Featured Article
The Great Reckoning (October 16, 2025, The Ideas Letter)
The economic historian Adam Tooze, reflecting on his recent, intense engagement with China, put it to me in July with characteristic directness: “China isn’t just an analytical problem,” he said. It is “the master key to understanding modernity.” Tooze called China “the biggest laboratory of organized modernizations there has ever been or ever will be at this level [of] organization.” It is a place where the industrial histories of the West now read like prefaces to something larger.
Spotlight
Seminar: The Church in China Beyond the Headlines (The North Church and ChinaSource)
This seminar, presented by Joann Pittman, will provide an introduction to the complexity of the church in China, moving beyond common narratives to look at the key issues and challenges that Christians face today. This will include a historical overview of Christianity in China, as well as gospel-centered stories of what God is doing among his people despite the challenging social and political environment. Finally, we will consider lessons that Christians in the West can learn from Christians in China.
Date: November 22, 2025
Time: 9:00 am to 11:00 am (in the chapel)
Location: The North Church, 5151 Program Ave., Mounds View, MN, 55112
No registration necessary. Just show up!
Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs
Podcast – How China Is Trying to Silence UK Academics (November 11, 2025, The Guardian)
Laura Murphy is a professor of human rights and contemporary slavery at Sheffield Hallam University. She investigates how the Chinese government exploits the country’s Uyghur community to mine rare minerals and make consumer goods for the west, something the Chinese state denies. Murphy describes to Helen Pidd how in 2024, strange things began to happen. “I started receiving emails – journalists, other researchers, and companies who relied on our research to help them do due diligence, were writing to me and calling and saying: hey, I noticed that your reports are down.”
Purges and Power: Is China Quietly Rebalancing Its Command Structure? (November 15, 2025, The Diplomat)
In July 2025, Chinese President Xi Jinping was conspicuously absent from the BRICS summit for the first time in over a decade. At around the same time, senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders gathered in Beijing to commemorate the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Xi didn’t join them. Instead, he quietly laid flowers at a separate memorial alone. The contrast was striking: Xi seemed sidelined from the very same pageantry that elevated him to the core of the CCP.
China and India Are Trapped in a Loop (subscription required) (November 18, 2025, Foreign Policy – China Brief)
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China in August, followed by New Delhi’s decision to resume issuing visas to Chinese citizens and the gradual restoration of direct flights between the two countries, has set in motion yet another loop in India-China relations. This recurring pattern—alternating between optimism and confrontation—has replayed itself for decades.
Religion
Video: Present Challenges Facing Catholics in China (McGrath Institute for Church Life, Notre Dame University)
Religious belief and practice in China have been subjected to increasing official control in recent years. At the same time, in 2018 the Holy See under Pope Francis entered into a controversial agreement with Chinese authorities on the appointment of bishops. Fr. Criveller, one of the world’s leading experts on the Catholic Church in China, will speak about the current circumstances and challenges facing Catholics in China today and discuss the effects of the Sino-Vatican agreement. What are the future prospects of the Church in these difficult times? This talk was held at the McGrath Institute for Church Life on Wednesday, November 12, 2025.
Gospel Obstacles Today: Part 1 (November 13, 2025, China Partnership)
What are the main obstacles facing the gospel in China today? The best way to answer that question is by looking back at Chinese history: first to the Nestorian Church, which flourished more than a thousand years ago during the Tang Dynasty; and then to Matteo Ricci, who arrived in China in the 1500s. Christianity actually has a long history in China — but it never took root and flourished as a native faith during either of those eras. What gospel obstacles existed in China then — and still persist today?
The Lamp That Never Went Out (November 14, 2025, ChinaSource)
This article shares the journey of faith of one Christian family in northern China and how even through hardship, persecution, and a century of change—the light endures. We hope this reprint from China Christian Daily encourages readers to reflect on how the choices we make today can shape generations to come.
Can I Still Go on Being Chinese? (November 17, 2025, Chinese Christian Voices)
Since leaving my hometown of Shanghai, I’ve traveled to many places. I’ve met a Canadian who speaks fluent Shanxi dialect, considers himself Chinese and hopes to “return to his roots.” I’ve met old Nationalist veterans, sent-down youth (zhiqing, 知青) from Shanghai, and young Red Guards who could never return home. I’ve even met a Japanese war orphan left behind in China after World War II, who, with tears in her eyes, asked me in confusion, “Can I still go back and be Chinese again?”
