ZGBriefs | July 23, 2015

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

Married Without Children in China: Dealing With the Pressure in a Baby-Centric Country (July 21, 2015, China Real Time)
In China, “Are you married?” and “Do you have children?” can be the equivalent of asking, “How are you?” An American who met my husband while working at an Internet company in China, I never cared what his family said about us when we lived in the U.S. – oceans and time zones away. But since we moved back to China in 2013, I have gradually collected all these “reminders” until they accumulated painfully in my mind.

Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

Chinese Authorites Detain Nearly 150 Human Rights Lawyers (July 14, 2015, NPR)
Being a human rights lawyer in China is dangerous and lately more so. Advocates there say police have detained or questioned nearly 150 lawyers and activists in recent days in an extensive nationwide campaign. Most have been released; some are missing and unaccounted for.

China’s state media and the outsourcing of soft power (July 15, 2015, China Policy Institute Blog)
Whatever one prefers to call their output, the Australian and Finnish entities are part of the efforts of state broadcaster China Radio International to outsource the delivery of “soft power” to overseas outfits better suited to appealing to a foreign audience.

Wan Li, Who Helped China’s Farmers Emerge From Mao Era, Dies at 98 (July 16, 2015, The New York Times)
Mr. Wan was the last survivor of the senior revolutionary veterans who pushed through China’s reforms under Deng Xiaoping beginning in the late 1970s, shaking off the socialist collectivism that Mao Zedong had imposed through communes, state control and top-down planning. The party’s obituary called Mr. Wan a “pioneer of China’s rural reforms.”

Line Up for your Chinese Green Card: China Makes Changes to Visa and Permit Policies to Attract Foreign Talent (July 17, 2015, China Briefing)
Applying for visas and residence permits in China just got a lot easier. Foreigners in Shanghai who enter China with a non-work visa and later find employment will now be able to change their visa status by presenting relevant documents directly at either of Shanghai’s airports.

China’s Taiwan Denial (July 18, 2015, China Real Time)
China is in denial about its alienation of Taiwan and needs to rethink its approach to the island, the top official in charge of managing Taipei’s relationship with Beijing said on Friday. “Somehow they need to think of how to do some soul-searching,” said Andrew Hsia, the head of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council. He said that his counterparts in Beijing seemed “puzzled” by growing antipathy among Taiwanese people toward China.

She was a quiet commercial lawyer. Then China turned against her. (July 18, 2015, The Washington Post)
Wang is one of a group of more than 100 lawyers detained in a highly coordinated raid across 19 Chinese provinces last week, part of an effort to “smash a major criminal gang” that was “seriously disturbing social order,” according to state media.

China’s irrepressible lawyers (July 19, 2015, The Washington Post)
But this repression has not succeeded at forcing the lawyers into retreat. In the courts, on the Internet and in the streets, China’s human rights lawyers remain active. Since the rights defense movement emerged in 2003, their numbers have grown from dozens to a thousand.

UK tourists say they were deported from China after watching Genghis Khan film (July 19, 2015, The Guardian)
China deported 20 foreigners from Britain, South Africa and India because they watched video clips that advocated terrorism and religious extremism, official state media has reported, while two of the tourists reportedly said they had done nothing more than view a documentary about Genghis Khan.

Taiwan's first female president: Not 'if,' but 'who?' (July 19, 2015, Christian Science Monitor)
Taiwan's two leading political parties have both chosen female candidates to run in the 2016 race, setting the country up to elect its first woman president.

Video: On China: Ultra-rich's voice in China's congress (July 20, 2015, CNN)
How influential are China's ultra-rich in Beijing's halls of power? This month's On China guest, Michael Forsythe of the New York Times explains.

Taming the Flood: How China’s Leaders “Guide” Public Opinion (July 21, 2015, China File)
The silent horrors of Banqiao are a fitting metaphor for the Chinese Communist Party’s deep fear of tragedy and its destabilizing effects. And they help us explain why, even today, in an era when the ubiquity of the mobile Internet makes cover-up impossible, the Party strives to control coverage of tragedies like the recent capsizing of the Oriental Star cruise ship on the Yangtze River.

Understanding Xi Jinping’s ‘Key Minority’ (July 21, 2015, China Real Time)
It has been 20 years since the Party last honored outstanding county Party secretaries. The renewed attention to the performance of county leaders shows that Xi is relying on local officials to play a pivotal role in implementing his program. The realization of the visions and goals of his administration depends on the commitment of these cadres.

