ZGBriefs

ZGBriefs | June 9, 2016

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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. Please go here to support ZGBriefs.

Featured Article

Harmony And Martyrdom Among China’s Hui Muslims (June 6, 2016, The New Yorker)
The history of the Hui in Yunnan is one of seasons of prosperity punctuated by violence. The province wasn’t part of China until the thirteenth century, when Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari, a Central Asian Muslim who served the imperial court, brought it into the fold.


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Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

One Human-Rights Question Too Many for China’s Foreign Minister (June 2, 2016, China Real Time)
“Your question is full of prejudice against China and arrogance from where I don’t know,” said a visibly annoyed Mr. Wang. “I completely can’t accept it.”

Untangling China’s Cybersecurity Laws (June 3, 2016, China Real Time)
Here are some of the major cybersecurity laws that have been drafted:

Nine-Dash Line’s Ambiguity a Good Thing, Argues Chinese Military Academic (June 5, 2016, China Real Time)
For more than half a century, Beijing has maintained an air of mystery over the so-called nine-dash line, leaving others to guess at the precise meaning of the cartographic marker of its sovereignty claims over the South China Sea.

US and Taiwan won't recognize air defense zone in South China Sea (June 6, 2016, Christian Science Monitor)
Taiwan's new defense minister said on Monday the island would not recognize any air defense zone declared by China over the South China Sea, as the island's top security agency warned such a move could usher in a wave of regional tension.

U.S. and Beijing Offer Competing Views on South China Sea (June 7, 2016, The New York Times)
Secretary of State John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart laid out diverging positions regarding the South China Sea on Tuesday, indicating that annual talks between the United States and China had done little to bridge the differences over what has become one of the most volatile issues in their relationship.

Chinese police require DNA for passports in Xinjiang (June 7, 2016, BBC)
Police in China's north-western region of Xinjiang are asking some residents to provide DNA samples and other biological data when applying for travel documents. People in the multi-ethnic area of Yili will have to provide the samples before being allowed to go abroad.

An Island Tethered to Taiwan, but Leaning Toward China (June 7, 2016, The New York Times)
Lieyu Township, encompassing what is known as Lesser Kinmen Island, is not controlled by the People’s Republic of China, nor is the much larger Kinmen Island nearby, even though both sit on the approaches to one of the mainland’s busiest ports.

U.S. Accuses Chinese Jet of Flying Too Close to American Plane (June 8, 2016, The New York Times)
The American military has accused a Chinese fighter jet of maneuvering too fast and too close to a United States Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance plane as it flew in international airspace over the East China Sea this week.

Religion

Only Francis Can Go To China? (June 1, 2016, First Things)
It’s well known that Pope Francis would like to go to China, and so far as the papal diplomats are concerned, it’s inconceivable that such a visit could take place without diplomatic relations being established between the Holy See and the PRC.

Prayers for life on Children’s Day in China (June 2, 2016, World Magazine)
June 1 is Children’s Day in China, a holiday filled with children’s events, reduced entrance fees at tourist attractions, and student performances. Yet for the past five years, Jonny Fan of Chengdu Early Rain Reformed Church has striven to make the celebration include unborn children as well, with his “Don’t Abort on Children’s Day” campaign.

China says Muslim practices to be protected during Ramadan (June 2, 2016, AP)
China's government won't interfere with fasting and other standard religious activities in the traditionally Muslim region of Xinjiang during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan that begins this month, officials said Thursday. Restaurants will be allowed to keep their own hours and authorized activities in mosques and private homes will be legally protected, the officials said at a news conference on religious policy in Xinjiang, despite complaints from rights groups and others of past government interference during the religious holiday.

“We Don’t Believe in Anything” (June 6, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
Sometimes I would ask the question, what do Chinese people believe in? Without fail the response was either “we believe in making money,” or “we don’t believe in anything.”

A New Megachurch with an Old History (June 7, 2016, Chinese Church Voices)
Much has been written about the cross- and church-demolition campaign in Zhejiang province over the past couple of years. What doesn’t make the news (outside of China), however, are stories about new churches being built.

