ZGBriefs | February 13, 2025

Featured Article

Kunming: The Spring City’s Long Gospel History (February 6, 2025, China Partnership)
Kunming is lukewarm. It’s kind of like Laodicea, neither hot nor cold. No matter what you do, the pace isn’t very fast. The result is, when the gospel comes to this city, the gospel is also lukewarm. People aren’t very eager for theological lectures or training, but they don’t reject it, either. They listen and watch, but they don’t reject or fully accept.

Sponsored Post

Free Lecture | China’s Earliest Christians: Who Were They and What Can We Learn from Them? (ChinaSource)
In 1625, a great stone stele was discovered near modern-day Xi’an that told the story of a Christian presence in Tang Dynasty China during the 700s. The name given to their religion in this stele is Jingjiao (Luminous Teaching). Who were they and what did they believe? In this lecture, Dr. Thompson will introduce us to these early Christians and how their story can inform and inspire the work of the modern church in China.
Date: March 20, 2025
Time:    6:15 — light refreshments
            7:00 –  Lecture & Q&A
Location: Nazareth Hall, University of Northwestern – St. Paul, 3003 Snelling Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55113 (no live stream but please register to receive a link to the recording)

Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

Panama Drops Belt and Road Initiative Amid “Imperial” Clash Between U.S. and China (February 5, 2025, China Digital Times)
This week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Panama to warn Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino that Washington will “take measures necessary” if Panama does not immediately take steps to end what he calls Chinese influence over the canal. Despite reiterating Panama’s sovereignty over the canal, Mulino ultimately acquiesced by announcing that his government would not renew its participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was inked via a memorandum of understanding in 2017, right after Panama decided to cut off diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

China-Japan Distrust Has Been Tough to Shake. Tourism Might Be the Best Chance. (February 7, 2025, Christian Science Monitor)
The ranks of mainland Chinese visitors coming to Japan nearly tripled last year to 7 million, chipping away at decades of antagonism between the countries and helping make 2024 a banner year for tourism. Tourism spending is now Japan’s second-biggest export category after cars, and has surpassed electronic components and steel.

Protesters Descend on Site of China’s Planned London ‘Super Embassy’ (February 8, 2025, The Times)
More than 1,000 protesters rallied outside the listed Royal Mint Court near the Tower of London on Saturday afternoon in objection to China’s proposed “super embassy”. Those present, including the former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat and groups representing Chinese dissidents, Hong Kongers, Uighurs and Tibetans, warned that the embassy could be used as a “spy hub” for Beijing.

Religion

Returning with Purpose: Living Out Faith in the Everyday World (February 7, 2025, ChinaSource)
I read the article “Back to the Fold” with great admiration and deep reflection. The author’s insights into the complex journey of returning to China after experiencing spiritual growth abroad resonated with me profoundly. I deeply appreciate the author’s honesty about the challenges faced and the decision to embrace God’s will rather than running away from adversity. I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that, as Christians, our calling is not to escape the world but to engage with it, sharing the light of Christ wherever we are placed.

Kunming: Reaching Out to Ethnic Minorities (February 10, 2025, China Partnership)
Yunnan Province, where Kunming is located, is well-known for being full of ethnic minorities. These people have their own unique cultures, languages, and ways of dress. Some ethnic minorities are fairly acculturated, and live in ways similar to their Han Chinese peers. But a great many other minority peoples live according to customs very different from that of the Han, who make up the majority of China’s people and whose ways are recognized across the world as “Chinese culture.” 

Pure Joy, Oh My (February 10, 2025, ChinaSource)
God is not dead in China, and he never will be. He is working his purpose out and giving us some paths to work with him in the times we are in. We went kicking and screaming to the good place God was taking us. We are glad to be here.

Searching for the Light of Life—Reflections on the Lantern Festival (February 11, 2025, Chinese Church Voices)
Each Lantern Festival, as I see the warm orange glow radiating from lanterns adorning the streets, I can’t help but reflect: each lantern lights the way forward. As Christians, have we truly found the light of life?

