ZGBriefs

ZGBriefs | July 25, 2024

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Featured Article

Remembering Hong Kong’s “Queen of Swords (July 19, 2024, Sixth Tone)
Cheng Pei Pei, a pioneering actress and star of movies like “Come Drink with Me” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” died July 17. She was 78.

One of the foremost stars of Hong Kong’s wuxia martial arts boom in the 1960s, Cheng returned to acting in the 1990s and 2000s with a series of high-profile roles. Her representatives confirmed her death Friday.

Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

Politics Powers China’s Paradoxical Press Suppression (July 19, 2024, East Asia Forum)
On 13 March 2024, local authorities in eastern China attempted to physically prevent Chinese journalists from reporting on a gas explosion in a restaurant in Sanhe, near Beijing. Harassment is vexedly frequent for China’s journalists, but the aftermath of this incident was unusual.

Party Propagandists Promote, Then Backtrack on “Xi as Reformer” Narratives Amid Third Plenum (July 19, 2024, China Digital Times)
Monday, the opening day of the Third Plenum, saw heavy state-media promotion of “Xi the Reformer,” a 10,000 word commentary from state-media outlet Xinhua that hailed Xi Jinping as a great reformer on the same level as Deng Xiaoping. The commentary, which seems to have first appeared in early March during the Two Sessions legislative and advisory meetings, was reportedly deleted from Xinhua’s official website and became unsearchable on Baidu sometime this week.

Courts, Governments Advance Efforts to Investigate Forced Labor in Xinjiang (July 19, 2024, China Digital Times)
Activists have long attempted to use legal systems to seek accountability for Uyghur forced labor and other potential crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. At the international level, China has effectively used its leverage to block efforts at accountability in the UN. Some progress has been made at the EU level. Over the past few weeks, rights groups have made new gains at the domestic level across several countries.

Religion

Grandpa—A Tale of Faith and Family in Rural China (July 19, 2024, ChinaSource)
When I got to my grandparents’, I remember sitting on the common country bed (a Kang) by my grandpa and asked him if he knew Jesus. He pointed at his ear and shook his head. My cousin sitting on the side said he couldn’t hear. I was like, okay, Grandpa can wait for me to return to share the gospel with him.

God Is on the Move, Part 2 (July 22, 2024, ChinaSource)
In this post, three Chinese pastors reflect on what was working as they guided their congregations through the challenge of online church. The pastors discuss lessons they are learning from the experience and include prayer requests. Though the reflections are from 2020, they are still relevant. We can always pray to be “salt in the soup”!

Moses in the Wilderness 2: A Reflection of Christ (July 18, 2024, China Partnership)
Moses’s life was marked by unconventional choices. Because he possessed an unconventional faith, he ran down, not up. Because he saw the invisible God, he considered disgrace for Christ more valuable than Egypt’s treasures.

Chengdu: Discipleship in Difficult Times (July 22, 2024, China Partnership)
These past few years our church has focused on inward growth. Because we are an underground church, we can’t openly share the gospel. Instead, we’ve focused on discipleship. The most important thing for us has been equipping future deacons and elders. We want our church members to be people who can live out the gospel’s transformative power in their marriages, families, and workplaces.

The School on the Move—A New Long March (July 23, Chinese Church Voices)
At present, we seem to be a group of people on a new Long March for the sake of our children. I initially started a school in Chengdu in 2016, but after 2019, due to the tightening of educational ideology in China, we were forced to close the Chengdu campus in the sixth year of operation. We relocated the school to Xi’an, but due to similar policy issues and differences in philosophy with our partners, we were forced to shut down the school and disband the teachers and students.

Society / Life

Chinese Social Media Users Call this Age “The Garbage Time of History” (July 19, 2024, Global Voices)
A new buzzword, “the garbage time of history” (历史的垃圾时间), has gone viral on the Chinese internet after the suspected suicide of a 30-year-old female investment banker. The incident with the investment banker is seen as an allegory of the inevitable destiny of society’s “players” during the “garbage time of history”, which means no matter how hard one plays, the person is doomed to failure because of the time.

