ZGBriefs | August 22, 2024

Featured Article

Chongqing: A Rootless City (August 19, 2024, China Partnership)
As we pray for Chongqing this month, several house church pastors told us about the needs and issues they see in their urban city. These pastors feel that Chongqing people are disconnected from their history and their roots. Perhaps due to the trauma of war or upheaval, they have noticed that many locals, both believers and unbelievers, are not aware of their heritage. For the church to flourish and move forward fruitfully, these pastors believe that local people must understand their background and know where they come from.

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Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

US Trial Begins in Battle for Mao Secretary’s Diaries (August 9, 2024, BBC News)
A trial has begun in California to decide whether Stanford University can keep the diaries of a top Chinese official, in a case that is being framed as a fight against Chinese government censorship.

China Expands Tactics to Bolster Territorial Claims, Rivals Follow Suit (August 13, 2024, China Digital Times)
While territorial disputes have long played a role in Chinese economic and foreign policy, China’s growing resources have allowed it to adopt more ambitious and expansive tactics in asserting its territorial claims. However, as several recent news articles illustrate, China’s expansionist tactics have instrumentalized vulnerable citizens and inspired other countries to replicate some of its tactics. The end result is a greater risk of military conflict and exploitation of civilians.

Xi Balances Between Professionalism and Political Control of the PLA (August 15, 2024, East Asia Forum)
The tumultuous relationship between Chinese President Xi Jinping and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is marked by frequent purges, recurring reforms and persistent expressions of distrust. Simultaneously, Xi advances military modernisation and assigns the military a role in foreign policy not seen for decades. This dual approach intensifies the tension between military professionalism and political loyalty, reaching levels not seen since the Mao era.

Religion

Far from Our Eyes, Close to God’s Heart (August 16, 2024, ChinaSource)
Remembering and engaging with the unreached begins with a conscious awareness of God’s grace in our lives. That deepening understanding of his mercy towards us will stir our hearts to do whatever we can, out of love for Christ, to see those held captive to pride and unbelief turn to him.

Hearing from China’s Church (August 19, 2024, ChinaSource)
While hearing from the church in China is undoubtedly more difficult than it was even 10 years ago, God is still creating unexpected channels that connect believers the world over.  

Unreached People Groups in China (August 20, 2024, ChinaSource)
Most people from unreached people groups will live their entire lives without ever hearing or having the chance to respond to the good news. This is the greatest challenge they face—not poverty, not political oppression, but spiritual lostness.

Chongqing: A Small, Scattered, Chaotic Church (August 15, 2024, China Partnership)
There are three words that describe the church in Chongqing. The first word is “small.” The number of believers is small, and the scale of the churches is also small. Most churches have only a dozen or 20 people. The second word is “scattered.” This refers to what was just mentioned: the churches are not united. Each church has its own circle, and it is very complicated and difficult. The third word is “chaotic.” Their theological thinking is very chaotic, and there are all kinds of beliefs. 

How a Persecuted Religious Group Grew Into a Global Movement (August 16, 2024, New York Times)
Founded in China in the early 1990s, Falun Gong unsettled Chinese government officials and quickly became subject to brutal repression. It has prospered nonetheless.

Society / Life

China’s One-Child Policy Hangover: Scarred Women Dismiss Beijing’s Pro-Birth Agenda (August 18, 2024, CNN)
The one-child rules have gone, but the wounds of the past cast long shadows. A new generation of women like Fang, haunted by their parents’ struggles and their own sacrifices as children under the one-child policy, now eye parenthood with reluctance – making Beijing’s current pro-birth push a tough sell.

Raised by ‘Wolves’: The Rise of China’s Cutthroat Start-Up Scene (August 19, 2024, Sixth Tone)
Championing this “wolf culture,” as it later came to be known, was the Shenzhen-based telecommunications giant Huawei. Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s founder, famously likened his philosophy of organizational management to the three traits he associated with wolves: they can smell meat from a distance, fight in packs, and fight to the death to achieve their goals.

China Proposes Law to Make It Easier to Register Marriages, Harder to Divorce (August 15, 2024, Reuters)
China has put together a revised draft law that will make it simpler for couples to register their marriage, while filing for divorce will become tougher, a move that drew scorn from netizens and became a top trending online topic on Thursday.

Fury in China as Deliveryman Kneels Before Guard (August 15, 2024, BBC News)
Chinese authorities have called for gig workers to be treated with kindness after videos of a delivery rider kneeling before a security guard led to protests by dozens of riders.

Xi Jinping’s Traditional Villages (August 18, 2024, Made in China Journal)
Over the past four decades in China’s forward march to capitalist modernisation, the nation’s vast urban expansion has been contingent on demolition and relocation. Since Xi Jinping came to power, projects such as the ‘Traditional Village’ heritage scheme have sought to gear development towards a new era in which Chinese heritage sits at the core.

Economics / Trade / Business

Scammers Prey On Young Chinese Desperate for Jobs in Bleak Economy (August 18, 2024, Reuters)
Scams such as recruitment for non-existent jobs, false advertising and loan traps are growing in China as the economy falters, with the top legal prosecuting agency saying last year that crooks were targeting more students and fresh graduates.

