China Analysis Digest #10
Neican Digest lists new China-related publications.
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Issue: 2021/10
- Date: April 28 - May 5, 2021
- Sources scanned: 84
- Content: 232 publications from 57 sources
- Download raw data (.csv)
Recommended readings:
Liu Yu on the Arms Race in Chinese Education (Liu Yu, translated by Selena Orly):
What are the consequences of this kind of "arms race" model of education? Everyone is utterly exhausted. Your kid goes to bed at ten o’clock, my kid goes to bed at eleven, his kid goes to bed at midnight. You go to two cram schools, he goes to four. Some time ago I was in a WeChat moms’ group and saw a forwarded news item about a liberal arts mom who transformed herself into a science and technology expert in order to tutor her child for university.
Cultivate Aridity and Deprive them of Air (Holly Snape):
‘Grey space’ and ‘tacit approval’ are concepts familiar to people working in or studying China’s organised civil society. But a new policy, introduced in March 2021, to ‘crack down on and rectify illegal social organisations’ attempts to wipe these concepts clean from our lexicon. This policy seeks to cultivate arid land in place of vibrant grey space by prevailing on the Chinese Communist Party, the state, and an array of other organisations to ‘cut off all sources of nourishment’ and ‘remove the breeding ground’ for non–state-approved social organisations. The aim, as the policy puts it, is to ‘cleanse the social organisation ecological space’.
we interviewed 19,816 individuals from 31 provinces or provincial-level administrative regions across China…our data show that Chinese citizens’ trust in their national government increased [since COVID] to 98 percent….91 percent of Chinese citizens surveyed now said they trust or trust completely the township-level government. Trust levels rose to 93 percent at the county level, 94 percent at the city level and 95 percent at the provincial level. These numbers suggest that Chinese citizens have become more trusting in all levels of government…the high levels of trust among Chinese citizens — and what we know about citizen surveys in China — suggest that these results cannot be simply reduced to a misrepresentation out of political fear. These findings are consistent with what other survey scholars have repeatedly shown.
Is there life after Xi? (Richard McGregor and Jude Blanchette):
Successfully organising a coup against an incumbent leader — especially one in a Leninist one-party state — is also a daunting challenge. An aspiring coup leader faces numerous barriers, beginning with the need to gather support from key members of the military-security bureaucracy without alerting the leader and the security agencies. In the absence of a systemic crisis, the chances of a coup against Xi at the moment are exceedingly small. Given the technological capabilities of the party’s security services, which Xi controls, such an endeavour is fraught with the risk of detection and the possible defection of early plotters who change their mind. Xi certainly has a host of enemies in the party, but the obstacles to organising against him are near insurmountable.
警惕公权力运行中的内卷现象 (储建国):
对于已经有四十多年改革经验的中国来说,一方面需要对发展出的有效体制进行“巩固”和“提升”,另一方面需要进一步对无效的体制进行深化改革。这些无效的体制不仅指改革前的旧体制,而且也指实践证明不成功的新体制。因此,我们讲“改革没有止境”就是这个意思。在当前阶段,有的干部,尤其是个别“关键少数”可能会产生畏首畏尾、固步自封的心态,于是,他们创新的主动性下降,甚至被现有的结构锁定,得过且过。这是当前公权力运行中最大的“内卷”问题。
历史学家能抵抗情势变迁的压力吗?(葛兆光):
读《顾颉刚日记》,断断续续用了我一个多月的闲暇时间。看完这十几册日记后,记下的竟然是一些颇为悲观的感受。历史学家能抵抗情势变迁的压力吗?历史学家能承受多大的政治压力呢?读《顾颉刚日记》,想起当年傅斯年从国外给他写信,不无嫉妒却是真心赞扬,说顾颉刚在史学上可以“称王”了,但是,就算他真的是中国20世纪上半叶历史学的“无冕之王”,这个历史学的无冕之王,能摆脱民族、国家的情势变化,保持学术之客观吗?他能遗世独立,凭借学术与政治上的有冕之王抗衡吗?
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China Story:
- China’s military exercises are frequent yet Taiwan is not worried
- Time to speak louder on Australians detained in the PRC
Reading the China Dream:
- Gan Yang and Liu Xiaofeng on Yenching Academy
- Liu Yu on the Arms Race in Chinese Education
- Xiang Biao, Excerpts from Self as Method
- Zhao Gang, Radical Youth in Taiwan and Hong Kong
Made in China Journal:
MacroPolo:
Pew Research Center:
War on the Rocks:
Foreign Affairs:
Project Syndicate:
The Atlantic:
The Economist:
- Even doveish China-watchers in America are becoming hawkish
- China blocks mention of Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao
- Is China’s population shrinking?
