ZGBriefs

June 26, 2014

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FEATURED ARTICLE

Meet the man behind Pleco, the revolutionary Chinese language learning app thats older than the iPhone (June 25, 2014, Tech in Asia)

Enter Pleco the best Chinese dictionary app on the planet. To some of our readers, a dictionary app might not seem like the most exciting of subjects, but those who know and use Pleco understand how crucial it is to ones language learning regimen. Its one of those rare brand names (if you can call it a brand) that will elicit sheer glee from its users upon the very mention of its name. A Swiss Army knife app featuring 25 dictionaries, almost anyone thats used it can recall a moment when Pleco saved their life.

GOVERNMENT / POLITICS / FOREIGN AFFAIRS

5 Things to know about Hong Kongs referendum (June 20, 2014, Wall Street Journal)

Its not a referendum on universal suffrage, per se. Instead, its a chance for residents who support universal suffrage to express their views on what a democratic system should look like.

China launches campaign to cleanse web of terror content (June 20, 2014, Reuters)

China began a campaign on Friday to purge the Internet of content it says promotes terror and violence, enlisting the aid of major websites, state media said, as the country moves to damp violence in its restive far west.

China quietly launches probe of foreign non-government outfits: media (June 20, 2014, Reuters)

China has quietly begun a probe into the operations of foreign non-government bodies in the country, to prepare for tighter regulations in future, as part of a security drive ordered by a new national panel headed by President Xi Jinping. Non-government organizations have mushroomed in China in recent years, and can have a confrontational relationship with the government, especially if they work with sensitive groups, such as sex workers or drug addicts.

China Xinjiang: 13 'attackers' killed by police (June 21, 2014, BBC)

Thirteen people have been killed in an attack on a police station in China's restive western province of Xinjiang, officials say. The attackers drove a vehicle into the station and tried to set off explosives on Saturday morning, the local government said on its website. Three police suffered minor injuries but no civilians were hurt, it added.

House committee votes to give Chinese Embassy new address: No. 1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza (June 24, 2014, Washington Post)

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday voted to rename the stretch of road in front of the Chinese Embassy Liu Xiaobo Plaza, a symbolic nod to the Nobel Prize-winning dissident and a slap at the human rights record of officials in Beijing. The white-stone compound currently sits at 3505 International Place NW, not far from the Panda House at the National Zoo.

The Online Push to Fuel Extremism Among Chinas Muslim Uighurs (June 25, 2014, China Real Time)

The Internet has been a key propaganda tool for Mideast militants. Now, it appears to be helping spread the ideology and tactics of violent jihadism to Chinas northwestern region of Xinjiang, poorer parts of which came online only recently.

New Chinese map gives greater play to South China Sea claims (June 25, 2014, Reuters)

China has unveiled a new official map of the country giving greater play to its claims on the South China Sea, state media said on Wednesday, making the disputed waters and its numerous islets and reefs more clearly seem like national territory.

In a first, China sends a minister to Taiwan (June 25, 2014, AP)

China has sent its first ever ministerial-level official to Taiwan for four days of meetings to rebuild ties with the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own. Protests in Taipei had set back relations earlier this year and Zhang Zhijun had to go around scores of anti-China demonstrators to enter a hotel for the talks but he said he was very happy to be the first Taiwan Affairs Office minister to visit the island.

Uighur Scholar Will Fight Charges of Separatism in China, Lawyer Says (June 26, 2014, The New York Times)

Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uighur scholar charged with separatism after he repeatedly criticized Chinas increasingly uncompromising policies in Xinjiang, his ethnically divided homeland, told his lawyers on Thursday that he would fight the charges, one of the lawyers said.

Let 1.3 billion vote! (June 26, 2014, Tea Leaf Nation)

Democracy, meet the smart phone. Starting June 20, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers have gone to virtual polls, infuriating Beijing. Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), a protest group that advocates election of the nominally autonomous Chinese city's chief executive via universal suffrage, held a combined online and offline vote on Hong Kong's future from June 20 to 29 that OCLP claimed has drawn over 738,000 electronic ballots so far, most via mobile app.

China jails nine more in Xinjiang for terror offences (June 26, 2014, Reuters)

Authorities in China's violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang have jailed nine more people for up to 14 years for terror-related offences at a public sentencing in front of more than 3,000 people, state media said on Thursday.

Paid holidays for Chinese dissidents – with minders (July 26, 2014, AFP)As top Communist leaders gathered in Beijing, veteran Chinese political activist He Depu was obliged to leave townfor an all-expenses-paid holiday to the tropical island of Hainan, complete with police escorts. It is an unusual method of muzzling dissent, but He is one of dozens of campaigners who rights groups say have been forced on vacationsometimes featuring luxurious hotels beside sun-drenched beaches, trips to tourist sites and lavish dinnerscourtesy of the authorities. It happens so often that dissidents have coined a phrase for it: "being travelled".