Dalian: Showing a Different Life (November 17, 2025, China Partnership)
Dalian is an important port and city in northeastern China. The city is at the southern tip of the Liaoning Peninsula, and its harbor is ice-free all year, making it a crucial city for trade and military strategy. With a history of colonization by both Russia and Japan, interesting architecture, tree-lined streets, and a cosmopolitan society, Dalian is a popular tourist destination. Local pastors say their heart is burdened for their beautiful city, and that people in Dalian are full of despair. They long for the church to be a lighthouse, shining brightly with the hope of the gospel and showing that another way of life is possible.
China Formally Arrests 18 Leaders of Underground Zion Church Amid Religious Crackdown (November 19, 2025, Fox News)
Chinese authorities formally arrested 18 leaders of a major underground church, clearing the way for their prosecution and potential prison sentences of up to three years. According to Reuters, which reported the arrests Wednesday citing a Christian NGO advocate, nearly 30 pastors and staff members belonging to Zion Church were detained by police in mid-October in the biggest crackdown on Chinese Christians in seven years.
Society / Life
How Inherited Time Impacts the Lives of Young Chinese (November 12, 2025, Sixth Tone)
In her new book, “The Time Inheritors,” released this year, Xu unpacks the way people use — and “misuse” — their time based on their class and family backgrounds. After nearly a decade of observing and interviewing over 100 students, administrators, and parents across the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong SAR, and the UK, she found a stark contrast between what she calls “inherited time wealth” and “debt.”
Tianmen Is China’s Test Site for Baby-Boosting Policies (subscription required) (November 12, 2025, The Economist)
For decades the ideal for the Chinese family involved two parents doting on their single, precious child. At the maternity hospital in Tianmen, a city in the central province of Hubei, it does not take long to detect how the ideal is now changing. Outside the hospital’s front doors, a statue depicts parents holding hands with their three young children next to a slogan: “More people, more blessings”. A dot-matrix sign over the entrance carries exhortations such as “Joy is plain as can be—babies one, two, three.” And throughout the hospital cheery posters show families with multiple children swimming, skating, and flying kites.
The Chinese College Student Who Took on Annoying Elevator Ads (November 12, 2025, Sixth Tone)
Last month, a college junior walked into the elevators of a series of Shanghai apartment buildings and shut down more than 100 elevator advertising screens after gaining access to their control panels by means of a “universal key” — one that opens most locks — purchased online for 10 yuan ($1.40).
China Trend Watch: Japan Tensions, Nexperia Fallout, Yunnan’s ‘Wild Child,’ & “Modern Opium” (November 16, 2025, Eye on Digital China – What’s On Weibo)
Welcome to the Eye on Digital China newsletter. It has been an especially tumultuous week on Chinese social media: from the crisis triggered by Takaichi’s remarks to the Nexperia clash and the near-total blackout surrounding the Yunnan “wild child” case. Despite their differences, all of these stories share a common thread — mistrust, whether on the geopolitical stage or at home in institutions and state media.
Podcast – Generation Burnout (November 18, 2025, The U.S. vs China Face Off)
China’s youth were supposed to lead the nation to glory. Instead, they’re lying flat, embracing “garbage time,” and quietly rebelling against a system that promised everything and delivered economic stagnation. In this episode of Face-Off – our first of Season 3 (!) – we get inside the psychology of China’s disillusioned generation.
Economics / Trade / Business
China’s Domestic Debates Under the Shadow of Geopolitics (November 12, 2025, MERICS)
This year’s China Spektrum report consists of two debate analyses and one quantitative media analysis. One debate follows an internal economic issue that has external consequences, known as economic “involution”. The other debate looks at why some of China’s commercial cultural exports are gaining global traction now. Finally, an analysis of trending news headlines from China’s largest online news aggregator reveals which foreign countries most prominently feature in the headlines of Chinese media and how that has changed since last year.
China Used Its Trade Juggernaut to Withstand US Trade Tariffs. Can It Keep Its Edge? (November 14, 2025, CNN)
With US orders ground to a halt, Wang, 36, who sells intelligent cookware out of southern China’s Guangdong province, looked elsewhere to fill the gap. After finding new buyers in Brazil, Japan, Malaysia and Cambodia, he learned what he describes as a key lesson: “Nothing is more important than the markets close to us.” Stories like Wang’s have played out across China’s vast economy where businesses, large and small, scrambled to fill the void after temporary triple-digit duties – and the threat of their return – upended Chinese exports to the world’s wealthiest market.