Society / Life

Let’s Get Spiritual: State, Digital Spirituality and Feng Shui in China (February 5, 2023, The Little Red Podcast)
To welcome the Year of the Snake, we’re launching a new series looking at belief in China. Young Chinese people are increasingly turning to spirituality – even online manifestations of it – and feng shui, in this moment of high unemployment and economic stress. For a Party guided by materialism, this spike in spiritual interest presents a dilemma: how to regulate something you purport not to believe in. To discuss the state’s use of spirituality from the Qing to now, we’re joined by Tristan Brown, a historian at MIT and author of Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China and Haoyang Zhai, a researcher at the University of Melbourne.

Being Chinese | To Know Who We Are, China Must Remain Open to Foreigners (February 8, 2025, South China Morning Post)
In my freshman year at an American college almost two decades ago, I received a request from the telecommunications company Verizon to give a presentation to their employees at a local branch on what China was like. I was in a tiny town in Iowa, with a predominantly white population, and most residents’ only chance to experience diversity was to talk to international students.

Are China’s Rural Poor Losing Faith in Education’s Power to Transform Lives? (February 9, 2025, South China Morning Post)
A sociologist has suggested that people in China’s rural areas are losing faith in higher education to improve their lives, prompting widespread discussion among academics and the media over the Lunar New Year holiday.

Marriages in China Plunge By a Record in 2024, Fanning Birthrate Concerns (February 10, 2025, Reuters)
Declining interest in getting married and starting a family has long been blamed on the high cost of childcare and education in China. On top of that, sputtering economic growth over the past few years has made it difficult for university graduates to find work and those that do have jobs feel insecure about their long-term prospects.

Economics / Trade / Business

China No Longer Has a De Minimis Trade Exemption. What Is It? (February 5, 2025, NPR News)
A trade loophole called de minimis helped drive explosive growth for bargain sites such as Temu and Shein, allowing them to ship cheap goods from China to U.S. consumers without having to pay taxes and import duties. But that now stands to change, after President Trump signed an executive order stating de minimis treatment “shall not be available” for products made in China, the top source of goods imported to the U.S.

What Do Trump’s Tariffs Mean for US-China Trade? (February 7, 2025, The Guardian)
Donald Trump postponed his threat to tax all imports from Mexico and Canada this week, citing action by those countries against migration and drug smuggling; but it was telling that tariffs on China went ahead. When it comes to the US’s neighbours, Trump’s Treasury secretary, the hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, made clear in a Fox News interview that tariffs are essentially a negotiating tool – partly aimed at achieving non-economic goals.But Trump’s beef with China is a much more longstanding and more widely shared one, that can be traced back to the deep imbalances between the two economic superpowers.

Investigation Reveals Uyghur Forced Labor in Decathlon’s Supply Chain (February 7, 2025, China Digital Times)
According to the investigation, Decathlon’s second-largest textile manufacturer in China is a company called Jifa, whose subsidiary Xinjiang Xirong Clothing makes sportswear in a factory of Yengisar industrial park that received Uyghurs from a concentration camp less than one kilometer away. 

In China’s export hub of Yiwu, traders shrug off Trump’s tariffs (February 10, 2025, Reuters)
Traders in China’s export manufacturing hub of Yiwu shrugged off U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and moves against China on Sunday, with some saying they made preparations to soften the blow. […] “We predicted that he would assume power,” Cheng Haodong, chairman of Beisi Group, a business which sells clothes to water bottles, told Reuters from their office in the city. “After he assumed power, ok, how do we want to adjust? Actually it was prepared for in advance,” he said.

Why Economists Got Free Trade with China so Wrong (February 11, 2025, NPR News)
By now, many economists are hoarse screaming that higher tariffs and a trade war will raise prices and hurt the U.S. economy. But many Americans aren’t listening. A recent poll by Quinnipiac University, conducted in late January, found that 42% of Americans believe tariffs will help the U.S. economy. The United States’ recent history with free trade might help explain the disconnect between economists and a large swath of the American public.

Science / Technology

What China’s DeepSeek AI Says (and Won’t Say) About Christianity (February 4, 2025, National Catholic Register)
Like other large-language models (LLMs), DeepSeek-R1 can answer general knowledge questions, generate text, and solve complex math problems. But it’s also been designed to steer clear of topics the Chinese government considers “sensitive” — including certain historical events, political issues, and even questions of faith.