Chinas Growing Hegemonic Bent (June 26, 2014, The Diplomat)More and more, China is engaging in the same kind of hegemonic actions it has always denounced in others.

RELIGION

Why are they removing crosses & bulldozing churches in China? (June 19, 2014, China Hope Live)

Why? If you answer, Because they were in violation of building codes! We dont tolerate that sort of thing in England and neither should the Chinese! then YOU FAIL China 101 (and this panda facepalm is for you). If this campaign really was about public safety, building codes and zoning laws as the government claims, then theyd be flattening most of Zhejiang province, not zeroing in on churches (duh I know I shouldnt read the comments under news stories, but I still couldnt believe how many times I saw this idea pop up). If you answer, Because Chinas run by atheistic anti-Christian Communists and its just like when Mao was alive! then youre slightly closer to the truth, but youre still headed for summer school.

A New (and Old) Worldview Divides China's Christians As Communism Fades (June 20, 2014, Christianity Today)

As Christianity and Confucianism continue as two of China's fastest-growing belief systems, thinkers on both sides continue to debate their proper relationship.

Tearing down temples (June 22, 2014, Global Times)Master Kuanxing, abbot of the 600-year-old Shili Temple, which now covered by a newly-constructed road and surrounded by high-rise residential buildings, lives alone in an ancestral hall in a village where his temple was once located."I'm severely sinful, as the temple was destroyed while under my care," Kuanxing said.Along with another local abbot and abbess in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, Kuanxing is expected to move to a new temple being built, which will combine the three temples into one named "Nanhai Palace," after their temples' demolition.

Urbanization and the Future of Chinas Church (June 23, 2014, ChinaSource Blog)How, and whether, the more affluent urban churches and the second-generation migrant churches are able to work together in meeting these challenges will be key to the church's witness in the city. Should the church be seen as offering innovative solutions to the problems of a widening social gap, its ministry will likely be welcomed, but if the same polarizing divide between advantaged and disadvantaged is found within the body of Christ then its witness will be hindered.

Lord, Give me a Vision (June 25, 2014, ChinaSource Blog)

Last month we highlighted a video from the Grace to the City Convention held in Hong Kong in March, which featured the participants singing the popular Getty hymn, "In Christ Alone." Here's another video clip, set to a Chinese praise song called "Lord, Give me a Vision."

SOCIETY / LIFE

The Strange Case of Datong, China's Half-Finished Faux 'Ancient' City (June 18, 2014, City Lab)

An ambitious former mayor started gutting the historic city center and replacing it with replicas. Then he left town.

Meet 10 of Chinas Most Powerful Women (June 22, 2014, TIME)

After its critical acclaim last year with the documentary MAKERS: Women Who Make America, AOL has taken its storytelling brand to China to highlight women whose accomplishments have shattered expectations and serve as an inspiration to their peers.

Meet the Chinese presidential pancake seller (June 23, 2014, BBC)

Hunan province in central China boasts many reminders that it is the birthplace of modern China's founding father Mao Zedong – with everything from statues and museums to restaurants and theme parks. But in the provincial capital, Changsha, the latest tourist attraction is a pancake vendor who bears an uncanny resemblance to China's current president, Xi Jinping.

China court overturns death sentence for abuse victim (June 24, 2014, BBC)

The Supreme Court in China has overturned the death sentence against a woman who killed her husband after months of domestic abuse. The brother of Li Yan told reporters that her case was being reheard.

Chinese Media: Beware American Cultural Products (June 25, 2014, Tea Leaf Nation)

A June 25 opinion piece in pro-Communist Party newspaperGlobal Times titled "Who Is Truly the Black Hand Behind Hong Kong Independence?" insists that U.S. skullduggery lies behind a non-binding Hong Kong referendum on universal suffrage.

Meet the Chinese women standing up to inequality (June 24, 2014, The Guardian)

Activists have 'occupied' men's toilets, donned wedding dresses splashed with red and shaved heads to raise awareness.

Beijing: From Hardship Post To Plum Assignment And Back Again (June 25, 2014, NPR)

As Beijing's notorious air pollution continues to take a toll on people's health, it's also making it much harder for foreign firms to attract staff there these days. Some companies are now offering more money, more vacation and shorter stints to lure people to China's capital. What was once a plum assignment for expatriates is increasingly seen as a hardship post.

