book”, a reference to a collection of the Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s favorite sayings.

China’s Population Falls for a Third Straight Year, Posing Challenges for Its Economy (January 17, 2025, NPR News)
China’s population fell last year for the third straight year, its government said Friday, pointing to further demographic challenges for the world’s second most populous nation, which is now facing both an aging population and an emerging shortage of working age people.

‘Hell on Earth’: China Deportation Looms for Uyghurs Held in Thailand (January 20, 2025, BBC News)
The last time Thailand deported Uyghur asylum seekers was in July 2015. Without warning, it put 109 of them onto a plane back to China, prompting a storm of protest from governments and human rights groups. The few photos that were released show them hooded and handcuffed, guarded by large numbers of Chinese police officers. Little is known about what happened to them after their return.

China Executes Man Who Plowed Car into Crowds in Deadliest Attack in a Decade (January 20, 2025, CNN)
China has executed a man who killed 35 people by plowing his car into crowds at a sports center in November, in the country’s deadliest known attack against the public in a decade, state media reported Monday. Fan Weiqiu, 62, was executed just over three weeks after he was sentenced to death by a court in the southern city of Zhuhai, where he carried out the attack.

Economics / Trade / Business

Why Does China Enjoy Preferential Trade Status with US and Could It Lose It? (January 17, 2025, South China Morning Post)
Formerly known as most favoured nation status, PNTR is a legal designation in the United States that allows for free trade with a foreign state. Congress approved PNTR status for China in 2000 in exchange for Beijing agreeing to open up its markets and liberalise its trade practices ahead of joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Entering 2025, China and Partner Countries Reflect on the Belt and Road Initiative (January 17, 2025, China Digital Times)
In 2024, China’s trade volume with partner countries in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) grew by 6.4 percent year-on-year, accounting for over half of China’s total trade volume for the first time. At the start of 2025, over a decade since the BRI’s official launch in 2013, analysts reflected on how the BRI is being perceived in China and in partner countries around the world.

China’s EV Success Faces a Battery Recycling Problem (January 18, 2025, East Asia Forum)
China’s electric vehicle industry has grown from producing 13,000 units in 2012 to 1.2 million in 2024, capturing 76 per cent of the global market. But as batteries reach end-of-life, the country faces major recycling challenges. While China’s market scale and regulatory potential offer advantages, success requires addressing weak oversight, underdeveloped standards and shadow operators in the recycling sector.

Science / Technology

The Missing Link in China’s EV Boom: Who Will Fix Them? (January 17, 2025, Sixth Tone)
China’s race toward clean energy has put EVs front and center, now accounting for more than half of all new car sales. But this rapid transformation is exposing cracks in its auto repair ecosystem. Unlike gasoline cars, EVs run on complex electrical systems. Fixing them requires not just mechanical know-how, but precision tools, rigorous testing, and an entirely new skill set. 

Travel / Food 

Dumplings: A Brief History Ahead of CNY (January 21, 2025, The Beijinger Blog)
It’s no secret that Chinese food is fantastically diverse and complex. Each region has its own unique blend of spices, flavors and traditions, but if I were going to pick one item that best represents the tapestry of the Chinese culinary scene I would pass right over noodles, hot pot, Peking duck and tanghulu and head straight for dumplings.

Health / Environment

‘Red Ghost’ Algae Swarms China’s Coast, Threatening Marine Life (January 21, 2025, Sixth Tone)
A massive toxic algal bloom has swarmed China’s southern coastline, choking marine life, disrupting fisheries, and covering beaches in thick layers of jelly-like algae. The outbreak, fueled by warming seas and pollution, has spread across Guangdong, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Hainan.

Arts / Entertainment / Media

See You Again, the Hit Reality TV Series in China Helping to Destigmatise Divorce (January 15, 2025, The Guardian)
The premise of See You Again, a Chinese online reality television series that sends three married couples contemplating divorce away on an 18-day roadtrip, is designed to contrive an emotional spectacle. It is still raw viewing when it delivers.

Censorship Creeps Up on “TikTok Refugees” Fleeing to Chinese App Xiaohongshu (January 16, 2024, China Digital Times)
On Tuesday, as TikTok refugee flows were arriving on the shores of RedNote, the platform announced that it was implementing new measures to ensure content was “upward and virtuous” (向上向善) — not exactly an ethos associated with the TikTok homeland, which has thrived on threading together the inventive and unpredictable.

Links For Researchers

World Watch List 2025 (January 2025, Open Doors)
The World Watch List is Open Doors’ annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. Explore each country profile and download the detailed dossiers for in-depth information about following Jesus in the most dangerous places. You’ll learn more about Christian persecution and discover how to stand with your brothers and sisters in prayer and action.

Chinese Immigrants in the United States (January 15, 2025, Migration Policy Institute)
As the third largest immigrant group in the United States after Mexicans and Indians, immigrants from China (including Hong Kong and Macau) accounted for around 5 percent of the 47.8 million foreign-born residents as of 2023. This population experienced continuous growth for decades—peaking at nearly 2.5 million in 2019—but fell by more than 100,000 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chinese immigrants in the United States numbered slightly more than 2.4 million as of 2023, representing a partial rebound to pre-pandemic levels.

What Lies Ahead for China in 2025? | Carl Minzer (January 18, 2025, National Committee for U.S. China Relations)
For decades, China’s reform and opening-up era brought economic growth, political stability, and greater openness to both ideas and investment from the outside world. But in recent years, the country has shifted into what Professor Carl Minzner describes as an “age of counterreform.” What defines this new era, and how are China’s leadership and society adapting? In an interview recorded on November 21, 2024, Carl Minzner joins the National Committee to discuss the evolution of political norms, the future challenges China will face, and the return to centralized party control under Xi Jinping’s leadership. 

Pray for China

Praying for China | Prayercast (January 20, 2025, ChinaSource)
As part of our initiative to encourage and guide our readers in praying for China, we are starting a series designed to introduce various resources that can be used by individuals and churches. One such resource is a site called Prayercast, a ministry of OneWay Ministries. Aiming to activate a global prayer movement, Prayercast “provides video resources and information on every nation and religion in the world! This helps us to pray knowledgeably and strategically rather than in the abstract.”

January 18 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On Jan. 18, 1929, Wang Shijing (王世静校长) was installed as the first Chinese president of her alma mater, Hwa Nan University (华南女子学院-The Women’s College of South China). In the 1920s, as anti-Western and anti-Christian sentiment grew in China following China’s perceived betrayal at the Versailles Peace Conference, schools founded by missionaries were required to turn control over to Chinese nationals. Wang served as president until the new communist government abolished Christian education in 1951. She was labeled an anti-rightist and suffered severe depression until her death in 1983. Pray for Christians suffering from mental illness to find professional help and to know that the Lord hears and answers their prayers. The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer. Psalm 6:9