2025 Singles’ Day Results (November 18, 2025, ChinaSkinny)
While the hype has cooled, the Singles’ Day/Double-11 numbers remain enormous. Third-party data provider Syntun estimated that 2025’s Double 11 event pulled in ¥1.695 trillion ($238b) in sales, up 14.2% from ¥1.44 trillion ($218b) in 2024. Factoring in the extended period, the growth was neither weak nor explosive, but focused on rationality and value.
China suspends seafood imports from Japan as Taiwan row escalates (November 19, 2025, The Guardian)
The ban was first reported on Wednesday by the Japanese outlets Kyodo News and NHK, and appeared to be confirmed by China’s foreign ministry, which said there was “no market for Japanese seafood in the current climate”. The reports said China’s government had informed Japan it was suspending all seafood imports, months after it partly lifted a previous ban issued in 2023.
Science / Technology
Video Shows Collapse of Newly Built Bridge in China (November 12, 2025, NBC News)
A newly built bridge partially collapsed in southwest China on Tuesday, sending large pieces of concrete plunging far below in a cloud of dust. Authorities said the 2,487-foot-long Hongqi Bridge, which connects Sichuan provincewith Tibet as part of a national highway, was closed on Monday after cracks began to appear on nearby slopes and roads in the mountainous region. On Tuesday, a landslide caused the bridge to fracture and collapse, according to officials in the Sichuan city of Ma’erkang, also known in Tibetan as Barkam.
Stranded Chinese Astronauts Return Home from Space Station Mission (November 13, 2025, South China Morning Post)
Three astronauts whose return to Earth from China’s Tiangong space station was delayed last week after a suspected debris strike touched down on Friday at the Dongfeng landing site in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. The Shenzhou-20 crew arrived on board the new Shenzhou-21 crew’s spacecraft, landing at 4.40pm, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA). Ground search and rescue crew located the landing site shortly after the capsule touched down and confirmed the three crew members – Chen Dong, Wang Jie and Chen Zhongrui – were in good physical condition.
Health / Environment
Can China Balance Green Ambition with Everyday Ways of Life (November 12, 2025, South China Morning Post)
In the push to meet climate goals, such as those taking centre stage at Cop30, China finds itself walking a tightrope between two laudable ambitions: ecological conservation and the green energy transition. However, beneath the triumphal rhetoric lies a set of contradictions with real social and ecological consequences.
Trump Sees a ‘Con’ in Climate Change. Xi Sees Cash. (November 13, 2025, Christian Science Monitor)
For while China remains by far the world’s largest emitter of the fossil-fuel gases driving global warming, Mr. Xi’s government has been investing hundreds of billions of dollars in solar and wind energy, storage batteries, and electric vehicles. That technology is not just for domestic use, though it is already having an effect on emissions in China. It is also for export, to generate the trade revenue on which China’s economy depends.
Education
China Wants Teachers to Focus on Teaching, Not Paperwork (November 12, 2025, The Diplomat)
Like many of China’s public servants, teachers are besieged by bureaucratic drudgery – constant meetings, inspections, and form-filling. Their close contact with families means they’re also drafted as foot soldiers for a bewildering array of local directives The result is widespread burnout and diminishing time for actual classroom preparation.
Chinese Student Numbers In US Fall as Gap with Indian Scholars Widens: Report (November 16 , 2025, South China Morning Post)
Chinese student numbers in the United States have continued to decline over the past year, but they remain the second-largest student group after Indians and the biggest contributors to the US economy, according to new data released on Monday. A total of 265,919 Chinese studied in the US in the 2024-25 academic year, marking a four per cent decrease from the previous academic year, according to the latest annual survey of higher education institutions by the Institute of International Education (IIE), a report sponsored by the US State Department.
Food / Travel
The Women Who Translated Chinese Cuisine into American (November 19, 2025, Sixth Tone)
Chinese food became a popular American dinner because of the pioneering work of two women who, in the middle of the 20th century, set out to teach the flavors of home to their new country.
