Featured Article
‘Too Big a Risk’: Chinese Students Rethink the American Dream (June 13, 2025, Sixth Tone)
Student visa consultants say the shift has been building for years. But now, few students are betting on a single destination. Instead, they apply widely — to the U.K., Singapore, Australia, and Hong Kong SAR — and wait to see what holds. What used to be the default first choice is now the riskiest bet.
Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs
What Washington Doesn’t Understand About CCP Membership (June 10, 2025, Foreign Policy – China Brief)
These inconsistencies aside, there’s a fundamental problem with going after CCP connections: Party membership isn’t particularly ideological, and the immigrants that U.S. authorities prefer—educated, wealthy, and on a legal path to citizenship—are more likely to be CCP members than other groups.
How US Military Power Depends on China’s Rare Earths (June 11, South China Morning Post)
The US defence sector is dependent on critical minerals for its advanced weapon systems, but it has relied on China for the majority of those inputs. As Beijing tightens export restrictions, the Pentagon faces a growing risk to military readiness and supply chain security.
Translations: “What We Commemorate When We Commemorate June 4” (June 11, 2025, China Digital Times)
This year’s 36th anniversary commemorations of the June 4 crackdown were marked by intense, AI-aided censorship on the Chinese internet, muted memorials and arrests in Hong Kong, and a wide variety of online and offline memorials across the world. Noteworthy coverage of the anniversary includes a statement from the Tiananmen Mothers, an interview with exiled Uyghur activist Örkesh Dölet, an interview with Ian Johnson about the online Chinese Folk Archives, a panel discussion on diversifying Tiananmen Square narratives, and more.
China Stockpiling Nuclear Warheads at Fastest Rate Globally, New Research Shows (June 17, 2025, The Guardian)
China is growing its stockpile of nuclear warheads at a faster rate than any other country, according to newly published research. A report published on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated that China now has at least 600 nuclear warheads, with about 100 per year being added to the stockpile since 2023.
Religion
Christian Theology and Ritual in Tang China: Researcher Reveals Lost Religious Community Through Ancient Artifacts (June 9, 2025, China Christian Daily)
On June 3, Dr. Xie Dingjian, a postdoctoral researcher at Fudan University, delivered a special lecture on Christian theology and ritual in Tang China, revealing how Christianity arrived in China more than a millennium before European missionaries and left behind archaeological evidence that challenges conventional narratives about East-West religious exchange.
Bear Fruit with Patience: When Hopes Are Shattered June 12, 2025, China Partnership)
We are called to imitate God. This certainly includes imitating his longsuffering. When we meditate on God’s patience, we better understand the Father’s heart for his children. We better understand the mercy of the Holy One toward sinners, and the wisdom of the Father as he patiently prepares for a long-term future.
Why I Left Protestantism—but Don’t Call It a Conversion 超越宗派的视角：为什么我不称之为皈依？ (June 16, 2025, ChinaSource)
Since I converted to Christianity dramatically in 1994 as a Qi-gong practitioner and a believer in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, I have never stopped pursuing Christian spirituality, always looking forward to discovering the laws of the Christian spiritual world and understanding the way the Holy Spirit works.
Has the Growth of Christianity in China Come to an End? An Analytical Study Based on Interviews With 12 Chinese Pastors (June 16, 2025, China Christian Daily)
Co-authored by Conrad Hackett, associate director of research and a senior demographer at the Pew Research Center, and Yunping Tong, a research associate at the Pew Research Center specializing in international religious demography, the article is an expanded version of an earlier report “Measuring Religion in China” published by Pew Research Center on August 30, 2023, which concludes that there is no evidence that Christianity in China is growing after 2010.
Changsha: “Always Some Anxiety” (June 16, 2025, China Partnership)
Changsha pastors say their city is somewhat “red” (i.e. Communist), and that people in their city are rather hostile to Christianity. For these churches, fear of bad interactions with authorities is normal. But God gives new strength for new challenges, and his grace is sufficient. They ask for prayer that their congregations will be mature enough to face the storms that come, and that he will protect them in trial.
