Featured Article
The Daughters Who Were Raised to Be Everything Under China’s One-Child Policy (June 6, 2026, Global Voices)
When China ended the One-Child Policy in 2015, the shift was often described in demographic terms: declining birth rates, an aging population, and a policy adjustment to encourage more births. For women born under the policy, its impact was far more intimate. It shaped how families distributed love and resources, and how young women came to understand their place within the family.
Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs
In Pyongyang, Ceremonies of Friendship (June 11, 2026, China Media Project)
At noon on Monday, Xi Jinping arrived in Pyongyang for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, his first official visitsince 2019. Analysts and news media outside China plumbed the newsworthy undercurrents, noting that China’s top leader was keen, in light of North Korea’s ever closer relations with Russia, to remind Kim who really calls the shots. Across the heavily militarized border in South Korea, some media turned in a search for substance to the minute symbolism of Xi’s arrival, and the “eerie decalcomania” of the visual solidarity the two countries projected to the world.
China Declares Branch of ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ as Official Party Doctrine (June 16, 2026, South China Morning Post)
China’s ruling Communist Party has announced a new branch of President Xi Jinping’s political thought, which stresses governing the party with discipline and unified leadership. During a national conference on party building on Monday, the concept of “Xi Jinping Thought on Party Building” was hailed as “a milestone in the history of Marxist theory on party building and in the history of Chinese Communist Party building,” according to a report from state broadcaster CCTV.
Religion
The Gospel in Chinese Dress — and Under Every Flag (June 3, 2026, Substack-Nate Showalter)
When James Hudson Taylor arrived in China in the nineteenth century, he eventually made a decision that scandalized many Westerners. He put on Chinese clothing. He wore his hair in the Chinese style. He learned the language. He traveled inland. He sought to live, speak, suffer, and bear witness as closely as possible among the people he had come to serve. To some of his fellow Europeans, this seemed humiliating, even ridiculous. To Taylor, it was part of the logic of mission. The gospel did not need to sound English in order to be true. Christ did not need Western clothing in order to be Lord. If Chinese people were to hear the good news, Taylor believed, they should not have to climb over unnecessary barriers of British culture to reach it.
Fuyang: With God in the Storm (June 11, 2026, China Partnership)
Fuyang is a city of about 9 million people in Anhui Province in eastern China. Fuyang has a relatively large number of believers, but the last few years have been a time of trial for the churches, as they have experienced intense persecution. But house church leaders say God has been with them through the storm, and his presence sustains them.
Watchman Nee, Chinese Christianity, and the Life of the Spirit (June 12, 2026, ChinaSource)
Watchman Nee remains one of the most influential Chinese Christian thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings have shaped generations of Chinese Christians and have traveled far beyond China through translation, local church networks, and evangelical, Pentecostal, and charismatic circles around the world. Yet Nee is also a contested figure. He has been described as mystical, anti-intellectual, anti-denominational, and difficult to place within familiar Western theological categories. In his forthcoming book, The Spiritual Person: An Intellectual Biography of Watchman Nee, Paul H B Chang, Associate Professor in the Department of the Study of Religion at the University of California, Riverside, seeks to move beyond such labels and examine Nee’s life, thought, and influence in their Chinese and global Christian contexts.
How Tang Christians Translated the Trinity (June 15, 2026, ChinaSource)
Long before the word “Trinity” was rendered into Chinese as sanwei yiti (三位一體), Christians in Tang China were already searching for language to express the mystery of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Their term was striking: sanshen yiti (三身一體)—“three bodies, one essence.” Preserved in Jingjiao texts from the Tang dynasty, this phrase reveals more than an early Christian presence in China. It shows how the first known Christian communities in China engaged Chinese and Buddhist language in order to confess a faith rooted in the Nicene tradition.
The Displaced Minority (June 16, 2026, ChinaSource)
The Chinese Christian community is a demographic paradox. Comprising tens of millions of adherents, it represents a population larger than many European nations yet remain a profound minority within China’s 1.4 billion people. In a society marked by high-speed digital integration and stringent state oversight, information flows are bifurcated. While economic data and secular social news maintain a degree of transparency, religious life is treated as “sensitive,” resulting in a near-total vacuum of objective domestic reporting. This structural silence creates an “informational famine,” forcing Chinese Christians to look outward for the coordinates of their own existence.