New megacity to include Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei with a population of 130 million (June 26, 2014, The Nanfang Insider)

A proposed megacity encapsulating parts of Beijing, Hebei and Tianjin moved closed to reality yesterday with the announcement of a so-called Beijing Seventh Ring Road, reported Sina News.Gao Jinhao, head of the Hebei Provincial Office of Traffic and Transport, announced the plans on the departments official website. The ring road consists of two separate roads. One road is planned to be 940 kilometers in length, and goes through areas of Hebei including Langfang, Baoding, Zhuozhou, Chengde, and Pinggu. The other road is expected to be 1,250 kilometers long and will go through areas of Hebei including Langfang, Baoding, Zhangjiakou, Chengde, and Tangshan.

EDUCATION / HISTORY

The Debate Over Confucius Institutes (June 23, 2014, China File)

Last week, the American Association of University Professors joined a growing chorus of voices calling on North American universities to rethink their relationship with Confucius Institutes, the state-sponsored Chinese-language programs whose policies critics say are anathema to academic freedom. We asked contributors to discuss the debate. Specifically: the costs and benefits of having a Confucius Institute on a university campus; the economic forces at play; and the role of China in university life more broadly.

A Neglected Problem in Chinas Education System (June 24, 2014, China Real Time)

Political leaders everywhere are known to pay lip service to the need for improvements in education, but concern over Chinas vocational schools is likely more than that just political bluster. Thats because the quality of the countrys lower-level technical schools could have a major impact on the countrys future economic growth. As China looks to climb into the ranks of developed nations, one of its main goals is to evolve beyond serving as the worlds factory floor. One barrier to achieving that goal, analysts and education officials say, is the countrys lack of highly-skilled workers.

Graduates Red Guard Photos Cast Doubt on What They Learned (June 26, 2014, Sinosphere)

The photographs show a young man, held down in a bowing position by what appear to be five Red Guards, the youthful fanatics who terrorized China in the name of Chairman Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution. A conical hat sits on his head, a leather belt chokes his throat, and a sign denouncing him as a traitor hangs from his neck with a nylon cord. But the young man is barely suppressing a grin, and the tableau was staged as part of a university graduation celebration.

HEALTH

As Heart Attacks Rise In China, So Does Attention To Quality Of Care (June 23, 2014, NPR)

The Lancet article, of which I'm a co-author, is the first to report the national picture of heart attack care in China over the past decade. It documents a quadrupling of hospitalizations for heart attacks, mirroring the projections by others. It also shows marked improvement in quality of care for some treatments and gaps in quality for others.

Beijing: The worlds unhealthiest city (June 25, 2014, The World of Chinese)

In a grim milestone for toxicity, Beijing was recently found to be the global leader in infirmity. The government-run Center for Disease Control and Prevention released data last week that concludes that residents of the capital will suffer assorted health maladies for a larger portion of their lives than will be the case for residents of any other city in the world.

ECONOMICS / BUSINESS / TRADE

Ni hao, y'all: US hinterlands woo Chinese firms (June 23, 2014, AP)

After decades of siphoning jobs from the United States, China is creating some. Chinese companies invested a record $14 billion in the United States last year, according to the Rhodium Group research firm. Collectively, they employ more than 70,000 Americans, up from virtually none a decade ago. Powerful forces narrowing wage gaps, tumbling U.S. energy prices, the vagaries of currency markets are pulling Chinese companies across the Pacific. Mayors and economic development officials have lined up to welcome Chinese investors. Southern states, touting low labor and land costs, have been especially aggressive.

Over 1,000 Chinese workers unable to flee Iraq (June 26, 2014, China Daily)

Chinese nationals employed by a Chinese company in northern Iraq returned to their construction site on Tuesday after the first bus taking them to safety was stopped by government forces outside the capital, Baghdad.

How Does A Foreigner Set Up A Startup In China? (June 26, 2014, Nanjing Marketing Group)

If you are an entrepreneur and you are thinking of doing business in China, then maybe setting up your company in Mainland China is the way forward. But is it a viable option? Recently I spoke to two entrepreneurs to get their thoughts on the subject. Both have education startups, but have gone down different paths.

SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY / ENVIRONMENT

China Argues for Internet Sovereignty. Is It a Good Idea? (June 23, 2014, China Real Time)

In a full-page spread on the Monday, the Communist Partys mouthpiece newspaper laid out Chinas position on how the Internet and its supporting infrastructure should be dealt with across the globe. [] The upshot: They believe each country should have ultimate power to determine what Internet traffic flows in and out of its territory. Its a concept China has termed Internet sovereignty, and though the opinions of each expert in the article varied, the core message is that each nation should have the right to govern the Internet as it sees fit.

