ZGBriefs | December 8, 2016

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Featured Article

How Does Education In China Compare With Other Countries? (Center for Strategic and International Studies)
The ability of a country to cultivate its capacity for innovation rests with its domestic education system. A well-educated workforce is instrumental to technological and scientific discovery, which can propel states to the apex of the increasingly innovation-based global economy. This need is particularly salient for China as its leaders seek to push the Chinese economy up the global value chain.

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Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

China lodges complaint with US over Trump's Taiwan phone call (December 3, 2016, The Guardian)
Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said in a statement on Saturday: “It must be pointed out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory. The government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing China.” Geng added: “This is a fact that is generally recognised by the international community.” The statement did not describe the details of China’s complaint to the US, or say with whom it had been lodged.

The Foreign NGO Law: More Pieces of the Puzzle (December 5, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
These guidelines provide clarity for step one (filling in the forms), as well as step three (registering with the MPS). Step two remains unaddressed, however, since there is still no list of approved supervisory units. In other words, organizations planning to register can (should) begin getting their documentation in order, but it is still unknown to whom the documents should be submitted.

Should Washington Recalibrate Relations with Taipei? (December 5, 2016, China File)
The call was remarkable not for its content—Tsai’s office said she told Trump she hoped the United States “would continue to support more opportunities for Taiwan to participate in international issues.” Rather, it was the way in which the call, by implicitly recognizing Tsai as a head of state, seemed to presage a radically different Taiwan policy. Is this beneficial for U.S. interests, for Taiwan, and for global stability

China Is Transforming Southeast Asia Faster Than Ever (December 5, 2016, Bloomberg)
China’s investment is transforming its smaller Southeast Asian neighbors like never before while helping turn Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar into bigger destinations for its exports. That’s driving some of the world’s fastest economic growth rates and providing Chinese companies with low-cost alternatives as they seek to move capacity out of the country.

Confessions Made Under Duress Tarnish China’s Graft Fight, Report Says (December 6, 2016, The New York Times)
The Communist Party’s internal investigation system has come under repeated criticism from rights advocates and lawyers in recent years. But the Human Rights Watch report goes further, describing a symbiosis between that system and the state judiciary that makes it harder for suspects to challenge accusations or to retract confessions that they say were made under duress.

UN fears Chinese human rights lawyer has been 'disappeared' by authorities (December 6, 2016, The Guardian)
United Nations human rights experts are demanding answers from Beijing over the disappearance of a prominent Chinese lawyer they fear has been targeted by authorities in reprisal for meeting a UN official earlier this year. Jiang Tianyong, a 45-year-old Christian lawyer known for defending a number of prominent human rights activists, has not been seen since 21 November. Relatives and supporters believe he has been taken into secret custody by security forces. Jiang’s unexplained disappearance comes amid what appears to be a fresh wave of detentions targeting Chinese activists.

Trump picks Iowa Governor Branstad as U.S. ambassador to China: transition official (December 7, 2016, Reuters)
His appointment may help to ease trade tensions between the two countries, the world's two biggest agricultural producers, diplomats and trade experts said. In China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang called Branstad an "old friend" of China when asked about the Bloomberg report but said Beijing would work with any U.S. ambassador.

Religion

Changing Ministry in the New Normal (December 2, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
God is answering prayers, and raising up the Chinese church, preparing them for witness in today’s China and all the way to the ends of the earth. That ministry is theirs, not mine. As the evening closed I prayed that God would show me how to serve the Chinese church faithfully in this New Normal.

Preparing Our Hearts for Christmas (December 6, 2016, Chinese Church Voices)
Because of the growing popularity of Christmas in China, this season provides individual Christians and churches numerous opportunities for outreach. In this article, originally posted on at Gospel Times, a pastor reminds believers of the need to make room in their hearts for Christ as they prepare for Christmas.

Rome’s dangerous gamble in China (December 7, 2016, Catholic Herald)
Historic talks between Vatican and Beijing could unify the Church in China but critics say a deal with an atheist government would 'betray Christ'.