Former Chinese president Hu Jintao's aide arrested on corruption charges (July 21, 2015, The Guardian)
Ling Jihua, formerly head of the party’s general office under Hu, became well known in China in 2012 when his son crashed a Ferrari in Beijing.

Japan sharpens censure of China disputed sea activity (July 21, 2015, BBC)
Japan's annual defence report has strengthened criticism of Chinese land reclamation and offshore platforms in disputed seas. The white paper was approved by PM Shinzo Abe on Tuesday after the first draft was rejected by his party for not taking a strong enough line on China.

Beijing's push on South China Sea rattles Pacific nations (July 21, 2015, South China Morning Post)
The Philippines today announced a 25 percent military increase to counter China's reclamation projects in the oceans off its shores. Manila says China's claims are illegal and this month argued the case before an international court at The Hague. 

Detained Chinese rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang denied legal counsel for nearly a month, wife says (July 20, 2015, The Republic)
A prominent Chinese rights lawyer whose trial is drawing near on charges of inciting ethnic hatred and provoking trouble has been denied access to lawyers for nearly a month, his wife and one of his attorneys said Monday. Meng Qun, wife of Pu Zhiqiang, raised the concern in an open letter addressed to the leadership of the Beijing detention center where her husband is being held, urging authorities to honor China's own rules to allow Pu access to lawyers.

CIA allegedly worked with Macau casinos to spy on China: read the report (July 22, 2015, The Guardian)
The report, uncovered by the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests the CIA was using Macau casinos to entrap Chinese officials who may have been gambling with public money.

War between China and Japan ended 70 years ago, but fighting continues (July 22, 2015, The Washington Post)
“Anti-Japanese nationalism is so high and so combustible,” said Xie Yanmei, a Beijing-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, noting that the Chinese authorities unleashed a similar wave of anti-Japanese nationalism in the 1990s. Then, it was part of an effort to legitimize the leadership and stoke national unity after the Tiananmen Square incident. “It's hard to put that genie back in the bottle.”

How Do Chinese Officials Explain Their Corruption? People’s Daily Counts the Ways (July 22, 2015, China Real Time)
Last Friday, an article appearing on the website of the Party’s flagship newspaper, People’s Daily, tried to supply some answers—by quoting the culprits themselves. Overall, the People’s Daily account paints the offending officials as not very principled and not very convincing.

Religion

Towards a Chinese Hospitality (July 17, 2015, From the West Courtyard)
But the longer we live here, the less we have found ourselves defaulting to these invitations. Jesus left his world, his culture, to live with us, to be where we are. So we seek to leave our culture to be where our friends are. We take our kids to play in the playground of our apartment complex. We invite our friends to restaurants for meals, or to join us on different outings. And, perhaps most importantly, we allow them to reciprocate the invitations.

China: The Best and the Worst Place to Be a Muslim Woman (July 17, 2015, Foreign Policy)
The officially atheist state has emboldened Muslim women in central China while marginalizing them in the far west

Islam has the largest number of under-30 believers in China? (July 20, 2015, From the West Courtyard)
What I think the original study was saying is this: of all religious groups, Muslims in China have the highest percentage of members (not the highest absolute number of members) who are under the age of 30. Or, more simply stated: the average age of Islam is younger than any other group.

Chinese Police Are Said to Seize Ashes of Tibetan Monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche (July 21, 2015, The New York Times)
The Chinese police forcibly seized the ashes of a prominent Tibetan monk whose death in prison this month set off public demonstrations and raised suspicions about his treatment while incarcerated, supporters of the monk said on Tuesday.

What is a Christian Singer? (July 21, 2015, Chinese Church Voices)
Even though China does not have what we might consider to be a “Christian Contemporary Music” scene, there are a number of high-profile singers and musicians who are openly Christian. Some are from the mainland, and others are overseas Chinese who have become popular in China, not just among Christians, but also among the population at large.

When All Roads Lead to Beijing (July 22, 2015, From the West Courtyard)
Given that many Christians in China have been praying about and discussing their role in taking the gospel to regions beyond China, the government’s official plans present some interesting possibilities. Just as doing business has historically provided Wenzhou Christians with a natural way to extend their witness to cities around China and beyond, perhaps in a similar way engineering, resource exploration, and related fields might provide pathways for Christian professionals from China to pursue their own Silk Road vision.

