ZGBriefs

ZGBriefs | April 23, 2015

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ZGBriefs is a compilation of news items gathered from published online sources.
ChinaSource is not responsible for the content, and inclusion in ZGBriefs does not equal endorsement.

Featured Article

With an Influx of Newcomers, Little Chinatowns Dot a Changing Brooklyn (April 15, 2015, The New York Times)
With Chinese immigrants now the second largest foreign-born group in the city and soon to overtake Dominicans for the top spot, they are reshaping neighborhoods far beyond their traditional enclaves. Nowhere is the rapid growth of the city’s Chinese population more pronounced than in Brooklyn

Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

Working with Iron: Meet Xi Jinping’s English Translator (April 16, 2015, China Real Time)
The government translator has had an important role in shaping another big international communication initiative: “Xi Jinping: the Governance of China.” Mr. Huang was a senior English translator for the compilation of 79 speeches and interviews by the president that China calls a best-seller and will be officially launched in the U.S. next month at a book fair in New York City.

China Building Aircraft Runway in Disputed Spratly Islands (April 16, 2015, The New York Times)
China is building a concrete runway on an island in the South China Sea’s contested waters that will be capable of handling military aircraft when finished, satellite images released Thursday show.

U.S. Official’s China Visit Offers Peek Into Communist Party Training School (April 16, 2015, China Real Time)
During her weeklong mission to China to change mindsets about American technology, U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker on Thursday pressed the message at a Communist Party institution of higher learning.

Dreaming of Uighuristan (April 16, 2015, BBC)
The outside world knows a lot about the Tibetans' historic struggle for independence, but much less about the Uighurs' dream of a state in Xinjiang, to the north of Tibet – Uighuristan, as they call it, or just Watan, meaning "homeland".

China’s Maodun: A Free Internet Caged by the Chinese Communist Party (April 16, 2015, China Brief)
China pursues a strategy of aggressive cyberspace management and is in the midst of fostering a military cyber force to further the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) primary interest: to stay in power.

Chinese Journalist Sentenced to 7 Years on Charges of Leaking State Secrets (April 16, 2015, The New York Times)
Gao Yu, a 71-year-old Chinese journalist who has repeatedly challenged the Communist Party during a decades-long career, was sentenced to seven years in prison on Friday after a court in Beijing found her guilty of leaking state secrets abroad. Ms. Gao said she would appeal, according to her lawyer and her brother, who were in the courtroom.

China's feminist five: 'This is the worst crackdown on lawyers, activists and scholars in decades' (April 17, 2015, The Guardian)
Five women’s rights activists were freed on bail this week after being arrested by Chinese authorities for ‘provoking trouble’. But is their release secure? One Chinese blogger explains how the internet is helping fellow activist across the country fight for their rights.  

Tiananmen Protester’s Plea to China: Let Me See My Dying Mother (April 17, 2015, Sinosphere)
Now an American citizen and a United States Army chaplain, Major Xiong said in a telephone interview on Friday that he had asked to return to his homeland. His mother, who is in her 70s, is dying, he said, and he has asked the Chinese authorities to allow him to travel back to say goodbye. But Chinese consular officials have so far ignored his request, he said, reflecting how the country has yet to come to terms with the protests 26 years ago.

China’s Race Problem: How Beijing Represses Minorities (May-June, 2015, Foreign Affairs)
For all the tremendous change China has experienced in recent decades—phenomenal economic growth, improved living standards, and an ascent to great-power status—the country has made little progress when it comes to the treatment of its ethnic minorities, most of whom live in China’s sparsely populated frontier regions. This is by no means a new problem. Indeed, one of those regions, Tibet, represents one of the “three Ts”—taboo topics that the Chinese government has long forbidden its citizens to discuss openly.

Why China’s President Xi Jinping isn’t Mao 2.0 (April 20, 2015, Reuters)
The massive changes underway in China — from rapid urbanization, to the closing of coal-fired power plants, to the insuring of deposit accounts — are happening not because of some top-down, heavy-handed approach by Xi, but because of circumstance. Not only is Xi not as authoritarian as many Westerners have depicted him, but he faces a series of challenges that will continue to undermine the power he does hold.

