Featured Article
On Sinopessimism, or Junkies of Futility (August 5, 2025, Made In China Journal)
Gary Gexi Zhang (2021) first coined the term ‘Sinopessimism’ as a speculative counterpart to Afropessimism, imagining a future in which China becomes the object, rather than the subject, of global racialisation. While Zhang’s usage was primarily a thought experiment, I repurpose the term here to describe a different set of conditions: the negative effects emerging in a post rapid growth China, where a society once buoyed by dreams of personal flourishing and upward mobility now finds itself increasingly disenchanted with those unfulfilled promises.
Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs
The Elimination of Remonstrance: From Confucian Conscience to Organizational Discipline (July 31, 2025, The Diplomat)
The most decisive break between classical Confucian governance and Xi Jinping’s political order lies in the disappearance of jian – the duty of loyal officials to correct their ruler. In the Confucian tradition, remonstrance wasn’t disobedience, it was moral fidelity. It expressed zhong, or loyalty, anchored in dao (the moral way) and legitimated by tianming (Heaven’s Mandate).
China and Russia Are Using the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to Push Alternative Global Order (July 31, 2025, MERICS)
China and Russia are using multilateral institutions like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to strengthen their strategic coordination and build a new narrative to reshape the global order. The SCO, which has significantly widened its mandate since it was founded in 2001 as a regional forum for security issues, has become a prototype for the two powers to institutionalize their coordination on geopolitical affairs.
US-China Trade Talks Signal Shift that Could Reshape Global Order: Analysts (July 31, 2025, South China Morning Post)
As the dust settles on the latest round of US-China trade talks in Stockholm this week, the world’s two biggest economies may be shifting towards “indirect forms of negotiation” by strengthening partnerships with third countries that could reshape the global economic order, analysts said. The talks concluded on Tuesday with Beijing announcing that both sides had agreed to extend their “tariff truce” by another 90 days. On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said the two countries had reached a “fair” deal on trade, without providing further details.
Religion
5th Global Chinese Mission Conference Explores Discipleship, Opportunities for Elderly Christians in the 21st Century (August 4, 2025, China Christian Daily)
On the evening of July 8, 2025, the Fifth Global Chinese Mission Conference, themed “Discipleship and Opportunities for Elderly Chinese Christians in the 21st Century,” was held online. The keynote speaker, Rev. Dr. Kaofang Yeh, president of Family Keepers International, addressed the opportunities, motivations, and emerging prospects for discipleship among older adults.
Wenzhou: Pragmatic and Practical (August 4, 2025, China Partnership)
Wenzhou is in Zhejiang Province, on the eastern coast of China. The city is famous as an economic powerhouse; businesspeople from Wenzhou have spread across the world. Wenzhou is also known as “China’s Jersualem,” with more Christians per capita than any other Chinese cities. Local pastors say Wenzhou people are practical, focusing above all on finding solutions that are efficient and effective.
Franklin Graham Honors Grandfather Nelson Bell’s 25-Year Mission in China (August 4, 2025, China Christian Daily)
On the birthday of Dr. Nelson Bell, his grandson, Rev. Franklin Graham, took to social media to reflect on his grandfather’s remarkable years of service in China. He noted that Dr. Bell had a lasting spiritual impact on his parents, Rev. Billy Graham and Ruth Bell Graham. Rev. Graham shared that Dr. Bell served as a missionary surgeon in China for 25 years. “Under the glass on his desk in the hospital, he placed a note that listed the fruits of the Spirit and tried to practice them daily among those he served,” he wrote.
When Chinese Missionaries in Thailand Act Together: A Reflection on Myanmar Earthquake Relief (August 5, 2025, ChinaSource)
On March 28, 2025, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Myanmar’s Sagaing Division, claiming over 5,000 lives and injuring thousands more. The quake’s impact was felt as far as Bangkok, where high-rise buildings swayed from the tremors. Within 48 hours, a group of Chinese missionaries based in Thailand mobilized in response.
Society / Life
Translations: Official Report in Tianshui Kindergarten Lead Poisoning Case “Exposes the Failure of an Entire System” (July 30, 2025, China Digital Times)
An investigative report into the mass lead poisoning of hundreds of students and staff members at a kindergarten in Gansu province has revealed a host of safety and oversight violations, bribery and corruption, medical misconduct, and attempts to cover up the scandal. The unusually frank report, released by Gansu provincial officials after weeks of heated online discussion about the case, confirmed some of the public’s worst suspicions about the institutional failures that allowed the toxic lead exposure to persist for over a year.
