Featured Article
App Life in China (August 26, 2026, ChinaFile)
“It’s really tough doing anything in China right now,” my friend told me. He’s a serial entrepreneur in Shanghai with a locked-in grin. We were waiting for our food in a Taiwanese restaurant in a lovingly-renovated toy factory in Shanghai. The place was really nice but it was about half full. I heard the same complaint nearly the whole month of June, which I spent with my family in Beijing, Shanghai, and cities and villages in Jiangsu, Hebei, and Yunnan provinces. It seemed that everyone we met, aside from pensioners and government employees, felt they were working harder and harder for smaller rewards. Many of them mentioned the word “involution”—which I’d been reading about from afar since 2020—but it also seemed as if life in China had never been this good.
Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs
Critical Issues Confronting China Series / Featuring Ian Johnson (August 21, 2026, Fairbanks Center for Chinese Studies / Harvard University)
This video features a lecture by journalist and author Ian Johnson at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, hosted by Mark Woo. The talk, titled “Reclaiming Historical Memory and the Struggle for China’s Future,” explores the critical issue of how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls historical memory and how citizen historians are working to document forbidden or censored facets of China’s past.
The Long Arm of the Chinese State (subscription required) (August 27, 2026, The Economist)
Among the grievances the Communist Party has long nourished in its official telling of China’s story, the extraterritorial abuses of foreign powers loom especially large. In the 19th century it was colonial powers refusing to come under Chinese laws in the Chinese ports they controlled. In the 21st century it is America enforcing its will beyond its borders, through sanctions and export controls, against countries that displease it. All the more striking, then, that China now wants to play the extraterritorial game, waging lawfare with ever more gusto.
China Is Flatlining (subscription required) (August 31, 2026, The Atlantic)
China’s stability may appear desirable to a world in turmoil. But inside China, this “stability” looks a lot like policy paralysis, economic stagnation, and intensified political repression. What all the hand-wringing over China’s growing influence and surging exports fails to recognize is that the country is flatlining politically and economically. The evidence is in plain sight.
China Is Concealing Scale of Flood Disaster, Say Tibet Campaigners (August 31, 2026, The Guardian)
A Tibetan advocacy group says hundreds of homes were destroyed on the Tibetan side of the border in last week’s deadly floods, raising questions about Beijing’s official account of the scale of the disaster. Public discussion about the flash floods has been restricted, with security officials in Tibet announcing on Sunday that it had penalised at least ten people for sharing “false disaster information”. There was no further information on the nature of the penalties.
Pope Confirms Second Chinese Bishop in a Week Under Vatican-Beijing Agreement (July 30, 2026, National Catholic Register)
Father Francis Xavier Duan Yongkun was ordained July 29 as coadjutor bishop of Bameng in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region after being appointed by Pope Leo XIV on June 15 under the provisional agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China. Bishop Duan’s episcopal ordination was the second connected to appointments made public by the Vatican within the space of a week.
Farewell to Father Chao, the Last of the Trappist Martyrs of Hebei (August 9, 2026, Asia News)
The oldest Trappist monk in the world has passed away at the age of 108. But his story evokes the brutal “death march” with which Mao’s communists wiped out the monasteries of Yangjiaping and Liesse in the 1940s. He took part in the rebirth of the Abbey of Our Lady of Joy in Hong Kong in 1956.
Podcast: China’s Church Refuses to Quit (August 22, 2026, Living Enviado)
Episode Description: The story of China’s Church is far more than a simple persecuted Church. It’s a story of life, intentionality, and fearless living and ministry. Let’s stop boxing them in to a “Those poor little Christians in China” box and start learning from their resilience and intentionality while facing difficult situations. We have much to learn from them.
“Research on the History of Catholicism in China”: A new “road map” tracing six centuries of Catholicism in China (August 25, 2026, Agenzia Fides)
As the ordinations of Chinese Catholic bishops appointed under the framework of the Provisional Agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China continue, a major new scholarly work is turning the spotlight on the history and development of Catholic dioceses in China, tracing six centuries of Catholicism in the country, from the Yuan dynasty to the mid-20th century.
Suzhou: How to Pray (August 27, 2026, China Partnership)
This is the last week of prayer for Suzhou, a beautiful city of about 13 million in Jiangsu Province. Suzhou is famous for its gardens and waterways, and is seen as a city of ease and comfort. Suzhou pastors say their top prayer request is for more gospel laborers, because they worry about passing the faith on to the next generation.
