FEATURED ARTICLE
The Chinese Church and the Global Body of Christ (October 5, 2012, ChinaSource Quarterly, via Chinese Church Voices)I believe these phenomena point to the dawning of a new era beginning in 2009. I believe that in the next 30 years, whether in breadth or in depth, the global body of Christ will connect with the Chinese church much more than before. I also see the church in China facing six challenges in the next 30 years. These challenges are not ours alone, but are for the global church as well.
GOVERNMENT / POLITICS / FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The Bo Xilai Crisis: Confidence Gained or Risk Increased? (October 4, 2012, National Bureau of Asian Research)Last Friday, official news sources announced that former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai was expelled from the Chinese Community Party (CCP) and will face criminal charges due to a decision made by the Politburo, one of the CCP’s highest decision-making bodies. Bo’s expulsion follows the convictions of his former lieutenant Wang Lijun, sentenced the previous Monday, and his wife Gu Kailai, who was found guilty in late August of plotting the murder of Neil Heywood, a British business associate of the Bo family. NBR spoke once again with Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese elite politics and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about the significance of these recent developments. This expert interview is a continuation of a previous Q&A with Dr. Li conducted last April, when Bo was first stripped of his posts.
China’s ‘New Left’ Grows Louder (October 5, 2012, China Real Time Report)Supporters of ousted political leader Bo Xilai are turning up the note of political discord in China with increasingly loud criticism that the policies of current Communist Party leaders are widening inequality and breeding social unrest. The movement, known as the new left, remains relatively small and obscure, and is unlikely to have a major impact on the coming shuffle of party leadership positions. But criticism from Communist hard-liners in the era of online social media places China’s leaders in a tricky position as a debate over the direction of the party and China’s economic model is quickly spreading from universities and closed-door sessions into public view.
Former Wife of Fallen Chinese Leader Tells of a Familys Paranoid Side (October 6, 2012, The New York Times)In the interviews, the first she has given to a news organization, Ms. Li spoke in detail about her marriage to Mr. Bo, giving a rare glimpse into the early life and thoughts of the son of a revolutionary leader and someone whom Ms. Li described as an idealist enamored of communism. We believed we needed to save the rest of the world from the hell of capitalism, she said. Ms. Li, also a princeling child of a party official, said that although there has been a long history of enmity between her and Ms. Gu, her son never conspired to murder Ms. Gu.
Hong Kong and China: Former British colony clings to its separate identity (October 7, 2012, The Washington Post)The number of people parading colonial-era symbols has been minuscule and doesnt reflect any widespread hankering for a return of British rule. But, after 15 years as part of China, a population that is overwhelmingly Chinese and deeply proud of its Chinese heritage has increasingly come to view the rest of the country as a source of trouble, not pride, that needs to be kept at arms length.
China must reform or risk crisis, experts warn new leader (October 7, 2012, Reuters)China risks economic malaise, deepening unrest and ultimately even a crisis that could shake the Communist Party’s grip on power unless its next leader, Xi Jinping, pushes through stalled reforms, experts close to the government have warned. The warnings, striking for their openly urgent tone, have been aired both inside the party and publicly, and reflect an internal debate about the direction of the new leadership that takes power next month. “There is a potential crisis in China’s model of economic growth,” said a paper from Strategy and Reform, one of several think tanks and groups that throughout this year have plied officials with blueprints for Xi’s coming decade in power.
New Destroyer a Significant Development for Chinese Sea Power (October 8, 2012, China Real Time Report)Now that the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has commissioned its first aircraft carrier and may be looking to assemble one or more carrier groups over time, what about the rest of the fleet? One development that carries broad implications for the enhancement of Chinese sea power is the recent launch of the first editions of the new 6,000-ton Type 052D Luyang III-class destroyer, which marks a new stage in the PLANs prolonged period of experimentation with different destroyers.
