FEATURED ARTICLE
Western and Chinese Church History (November 5, 2013, Chinese Church Voices)
In this article, The Chinese Church: Past, Present and Future, translated from the journal ChurchChina, author Gao Zhen explores the history of the Chinese Church, examines the issues and challenges facing the church today, and looks ahead.
GOVERNMENT / POLITICS / FOREIGN AFFAIRS
What the Tiananmen Square attack reveals about China's security state (November 1, 2013, Christian Science Monitor)
China blames a Uighur separatist group for the Tiananmen car attack this week. But that's highly unlikely, analysts say.
Economists Predict: Chinas Third Plenum (November 1, 2013, China Real Time)
Here, economists share their ideas on what we should expect from this years meeting and what we shouldnt. Excerpts have been edited for length, style and clarity.
China vows to silence Dalai Lama in Tibet (November 2, 2013, AFP)
China's ruling Communist Party aims to silence the voice of the Dalai Lama in his Tibetan homeland by tightening controls on media and the Internet, a top official said on Saturday. The party's top-ranking official in the Tibet region Chen Quanguo vowed to "ensure that the voices of hostile forces and the Dalai group are not seen or heard," in an editorial published in a party journal called Qiushi.
Bao Tong: Third Communist Plenum, (unlikely) turning point for China (November 2, 2013, Asia News)
Chinese history teaches that the first plenary meeting of the new leadership is summoned to attest to the peaceful transition of power, the second is for the handover and the third is the showdown of the new masters of the country. But the arrests of dissidents continue and ferocious abuse of the populations human rights leave little hope for Xi Jinping leadership.
China: the numbers game (November 3, 2013, The Guardian)
Without changing the system, President Xi Jinping cannot guarantee the economic growth he needs.
Tiananmen blast: Xinjiang general stripped of role (November 3, 2013, BBC)
The military commander in China's restive western province of Xinjiang has been stripped of his Communist Party position, state media report. It comes less than a week after a fatal attack in Beijing, blamed on Muslim Uighurs, who make up a large part of the population in Xinjiang. No reason was given for the dismissal.I
n Remote Village, Chinas Leader Faces Awkward Question: Who Are You? (November 4, 2013, Sinosphere)
It must have been a slightly uncomfortable moment for the village official. Chinas top leader, Xi Jinping, had come to Shibadong village to gauge conditions in a poor corner of Hunan Province. Upon entering the home of a family whose sole electrical appliance was a fluorescent bulb, the most powerful man in China was asked by the 64-year-old matriarch, What do I call you?, according to a report from Xinhua, the state-run news agency. It was a polite way of saying, Who are you? The village official stepped in quickly, telling his constituent, This is the general secretary.
Security in Xinjiang: Tightening the screws (November 4, 2013, Analects)
Since an outbreak of inter-ethnic rioting in Urumqi in July 2009 that left around 200 people dead, many of them members of Chinas ethnic-Han majority, the police have remained vigilant in Uighur-dominated areas of the city.
Will China's Third Plenum be an economic turning point? (November 4, 2013, BBC)
Will 2013 be another 1978 or at least another 1993 for China? Those were the two significant overhauls of economic policy which occurred during previous Third Plenums. The Third Plenum refers to the third time that the new leaders of China lead a plenary session of the Central Committee. The current one is being billed as being as just as significant as the one in December 1978 that marked the start of market-oriented reforms in China over three decades ago under Deng Xiaoping.
The Extreme Tilt of Chinese Internet Politics (November 4, 2013, China Real Time)
Its clear why the government would want to target the Big Vs, many of whom are critical of authorities and capable of disseminating their views across the country with the push of a button. Less clear is whether Beijing, by subduing the Chinese Internets most influential voices, will actually achieve its stated goal of purifying the online environment. A soon-to-be published survey of Chinese Internet users conducted by Ma Deyong, a political science professor at Nankai University, suggests its unlikely.
Chatting With the Communist Partys Corruption Busters (November 5, 2013, China Real Time)
Whistleblowers of China, worry not. The government will actually listen to what you have to say, and try very hard to make sure you dont suffer for saying it. That was the message from Zhang Jun, deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist Partys powerful graft busters, in an unusual online chat with Chinese Internet on Tuesday.