China’s Biggest 2024 Science Advances Are Shaping Future of Healthcare, Chips, Space Race (February 5, 2025, South China Morning Post)
As China and the United States go head-to-head in the arenas of science and technology, some of China’s top scientists have rated the most significant advances of 2024 that have helped push the country to the forefront of several fields – from space and deep-sea exploration to chips and quantum technologies.

History / Culture

How a Green Snake Became a Feminist Symbol in China (February 5, 2025, Sixth Tone)
One of the most famous Chinese folk tales is the “Legend of the White Snake.” Although early versions of the myth date back to the Tang dynasty (618–907), the modern origins of the story can be found in Feng Menglong’s “Stories to Caution the World,” a collection of short tales compiled during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The protagonist of the story is clearly White Snake, while Green Snake plays only a minor supporting role. In the past few decades, however, the green snake has risen from obscurity and captured China’s imagination.

Travel / Food 

24 Hours in Beijing With Charles de Pellette (February 6, 2025, The Beijinger Blog)
For our third installment in this 24 Hours in Beijing series, we sit down with Charles de Pellette—a British-born, Hong Kong-raised expat who’s been in Beijing for 13 years. He’s sold craft beer for Master Gao, mixed up cocktails behind the bar at Ron Mexico, and for the past 8 years has been at Home Plate BBQ, where he’s the Operations Director (and co-host of “Will It Smoke?”).  Here’s how he’d spend 24 hours in Beijing—food, drinks, and a bit of chaos included.

Resources

Online Workshop – Save Face? Save a Relationship? or Save Both? (Part 1) (February 27, 2025)
In a multicultural society, navigating conflict can be complex, especially when the concept of “face” plays a pivotal role in how relationships develop and are maintained. Join us Thursday Feb 27 2025 from 10:00-11:00 AM PST on Zoom for a biblically-based, interactive workshop that offers critical insights into this often-overlooked dynamic.

Language / Language Learning

The Input Pyramid: Chinese Listening for Any Situation (February 10, 2025, Hacking Chinese)
When improving listening comprehension in Mandarin, there are three factors you should try to improve: Content – What you listen to; Method – How you listen; Time – How much you listen. If you want to make rapid progress, you need to maximise all three. This is more easily said than done.

Arts / Entertainment / Media

Over-Dramatizing the Harm of Self-Media (February 5, 2025, China Media Project)
The annual Spring Festival Gala broadcast by state-run broadcaster CCTV is a hallmark of New Year festivities in China, running in the background as families nationwide gather around the dinner table for a brief and boisterous reunion. One sketch in this year’s show, airing on January 28, was a dramatized version of how the country’s top internet control body, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), would like the public to view their ongoing crackdown on “self-media” (自媒体), individual user accounts on social media platforms like WeChat that publish self-produced content.

A Rude Awakening (February 5, 2025, China Media Project)
As netizens woke up on the fourth day of the lunar new year — a day dedicated to welcoming the gods back into one’s home and earning their blessings for the year ahead — a viral new video on the Chinese short video app Douyin (抖音) showed a more troubling kind of home visitation.

‘Ne Zha 2’: A 3-Year-Old Demon Just Crushed Every Movie in China (February 7, 2024, Sixth Tone)
Released on Jan. 29, the first day of Chinese New Year, “Ne Zha 2,” the sequel to the 2019 animated hit, needed less than 10 days to smash records. It grossed over 6.8 billion yuan ($940 million), becoming China’s highest-grossing film and surpassing “Avengers: Endgame” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” to claim the biggest single-market box office total in history.

Pray for China

February 7 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
The first day of the Lunar New Year (春节) falls on the new moon between January 21 and February 20. It is China’s major holiday—Christmas, Halloween, and Thanksgiving all combined in one 2-4 week period. It also involves the largest annual mass human migration in the world. For many rural families, it is an emotionally wrenching time—the only time of the year for parents, who were compelled to migrate to cities for work, to see their children left behind to be raised by grandparents. Pray for the many separated rural families—absent fathers and mothers who have gone to the city for work and children left behind with grandparents. Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. Isaiah 49:13

Praying for China | Prayercast (January , 2025, ChinaSource)