For Your Weekend, October 28, 2022

on October 28, 2022

For those interested in the nuts and bolts of Party priorities and self-representation, the Substack Ginger River has provided a line-by-line review of changes in the Party constitution following the recent Party Congress. It has also collected a downloadable range of other official documents from the congress, including the political report Xi delivered on October 16 and lists of membership in key Party bodies.

In a detailed account for London Review of Books, Long Ling, a government official based in Beijing, recounts the communications her local Party branch received and the laborious “Xi Jinping Thought” studies she was expected to complete in the lead-up to the Party Congress.

And Yangyang Cheng, writing in The Guardian, ponders the meanings of resistance and connection as politics in both her natal and adopted countries pull them further apart.

How to Become a Better Firefighter in Gansu? Read ‘1984,’ ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People,’ and ‘The Complete Book of Jewish Wisdom’

By Jeffrey Sequeira on October 13, 2022

On April 23, 2022, the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) marked World Book Day with a meeting in Beijing to “study and implement the important instructions of Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and deepen the development of CPPCC member reading activities.” At the same time, fire departments across China observed the occasion with “study sessions” and reading activities designed to “keep the leaders’ instructions in mind and forever remain loyal guardians.”

Throughout his time as General Secretary, Xi Jinping has exhorted officials and Party members at all levels to read more and has emphasized the role of reading in strengthening the “people’s spirit” and shaping their “self-confidence.” Though reading and “reading activities” often connote studying Party-approved history and theory, a 2019 procurement notice posted by the Qingyang Fire Department, in Gansu province, reveals an eclectic list of book purchases for the brigade’s in-house library. In addition to treatises on Maoism, Chinese and world history, and revolutionary biographies, the inventory of more than 550 titles includes numerous self-help books, a how-to guide to understanding blockchain, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, Svetlana Alexievich’s Boys in Zinc, and George Orwell’s 1984.

This year, on World Book Day, a news report showed images of firefighters in Qingyang “relaxing” with books, perhaps mulling over Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, savoring a book of Tang poetry, or contemplating Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.

Below is ChinaFile’s translation of selected entries from the full list of titles. We have added authors’ names where available. The complete original Chinese list follows.

On the Eve of the Party Congress, What’s Ahead for China’s Economy?

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Guonan Ma, Ryan Hass & more on October 11, 2022

Three years of zero-COVID and a lingering property crisis have taken a toll on China’s economy. What are the prospects for an economic turnaround in the coming months? And if it doesn’t come to pass, what will a slowing economy spell for the Party’s longer-term ambitions?

Guonan Ma

on October 11, 2022

Guonan Ma is Senior Fellow on Chinese Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. He is an economist with four decades of experience conducting policy, market, and academic research, specializing in Chinese economic issues. He was a senior economist at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for 15 years, before becoming a visiting scholar and professor in recent years at various central banks, universities, and thinktanks. Before his BIS career, he worked as a market economist on Asia at different investment banks, including Bankers Trust, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup, and he has been a lecturer in Economics at both the Australian National University and Beijing University. Ma received his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Pittsburgh and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Beijing University. Over the years, he has published research papers in Comparative Economic Studies, The Journal of Development Economics, Pacific Economic Review, International Economics, and The Journal of International Money and Finance.

Xiaohong Xu

on October 10, 2022

Xiaohong Xu is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Studies at the University of Michigan. Xu received his Ph.D. in Sociology in 2014 from Yale University, his M.A. in Sociology in 2005 from Notre Dame, and his B.A. in Sociology from Beijing University in 2001. Prior to Michigan, he taught at the National University of Singapore from 2014 to 2018 and Lingnan University in Hong Kong from 2018 to 2019.

He researches modern Chinese politics from a historical sociological perspective. He has researched and written on the May Fourth Movement and the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the development of Communist guerrilla bases, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and Hong Kong’s 2019 protests. He is writing a book on how the labor politics during the Cultural Revolution inadvertently led to the demise of Maoism and shaped the strange bedfellowship between post-Mao China and global capitalism.

For Your Weekend, October 7, 2022

on October 7, 2022

An article from Emily Feng at NPR, “A public payphone in China began ringing and ringing. Who was calling?,” manages to be both inspiring and deflating. The story it tells brings together themes of environmental justice, public protest, art as a tool of advocacy, and the increasing difficulty of evading China’s pervasive surveillance regime.

The Economist has a great new podcast out about Xi Jinping. The Prince traces Xi’s life from his early career, through his posts in Fujian and Zhejiang, to his current seat at the apex of power in China.

Another piece of deeply researched multimedia reporting is this video on COVID whistleblower Li Wenliang from the Visual Investigations team at The New York Times.

Earlier this week, Asia Society launched its new Center for China Analysis (CCA) with a series of panels on China’s domestic politics in the run-up to the 20th Party Congress, “building guardrails” in U.S.-China relations, and prospects for U.S.-China collaboration. CCA also recently launched a new online feature, “Decoding the 20th Party Congress,” which includes an interactive tool for exploring the relationships among potential candidates for the Party’s Politburo, as well as analysis about how the composition of China’s new leadership may affect the policy landscape.

And finally, at a moment when the world seems to be pulling apart, our friends at The China Project (the publication formerly known as SupChina), have this gem on Peking University students learning Yiddish, and the ways it draws awareness to China’s own vanishing regional dialects.

Jeffrey Sequeira

on October 6, 2022

Jeffrey Sequeira is an Assistant Director at the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations. He previously worked as a consultant at the United Nations Resident Coordinator Office in Beijing developing the United Nations’ strategic multi-year programming in China with partners from the Chinese government. Prior to this, he worked in the Chinese contemporary art world managing international projects and exhibitions for the artist Liu Xiaodong, and as a translator on U.S.-China co-productions in the Chinese film industry. Sequeira received his postgraduate degree from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and his undergraduate degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Little Town on the Prairie

By Leslie T. Chang on October 6, 2022

Liang Village sits on the edge of the North China Plain, about 650 miles south of Beijing. The area was settled by migrants who came in waves throughout Chinese history, attracted by the fertile soil in what was traditionally one of the country’s breadbaskets. But its economic promise faded a long time ago. The brickworks shut in 2004; the elementary school, which also closed, is rented out to pig farmers, and the doctored sign over the door—“The Liang Village Pigpen Imparts Knowledge and Educates the People”—reads like a mocking commentary on the village’s decline. Much of the local economic activity is concentrated in the dredging vessels on the Tuan River that mine sand for construction. In every way, this place is nothing special, “unknown within China, just one among countless villages like it.”

Thanks to a County in Utah, Same-Sex Couples Can Get Married—In China

By Zhijun Hu on October 3, 2022

When Juying attended her son Yangming’s wedding this summer, she was not in a banquet hall or a church but in her apartment. On Zoom, she watched Yangming—3,000 kilometers away in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou—stand next to his husband-to-be, Zhu, in their living room decorated with balloons for the occasion.