Chinas leadership transition and foreign policy (October 8, 2012, East Asia Forum)China will soon undergo a once-in-a-decade leadership transition. It is unlikely that the new regime will bring about a fundamental shift in Chinas foreign policy, given the international balance of power, the gradual evolution of the nations interests and the need for continuity in domestic economic policy. Yet some things will change in the coming years.
No Ancient Wisdom for China (October 8, 2012, Yale Global)Chinas phenomenal rise has led many to view the country as an indomitable juggernaut. Why then does Premier Wen Jiabao describe the countrys economic model as unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable? Because it is.
Insight: “Little Hu” may play big role in China’s political future (October 8, 2012, Reuters)On the remote grasslands of northeastern China, a politician little known in the West has made a name for himself as a rising leader. Hu Chunhua is already talked of by some as a future president. []Ahead of China’s once-in-a-decade leadership change in November, Hu Chunhua is expected to get a new and more senior role, possibly as party chief of Chongqing, the former power base of disgraced politician Bo Xilai. Still, Hu remains something of an enigma, even in China. He has given few clues about his deeper policy beliefs. One of the best known things about him is that he doesn’t appear to dye his hair jet black like many Chinese politicians.
China ‘steals wife’s freedom’ to pressurise Liu Xiaobo (October 8, 2012, BBC)China’s Communist rulers are trying to force the country’s jailed Peace Prize laureate into going into exile by putting pressure on his wife, who is not well, the BBC has been told. A source close to the family has told us that Liu Xiaobo will not agree to leave China as that would lead to his voice being marginalised. But the source said that Liu Xiaobo’s wife Liu Xia is “suffering mentally” because she has now spent two years under illegal house arrest and continues to be detained. It was exactly two years ago when Liu Xiaobo, a soft-spoken academic, won the Peace Prize for his calls for peaceful political reform in China. He never collected it as he was already in a jail in China, where he remains, convicted of subversion. His wife Liu Xia, an even softer-spoken poet and photographer, has been similarly silenced. She’s being held in her own flat in Beijing.
China hints at reforming labour camp system (October 9, 2012, BBC News)China is working to revise its system of labour camps, where people can be jailed for up to four years without trial, a senior judicial official says. Jiang Wei, head of judicial system reform, said the camps had an important role in keeping social order but there was a wide consensus for reform. China has 350 such camps with more than 150,000 inmates, the latest government figures released in 2008 say. The network has long been criticised for human rights abuses. Many inmates are held for alleged offences such as prostitution and drug possession. The system started in the 1950s based on the Soviet Gulag – millions were jailed in labour camps for political crimes during Chairman Mao’s time.
Photos: China’s first aircraft carrier celebrates National Day (October 9, 2012, Xinhua)
China finance officials to skip Tokyo IMF meeting (October 10, 2012, AP)China’s central bank governor and finance minister won’t be attending IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Tokyo this week in an apparent snub to Japan that comes as the two Asian giants remain at odds over a cluster of tiny islands both claim. The International Monetary Fund said that People’s Bank of China Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan, who was scheduled to give the event’s closing speech on Sunday, had cited scheduling problems for his decision to cancel his Tokyo trip. The IMF said his deputy, Yi Gang, will represent him at the meeting and will deliver Sunday’s lecture. China’s official Xinhua news agency published a report that said China’s delegations to the meetings would be headed by Yi and Zhu Guangyao, a vice finance minister. China’s central bank and Finance Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Photos: Taiwans National Day Celebrations(October 11, 2012, China Real Time Report)
China’s shake-up to shape foreign policy(October 11, 2012, Asia Times Online)China, just as it prepares for its once-per-decade shift in leadership, is being rocked by uncertainties arising from daunting economic and political challenges. Though these are primarily domestic, they will have an impact on the foreign policy of the Communist Party’s incoming leadership. How the rest of the world reacts to this policy will determine whether, and to what extent, China’s rise remains peaceful.
