Featured Article
Is China About to Produce the Next ‘Sputnik Moment’? (June 16, 2025, ChinaFile Conversations)
China is no longer a copycat nation: From WeChat to TikTok, from the country’s astonishingly hi-tech electric cars to DeepSeek—the Chinese AI bot that shocked Wall Street—companies and engineers in the People’s Republic of China are innovating.
Spotlight
Online Book Club (ERRChina)
We will read and discuss the book, “A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China,” by Rodney Stark and Xiuhua Wang. “Rodney Stark and Xiuhua Wang offer a different perspective, arguing that Christianity is alive, well, and on the rise. Stark approaches the topic from an extensive research background in Christianity and Chinese history, and Wang provides an inside look at Christianity and its place in her home country of China.” (Amazon)
Date: August 6
Time: 5:00 PM PDT / 6:00 PM MDT / 7:00 PM CDT / 8:00 PM EDT
Go here to register.
Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs
Divergent Implications for Xi’s Power From New Party Regulations (July 2, 2025, (The Jamestown Foundation – China Brief)
As internal and external problems continue to mount for the CCP, two lines of analysis have swelled in volume, each painting a strikingly different picture. One posits that Xi Jinping himself is under fire and is engaged in a struggle to retain his position as supreme leader. The other views Xi as continuing to implement a system tailored to execute his specific policy ambitions. Either analytic line is an attempt to make a call on what appears to be an ongoing and evolving political struggle within the CCP’s leadership.
India and China Strive to Reset Ties But With Caution (July 9, 2025, BBC)
After years of border tensions, India and China appear to be gradually moving towards resetting ties – but larger challenges and suspicions remain. The visit of two senior Indian officials to China late last month was seen as a sign of a thaw in bilateral relations.
Visualising Power in China’s Press (July 10, China Media Project)
Despite speculation about Xi Jinping’s troubles, our latest analysis reveals his continued dominance in Chinese state media, overshadowing all potential rivals.
Religion
The Sinicization of Christianity (July 11, 2025, Chinese Christian Voices)
Looking back at church history, whenever a theological movement has been propelled by political powers, it has tended to produce a spectrum of internal responses. Within the Three-Self Church system, the Sinicization movement has been underway for years, featuring academic conferences and scholarly publications. In contrast, many house churches—averse to regulatory religious policies—have responded with indifference. Some house churches even argue that their theological convictions and faith practices are already “Sinicized.”
God’s Holistic Mission: Beyond Evangelism (July 14, 2025, ChinaSource)
After completing a master’s degree in international relations with a focus on development economics, Xu felt God’s call to serve him cross-culturally. As she serves the Lord there, Xu wrestles with the question of whether her work in relief and development is really mission work. But her reflections suggest a more holistic view of God’s mission in the world.
Southern Pastor: Faith Inheritance in China Broke Down With Middle-Aged Generation (July 14, 2025, China Christian Daily)
In recent years, an increasing number of Christians in China have begun to focus on the issue of faith inheritance. While many believe that the challenge lies with the younger generation, Brother Joshua, a pastor serving in an urban church in southern China, holds a different view. He contends that the disruption in faith transmission within the Chinese church began with the middle-aged generation and is more apparent and common among the youth.
Fuzhou: Trying Times (July 14, 2025, China Partnership)
Like other Chinese cities, Fuzhou has been hit hard by the slowing economy. Most people are overworked, exhausted, and have little time or energy for church (or anything besides mere existence). Despite this, churches are still trying to build their communities and continue loving and serving their city.
Society / Life
Why So Many Chinese Are Drowning In Debt (July 7, 2025, The Economist)
The rise of a property-owning, entrepreneurial middle class in China has transformed its cities in this century. It has helped to spur consumption in the world’s second-largest economy. In May retail sales grew by 6.4% year on year—the fastest pace since December 2023—helped by state subsidies aimed at reviving consumers’ enthusiasm. The government has even cautiously promoted borrowing in past years. But all this has created new risks. Along with car-jammed streets, glitzy restaurants and vast malls has come an invisible change that is no less great: soaring household debt.
Love, Live: In China, You Can Now Marry at a Music Festival July 10, 2025, Sixth Tone)
Rather than heading to drab government offices to file paperwork and pose, newly minted marriage booklet in hand behind a wooden podium, an increasing number of young Chinese couples are saying “I do” against the backdrop of outdoor events. Music festivals have become especially popular, with teary-eyed couples exchanging vows to a thrum of beats and cheers from the crowd.