The Three-Self Church in the Sinicization Campaign (June 17, 2025, ChinaSource)
As a Christian who grew up in the Three-Self Church system, serves full-time in it, and has enjoyed friendships with many brothers and sisters from the house churches, the Sinicization or Zhongguohua campaign is something I am personally experiencing and participating in. Therefore, when I saw that the latest issue of ChinaSource Journal focused on the topic of the Sinicization of Christianity in China, I was very interested and curious how scholars would evaluate the actions and responses of the Three-Self Church, to which I am committed with conviction and conscience.
Society / Life
Video – Education, Family Planning, and Political Views… (June 12, 2025, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations)
Journalist Emily Feng spent seven years traveling through #China exploring how individuals and the state view these values. Her new book, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom, Emily shares the stories of nearly two dozen people living in modern China, from an internet-famous scooter thief to a teacher from Inner Mongolia trying to relearn his mother tongue.
Imagining the ‘Utopia of Homeownership’: Tracing the Online Virality of a Chinese Rust Belt City (June 13, 3035, Made In China Journal)
‘I have saved up 50,000 yuan, planning to buy a house in Hegang. I will budget 30,000–40,000 yuan for the house itself, and the remaining 10,000 for living supplies.’ This post went viral on the Chinese online forum Baidu Tieba in May 2019, attracting more than 10,000 comments and extensive journalistic coverage (Longtoulaoda 2019). In the post, the author, Li Hai, documented each step of his journey, travelling 2,900 kilometres from Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province to Hegang in Heilongjiang Province, where he eventually purchased an apartment.
Jiangsu Finds Grassroots Football Glory in “Su-per League” (June 13, 2025, The World of Chinese)
“Chinese football is saved!” Such was the jubilation expressed by some netizens during the recent inaugural Jiangsu Football City League. Having weathered years of heartbreak in China’s less-than-stellar domestic football environment, dogged by corruption scandals and match-fixing, the provincial grassroots competition provided a glimmer of hope for what Chinese football could be, grabbing massive attention online and sparking excitement across the country.
Want to File for Divorce in China? You Might Need a Booking Agent (June 16, 2025, Reuters)
Chinese medical office worker Qin Meng has found a lucrative side-hustle: she wakes up before midnight, fills in her clients’ divorce certificate applications on a government website, then hits the confirm button exactly at the top of the hour. Miss it by seconds and the daily slots are “gone in the blink of an eye,” says the 30-year-old, who charges 400 yuan ($56) for her service, bringing relief to couples who have sometimes spent six months trying for a slot.
Mouse People? Why Do Chinese Youth Compare Themselves to Animals? (June 17, 2025, Dao Insights)
“Mouse people” (老鼠人), sometimes “low energy mouse people” (低能量老鼠人), is one of the top “profiles” many young people in China identify with in 2025. This is one of a long line of self-deprecating nicknames Chinese netizens are giving themselves. It is part “emotional value” and part “abstract” humour that young people are embracing.
Economics / Trade / Business
China, US Reach a ‘Done Deal’, Trump Says, Pending Sign-Off by President Xi Jinping (June 11, 2025, South China Morning Post)
China and the US have reached a “done deal” that includes rare earth exports from China and Chinese students attending colleges in America, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, pointing to a potential breakthrough aimed at easing trade tensions that were reignited by mutual accusations of deal violations.
Report: Western Supply Chains Tied to Uyghur Forced Labor in China’s Critical Minerals Boom (June 12, 2025, The Diplomat)
A damning new 77-page report by international human rights organization Global Rights Compliance has unveiled compelling evidence linking dozens of major Western countries to state-imposed forced labor in China’s critical minerals industry, centered in the Uyghur region.
How Apple Turbocharged China’s Development (June 17, 2025, NPR)
Planeloads of some of America’s best engineers flying to China to train its workforce in how to do advanced manufacturing. A jaw-dropping level of investment in China’s development, which puts the Marshall Plan to shame. When Apple came to China, the company proved instrumental in helping the country become a manufacturing juggernaut. And now one of America’s most valuable companies is awkwardly dependent on the production capabilities of a country that has become one of America’s biggest adversaries.
