ZGBriefs | April 16, 2020

Featured Article

China issues guidelines for orderly college reopening amid epidemic prevention  (April 14, 2020, China Daily)
Local authorities can make decisions to allow reopening of universities and colleges in a staggered manner on the prerequisite that local epidemic situation is well under control, and universities are well prepared in epidemic prevention and control as well as effective measures are readied to protect the health of faculties and students, according to the guideline.

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Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

African diplomats protest alleged racism and inhumane treatment of migrants in China  (April 12, 2020, The Globe and Mail)
African governments are protesting against the inhumane treatment of Africans in China who have been evicted from their homes, barred from restaurants and forced to sleep in the streets under Chinese anti-virus measures. The incidents, documented in videos and eyewitness accounts that circulated widely this weekend, have been condemned by some African diplomats as evidence of “racial discrimination” and “unfair” treatment.

Podcast: Initial Reflections on an Unprecedented Crisis in China-Africa Relations  (April 12, 2020, China Africa Project)
Roberto Castillo, an assistant professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, is one of the world’s foremost scholars on the African diaspora in China where he’s done extensive research on the African population in Guangzhou in particular. He joins Eric to share his initial reactions to what’s going on in southern China and what he thinks it will take for Beijing to resolve the crisis.

How China Deceived the WHO  (April 12, 2020, The Atlantic)
The organization’s major structural weakness is that it relies on information from its member countries—and the WHO team that visited China in February to evaluate the response did so jointly with China’s representatives.

China’s bid to repair its coronavirus-hit image is backfiring in the West  (April 14, 2020, The Washington Post)
The wave of skepticism, sometimes from nations friendly toward China, underscores the size of the challenge facing foreign policymakers in Beijing as they look toward the post-pandemic global landscape. 

Hong Kong judges battle Beijing over rule of law as pandemic chills protests  (April 14, 2020, Reuters)
Hong Kong’s judicial system is under increasing duress as signs grow that the Communist Party leadership in Beijing wants to bring the city’s courts to heel. Three senior judges told Reuters the independence of the judiciary is now under threat.

China’s top official in Hong Kong pushes for national security law  (April 15, 2020, The Guardian)
In a speech for China’s national security education day on Wednesday, Luo said Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement was a “major blow” to the rule of law, threatening the one country, two systems principle under which it operates with China, and was influenced by pro-independence and radical violent forces. Many people have “a rather weak concept of national security”, he said.

Possible Chinese Nuclear Testing Stirs U.S. Concern  (April 15, 2020, The Wall Street Journal)
China might be secretly conducting nuclear tests with very low explosive power despite Beijing’s assertions that it is strictly adhering to an international accord banning all nuclear tests, according to a new arms-control report to be made public by the State Department.

China didn’t warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days  (April 15, 2020, AP)
In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.

Religion

Underground Christians in China use faith and tech to reach out to followers at Easter amid Covid-19 crisis  (April 13, 2020, South China Morning Post)
In China, church groups have turned to WeChat and Zoom for their services since late January after religious gatherings were banned as part of the strict social distancing rules imposed to contain the virus. The internet has provided a space for Christian communities to grow their congregations in a country where the government has intensified religious persecution and imposed stricter rules for managing churches.

Police in China’s Chengdu Raid Online Easter Church Service  (April 13, 2020, Radio Free Asia)
Police in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan detained at least eight people in an Easter Sunday raid on the homes of Early Rain Covenant Church members, RFA has learned. Police raided an online meeting of the church in a simultaneous operation targeting church deacons, ministers, volunteers and regular members in their homes Sichuan’s provincial capital Chengdu on Sunday.

Observing Qingming during the Coronavirus Crisis  (April 14, 2020, Chinese Church Voices)
Also known as the “Tomb-sweeping” holiday, relatives clean the grave sites of departed family members and offer them sacrifices or “worship.” How do Christians celebrate Qingming? How have Chinese Christians celebrated Qingming during the COVID-19 pandemic? 

Society / Life

On China’s ‘Color Codes’ and Life After COVID-19  (April 9, 2020, Sixth Tone)
Countries have turned to new technologies to help track citizens’ movements and contain outbreaks. Will they be able to give them up?

