Featured Article
Can China’s Dong Minority Keep Their Unique Cultural Heritage? (June 26, 2026, The Diplomat)
The Dong people in China are an Indigenous ethnic group who are known to have lived in the mountainous regions of southwestern China for about 600 years. They don’t have a written language – instead their cultural knowledge is shared by word of mouth. This means that the outside world doesn’t know much about them.
Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs
China Says It Has a Right to Target People Overseas with New Ethnic Unity Law (June 24, 2026, Reuters)
China has a right to target people outside of its borders who contravene its new law on ethnic unity, a senior official said on Wednesday, adding that this was in line with international practice, and was legal and necessary. China passed the law in March to create a “shared” national identity among the country’s 55 ethnic minority groups, which include Tibetans and Uyghurs, some of whom chafe under Chinese rule and have over the years often staged protests, some of them violent.
Inside China’s Ideological Training Camp Where PLA Top Brass Study Xi’s Speeches (June 24, 2026, South China Morning Post)
Hundreds of China’s top military officials have spent weeks at an unprecedented ideology training camp—studying President Xi Jinping’s speeches, reading corrupt cadres’ confessions and marching in formation—as the anti-corruption drive in the military deepens. The details of the training camp, which concluded last week, were published in the People’s Liberation Army Daily, the military’s official newspaper, on Wednesday.
China and Africa’s Evolving Partnership (June 27, 2026, South China Morning Post)
From funding vital infrastructure and industrial growth to a growing wave of cultural exchange, ties between Beijing and Africa are entering a new phase. In this ongoing series, we explore the deepening economic, cultural and diplomatic relations between China and African countries.
A Small Plane Slammed Into the Tallest Skyscraper in China’s Capital. Hours Later, It Was Like Nothing had Happened (June 27, 2026, CNN)
On Friday afternoon a small plane appeared to evade some of the world’s strictest aviation controls and slam into the tallest skyscraper in Beijing, the 109-story CITIC Tower that dominates the city’s skyline, killing the pilot and injuring 13 other people. The crash sent shards of glass and aircraft debris plummeting hundreds of feet down to the streets below as office workers left for the weekend, causing panic in the heart of China’s most protected city. A short while later, it was like nothing had happened.
Religion
Fuyang: How to Pray (June 25, 2026, China Partnership)
Fuyang is a city of about nine million in eastern China. Church leaders in Fuyang say the last years have been difficult and filled with persecution, and need prayer for faithfulness as they continue to follow God in difficult times.
Relevant Questions from the Past (June 26, 2026, ChinaSource)
In my recent research at a missionary archival center, I bumped into a fruit of the soul-searching of the western missionary communities in the wake of the sudden collapse of the missionary enterprise: an unpublished report entitled “Lessons to be Learned from the Experiences of Christian Missions in China,” compiled by a group of former China mission leaders on behalf of several US-based foreign mission research committees in the summer of 1951. This group sent out three questions to many missionaries who recently returned from China and eventually received 152 replies from the missionaries working for 22 different mission boards.
Reframing the Mission (June 29, 2026, ChinaSource)
As the mission movement emanating from China’s church comes into its own, and as the global church engages with this movement, questions arise as to what this collaboration should look like. In Part One of this series, we considered the question of what is missing when mission becomes primarily a management exercise, when means become confused with ends, obscuring the church’s ultimate purpose. We alluded to the fallacy of focusing on a few obvious missional activities with measurable outcomes to gauge the success of this movement while ignoring other, less tangible, aspects of how God’s people are called to glorify him in the world. Here, we take a closer look at what Christ said about how his disciples would glorify the Father.
Stumbling Blocks to Faith in China (June 30, 2026, China Partnership)
This month, in CP’s monthly podcast, we looked at some of the stumbling blocks that make it difficult for Chinese to accept Christianity. In this excerpt from the show, Ryan and Beth discuss Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism—and how Christianity radically diverges from these other philosophies.