Society / Life

As Beijing Becomes a Supercity, the Rapid Growth Brings Pains (July 19, 2015, The New York Times)
For decades, China’s government has tried to limit the size of Beijing, the capital, through draconian residency permits. Now, the government has embarked on an ambitious plan to make Beijing the center of a new supercity of 130 million people. The planned megalopolis, a metropolitan area that would be about six times the size of New York’s, is meant to revamp northern China’s economy and become a laboratory for modern urban growth.

Chinese man builds fake police station in flat and poses as cop in elaborate con (July 20, 2015,  The Guardian)
With his collection of handcuffs and the siren on his car, inspector Lei looked every bit the Chinese policeman. His wardrobe was filled with the black blazers of a crime-busting bobby and his office contained an armory of stun guns for subduing the outlaws he claimed to hunt. But inspector Lei was not all he seemed.

Forget bling, art and travel are China's new status symbols (July 21, 2015, CNN)
Respondents said they no longer gain status by buying expensive handbags. Rather, they gain status by buying a third or a fourth home overseas in places like California or Sydney or by going on a once-in-a-lifetime, exotic trip — like wine tasting in France. Sharing these experiences with friends on social media site WeChat is the new status symbol in China, not buying the latest Louis Vuitton luxury bag.

‘Cancer-Causing Bras’ and North Korea’s ‘Downfall’: WeChat Censors Actual Rumors (July 21, 2015, China Real Time)
China’s Internet censors in recent years have escalated their crackdown on “rumor-mongering,” a catch-all term that critics argue is used by the ruling Communist Party as a pretext for suppressing news and stifling online dissent. Now, a study shows that Beijing’s campaign has successfully netted a different target: actual rumors.

China park bombing kills two, injures 24 others (July 21, 2015, The Guardian)
An unemployed man suffering from a liver ailment blew himself up in an explosion that also killed one other person and injured 24 outside a park in eastern China, Chinese state media and police said on Tuesday.

Photos: The end of 'weird buildings' in China? Not quite yet (July 21, 2015, CNN)

Health / Environment

Beijing Says Tap Water is Safe, but Chinese Scientists Disagree (July 16, 2015, The Nanfang)
Nearly everyone in China uses bottled water for drinking, which isn’t exactly a strong vote of confidence in the quality of the city’s tap water. But if you want to know if tap water is safe to drink, you’ll get conflicting answers.

Kind of Blue: China’s Air Pollution Not as Terrible as Before (July 22, 2015, China Real Time)
f you’re living in China and have the vague impression that the skies have been bluer than usual this year, it’s not just wishful thinking. According to an analysis released Wednesday by Greenpeace East Asia, China’s air is not as awful as it used to be. Among 189 cities examined by the environmental nonprofit, PM2.5 levels in the first half of 2015 were down an average of 16% compared to the same period last year. Only 18 cities saw their levels of PM2.5 increase.

Economics / Trade / Business

China’s Corn Strategy Turns Bear Market on Its Ear (July 21, 2015, China Real Time)
A massive rise in corn imports last month is bringing back into the spotlight China’s hunger for the yellow grain and showcasing how Chinese policy-makers successfully overhauled the country’s food supply routes to lessen its dependence on the U.S.

Brics countries launch new development bank in Shanghai (July 21, 2015, BBC)
The Brics group of emerging economies on Tuesday launched its New Development Bank (NDB) in Shanghai. The bank is backed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – collectively known as Brics countries. The NDB will lend money to developing countries to help finance infrastructure projects.

What does China's stock market crash tell us? (July 22, 2015, BBC)
Four expert witnesses analyse what these dramatic events reveal about China itself for the BBC World Service Inquiry programme.

China’s Latest Ground Zero for Property Glut: Shenyang (July 22, 2015, China Real Time)
The northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang recently ranked last on a list of 36 major cities in terms of investment and development prospects, weighed down by sluggish economic growth and oversupply of buildings. The list was drawn from an annual survey of more than 100 property developers, consultants and investors conducted by the nonprofit real estate group Urban Land Institute.

Science / Technology

China's mobile phone users 94.5% of population (July 19, 2015, China.org.cn)
The number of Chinese mobile phone users accounted for 94.5 percent of its total population by the end of June, latest data showed. In the first half, China saw 6.88 million new mobile phone users, bringing the country's total mobile phone users to 1.29 billion, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in a statement.

Arts / Entertainment / Media

Video: Shanghai Disneyland’s Five Unique Things (July 17, 2015, China Real Time)
Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger reveals new details about Shanghai Disneyland, scheduled to open next spring, saying the resort will be “authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese.”