Society / Life

‘Only one in seven’ child sex abuse cases are reported in China … and teachers are among the worst offenders (June 2, 2016, South China Morning Post)
According to the “China Children Sex Abuse Investigation Report” released by Girls Protection, a non-profit organisation formed by mainland women journalists to raise awareness of the issue, mainland media reported 968 cases of child sex abuse from 2013 to 2015.

Why I Won’t Tie the Knot (June 2, 2016, Sixth Tone)
I would take a stable relationship over a traditional Chinese marriage any day of the week. In China, the intent behind matrimony is often to bring families together instead of individuals.

Getting Hitched in Beijing? Try to Look the Part, Please (June 3, 2016, The New York Times)
Beijing can be a pretty informal place. People walk outside in their pajamas, and when it’s hot some men lift up their shirts to expose their bellies. Even President Xi Jinping dresses down, usually in his trademark dark windbreaker. The authorities have determined that one place in China’s capital has gotten far too casual: the marriage registration office.

Inside China's hard drive (June 4, 2016, Christian Science Monitor)
In a farewell letter, our longtime Beijing correspondent tells what's behind China's global ambitions and gives insights into where the country might be going. 

“You Are in China Now” – Aggressive Police Notice to Foreigners (June 5, 2016, What’s on Weibo)
An English notice to foreigners in Shenzhen, China, issued by local police, is causing amusement amongst China’s social media users for being the “most aggressive English announcement”.

The Chinese lawyer who had his clothes ripped off in court (June 7, 2016, BBC)
Plenty of Chinese lawyers have been harassed, detained, even jailed in China but the photograph of one with his clothes reportedly torn off him by police has drawn plenty of attention in China. Wu Liangshu stood in the Qingxiu District Court wearing the remnants of his suit with his bare leg and underpants showing.

'I want to rescue my dad': children's heartbreak for the lawyers China has taken away (June 7, 2016, The Guardian)
“I want to be a knight!” Li declared. “That way I can rescue my dad!” My friend Li Heping, a man China thinks is 'more dangerous than Bin Laden.' For all her gallantry, it is a battle the six-year-old is unlikely to win. Li Jiamei is the daughter of Li Heping, a top Chinese human rights lawyer who has not been heard of since he disappeared into the custody of China’s security services in July 2015.

Hefei community enforces real-name registration on its dancing aunties (June 8, 2016, Shanthaiist)
Despite one side's apparent victory, the war between the Chinese government and China's notorious dancing aunties still rages on in Anhui. A community in the provincial capital of Hefei has recently introduced a new set of guidelines aimed at "regulating" the nationwide scourge of late-night square dancing. Dancers will now be required to register their real names before going out to shake it on the street.

Economics / Trade / Business

China's Hidden Unemployment Rate (June 5, 2016, Bloomberg)
The jobless rate may be three times the official estimate, according to a new report by Fathom Consulting, whose China's Underemployment Indicator has tripled to 12.9 percent since 2012 even while the official jobless rate has hovered near 4 percent for five years. 

US warns China on steel overcapacity (June 6, 2016, BBC)
The US Treasury Secretary has urged China to reduce its excess steel capacity, which he says is distorting global markets. Jack Lew was speaking in Beijing ahead of an annual meeting between the US and China to discuss trade and security.

Early Look: China’s ‘Lukewarm’ Economy in May (June 6, 2016, China Real Time)
China’s economy appears to have sputtered along at low levels last month, still struggling to find fresh growth momentum following a jump-start earlier this year thanks government stimulus, according to a survey of economists.

Negotiating With Chinese Companies: Walk, Don’t Look Back (June 7, 2016, China Law Blog)
A classic example of an old tactic Chinese technology companies seem to constantly employ is to “lure” in Western companies to do a deal by promising the moon and then backing down from nearly every promise with each new contract draft. The best response to this tactic is usually a simple statement that you will not agree to the change and then to wait. In other words, be patient and be prepared to walk.

Education

Should I Stay or Should I Go? (June 3, 2016, China File)
It’s graduation time, and Chinese graduates from American colleges are now pondering what to do next: return to China or stay in the U.S. We reached out to recent graduates to ask about their decision-making process and how they view their prospects at home and abroad.