From Gospel Posters to Public Theology (June 30, 2026, ChinaSource)
China possesses a long history of printing technology, and posters were not a novel format. A century ago, however, Chinese people saw such a massive quantity of industrialized, mass-printed, and brightly colored posters for the first time. Calendar posters, propaganda prints, and commercial posters spread across the country. This explosion of visual culture was unprecedented in history. The church did not miss this media revolution. It even played an important role, and it matched secular counterparts in both design quality and distribution volume.
Society / Life
How Chinese Students Turned Soccer Into a Metaphor for the Pro-Democracy Movement (June 18, 2026, Domino Theory)
In the 1980s, waves of political activism emerged alongside economic liberalization in post-Mao China. In the northeast city of Shenyang, however, students seemed to prefer soccer to politics. That changed in April 1989 when Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦), the pro-reform politician who had been ousted from his post as Chinese Communist Party general secretary, died. His death triggered student-led protests in Beijing that spread across China, even to its more distant and conservative regions. “The Democracy Movement in Shenyang can be considered a barometer of how widespread dissatisfaction had become in Chinese urban society by 1989,” Asia security analyst Shirley Kan wrote in November of that year, based on first-hand observations of the protests. She noted that Shenyang “came alive with a force once inconceivable” as people “took on a passion for something other than soccer.”
Through the Eyes of Shop Cats (June 23, 2026, Sixth Tone)
“These days, it’s much harder to find shop cats in Shanghai than it was 10 years ago.” Marcel Heijnen would know. Over the past decade, the Dutch photographer has traveled across China, photographing cats in aging storefronts, crowded workshops, and narrow alleyways. Along the way, he witnessed neighborhoods in transition. Old lanes gave way to cafés. Family-run shops became modern retail spaces that no longer needed cats to keep rats away. “I’m glad that I started 10 years ago, just taking some photos,” he told Sixth Tone, “because some of those photos that are in the books can’t be taken anymore now.”
Handicraft Economy Becomes Gen Z’s New Favorite. Why Is It So Popular? (June 25, 2026, Our China Story)
Have you ever played with “perler beads”? As a craft that has emerged in the last two years, perler beads are very popular among young people. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg in the handicraft world. Except perler beads, a huge craft economy is emerging. Data shows that in 2024, the scale of China’s craft economy has exceeded 120 billion yuan. So, why has the handicraft economy become so popular so quickly?
Education
Podcast – Episode 10 | The Race for Education (June 29, 2026, Made In China Journal)
For millions of children in China, life has been a race against time since the day they were born. They are blasted with advertisements that warn ‘Do Not Lose at the Starting Line,’ and handed by their elders a checklist of milestones to hit by a certain age as they grow up: diplomas, property, marriage, parenthood. Yet, being able to follow such a timeline is itself a privilege. The less fortunate are forced to abandon their dreams and sacrifice their futures to provide for their families. The more affluent, on the other hand, can purchase shortcuts, especially through an elite education in a Western country.
Science / Technology
Chinese Supercomputer Leapfrogs Best US Machines to be Ranked World’s Fastest (June 23, 2026, The Guardian)
A supercomputer in China now outranks its US counterparts as the world’s most powerful. It is the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess. The LineShine computer in Shenzhen displaced top-ranked US computer El Capitan in the Top500 rankings released on Tuesday. It was LineShine’s debut on the list.
Exit Stage Left: China’s Robots Need a Job (June 26, 2026, The World of Chinese)
Whether it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger being crushed by a hydraulic press in The Terminator or HAL 9000’s haunting elegy in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the fatal vulnerabilities of famous robots are a familiar trope in popular culture. But at a FamilyMart in Beijing, a machine struggles with a more unlikely foe: a bag of potato chips. Galbot G1’s grippers may not be suited to the particular challenge of a flimsy foil bag, but his ability to fetch drinks from refrigerators and pull sausages from warming ovens has customers lining up for a chance to be served by the 1.73-meter-tall humanoid robot.
Economics / Trade / Business
Video Report – From Shein to Pop Mart: How Chinese Brands Are Grabbing Global Market Share (June 24, 2026, CNN Business)
Chinese companies are moving beyond their home base, expanding overseas and reshaping fashion, tech, and consumer markets worldwide. CNN’s Hanako Montgomery explains why.