Monkey Cage:
- Did the pandemic shake Chinese citizens’ trust in their government? We surveyed nearly 20,000 people to find out.
- Why do some Muslim-majority countries support China’s crackdown on Muslims?
- Huawei is trying to avoid U.S. sanctions. That may change the U.S.-China tech rivalry in Africa.
- China’s Belt and Road Initiative invests in African infrastructure — and African military and police forces
- Was China behind last October’s power outage in India? Here’s what we know.
Australian Financial Review:
Lowy Interpreter:
- Pakistani Taliban turn on China
- Australia keeps calm while China carries on
- China’s climate pivot could reshape the economic future
- Some reflections on the “anonymous Xinjiang paper”
- China’s leap into space
East Asia Forum:
- Can China’s commercial space sector achieve lift off?
- Japan’s Senkaku public awareness campaign at risk of backfiring
- Why China’s vaccine diplomacy is winning
Pearls and Irritations:
- Time to silence the drums of war
- Hong Kong: British common law labelled as Chinese oppression
- Taiwan: the trigger point for America’s next war
Asialink:
The Strategist:
- China’s AI deployment in Africa poses risks to security and sovereignty
- No end in sight for China’s dependence on Australian iron ore
- China’s actions, not Australia’s words, are the problem
- Time to end China’s lease on the Port of Darwin
ChinaFile:
Sixth Tone:
- Past Lens: Snapshots of Campus Life in ’90s China
- How a Polish Master Brought Lu Xun’s Madness to Life
- How I’m Reconnecting Migrant Parents With Their Children
- Reading the Leaves of China’s Upscale Milk Tea Craze
- Can the Internet Cure China’s Addiction to Overprescription?
- On a Chinese Mountaintop, a Community Just for People With Autism
China Digital Times:
- Timeline: Two Months of Turmoil at Hong Kong Public Broadcaster RTHK
- Translation: An Apology to the People of India
- Translation: The Hundred Childless Days
- Chinese Regulators Prepare to Take Action Against More Tech Companies
- Netizen Voices: “As Soon as They Want to Access Your Uterus, They Start the Sweet Talk”
Quartz:
- China’s latest weapon against Covid-19 is a girl band in Shanghai
- China’s wolf warriors are undermining Beijing’s empathetic messaging on India’s Covid-19 crisis
- Chloé Zhao’s no make-up Oscars look challenges China’s rigid beauty standards
- US sanctions are starting to catch up to Huawei
Inside Story:
Politico China Watcher:
Politico China Direct:
Protocol | China:
The Wire China:
- “Now Hiring” in Silicon Valley
- Rasheed Griffith on China’s Ties to the Caribbean
- The Two Sides of Chinese GDP
- Opioid Whack-a-Mole
- Shots in the Dark
- A Study in Contrasts
SupChina:
- Can Chinese liquor companies convince Chinese youths to drink traditional baijiu?
- U.S.-China relations at the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act
- EU sours on China, investment deal appears frozen over Beijing’s sweeping Xinjiang counter-sanctions
- Misogynistic trolls band together to dunk on dance-loving young women at Tsinghua University
- Perverted or provocative? Installation by fake panty thief pulled from Chinese art contest
- China offers to help India deal with catastrophic COVID-19 surge
- Congratulations to this woman who finally divorces her abusive husband after five years of trying
- China’s antitrust probe: Tencent and Meituan are next
- China launches core module of new space station, to be completed by end of 2022
- Ride-hailing for the blind: Didi promises accessible travel
- Actress Zheng Shuang, confirmed deadbeat mother, under investigation for tax evasion
- Spirituality and politics inside a Chinese Buddhist temple
- U.S. relaxes COVID travel curbs and lets Chinese students back in
- Stabbing rampage at Guangxi kindergarten leaves two dead and 16 wounded, including children
- How rental mobile phone chargers took over China’s cities
- April 26, 1989: A government editorial seals the fate of Beijing’s student protesters
- Chinese Super League returns with a new look (and with fans)
Asia Society:
Center for Strategic and International Studies:
Center for Advanced China Research:
MERICS:
- Commission proposes defensive economic measures - CAI - Belgium's investment screening mechanism
- Smart manufacturing plan seeks to overcome reliance on imports
- Europe shouldn’t underestimate the global appeal of China’s vaccine diplomacy
- A Baltic view on transatlantic tech relations towards China
- Sino-German Government Talks: Dialogue and cooperation with China - the German Sonderweg?
