Featured Article
Decoding Chinese Politics (2025, Asia Society Policy Institute)
China is one of the most important but least understood countries in the world. Its decisions will shape the future of international business, diplomacy, and security. This product helps decode the “black box” of Chinese politics through interactive visualizations and explainer essays that map formal institutions, informal networks, key decision-makers, and major policy trends.
Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs
Xi Jinping’s Global Quartet (October 16, 2025, China Media Project)
The front page of today’s People’s Daily announces the publication of a major policy article by Chinese leader Xi Jinping (习近平) in the party’s flagship theoretical journal Qiushi (求是), bundling together what the party now characterizes as “Four Great Global Initiatives” (四大全球倡议) — a quartet of related solutions for international challenges. The article, titled “Promoting Implementation of the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative, and Global Governance Initiative,” collects Xi’s statements from September 2021 to September 2025, organizing them around his concept of a “community of shared future for mankind” (人类命运共同体).
Podcast – Behind the Scenes of US-China Summitry (October 16, 2025, Pekingology)
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Sarah Beran, who managed the U.S.-China relationship in senior roles at the State Department, the American Embassy in Beijing, and the White House National Security Council. Ahead of President Trump’s potential meeting with President Xi on the margins of the 2025 APEC Leaders Meeting, Sarah explains how US-China diplomacy and summitry actually work. Sarah unpacks the tough negotiations that set the stage for conversations between the two nations’ leaders, what Chinese officials want most from these dialogues, and how President Xi has evolved as a diplomat over his long tenure.
Online Media Briefing: The 4th Plenum and the Next Five-Year Plan (October 17, 2025, MERICS)
On October 20, 2025, high-ranking officials, policy makers and military leaders of China will gather for a meeting that will chart the course for the country in the years to come: the fourth plenary session of the Central Committee of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will convene in Beijing to discuss – and likely endorse the next, the 15th Five-Year Plan. In our briefing, MERICS experts presented their views on what to watch and what to expect from the plenum and the next Five-Year Plan.
Religion
Taiyuan: Discipleship Difficulties (October 16, 2025, China Partnership)
Taiyuan pastors say things are hard in their city for the local church. People are short on time and energy, and don’t have time to prioritize their church family. That makes discipleship and spiritual growth difficult for pastors and their congregations. Although these pastors believe the local church should be the home and center of Christian life, in Taiyuan, they feel that is often not the case.
Riding the Rails from Kunming to Beijing (October 17, 2025, ChinaSource)
Somewhere between Kunming and Beijing, between my father’s clickety-clack and this near-silent glide, I realized how much the world can change in a lifetime—and how faith, like memory, must find its voice again amid the noise and speed of progress.
“We Believe Faith is Not a Crime” – Zion Church on Detention of Dozens of Members (October 17, 2025, China Digital Times)
This quote highlighted by CDT Chinese this week is drawn from a statement by the Zion (锡安 Xī’ān) Church following the arrest of dozens of its members last weekend. […] The detentions appear to be a response to the church’s “hybrid” model of online and offline services, itself a reaction to earlier official pressure.
Christian Human Rights Lawyers in Authoritarian China: A Spiritual Capital and Social Capital Explanation (October 17, 2025, Sage Journals)
What motivates and sustains human rights lawyers under an authoritarian government? Previous research has pointed to higher income, prestigious social status, political embeddedness, and liberal values as important sources of motivation and coping strategies for lawyers in China. An intriguing phenomenon is that a very large proportion of China’s human rights lawyers are Protestant Christians. This article focuses on Chinese Christian lawyers through in-depth interviews and online materials of prominent human rights lawyers.
Four Generations of Faith: A Century of Christian Witness in Northern China (October 19, 2025, China Christian Daily)
In northern China, there is a big family that has followed Christ for nearly a century and has given birth to preachers for four consecutive generations. They have persevered through recurrent poverty, wars, and social upheavals. For nearly a century, they have constantly committed themselves to gatherings and ministry.
God of the Strangers (October 20, 2025, ChinaSource)
My parents came to know Christ through experiencing the kindness of Christian strangers who welcomed and cared for them when they had no means to reciprocate. This theme of “strangers bringing the gospel” became central to our family’s story: my parents first received it and then lived it out by caring for missionaries and international students.
