FEATURED ARTICLE
Religious Policies in China: Defining Normal (Winter Issue, ChinaSource Quarterly)The word "normal" is not something that those of us in the West commonly associate with the word religion or religious activities. Religious activities are simply religious activities, and to label one as normal and another as abnormal is, well, abnormal. What is normal for one religion or sect (baptizing people by dunking their heads under water) may seem strange, or even dangerous, to followers of another religion. This concept of "normal religious activities" is at the heart of the religious regulatory regime in China.
GOVERNMENT / POLITICS / FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The Meaning of Chinas Crackdown on the Foreign Press (December 6, 2013, The New Yorker)The real purpose is intimidation: to compel foreign news organizations to adopt a more compliant posture in their daily decisions, small and large. In attempting to shield themselves from the gaze of the world, the new generation of Chinese leaders has unwittingly provided one of the clearest views yet into their thinking, and their self-perception, as they confront the challenges that will define Chinas future.
Decades After the Cultural Revolution, a Rare Letter of Remorse (December 6, 2013, Sinosphere)
In an apology for his actions as a student during the Cultural Revolution, Chen Xiaolu, the son of Chinas famed Foreign Minister, Chen Yi, published a notice in his school alumni blog in August.
Lip service (December 7, 2013, The Economist)
If China is getting its way diplomatically on Tibet, it is not because repression there has eased.
U.S. university drops claim Chinese dissident Chen was spied on (December 9, 2013, Reuters)
New York University withdrew its claim on Monday that a close supporter of Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese dissident affiliated with the university through this summer, had tried to spy on Chen by giving him an iPad and iPhone loaded with hidden spyware, saying it was a "misunderstanding."
China Meets Its Own Worst Enemy: Itself (December 9, 2013, Reason)
To achieve any ambitious goal, you have to want it badly enough to work and sacrifice. But there is such a thing as trying too hard. Overzealous pursuit of your heart's desire can end up chasing it away. The Chinese government may be learning that right now. China, a great civilization brought low by foreign powers in the 19th and 20th centuries, has long burned to acquire a global stature corresponding to its self-image.
China to judge local governments by their debt: Xinhua (December 9, 2013, Reuters)
China will soon rate the performance of local governments partly by how much debt they incur, as Beijing tries to wean the country off heavy government investment, state media said. The central organization department, which oversees the appointment of senior party, government, military and state firm officials, said debt will be key when evaluating performances, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
Inside China's troubled far west (December 9, 2013, Al Jazeera)
Ethnic Uighurs say they face economic difficulties and worry their culture will be wiped out by assimilation.
Will China expel foreign journalists? (December 10, 2013, BBC)
Is China preparing for a mass expulsion of foreign correspondents? Even to ask the question sounds faintly ridiculous. Surely not. Not in this day of the internet and global communications. Not the new, confident, rising China that is opening and interacting with the rest of the world like never before. What could it possibly gain from such a step?
US calls on China to release Liu Xiaobo (December 10, 2013, The Guardian)
Secretary of state John Kerry says Nobel Prize winner should be freed and his wife released from house arrest.
On Human Rights Day, I'll be thinking of my father in a Chinese prison (November 10, 2013, The Guardian)
My father is serving a life sentence for pro-democracy activism. He'd see little optimism in China's admission to the UNHRC.
Is Beijing about to boot the New York Times? (December 11, 2013, Foreign Policy)
The Chinese government's crackdown on Bloomberg and the "paper of record" reaches a head. – See more at:
Japan sets up amphibious military unit to counter China threat over islands (December 11, 2013, The Guardian)
Japan will set up a new amphibious military unit and deploy unarmed surveillance drones in its south-west, where it faces a row with China over disputed islands, according to drafts of the nation's latest defence plans seen on Wednesday. The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, ordered the defence policy review after returning to office last December, pledging to strengthen the military and boost Japan's global security role.
China university 'sacks scholar for political criticism' (December 11, 2013, BBC)
A law professor in China says he has been sacked after refusing to apologise for writing articles criticising the government. Zhang Xuehong said he was dismissed by the East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai on Monday. He says university officials had asked him to retract views expressed in articles that raised questions about top leaders and one-party rule. The university has not officially commented on the matter.
China Spins New Lesson From Soviet Fall: Party Discipline (December 11, 2013, China Real Time)
A Chinese film blames the Soviet Unions collapse not on the communist system but on individuals who betrayed it, especially Mikhail Gorbachev.