Seven blasts target provincial Chinese Communist Party headquarters in Taiyuan (November 6, 2013, Sydney Morning Herald)
Bomb blasts targeting a Communist Party government building have killed at least one person and injured eight others in the northern city of Taiyuan in Shanxi province. Witnesses reported as many as seven loud explosions on the busy main street which sent pedestrians scattering during the Wednesday morning rush hour. Police were still investigating the incident. Ball bearings found at the scene indicated the homemade bombs, although small, were designed to inflict maximum damage.
Xinjiang Dreams: Worrying about ethnicity (November 6, 2013, China Policy Institute Blog)
The events at Tiananmen on October 28th 2013 will again stimulate discussion of Chinas ethnic minority policies in the lead up to the 3rd Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee.
Behind corrupt news, a corrupt system (November 6, 2013, China Media Project)
Even the stars can be seen in Beijing skies at the moment. The wind raked through yesterday. The smog lifted. Recently, as it seemed the smog would never clear, I surrendered and joined the ranks I too bought an air purifier. After all, Doctor Zhong Nanshan (), the hero of SARS, said the smog in the north right now was more harmful than the epidemic a decade ago. You cant just sit around, can you breathing in those cancer causing particles and waiting for death to come? At the moment, though, the smog in Chinas media presents a more insoluble problem.
Chinese Leaders Economic Plan Tests Goal to Fortify Party Power (November 6, 2013, The New York Times)
Chinas president, Xi Jinping, is about to plunge the country and himself into a risky experiment: an attempt to carry out market-driven economic overhauls while reinforcing the Communist Partys pillars of political and ideological control. This mixed agenda has magnified doubts about whether he can deliver on his promises of transformation.
China's Communists want unattainable goal of affluence without freedom (November 6, 2013, The Telegraph)
China's Communist Party has promised us a "master plan". The Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress this weekend will launch the next great leap forward, propelling China into the world's top league of hi-tech affluence.
Off China's coast, U.S. carrier displays teeth behind the pivot (November 7, 2013, Reuters)
F-18 Super Hornet jet fighters roar from its decks with chest-thumping velocity less than 300 km (185 miles) from the Chinese coast – a symbol of U.S. naval dominance in Asia that Chinese analysts fear could contain Beijing's rising power for decades. Yet just 30 km (19 miles) away is a lone Chinese naval frigate, well within the protective screen of U.S. ships and aircraft that protect the carrier across a vast swathe of the disputed South China Sea.
RELIGION
What if the rich, young ruler had been Chinese? (November 6, 2013, Jackson Wu)
Western Christians make a big deal of the rich young ruler story (Matt. 19:1629; Mark 10:17-30; Luke 18:1830). The account has become the quintessential expression of a legalist trying to earn his salvation. Is this interpretation correct or is it just a caricature of the rich man? Our understanding of the story matters significantly because it shapes the way many people perceive a sinners problem and thus do evangelism. To explore this question further, let us consider what we would see if we read the text with a Chinese lens. This post simply makes a few observations that prepare us for the upcoming post, in which I will show in what sense Jesus preached a Chinese gospel.
Chinese Muslims return after Mecca pilgrimage (November 7, 2013, Xinhua)
A group of 288 Chinese Muslims, the last to return after their pilgrimage to Mecca this year, arrived in Beijing on Thursday via charter flight. A total of 11,800 Chinese pilgrims have safely returned to China from Mecca, Saudi Arabia via the country's charter flights for this year's pilgrimage, according to the State Administration for Religious Affairs.
SOCIETY / LIFE
One city, many changes: A reporter's return trip to Zigong (October 31, 2013, Marketplace)
Life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zigong was never very peaceful. In 1996 when I came here to teach English at the local Teachers College, I lived next door to the music department. That windows were always open, housing dozens of students who practiced their scales at all hours of the day. Seventeen years later, the music still plays: the sound of students working hard, making mistakes, and learning from them.
China Opens Highway to Last Isolated County, Xinhua Says (November 1, 2013, Bloomberg)
China opened a highway in Tibet connecting the nations last county without roads to a neighboring area, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The 117-kilometer highway linking Medog county with neighboring Bome county opened to traffic yesterday, Xinhua reported. Construction of the road started in April 2009 and cost 950 million yuan ($156 million), according to Xinhua.
Chongqing Restaurants Serve Cultural-Revolution Nostalgia (November 4, 2013, The Atlantic)
In the massive central Chinese city, establishments with Red Guards, Maoist songs, and portraits of Communist luminaries have become popular.