Shining God’s Light in the World (October 21, 2025, ChinaSource)
On September 4, 2025, the Second Chinese Public Theology Conference commenced at Fuller Theological Seminary in Los Angeles, US. The conference featured 36 speakers who delivered seven keynote lectures, led seven thematic forums, and hosted two panels. The conference theme was “Light onto My Path: Scripture and Public Theology.” This theme underscored that theology is neither detached from the world nor devoid of public relevance, nor is it abstract theorizing cut off from Scripture. Rather, it is rooted in Scripture and seeks to respond to the contemporary world through God’s word.
Society / Life
Opinion | After Decades of Struggle, Women in China are Rewriting their Future (October 15, 2025, South China Morning Post)
Education has been the key driver in removing barriers to women’s advancement. A recent Chinese white paper details the progress made on ensuring women’s educational rights. In 2024, China boasted a 99.9 percent net enrolment rate for girls in primary school. Girls comprise over 47 percent of pupils in compulsory education. Today, women are not just catching up; they are leading, making up just over half of all higher education enrolments and 54 percent of those in adult undergraduate programmes, according to the white paper.
A Chinese Korean Woman’s Story Under the Red Flag (October 17, 2025, Global Voices)
The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) disrupted schools, derailed careers, and reshaped countless lives across China. For many, it meant a lost decade of education. But for ethnic minority women like Lee YJ from the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China’s northeast, a region at the border of China and North Korea, the challenges were more than political as they had to withstand political upheaval, ethnic traditions, and rigid gender norms to survive.
Podcast – The Souls of China — with Ian Johnson (October 19, 2025, Peking Hotel)
Today, we trace Ian’s observations of China’s spiritual revival through his book-writing from “The Souls of China and Sparks,” two books that I enjoyed very much last year, and would definitely recommend to anyone hoping to understand China’s grassroots movements to define and practice its own identity. We also package juicy little book-writing tips in this piece for the benefits of other aspiring writers.
Young China’s New Rehab Habit: From Massage Tables to Hospital Gyms (October 19, 2025, ChinaSkinny)
Walk into a top Beijing hospital after hours and you’ll see a very 2025 scene: twenty- and thirty-somethings swapping mobility tips while queueing for sports-rehab consults. What used to be a “tough it out” culture is tilting toward early, evidence-based care: assessment-led treatment plus corrective exercise. This is blurring the line between clinic and gym.
The Beijing Courier Who Went Viral: How Hu Anyan Wrote about Delivering Parcels – and Became a Bestseller (October 20, 2025, The Guardian)
The memoir, which was first published in China in April 2023 and quickly became a national bestseller, charts Hu’s stint as a courier from March 2018 until November 2019, but it also lifts the lid on the overwork and financial precarity that underpinned the innumerable other jobs he has done throughout his adult life. Still only 47, he has had 19 jobs across 20 years, all over the country – though the tally is higher still if you count the even more informal gigs he did in between.
Economics / Trade / Business
What You Now Need to Know About China’s Expansion of REE Export Controls (October 15, 2025, MERICS)
A few weeks before a planned meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, Beijing is escalating the issue of export controls on the much sought-after rare earths elements (REE). On Thursday in Beijing, the Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs issued a series of notices in six announcements numbered 55, 56 ,57, 58, 61, and 62. The new provisions refer to rare earths used abroad, processing technologies, batteries, superhard materials (such as synthetic diamond) and the use of personnel expertise on the subject from China.
Why Gen Z Is Turning Against Curator Cafés in China (October 17, 2025, The World of Chinese)
As younger consumers favor experiences over products, “curator”-led cafés and boutiques have sprung up across China. Yet with growing pushback against overpriced, underwhelming offerings, is this trendy fad already losing its appeal?
Science / Technology
New Gains in PRC Robotics Software & Hardware (October 17, 2025, China Brief Archives – Jamestown Foundation)
Humanoid robotics made headlines throughout the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in September with a bold push to collect high-quality training data. Across key hubs in Beijing, Henan, and Jiangsu, the country is steadily cultivating firms and building supply chains that can rival global leaders (Shanghai Observer, September 30).
Travel / Food
China’s Youth Rebel Against Hotel Price Hikes – With Tents (October 14, 2024, Jing Daily)
During the recent eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday (October 1-8), China’s younger generation quietly rewrote the rules of travel and accommodation. As hotels and guesthouses raised their prices in anticipation of a holiday windfall, they found fewer takers than expected.
All That and Dim Sum: Canton Moves to Regulate Morning Tea (October 15, 2025, Sixth Tone)
Guangzhou, the capital of China’s southern Guangdong province, has drafted a policy requiring dim sum restaurants to label dishes as made using “traditional” or “non-traditional” methods and set up a talent-training system to protect the region’s culinary craft.