Pool’s Big Break Among China’s Youth (July 14, 2025, The World of Chinese)
Once dismissed as a pastime for dropouts and gangs, pool has clawed its way back to become a booming pursuit among amateurs and professionals alike, driven by social media, grassroots clubs, and national campaigns.
Told ‘Too Fat’ at Home, Chinese Women Are ‘Too Thin’ Abroad (August 4, 2025, Sixth Tone)
Soon after Min moved to the U.K., she noticed a difference in the way women presented themselves on dating apps. Back in China, she and most other women would edit their photos to look “pretty, exquisite, and perfect,” the postgraduate student told me. But now her dating app profile suddenly looked like the odd one out.
Is China Getting More Pet-Friendly? (August 5, 2025, The World of Chinese)
Ragdoll cats and miniature poodles doze in cafes. Tabby kittens splash on paddleboards in rivers and lakes. Dog parks buzz with playful pups, while people stroll their dogs through pet-friendly malls and shopping centers. Social media posts advertise events for pet owners and their animal companions. Over the past few years, many Chinese cities have witnessed drastic shifts in the pet ownership industry.
Economics / Trade / Business
China’s Finance Minister Vows Fiscal Support to Spur Demand, Curb Local Government Debt (July 30, 2025, South China Morning Post)
Finance Minister Lan Foan said the central government would accelerate fiscal spending, including the issuance and use of ultra-long-term bonds and local government special-purpose bonds, in an article published on Wednesday in Study Times – a newspaper run by the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China.
Everyone Loses in the Rage of China’s Delivery Wars (Subscription Required) (July 31, 2025, The Economist)
Boiled beef noodles gave He Wei a delectable idea. A decade ago the businessman, based in China’s wealthy coastal province of Jiangsu, started a small restaurant selling them. Now he has a chain of 100 such outlets. But life is getting less palatable for millions of small eateries and cafés across China. Not only is consumer spending sluggish, but the tech platforms that operate China’s food-delivery services are battling over prices, often dropping the cost of products to next to nothing and forcing merchants such as Mr. He to cover the bill. Welcome to the front line of the “delivery wars”.
Science / Technology
How China Sees AI Safety (July 30, 2025, China Media Project)
What do we mean when we talk about AI risks, AI safety and AI security? These terms remain fuzzy around the world, even if we all have a clear sense of their huge importance given the growing impact of artificial intelligence. But another thing we should be clear about is where our emerging understanding of safe AI diverges in fundamental ways with that of key players like China that are busy shaping the future of the technology.
Chinese Scientists Double Artillery Gun Lifespan with 2000-Year-Old Chromium Tech Upgrade (August 1, 2025, South China Morning Post)
Bronze swords buried with the Terracotta Army of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, remained sharp and untarnished after more than 2,000 years underground. Microscopic analysis revealed a thin layer of chromium salts – just 10 to 15 micrometres thick – on their surfaces, protected by an underlying oxide film that had all but halted corrosion, seen as evidence of a sophisticated surface treatment technique mastered by ancient Chinese metallurgists.
Health / Environment
Deadly China Floods Leave Trail of Destruction – In Pictures (July 29, 2025, The Guardian)
Floods have caused extensive damage in Beijing and northern China, killing 30 people and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.
Chongqing Residents Seek Shelter As Heatwave Hits China’s Southwest (August 1, 2025, Reuters)
Temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) have broiled Chongqing, a metropolis in China’s southwest known for its fiery hotpot restaurants and cyberpunk cityscape, pushing some locals to cope with the increasingly hot weather in innovative ways. “It’s getting hotter and hotter,” said Liu Fengying, 60, a local resident.
The Human Cost of Progress: The Yarlung Tsangpo Dam and the Future of Tibet (August 5, 2025, The Diplomat)
In the eastern reaches of the Himalayas, where the Yarlung Tsangpo River carves the world’s deepest canyon beneath the snow-crowned Namcha Barwa, new monument to modern ambition is taking shape. The Medog Hydropower Station, set to be the most powerful dam ever built, with triple the capacity of the Three Gorges Dam, has been unveiled as a “Project of the Century”, promising clean energy, economic uplift, and strategic might. But beneath this triumphant narrative lies a troubling silence that underlines who and what is being left out: the Tibetan people, their land, and their way of life.
