Featured Article
Podcast – China’s Church Divided (January 8, 2026, Pekingology)
In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Paul Mariani, Professor at Santa Clara University and author of the new book, China’s Church Divided: Bishop Louis Jin and the Post-Mao Catholic Revival. Paul unpacks the Communist Party’s views on religion, how the Catholic Church navigated the turbulent politics of 1980s China, and why the Vatican has renewed a controversial deal with Beijing.
Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs
China and Taiwan Both See Lessons in America’s Raid on Venezuela (January 8, 2026, The Economist) (subscription required)
China’s public is used to seeing flashy footage of its armed forces parading new weaponry through Beijing, conducting peacekeeping patrols in Africa or staging elaborate drills around disputed territory, especially Taiwan. But nobody under 45 can claim to have lived through an actual Chinese military strike on another country. And among older generations who did, most would rather forget the war of 1979 in which Vietnam repelled a Chinese invasion. No wonder, then, that many Chinese people were transfixed by reports of America’s dramatic night-time extraction of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela.
How Will China Respond to Maduro’s Capture? (January 9, 2026 ChinaFile)
On January 3, the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a nighttime raid on Caracas and flew him to New York to face drug trafficking charges. Trump announced the US would temporarily “run” Venezuela until a transition of power occurs. Beijing immediately released a statement condemning the US’s “blatant use of force against a sovereign state and its actions against the president of another country,” and a similar statement at the United Nations on January 5.
Religion
The Cost of Following Jesus to Jail (January 8, 2026, China Partnership)
This January, we are praying for Chinese Christians who have experienced persecution and imprisonment for their faith. In part 1 of this interview with Lu Rongyu, he tells about the cost of following Jesus, and how persecution helped him to treasure Christ and his word. It’s not easy to walk the road of the cross—but Jesus is there.
A Testimony of Transformation (January 9, 2026, ChinaSource)
It is hard to imagine that this pastor—now fluent in Scripture and prayer—had once devoted years to Daoist medicine and Buddhist practice, even preparing to become a monk. People around him praise his medical skill, yet for first-time visitors, the question naturally arises: How does someone who once studied Daoism and Buddhism become a Christian pastor?
Underground Church Says Leaders Detained as China Steps Up Crackdown (January 11, 2026, The Guardian)
Leaders of a prominent underground church have been detained in southwest China, according to a church statement, the latest blow in what appears to be a sweeping crackdown on unregistered Christian groups in the country. On Tuesday, Li Yingqiang, the leader of the Early Rain Covenant Church, was taken by police from his home in Deyang, a small city in Sichuan province, according to the statement. Li’s wife, Zhang Xinyue, has also been detained, along with two other church members.
Since 1949—Policy Swings and the “Christianity Fever” (January 12, 2026, ChinaSource)
This article is Part 5 of a seven-part series adapted from a lecture delivered at Harvard Law School on May 1, 2025, at the Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies. In Part 4, I traced two currents within Protestantism in China and how Chinese leaders moved beyond imported categories to build a church that was truly Chinese. Here, I sketch the national story after 1949. The shorthand is familiar but instructive: periods of hard line, periods of soft line, and consistent center–local variation. What matters most is not only the dates, but the habits Christians learned for living between lines.
Slow Growth and Nurtured Faith (January 13, 2026, ChinaSource)
In an ordinary apartment building in a city in northwest China, a warm light glows from a single window as night falls. There is no cross, no pulpit, and no choir. Three chairs surround a small tea table, a phone plays hymns, and a well-worn Bible rests nearby—the humble beginnings of a church.
Society / Life
Ten Years After It Ended Its ‘One-Child’ Policy, China’s Push for More Babies Isn’t Winning Its Citizens Over (December 31, 2025, CNN)
January 1 marks 10 years since China scrapped its notorious “one-child” policy, after the government realized that a falling birth rate threatened to derail the growth of the world’s second-largest economy. But the landmark change—and a raft of other measures to encourage couples to have more kids—have failed to boost the population.
China’s ‘Old Man’s Joy’ Cars Test the Limits of Road Safety (January 7, 2026, Sixth Tone)
From “new-energy Maseratis” to “license-free Porsche Cayennes,” a growing number of elderly mobility vehicles informally known as laotoule are appearing on rural and suburban roads across China, drawing scrutiny from regulators and road-safety experts. Many laotoule vehicles—commonly translated as “old man’s joy—are sold without registration or licensing and are increasingly marketed online as low-cost luxury car lookalikes, according to a recent investigation by Banyuetan, a publication under the state-run Xinhua News Agency
Step Up: Hunan Brings Student Players Into Adult Soccer League (January 8, 2026, Sixth Tone)
In the most recent season of the Hunan Provincial Soccer League—colloquially termed the “Hunan Super League,” or Xiangchao—which concluded late December, student players from secondary schools and universities scored more than half of the league’s 247 goals, according to a Tuesday report by local media outlet Hunan Daily. On the championship-winning team, students accounted for nearly 80% of total goals.