Arts / Entertainment / Media
Transnational Pressure Campaign Forces Closure of IndieChina Film Festival in New York City (November 12, 2025, China Digital Times)
The inaugural IndieChina Film Festival (IndieChina电影节, IndieChina Diànyǐngjié), which was set to run from November 8-15 in New York City, has been forced to close due to what appears to be a coordinated transnational pressure campaign by the Chinese government. Citing intimidation and threats made against the families of Chinese organizers and volunteers, as well as unrelenting pressure on participating directors to pull their films from the festival, IndieChina curator Zhu Rikun issued a statement on November 5 announcing that for the safety of all involved the festival would not go forward.
AI Cop Signals VPN Crackdown (November 13, 2025, China Media Project)
Agent 012339 is back on duty. China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) has deployed its AI anchor once again, this time to warn citizens about the perils of “scaling the wall,” or fanqiang (翻墙) — Chinese internet slang for using VPNs to access blocked foreign websites. The uniformed digital spokesman delivers his message with characteristic earnestness: digital freedom, he says, is actually a trap that threatens both your bank account and the nation.
Books
Book Review – Tracing the Path to Purity in Tibetan Buddhism (November 18, 2025, ChinaSource)
When you walk into a temple with mantras and music, with colorful walls and vivid images, it is hard to connect it all to the theme of purity. James Morrison will take you on a journey to both prove and explore the depth of the purity concept in Tibetan Buddhism. More than this, the book introduces the Tibetan Buddhist worldview and history and in the closing chapters there is a missiological exposé on how purity should be used more when sharing the gospel to Tibetan Buddhists. Steps toward a Tibetan Understanding of Purity: A Semantic and Textual Analysis by James E. Morrison. Pickwick Publications, 2025
Author Interview – Guarded Looks: China’s Gatekeepers Bring Status and Suspicion (November 13, 2025, Sixth Tone)
True-crime blogger and mystery novelist He Wapi this summer released “Strangers at the Gate,” a book looking at the role of bao’an, China’s neighborhood security guards. The work is based on research she conducted in 2017 at a large residential community in Shanghai — which she identified as “Dadi” — while studying for her Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the United States. Following is a conversation between He and The Paper.
Events
Online Book Club Discussion (ERRChina)
How did China become the world’s largest supplier of Bibles? There was a time when people smuggled Bibles into China. Now, millions of copies are printed there annually. In the process, God’s word has impacted different segments of Chinese society, including the poor and blind, young and old, ethnic minorities, pastors, and opinion shapers of the country. How did this happen? Unveiling a hidden chapter in China’s history, From Banned Book to Bestseller, by Cynthia Oh, explores the impact of the Bible and its message on the lives of ordinary people. It recounts how the Bible Press in China has helped to make Scripture available in China and around the world. This book is based on first-hand accounts and testimonies from the archives, records, and reports of the United Bible Societies. Please read the book, and then join us for a discussion.
Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Time: 8:00 pm EST / 7:00 pm CST / 6:00 pm EST / 5:00 PST
Location: Zoom
Please go here to register for the event.
Online Courses for those working with Chinese students (Thriving Turtles)
19-30 January 2026. Thriving Turtles Training is an initiative to equip front-line gospel workers with the knowledge and skills they need to be effective cross-cultural gospel ministers. These courses are asynchronous (not in real time) running for 6-10 hours over a 2-week period. They are NOT webinars, so you are free to work in your own time and time zone. Courses contain a variety of interactive activities including (written) discussion forums. For more information see our website https://www.thrivingturtles.org/online-courses/
Courses offered this year:
• Cultural Intelligence for Ministry
• Helping Your Friend Thrive in China
• Discipling People with a Chinese Worldview
• Culture Values and Distance
Pray for China
November 18 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On Nov. 18, 1957, Mao Zedong (毛泽东) launched the Great Leap Forward with a speech in the Soviet Union in which he boasted that in 15 years China would surpass Great Britain in prosperity. Extensive research by historian Yu Xiguang (余习广先生) indicates that as many as 55 million Chinese died from the famine and violence caused by this folly—far more than were killed by the Japanese in World War II. Pray for the oppressed to find life and freedom in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32
Seeking the Salvation of East Asia’s Unreached Through Intentional Prayer (October 28, 2025, ChinaSource)
Praying Through the ChinaSource Journal (October 13, 2025, ChinaSource)
All Things in Light of Eternity (September 30, 2025, ChinaSource)
Praying Through ZGBriefs (August 29, 2025, ChinaSource)
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 (May 30, 2025, ChinaSource)