Quote of the Day: “Why Is Food Safety Oversight So Lax, but Film Censorship So Strict?” (July 16, 2024, China Digital Times)
A massive food-safety scandal over the “open industry secret” of using fuel tanker-trucks to transport cooking oil and other edible products—without the tankers being washed or sanitized in between—is still generating a flood of attention from the Chinese public…This latest food safety scandal has shaken consumers’ faith in industry and government regulatory authorities, and caused many to question why food safety scandals seem to occur with such regularity in China. Some have noted the relative laxity of food safety oversight measures in comparison to more stringent oversight in other, less critical industries.

“Society Doesn’t Want My Kids”: China’s Single Women Forced Abroad to Freeze Their Eggs (July 17, 2024, The Guardian)
Boosting China’s birthrate has been linked to the goal of national rejuvenation and Xi Jinping, China’s president, has called on society to “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbearing.” The use of “social egg freezing”—for the purposes of delaying having a baby until later in life—is seen by China’s leadership as antithetical to such a drive. Barred from accessing the services that tens of thousands of women in other countries avail themselves of each year, Chinese women with the means are looking overseas to preserve their hopes of becoming a mother later in life.

China to Raise Retirement Age as Population Gets Older (July 23, 2024, BBC News)
Life expectancy in the country has now risen above the United States, to 78 years, from just 36 years at the time of the Communist revolution in 1949.

But China’s retirement age remains one of the lowest in the world—at 60 for men, 55 for women in white-collar jobs and 50 for working-class women.

The plan to raise retirement ages is part of a series of resolutions adopted last week at a five-yearly top-level Communist party meeting, known as the Third Plenum.

The Beastly Politics of China’s Margins (July 17, 2024, Made in China Journal)
As intellectuals in China—both minority and some Han—have grappled with the rapid social, cultural, and ecological transformations of the country’s peripheries, they have often turned to animals as a metaphorical resource for discussing the plight of ethnic minorities within the country. At the same time, for rural pastoralist minorities, the upheaval of the early twenty-first century has often entailed the loss of, or estrangement from, their animals.

Economics / Trade / Business

China’s Third Plenum Offers Little Hope for a Flagging Economy (July 22, 2024, The Diplomat)
The Third Plenum outcome suggests a mismatch between what the Chinese economy needs to recover quickly and what policymakers are prepared to deliver.

Xi Jinping Vows to Boost Security, Strengthen Communist Party Control Over Economy (July 22, 2024, Radio Free Asia)
Ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has vowed to strengthen control over families, businesses and financial markets, with a slew of measures to advance his vision of an orderly economy that fulfills Beijing’s top political priorities and addresses growing inequality.

Does Hard Work Alone Lead to Prosperity? Increasingly, Chinese Citizens Say No. (July 17, 2024, The Christian Science Monitor)
The survey data, collected last year and published this month, reveals a growing perception that China’s economic system is unfair, and that opportunities are unequal—regardless of hard work. People’s confidence in their ability to advance economically through their own merits has also fallen.

Health / Environment

At Least 11 Killed and Dozens Missing as Chinese Bridge Collapses Amid Floods (July 20, 2024, The Guardian)
The bridge over a river in Shangluo, Shaanxi province, buckled at about 8.40pm on Friday “due to a sudden downpour and flash floods,” the Xinhua agency said, citing the provincial public relations department.

The state broadcaster CCTV said nearly 20 vehicles and more than 30 people remained missing.

Science / Technology

How China Swerved Worst of Global Tech Meltdown (July 20, 2024, BBC News)
While most of the world was grappling with the blue screen of death on Friday, one country that managed to escape the outage largely unscathed—China.

The reason is actually quite simple: CrowdStrike is hardly used there.

