ZGBriefs | May 8, 2025

Featured Article

Lost and Found: The Unexpected Journey of the MingKwai Typewriter (May 2, 2025, Made In China Journal)
It began as an innocuous inquiry on Facebook. Nelson Felix, a resident of New York State, posted in the group ‘What’s My Typewriter Worth?’ about a curious find he made while clearing out the basement of his wife’s grandfather. He shared a few photos. The keys on the typewriter are all in Chinese, Felix noted, and the model does not appear to have ever been sold in the United States. ‘Is it even worth anything?’ he asked (Felix 2025). By the next day, news of Felix’s find had spread across the Pacific (IT之家 2025). Exclamations of excitement and disbelief flooded the comment section of the original post (see comments to Felix 2025).

Spotlight

Job Opening at ChinaSource: Assistant Content Manager
Are you a seasoned Christ follower who’s passionate about content, detail, and the mission of the global Church? You might be who ChinaSource is looking for! We are seeking a part-time Assistant Content Manager to help keep our website and platforms fresh, accurate, and engaging. In this remote role, you’ll support our Content Manager in editing, publishing, and managing content that connects Christians inside and outside China. You’ll also coordinate with designers and vendors to ensure everything runs smoothly. If you’re organized, love working with words, and have a heart for ministry in China, we’d love to hear from you! 
Click here to read more.

Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

DeepSeek: A Tool Tuned for Social Governance (April 25, 2025, China Brief – The Jamestown Foundation)
The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) does not just envision its “AI+ initiative” as bolstering the national economy but aiding its plans for modernizing its social stability system. DeepSeek has been designed, thanks to regulations, in a way that makes it a perfect tool to support the “public opinion guidance” system that aligns the public with state policy through propaganda.

CIA Rolls Out Sleek New Videos Aimed at Recruiting Chinese Officials (May 2, 2025, CNN)
The CIA has released two new videos aimed at luring Chinese officials to spy for the United States, tapping into disillusionment within China’s vast bureaucracy and fear of leader Xi Jinping’s relentless anti-corruption purge. The sleekly produced clips, filmed in Mandarin with Chinese subtitles, are the latest effort by the US spy agency to ramp up intelligence gathering on China, viewed by successive administrations as the top strategic rival and military threat to America.

China, Hong Kong Drop in World Press Freedom Ranking (May 5, 2025, China Digital Times)
On Friday—right before World Press Freedom Day—Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published its 2025 World Press Freedom Index, which showed a notable drop in the rankings of China (from 172 to 178 out of 180) and Hong Kong (from 135 to 140 out of 180) compared to last year. The results reveal that for the first time in the history of the RSF index, the global average state of press freedom has deteriorated to a “difficult situation”:

What’s Behind China’s Anti-Corruption Crackdown Targeting Top Military Brass? (May 5, 2025, South China Morning Post)
China’s anti-corruption drive targeting the top brass of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) should not be taken as a sign that President Xi Jinping has weak control over the military, according to analysts. They added that the campaign’s impact on the military’s war readiness and modernization was also limited, and that internal competition among Xi’s supporters could be a factor behind the high-level investigations.

Religion

Shenzhen: “Sheep Without a Shepherd” (April 30, 2025, China Partnership)
Shenzhen is a city with many people, so many people. But they truly are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Pray that God will enable more churches to see the needs of these first-tier cities. May he move the churches to send workers to Shenzhen to harvest the crops.

Did China ‘slap’ Francis in his coffin? – UCA News (May 1, UCA News)
As more than 1.4 billion Catholics around the world said farewell to Pope Francis — and millions of non-Catholics watched his funeral live — one country’s absence stood out: Xi Jinping’s China. This absence was so conspicuous that even critics of both Pope Francis and China hardly dared to comment.

When the Church Stands Low (to Rise Again) (May 2, 2025, Chinese Christian Voices)
This reflection by Pastor Nelson Leung offers a humble and honest glimpse into what local churches are facing: declining worship attendance, aging leadership, emigration, fatigue—and yet also creativity, resilience, and hope. Rooted in both statistics and spiritual insight, his words invite the wider body of Christ to reflect, persevere, and rise again in hope—even when standing from the lowest place.