Apparently, I’m Already the “Older Generation” (August 28, 2026, ChinaSource)
Sharing popular culture is not the same as sharing a history. Christians in Hong Kong, India, the Philippines, or Central Asia will not begin to understand church, suffering, politics, or mission in the same way simply because they use Instagram, listen to Taylor Swift, encounter K-pop, or read manga. Globalization may make distance feel smaller, but it does not dissolve context.
From Confidence to Curiosity (August 31, 2026, ChinaSource)
In this era, we’re much less confident about what lies ahead, since many assumptions about China’s future trajectory have proven untrue. Yet with this uncertainty comes an opportunity to reexamine where our confidence lies. When unfolding events seem to align perfectly with our increasingly ambitious strategic plans, it is easy to become confident in what appears to be a clear path forward. But when China’s leaders reverse course and our plans become obsolete, we are reminded that God’s ways are higher than ours. While we may be less confident about what comes next, our current situation invites us to renew our confidence in him who holds the future.
A Church in Motion (September 1, 2026, ChinaSource)
An immigrant church is more than a congregation made up of people who have moved from one country to another. It is a church shaped by movement—marked by departure and arrival, loss and hope, displacement and new beginnings. It carries memories of a former homeland while learning to follow Christ in a new cultural setting. It ministers to people whose lives are being reshaped by migration, while also raising a second generation that may no longer see itself as an immigrant at all.
Society / Life
This Ancient Temple Is Where China’s Young People Go to Pray for a Good Job (subscription required) (August 22, 2026, The Wall Street Journal)
The ancient Dragon Flower Temple these days is full of young people burning incense, chanting mantras and kneeling in front of Buddhist statues. It is known locally as the place to pray for career success when many people are having trouble finding it.
China’s Fertility Crisis Is Evidence of Its Modernization Success (August 30, 2026, Global Voices)
China’s declining birthrate is often discussed as a consequence of economic pressures, changing attitudes toward marriage, or the rising costs of raising children. But these explanations overlook a deeper transformation. The women China now hopes will marry earlier and have more children are the same women it spent decades encouraging to pursue education, achievement, mobility, and independence—expanding their life options far beyond traditional expectations.
Weight of the Nation: China Rethinks its Approach to Obesity (August 31, 2026, The World of Chinese)
Lose five kilograms, get 1,000 yuan. This proposition may sound too good to be true, but for many weight watchers in China, losing weight is no longer just about getting in shape; it comes with a cash prize. After gaining ten kilograms since starting work in 2024, 29-year-old designer Wei Yu joined a 21-day weight loss challenge in June. Launched by JD Health, the campaign incentivizes participants to complete set daily tasks such as exercises, weigh-ins, daily calorie counts, and photos of each meal. “As soon as I wake up, I check what today’s task is,” says Wei. “It feels like playing a game, which makes weight loss actually fun.”
From “Involution” to “Unworthy Forebears”: What China’s Internet Slang Reveals About Its Changing Social Psychology (August 31, 2026, Desmond Shum via Substack)
One of the more revealing ways to track social sentiment in China is through the words and phrases that suddenly explode online. Taken individually, many are jokes, memes or forms of self-mockery. But when you put several years of them together, a fairly clear psychological trajectory begins to emerge. It is probably not a perfectly linear progression, but the pattern is still worth watching.
History / Culture
Who Was the Most Consequential Emperor in Chinese History? (August 30, 2026, Yasheng Huang via Substack)
Between 221 BCE and 581 CE, the ratio of years when China was ruled by one unitary dynasty to years when it was fragmented was about 1.2. But from 581 CE and 1911 CE, that ratio rose to 17.8. China’s truly unitary character is a development after the sixth century, not one of 221 BCE or of the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE). So what happened in the sixth century? This is when the man you have never heard of arrived. His name was Yang Jian (541–604), better known as Emperor Wen. He founded the Sui dynasty in 581, and in 589 he reunified a China that was—in my 2023 book’s description—“China’s European moment: ” more than three centuries of political, territorial, and ideological division, much like the Europe that followed the collapse of Rome.
Chinese Script Evolved Like a Living Organism Driven by Natural Selection: Study (August 31, 2026, South China Morning Post)
Modern simplified Chinese characters form a tightly connected network from just 514 basic components that evolved through a process similar to natural selection, according to researchers who say their findings could change how Chinese writing is taught. “Chinese characters evolve like living organisms,” lecturer Xie Yonghui of Shanghai Normal University said on August 24. The research into the evolution of Chinese writing over thousands of years, led by Huang Wei, of Beijing Language and Culture University and Xie, was published in the peer-reviewed journal Digital Scholarship in the Humanities in January.