China’s Love Affair With Irresistible Korean TV (July 20, 2015, The New York Times)
China’s obsession with a South Korean television show about a 400-year-old Harvard-educated alien who falls in love with an arrogant actress reached such a frenzy last year that online streaming companies here began racing to snap up licensing rights for other South Korean television programs, inflating their prices almost tenfold.

After 4 Years, Chinese Dissident Artist Ai Weiwei Gets His Passport Back (July 22, 2015, NPR)
The Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei finally got his passport back today, four years after it was seized by government authorities. Ai made the announcement on Instagram, posting a selfie of him holding his red and gold passport with a simple caption: "Today, I picked up my passport."

Chinese Art Curator Admits to Faking Masterpieces (July 22, 2015, China Real Time)
A prestigious art institute in Guangzhou  has discovered that it had forged artwork in its collection—faked by none other than one of its curators. A former curator at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts appeared in a south China court on Monday, charged with corruption – specifically selling the school’s precious artworks and replacing them with forgeries he painted.

Taylor Swift Has a Tiananmen Square Problem (July 22, 2015, TIME)
Taylor Swift will soon be embarking on a tour of China to promote her new album 1989, but she may be inadvertently stirring up controversy with the visit. 

Travel / Food

China travel guide (July 22, 2015, The Telegraph)
An insider's guide to China, including when to go, where to stay, the best tour operators, what to pack and recommended reading.

Photo: River of Ten Thousand Souls (July 20, 2015, National Geographic)
Dwellings housing Tibetan Buddhist nuns flank Yaqing Temple in China’s Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Tibet’s Holy Lakes (July 20, 2015, Wild China Blog)
Many lakes in Tibet are considered to be holy by Tibetan Buddhists, but three are regarded as most sacred, Lake Yamdrok, Lake Namtso, and Lake Manasarovar.

Language / Language Learning

Chinese Pronunciation Wiki (Allset Learning)
Pinyin chart with full-screen mode.

Chinese Tongue Twisters 绕口令(rào kǒu lìng) (December 16, 2015, Live the Language)
One of the best ways to practice your Chinese pronunciation is to learn some Chinese tongue twisters. Not only will it help you to pronounce individual words, it will also help with comprehension, increase your vocabulary and most importantly, help you to perfect those Chinese tones!

Chinese listening practice with 锵锵三人行 (July 22, 2015, Hacking Chinese)

Books

(Simplified Chinese) Gospel In Life; Grace Changes Everything (The Gospel Coalition) 
Gospel In Life is an eight-week course on the gospel and how it is lived out in all of life— first in our hearts, then in community, and out into the world. Week 1 opens the course with the theme of the city: our home now, the world that is.

Louisa Lim: 'I wanted to discover how Chinese people became complicit in an act of mass amnesia' (July 21, 2015, The Guardian)
The author of the Orwell prize-shortlisted The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited describes how she uncovered the fear, forgetting and self-censorship of those involved in the massacre of 1989.

Q. and A.: Andrew G. Walder on ‘China Under Mao’ (July 20, 2015, Sinosphere)
Andrew G. Walder is a sociologist at Stanford University who has written extensively on the Cultural Revolution and life in Maoist China. His latest book, “China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed,” published this year by Harvard University Press, incorporates the latest scholarship on this tumultuous era, when bedrocks of Chinese society — especially private property and communal religious life — were destroyed in favor of Communist-style collectives. He argues that Mao lurched from crisis to crisis, inspired less by a new vision of Communism than a simplistic understanding of Stalinist ideology.

Articles for Researchers

Xi Jinping’s inner circle: The mishu cluster II (July 14, 2015, Brookings)
This paper is the fifth in a series for the China Leadership Monitor and can be downloaded below. The first paper in the series can be found here: "Xi Jinping's Inner Circle: The Shaanxi Gang." The second can be found here: "Xi Jinping's Inner Circle: Friends from Xi's Formative Years," the third here: "Xi Jinping's Inner Circle: Political Protégés from the Provinces," and the fourth here: "Xi Jinping’s inner circle: The mishu cluster I."

Articles in Chinese

拆除十字架运动中的法律问题 (Pacific Institute for Social Science)

从浙江2014-2015十字架事件思索未来政教关系走向 (Pacific Institute for Social Science)

“强拆十字架”违背法治基本原则 (Pacific Institute for Social Science)

Image credit: Baby and Ball, by Joann Pittman, via Flickr