Religions have become more popular in China, but the government tries now to tighten rules for religious group, writes journalist Ian Johnson, author of the upcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in the New York Times. Rules on religion are changed for the first time in a decade.

Chinese have no vote, and even no polls,to decide who they prefer as the next president of the United States, but China veteran Tom Doctoroff, author of What Chinese Want: Culture, Communism and the Modern Chinese Consumer, expects a majority will prefer Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, even though few really like Clinton, he writes in the Huffington Post.

The term ´middle class´ shows up in almost every analysis on China. But economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, thinks the term creates more confusion than clarity, he explains to Knowledge CKGSB.

Reforming Chinese soccer has been one of the pet projects of president Xi Jinping. But despite much political goodwill and millions moving ahead, results have been poor, says Beijing-based soccer expert Rowan Simons in a wide-ranging interview with the South China Morning Post, looking at his grass-root experiences in Beijing.

Forty years after Mao Zedong passed away, the country and its people are still struggling with the legacy of its former leader. Time to get clear on that legacy, writes Zhang Lijia, author of her autobiography”Socialism Is Great!”: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China on her weblog, and time to move on and change into a modern society.

Ai Xiaoming is one of China´s leading documentary makers, and all of them are officially banned in the country. Journalist Ian Johnson sits down with her for the NY Review of Books and discusses how it is to make banned documentaries, and (amongst many other subjects) why China has no intellectuals.

A fast changing China has produced highly different generations, although the concept of individualism is even for the generation from the 1990s mostly Western wishful thinking, argues China veteran Tom Doctorof, author of What Chinese Want: Culture, Communism, and China’s Modern Consumer at the Asia Society. Why rebels are not appreciated in China.

When it comes to reviving moral values in China, most attention goes to Christianity. But in an interview for the New York Times with Matthew S. Erie, author of China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law journalist Ian Johnson hears the Islam is a similar emerging religious force. Ian Johnson is the author of the upcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao

Author Paul French has added yet another subject to his long list of current and historical affairs with his latest book Gypsies of Shanghai: The Roma Community of Late 1930s and 1940s Shanghai and Their Role in the City’s Entertainment Industry. The book is small and cheap, Paul adds on his weblog, but it illustrates the amazing diversity of pre-war Shanghai.

China is looking at a slowdown of its double digit growth, but that is not going to hurt the outbound tourism, observes Wei Gu, founder of Weini Media in Shanghai, at the opening panel at ILTM talking about trends in Chinese wealth and travel.