RELIGION
Confucius in church (October 9, 2012, Global Times)It’s a Sunday afternoon, and a group of Christians are meeting in a regular gathering. They start to sing hymns, raising their hands in praise. After concluding grace with “Amen,” they sit down and start to study, not the Bible, but the Confucian classic Lun Yu, or the Analects. This is part of a quiet grass-roots campaign among a small number of Chinese Christians to learn about traditional Chinese culture. Organizers say they simply want to help promote dialogue and better understanding between the two cultures by reading the Analects and the Bible side by side, but their efforts have met with criticism from both Christians and Confucian scholars. Shi Hengtan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, leads the class of 14 people in Beijing. Since September they have been meeting once a week to study the Analects. The class read the text, and Shi offers an explanation, and then quotes a verse from the Bible with a similar meaning.
An Interview with Zhao Xiao (October 9, 2012, Chinese Church Voices)In 2008, prior to the Beijing Olympics, Chicago Tribune journalist Evan Osnos produced a piece for the PBS program Frontline called Jesus in China, in which he explored the growth of Christianity and its potential to transform China. He interviewed Christians from rural house churches, urban house churches (including Pastor Jin, who was featured in the previous post), Three-Self churches, and academics. One of the academics he talked to was Dr. Zhao Xiao, a prominent Christian economist who argues that Christianity can be a positive force for Chinas economic development. As a result of his research on Christianity, he became a Christian. Dr. Zhao continues to speak and write on this subject, both inside of China and outside. He is active on Chinas micro-blogging platform Weibo (@zhaoxiaolovegod), where he has more than 4 million followers.
HEALTH
Dr. Wang Shuping: How I Discovered the HIV Epidemic and What Happened to Me Afterwards (October 8, 2012, Seeing Red in China)I am Wang Shuping, one of the people mentioned in Dr. Chen Binzhongs three letters. As a doctor who witnessed the earliest stage of the hepatitis C and HIV epidemics, I would like to talk a little about how I discovered the HIV epidemic among paid blood donors and what happened afterwards.
Health authorities on alert for new SARS-like virus(October 9, 2012, Shanghai Daily)Chinas Ministry of Health is urging medical authorities across the nation to be on the lookout for signs of a deadly SARS-like virus which has been detected in Britain and Saudi Arabia. No cases have been reported on the Chinese mainland so far, China National Radio reported yesterday. However, in Hong Kong, there were fears that a four-year-old Saudi Arabian boy had been infected with the virus, known as a novel coronavirus. The boy arrived in Hong Kong from Saudi Arabia last Wednesday with his father. On Sunday, he showed symptoms of severe respiratory illness, including fever, cough and vomiting, and was transferred to Queen Mary Hospital. Yesterday, the city’s Center for Health Protection said tests showed he had H1N1 flu. He tested negative for the novel coronavirus.
Mental care for senior citizens “faces challenges” (October 11, 2012, Xinhua)Mental healthcare for the elderly faces a number of challenges if it is to meet government targets, a senior health official said on Wednesday. About 13 percent of the population are at least 60 years old. A 40 percent detection rate for the first stage of mental illness is set out in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) but a lack of standard procedures means this will be difficult to meet, Kong Lingzhi, deputy director of the bureau of disease control and prevention at the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday, World Mental Health Day. China’s health authorities have not yet set standard procedures for screening early-stage dementia, she said.
EDUCATION / CULTURE
The Artist Who Cant Leave China: An Interview with Ai Weiwei (October 7, 2012, BBC News)One of the world’s most-famous artists is having an important retrospective in the Smithsonian, but Ai Weiwei can’t attend because the authorities in Beijing won’t give him back his passport. He talks to TIME about his art, his activism and the pervasiveness of China’s snooping on its own citizens
Women in China Face Rising University Entry Barriers (October 7, 2012, The New York Times)No one is quite sure when gender quotas and gender-based admission scores were first implemented; but by now, they appear to be deeply entrenched, according to Chinese news reports that published publicly available admission criteria for the gaokao, the nationwide university entrance exam, as evidence. Several of the universities in question, including the University of International Relations, declined to respond to requests for information, referring queries to the colleges propaganda or international affairs offices, which did not respond.