Slogan of the Week: Serve the Renminbi (December 11, 2013, China Digital Times)
Parody of Mao Zedongs political slogan, serve the people, which appears in Maos calligraphy above many government buildings and in front of the entrance to Zhongnanhai, the complex that houses the Central Peoples Government and the Communist Party of China.
RELIGION
How Chinas religious affairs bureaucracy works (Winter Issue, ChinaSource Quarterly)
To what degree do the TSPM/CCC associations seek to serve the party-state or the churches? In general, the higher one rises in the TSPM/CCC hierarchy, the more one has to prove loyalty to the CCP. Balancing this trend, however, is that these associations are only effective if lower level church leaders and lay Protestants believe them to be legitimate.
Asian Church Leaders Forum in Seoul (June 2013) Report (December 4, 2013, Christian Post)
By God's grace, over 100 Chinese leaders representing millions of China's Christians were able to join together with 200 Asian and international evangelical leaders for the ACLF, hosted by the Asia Lausanne Committee (ALCOE) and the Korea Lausanne Committee. The Chinese participants' involvement fulfilled their longstanding desire to participate in the global Christian mission movement. After sixty years of separation, China's participation with the global church family at the ACLF marked a truly symbolic moment in church history.
Shenzhen Airport Prayer Room (December 9, 2013, Chinese Church Voices)
But something else about this new terminal has caught the attention of many Christians in China the fact that it has a prayer room.
Photo essay: Fully Jewish Fully Chinese (November 2013, Asian Jewish Life)
Further, the road of return has been made more difficult as the Chinese authorities, not recognizing Jews as an ethnic minority, say that there are no Chinese Jews, only Chinese, that they are Han now Even with so many obstacles, some have successfully made Aliyah. The preparation process starts in China with learning basic Hebrew and Torah. The final step is a conversion in Israel. On average this takes at least five years. But this does not stop them. After years of waiting, some of these Chinese Jews have finally been fully accepted and granted Israeli citizenship. They are home now. A small community of the returned Chinese Jews has slowly begun to emerge in Israel and begun to thrive. Here are the photos that tell the story of their return to Israel.
SOCIETY / LIFE
Behind Chinas Cyber Curtain Visiting the country's far reaches, where the government shut down the Internet (December 5, 2013, The New Republic)
Aba was first stripped of its connection in 2008, after riots in Tibet led to unrest in this place known for its wide grasslands and Buddhist monasteries. Both mobile phone signals and the Web have been erratic ever since, coming back for months at a time only to disappear again, usually after a Tibetan monk sets him or herself on fire in protest.
Even Chinese People Are Baffled by How Much Americans Love Pandas (December 6, 2013, Tea Leaf Nation)
Everyone loves pandas, but Americans may be a little too obsessed. On Dec. 1, the Smithsonian National Zoo announced that its resident panda cub who had just celebrated her first 100 days on Earth would be named Bao Bao, based on the results of online ballots cast by more than 123,000 people around the world. In the media blitz that followed which included national television coverage and a write-up in the New York Times one Chinese news outlet has declared the U.S. fascination with pandas almost impossible to believe.
The Many Countries of China (December 7, 2013, Outside-In)
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I read China Airborne, by James Fallows. Its a look at modern China through the lens of the countrys growing aviation industry. In the introduction, Fallows writes about what he calls the many countries of China, (p. 6), explaining the diversity and complexity of a country that we tend to (wrongly) view as a monolith.
Woman lived underground for 20 years (December 7, 2013, China Daily)
Every day for the past 20 years, Quan Youzhi, 66, has lifted a well lid weighing at least 10 kilograms and climbed down 3 meters to spend the night underground. The woman from Shangqiu, Henan province, does not work on underground facilities. Instead, she calls the deserted underground compartment home. The compartment is near Lido Park in Beijing's Chaoyang district.
Slideshow: The Era of Mao Statues (December 8, 2013, Sina)
Now Banned From Chinese Banquets: Birds Nest and Sharks Fin (December 9, 2013, China Real Time)
A government-led austerity drive is taking all the fun out of being a Chinese official. The latest anti-corruption measures, issued Sunday, ban cigarettes and upscale liquor as well as classic Chinese delicacies like sharks fin and birds nests from official banquets. Its part of a drive to portray the countrys civil service as a model in austerity. So far, the public response has been a heap of skepticism.