Foreigners who flout quarantine rules could face 10-year ban from China  (April 11, 2020, South China Morning Post)
Foreigners in China who flout the country’s coronavirus  quarantine rules risk losing their visas, being deported and banned from re-entry for up to 10 years, Beijing said on Friday as it seeks to curb a rise in imported infections.

5 Million People in China Have Lost their Jobs Thanks to Covid-19 – Here’s How They Are Coping  (April 14, 2020, Radii China)
Whether choosing to wait, act or adapt, Chinese citizens are coping with coronavirus-related job loss in a number of different ways.

The human factor in China’s battle against the coronavirus  (April 15, 2020, MERICS)
The West is watching the Chinese government’s fight against the coronavirus with respect and unease. Kristin Shi-Kupfer says we should also eye the country’s ever more unpredictable citizens. 

Timelapse shows busy Wuhan streets as coronavirus lockdown is lifted – video  (April 15, 2020, The Guardian)
Life in Wuhan is gradually returning to normal as people go shopping and return to work in the once-empty centre of the coronavirus outbreak. Wuhan began to ease its nearly three-month lockdown on 8 April, allowing people with permits to travel in and out of the city.

China’s wet markets are not what some people think they are  (April 15, 2020, CNN)
But wet markets, as opposed to dry markets, which sell non-perishable goods such as grain or household products, are simply places that offer a wide range of fresh produce. Some, but not all, also sell live animals. They are referred to as “wet” owing to the fact that floors are often hosed down after vendors wash vegetables or clean fish.

After lockdown, Wuhan couples eager to marry  (April 16, 2020, China Daily)
Couples in Wuhan, Hubei province, have been heading to marriage-registration offices and wedding photography studios as they try to get their lives back on track. After the lockdown, any day is considered a lucky one to get married.

Economics / Trade / Business

China’s small firms see revenues tumble 70 per cent in March, survey shows  (April 14, 2020, South China Morning Post)
The results paint a bleak picture of the state of the world’s second biggest economy, which was hammered by the pandemic  in the first two months of the year and is all but certain to record a first quarter contraction.

How coronavirus almost brought down the global financial system  (April 14, 2020, The Guardian)
The crisis has brought the economy to a near halt, and left millions of people out of work. But thanks to intervention on an unprecedented scale, a full-scale meltdown has been averted – for now. 

Coronavirus runs roughshod over debt-laden belt and road projects  (April 15, 2020, South China Morning Post)
Six years later, with the coronavirus pandemic destroying lives and economies worldwide, massive debt and “highway to nowhere” concerns hound the 103-mile Bar-Boljare venture and scores of other BRI projects across Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Education

Online classes add another challenge to China’s grueling college entrance exam  (April 14, 2020, Inkstone News)
Many Chinese students consider the yearly college entrance exam as the single most important test they take in their lives. This year’s students have to deal with another hurdle: being forced to study online.

Beijing Education Commission Releases Comprehensive FAQ on Restarting School  (April 15, 2020, The Beijinger)
Following the announcement that Beijing schools will partially reopen on Apr 27, the Beijing Education Commission has moved quickly to answer a number of logistical and health-related questions regarding the resumption of classes, reproduced in full here with translation from our sister site beijingkids.

Frustrated Parents Demand Refunds From Expensive Private Schools  (April 15, 2020, Sixth Tone)
Private international schools in China are facing refund requests from parents unsatisfied with online learning as many institutions remain closed amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Health / Environment

China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest  (April 11, 2020, The Guardian)
China is cracking down on publication of academic research about the origins of the novel coronavirus, in what is likely to be part of a wider attempt to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic, documents published online by Chinese universities appear to show. Two websites for leading Chinese universities appear to have recently published and then removed pages that reference a new policy requiring academic papers dealing with Covid-19 to undergo extra vetting before they are submitted for publication.

China approves two experimental coronavirus vaccines to enter clinical trials  (April 13, 2020, Reuters)
China has approved early-stage human tests for two experimental vaccines to combat the new coronavirus that killed over 100,000 people worldwide, state media Xinhua reported on Tuesday. The vaccines are being developed by a Beijing-based unit of Nasdaq-listed Sinovac Biotech , and by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, an affiliate of state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group.