Science / Technology
China’s Global AI Firewall (June 12, 2025, China Media Project)
If you had asked DeepSeek’s R1 open-source large language model just four months ago to list out China’s territorial disputes in the South China Sea — a highly sensitive issue for the country’s Communist Party leadership — it would have responded in detail, even if its responses subtly tugged you towards a sanitized official view. Ask the same question today of the latest update, DeepSeek-R1-0528, and you’ll find the model is more tight-lipped, and far more emphatic in its defense of China’s official position.
Dan Wang Observes the Grandeur and Tragedy of the Chinese ‘Engineering State’ (June 13, 2025, South China Morning Post)
From subway trains to high-speed rail, the nation’s integrated transport seems like the stuff of science fiction. It took the United States a century to complete its transnational railroad and interstate highway system. China compressed the time taken to build their equivalents into two decades. Whether it’s dams, bridges or high-rises, China has built bigger and more of them than anyone else. It is in fact obsessive-compulsive in building huge public works, often too excessive for its own good.
Travel / Food
The Sweet and the Sour: A History of Yogurt in China (June 11, 2025, The World of Chinese)
Visit the Forbidden City this summer, and you might find many young Chinese tourists more excited about a small yellow tub of yogurt than the 600-year-old imperial palace itself. Adorning each 8 yuan cup, the slogan playfully reads: “Drink yogurt and go have fun in the Palace,” a message that many visitors appear to have heeded.
Language / Language Learning
How to Win an Argument in Eight Characters (June 11, 2025, Sixth Tone)
The history of online discourse is essentially the history of linguistic compression. I’m a member of possibly the last generation of Chinese fluent in the language of forums and blogs. After the emergence of microblogging platform Weibo in the late 2000s, any thought or emotion had to be expressed in 140 characters or less.
8 Myths About Learning Chinese that Are Holding You Back (June 13, 2025, Hacking Chinese)
Believing the wrong things about learning Chinese can waste time and lead you astray. Let’s explore eight myths that might be holding you back! Maybe you’re just getting started on your journey to learn Chinese, or maybe you’ve been travelling for years. Regardless, it’s important to have an accurate idea of what the road ahead looks like.
Arts Entertainment / Media
“Neon Dreamland”: A Journey Into Yanran Chen’s Surreal World (June 13, 2025, The Beijinger Blog)
Last weekend, I stepped into a space that felt like stepping into someone else’s subconscious – a neon-hued, oddly tender and strangely futuristic dreamscape. Yanran Chen’s first solo exhibition, “Neon Dreamland,” housed in the newly opened ART FOCUS space in Beijing’s vibrant 798 Art District, is less of an art show and more of a portal into an alternate dimension.
Books
Religion, Secularism, and Love as a Political Discourse in Modern China: A Conversation with Ting Guo (June 17 2025, Made In China Journal)
Religion, Secularism, and Love as a Political Discourse in Modern China(Amsterdam University Press, 2025) examines how the language of love (愛 ai) has been appropriated and politicised by Chinese political leaders throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to legitimise authority, mobilise emotion, and shape state ideology. The book traces a genealogy from Sun Yat-sen’s idealistic articulation of bo’ai (博爱, universal love), through Mao Zedong’s emotionally charged re’ai (热爱, ardent love) that energised revolutionary commitment, to Xi Jinping’s deployment of parental love as a means of naturalising authoritarian familial nationalism.
Pray for China
June 14 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On June 14, 1978, Guangzhou house church pastor Lin Xiangao (林献羔牧师-Samuel Lamb) was released after serving 23 years in prison. His congregation quickly grew to several thousand. When he died in 2013, thirty thousand mourners attended the service. Pray for Christians in Guangzhou to persevere in preaching the Word. Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 2 Timothy 4:2
Operation World (April 21, 2025, ChinaSource)
Praying for China | Prayercast (January, 2025, ChinaSource)
Pray for China (prayforchina.us)
Pray for China (China Partnership)
Prayer Walking as a Rhythm of Life (ChinaSource)