ZGBriefs | February 6, 2025

Featured Article

Spring Festival 2.0: How Gen-Z Is Changing China’s Biggest Holiday (January 31, 2025, Sixth Tone)
For China’s Gen-Z, the Spring Festival is still the biggest holiday of the year, but the way they celebrate is evolving — more online, more personalized, shaped by social media and a growing appetite for niche traditions.

Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

Positivity Peaks at the Japan-China Summit (January 29, 2025, East Asia Forum)
The November 2024 Japan–China summit in Peru was a strong sign of improving Japan–China ties, with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirming their ‘strategic mutually beneficial relationship’. Japan and China should take advantage of warming relations and enhance diplomatic engagement to address regional security challenges, especially the North Korea nuclear threat.

Beijing Woos Washington While Advancing New International Order (January 31, 2025, China Brief Archives – The Jamestown Foundation)
Underlying them all is an assessment that the United States will feature less prominently in the emerging multipolar and economically globalized world for which Beijing actively advocates. This assessment currently may be more aspirational than material, but the Party nevertheless sees it as the general trend of the times.

Open Questions | The US-China Rivalry Doesn’t Have To Be a Zero-sum Game: Jessica Chen Weiss (February 2, 2025, South China Morning Post)
Alongside his appointments we still have, of course, Trump himself, his own remarks. Things that he has said recently have been a little bit unprecedented, including reportedly inviting Xi Jinping to attend the inauguration. [Xi did not attend.] And in his nomination of the new ambassador to China [David Perdue], Trump talked about having a “productive working relationship with China’s leaders”. So I think we’ll have to see where he truly is going to go with it.

Americans, Robots, and More: Chinese Government Messaging in the 2025 Spring Festival Gala (February 3 ,2025, The Diplomat)
One of the major television events in China each year is the China Central Television (CCTV) Spring Festival Gala on Lunar New Year. The Gala, which is broadcast on China’s state television network, is also an extremely important source in understanding the goals of the Chinese government, as it approves and supports acts that promote its political goals. In watching the Gala, one can see what political messaging is currently being promoted, and what is not.

Religion

What DeepSeek Says about the Church in China (January 29, 2025, Christianity Today)
When I asked DeepSeek, the new Chinese AI chatbot, Tuesday morning whether or not I should attend an unregistered house church in China, its answer surprised me. Instead of telling me flat out to avoid it—in the same way it diverts questions on other sensitive topics—it told me to keep a low profile, referring to the Chinese concept of “policies at the top and countermeasures below.” Apparently, China’s AI also has Chinese survival wisdom.

Why Global Believers Should Pray for China (January 30, 2025, China Partnership)
A Chinese Christian shares how he has seen God use the prayers of the church around the world to bless China — and why he longs for those prayers to continue. There are many needs in Chinese society right now. As some Chinese acknowledge the futility of life apart from God, Pan Xihong believes this is a crucial time for the church to step in and show people God’s love. But Chinese believers cannot do this alone! Revival is built on prayer, and the prayers of other Christians around the world are a crucial part of what God is doing in China now.

More than Conquerors (January 31, 2025, ChinaSource)
Focusing only on “what China is doing to Christians,” as seen in its draconian laws, or on individual cases, which concern only a tiny fraction of China’s sizeable Christian population, obscures the more complex picture of Christian life in China’s current environment.

How Global Believers Can Pray for China (February 3, 2025, China Partnership)
We want to pray for China in 2025 — but how? Today, a Chinese believers follows up last week’s post on why it is important for global believers to pray for China and shares how we can concretely do so. Pan Xihong uses China Partnership’s prayer guides on various Chinese cities to help his church pray for the needs in those cities. As he prays for specific needs and learns more about the history of these cities, he sees God move.

Seeking the Good in DeepSeek (February 3, 2025, ChinaSource)
I had always thought that AI couldn’t replace artistic creations—those AI-generated texts, music, drawings and videos tend to repulse people after being watched a few times. But this time, honestly speaking, after reading the wuxia novels (Chinese stories about knights doing kung fu) and a few modern poems generated by DeepSeek, as a die-hard literature fan I was in a trance, shocked by its “creativity.”

Society / Life

RedNote Is Bringing Chinese and Americans Face-to-Face. What Have They Learned? (January 29, 2025, The Christian Science Monitor)
Interactions began much as one would expect from an abrupt meeting of strangers who mostly don’t speak the same language. Basic questions were posed; photos of cats were shared. But conversations between the Chinese hosts and their American guests have quickly deepened, challenging biases on both sides.

Photos: CNY Uber-Crowds – Supermarkets that Look Like Railway Stations (February 2, 2025, ChinaSkinny)
After every Chinese New Year holiday, the obligatory shots of China’s rammed-full railway stations, airports and highways fill media feeds. With over 9 billion trips squeezed into a little over a month, travel hubs are obviously pushed to the limit. Nevertheless, it isn’t just Chinese waiting for the long trip home who face the massive crowds – those wanting to buy the groceries are inundated too… 

Economics / Trade / Business

Chinese Fashion Giant Shein Re-enters India Five Years After Ban (February 2, 2025, BBC News)
Chinese fast fashion app SHEIN has relaunched in India five years after it was banned by Delhi, under a deal with Indian firm Reliance Retail. An official from Reliance Retail, who did not wish to be named, told the BBC that the firm has entered a long-term licensing deal with the parent company to sell products manufactured and sourced in India on the platform. 