The class ceiling: China’s education system is deeply unfair (June 4, 2016, The Economist)
Less than 10% of young people in the countryside go to senior high schools compared with 70% of their urban counterparts. The result is that a third of urban youngsters complete tertiary education, compared with only 8% of young rural adults.

Gaokao season: China embarks on dreaded national exams (June 7, 2016, BBC)
More than nine million high school graduates are sitting China's national exams, the Gaokao. Their result will determine which university they can attend, and therefore much of the rest of their future, so they are under huge pressure.

China’s Exam Fever and ‘Gaokao Economy’ (June 7, 2016, What’s on Weibo)
It is time for the gaokao (高考) – China’s national college entrance exams. The exams, that are taking place on June 7 and 8, are attracting nationwide attention both offline and online. Not only do the gaokao dominate the top trending lists on China’s social media, companies also profit from the booming “gaokao economy” (高考经济).

China's university exam cheats may face seven years in jail (June 7, 2016, The Guardian)
Students who cheat during this year’s university entrance exams in China could be jailed for up to seven years, state media have said, as the government tries to crack down on a pervasive problem for the highly competitive exams. Cheaters will, for the first time, face jail if convicted, and be banned from taking other national education exams for three years under an amendment to the criminal law, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Health / Environment

China's healthcare system (June 6, 2016, Chinese Medical News)
The Chinese have a saying: "Kan bing nan, kan bing gui," which roughly translates as "It's difficult and expensive to see a doctor". This is evident at 8am in the foyer of a hospital in Kunming, the largest city in Yunnan Province, south-west China. There are lengthy queues to obtain one of the coveted ‘registration tickets' necessary to see a doctor, and arguments are breaking out among those who have been lining up for hours.

Science / Technology

China’s Internet Speed Ranks 91st in the World (June 3, 2016, The New York Times)
This week, an online report published in China Daily, a state-run, English-language newspaper, said that China, the world’s second-largest economy, ranked an abysmal 91st in the world in internet speed, with the average broadband connection scored at a mere 9.46 megabits per second, or Mbps. There are nearly 200 countries in the world.

History / Culture

The Historian of the Tiananmen Movement and the June Fourth Massacre – An Interview With Wu Renhua (June 4, 2016, China Change)
Let’s not forget that these 200,000 martial law troops are a huge group of witnesses, and most of them are of the same age as the student protesters. When we say “the 1989 generation,” we have to keep in mind that they are the other part of the 1989 generation.

Intro To Ancient Chinese Weaponry (June 5, 2016, The World of Chinese)
Fortunately, we here at TWOC share your interest in these ancient weapons used for spilling blood, so we’ve compiled a short list of notables. Enjoy!

Wu Tong on Traversing Musical Boundaries in China (June 6, 2016, The New York Times)
He is a founding member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, the international music collective, which in April released the album “Sing Me Home.” In an interview, Mr. Wu, 44, talked about the new album, his evolving relationship with the sheng and what it was like to be a rock musician in China in the 1990s.

An Absent Presence: Netizens Commemorate an Anniversary (January 7, 2016, China File)
In Chan Koonchung’s dystopian science fiction novel The Fat Years, set in China in 2013, the whole month of Feburary 2011 has disappeared from people’s memory. In reality, the month that is closest to being spirited away is the month of June 1989 when the Communist Party of China (CPC) commanded a crackdown on the pro-democracy student protests in Tiananmen Square. Since then, the CPC has entered into a race with information technology to erase people’s memory of that month.

The Story Behind Dragon Boat Festival (June 8, 2016, The Beijinger)
Dragon Boat Festival (龙船节), also known Duanwu Jie (端午节) falls on the fifth day on fifth lunar month of every year (Thursday this time around) and since 2008, has been considered a public holiday. 

Former Red Guards remember a time when killing was normal (June 8, 2016, South China Morning Post)
While that level of violence might seem unimaginable today, at the time it looked like a perfectly reasonable choice to many restless youths involved in the Cultural Revolution following a directive from Beijing to purge “members of the bourgeoisie ” from government and the cultural sphere.