Society / Life

China has 670,000 non-governmental organizations: white paper (December 1, 2016, China Daily)
The number of non-governmental organizations that had registered at offices of civil affairs in China hit 670,000 by June 2016, a white paper said Thursday. The white paper titled "The Right to Development: China's Philosophy, Practice and Contribution," said there were 329,000 mass organizations, 5,028 foundations, and 336,000 private non-profit units.

Top 10 happiest cities in China (December 2, 2016, China Daily)
Chengdu and Hangzhou are among the happiest cities in China, according to a survey co-conducted by Oriental Outlook magazine under Xinhua News Agency and Blue Book of Cities in China compiled by China Association of Mayors. The study polled more than 11 million respondents.

Divorce is on the rise in China (December 3, 2016, The Economist)
WITH his slick navy suit, silver watch and non-stop smoking, Yu Feng is an unlikely ambassador for Chinese family values. The office from which he operates, in Chongqing in western China, looks more like a sitting room, with grey sofas, cream curtains and large windows looking out on the city’s skyscrapers. Women visit him here and plead for help. They want him to persuade their husbands to dump their mistresses.

Adolescents in China are getting taller, but weaker (December 3, 2016, China Daily)
According to the 2014 survey, Chinese students are taller and bigger, but they are also fatter and have worse eyesight. Lack of exercise is seen as the main culprit. "Our survey found that more than half of male students with junior middle school education and above can't complete a single pullup," Wang said.

Infographic: China's war on poverty (December 5, 2016, China Daily)

‘Two-Child Policy’ Driving Mini Baby Boom in China (December 5, 2016, China File)
The number of children born in China this year is set to rise by 5.7 percent from 2015 as a result of the introduction of the country’s new two-child policy, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) Deputy Director Wang Pei’an

It’s 39°F in My Bedroom, But I Can’t Complain (Seriously. I vowed not to.) (December 6, 2016, Small Town Laowai)
Anyway, when faced with weeks of damp cold, even a cold-lover like me starts to think “WHY IS IT SO COLD?” and “maybe we can hang blankets on the walls like they hung tapestries in castles for insulation?” and “I wonder how many hot water bottles I can zip inside my coat?” and then back to “WHY IS IT SO COLD?” But I have to stop myself. I remember my vow, and keep my mouth shut.

Leftover Men Present Rich Pickings for Dating Coaches (December 7, 2016, Sixth Tone)
After three miserable breakups and a two-year dry spell, 26-year-old Gao Bo decided he needed help with girls. Two weeks ago, he flew from his home in northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to Shanghai, nearly 1,800 kilometers away, to attend a three-day course in the art of dating that cost him 9,800 yuan ($1,400). Gao is an engineer who describes himself as a “typical zhainan” — a Chinese slang term for “stay-at-home men” who have geeky interests, unrefined social skills, and little luck with romance.

Social Scientists Grapple With Migrant Workers’ Unfair Treatment (December 7, 2016, Sixth Tone)
Zhu likened the current household registration to “a Great Wall” that separates rural and urban citizens. Instead, Zhu is advocating for a national pension and health care insurance system that includes basic protections and allows all citizens to enjoy equitable treatment nationwide.

Will China Become Generous? (December 7, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
According to China Daily, one out of every thousand people in China is a multimillionaire. Yet China’s newfound wealth does not yet appear to be translating into greater generosity. In a worldwide survey, the London-based Charities Aid Foundation ranked China last among 140 countries. China’s neighbor to the south, Myanmar, came out number one in the survey, which took into account giving, volunteering, and helping strangers in need.

Photos: Christmas is in the Air (December 7, 2016, China Daily)

Economics / Trade / Business

Should Facebook Self-Censor to Enter the Chinese Market? (November 28, 2016, China File)
The social network Facebook has reportedly developed software to suppress posts from users’ feeds in targeted geographic areas, a feature created to help the giant social media network gain access to China, where it is blocked. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has long been courting China’s leaders, studying Mandarin, and talking with Chinese Internet executives. How far should he and his company go in order to grow? At what expense.

Over 5.7m rural Chinese return from cities to start businesses (December 2, 2016, China Daily)
More than 5.7 million rural Chinese have returned from cities to their hometowns to startup businesses, Vice Minister of Agriculture Chen Xiaohua said Thursday. Among them, 4.5 million people are rural migrant workers who used to work in urban areas away from home, while the rest are mainly fresh graduates and retired soldiers who left home for education or service, Chen said at a press briefing.