Sima Qian: China’s ‘grand historian’(October 7, 2012, BBC News)Speaking truth to power has always been a high-risk strategy in China. Its rulers tend to prefer flattery, and writers who forget this do so at their peril. China’s “grand historian” – 2,000 years ago – was one of many who have paid a terrible price. “Among defilements, none is so great as castration. Any man who continues to live having suffered such a punishment is accounted as a nothing.”The man who wrote those words is by no means a nothing today. In a nation obsessed by its history, Sima Qian was the first and some say the greatest historian.
Student Gives Prominent Neo-Maoist the Shoe Treatment (October 8, 2012, China Real Time Report)One of Chinas most divisive advocates of neo-Maoist ideology learned over the weekend that political activism and calls for democracy are alive on at least some Chinese university campuses. []But during a question-and-answer session as part of a lecture Mr. Sima delivered at Hainan University on Sunday, one young man launched a multipronged attack on Mr. Simas ideology, according to a video of the incident widely circulated across Chinese-language websites. Arguing that Mr. Simas Maoist views were a threat to freedom, the student quoted Socrates as a saying the only thing he knew was nothing at all. The little something I know is that I need freedom, he continued. Democracy is one way to protect freedom.
How Long Does it Take to Learn Chinese?(October 9, 2012, Outside-In)One way to help set realistic expectations (and measure progress) is to use foreign language proficiency guidelines. For English speakers (in the US), there are two major sets of guidelines. One set is produced by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL Guidelines). The other set is produced by the Interagency Language Roundtable, and is used by the Foreign Service Institute, the arm of the US State Department that trains diplomats. It is also commonly referred to as the FSI scale.
The Duke of Zhou: The man who was Confucius’s hero (October 9, 2012, BBC)Three thousand years ago, the Duke of Zhou set China a glowing example. A paragon of virtue, he spelled out a philosophy of a ruler in harmony with heaven that inspired Confucius, and came to fill the ideological vacuum left behind by Chairman Mao. “He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it,” wrote Confucius 2,500 years ago. As he wrote these words, he will have had in his mind’s eye the Duke of Zhou, probably the first real person to step over the threshold of myth into Chinese history. “Confucius, in his own words, said: ‘Oh, in politics I follow the Duke of Zhou’,” says archaeologist Wang Tao.
SOCIETY / LIFE
What Is a ‘Human Flesh Search,’ and How Is It Changing China? (October 5, 2012, The Atlantic)Translated directly from the Chinese renrou sousou yinqing () and popularized by Chinese bulletin board services like Mop, Tianya and KDnet, flesh searches are grassroots, collaborative efforts to share information online. []Although the term sounds ghoulish, this sleuthing process involves the probing and posting of personal details in pursuit of romance, kinship, justice, or vindication. Citizens and officials alike are equally exposed to the deluge of home and email addresses, bank statements, or gaming handles. Yang, a man with expensive tastes, was no exception.
Kashgar old town A glance at the Silk Road (Photo Essay) (October 6, 2012, Sapore di Cina)
Helping China Learn How Not to Run a Charity Organization (October 8, 2012, China Real Time Report)Charity in China is down on its luck as citizens become increasingly cynical in the wake of a slew of high-profile scandals. Last year, Chinas 1.3 billion plus people donated roughly $8 billion dollars, down almost 18% on the previous year, according to data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs. In contrast, Americans donated close to $300 billion in 2011up slightly year-on-year despite harsh economic conditionsaccording to a recent report by the Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Now, Chinese foundations are tapping American nonprofit organizations for help in whipping Chinese foundations into better shape.