Travel / Food
China’s Tourism Industry Gains Momentum Thanks to Visa-Free Policies (August 28, 2026, The Diplomat)
In the first six months of 2026, China received 22.91 million visits from foreign nationals, up 20.4 percent year on year. The uptick is the result of China’s visa-free policy, which accounts for 77.7 percent of all foreign arrivals. Earlier this year, China announced that starting February 17, 2026 all ordinary passport holders from Canada and the United Kingdom can travel to its mainland for up to 30 days without a visa.
Science / Technology
If You Give a Bot a Body: “China’s ‘Embodied’ Push for AI Dominance (August 28, 2026, Christian Science Monitor)
Zhang Jianxin watches shoppers fist-bump with a shiny, gyrating, humanoid robot at his showroom in China’s southern city of Guangzhou. “This is the future,” says Mr. Zhang, a technical director for the top-ranked Chinese robotics firm AgiBot, pointing at the 4-foot-tall mannequin, which is billed as friendly, agile, and intelligent. He then nods his head toward another shelf, holding a pedestrian, floor-scrubbing bot that looks like a wastebasket. “This,” he says, “is right now.”
Faster, Higher, Funnier: What We Learned from China’s Robot Games (August 29, 2026, The Guardian)
With exploding pelvises, enough comic pratfalls for a Buster Keaton show reel and the odd moment of ruthless violence, the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing gripped the world this week with an unsettling mixture of hilarity, trepidation and relief.
Education
Who Let the Dogs In? Chinese Universities Open Dorms to Pets (August 26, 2026, Sixth Tone)
A growing number of Chinese universities are allowing student pets both on campus and in university dormitories, drawing online support and sparking sharp debate over the safety, equity, and cost of campus pet ownership.
China’s Higher Education Challenges (August 30, 2026, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations)
Dr. Gerard Postiglione joins Margot Landman, NCUSCR Deputy Vice President of Programs, to discuss how China’s evolving academic system may influence its long-term trajectory and, perhaps, the global order of knowledge and innovation.
Economics / Trade / Business
For China’s Gen Z Investors, Patriotism Meets Portfolio Math (August 31, 2026, Sixth Tone)
Huang Jiarui knew she’d beaten the odds when she secured 1,000 shares in CXMT’s IPO, one of China’s leading memory-chip makers and a key player in the country’s push to build its own chip industry. The allotment rate was just 0.47%. On July 27, CXMT debuted on Shanghai’s STAR Market, the exchange’s Nasdaq-style board for tech companies. Its shares opened at 49.5 yuan ($6.93)—nearly six times the 8.66-yuan offer price. Huang sold immediately.
If a ‘Great Rebalancing’ Is Coming, Will China Really Have to Pay for It (September 1, 2026, South China Morning Post)
Michael Pettis says a great rebalancing is coming and China will pay for it. It’s strange how the man who insists that power decides who pays never tests his claim on Washington. The Beijing-based economist has been warning that a great rebalancing is coming since he published a book called The Great Rebalancing. That was in 2013. His latest Foreign Affairs offering? You guessed it: “A Great Rebalancing Is Coming: Who Will Bear the Costs of a Global Trade Adjustment?”
Pray for China
September 4 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On Sept. 4, 626, Li Shimin (李世民) began his reign as Emperor Tang Taizong (唐太宗). Eleven years later, a Church of the East (Nestorian) Christian missionary named Alopen (阿罗本) came to China from Persia. Emperor Taizong personally met with Alopen and studied his teachings. The Nestorians planted at least 50 churches in several major cities. They opened a monastery and produced books and hymns in Chinese to explain their doctrine; however, in 854, they were destroyed by a crackdown instigated by Daoists. Pray for the Loving Heavenly Father to be glorified as Chinese Christians faithfully support those called to go out as missionaries. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Psalm 67:4
From Deep Thinking to Deep Prayer (July 21, 2026, ChinaSource)
Prayer 2026: Off the Beaten Path (January 1, 2026, China Partnership)
Operation World (April 21, 2025, ChinaSource)
Pray for China (prayforchina.us)
Prayer Walking as a Rhythm of Life (May 30, 2025, ChinaSource)