For Working-Class Chinese, 'Picture Day' Is A Rare Treat (December 9, 2013, NPR)
A holiday gift of sorts came early in more than 20 countries over the weekend, as volunteer photographers shot free, studio-quality portraits of more than 16,000 people who otherwise couldn't have afforded them. A working-class neighborhood of Shanghai was among the more than 130 sites where the photo shoots took place, part of a global project inspired by , a U.S.-based nonprofit.
Watch: The people trying to save Manchu language and culture (December 10, 2013, Shanghaiist)
The language of the Manchu ethnic group used to be widely spoken during the Qing Dynasty imperial court, but is now facing extinction with fewer than 100 fluent speakers. A primary school in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, however, has taken the initiative to save the language by offering language and culture courses to local Manchu-descendant children.
Can China escape its demographic bind? (December 10, 2013, East Asia Forum)
The twin phenomena of enhanced longevity and the One-Child Policy, introduced in 1978, mean that China has seen the most rapid move from demographic sweetspot to an ageing society. These days, discussions on how China will manage this transition are often referred to as the will China get rich before it gets old? debate.
Slideshow: Without a home: a look at the changing geography of homelessness in China (December 10, 2013, Caixin Online)
Shenzhen market fire kills 16 (December 11, 2013, China Daily)
The death toll in a market fire in south China's Shenzhen Wednesday morning rose to 16, when fire fighters found another body in the debris. Zhang Xiaowei, spokesman for the city fire department, said all of the victims were people occupying four stores in Rongjian Farmers' Market.
Shanghai faces aging issues as it expands (December 11, 2013, China Daily)
Shanghai's population is expected to reach 30 million by 2030, with 7.85 million aged 60 or above, according to a recent report. The figures were released by the Institute for City and Population Development under the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences on Wednesday, Shanghai Morning Post reported. The city's population of those who have lived in the city for more than six months has doubled over the past two decades. The city had a population of 23.47 million in 2011, up from 11.86 million in 1982. The population will continue to grow in the future, experts said. Experts also said the city is facing significant aging issues.
Hate flagging down taxis in China? Problem SOLVED (December 11, 2013, China Hope Live)
Taxis save a ton of time if you dont get stuck not being able to get one. Flagging down a taxi in China can sometimes be a major pain. Theyre all full. Or there arent any. Or someone steals yours. Or most annoyingly theyre empty but they inexplicably wave you off. Turns out there are reasons why empty taxis pass right buy you. Sometimes theyre about to change shifts. Sometimes they fear the hassle/awkwardness of a foreigner who might not speak Chinese. But more likely, theyre using this free smart phone app: . And now that we are, too, our arm-flapping on the side of the road days are mostly a thing of the past.
What do you know about Xinwen Lianbo? (December 11, 2013, China Digital Times)
On November 13, the web portal KDNET posted an infographic about CCTVs flagship news program, Xinwen Lianbo (News Simulcast) to its official Weibo. China Media Project determined that the post had been deleted by 5:04 p.m. that day. FreeWeibo also captured the censored image and text. China Media Project has translated KDNETs introduction to the infographic:
2014 China Public Holiday Schedule Released: Get Ready to Work Weekends (December 12, 2013, The Beijinger)
China tells pilots to improve landing skills to deal with Beijing smog (December 12, 2013, Reuters)
Chinese authorities have told pilots who fly to Beijing they must be qualified to land their aircraft in the low visibility bought about by smog, state media said on Thursday, as the government tries to reduce flight delays due to pollution. Beginning January 1, pilots flying from the country's 10 busiest airports into the Chinese capital must be qualified to use an instrument landing system on days when smog reduces visibility to around 400 metres (1,315 feet), the official China Daily said, citing China's civil aviation regulator.
Beijing to deport unruly expats (December 12, 2013, China Daily)
A foreigner in Beijing has been given a 12-day detention and a fine of 6,500 yuan ($1,070) for traffic violations and illegal employment and will be deported along with his father after serving the term, said police on Wednesday. The foreigner, whose nationality and name haven't been disclosed, hit a middle-aged Chinese woman at the Zuojiazhuang intersection in Chaoyang district when riding a scooter on Dec 2. The woman suffered minor injuries and was sent to a nearby hospital, and the man agreed to pay her 1,800 yuan in compensation. The man was also detained for 7 days and fined 1,500 yuan for other breaches of the traffic regulations, as during their investigation into the accident the police found the foreigner had neither a driving license nor a motorbike plate and he was carrying a passenger on a scooter.