Now We Think We Know What Happened to China’s Currency (December 5, 2016, Foreign Policy)
Monday night, a sharp drop in the value of the Chinese renminbi sparked speculation about a deliberate policy move by Beijing. Overnight, media outlets including Bloomberg and the Financial Times reported that a technical glitch, perhaps caused by faulty third-party data, made the yuan seem like it was losing value even when it wasn’t.

China Needs 5,550 New Pilots a Year as Travel Soars, Boeing Says (December 6, 2016, Bloomberg)
With the nation on course to eclipse North America as the world’s largest travel market, China will need 111,000 new aviators through 2035, Boeing said in a forecast released on Wednesday. That’s more than anywhere else in the Asia-Pacific region, which accounts for 40 percent of the global pilot requirement, the Chicago-based plane maker said.

Funding China’s Civil Society – Tax Incentives, Donation Law, and the Role of Foreign Charities (December 7, 2016, China Briefing)
2016 saw China pass two new laws that will play a major role in shaping its civil society sector. The Charity Law, already in effect, and the Overseas Non-Government Organization (NGO) Law, set for implementation in January, are closely intertwined, but while the former has been largely praised for incentivizing and making simpler charitable donations and funding, the latter has been widely condemned for restricting which charities can accept these donations and successfully operate in the Middle Kingdom.

Health / Environment

China Air Pollution: Smog Alert Shuts Down Beijing, Airports Across Northern, Southern China [PHOTOS] (December 5, 2016, Investors Business Daily)
Cities across China's mainland were on alert Sunday as high levels of air pollution blanketed Beijing and parts of northern China in heavy smog, closing down roads and airports. The smog was expected to hang heavy Monday in southern Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Henan and Shanxi, according to the National Meteorological Center. 

Time-Lapse: 72 Hours of Air Pollution in Shijiazhuang (December 5, 2016, Sixth Tone)
Shijiazhuang is one of the most severely polluted cities in China. From Friday, the AQI rose steadily from around 100 to 500 in three days’ time, and measurements of PM 2.5 – small pollution particles that are especially harmful because they can enter the bloodstream – were as high as 736 micrograms per cubic meter.

China's lack of sex education is putting millions of young people at risk (December 6, 2016, CNN)
When Xiao Niao was in high school, her teacher gathered all the girls in her class and told them if they were raped they should take the morning after pill. That was the limit of her formal sex education. For millions of young Chinese people, it's more than they ever got. As China marks World AIDS Day Thursday, the effects of that missing knowledge is more evident than ever, with growing numbers of HIV infections and staggeringly high abortion rates.

Science / Technology

China’s Big Year in Space Sparks Excitement and Speculation (November 30, 2016, Scientific American)
The year’s Chinese checklist also included the first use of a new Kennedy Space Center-like spaceport, the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island off China’s southern coast. The sprawling facility saw the maiden liftoffs of two rockets this year: the Long March-7 and a heavy-lifter, the Long March-5. Both boosters are essential to an expansive space agenda, with the latter dedicated to lofting the nation’s multi-modular space station and possibly, quite literally, shooting for the moon.

China's WeChat is censoring group chats without users' knowledge (December 2, 2016, CNN)
WeChat messages containing keywords mentioning sensitive topics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre, Tibet or the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong were censored in private and group chats without users' knowledge, according to a report published by Toronto-based Citizen Lab. "Keyword censorship is no longer transparent," the report said. "In the past, users received notifications when their message was blocked; now censorship of chat messages happens without any user notice."

After 1,000 Year Slumber, China Vows to Invent Again (December 6, 2016, The Wall Street Journal)
Beijing spends billions on moonshot projects such as teleportation and artificial intelligence, hoping to shake off its reputation as a copycat economy and curb dependence on foreign powers.

Google’s Amazing Timelapse Reveals How Insanely Fast China Has Grown (December 6, 2016, Next Shark)
As the world’s most populous country, China is no stranger to the idea of migration and industrial development at different levels. The movement of activity to its more popular cities is an interesting phenomenon which, thanks to Google Earth’s Timelapse, can now be seen from our fingertips.