I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU. Here’s What I Learned  (April 13, 2020, Sixth Tone)
I’ve been a doctor in an intensive care unit for 12 years, and during that time I’ve dealt with all manner of serious diseases. But stepping into that ward was the most terrifying moment of my life.

Once the epicenter of the virus, China strives to keep it out  (April 14, 2020, Christian Science Monitor)
China closed its northern border with Russia after experiencing a new wave of COVID-19 cases. Many Chinese live and work in Russia, where China has major investments.

To Hell and Back: How Wuhan’s ICU Doctors Survived COVID-19  (April 15, 2020, Sixth Tone)
Infections spread like wildfire. Then a shortage of protective equipment struck. But the city’s intensive care units found ways to continue fighting.

History / Culture

Tracing the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway  (April 10, 2020, China Channel)
Though long considered a backwater by Beijing, Yunnan was central to the Southeast Asian economy as the bridge between the tropics and Himalayan nomads linked via the Ancient Tea Horse Roads. A Kunming to Singapore Railway would sew-up this historically volatile and ethnically complex region, making transport far more efficient as well as granting regional supremacy in the hands of whoever held the train keys.

43,942 Infections and 43,942 Deaths!: Read About Arthur Jackson and the Plague of 1911 (Asia Harvest)
In this issue we would like to share the story of another epidemic in China that you have probably never heard of – the pneumonic plague that struck northeast China in 1910-11.

Travel / Food

Under the Skin  (April 15, 2020, The World of Chinese)
In the central Chinese city of Wuhan, it’s said that residents can eat a different breakfast every day for at least a month. This is an understatement: A 1984 book called Wuhan Snacks lists 190 dishes that have almost all been served as breakfast. Indeed, before its name became inextricably linked with the 2019 coronavirus outbreak, the Hubei provincial capital was chiefly renowned for being China’s “breakfast capital.”

Language / Language Learning

Podcast: Mandarin Mayhem  (April 10, 2020, Blubrry)
In this episode, we look at Putonghua, the spoken language most people refer to as Mandarin.

The Whisper of Spring: Chinese Idioms to Help Your Vocabulary Bloom  (April 13, 2020, The Beijinger)
Even though the pandemic has forced us inside more than usual this spring, that doesn’t mean that your vocabulary has to wither and die. In fact, the extra downtime presents the perfect opportunity to brush off your Chinese vocabulary and let your idioms blossom – an art that the Chinese literati reveled in, never failing to find new ways of describing or rejoicing in the arrival spring.

Living Cross-culturally

Expat In Post-Lockdown Wuhan: ‘Things Will Never Be The Same’  (April 8, 2020, NPR)
Originally from Cameroon, Pisso Nseke’s work as a business consultant took him to Wuhan, China — where he was trapped when the city where the coronavirus first emerged sealed itself off from the world in January. That changed on Wednesday. After 76 days, Nseke and the other residents of Wuhan are finally able to leave the city.

Now We Know  (April 15, 2020, ChinaSource Blog)
Suddenly I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and familiar voices calling out my name. My students. When I opened the door, a boy asked about a forgotten red scarf. As he retrieved it from behind my comfy spot, he caught sight of my cup and cookies on the small table. If a face can show pity, his was oozing with it. “Oh, Teacher Barbara, you’re just one now.”

Books

Essential New Reading on China  (April 12, 2020, The Wire China)
We all know there are too many books about China. Some are birds’-eye views – the ones with red-and-gold cover designs, dragon illustrations and big picture theses on how China is changing the world. Others are on-the-ground reportage, academic takes on important questions or critical historical context. All have their value, and we’re here to sift through the pile to pick out the diamonds, with an interest in business and the economy but a wide remit and eclectic fare. 

Stories of Christian Women in China: A Book Review  (April 13, 2020, ChinaSource Blog)
In this oral history collection, women share their lives, the political and economic backdrops, as well as the nature of their relationships with their mothers, and the impact that their Christian faith has had on them.

Links for Researchers

Online Index of Studies in World Christianity  (April 14, 2020, Centre for the Study of World Christianity)

Journal of Global Christianity (April, 2020, Training Leaders International)