Education
Chinese Universities Want Students to Use More AI Not Less (July 28, 2025, MIT Technology Review)
While many educators in the West see AI as a threat they have to manage, more Chinese classrooms are treating it as a skill to be mastered. In fact, as the Chinese-developed model DeepSeek gains in popularity globally, people increasingly see it as a source of national pride. The conversation in Chinese universities has gradually shifted from worrying about the implications for academic integrity to encouraging literacy, productivity, and staying ahead.
History / Culture
Not Your Grandma’s Tai Chi: Master Sun Reveals the Truth Behind the Flow (August 4, 2025, Global Voices)
When most people picture Taijiquan, better known as Tai Chi (太极拳), two contrasting images tend to come to mind. One is the slow-moving routine practiced by elderly people in parks in the early morning, often compared to a moving yoga. The other is a dramatic, fast-paced martial arts scene seen in Chinese action films, full of flips and powerful moves. While both are rooted in the same tradition, what lies behind this centuries-old practice is far more complex — and spiritual — than either stereotype suggests.
Podcast – The Unsung Chinese Heroes of D-Day (August 5, 2025, The China History Podcast)
Thanks to a team of amateur historians, WWII enthusiasts, and survivors, this interesting tale can now be told. It concerns a forgotten man named Mr. Lam Ping Yu 林炳堯, who left behind a WWII diary from 1944 that was rediscovered by chance in 2015.
Food / Travel
Podcast – Chinese Cooking Demystified: Chris Thomas and Stephanie Li Visit Shaxi! (July 30, 2025, Sinica Podcast)
This week on Sinica: On my final two days in Shaxi in Yunnan, Chris Thomas and Stephanie Li, the hosts of the marvelous YouTube channel Chinese Cooking Demystified, joined me for some cooking and lots of chatting about food! We recorded this show together and focus our conversation on their heroic attempt at a taxonomy of different Chinese cuisines.
In Praise of Beijing’s Strange and Ugly Buildings (August 4, 2025, The Beijinger)
Beijing has no shortage of architectural marvels. The Bird’s Nest, the Temple of Heaven, and even the new subways have their own sleek, minimal charm. But hidden in plain sight, towering over overpasses and lurking in residential blocks, is a very different kind of urban species: Beijing’s gloriously hideous buildings.
Arts Entertainment / Media
The Pulled Punch and the Sheathed Blade: Her Story (2024) as a Feminist “Stand-up Film” (July 31, 2025, China Research Center)
Stand-up comedy thrives on the art of the punch. When aimed upward, a well-executed punch can earn cheers and sharpen stand-up’s impact, using wit and precision to challenge privilege, authority, and hypocrisy. However, punching up is not without risk. It can provoke backlash from the privileged and the powerful, and navigating that backlash requires skill. This dynamic is not just a concern for stand-up; it is also relevant to comedy in film. It is particularly central to the recently released Chinese blockbuster comedy Her Story好东西 (directed by Shao Yihui 邵艺辉, 2024).
Living Cross Culturally
After the Golden Era (August 1, 2025, ChinaSource)
I think almost all foreigners who have worked in China at any time since 2017 onward have experienced in at least some way, the steady erosion of the foreigner-in-China “buffer”—the explicit and implicit privileges that foreigners have received and (if we’re honest) have come to expect since the beginning of China’s period of Opening and Reform. The most obvious sign of this erosion is that people on the streets today are not as excited to meet a foreigner as they were 10 or more years ago.
Books
Embodied Faith in China: A Fresh Look Through the Eyes of an Anthropologist (August 4, 2025, ChinaSource)
Do you ever wonder what daily church life in China is like? We often only get fragmented information, especially from negative events. Michel Chambon’s Making Christ Present in China presents a recent, rigorous and thought-provoking anthropological study of Christianity in China, particularly in the Nanping region of Fujian Province in southeastern China.
Pray for China
August 2 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On Aug. 2, 1947, Christian educator and evangelist Liu Tingfang (刘廷芳博士) passed away from tuberculosis at age 54. Liu earned degrees at Yale and Columbia before returning to China to work at the new Yenching University as a protégé of John Leighton Stuart (司徒雷登). His varied roles included presiding at the private, Christian funeral of Dr. Sun Yat-sen (孙中山先生) in Beijing in 1925 and editing both a popular hymnal and an influential journal. Pray for Christian leaders to seek Christ and find peace in Him. Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually! Psalm 105:4
Fuzhou: How to Pray (July 28, 2025, China Partnership)
Jason Mandryk on Intercessory Prayer (June 29, 2025, ChinaSource)
Operation World (April 21, 2025, ChinaSource)
Pray for China (prayforchina.us)
Pray for China (China Partnership)