Institut Montaigne:
China Data Lab:
Brookings Institution:
- Shanghai’s dynamic art scene: China’s cosmopolitan middle class and the value of international cultural exchanges
- An asymmetric defense of Taiwan
Observer Research Foundation:
- The Impossible Triangle: China, the US, and the EU
- No Huawei in 5G is a start, No China in critical infrastructure should be next
- China–Australia relations: Cold politics over hot economics
- Human Rights and US Foreign Policy: Implications for India and China
The Conversation:
- China does not want war, at least not yet. It’s playing the long game
- Sang culture: how a reluctant Russian singer became the hero of young pessimists across China
- Australia would be wise not to pound ‘war drums’ over Taiwan with so much at stake
- The Chinese Mars lander: how Zhurong will attempt to touch down on the red planet
The Diplomat:
- 3 Reasons Why the US Doesn’t Have a Coherent China Strategy
- Will Easing of Student Visa Restrictions Rekindle China-US Exchanges?
- China Is Courting Middle Eastern Nations on Xinjiang
- 4 Dams on the Upper Mekong in Yunnan, China: 2011-2019
- China Outlines Its Priorities as UN Security Council President
- Du Youkang on China’s Stake in Afghanistan
- As China Ditches High Growth, the World Must Adjust
- Business Moguls and Chinese (Soft) Power: The ‘Huaren’ of Southeast Asia
- China-Iran Strategic Cooperation: Symbolism Vs. Substance
- Philippines Protests ‘Blocking’ of Its Patrol Ships by China
- Can China-US Relations Improve During the Biden Administration?
- The Kazakh Herders of Xinjiang
- Northeast China: Still Waiting for Regionalism
- Is China Done With Salami Slicing?
- China Moves Toward a Permanent Space Presence
- The Economics of the China-India-Sri Lanka Triangle
- Czechia: A Case Study of China’s Changing Overseas Propaganda Efforts
- We’re Not in a Cold War With China, We’re in a Green War for Survival
- China-Germany Relations at the Crossroads
- Xinjiang Cotton and the Shift in China’s Censorship Approach
- China Launches Core Space Station Module
- The CCP Hand Behind China’s Xinjiang Cotton Backlash
- Chinese Companies Consider Mixing Vaccines, Booster Shots
- China’s Coast Guard Law Challenges Rule-Based Order
- Policy Advisers Urge US Government to Ratchet up the Pressure on China
- Whether Fighting COVID-19 or the Next Pandemic, Taiwan Can Help
- As Drought Worsens Chip Shortage, Taiwan Fights Brain Drain to China
- How the Biden Administration Can Support Taiwan
Foreign Policy:
- Australia Draws a Line on China
- The World Might Want China’s Rules
- China Has Lost the Philippines Despite Duterte’s Best Efforts
- Abandoning Taiwan Makes Zero Moral or Strategic Sense
- Killing Hong Kong’s Free Press Will Harm Its Economy
- Huawei Is Bad for Business
- Can Biden Sell His Domestic Agenda as a Win Against China?
ThinkChina:
- Will Indonesia-China vaccine cooperation affect Jakarta's South China Sea stance?
- No one in the world loves the US as much as the Chinese? Not anymore.
- Could China send peacekeeping troops to Afghanistan?
- What the Chinese government wants to tell Alibaba and China's tech giants [Part II]
- Is Alibaba doomed? [Part I]
- Can private Chinese enterprises truly ‘develop boldly and with confidence’?
- Chinese authorities' Weibo post lambasted for mocking India's coronavirus crisis
- China’s serious water woes
National People's Congress Observer:
- NPCSC Passes Legislation to Support Rural Revitalization Campaign, Curb Food Waste & Combat Identity Thefts in School Admissions
- NPC Calendar: May 2021
- NPCSC Seeks Public Comments on Bills on Data Security, Personal Information Protection, Hainan Free Trade Port, Military Personnel Protection & Futures
What's on Weibo:
- Chinese Netizens Infuriated by “Live Animal Mystery Box” Industry
- Official Weibo Account Sends Out Controversial, Insensitive Post on India Covid Crisis
- One Dead, 17 Injured in Guangxi Kindergarten Knife Attack
Chinese Storytellers:
Chaoyang Trap House:
Tracking People's Daily:
- China's UNSC Priorities - Philippines Row - ACFTU's Political Loyalty & Priorities
- Xi & the Youth - Tripartite Cooperation in CPEC - China-Russia Ties
- Xi's Youth Agenda - Veterans Propaganda Campaign - Vacuous Vaccine Rhetoric
- Space Ambitions - Xi's Marxism - China-Sri Lanka Defense Ties - New Laws - Maternal and Child Health Improvement
- Yang Jiechi on US Ties - Li-Merkel Talks - Xi Invokes Long March - Inspections at Universities - Youth League's Perspective
- Xi's Guangxi Tour - South Asian Diplomacy - 2020 Propaganda Appraisal - Marxism and socialism winning the systems contest
The India China Newsletter:
- India's big 5G call, and the complicated optics of Covid-19 supplies from China
- Xi writes to Modi, Foreign Ministers speak, and is Tech China turning away from India?
