ZGBriefs | October 3, 2024

Featured Article

To Scale Peaks, Chinese Hikers Are Hiring Personal Cheerleaders (September 29, 2024, Sixth Tone)
The service is part of a broader trend across the country, where young Chinese are increasingly seeking dazi, or “companions,” to counteract feelings of isolation. This emerging market—which includes services like gaming buddies and online chatting partners—is expected to be worth over $7 billion by 2025.

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Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

China’s Communist Party Has Ruled for 75 Years. Will It Make It to 100? (September 30, 2024, AP News)
Party leaders now want to build an even stronger China to achieve what they call the “rejuvenation” of the nation by 2049, which would mark the centennial of communist rule. Staying in power that long will depend on how they manage in an era of slower growth and intensifying competition with the United States, one that has raised the specter of a new cold war.

Xi Jinping Forecasts ‘Rough Seas’ on 75th Anniversary of People’s Republic of China (October 1, 2024, The Guardian)
Xi Jinping has warned of “rough seas” ahead for China’s people in a speech marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China that was notable for the lack of major festivities. In the speech to about 3,000 Chinese Communist party (CCP) members and foreign dignitaries on Monday, the eve of China’s national day, Xi praised China’s advancement since Communist forces ousted the Nationalist government and established the PRC. Xi, head of China’s ruling CCP, said “no difficulties can stop the Chinese people from moving forward” but called on the population to be “vigilant”, prepare for danger, and rely on the party and its army ahead of tough times.

In the Global Game of Influence, China Turns to a Cheap and Effective Tool: Fake News (September 27, 2024, AP News)
The Biden administration’s Asia czar woke up one morning in 2022 to a long article in the local press about the U.S. running chemical and biological labs in Ukraine, a claim that Washington calls an outright lie. Started by Russia, the false and incendiary claim was vigorously amplified by China’s vast overseas propaganda apparatus. It was another example of “clearly effective Russian and Chinese disinformation,” Campbell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July.

Religion

Partners in Faith (September 27, 2024, ChinaSource)
Both registered churches and unregistered churches are facing restriction, pressure, and even persecution, and our partnership and support responses will have to meet the variety of realities within the church in China.

Closing the Gaps (September 30, 2024, ChinaSource)
In the gaps between our carefully crafted China narratives lie vast uncharted regions where God’s Spirit is already at work. May he lead us to those places and grant us there the imagination to see ourselves in his greater story.

Bringing Light to the Mountains (October 1, 2024, ChinaSource)
Despite the grim reality, I found a glimmer of hope during my first visit to the Daliang Mountains. Coming to church and learning about God has been a lifeline for the children. Under the guidance of Brother W and his wife, they have found a loving community and a purpose in life. The children have made remarkable progress, turning away from a life of crime and focusing on their studies. Their church has become their sanctuary, a place where they feel safe and loved.

Marriage and the J-Curve (September 27, 2024, China Partnership)
What does “dying and rising with Jesus” look like?  J-Curve: Dying and Rising with Jesus in Everyday Life, a 2019 book by Paul Miller, seeks to answer that question. Today we are continuing our series on the J-Curve with the first part of a conversation on the concept with Lily. She is a Chinese believer who shares how she has used this concept in discipleship, and how it has blessed her own life and marriage and helped her make sense of her struggles in a gospel-centered way.

Lanzhou: My Hometown (September 30, 2024, China Partnership)
This is the last post for our September of prayer for Lanzhou, and we’re wrapping up by getting an insider’s look into the city from Ben Chen, who grew up there. He talks about what it was like in Lanzhou when he was a child, and how he perceived it, both then and now. We hope this will help you better understand and pray for Lanzhou and its people!

Society / Life

China’s Anxious Youth, With No Plans to Marry, Buy a Flat or Save, Focus on Life’s Needs (September 29, 2024, South China Morning Post)
A majority of young Chinese consumers have seen their incomes remain stable or decrease this year, prompting a shift away from chasing brand names, and instead paying only for “essential, discounted, and emotionally rewarding products”, according to the China Newsweek survey. The survey interviewed 7,725 people across China aged between 16 and 40, with 48.5 from first-tier cities.

A Path Towards Freedom: The New Route to Europe for Desperate Chinese Migrants (September 24, 2024, The Guardian)
In the corner of a cemetery on the outskirts of Bihać, another unlikely journey from China to Bosnia has ended. Kai Zhu is buried here. Little is known about him, other than his year of birth, 1964, and the fact that he had expressed an intention to apply for asylum in Bosnia. Staff at the migrant reception centre where he died say that he had mental as well as physical health problems, and that his only acquaintance was another Chinese man in the camp, who soon moved on.

Economics / Trade / Business

7 Takeaways from China’s Most Significant Stimulus Package Since the Pandemic (September 25, 2024, South China Morning Post)
People’s Bank of China governor Pan Gongsheng, minister of the National Administration of Financial Regulation Li Yunze and China Securities Regulatory Commission chairman Wu Qing held a joint press conference in Beijing on Tuesday. The slew of measures announced were “bold by historical standards”, analysts said, as they represented the first time the central bank had offered a combination of rate cuts, reserve requirement ratio (RRR) cuts and structural monetary policies at the same time.