China Targets Google, Nvidia and Intel as Trump Tariffs Bite (February 2, 2025, Financial Times)
China has revived antitrust investigations into Google and Nvidia, while considering a new probe against Intel, as Beijing looks for leverage in talks with US President Donald Trump. China’s State Administration for Market Regulation announced on Tuesday that it had opened a competition investigation into Google, which two people familiar with the matter said would focus on dominance of the US group’s Android operating system and any harm caused to Chinese phonemakers, such as Oppo and Xiaomi, which use the software.

China Unveils US Tariffs and Google Investigation in Response to Trump Levies (February 4, 2025, The Guardian)
Moments after US tariffs of 10% came into effect, China swiftly announced an anti-trust investigation into Google. China’s finance ministry also announced 15% tariffs on coal and liquefied natural gas, and 10% on crude oil, farm equipment, large-displacement vehicles and pickup trucks from the US.

Science / Technology

Who Is Behind DeepSeek and How Did It Achieve Its AI ‘Sputnik Moment’? (January 28, 2025, The Guardian)
After years of worrying in the US that its artificial intelligence ambitions could be leapfrogged by Beijing, the biggest threat to Silicon Valley’s hegemony has come not from one of China’s big four tech firms, but from a previously little known startup. Rather than Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent or Xiaomi topping the iOS app store with its latest chatbot this week and sending the markets reeling, it is DeepSeek – founded less than two years ago – that is being credited with a “Sputnik moment” in the global AI development race.

U.S.-China Artificial Intelligence Competition and Collaboration (February 3, 2025, National Committee on U.S. China Relations)
Join Kevin Xu, founder of Interconnected Capital, and Zhan Xianyuan, Assistant Professor at the Tsinghua University Institute for AI Industry Research, as they discuss the future of U.S.-China AI competition and collaboration. This discussion is moderated by Liu Xin, Senior Host at China Global Television Network (CGTN).

History / Culture

Spring Festival Added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List: A Celebration of Tradition and Innovation (December 19, 2024, SinoCultural)
On December 4, 2024, China’s Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) achieved a historic milestone—UNESCO officially added the “Spring Festival—The Social Practice of Celebrating the Traditional Chinese New Year” to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This momentous decision recognizes not only the deep cultural significance of the Spring Festival but also marks the global attention and respect it now commands.

Travel / Food 

China’s Lunar New Year Travelers Try to Outsmart Algorithms for Cheaper Fares (January 29, 2025, South China Morning Post)
The Lunar New Year holiday is among the priciest time to travel in China, but this year, Chinese internet user Lan He managed to score a one-way flight ticket from Kunming, Yunnan province, to her parents’ home about two hours away in Jian, Jiangxi province, for less than 500 yuan (US$68). The trick? Fool the algorithms, according to Lan.

Books

Why Should Chinese Philanthropy Practitioners Read “Corporate Philanthropy in China and Beyond”? (February 4, 2023, ChinaSource)
Through a friend’s recommendation, I had the opportunity to read Corporate Philanthropy in China and Beyond by Dr. Stephan Rothlin. After reading the first five chapters, which provide a Western perspective on Chinese philanthropy, I was deeply moved and feeling an overwhelming urge to express my thoughts. I soon decided to write this review to share the sparks of insight I encountered. This review focuses on the key themes and insights from the initial chapters, offering a glimpse into how this book bridges cultural divides in philanthropy.

Language / Language Learning

Mandarin Monday: All Your Essential Winter Vocab (February 3, 2025, The Beijinger Blog)
This year’s winter has been a pretty mild one for Beijing, so there’s not been much use for Chinese phrases like 寒风刺骨 hán fēng cìgǔ  “the cold wind pierces the bones.” However, if those temperatures do take a dramatic plunge, we’ve already gathered together some essential winter (冬天 dōngtiān) vocab you can use!

Arts / Entertainment / Media

OneRepublic, Robots, a Rural Icon: The Spring Festival Gala in 3 Acts (January 29, 2025, Sixth Tone)
From the long-awaited return of internet star Li Ziqi to a humanoid robot dance directed by Zhang Yimou — and even a surprise performance by OneRepublic — this year’s Spring Festival Gala mixed old favorites with high-tech spectacle.

Video: CGTN Super Night – 2025 Spring Festival celebration (February 28, 2025, CGTV, via YouTube)

The Slow Close of and Era (February 4, 2024, China Media Project)
These days, the death of a newspaper is hardly, well, news. In China, as in much of the rest of the world, information consumers long ago turned toward fresh digital alternatives, including social media and news apps. The country’s latest report on internet use last year showed that it had more than one billion internet users, of which nearly 98 percent used online video services — now one of the most popular sources of content.

Pray for China

February 1 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On Feb. 1, 2018, the PRC’s new religious regulations took effect. Within months, harsh practices were implemented, including destruction of meeting places or crosses, raiding private homes to remove Christian symbols, coercing landlords to terminate leases on meeting places, banning children from attending worship, and interrogation of Christian college students. In response, over 100 courageous church leaders signed “A Declaration for the Sake of the Christian Faith” in Sept. 2018. Pray for government officials to open their hearts and minds to the truth that the Church is God’s channel for blessing their land. Genesis 12:3. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Genesis 12:3

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