Kublai Khan: China’s favourite barbarian (October 8, 2012, BBC News)China has a love-hate relationship with what is foreign. Traditionally all people beyond the Great Wall were barbarians – only part human. But invaders have sometimes been welcomed, in time, into the Chinese family. One was Kublai Khan.
Slide Show: Looking Into the Eyes of Made in China (October 9, 2012, Lens)In Faces of Made in China, a series of typological portraits looking at workers inside six Chinese factories, the photographer Lucas Schifres seeks to consider the otherwise anonymous people who produce our essential possessions by looking directly into their eyes.
Hoax threat forces China plane to land: report (October 9, 2012, AFP, via AsiaOne)Chinese police arrested a man in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang for allegedly making a hoax threat that forced a plane into an emergency landing, state media said. The man, whose name was only given as Wang, confessed to making a “fake terrorist threat” that led to the plane landing on Monday at an airport in Lanzhou, capital of northwest Gansu province, official news agency Xinhua said, citing security officials. Resource-rich Xinjiang is home to roughly nine million people from the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority who have long been angered by what many see as government oppression. The China Southern Airlines flight CZ680 had originally taken off from Istanbul in Turkey and landed in Xinjiang’s provincial capital, Urumqi. It was en route for Beijing when the alert happened around 5.30 pm (0930 GMT). A search of the Boeing 757, which was carrying 186 passengers and 10 crew, turned up no explosives or other suspicious items and it took off again at 10.45 pm, Xinhua said.
Smashed Skull Serves as Grim Symbol of Seething Patriotism (October 10, 2012, The New York Times)What happened to Mr. Li, 51, was the ugliest known episode among anti-Japanese protests that convulsed cities in China last month after a longstanding dispute over an island chain erupted into fury. Mr. Lis only offense, apparently, was driving a Japanese car. He ended up the victim of a mob that stopped the car on a wide boulevard in the middle of Xian. Now, even as anti-Japanese sentiment remains strong, Mr. Li has become a symbol for many Chinese of what can go wrong when latent nationalism spins out of control.
How Chinese Social Media Is Changing Lives, One Story At a Time (October 10, 2012, Tea Leaf Nation)At Tea Leaf Nation, we know that Chinese social media is good for more than celebrity gossip and pictures of cats. Not only is it a prime source for breaking news and candid debate; it can also effect significant change in the lives of real people. Need examples? Just read these four incredible stories.
What Would China be Like if the Internet Wasnt Censored?(October 10, 2012, Tech in Asia)Everyone knows that Chinas internet is censored. Theres the government-run firewall that blocks and interferes with unwanted sites, and then theres the extensive network of self-censors at all of Chinas internet companies who delete content they fear might incur the wrath of the regime. But what if that wasnt true? What would happen if tomorrow, the Great Firewall was torn down and Chinese internet companies were told they no longer needed to censor their content?
Chinese motorways: The toll factor (October 10, 2011, Analects)CHINAS longest-ever officially arranged holiday is now over. The grumbling is just getting started. The official media are awash with articles complaining that the only extended vacations that most people enjoy are golden week public holidays. The result is huge pressure on transport and tourist facilities during those designated periods. For many, annoyance over congestion and price-gouging undermines, if not outweighs, the benefits of getting paid time-off.
In China, little happiness matters (October 11, Offbeat China)Mengniu, the dairy brand that has been at the center of almost every tainted milk scandal in China, planned for re-branding and came up with one new marketing pitch: Little happiness matters. Is this another Chinese-English translation fail or did their marketing people just accidentally speak out the truth of their brand? Welljudging from the Chinese version of the pitch, what they meant to say is Happiness, however small, matters or For even the smallest happiness. Though Mengniu may have just put itself into another PR nightmare, the new slogan actually very well speaks out how the Chinese people are feeling about living in China right now.
SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY / ENVIRONMENT
China to invest billions in sandstorm controls (October 7, 2012, Xinhua)China will invest a total of 87.79 billion yuan (13.72 billion U.S. dollars) to help control the sources of sandstorms that affect Beijing and its neighboring Tianjin Municipality, according to the country’s top economic planner. The money will be used during the second stage of the sandstorm control project for Beijing and Tianjin during 2013-2022, which was approved by the State Council last month, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said.
Beijing air quality to be better monitored (October 8, 2012, The Guardian)Beijing authorities have completed a network of monitors that will more accurately measure air quality in the smog-ridden city after being pushed into it by public pressure and pollution reports from the US embassy. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Centre said on Saturday that another 15 monitoring stations had begun releasing real-time data on small particulates known as PM2.5. The tiny pollution particles that may result from the burning of fuels in vehicles and power plants can penetrate deep into the lungs, so measuring them is considered a more accurate reflection of air quality than other methods. Chinese citizens have prodded their government into publishing more detailed pollution data since the US embassy started publishing PM2.5 readings taken from its rooftop on Twitter.
BUSINESS / ECONOMICS / FOREIGN TRADE
No One Trusts China’s Unemployment Rate (October 5, 2012, Planet Money)Ask an economist like Eswar Prasad, who used to work at the International Monetary Fund, “So, do you know, what the unemployment rate in China is?” And he’ll answer, “We don’t.” The official unemployment rate, put out by the government, Prasad says, is 6.5 percent, but according to him, “that number has no credibility at all.” He’s not the only dubious one. “The unemployment rate in China is one of the most useless and ridiculous statistics out there,” says macroeconomic researcher Arthur Kroeber of Dragonomics. “No one pays any attention to it, because everyone knows it’s a complete fiction.
“State-owned enterprises: The state advances (October 6, 2012, The Economist)The states grip on the economy has been tightening. Could foreign pressure persuade the new leadership to reverse course?
China Golden week retail sales growth dips to 15 percent (October 7, 2012, Reuters, via Yahoo News)China’s retail sales growth slowed during the Golden Week holiday, local media said on Sunday, providing a snapshot of increasingly important sources of demand in the world’s second-largest economy. Overall retail sales revenue grew 15 percent to hit 800.6 billion yuan ($127.4 billion) during the National Day holiday, which coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival to provide a rare eight-day break, China’s state television China Central Television said. That marked a cooldown from the 17.5 percent growth last year during a seven-day holiday. No further details were given,
Dongguan, Prosperous Chinese City and Factory to the World, May Be On The Financial Brink (October 9, 2012, Tea Leaf Nation)The factory of the world may be in serious trouble. The southern city of Dongguan, home to more than 800 domestic and international factories and one of the most prominent urban economic engines in China, now teeters on the verge of bankruptcy, according to study conducted by a Chinese university and cited by the South China Morning Post.
China’s Crisis of Confidence (October 9, 2012, Bloomberg)Numbers can be cooked. But facts are stubborn things. And the facts are that China is experiencing a severe confidence crisis, due in large part to the governments fixation on keeping up GDP at the cost of creating a more equal, transparent and honorable society. It is to no ones benefit maybe with the exception of BCGs consultants to continue to sing the hymns of this rosy Chinese GDPism. What the incoming government should do is to let go the GDP- ism, and address the confidence crisis by pushing forward with market reform. Only by doing so, will urbanization continue, the service industries will catch up and the $10 trillion potential may one day materialize.
To sell books to China, foreign publishers may have to play by its rules (October 9, 2012, Paid Content)China has a huge publishing industry, with over 367,000 titles published in 2011 making it a large and lucrative market for foreign publishers who want to sell book rights there. But they may face unique challenges, including an ebook market very different from the one in the West.
Memo to Congress re: Huawei IBM China Has Communist Party Committees Too (October 10, 2012, Tea Leaf Nation)Foreign corporations seem to have come around to the notion that having a party committee is necessary to navigate around Chinas highly political business environment.