Video—A Look at Consumption During China’s Golden Week (September 30, 2024, Bloomberg)
China expects nearly two-billion domestic trips over the Golden Week holiday beginning today, up more than 19-percent from the same period in pre-pandemic 2019. Our Chief North Asia Correspondent, Stephen Engle, looks at whether the new stimulus measures will also give the retail sector a much-needed shot in the arm.

China’s Property Market: Explaining the Boom and the Bust (September 30, 2024, The Diplomat)
Chinas property sector is sinking. Once the economic backbone by which hundreds of million Chinese went from poverty to the middle class, the industry now is now seeing slumps in the value of real estate that threaten not only household wealth and revenue for local governments, but also the overall growth of the Chinese economy, a key indicator of the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy and right to rule.

Science / Technology

U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement Set to Lapse—What’s Next? (August 21, 2024, The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations)
The U.S.-China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement (STA), signed in 1979, was the first major bilateral agreement between the United States and China. Since then, it has been renewed multiple times and has facilitated China’s integration into the global economy. However, experts agree that the current STA no longer reflects China’s expanded scientific and technological (S&T) capacity, nor does it address U.S. concerns about China’s S&T practices and policies. In August 2023, after President Biden nearly allowed the STA to lapse beyond its usual five-year renewal period, he approved two six-month extensions. It is now set to expire on August 27, 2024. 

History / Culture

Nostalgia in the City: Snapshots of Shanghai in the Booming ’90s (October 1, 2024, Sixth Tone)
In 1990, when Dutch photographer Robert van der Hilst was dispatched to Shanghai for the first time by Vogue magazine, he was surprised by the city’s relaxed and unique charm: people in pajamas chatted on the sidewalk with a cup of morning tea; the sick and elderly congregated in parks for their daily dose of sunshine and fresh air, IV drips in tow; young, cosmopolitan urbanites flocked to disco dancehalls. Over 30 years later, the now 84-year-old van der Hilst is showcasing the photographs he took during seven visits to the city in the early 1990s.

The Rebellious History of Mooncakes, the Note-Passing Dessert That Liberated China (September 12, 2024, Smithsonian Magazine)
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, celebrated by Chinese around the world on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month each year (September 17 this year), mooncakes are eaten in gluttonous quantities. By mid-August, supermarkets, grocery stores, bakeries and even luxury hotels stockpile the desserts to cater to mooncake madness—an industry valued at more than $2.3 billion in recent years. Families gather together over a meal and light lanterns, look at the moon and eat yue bing, otherwise known as mooncakes, wishing each other wealth and happiness.

This Cheese Stood Alone for 3,600 Years (September 25, 2024, NY Times)
Around 3,600 years ago, a young woman died and was buried in the Tarim Basin, a desert in what’s now the Xinjiang region of northwestern China. The dry conditions and her sealed coffin preserved her body, so when archaeologists uncovered her grave in 2003, they found her naturally mummified remains, still dressed in a felt hat, tasseled wool coat and fur-lined leather boots.

They also found chunks of cheese, laid out like a necklace.

Travel / Food

Jian Shou Qing (见手青): Yunnan’s Viral Mushroom Sensation (September 23, 2024, China Skinny)
A wild mushroom from Yunnan, known as “Jian Shou Qing (见手青),” scientifically known as Lanmaoa asiatica, has sparked a viral trend online due to its unusual hallucinogenic effects. Interest in this mushroom peaks every year during its wild harvesting season in July and August.

Cost-Conscious Chinese Tourists Look to Affordable Options for Golden Week Holiday (September 29, 2024, Reuters)Chinese tourists are expected to take longer trips than last year during the Golden Week holiday that kicks off on Tuesday, but that will not necessarily lead to a bump in spending, travel industry experts said. With the economy slowing and consumer confidence hovering just above historic lows, they expect many travellers over the week-long National Day break will opt for cheaper domestic or short-haul overseas destinations and take advantage of a decline in airfares.

Pray for China

September 30 (Pray for China: A Walk Through History)

On Sept. 30, 1866, Hudson Taylor (戴德生) & 17 other missionaries arrived in Shanghai to expand the work of the newly formed China Inland Mission. The CIM’s goal of rapid evangelization led to the adoption of practices then unusual in China missions—including dressing Chinese-style, sending single women unaccompanied to remote posts, having no guaranteed salaries, and making no appeals for funds other than by praying to the Lord. During the 1900 Boxer Uprising, CIM lost more missionaries than any other agency, but by the time of Taylor’s death in 1905 CIM had the most missionaries in China (825) and could claim 25,000 converts. A decade later, it was the largest missionary organization in the world. Pray for Chinese missionaries to apply Taylor’s spiritual secret of abiding in Christ.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5