Society / Life
No Team at the World Cup, China Rallies Around a Referee (June 5, 2026, Sixth Tone)
Chinese referee Ma Ning has become the unlikely face of the 2026 World Cup in China, with memes about the 46-year-old going viral and multiple domestic brands announcing collaborations with him. Over the past week, Ma has been announced as brand ambassador for several major Chinese companies, including tech giant Lenovo, consumer electronics maker Hisense, and dairy brand Mengniu. Official accounts dedicated to Ma have also been launched on lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, and video streaming site Bilibili.
Being a Woman in China Is Getting Harder. But in Chengdu, Female-Only Spaces Are Flourishing (June 9, 2026, The Guardian)
Being a woman in China is getting harder. The rising tide of a booming economy once lifted up people from all parts of society, revolutionizing lives—women’s included. Now, an economic slowdown and Chinese leadership that promotes a return to traditional family values are testing female liberation. Women today are more educated than ever before, yet less likely to be in the workforce. The female labor participation rate has fallen by more than 20% since 1990, as state-sponsored childcare has closed down and caring responsibilities for an aging population have grown.
My Grandmother’s Hens (June 11, 2026, ChinaFile)
On a spring day in 1996, my aunt brought her city friends to our village for an outing. We lived deep in the mountains, dozens of miles from Hangzhou, where my aunt worked. I was five and had lived in the village my entire life. I fantasized about living in the city. Not long before, I had learned the Chinese words gongren 工人(workers) and nongmin 农民 (farmers) from a children’s magazine. I asked my mother which we were. My mother said we were farmers. Workers lived in the cities, and farmers worked in rice paddies in the countryside, she explained. “But I’m not farming,” I said. “Why am I a farmer?” I was puzzled.
Education
Instead of Theses, Chinese Students Submit Fertilizers, Novels (June 11, 2026, Sixth Tone)
This graduation season, a cohort of Chinese university students is submitting real-world projects—ranging from fertilizers developed to increase crop yields, to original novels—in lieu of traditional theses. At least 59 of the country’s top-tier universities have revised their degree requirements to allow master’s and doctoral students to submit “practical achievements” and “creative works” instead of a thesis, according to a report published Tuesday by Shanghai-based media outlet The Paper.
China’s Notorious University-Entrance Exam Is Changing (subscription required) (June 11, 2026, The Economist)
On June 7th millions of young Chinese stepped into exam halls to take the gaokao, China’s gruelling national university-entrance exam. The results will decide where they can study and thus the calibre of job opportunities that follow. For many, it will have been a once-in-a-lifetime shot to move up in Chinese society.
Economics / Trade / Business
The Daughters Who Were Raised to Be Everything Under China’s One-Child Policy (June 6, 2026, Global Voices)
When China ended the One-Child Policy in 2015, the shift was often described in demographic terms: declining birth rates, an aging population, and a policy adjustment to encourage more births. For women born under the policy, its impact was far more intimate. It shaped how families distributed love and resources, and how young women came to understand their place within the family.
The Economic Downturn and China’s Silent Press (June 12, 2026, China Media Project)
In recent years, China’s economic environment has continued to weaken, with real estate risks coming to a head after more than four years of market decline, mounting pressure on local government finances as land-sale revenues dry up, and widespread business closures and job losses—with AI-driven displacement adding fresh strain to an already weakened labor market. For many residents, these have become part of daily life. Yet in sharp contrast to these lived realities, news coverage of the economic downturn has been steadily contracting in the public sphere, and the full picture of the situation has grown increasingly difficult to present.
China’s New Marriage Trends Replicate the Overall Experience Economy (June 12, 2026, Chinaskinny)
For decades, registering a marriage in China was one of life’s more functional milestones. Couples took their household registration book, queued at a local civil affairs office, filled in the paperwork, took a photo, and left with a certificate. For many young Chinese couples, that now feels a bit thin. Across China, marriage registration is being reimagined as a destination experience. Couples are traveling hours, sometimes across provinces, to register their marriage on islands, beside lakes, in historic gardens or at scenic mountain spots.