Health / Environment
Poultry Returns: Botanist Fights Off the Desert with 50,000 Chickens (June 26, 2026, Sixth Tone)
Following is the transcript of a speech by Li Yonggeng, a researcher at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBCAS), from September 2025 on his team’s efforts to restore a degraded grassland in northern China through free-range chicken farming. The speech was released by Gezhi Talks, a scientific and cultural forum affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Can Climate Policy Strengthen China’s Global Influence? (June 27, 2026, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations)
In Chinese Global Environmentalism, Alex L. Wang examines China’s embrace of green development on the global stage. He traces Chinese global environmentalism’s evolution and motivations and analyzes its deployment through the governance tools of green ideology, diplomacy, economic statecraft, and international development cooperation. He conceives of Chinese global environmentalism as a wide-ranging economic and political strategy used to unsettle traditional views of China and bolster the legitimacy of Chinese power at home and abroad.
Arts / Entertainment / Media
Translation: Religion and Red Lines in Chinese Online Literature (June 25, 2026, China Digital Times)
The invisibly shifting red lines of Chinese internet censorship fuel a buzzing genre of content on how to avoid them. Some posts offer defiant tips on getting your point across without raising the alarm, while others treat censorship as a simple fact of life best handled with compliance.
Books
Book Review – Who Is China? (July/August 2026, Foreign Affairs) (registration required)
China shouldn’t have much of an identity crisis. It boasts an ancient civilization and culture instantly recognizable around the world. Its intellectual inheritance—rich traditions in martial arts, medicine, philosophy, and religion—is widely admired and imitated in global popular culture and the high arts. But Chinese leaders behave as if they were running an upstart nation with no history—one that has to demand that visitors refer to it as “the People’s Republic” and repeat that there is only “one China,” located within sacred and immutable borders. The country today “is a multiheaded creature of no certain or reliable identity,” Xu Guoqi writes in his new book, The Idea of China: A Contested History. “If there were a clear or reliable identity, today’s leaders would not be so obsessed with trying to impose one.”
Shanghai: The Story of China’s Most Dynamic City (June 30, 2026, China Rhyming)
Michael Dillon explores the full history of Shanghai, from its origins as a small fishing village to the bustling financial hub of today. The city has been central to some of the most turbulent events in China’s modern history, from the British and French colonial concessions of the nineteenth century, to the birth of the Chinese Communist Party and its vital role in Chinese economics and politics today. Shanghai is a fascinating portrait of China’s most dynamic city—and explores its future role in the country’s development
Events
Online Book Club Discussion (ERRChina)
Join us for a discussion of the book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan Wang. Now would be a great time to purchase the book and start reading it in order to be ready for a lively and vibrant discussion.
Date: August 5, 2026:
Time: 5pm PST / 6pm MST / 7pm CST / 8pm EST (US)
Platform: Zoom.
Register here.
Pray for China
July 4 (Pray For China: A Walk Through History)
On July 4, 1813, pioneer missionaries William Milne (米怜) and his wife Rachel Cowie Milne arrived in Macau after a ten-month voyage. China’s first Protestant pastor, Liang Fa (梁发牧师), came to Christ under Milne’s ministry and was baptized by him on November 3, 1816. While working with Liang Fa, Milne published Two Friends, a tract that Prof. Daniel Bays described as “the most famous of all nineteenth century Christian tracts” in China. Bays estimates that as many as two million copies may have been distributed. Milne wrote that “Learning the Chinese language requires bodies of iron, lungs of brass, heads of oak, hands of spring steel, eyes of eagles, hearts of apostles, memories of angels, and lives of Methuselah.” Rachel died in 1819 and William in 1822 at age 37. Pray for Chinese and foreign Christians to partner effectively in reaching the world for Christ. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. 2 Timothy 4:11
Prayer 2026: Off the Beaten Path (January 1, 2026, China Partnership)
Operation World (April 21, 2025, ChinaSource)
Pray for China (prayforchina.us)
Prayer Walking as a Rhythm of Life (May 30, 2025, ChinaSource)