Did Chinese IPhone Workers Really Go on Strike? (October 11, 2012, Bloomberg)So, what really happened? Foxconn denies outright that there was a strike, instead claiming that its factory suffered a series of confrontations between production and quality control staff. Yes limited account of what happened seems to lend more credibility to the company than to China Labor Watchs release. In the end, the fact that such a poorly sourced story has become a major news event tells us much more about how Foxconn and Apple are covered in the press than they do about conditions in the factories.
Lenovo ousts HP as world’s top PC maker, says Gartner (October 11, 2012, BBC News)Chinese PC maker Lenovo has replaced Hewlett-Packard as the world’s top PC maker, according to preliminary figures released by research firm Gartner. Gartner said Lenovo shipped 13.8 million units in the third quarter, compared with HP’s 13.55 million. It said Lenovo’s “aggressive” price cuts had helped it gain substantial market share. However, research firm IDC’s data put HP at the top, though it showed the gap between the two was closing.
ARTICLES IN CHINESE(October 11, 2012, Gospel Times)
CCTV(October 11, 2012, Gospel Times)
LINKS FOR RESEARCHERS
Full Text: Judicial Reform in China(October 9, 2012, Xinhua)The Information Office of the State Council published Tuesday a white paper on the judicial reform in China. Following is the full text:
Catholic Belief in Rural Chinese Culture:Evidence from Catholicism in North China during the Late Qing Dynasty (Pacific Institute for Social Sciences)Believing in God (Heavenly Father) and worshipping him is the cornerstone and core of Catholic belief. During the late Qing Dynasty, rural Chinese Catholic believers, in their process to consciously accept the belief in God as taught by Catholic doctrines, often unconsciously combined Catholic beliefs with their existing cognitive structures, life experiences, and spiritual customs. They synthesized Chinese religious consciousness, logic, and systems of belief with Catholic beliefs. As a result the pure and clear notion of God in Catholicism became mixed with traditional beliefs.
BOOKS
Julia Boyd on the Lost World of Beijings pre-1949 Expats China Speaking tour (October 8, 2012, China Rhyming)Ive recommended Julia Boyds latest book A Dance with the Dragon: the Vanished World of Pekings Foreign Colony before. And Julia is on a little tour out East, so if youre in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou or Hong Kong this October
Murder in Old Peking Hong Kong International Literary Festival 13/10/12 Paul French & Nury Vittachi (October 11, 2012, China Rhyming)
Paul French: “Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China” (Rebroadcast) (October 8, 2012, The Diane Rehm Show)Chinas emergence as a superpower is unquestioned today. But less than a century ago, Old China breathed its last as the country faced a Japanese invasion, then years of civil war and turmoil. Peking, now Beijing, was a city on the edge in 1937a place of superstition, fraught with danger where Westerners sought out adventure. The brutal murder of British schoolgirl there on a cold January morning made international headlines. But the world soon forgot about Pamela Werner as China was plunged into the chaos of war. Diane and her guest explore the real-life story of murder and belated justice in Old China.Job OpeningsExecutive Coordinator, Good Rock Foundation (Hong Kong)Part time position between 12-18 hours per week. Office based in Chai Wan, some hours can be worked from home.www.good-rock.orgProgram Administrator, China Environment Forum http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/WC-12-16T_0.pdf ZGBriefs is a weekly compilation of the news in China, condensed from published sources and emailed free-of-charge to more than 6,000 readers in China and abroad. ZGBriefs brings you not only the most important stories of the week, but also links to blogs, commentaries, articles, and resources to help fill out your understanding of what is happening in China today. Coverage includes domestic and international politics, economics, culture, and social trends, among other areas. Seeking to explore all facets of life in China, ZGBriefs also includes coverage of spiritual movements and the role of religious believers and faith-based groups in China. The publication of ZGBriefs is supported by readers who find this weekly service useful. ZGBriefs is a publication of ChinaSource.