China says Apple has an exploding iPhone problem (December 7, 2016, Quartz)
Shanghai Consumer Council (SHCC), a consumer watchdog group chaired by a Shanghai member of the Municipal People’s Congress, put up a notice on its website on Dec. 2 that eight iPhones reportedly exploded from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30.

History / Culture

The Maverick Monk (December 7, 2016, The World of Chinese)
Daoji lived his wildest days in Hangzhou; he died and was buried in the city, a home that indulged his hedonism. While most of his fellow monks wanted him defrocked, the abbots of two major Hangzhou monasteries, Lingyin Temple and Jingci Temple, saw the wisdom behind his insanity and patronized him for much of his life.

Will They Really Destroy Hongkou Fire Station? (December 7, 2016, China Rhyming)
Some worrying news recently from some friends that visited a “heritage” conference in Shanghai that turned out to be far more about destruction than preservation. Among  large number of buildings previously thought protected, but now not, one that stands out in my mind as I always enjoyed passing it and admiring it – the Yichang Road (formerly Ichang Road) Fire Station at 216 Yichang Road in Hongkou, which was formerly the Hongkew Fire Station (and is still a perfectly adequate functioning fire station).

Travel / Food

Airbnb belatedly knocks on the door in China (December 3, 2016, The Economist)
Despite the firm’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for the Chinese, the world’s biggest group of travellers, intrepid locals have still discovered the American home-sharing site. Tourists from the mainland have used the platform more than 3.5m times; Airbnb members in China have hosted nearly 1m visitors.

British Villagers Are Baffled by Flocking Chinese Tourists (December 5, 2016, The New York Times)
Ever since busloads of Chinese tourists began arriving in this sleepy, nondescript English village this summer, the 13,723 residents of Kidlington, about five miles north of Oxford, have been variously baffled, annoyed and delighted. The sudden influx of Chinese has also grabbed headlines and spawned a national mystery.

You Won’t Believe This is a Traditional Chinese Breakfast: Western Provinces (December 7, 2016, Wild China Blog)
If you’re visiting China for the first time, you may not notice what Chinese people eat for breakfast. There’s no cereal, toast, or scrambled eggs, so what are locals lining up for at 7am? Everything from temperature and humidity to taste palate and available ingredients, shape the first meal of the day in different regions across China. Here are a few to look out for on your journey through the Middle Kingdom.

High-speed train cuts Beijing-Kunming travel time by 21 hours (December 7, 2016, China Daily)
With the completion of Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway, Yunnan is now part of the national high-speed rail network. According to the schedule, which will come into effect by Jan 5, 2017, it will take 13 hours from Beijing to Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, 21 hours less than the current time it takes by the fastest train and 31 hours less than by a general train.

Language / Language Learning

Classifiers in the Chinese language (December 6, 2016, Sapore di Cina)
In Chinese, when formulating numeric or quantitative expressions, such as “two books”, “three notebooks”, “five pens”, the number must be followed by a character which is traditionally called a classifier. There are hundreds of classifiers that vary according to the noun that they must – appropriately – classify.

Never Say Die (December 7, 2016, The World of Chinese)
Death is a taboo topic in China. In most cases, people are reluctant to use the straightforward word “死 (sǐ , die)”, and even the word for four (四, sì) has unlucky connotations due in part to its similarity to the word for death.  But as they say, the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes, so people do need to talk about death. Fortunately, there are plenty of euphemisms which can be used as substitutions

Books

Why I’m Giving Away My Book in China (December 1, 2016, China File)
After a decade covering Asia for The Wall Street Journal, I devoted three years of my life to researching and writing a book about China’s one-child policy, One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment. This month, I’m giving away the Chinese-language edition of my book for free. Anyone from Shanghai to Shenzhen can download the electronic file I made available, print copies, sell them, and I won’t see a penny.

Before You Get "Home": Preparing for Reentry (Missionary Care)
This is a new e-book on preparing for reentry. Written for people anticipating a return to their passport country several months in the future, this book helps them leave "right," making it easier for them to enter "right." Using the Exodus as a model, it gives them an overview of what is ahead so they will know what to expect and how to prepare for it.

Image credit: Wikimedia