Growing pains of China's agricultural water needs (June 24, 2014, BBC)

China's scarce water supply is being wasted as crops grown in water-stressed provinces are exported to wet, rainfall-rich areas, a study reports. Farming accounts for about 65% of water use in China and the limited resource is coming under pressure from rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. Officials have called the nation's water shortage a "grave situation" and called for strict water controls.

ARTS / ENTERTAINMENT / SPORTS

Chinese Cyclist on Course to Be Countrys First Tour de France Rider (June 26, 2014, Reuters)

A 26-year-old Chinese cyclist is set to be the first person from his country to participate in the Tour de France when the sports biggest race begins next week. Team Giant-Shimano announced on Wednesday that the cyclist, Ji Cheng, had made its list of nine riders expected to participate in the 21-stage, 2,272-mile race. The 101st edition of the race begins in Leeds, England, on July 5.

FOOD / TRAVEL / CULTURE

Know Your Noodles: An Introduction to Asian Noodles (June 19, 2014, Ways of Wanderers)

I'm continuously impressed with the variety of noodles found in Asia, as well as the amazing ways theyre prepared and incorporated into all kinds of different dishes. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but here are a few Asian noodle types Ive come across during the past 2 years in Asia that you should definitely try if you find yourself in this part of the world.

Beijing From Above, Aka The Story Of How I Was Detained By The Police Because Of My Dji Quadcopter (June 24, 2014, Stuck in Customs)

Before I tell you the story of being detained by the Chinese (and, like Taborlin the Great, I similarly did not have key, coin, or candle), Ill share the video I made! I would have gotten even more footage had the quadcopter not been, ahem, confiscated BTW, I recommend running the video in HD mode with earphones!

LANGUAGE / LANGUAGE LEARNING

Dr. Ryken Learns Chinese (Wheaton College Vimeo Channel)

President Ryken recently attempted to learn some words in Mandarin Chinese in order to give a video greeting to our Chinese-speaking friends around the world. It proved to be a bit more difficult than expected, but Dr. Ryken is never one to back down from a challenge.

The Secret Messages Inside Chinese URLs (May 1, 2014, New Republic)Why the preference for digits over letters? It mostly has to do with ease of memorization. To a native English-speaker, remembering a long string of digits might seem harder than memorizing a word. But thats if you understand the word. For many Chinese, numbers are easier to remember than Latin characters.

Tianjinhua (June 24, 2014, The World of Chinese)

Much maligned and often thought of as a bit , or rustic, compared to its neighbor Beijing, the city of Tianjin is nonetheless one of Chinas most important cities. []Now, given the relatively short distance from the capital, you might imagine that there couldnt be many glaring linguistic differences between the Tianjin dialect and Beijinghua, but just speak to a native of this great city, and youll soon see how wrong you were; that is, if youve managed to understand what theyve said in the first place.

How to reach a decent level of Chinese in 100 days (June 25, 2014, Hacking Chinese)

In this post Im going to try to dissect the specific methods I found most successful for reaching a strong conversational level of Chinese, after just a little over three months of private study.

BOOKS

Writing China: Peipei Qiu, Chinese Comfort Women (June 24, 2014, China Real Time)

Peipei Qiu, a professor of Chinese and Japanese at Vassar College, has offered new insights into one of the most traumatic aspects of Japans World War II aggression in a book called Chinese Comfort Women, co-authored with two China-based scholars, Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei.

Writing China: Mara Hvistendahl, And the City Swallowed Them (June 24, 2014, China Real Time)

In 2008, the murder of Canadian model Diana OBrien in her Shanghai stairwell rocked the citys Chinese and expat communities. Years later, author Mara Hvistendahl revisited the story, interviewing the family of the victim and accused killer, police investigators and other models working in China. Her new book, And The City Swallowed Them, looks at the world that brought two different kinds of newcomers togetherforeigners, including young models fighting for emerging opportunities in high fashion, and Chinas own migrants, including those traveling from poor villages who were willing to go to desperate measures to scrape together their own living.

Q. and A.: William C. Kirby on Can China Lead? (June 25, 2014, Sinosphere)

In the book Can China Lead?: Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth, William C. Kirby and F. Warren McFarlan of Harvard Business School and Regina M. Abrami of the Wharton School explore whether China will become the worlds leading power. Their conclusion: Not necessarily.

Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China (June 26, 2014, China File)

This moving oral history interweaves Hes own experiences with the accounts of three student leaders exiled from China. Here, in their own words, they describe their childhoods during Maos Cultural Revolution, their political activism, the bitter disappointments of 1989, and the profound contradictions and challenges they face as exiles.

Photo by billlushana1, via Flickr

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