Xi Jinping Plans to Fund Pakistan (April 21, 2015, The New York Times)
President Xi Jinping of China on Tuesday concluded an upbeat two-day visit to Pakistan during which he pledged $46 billion worth of energy and infrastructure projects. The ambitious new development plans center on a network of Chinese rail and road projects linking the port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea, with Xinjiang Province in western China.

Former China Security Head Spied on Leaders, Probe Said to Find (April 19, 2015, Bloomberg)
China’s investigation of former security chief Zhou Yongkang found evidence that he ordered unauthorized spying on top leaders including President Xi Jinping, according to two people familiar with the probe. The investigation showed that Zhou used phone taps and other methods to gather information on the family assets, private lives and political stances of China’s leaders, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is confidential.

Xi Jinping’s comprehensive fight against corruption (April 21, 2015, East Asia Forum)
Xi Jinping’s recent announcement of the Four Comprehensives is crucial to reform in the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). The Four Comprehensives are likely to be put forward as Xi’s contribution to the CPC theoretical canon, providing the ideological legitimacy for his reform and anti-corruption campaign. If this is the case, this new concept is an important means for analysing the future direction of Xi Jinping’s leadership and makes it clear that the current cycle of increased power centralisation and party discipline will continue.

Religion

Vatican Cardinal: China Needs A ‘Constantine’ To Become A Christian Nation (April 17, 2015, Breitbart)
With his usual candor, Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s financial czar, spoke Thursday of the future of Christianity in the United States, Europe, and China–noting that Christianity is already spreading like wildfire in China just as it did “in the old pagan Roman Empire” two thousand years ago.

Tibetan Dies After Setting Himself on Fire in Protest (April 17, 2015, The New York Times)
A man set himself on fire in a heavily Tibetan region of southwest China this week, leaving behind a makeshift shrine that included a photo of the Dalai Lama, international groups reported on Friday. He was the second Tibetan to set himself on fire in a protest in the last two weeks and the 139th within China since the practice began among Tibetans in February 2009.

Is Compassion Conditional? (April 17, 2015, ChinaSource Blog)
If we are going to err, isn’t it better to err on the side of compassion? Should the beggar truly be in need, then we have helped. And if he’s not, then we are only out a few mao and we have demonstrated a heart of compassion, which of course really isn’t a demonstration of our own heart, but the heart of God. 

The largest Buddhist settlement in the world (April 19, 2015, The Daily Mail)
Among the green rolling hills in the Larung Gar Valley in China, the last thing you would expect to see in the countryside are thousands of red wooden huts that have been built in a massive cluster. Despite its secluded location it is home to the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, the world's largest Buddhist settlement. A vibrant splash of red, this colourful settlement has sprung up in the 1980s and is now a haven for over 40,000 monks and nuns.  

The Safety Belt of China (April 20, 2015, ChinaSource Blog)
One of the pastors, in talking about the importance of church planting, referenced Dever’s talk from earlier in the day. “Church planting, he said, is the safety belt of China.” 

A Chinese Worship Song: "Lord, Give Me a Vision" (April 21, 2015, ChinaSource Blog)
As is the case with any such conference, worship was also a central focus. Here is a video from the conference of the participants singing a popular Chinese Christian worship song called “Lord, Give Me a Vision.”

Christian persecution in China's Zhejiang more severe than first thought: monitor (April 22, 2015, UCA News)
The scale of a church demolition campaign in China’s Zhejiang province may be much greater than previously reported, US-based China Aid warned this week. The campaign was already considered among the most destructive against Christianity in Asia in recent times with previous estimates of more than 400 crosses forcibly removed and about 35 churches destroyed since the end of 2013. But the real number of crosses taken down may have reached 1,000 with up to 50 churches destroyed based on unverified reporting in Zhejiang’s local media, China Aid said in its annual report for 2014.

Society / Life

Bang goes retirement (April 16, 2015, The Economist)
Workers born in the countryside are hitting retirement age and still working.

Immigration Issues for Dual Nationality Chinese Children (April 20, 2015, US and China Visa Law Blog)
China’s Nationality Law “is causing big headaches for the growing number of mixed-nationality families in China,” as recounted in Visa Complexity Vexes Parents of Dual Nationality Chinese Children (Los Angeles Times, Apr. 19, 2015). The first hurdle is that many parents don’t know that their child has Chinese citizenship, especially in cases where the child is born in China to one Chinese parent or born abroad to a Chinese parent who has not settled abroad.