Standing in the True Light (May 5, 2025, ChinaSource)
Why would a Protestant Chinese scholar, deeply rooted in decades of house church life and theological training, turn to the Eastern Orthodox Church? This question raises deeper issues about spiritual formation, tradition, and longing. Mark Shan’s story offers a unique window into one man’s desire to seek what he considers the fullness of Christian life—something ancient, embodied, and spiritually powerful.

Wuhan: Central China’s Connection Point (May 5, 2025, China Partnership)
Although most people outside of China probably think of Wuhan as the origin of the Covid pandemic, within China, the city’s reputation is more layered. Wuhan is a connection hub and important center for all of central China, with some referring to Wuhan as the “Chicago of China.” Wuhan has many universities and young people, and is an important educational center for central China.

New Religious Regulations for Foreigners in China (May 6, 2025, ChinaSource)
A few weeks ago, the Chinese government announced an updated set of regulations to govern the religious activities of foreign personnel. Many secular and Christian media outlets in the West trumpeted this as something new, indicating the government’s desire to ban foreign religious involvement in China. These regulations went into effect on May 1 and apply to all foreigners living in or visiting China (including tourists) and their religious activities.¹

Society / Life

Respect for the Hero (April 30, China Media Project)
Earlier this month, state media across China went into overdrive to share the heart-stopping story of how Bupatam Abdukader, a 24-year-old female police officer in Xinjiang, had descended 40 meters into a narrow well to rescue a toddler, after attempts with conventional rescue equipment had reportedly failed. Dramatic video footage from the scene showed the officer stepping forward toward the perilous shaft, barely 40 centimeters wide, as she removed her jacket and said: “I’m thin, let me go down!”

The Chengdu Overpass Protest and Its Antecedents: “The People Do Not Want a Political Party with Unchecked Power” (May 1, 2025, China Digital Times)
In the early hours of the morning of April 15, 2025, a lone protester lashed three long white banners with red, hand-painted political slogans to the railings of a pedestrian overpass near a bus station in Chengdu, and unfurled them to the street below. As he would later confide to the owners of several whistle-blowing social media accounts to whom he turned for help in amplifying his message, it was a protest he had been planning for over a year.

New Ride-Hailing Apps Bring Motorcycles to China’s Small Cities (May 2, 2025, Sixth Tone)
With little fanfare, motorcycle ride-hailing platforms have rolled out in smaller Chinese cities, offering rides for as little as 5 yuan ($0.7). But as the services expand, regulators are now scrambling to keep up, with no clear licensing rules, patchy oversight, and growing questions about safety and legality.

Live and Leave: Experience Orientation and the Guest Mind among Chinese Co-Living Youth Today (May 6, 2025, Made In China Journal)
In contemporary China, co-living has emerged as a new residential arrangement among some young people. Referred to as gongju (共居, literally ‘living in common’), it differs from more conventional joint rental arrangements (合租). Through co-living, they seek to cultivate emotional intimacy and build social connections in large cities within a collective environment that helps alleviate both the financial burden of high rents and the emotional strain of loneliness.

Economics / Trade / Business

China’s AI Job Mirage (April 30, 2025, China Media Project)
China’s biggest tech companies are indeed angling for the leading edge in AI, battling it out to hire “young geniuses” (天才少年) graduating from AI programs at China’s top universities. But while these rarefied talents — whoever they are — may have their choice of elite positions, the picture is less rosy for the vast majority. “Despite the booming industry,” Qianjiang Evening News concludes, “many recent graduates of artificial intelligence majors from ordinary universities are still struggling in the job market.”   

Will Market Shake Up Smooth the Road for Takeout Couriers? (April 30, 2025, Sixth Tone)
As e-commerce giant JD.com looks to disrupt China’s food delivery sector, a war of words erupted on April 21, when the newcomer accused one of its rivals of basically telling millions of takeout couriers: You’re either with us, or against us.

China Manufacturing Activity Plummets Amid Trump Tariff War (April 30, 2025, The Guardian)
“The weak manufacturing PMI in April is driven by the trade war,” Zhiwei Zhang, the president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, wrote in a note. “The macro data in China and the US will weaken further … as the trade policy uncertainty delays business decisions.” Goldman Sachs has estimated that 16m jobs in China could be at risk if the high tariffs persist, mainly in the export, wholesale and retail industries.