China’s memory manipulators (June 8, 2016, The Guardian)
The country’s rulers do not just suppress history, they recreate it to serve the present. They know that, in a communist state, change often starts when the past is challenged.

From the Archives: Mao and the Marriage Counselor (June 8, 2016, Jottings from the Granite Studio)
As sometimes happens with couples, by 1956 the relationship between Mao and the Party had begun to suffer from a seven-year itch.

China's Other Cultural Revolution (July, 2016, Reason)
The country was eight years into the Cultural Revolution, a massive effort to purge Chinese society of bourgeois influences and move it closer to communist purity. But beneath the surface, something rather different was underway.

Arts / Entertainment / Media

How Xi Jinping's crackdowns have squeezed the life out of Beijing's indie rock scene (June 2, 2016, Los Angeles Times)
Not long ago, Beijing was considered home to one of the world’s most exciting underground music scenes. Venues and record labels proliferated. The music — new wave, post-rock, grunge, noise — was raw, loud and, above all, original, reflecting the angst and uncertainty of a city in the grip of constant change. Now it’s all in doubt, squeezed by rising rents and intensifying political scrutiny. Venues are closing, festivals are relocating to the provinces, and musicians are switching careers.

Back to the North (向北方): A Film Review (June 3, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
Thirty years—a generation’s worth of time—after the policy was first implemented is where Beijing-based director, Liu Hao, begins the conversation. As also the writer of the feature film, Liu builds an engaging story around this timely social issue, allowing viewers to get personal with what’s really happening in China.

'Urban Movement' Makes Beijing and Its Citizen Athletes Look Just Awesome (June 3, 2016, The Beijinger)
If you woke up Friday morning and went to ballet, played basketball, did capoeira, Crossfit, muay thai, or went running, then you'll feel the spirit captured in a new short film by two Beijingers, director/cinematographer Montague Fendt and photographer Stefen Chow called Urban Movement.

Travel / Food

How Yao Ming appeased the Chinese appetite for shark fin soup (June 2, 2016, Christian Science Monitor)
Former NBA star Yao Ming has helped curb the consumption of shark fin soup in China, simply by telling the Chinese public how it's made.

Travel to Guangzhou, the Capital of Guangdong Province (June 6, 2016, Sapore di Cina)
A greener, more laid back, and with a smaller population than Beijing or Shanghai, Guangzhou is a great city to linger in for a few days.

6 Charts Showing How Elite Chinese Millennials Prefer Their Luxury Travel (June 7, 2016, Skift)
Chinese millennial travelers who are very wealthy are best described as super travelers — the average wealthy Chinese millennial has been to 13 countries and traveled abroad 3.3 times for leisure in the past year alone for an average of 25 days.

Shanghai Disneyland: Fun but Crowded (June 8, 2016, Sinosplice)
For now, anyway, everything looks nice, meeting the standard I would expect from Disney. I do wonder how well the park is going to wear, with a projected 60,000 visitors shuffling through the park daily once it officially opens.

Books

May 35 Reading (June 4, 2016, Outside-In)
In China it is simply known as “Six Four” (the Chinese way of saying June 4), and it is such a sensitive anniversary that numbers 6 and 4 get censored on the internet. Never mind, though, if anyone really wants to reference it, they just call it Five Thirty-five (or May 35).

On the China Bookshelf (June 8, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
Their conversation starts with the question, “Why read books on China?” In an age of instant information, with social media overflowing with the latest in China news, is it even necessary to spend time on books?

Links for Researchers

White Paper Full Text: Freedom of Religious Belief in Xinjiang (June 2, 2016, Xinhua)
 

Image credit: by Joann Pittman, via Flickr
 
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Joann Pittman

Joann Pittman

Joann Pittman is Vice President of Partnership and China Engagement and editor of ZGBriefs. Prior to joining ChinaSource, Joann spent 28 years working in China, as an English teacher, language student, program director, and cross-cultural trainer for organizations and businesses engaged in China. She has also taught Chinese at the University …View Full Bio