Chinese Talent Show Exposes Stupidity of AI—and Some Humans (July 18, 2024, Sixth Tone)
A dispute over the results of a popular Chinese reality TV show has highlighted that most artificial intelligence models—and a surprisingly large number of people—struggle to answer even the most basic math questions.

History / Culture

Chinese Artefacts in Repatriation Row Were “Given Willingly” to British Museum (July 20, 2024, The Guardian)
The British Museum boasts one of the biggest collections of Chinese antiquities in the West, but it has faced repeated calls to return them to China. Now historical documents reveal that many of the antiquities were acquired with the full cooperation of Chinese officials in the last century.

Travel / Food

China Slaps Travel Restrictions on Teachers, Banking Sector Staff (July 19, 2024, Radio Free Asia)
Chinese authorities are extending travel restrictions to teachers, schoolchildren and bank staff ahead of summer vacation by requiring them to hand over their passports or ask permission before leaving the country, according to documents posted by social media users this week. The fresh bans are the latest in a slew of travel restrictions on Chinese citizens that began after President Xi Jinping took power in 2012 and intensified during the three years of COVID-19 restrictions.

China’s Milk Tea Industry Gets a Health Check (July 23, 2024, Sixth Tone)
This March, the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention launched a one-year pilot program to test the feasibility of adding nutrition labels to fresh beverages. The system, which grades drinks on a scale from A to D, with D indicating the highest levels of sugar and saturated fat, is mandatory for beverage packaging, in-store menus, and online ordering systems.

China Plans to Open Ming Dynasty Tombs to the Public by 2030 (July 17, 2024, Smithsonian Magazine)
The news was announced this week at the Ming Culture Forum, held in Beijing’s Changping district, an area that also encompasses the tombs. More than 600 scholars from China and beyond convened to discuss and celebrate Ming culture, gathering for dialogue sessions, seminars, exhibitions and cultural activities.

Arts/Entertainment/ Media

Podcast—Why China loves Taylor Swift (July 16, 2024, Chinese Whispers)
“Swifties,” as Taylor Swift’s fans are known across the world, are extremely dedicated to the cause, and often estimated to drive up local economies wherever they flock, and Chinese fans are no different. Swift didn’t perform in China on the latest global tour, but that didn’t stop more wealthy fans flying to Singapore to see her; or the less wealthy, going to cinemas in China to watch the Taylor Swift Eras Tour documentary—which has broken box office records in China.

Resources

Academic Course—The Legacy of Ancient Christianity for China (Fall 2024, Regent College)
The growth of Protestantism in China has largely developed without the benefits of the Patristic anchor in the faith. It often comes as a surprise to most Chinese Protestants that the deep roots of the Reformation are found in early Christianity. In this course, through online lectures and discussions conducted in Mandarin with Chinese and English lecture notes, we will find how the ancient faith gave Christianity its first expressions.                                   

Pray for China

July 21 (Pray for China: A Walk Through History)
On July 21, 1882, Gen. Paul Zhang Zhijiang (张之江将军) was born in Guizhou. While serving in the military in Sichuan, Zhang was impressed by the anti-imperialist stand of believers there and chose to follow Christ. Throughout his life, he daily read the Bible and prayed; he also distributed Bibles to the men under his command and had his troops sing hymns and pray before each battle. Gen. Zhang died in Shanghai in 1966 as the Cultural Revolution was beginning. Pray for the Lord Jesus, the Eternal Word, to be glorified by military leaders who follow Him as their captain.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5

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Image credit: A screenshot from an interview with Cheng Pei Pei at the British Independent Film Awards in 2014, via YouTube.

Jon Kuert

After his first trip to China in 2001, Jon Kuert served as the director of AFC Global for seven years and was responsible for sending teams of students and volunteers to China and other parts of Asia. After that, he and his wife Elissa moved to Yunnan province where they …View Full Bio