Small Part, Big Screen: A Beijing Migrant Tries to Break Into the Movies (November 5, 2013, China File)
Every morning outside the imposing gate of the Beijing Film Studio, a throng gathers to try to find a way inside. These arent fans, exactly. Look at their faces, the practiced way they crane their necks or square their shoulders when the man with the clipboard comes out to take their measure. This is a shape-up, the day laborers morning ritual: stand tall, make eye contact, get the boss to pick me.
After Taiyuan Explosions, Netizens Debate Value of Violence (November 6, 2013, Tea Leaf Nation)
Online responses to the attack highlight the important debate occurring in China between those who sympathize with anti-government violence and those who dont. The attack is big news there: The top three searches on Sina Weibo, Chinas Twitter, all relate to the explosion, and an announcement about the explosion from the local polices official Weibo account is the #2 trending post, with over 8,000 related comments. Among the hundreds of comments sampled, a surprisingly large portion expressed sympathy for the perpetrator (or perpetrators). One Weibo user wrote that under enough government pressure common people are all possible terrorists. Another wrote that people explode when the pressure is high enough.
Foreigners who disobey courts could be barred from leaving (November 6, 2013, China Daily)
Foreigners who fail to comply with all court rulings face being banned from leaving China, with information about them disclosed online, court officials say. On Tuesday, the Supreme People's Court, the country's top court, published a blacklist of 31,259 people who have refused to make court-ordered payments and failed to comply with rulings. Five of them are from overseas. The five are involved in disputes over debts in Beijing and in Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces, the top court's implementation department said.
EDUCATION / HISTORY
Video: Mainlanders flock to HK to take the SAT(November 3, 2013, CCTV, via Silicon Hutong)
Why Chinese students abroad never party, according to Chinese students (November 3, 2013, Shanghaiist)
This viral video series by Chinese students in the US answers questions many US university students have but feel weird/un-PC asking, like "why don't the Chinese students ever party," and "why do they only speak Chinese?"
Why children as young as three are sent to boarding school in China (November 4, 2013, BBC)
Family ties are hugely important in China, but thousands of Chinese parents are still sending children as young as three away to boarding school. Why do they do it?
China's Forbidden City rocks were transported on ice (November 5, 2013, BBC)
Huge stones that make up parts of China's Forbidden City were transported along artificial ice paths lubricated with water, a team says. That's despite the fact that wheeled vehicles had been developed 3,000 years earlier. The colossal city was built in the 15th Century by workers at the start of the Ming dynasty.
English May Be Losing Its Luster in China (November 7, 2013, China Real Time)
Estimates vary, but state media China Daily said there were many as 400 million English-language learners in China at the beginning of this decade. In 2011, the market for English-language training was worth 46.3 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) according to market data provider Beijing Zhongzhilin Information Technology Ltd. Yet as Chinas economy matures, creating a domestic consumer class and homegrown companies to serve it, many Chinese such as Ms. Wang see new job opportunities that dont require English. Meanwhile, some critics blame an overemphasis on English in schools for contributing to an erosion of Chinese skills in young people.
Slide show: Chinese students in the US dress up as Red Guards for Halloween (QQ News)
HEALTH
Chinese Doctors Becoming the Targets of Patients Anger (November 1, 2013, Sinosphere)
Chinas hospitals are a battleground not just for the war on illness but also for the one between physicians and their patients. If that statement seems extreme, consider these data points from state-run medical organizations: Medical staff are attacked by patients or their relatives at a rate of once every two weeks per hospital, according to the China Hospital Association, Chinese news agencies reported.
An 8-Year-Old Girls Lung Cancer Is Blamed on Air Pollution (November 5, 2013, Sinosphere)
An 8-year-old girl in Jiangsu Province is the youngest person in China to have received a diagnosis of lung cancer, which a doctor treating her has attributed to air pollution, according to an official news report. The report, which circulated widely online Tuesday, said the girl had been living near busy streets and inhaling dirty air. The report was first published on Monday by China News Service and reprinted on the website of Peoples Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece.
Sex education cartoon an instant online hit (November 6, 2013, Xinhua)
A cartoon series answering the question "where do I come from?" became an instant online hit this week, breaking a Chinese taboo of educating youngsters about the birds and the bees. The three-part series, each lasting one minute, uses humor to describe where babies come from, why boys and girls are different and how to prevent sexual assaults, topics which many parents try to avoid. The cartoon, which was made by Nutcracker Studios, tells children "they were not picked up at a garbage dump," a typical jokey reply given by many Chinese parents.