The Rocky History of China’s Marriage Law Reforms (July 11, 2025, The World of Chinese)
Revisions to China’s marriage law have never been purely legal tweaks—they mirror deeper shifts in social structure, gender roles, and economic realities. The latest update, introduced amid a falling marriage rate, has reignited debate over fair asset division in divorce, gender equality, and the very role of marriage in today’s society.
Chinese Kindergarten Uses Lead Paint to Brighten Up Kids’ Food (July 14, 2025, Chinaskinny)
A case of mass lead poisoning at a kindergarten in Gansu province has ignited public fury across China, raising urgent questions about food safety, local government oversight, and a potential cover-up. 233 preschool children at a private kindergarten in Gansu were found with abnormally high levels of lead in their blood, and 201 were hospitalised after consuming brightly decorated food items contaminated with lead paint.
Economics / Trade / Business
China’s Deflationary Slide Is Worsening as Companies Spiral Into Price Wars (July 11, CNBC)
From coffee to cars to real estate, there’s a recurring pattern in China: companies rush into an industry, then resort to discounts to stay afloat. That has economists worried. Natixis’ study of 2,500 listed Chinese companies reinforce how volume is growing while value is being hurt by deflationary pressure, Alicia Garcia Herrero, the firm’s chief economist for Asia-Pacific, said on a webinar Friday. “You can see it sector by sector, company by company.”
China Posts Better-Than-Expected Q2 Growth In Face of Trump Tariffs (July 15, 2025, CNN)
China reported better-than-expected economic growth for the second quarter in the face of an ongoing trade war with the United States, as diversification efforts to non-US markets buoyed exports. Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 5.2% in the second quarter from the same period a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) at a press conference on Tuesday. That was higher than the average prediction of 5.1%, based on a poll of 40 economists surveyed by Reuters on Friday.
Science / Technology
Beijing to Shanghai in 2.5 Hours: The Maglev Marvel Redefining High Speed Rail (July 11, 2025, South China Morning Post)
A Chinese-built maglev train that will be the nation’s fastest-ever ground transport vehicle has made its public debut in Beijing – an ambitious project that is expected to drastically reduce travel times and cement China’s reputation as a world leader in high-speed rail networks.
Is China About to Produce the Next ‘Sputnik Moment’? (June 16, 2025, ChinaFile Conversations)
China is no longer a copycat nation: From WeChat to TikTok, from the country’s astonishingly hi-tech electric cars to DeepSeek—the Chinese AI bot that shocked Wall Street—companies and engineers in the People’s Republic of China are innovating.
Travel / Food
Crafting a Tibetan Terroir: A Conversation with Brendan Galipeau (July 11, 2025, Made In China Journal)
Brendan Galipeau takes readers to the Sino-Tibetan border region rebranded as ‘Shangri-La’ by the Chinese Government to promote tourism. Drawing from his ethnographic research in the area, he shows how wine has transformed Tibetan landscapes and livelihoods. With grapes originally introduced to locals by French and Swiss Catholic missionaries in the nineteenth century for making sacramental wine, today’s commercial wine production reflects how Tibetans are indigenising modernity and engaging with economic development on their own terms.
History / Culture
The Many Faces of the Kingdom of Shu (December 2024, Archaeology Magazine)
For thousands of years, the Kingdom of Shu was known only through such semilegendary accounts. Then, in 1927, a father and son dug a ditch at the site of three earthen mounds near the banks of the Yazi River in central Sichuan, 25 miles northeast of present-day Chengdu. They found that the mounds, known locally as Sanxingdui, or “three-star mounds,” concealed hundreds of jade artifacts, including ceremonial tablets and scepters. Archaeologists who excavated the site soon thereafter discovered that the mounds were, in fact, remnants of a wall that surrounded a Bronze Age city that had existed around the same time as the Shang Dynasty.
Health / Environment
China’s Coal Heartland Fighting for a Greener Future (July 9, 2025, The Guardian)
Deep in the recesses of an underground cavern, covered in dust and soot, Xu Xiaobo wondered why, having recently graduated with a degree in mechanics, he was on his hands and knees sifting through layers of coal sludge. But there was no time to ponder the ancestral forces that had brought him down into one of his province’s oldest mines. There was coal to dig for.