China Has Long Been an Expert in Using Tariffs. Now It’s a Target. (May 1, 2025, The Diplomat)
Amid the poverty of its planned economy, China used tariffs in its early gambit to bring foreign technologies to its shores. The goal was not to protect domestic industries, but to simply make money, and where possible, hard currency, for which China thirsted.

(Subscription Required) Letter from Tibet: A Breathtaking Journey Through the Tightly Guarded Spiritual Heartland (May 1, 2025, CNN)
A “no photograph upon landing” announcement punctured the serene silence of the cabin as I gazed at the snow-capped peaks outside our airplane window, a stark reminder that we were entering a land of profound beauty and immense political sensitivity.

Science / Technology

Is Ancient Chinese Astronomer Shi Shen’s Stellar Catalogue the World’s First Star Log? (May 5, 2025, South China Morning Post)
Two Chinese scientists believe their country’s earliest star catalogue – an astronomical list of celestial bodies known as “Shi’s Star Catalogue” – is the world’s oldest star log, dating back some 2,400 years. Citing new evidence in a study published on April 4 in the peer-reviewed astronomy journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, researchers Zhao Yongheng and He Boliang from the National Astronomical Observatories, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Shi’s Star Catalogue was created around 335BC.

Travel / Food

China’s Superfood Boom: The Middle-Class Health Obsession (May 5, 2025, ChinaSkinny)
Walk through a high-end Chinese supermarket these days and you may notice items that were uncommon a year or two ago: a cart full of kale, turmeric, acai powder, and $10 pouches of an oddly bitter green called Banlangen greens. The items’ popularity is a sign of how China’s middle class are reshaping the meaning of health – and how brands, both local and foreign, are racing to meet that demand.

Language / Language Learning

Idiomized: 4 Characters That Weighed Too Little (May 1, 2025, The World of Chinese)
Although there have occasionally been mentions of weight loss throughout China’s millennia of history, “thinness” has also never been a fixed aesthetic preference. Instead, when we look through dictionaries, we find that while there are many idioms related to “thinness,” they often carry negative connotations.

Education

How Do Rising U.S.-China Tensions Affect Chinese Students and Researchers? (May 1, 2025, National Committee on U.S. China Relations)
What factors have different administrations considered when balancing national security concerns with access to U.S. higher education? Watch Ryan Hass (Brookings), Matt Turpin (Hoover), and Lingling Wei (WSJ) discuss more about the first 100 days of the president’s China policy in the full video!

Books

The China Chronicles (April 2025, Langham Publishing)
Many people are aware of the extraordinary explosion of Christianity throughout China in recent decades, but few know how it has occurred. In The China Chronicles, Paul Hattaway draws on more than thirty-five years of experience in China and numerous first-hand interviews with church leaders to provide insight into how the Living God has brought about the largest revival in the history of Christianity. Hattaway documents the acts of the Holy Spirit in nine regions of China — Fujian, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Shaanxi, Shandong, Tibet, Xinjiang, Zhejiang — focusing on the wonderful things God has done for men rather than on what men have done for God.

Arts / Entertainment / Media

Video – Fame, Pursued by Goose: The Chongqing ‘Uncle’ Who Became an Internet Star (May 5, 2025, Sixth Tone)
When YouTuber IShowSpeed, also known as Speed, went on his whirlwind China tour this March, he did not expect the man from Chongqing to arrive, braised goose in tow. Yet, squeezed between two security guards, the plastic bag with the goose inside made its way to the YouTuber — and into internet fame.

What to Read in Chinese Literature (May 2025, The World of Chinese)
Discover newly released books, translated literature, our latest collection of in-depth book reviews, Chinese sci-fi short stories from acclaimed authors, and the latest literary trends shaping contemporary China.

Pray for China

May 4 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On May 4, 1919, Chinese students in Beijing took the streets to protest against the Chinese government for accepting unfavorable terms under the Treaty of Versailles. As part of the May 4th Movement (五四运动) and a heightened sense of nationalism, many Chinese intellectuals turned away from democratic values and embraced Marxism. Pray for those Chinese intellectuals who have rejected Marxism and embraced Christ to serve the people with God’s love. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus. Acts 18:27-28

Operation World (April 21, 2025, ChinaSource)

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

Pray for China (prayforchina.us)

Pray for China (China Partnership)