ECONOMICS / BUSINESS / TRADE
Ikea in China: Store or theme park? (November 4, 2013, BBC)
In China, Ikea isn't just a home furnishing depot – a place to buy what you need and leave. Many here treat it like a furniture-filled theme park, a place to spend hours taking every product for a spin. "It takes me five or six hours to drive here and I'll stay for at least eight hours," explains Mr Han, a young man who drove here from Handan, a city in neighbouring Hebei province. But the slog is worth it, he says. "I like how they give us the real experience of using their products."
SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY / ENVIRONMENT
Poyang Lake dries up in this year's drought (November 3, 2013, Shanghaiist)
In Jiangxi Province, the massive Poyang lake is on its last legs. Although the lake's water levels do rise and fall seasonally, this year much of the lake has dried up completely, leaving many people out of work and out of water.
China shows off moon rover model before space launch (November 5, 2013, AFP)
China offered a rare glimpse into its secretive space programme on Tuesday, displaying a model of a lunar rover that will explore the moon's surface in an upcoming mission. Beijing has ambitious space goals, including plans to send its first probe to land on the moon by the end of this year, state media reported in August. The gold-coloured rover model, with six wheels and wing-like solar panels, attracted admiring crowds at the opening of the China International Industry Fair in Shanghai.
China cracks down on emissions to combat choking smog (November 6, 2013, The Guardian)
Chinese cities should close schools, cut working hours and stop outdoor activities during the most severe spells of air pollution, the ministry of environmental protection has said. "Every possible compulsory measure" must be taken to cut emissions during the heaviest smog including suspending factory production and imposing traffic restrictions.
If You Think Chinas Air Is Bad (November 7, 2013, The New York Times)
For visitors, Chinas water problem becomes apparent upon entering the hotel room. The smell of a polluted river might emanate from the showerhead. Need to quench your thirst? The drip from the tap is rarely potable. Can you trust the bottled water? Many Chinese dont. What about brushing your teeth?
ARTS / ENTERTAINMENT
Terracotta Daughters: a tribute to Chinas lost women (November 4, 2013, World of Chinese)
The Terracotta Daughters are deeply moving artworks musing on loss and lost womanhood. I first remember looking at them online, and they were undeniably haunting, unnerving in some way. Instead of seeing strong male soldiers in armor, I saw small quiet girls dressed in their school uniforms.
China demands 'positive images' in return for access to markets (November 6, 2013, The Guardian)
A senior figure in the Chinese film industry outlined the conditions it is setting for Hollywood to gain access to its lucrative box-office revenues, central among which is more "positive images" of the country and its culture.
FOOD / TRAVEL / CULTURE
Qingcheng Shan: Sacred Mountain (November 6, 2013, Go Chengdoo)
The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way; The names that can be named are not the unvarying names. If these famous lines have been puzzling you since your first lecture on the Tao Te Ching, chances are a visit to Qingcheng Mountain will not bring you closer to clarity. But feeling the soreness in your legs the day after your pilgrimage may fill you with regret.
24 Hours in Xiamen (November 7, 2013, Life on Nanchang Lu)
If you have just 24 hours to pack in the best Xiamen has to offer, here's some suggestions. I spaced out my sightseeing over a week between helping out in the Emergency Room, giving lectures, writing reports and er visiting restaurants.
LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE LEARNING
The Chengyu Bias (November 6, 2013, Sinosplice)
Chengyu (成语) are the (usually) four-character idioms that any intermediate learner of Chinese knows about. By the time you get to the intermediate level of Chinese, youve heard lots about how many of them there are, and how richly imbued with Chinese culture they are, and how theyre wonderful little stories packed into four short characters. Oh, and there are literally thousands of them, so you better start memorizing.
BOOKS
China Goes Global: The Partial Power, by David Shambaugh [Kindle Edition] (Amazon)
Most global citizens are well aware of the explosive growth of the Chinese economy. Indeed, China has famously become the "workshop of the world." Yet, while China watchers have shed much light on the country's internal dynamicsChina's politics, its vast social changes, and its economic developmentfew have focused on how this increasingly powerful nation has become more active and assertive throughout the world.
ARTICLES FOR RESEARCHERS
Japanese Colonial Tourism in Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan (Dissertation Review)
In a beautifully written dissertation, Kate McDonald tells a story of Japanese colonial tourism in the aftermath of World War I. Interestingly, it turns out that it is a story less about defining colonized populations (as was the case with the British and French) and more about shaping perceptions of the colonized place.
Image credit: Joann Pittman