US Teacher Deported After Sending Text Messages Critical of China’s Tibet Policies (April 21, 2015, The Nanfang Insider)
L. is a U.S. citizen in her early 30s. In January 2015 she moved to China to work as an English teacher in a public high school in Shenzhen. Her life in China was good. She had already lived in foreign countries such as Russia and South Korea, so she had learned to adjust herself to new cultures and customs. She liked her new job and her flat. She loved her students. But it all came to an abrupt end after she decided to travel to Tibet.

Q&A: James Fallows on China-watching at a distance and urban reinvigoration (April 22, 2015, China Economic Review)
China Economic Review sat down with Fallows this week to discuss his recent reportage, the state of China-watching from afar, media trends and the future of urban China.

Education

Africa Focus: Kenya to introduce Chinese language into school curriculum (April 21, 2015, Xinhua)
Kenya will introduce Chinese language into its school curriculum system to boost Sino-Kenyan relation, an education official said on Monday. The role Beijing plays in Kenya's economy has impacted in many spheres hence the need to increase the number of Chinese speakers in the country, said Julius Jwan, development chief of Kenya's curriculum institute.

Chinese Children Rub Eyes to Improve Vision (April 21, 2015, China Real Time)
Every day, millions of Chinese children sit at their desk and diligently massage around their eyes in an attempt to improve their eye health and vision. These acupressure eye exercises, based on traditional Chinese medicine ideas, have been carried out by decades of schoolchildren in China and are thought to help stave off near-sightedness, also called myopia.

After Student Outrage, Hong Kong University Backtracks on Mandatory China Exchanges (April 21, 2015, China Real Time)
In the aftermath of the Occupy protests, Hong Kong’s top university feels like a campus on edge. The University of Hong Kong played a key role in the organization and outbreak of the protests late last year. Some fear that could prompt Beijing to step up efforts to influence the school. The latest incident to shake HKU’s campus was an announcement by the school’s vice-president Ian Holliday at a dinner with students Friday that all undergraduates would be required by 2022 to participate in exchange visits to mainland China.

Chinese school bars windows and balconies to stop pupil suicides (April 22, 2015, The Guardian)
An elite Chinese school has been criticised for turning classrooms into virtual jails by fitting windows and balconies with metal bars in an apparent attempt to stop students leaping to their deaths.

Waldorf Schools in China : Evaluating an Alternative to Chinese Schools (April 22, 2015, ChinaSource Blog)
Waldorf Schools are popping up in first, second, and third tier cities of China. The schools are beautiful inside and out and often located slightly outside of the city, where they can acquire more land and be in more natural surroundings.

Health / Environment

Chinese Health Concepts You Should Know About (April 2, 2015, Yoyo Chinese)
Whenever I got sick as a child, my parents had two diagnoses: I was either too hot or too cold. Being too hot meant 上火 (shàng huŏ), an increase of fire or masculine yang energy in the body’s chi.

Glass Half Full: Beijing's Air Getting Better, Says Greenpeace (April 21, 2015, The Beijinger)
Glass half full: Greenpeace, that regular purveyor of bad news on how we humans are destroying our environment, has actually sounded a note of positivity regarding Beijing's bad air: It's getting better.

China's air quality under scrutiny on Earth Day (April 21, 2015, CNN)
CNN's Steven Jiang meets an environmentalist who says awareness of China's air pollution is rising despite official attempts to ban a popular documentary.

Why Chinese Hospitals Are Boycotting Baidu (April 21, 2015, Caixin)
Thousands of hospitals refuse to pay for Baidu search results as a pricing dispute shakes China's online advertising sector.

Economics / Trade / Business

Apple Grows its Own Solar Farms in China (April 17, 2015, China Real Time)
Call it savvy public relations or plain good investing, but Apple is becoming a solar-power developer in China. News Thursday that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is partnering with SunPower., a major U.S. solar-panel maker, to build two solar power plants in China’s southwestern Sichuan province, highlights Apple’s attempts to offset its growing carbon footprint in China, where it is expanding at a rapid pace.

Chinese State TV Investigates Rice Switcheroo Scam at National Grain Warehouse (April 20, 2015, China Real Time)
If you’re eating in China, beware: Your rice might be older than you think it is. China’s history of famine and starvation led it in 2004 to set up a price system that guarantees that the state would buy grains from farmers if the market falls below a preset level. The price floor encouraged farmers to produce even under expectations of weak markets.