Netizen Voices: Backlash Against Supposed Beauty of Golden Week Traffic Jams (October 15, 2025, China Digital Times)
“I truly don’t know what kind of sentiment would lead certain people to compare the sight of a massive nighttime traffic jam at some highway toll gates with a “galaxy of glittering stars.” As someone with relatively rich life experience, all the scene really stirs in me is a headache, backache, and the sensation of an uncomfortably full bladder.”
Inside the Rise and Popularity of Sichuan Cuisine (October 20, 2025, Sixth Tone)
To this day, dishes like kung pao chicken — associated with Sichuanese cuisine for its bright, spicy, and intense flavor — have become global shorthand for “Chinese food,” shaping impressions of Chinese cuisine for millions. But if you go back a century in China, Sichuanese cuisine was still largely confined to its homeland. The inland province, ringed by mountains, was geographically isolated, and people and goods moved slowly in and out, limiting both the supply of ingredients and the market for the Sichuanese flavor.
In Papua New Guinea, Young Chinese Migrants Begin a Quiet Second Act (October 21, 2025, Sixth Tone)
For decades, Chinese migrants flocked to the resource-rich island to earn quick money and move on. Now, as China’s presence grows across the Pacific, a younger generation is choosing to stay.
Arts / Entertainment / Media
CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive” Summary for September 2025 (October 14, 2025, China Digital Times)
CDT presents a new monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content Archive.” Each month, we will publish a summary of content blocked or deleted (often yielding the message “404: content not found”) from Chinese platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu (RedNote), Bilibili, Zhihu, Douban, and others. Although this content archived by CDT Chinese editors represents only a small fraction of the online content that disappears each day from the Chinese internet, it provides valuable insight into which topics are considered “sensitive” over time by the Party-state, cyberspace authorities, and platform censors.
Agent 012339 Reports for Duty (October 20, 20205, China Media Project)
China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s principal civilian intelligence and counterintelligence agency, has found a fresh-faced recruit for its public messaging campaign: Agent 012339, an AI-generated anchor who appears in full MSS uniform to deliver cautionary tales about national security threats.
History / Culture
Chinese Encounters with America: Journeys that Shaped the Future of China (October 20, 2025, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations)
Chinese Encounters with America tells the stories of twelve Chinese whose American experiences transformed their lives and influenced China’s trajectory. Each chapter recounts how these individuals understood the United States and adapted their interpretations to bolster China’s quest for modernization. Their varied professions range from diplomacy, business, and science to sports, education, and the arts, but several shared questions tie their stories together: Why did they go to the United States, and why did they decide to return to China? What difference did their encounters with America make in their lives and careers? What do their experiences tell us about the complexities of Sino-American interactions?
Health / Environment
Winds of Change: China Unveils Vast Wind Power Goals for 2030 (October 21, 2025, Sixth Tone)
China has significantly broadened its wind power development targets as it seeks to expand renewable energy adoption and advance its decarbonization goals. At the China Wind Power conference in Beijing on Monday, government officials unveiled a bold target to more than double China’s current wind power capacity of 573 gigawatts to 1.3 terawatts by 2030.
Pray for China
October 19 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On October 19, 1932, Huang Bojun (黄伯桢牧师) was born into an evangelist’s family in Jiangsu. He graduated from Jinling Union Theological Seminary in 1952 and married Peng Yiyun (彭亦云姊妹), who was also a seminary graduate. They were severely persecuted during the Anti-Rightist campaign in the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76); in one instance, fellow pastors and workers in the Three Self Church beat him with whips for 90 minutes. The doctor who initially treated him expressed shock at the wounds, which stayed with him for the rest of his life. In December 1969, Huang’s entire family was sent down to the countryside and at times could survive only by eating the pigs’ food. In 1973 Huang and his wife were restored spiritually and began to provide family worship for their three children, taking care to have Mao’s book and cards on the table in case neighbors would come to spy on them. In old age, they had a prolific writing and publishing ministry in the Suzhou area and beyond. Pray for the children and grandchildren of those persecuted in Jiangsu during the Cultural Revolution to walk with the Lord and not forget His faithfulness. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
Praying Through the ChinaSource Journal (October 13, 2025, ChinaSource)
Praying Through ZGBriefs (August 29, 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)
Jason Mandryk on Intercessory Prayer (July 29, 2025, ChinaSource)