Eye on China:
Takshashila PLA Insight:
Beijing to Britain:
China Dialogue:
Lausan:
- Hongkongers in the UK must oppose the New Plan for Immigration
- 11 articles on workers’ organizing in China and Hong Kong
- Confronting the new ‘big platform’—Part 2
Hong Kong Free Press:
- Why Hong Kong’s Covid-19 policies are racist to the core
- Beijing’s double speak: Why China owes the United Nations more than mere lip service
Taiwan Insight:
- Music as Political Commitment: The Reception of Pablo Casals in Taiwan before the 1970s
- Mass Tourism During The Covid-19 Pandemic: When The Tao/Yami People Face Sanitary And Environmental Crises
- When 50 Steps is Further than Taipei: Indigenous Contemporary Art and Temporal Orientation
中国:历史与未来:
爱思想:
- 警惕公权力运行中的内卷现象
- “十四五”时期十个重点领域改革
- 历史学家能抵抗情势变迁的压力吗?
- “此情可待成追忆”——《俄罗斯馆纪事》讨论课发言
- 冥冥中有一只无形的手
- 关于乡村振兴战略的十五个判断
- 把握新发展阶段,贯彻新发展理念,构建新发展格局
- 贝淡宁:我在中国教政治
- 中华人民共和国乡村振兴促进法
- 九一八事变后日本侵华的“行”与“止”——兼及“十五年战争史”的开端问题
- 按照科学方法讨论改革基本问题
- 未来二十年,中国最强劲的新增长极在这里
- 打造具有国际竞争力的数字产业集群
- 中美俄大三角在欧亚大陆博弈加剧
- 伴随人口红利消失,高储蓄率与经济增长的联系将不再紧密
- 以史鉴今,面向未来,把握中美关系正确方向——纪念中美“乒乓外交”50周年
- 中国学派还是美国范式——世界政治的关系理论研究
《求是》
- 把握新发展阶段,贯彻新发展理念,构建新发展格局
- 指引全面建设社会主义现代化国家的纲领性文献
- 维护党的团结和集中统一事关党的兴衰成败
- 深入贯彻新发展理念 加快构建新发展格局
- 确保“一国两制”实践行稳致远
- 赓续对外工作百年辉煌 服务中华民族伟大复兴
- 毫不动摇坚持中国共产党领导是中国青年运动蓬勃发展的根本历史经验
- 坚持党的全面领导 推进一流大学建设
- 美丽中国的杭州风景
- 一季度我国经济运行开局良好
- 绘制中国现代化建设“新方案”
- 经济社会发展统计图表:2021年1—3月国民经济主要指标
- 事关中国革命生死存亡的湘江战役
中央党史和文献研究院
- 百年党史上的几个重要关头
- 牢固树立正确党史观 学习宣传研究好党的历史
- 黄一兵:党史学习教育要准确把握“四个学”
- 党领导人民在中华民族伟大复兴旗帜下阔步前进
- 增强用党的创新理论武装全党的政治自觉
- 准确把握主题主线和主流本质
- 中国共产党百年建设实践的科学化发展
- 深刻领悟党的创新理论最新成果的理论品格
习近平系列重要讲话数据库
- 习近平与青年的故事
- 保持生态文明建设战略定力 努力建设人与自然和谐共生的现代化
- 习近平代表党中央、国务院和中央军委祝贺中国空间站天和核心舱发射任务成功的贺电
- 中国空间站天和核心舱发射任务成功 习近平致电祝贺
- 习近平向印尼总统佐科致慰问电
- 习近平向伊拉克总统巴尔哈姆致慰问电
- 解放思想深化改革凝心聚力担当实干 建设新时代中国特色社会主义壮美广西
END OF DIGEST