Economic Thought in Modern China: A Conversation with Margherita Zanasi (August 18, 2024, Made In China Journal)
In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c. 1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi skillfully marshals a wide range of primary sources and secondary literature in several languages to take readers on a fascinating journey through several hundred years of Chinese economic thought.

Education

Video – Peter Hessler on China’s Evolving Education System (August 19, 2024, National Committee on U.S.- China Relations)
In this interview Peter Hessler, author of “Other Rivers: A Chinese Education,” joins National Committee Public Intellectuals Program Fellow Lenora Chu to explore the dramatic evolution of China’s education system as a way of examining the country’s past, present, and future.  

Health / Environment

China Adds New Clean Power Equivalent to UK’s Entire Electricity Output (August 16, 2024, The Guardian)
China added as much new clean energy generation in the first half of this year as the UK produced from all sources in the same period last year, data shows, as wind and solar power generation continued to surge in the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

History / Culture

A Chinese Memoirist’s Exile in Las Vegas (August 18, 2024, The New Yorker)
On the western outskirts of Las Vegas, far from the casinos, tourists, and strip malls, the Spring Mountains rise from the scorching valley, an ethereal vision of red-striped sandstone. When the heat allows, Gao Ertai, who is eighty-eight, ventures onto his back porch to observe the mountains and sometimes lets his mind wander to another desert: the wastelands of China’s Gansu Province, where he was exiled for two decades and witnessed some of the worst crimes of the Mao era.

On the Spectacle of Being Our-(Miao)-Selves (August 18, 2024, Made In China Journal)
It is therefore not particularly contentious to say that ethnic minority people in China, from Upper Jidao to Ürümqi, are highly—sometimes painfully—aware of being looked at, of being a desired object to be seen. But the fact that visual presence is so central to Chinese tourism, and to Chinese multiculturalism more broadly, does not really reveal anything about what the experience of being seen is like, or how it feels to be asked to be looked at.

Travel / Food

Strolling Among the Clouds: Exploring Via Ferrata in China (August 19, 2024, Chinaskinny)
“Leaping like a crane,” “scaling walls like a gecko,” and “soaring through the clouds”—these once-exclusive feats of ancient Chinese martial arts novels are gradually becoming reality through the sport of via ferrata originating from Italy. Over the past couple of years, via ferrata has captured the attention of many young Chinese people. It involves climbing routes equipped with handholds, footholds, suspension bridges, and steel cables, creating an extraordinary experience for climbers.

Language / Language Learning

Three Things I Wish I Had Known as a Beginner Student of Chinese: The Time Machine, Part 1 (August 19, 2024, Hacking Chinese)
But even though classroom learning can be great and can remain useful up to an advanced level, it’s not enough. Confining yourself in the classroom is like splashing around in the shallow end of the pool when your actual goal is to scuba dive to the shipwreck in the deep, shark-infested waters off the coast.

Mandarin Monday: A History of the Word “Hutong” (August 19, 2024, The Beijinger)
Ever wondered why hutongs are called hutongs, and not, just plain old alley or lane? Well, if any 胡同串子 hútong chuànzi (hutong wanderer) among you have been to Shijia Hutong Museum, then you’ll probably know. For those who don’t, what follows is a little history lesson.

Arts / Entertainment / Media 

5 Takeaways From The Times’s Investigation Into Shen Yun (August 16, 2024, The New York Times)
Shen Yun Performing Arts, the traditional Chinese dance and music group, is an international sensation — with hundreds of performers on its annual world tour and holdings of more than $265 million. But a New York Times investigation found that the group’s success has come at a high cost for its young performers, many of whom were teenagers.

As Shanghai Book Fair Turns 20, Tech and Tradition Converge (August 20, 2024, Sixth Tone)
From the introduction of cutting-edge AI tools to showcasing cultural products and interactive activities like collectible stamp hunts, this year’s Shanghai Book Fair illustrated how publishers are diversifying their offerings to meet the evolving demands of readers and the broader market.

‘Upstream’: The Delivery Rider Drama That’s Dividing China (August 19, 2024, Sixth Tone)
Created by Shanghainese star actor and director Xu Zheng, best known for his comedy roles, the film has aroused widespread discussion by offering a portrayal of the economic insecurity many are experiencing as China slowly recovers from the pandemic.

Pray for China

August 21 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
The Forum for Chinese Theology Sixth Annual Symposium met in Oxford on Aug. 20-25, 2013. They produced the Oxford Consensus (牛津共识), four statements expressing the hope that China will be committed to cultural pluralism and political fairness and justice. Christian signers included Yang Fenggang (杨凤岗先生), Wang Wenfeng (王文锋弟兄), He Guanghu (何光沪先生), and Liu Peng (刘澎教授). Pray for Christian leaders to have wisdom in responding to the five-year plan released in 2018 to “sinicize” Christianity under the control of the Communist Party.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20