Video: Lang Lang: Tiger Moms Need to Relax (December 12, 2013, China Real Time)
Lang Lang has been devoting much of his time recently to mentoring children, both in the U.S. and China. The concert pianist tells WSJs Deborah Kan why tiger parenting doesnt work.
EDUCATION / HISTORY
Check out these beautiful photos of Hong Kong in 1947 (December 11, 2013, Shanghaiist)
In 1947, just two years after the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong came to an end, photographer Mark Kauffman captured these amazing scenes of daily life in everybody's favorite fragrant harbor.
Students jailed for selling exam-cheating gadgets (December 11, 2013, China Daily)
Two university freshmen in Wuhan, Hubei province, have been sentenced to 10 months in prison for illegally producing and selling electronic equipment for cheating on the gaokao, China's college entrance examination, Chinanews.com reported on Wednesday. Police in Jingmen announced on Dec 10 that 15 people were detained after a six-month investigation for alleged involvement in the illegal manufacture and sale of the equipment.
China gives 20.7 billion yuan to rural schools (December 11, 2013, China Daily)
The central government has allocated 20.7 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) this year to disadvantaged schools in the countryside. The money will be used for equipment, books and reconstruction. Funds of this kind have totalled 65.7 billion yuan from 2010 to 2013, according to the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday.
HEALTH
China considers nationwide ban on smoking in public (December 11, 2013, The Guardian)
Chinas leaders are considering a nationwide smoking ban in public, a leading health official said on Wednesday, as the country's tobacco-related health and economic costs continue to mount. Yang Jie, deputy director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of Tobacco Control, said China's cabinet was mulling over a regulation that would ban smoking in public places nationwide. "Optimistically," he said, it could be implemented within a year.
H7N9 found in China poultry markets (December 11, 2013, China Daily)
Samples taken from two live poultry markets in south China's Guangdong Province have tested positive for H7N9 bird flu, the provincial health authority confirmed on Wednesday. Three samples from the two live poultry markets, both in Shenzhen, tested positive, said the Health Department of Guangdong Province. On Tuesday, a H7N9-control team collected 70 samples from 13 live poultry markets in Shenzhen.
Musical to encourage blood donation (December 11, 2013, China Daily)
The hit musical, I Will Be With You, which highlights the need for blood donations, will start a second run in Shanghai on Thursday, according to the Shanghai Blood Administration Office.The musical is part of the city's efforts to encourage more young people to donate blood.The musical was first staged during summer to widespread critical acclaim.
Chinese boy who had eyes gouged out returns home with prosthetics (December 12, 2103, The Guardian)
A six-year-old Chinese boy whose eyes were gouged out in an attack more than three months ago was discharged Thursday from a hospital in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen where he was successfully fitted with prosthetic eyes. Guo Bin nicknamed Bin Bin danced to music at a send-off ceremony at the C-MER Dennis Lam Eye Hospital, where he expressed gratitude and happiness. The prosthetic eyes look and move much like normal eyes, but do not restore vision. Doctors plan to fit Guo Bin with navigation sensors next summer that would allow him to get around on his own in familiar places.
ECONOMICS / BUSINESS / TRADE
Dont Coast on Good Starts When Negotiating Deals in China: Chinese Negotiation Training Topics (December 9, 2013, China Solved)
Coasting on past successes or good starts is a terrible idea when doing business in China. Successful business negotiation in China is about developing good goals and staying focused on business objectives while building cordial relationships.
Can WeChat? (December 11, 2013, Slate)
With half a billion users, this Chinese social network is poised to overtake Facebook. Will Americans join the conversation?
China Clarifies Corporate Income Tax Policies for Shanghai Free Trade Zone (December 11, 2013, China Briefing)
Chinas Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation jointly issued the Circular on Corporate Income Tax Policies for Outbound Investment with Non-monetary Assets and Other Asset Restructuring Transactions by Enterprises in the China (Shanghai) Free Trade Zone (Caishui [2013] No. 91, hereinafter referred to as Circular) on November 15, which allows enterprises in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (Shanghai FTZ) to defer corporate income tax payment. Detailed information can be found below.
China Quickens Pace in Financial Reform (December 12, 2013, China Real Time)
China is moving along on its long march to free up interest rates, a key part of financial reforms. This week it picked up the pace a bit.