What in the world does China own? (April 20, 2015, BBC)
With an estimated $4 trillion (£2.7tn) of foreign reserves stashed away in various sovereign wealth funds, China has plenty of cash to splash. Despite the recent slowdown in the country's GDP, most developed economies would dream of an annual growth rate of 7%.

History / Culture

How Shanghai opened its doors to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution (April 16, 2015, South China Morning Post)
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war, in which an estimated 25 million civilians died, including 6 million Jews. Former US treasury secretary Michael Blumenthal recalls how his family took shelter in Shanghai after fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939.

T.H. Tsien, 105, Dies; Scholar of Chinese Books Rescued 30,000 of Them (April 19, 2015, The New York Times)
T. H. Tsien, a scholar of Chinese books and printing who in 1941 risked his life to smuggle tens of thousands of rare volumes to safety amid the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, died on April 9 at his home in Chicago. He was 105.

A righteous view of history (April 22, 2015, China Media Project)
In a high-minded article posted on Monday to the official website of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences — and published in its official journal, Chinese Social Sciences Today — Li Zhiting (李治亭) of the National Qing Dynasty History Compilation Committee (国家清史编纂委员会) attacked a handful of American sinologists, ridiculing their work in the field of “New Qing History” as “pseudo-academic.”

Science / Technology

Scaling the firewall: Ways around government censorship online (+video) (April 20, 2015, Christian Science Monitor)
As countries such as Turkey, China, Ethiopia, and Bahrain block online content, people are discovering ways to get around Internet censors. Their methods depend on the kind of censorship they face and what they are doing online.

This Chart Explains Everything You Need to Know About Chinese Internet Censorship (April 21, 2015, China File)

But a discerning observer can still sketch out the shadowy form of the (often unwritten) rules that govern the Chinese web. Before posting, a Chinese web user is likely to consider basic questions about how likely a post is to travel, whether it runs counter to government priorities, and whether it calls for action or is likely to engender it.

Arts / Entertainment / Media / Sports

China Cracks Down on Golf, the ‘Sport for Millionaires’ (April 18, 2015, The New York Times)
In a flurry of recent reports, state-run news outlets have depicted the sport as yet another temptation that has led Communist Party officials astray. A top official at the Commerce Ministry is under investigation on suspicion of allowing an unidentified company to pay his golf expenses. The government has shut down dozens of courses across the country built in violation of a ban intended to protect China’s limited supplies of water and arable land.

What a Difference a Decade Makes: Xinjiang Film Emerges From the Past (April 21, 2015, Sinosphere)
One camera, one two-man crew, 16 poems, about 16 prostitutes and roughly 40 days in Xinjiang were all it took to make the road movie “Poet on a Business Trip.” That, and about 12 years of leaving the footage on a shelf, an incubation period that transformed the film into an inadvertent documentary of a seemingly more tranquil time in the ethnically divided region in western China.

Travel / Food

L.A. museums sign on to 'China Ready' program in bid to draw tourists (April 17, 2015, Los Angeles Times)
With a dozen other L.A. cultural organizations, most of them museums, the Getty has taken advantage of "China Ready," a seminar program the tourism board launched last year to help businesses of all kinds become magnets for Chinese vacationers. Those that complete the program are designated "China Ready" — a seal of approval they can use in overtures to the Chinese travel market.

6 Man-Made Landscapes To See In China (April 17, 2015, The Fried Noodle)

The Man Who Spent A Year Studying Xiao Long Bao (April 17, 2015, Smart Shanghai)
I’ve spent the last 16 months roaming Shanghai, dissecting xiao long bao one shop at a time, one dumpling at a time, to create The Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index. It is, to quote myself, “a quantitative interpretation of the colloquial standards for a well-constructed soup dumpling”, based on what many Shanghainese will tell you makes a good one: thin wrapper, plentiful soup, abundant filling, fresh meat. 皮博, 汁多, 馅大, 肉鲜.

10 Things to Know About the 10-Year China Visa (April 20, 2015, Outside-In)
Since writing with joy about obtaining a 10-year tourist visa to China last November, I’ve fielded a steady stream of question from friends (and strangers) about the new visa and how to get it. So I decided to put a post together about some things you need to know about the visa. They are in no particular order.