China Missed the World Cup. Its Brands Didn’t (June 13, 2026, South China Morning Post)
The central role played by the Chinese-founded technology company highlights a reality often obscured by geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing: while US policymakers have increasingly scrutinized Chinese technology firms and sought to reduce security risks in strategically sensitive sectors, Chinese companies remain deeply embedded in global commercial ecosystems, including one of the highest-profile international events ever hosted in North America.
Health / Environment
China’s Climate Toolkit In Search of a Strategy (June 15, 2026, East Asia Forum)
China’s April 2026 emissions assessment measures give stronger administrative force to the country’s emissions goals by allocating targets across ministries and provinces and tightening reporting requirements. Alongside these domestic commitments, China’s dominance in renewable energy supply chains, its role as the world’s largest commodity importer and its consistent climate policy position give it unusual structural influence over global decarbonization. Yet Beijing has not consolidated these advantages into a deliberate external strategy. Whether it does so will influence the future of global climate governance.
Arts / Entertainment / Media
“Dear You”: A Dark Horse’s Quiet Revolution Against Movie Formula (June 10, 2026, The World of Chinese)
For commercial Chinese films today, marketing can often take priority over the script. Experienced viewers can easily spot such signs on the big screen: certain scenes exist because they would make good short-form video clips, or certain lines are written to become trending catchphrases. However, Dear You actively defies tried-and-tested formulas and audience expectations with its fresh, sincere storytelling.
Books
Chinese Platforms: A Conversation with Wilfred Wang and Jian Lin (June 15, 2026, Made In China Journal)
Jian Lin, Wilfred Yang Wang, and Ping Sun’s Chinese Platforms: A Critical Introduction (Polity Press, 2025) is one of the first English-language books to offer a systematic examination of Chinese digital platforms across technology, geopolitics, business, culture, gender, and labour. For decades, scholarship on Chinese platforms has been shaped by a dichotomy: either viewing them as a threat to Western techno-ecologies or imagining them as a utopian alternative to Western infrastructures. For the authors, neither perspective is particularly helpful for understanding the complexity of the field today. The book therefore seeks to establish a new approach—one that is truer to the subject and capable of informing future generations interested in this area.
History / Culture
Daughters of Sama: A Matrilineal Society’s Day of Celebration (June 12, 2026, The World of Chinese)
While the Dong no longer follow their traditional matriarchal social structure, some of its customs have endured, including the Sama Festival. In the first or second lunar month, before the start of spring plowing, the quiet shrine in Sanbao is transformed as Sanbao villagers, mostly married women, converge for the largest celebration of its kind to pray for harmony, abundant harvests, and the flourishing of both people and livestock. The festival was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2006 and has been hailed as the “Women’s Day” of the Dong.
Science / Technology
China’s Lifelike Emotional Companion Bots Go on Sale (June 10, 2026, Sixth Tone)
Chinese robotics company UBTech has begun presales for what it calls the world’s “first full-size, ultra-bionic” humanoid robot designed for emotional companionship. Around 3,000 units have been sold so far. Announced June 2, presales of the robot model, called the “U1,” will run through July 15 and require customers to put down a refundable deposit of 3,000 yuan ($440). The official online release is scheduled for June 30. The company has not yet disclosed the full retail price.
Events
Online Book Club Discussion (ERRChina)
Join us for a discussion of the book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan Wang. Now would be a great time to purchase the book and start reading it in order to be ready for a lively and vibrant discussion.
Date: August 5, 2026
Time: 5pm PST / 6pm MST / 7pm CST / 8pm EST (US)
Platform: Zoom
Register here.
Pray for China
June 20 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On June 20, 1999, Pastor Yang Yudong (杨毓东牧师) went to be with the Lord at age 80. Pastor Yang served four years of hard labor (1958-62) for being a rightist and another 13 years (1966-79) for being a counter-revolutionary. He was removed from his pulpit at Beijing’s Three Self Gangwashi Church by police on Dec. 4, 1994, after revival began among many young people. Pray for persecuted Christians to know that the Lord is near and all his commandments are true. They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose; they are far from your law. But you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true. Psalm 119:150-151
Prayer 2026: Off the Beaten Path (January 1, 2026, China Partnership)
Operation World (April 21, 2025, ChinaSource)
Pray for China (prayforchina.us)
Prayer Walking as a Rhythm of Life (May 30, 2025, ChinaSource)