Urban shoppers shifting to online purchases (December 12, 2013, China Daily)
Online purchases have become the first choice among shoppers in first-tier cities, according to a survey of taxi passengers. China Daily conducted a poll of 134,026 people by teaming up with Touchmedia, the national leader in media presentations in taxis, from Dec 1 to 9. Fifty-two percent of the taxis involved in the survey were in Shanghai, with others in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. More than two-fifths of the Chinese nationals who responded to the survey cited e-commerce sites as their top choice for shopping. These included online marketplaces such as Tmall and Taobao, business-to-customer sites such as JDMall and official brand websites.
Whats Your China Contingency Plan? I Mean You, Not Your Company. (December 12, 2013, China Law Blog)
I am often frustrated by clients, potential clients and even sometimes readers who think that they are too smart, too savvy, too connected or too well-prepared to ever get caught up in/with the same problems that have struck other really smart, savvy, connected and well-prepared companies in China.
SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY / ENVIRONMENT
Phase one of China water-diversion project completed (December 9, 2013, BBC)
The first stage of an ambitious multi-billion dollar plan to divert water from rivers in the south of China to northern and eastern areas has been completed, according to state media. Once finished, it is hoped the infrastructure project will help provide billions of cubic meters of water each year to millions of people in drought-prone areas.
China: Here Are Some Great Things About Toxic Air (December 9, 2013, TIME)
You cant make this stuff up. On Sunday, with swaths of eastern China shrouded in a polluted haze, Chinese state media decided to release a list of five surprising benefits of smog. Here, courtesy of Wang Lei, an editor for China Central Televisions website, are five good things about bad air:
Smog Shrouds Eastern China (December 10, 2013, Earth Observatory)
China suffered another severe bout of air pollution in December 2013. When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASAs Terra satellite acquired this image on December 7, 2013, thick haze stretched from Beijing to Shanghai, a distance of about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles). For comparison, that is about the distance between Boston, Massachusetts, and Raleigh, North Carolina. The brightest areas are clouds or fog. Polluted air appears gray. While northeastern China often faces outbreaks of extreme smog, it is less common for pollution to spread so far south.
Eight Chinese cities fined for air pollution (December 10, 2013, China Daily)
Local governments in eight cities in Northeast China's Liaoning province have been fined a total of 54.2 million yuan ($8.9 million) for air pollution, the provincial department of environment protection said Tuesday. The fines, the first the provincial agency has imposed on lower-level governments, send a clear signal that the provincial government is becoming more serious about tackling air pollution.
LANGUAGE / LANGUAGE LEARNING
The top ten most useful Chinese phrases for beginners (December 11, 2013, Chinese Hacks)
How to Write a Simple Christmas Card in Chinese (December 13, 2012, Horse Dragon Fish)
FOOD / TRAVEL / CULTURE
Palace opens up 'women's world' (December 10, 2013, Global Times)
China's Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, will open its west wings, once the home of the imperial harem, to the public for the first time ever by 2020. Curator Shan Jixiang said that the opening would be in honor of the palace's 600th anniversary in 2020, and it will also renovate a never-finished Western-style "Hall of Water" into a hall for foreign cultural relics, the first such in China, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Unlocking Dianping: An English Guide to China's Biggest Restaurant Review Site (December 11, 2013, Life on Nanchang Lu)
Shanghai has around 80,000 restaurants. Eighty thousand. How on earth do you find out what's good? Do you rely on the tiny sliver of those 80,000 reviewed in English, reviews that tend to be very light on quality Chinese restaurants? Or is there a better way? And what if you're visiting a Chinese city where you can't find any restaurant recommendations in English? What do you do then? You do what every Chinese person does – use Dianping, China's largest user-driven dining review website.
Best Winter Silk Road Pictures of 2012 (January 2013, Far West China)
Its a part of the Silk Road and Xinjiang that the average tourist wont get to see: winter.
BOOKS
9. The Chinese power of nine (December 9, 2013, The Guardian)
Our festive countdown, extracted from Rogerson's Book of Numbers, considers why the number nine has powerful resonance in China.
LINKS FOR RESEARCHERS
Why Chinese study the Warring States Period (December 12, The Diplomat)
For Chinas leadership, an ancient era offers lessons positive and negative for today.
Image Credit: The China Pavillion, by Jakob Montrasio, via Flickr