China Blows Up Dams, Shuts Hydropower Stations to Save Yangtze River Habitat (July 11, 2025, South China Morning Post)
China has demolished 300 dams and shut down most of the small hydropower stations on a major tributary of the upper Yangtze River to safeguard fish populations as part of an effort to restore the ecology of Asia’s longest waterway. According to a report by the state news agency Xinhua on Monday, 300 of the 357 dams on Chishui He – also known as the Red River – had been dismantled by the end of December 2024.
Language / Language Learning
How China Got Its Name (July 8, 2025, Foreign Policy)
Last month, we published a brief history of China’s language Romanization—and why Americans in particular mispronounce the name of Chinese President Xi Jinping. It was so popular that we decided this week to take a dive down another linguistic rabbit hole.
Idiomized: Ancient China’s Most Famous Battle in Four Characters (July 9, 2025, The World of Chinese)
The epic tales of the battle traveled far and wide beyond the novel, through traditional operas, pingshu (book commentary), and other folk art forms. As a result, every detail of the battle, many of them embellished or invented in literary works, became widely known. This gave rise to a series of idioms and punning folk sayings that are still used today. Here’s a brief retelling of the popular folk version of the battle and the many sayings it inspired.
How to Find the Perfect Mandarin Tutor for You: A Complete Guide (July 14, 2025, Hacking Chinese)
A great tutor can accelerate your learning, but finding one isn’t easy. To get the best results, you need to be patient and try many options. Finding a tutor is both easy and hard. It’s easy because there are many options available, both online and offline, but it’s also hard because most tutors are not very good.
Arts Entertainment / Media
China’s Most Talked About Summer Movies (So Far) (July 10, 2025, The World of Chinese)
China’s summer box office has always been a key battleground for the film industry. While last year’s performance was underwhelming, there were still a few standouts, like Successor, which grossed over 3 billion yuan. This year, though, we’re still waiting for that one big breakout hit. Some of the most anticipated domestic productions, such as the star-studded She’s Got No Name, have flopped both critically and financially.
For ‘Duobaowen’ Web Novels, the Absurdity Is the Point (July 15, 2025, Sixth Tone)
Sometimes scorned as “sow literature,” the duobaowen trope in web novels paints a profound picture of new readerships, class divides, and the power of the consumer.
Backyard Furnaces of Power (July 15, 2025, China Media Project)
Provincial propaganda officials have lauded the online portals as new forms of “citizen-based external propaganda” (人人外宣), and state media have suggested they mark an innovative departure from previous top-down approaches to global communication. But the sites, and the plans announced alongside them, have the same underlying flaw as all external media communication conceived by China’s leadership in the name of “enhancing cultural soft power.” The point is power first, never culture.
Books
Identifying Needs (July 15, 2025, ChinaSource)
A Book Review of Crossing the River by Feeling for the Stones: Mennonite Engagement in China, 1901–2020 by Myrrl Byler. We can learn lessons from the Mennonite story in China. They were willing to identify and seek to meet local needs by working within the system. They patiently persevered as “people of the soil,” knowing trees take a long time to grow and bear fruit. Finally, they saw the importance of learning from the culture, not just about it. As Professor Yao writes in his introduction, this book is an excellent case study on how Christian agencies have been able to function in China. For the benefit of future missiologists and historians, I hope it is the first of many such books.
Events
Public Lecture: “Christian-Confucian Dialogue in the Contemporary World” (July 31, USCCA)
At 7:00PM ET on July 31, 2025, the USCCA’s speaker series, in collaboration with ChinaSource and China Academic Consortium, will host Dr. Stephanie Wong as speaker on the topic of “Christian-Confucian Dialogue in the Contemporary World.” Click here to sign up for this free public lecture, accessible via live video.
Pray for China
July 11 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On July 11, 1924, Eric Liddell (李爱锐) became the first China-born athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. After refusing to run on Sunday in his best event, Liddell later set a world record while running a much longer event. Just before that race, a friend slipped him a note saying, “He that honors me, him will I honor” [1 Samuel 2:30] Liddell returned to China as a missionary in 1925, spending 12 years in Tianjin teaching at a Chinese boys’ school, 6 years in rural Xiaozhang as a evangelist, and his final years in Weifang in a Japanese prison camp. Pray for Chinese Christians to emulate Liddell in striving to be faithful and just in all circumstances. One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. Luke 16:10
Praying the Lord’s Prayer (June 24, 2025, ChinaSource)
Operation World (April 21, 2025, ChinaSource)
Pray for China (prayforchina.us)
Pray for China (China Partnership)
Prayer Walking as a Rhythm of Life (ChinaSource)