Uncovering the History of How China Fell in Love With Photography (January 9, 2026, PetaPixel)
China is one of the world’s biggest photography markets, even besting the Americas in terms of camera and lens sales earlier this year. However, China’s rich photographic history is not well known in the West, something American photographer Ben Fraternale, who runs the excellent photography YouTube channel “In An Instant,” hopes to change through his new three-part documentary series, “Inside China.”
Gendered Organisation of Platform Delivery Work in China (January 12, 2026, Made in China Journal)
China’s food delivery sector has grown to become the world’s largest, with 11 to 12 million drivers (Ele.me 2024; Meituan 2024; State Administration for Market Regulation 2024). Most of these drivers are men. Meituan, the country’s largest takeaway platform, with more than seven million drivers, for example, reports that approximately 90 per cent of its workforce is male (Meituan 2025). How is platform-based food delivery service masculinised?
Economics / Trade / Business
Furniture Retailer IKEA to Close 7 Stores in China Amid Property Market Slump (January 7, 2026, South China Morning Post)
Ikea will close seven stores in mainland China, as the multinational furniture retailer grapples with the country’s weak property market and sluggish consumer spending, which have dampened demand for its goods. “The closing of these stores is linked to economic headwinds, as well as a highly developed online sales market in China – a trend that has squeezed the survival space of physical retail outlets,” said Fan Xinyu, assistant professor of economics at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing.
Why China’s ‘Baijiu’ Giants Are Pouring Into SE Asia (January 9, 2026, Sixth Tone)
China’s baijiu market has been undergoing a period of adjustment in recent years. Major companies have faced performance pressures — analysts expect Moutai to lower its growth target to 5% this year, down from 9% in 2025 — as well as struggled with high inventory levels and price inversions within distribution channels. This has prompted a shift in focus to overseas markets, particularly those with large Chinese populations.
Workers at Chinese Factory that Produces Labubu Toys Are Being Exploited, Says NGO (January 13, 2026, The Guardian)
According to an investigation by China Labor Watch (CLW), a New York-based NGO, one of Pop Mart’s suppliers for Labubus has engaged in exploitative workplace practices. They include workers being forced to sign blank contracts, 16- and 17-year-olds being employed without the special protections for young workers required by Chinese law, inadequate health and safety training and other labour rights violations at the factory in south-east China’s Jiangxi province.
History / Culture
Excavating a History Already Found (January 7, 2026, Made In China Journal)
Since the 1970s, building on Qing (1636–1912) and Republican (1912–49) precedents, China has developed a large, sophisticated bureaucracy around the protection and display of cultural relics. This elevation of archaeology has accelerated under President Xi Jinping (2012–present), who is said to have a strong personal interest in the field and has called for the discipline to serve the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ (SCIO 2021). I call this ensemble of practices the PRC’s ‘archaeological state’: a fragmented bureaucracy that routinises excavation, registration, and display—mobilising archaeology as both discipline and method—so that material culture becomes a medium of narration, governance, and legitimation.
Travel / Food
Podcast – Why Do So Many Small Towns Have a Chinese Restaurant (January, 2025, CBC News Saskatchewan)
We are taking you on a trip around the province to learn about our Chinese restaurants. They are a staple in many small-town Saskatchewan communities. The stories behind these restaurants provide insight into time, history and place.
The Sichuan Pepper Guy (January 9, 2026, ChinaFile)
Yao Zhao is the founder of 50Hertz Tingly Foods, a company that sells Sichuan peppercorns (花椒, huajiao) and a variety of oils and snacks made with them. His first career was in clean energy development and rural electrification, but last year he left his World Bank job to devote himself full time to his startup and to proselytizing on the joys of tingly condiments. He is an exemplar of a trend of young Chinese people opening restaurants and launching food brands outside of China that broaden the boundaries of the cuisine of their native land.
Arts / Entertainment / Media
Paper Cuts (January 7, 2026, China Media Project)
The Dalian Evening News, a fixture of daily life in the northeastern port city for 37 years, published its final edition on December 30, announcing it would cease publication with a brief notice thanking readers and contributors. The closure makes it the second major newspaper in Dalian to fold in recent years, following Xinshang News (新商报), which ceased publication in 2019.
CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Sensitive Words (January 8, 2026, China Digital Times)
2025 saw the almost daily emergence of new “sensitive words” on China’s internet, from new nicknames or “skins” for Xi Jinping to workers seeking back-wages, driven to desperation; from the bold supporters of a bullied girl, to efforts to illuminate memories of the three years of China’s “zero-COVID” policies. If we string these data-points together, we can see that what the censorship system is really targeting is not the sensitive words themselves. Rather, it’s the acts and actors of resistance behind them, and whether they are visible and resonant enough to be taken up by society as an “erroneous collective memory” that counterbalances the official narrative.
Are You Dead Yet? (January 13, 2026, China Media Project)
Over the weekend, an app rather jarringly named “Are You Dead Yet?” (死了么) hit #1 on Apple’s paid charts in China—and quickly sparked debate over whether its blunt name crosses cultural lines around death and fortune. Developed by a startup based in Henan province released in March 2025, the app costs 8.00 yuan ($1.15 USD) and offers a simple yet increasingly necessary function: people who live alone check in daily (with one click) to confirm they’re okay.
Language / Language Learning
Chinese Buzzwords (January 12, 2026, The Beijinger Blog)
For our first Mandarin Monday of 2026, we’re taking a look back at the top ten buzzwords of 2025. These buzzwords are from the official list released by Yaowen Jiaozi (咬文嚼字), one of China’s most authoritative language publications, which compiles a list of what they view as the top ten buzzwords each year.
Books
Book Review – ‘Fly, Wild Swans’ Is Jung Chang’s Painfully Personal Tribute to Her Mother (January 13, 2026, NPR)
As a student of Chinese history, I sit up a little straighter when historians turn the lens back on themselves—examining how they came to be interested in the worlds they study, and how their lives shape how they understand those worlds. That is what Jung Chang, a London-based historian of modern China, does in her latest book, Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China—in all senses a sequel to her 1991 bestselling memoirish book, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China.
Events
Online Course – Being Bridges Across Cultures and Generations (Ambassadors For Christ – Online Symposium for Church and Lay Leaders)
February 1, 2026, 8 pm EST
Join us to hear one church’s journey of bridging cultures and generations to serve in missions.
Online Courses for those working with Chinese students (Thriving Turtles)
January 19-30, 2026
Thriving Turtles Training is an initiative to equip front-line gospel workers with the knowledge and skills they need to be effective cross-cultural gospel ministers. These courses are asynchronous (not in real time) running for 6-10 hours over a 2-week period. They are NOT webinars, so you are free to work in your own time and time zone. Courses contain a variety of interactive activities including (written) discussion forums. Courses offered this year include:
• Cultural Intelligence for Ministry
• Helping Your Friend Thrive in China
• Discipling People with a Chinese Worldview
• Culture Values and Distance
For more information, visit our website: thrivingturtles.org
Resources
Lecture – Intergenerational Collaboration on Mission in the Immigrant Church (December 7, 2025, Ambassadors For Christ – Online Symposium for Church and Lay Leaders)
China 2026: What to Watch (December 10, 2025, Asia Society Policy Institute)
China 2026: What to Watch is the third iteration of CCA’s flagship report. Our annual exercise—drawing on the expertise of CCA’s in-house and global fellows—aims to do precisely what we set out above: to ask the right questions about China. China is changing faster than most of us can keep pace. Each month brings new data, new narratives, and new signals from Beijing. Yet the challenge for us is not the quantity of information but how to synthesize the constant flow of statistics, speeches, and policy directives. Lastly, it is knowing what questions to ask about it.
Pray for China
January 15 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On Jan. 15, 1864, pioneer American missionaries Calvin Mateer (狄考文) and wife Julia arrived in Tengchow (now Penglai), Shandong. They founded the first Christian college in China; by the time of Calvin’s death, the 170 graduates of Shantung Christian University—as it was later called—were spread over sixteen provinces, many serving as Christian teachers in more than a hundred schools. Pray for Christians to train up their children in the ways of the Lord and for fruit to come from Christian schools in China. For you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. Acts 22:15
Prayer 2026: Off the Beaten Path (January 1, 2026, China Partnership)
Praying Through the ChinaSource Journal (October 13, 2025, ChinaSource)
Praying Through ZGBriefs (August 29, 2025, ChinaSource)
Operation World (April 21, 2025, ChinaSource)
Pray for China (prayforchina.us)
Prayer Walking as a Rhythm of Life (May 30, 2025, ChinaSource)