The most incredible Chinese cities you've never heard of (April 20, 2015, Lonely Planet)
Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong are China’s glamour triplets. Everybody knows them, everybody wants to see them (and hopefully snap a selfie). And yeah, they’re pretty fantastic. But did you know that China is home to an incredible 600+ cities, more than 160 of which have populations greater than a million? Though little-visited by foreigners, many of these cities boast their own fascinating atmospheres, histories and cultural attractions.

Where to Take Visitors? Beijing’s Best Historical Residences (April 21, 2015, The Beijinger)
It’s visitor season! And this means dragging your parents and friends around the Forbidden City. Or does it? Here are three interesting historical residences in Beijing that you probably haven’t been to either, and that make a great afternoon in terms of soaking up sun in beautifully preened courtyards, and a little bit of history too.

Tea Tuesdays: Tea, Tao and Tourists — China's Mount Hua Is Three-Part Harmony (April 21, 2015, NPR)
Imagine yourself clinging to a cliff face with nothing but uneven, worn wooden planks and chains to keep you from plummeting 7,000 feet to your untimely demise. Don't worry: You can rent a little red safety harness for $5. No one will make you wear it, though.

Language / Language Learning

The Hospital Labyrinth (April 7, 2015, The World of Chinese)
Obviously, seeing a doctor in China is not exactly a piece of cake. Well, take it easy, hold your hot water tight, and let’s start at the beginning.

“Become” a Native Chinese Speaker with the Character Shadowing Technique (April 21, 2015, Mandarin HQ)
Ever heard of Shadowing as a language learning method? The basic idea of the method is that you listen to an audio recording of a native speaker talking at normal speed and try to repeat what you hear, as accurately as you can, right after you hear it.

Books

Chinese translation of “Saving God’s Face” (for FREE) (April 14, 2015, Jackson Wu)
Do you have Chinese friends who should read Saving God’s Face?  Now they can! I’m excited to announce that my first book has now been translated. The Mandarin title is 挽回神的脸以荣辱为救恩的中国处境化. Also, I am giving it away for FREE!!

An American Hero in China (May 7, 2015 issue, New York Review of Books)
One night in September, three hundred people crowded into the basement auditorium of an office tower in Beijing to hear a discussion between two of China’s most popular writers. One was Liu Yu, a thirty-eight-year-old political scientist and blogger who has written a best seller explaining how American democracy works. Her fans call her “goddess”—for her writings and her stylish looks. But this evening, Liu was just a foil for the other writer: Peter Hessler, a low-key New Yorker journalist.

Is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Book of Speeches Really a Best Seller? (April 20, 2015, TIME)
This September, China’s President Xi Jinping will travel to the U.S., the confident leader’s first state visit there since taking helm of the world’s second largest economy in late 2012. Americans who wish to know Xi better will get a chance next month when his book will be formally launched in the U.S. during a New York City book fair.

Theosis, Sino-Christian Theology and the Second Chinese Enlightenment: Heaven and Humanity in Unity. Review by Dr. G. Wright Doyle (April 21, 2015, Global China Center)
Despite a number of fundamental weaknesses, this book contains a great deal of information and insight, and deserves careful engagement by those who seek to ponder ways in which the Christian message can be expressed persuasively to Chinese. Dense, tightly organized, and well-written, the volume deserves an extended description and evaluation.

The Wonderfully Elusive Chinese Novel (April 23, 2015, New York Review of Books)
This raises the question of what translation is. I’m afraid it is something quite different from what the person on the street takes it to be. It is not code-switching. Let’s take a tiny example, chosen at random, from David Roy’s translation of the immense sixteenth-century Chinese novel Chin P’ing Mei, or The Plum in the Golden Vase, written during the Ming dynasty, the final volume of which has recently appeared.

Articles for Researchers

What about China? Religious Vitality in the Most Secular and Rapidly Modernizing Society (Winter 2014, Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review)

Image credit: Brooklyn, by Michele Ursino, via Flickr

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Joann Pittman

Joann Pittman

Joann Pittman is Vice President of Partnership and China Engagement and editor of ZGBriefs. Prior to joining ChinaSource, Joann spent 28 years working in China, as an English teacher, language student, program director, and cross-cultural trainer for organizations and businesses engaged in China. She has also taught Chinese at the University …View Full Bio