east asia

July 8, 2011

Nightmare Scenario: Chongqing: a surveillance society powered by HP

This is likely to make things very “interesting” in China. Engadget is reporting that Cisco and HP have provided over a half million surveillance cameras for the Public Chongqing project, which will “give the government unprecedented views of its citizens.” One might think a half million cameras are far too much to keep up with [...]

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July 2, 2011

North Korean girls defecting, looking for Chinese husbands

ipsnews.net writes about the plight of North Korean women who defect to China. Women outnumber men in North Korea, and of the Koreans defecting into China, about 70% are women. North Korean men don’t make it long-term in China because they don’t have local connections in China and are more easily found and deported back. [...]

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June 3, 2011

Can China be Christian by 2035?

Could it happen by 2035, given current growth patterns?

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May 25, 2011

China’s Bold New Plan for Economic Domination

The Chinese leadership has unveiled a strategy to lead the globe in seven of the most important industries. Is the rest of the world ready? via The Atlantic.

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May 20, 2011

Who is China cracking down on?

It’s not just protesters or Christians drawing Beijing’s ire–those who are well-connected seem to be drawing the most pressure.

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May 7, 2011

China and the Culture of Television

Recently two trends seem to be clashing inside China’s culture: the trend toward liberalization, and the trend toward Party doctrinal purity. As the Party gears up for the celebration of its 90th anniversary, China has been clearing programming off television to make way for “Red TV”. They are “encouraging stations to focus on more wholesome [...]

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May 5, 2011

China’s 2010 Census Results

Reuters has a factbox summary of China’s 2010 Census results. Some key pieces of data: Total population, 2010: 1.34 billion Annual growth rate, 2010: 0.57% Annual growth rate, 2000: 1.07% This represents an increase of nearly 100 million people over the past ten years. The growth rate, obviously, is slowing. Note that this population includes [...]

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April 11, 2011

Christian run businesses in China

Christian faith plus Chinese productivity. ”At first glance, it looks as though it could be any other factory driving the rapid development of the Chinese economy. But this is no ordinary enterprise because here religious faith is as important as profit. via BBC. H/T Jason Butler.” This is an example of the future impact of Christianity [...]

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April 9, 2011

Creating the World’s Largest City: 42 million people

China is now definitely in the running for having the largest population; and soon, the largest economy and the largest Christian church! Now it seems it may soon have the largest city in the world, twice the size of Wales. China is planning to create the world’s biggest mega-city by merging nine existing cities to [...]

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March 15, 2011

Nursing home boom in China: who reaches the elderly?

Nursing home boom in China has little government involvement writes ScienceCentric.com. There has been a rapid increase in the elderly proportion of China’s population: the result of declining fertility coupled with increasing life expectancy (natural for a developing economy). China’s over-65s will rise from 8.3% of the population today to 22.6% (329 million) by 2040. [...]

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January 12, 2011

China’s Next Generation

Currently, China’s church is estimated in excess of 100 million members. Given that the church worldwide numbers about 2.1 billion people (International Bulletin of Mission Research, January 2011, p. 29), this comprises about 4.7% of the global total. Further, consider that the total number of Protestants and Independents, worldwide, is about 804 million; China’s 100 [...]

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January 4, 2011

CBN reports on the “Third Church” in China

CBN has a new article up with analysis of the trend in urban churches – many unregistered. Worth looking at. A trusted friend of mine (the protected one) is one of the sources. “The rural church couldn’t have an impact on society as a whole – but the urban church can, because it’s made up [...]

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December 12, 2010

China converts workers for Saudi Arabia to Islam

Saudi Arabia and China: Looking east | The Economist. Here’s an insightful article about the interaction of China and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps most interesting from a missionary perspective is a sentence in the final paragraph: “Some firms would have been put off by the fact that non-Muslims are barred from working in Mecca, so China [...]

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December 8, 2010

One Love for China – Ghana?

One Love for China – Ghana? is an interesting little mini-documentary about China in Africa. Found via Danwei. Watch for the different cultural perspectives and culture clashes. China in Africa from Edward Bishop on Vimeo.

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November 29, 2010

“Even China’s elites don’t know where it’s headed.”

For all the breathless headlines, there is no real clarity as to what kind of global power China will become over the next critical decade. But if the international community is in the dark about China’s 21st-century trajectory, it is likely because there is no real consensus among the Chinese themselves. via The End of [...]

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November 10, 2010

80 million Bibles printed in China – but not all are Chinese.

via Christian Today, in a very fair and insightful article. Amity Press celebrates the 80 millionth Bible printed on its presses and reports it is printing 1 million Bibles per month. It’s a huge number. They go on to report that a quarter of the Bibles printed in the world today are actually made in [...]

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April 20, 2010

Sub-Zero Weather Threatens Chinese Earthquake Survivors

ADRA reports the April 14 earthquake in Qinghai Province, China, killed more than 1,700, injured tens of thousands, and displaced hundreds of thousands. ADRA teams have been dispatched to Chengdu, Sichuan (www.adra.org).

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April 7, 2010

How many Christians are in China?

Paul Hattaway has posted an extensive table of the number of Christians in China, with detailed statistics down to the prefecture & city level. He derives these from interviews as well as from over 2,000 published sources. A great, exhaustive, authoritative piece of research.

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March 24, 2010

China: eyes religious group finances

Chinese Gov’t to Tighten Watch Over Religious Group Finances (International Christian Concern): 130,000 religious institutions?

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March 24, 2010

North Korea: more bad news

North Koreans fear another famine amid economic crisis (LA Times). Analysts in the region feel the nation is on a “countdown to collapse,” lurching from crisis to crisis, and supposedly Kim Jong-il has a life expectancy of less than three years.

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