2025 Highlights: Articles & Reports (China edition)

Recommendations of China-centric works spanning climate, energy, economy, foreign policy & politics

This is the second piece in a ‘Best of 2025’ series where I curate interesting and informative works for Indialog readers. The first edition focused on India. This one is centred on China. The forthcoming third, and final, edition will look at climate- and energy-related texts. To clarify: I am no China-hand. However, China looms large in India’s imagination and as Shyam Saran (an Indian career diplomat who served as India’s Foreign Secretary) notes, our understanding of this nation is limited. Amitav Ghosh ascribes this limitation in part to historical currents.

“It should be apparent that the historical and cultural trajectories of India and China are different, and the particularities of our respective civilisations are only dimly understood by the people of the two countries, including by scholars.” - Shyam Saran, How China Sees India and the World, 228.

“A fact that confounds me now, when I think back on it, is that for most of my life China was for me a vast, uniform blankness. The huge space that hovered above India on maps might just as well have been marked: ‘Here be dragons’… Thinking back, it seems to me that my blankness in relation to China was not the result of a lack of curiosity, or opportunity, or anything circumstantial. I am convinced that it was the product of an inner barrier that has been implanted in the minds of not just Indians but also Americans, Europeans and many other people across the world, through certain patterns of global history. And as the years go by and China’s shadow lengthens upon the world, these barriers are clearly hardening, especially in India and the United States.” - Amitav Ghosh, Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories, 1-3.

Given India’s China challenge, it behooves us to read more about, and better understand, our neighbour. I have arranged the recommendations alphabetically and included a variety of reads that touch on China’s bureaucracy, climate politics, energy goals, ties with India and the United States respectively, and more. If you find any value in this post, please do share it with your friends and colleagues. On to the recommendations —

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• “A frustrating role reversal is undermining America,” The Washington Post, November 10, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/11/10/china-xi-jinping-asean-apec-asia/.

• “Beijing insiders’ plan how to play Donald Trump,” The Economist, November 11, 2025, https://www.economist.com/international/2025/11/11/beijing-insiders-plan-to-play-donald-trump.

• Alexander C. Kaufman, “China moves to supercharge green hydrogen as US pulls back,” Canary Media, October 28, 2025, https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/hydrogen/china-policy-boost-green-industry.

• Anika Patel, “Interview: How ‘mid-level bureaucrats’ are helping to shape Chinese climate policy,” Carbon Brief, December 9, 2025, https://www.carbonbrief.org/interview-how-mid-level-bureaucrats-are-helping-to-shape-chinese-climate-policy/.

• Camille Boullenois, Malcolm Black and Daniel H. Rosen, “Was Made in China 2025 Successful?” Rhodium Group, May 5, 2025, https://rhg.com/research/was-made-in-china-2025-successful/.

• China Power Team, “Measuring China’s Manufacturing Might” ChinaPower Project, CSIS, Updated November 25, 2025, https://chinapower.csis.org/tracker/china-manufacturing/.

• Dan Wang, “2025 Letter,” January 1, 2026, https://danwang.co/2025-letter/.

• Fanny Potkin, “How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips,” Reuters, December 17, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/how-china-built-its-manhattan-project-rival-west-ai-chips-2025-12-17/.

• Gerard DiPoppo, “Changing Course in a Storm: China’s Economy in the Trade War,” China Leadership Monitor 85, August 31, 2025, https://www.prcleader.org/post/changing-course-in-a-storm-china-s-economy-in-the-trade-war.

• Hannah Miao, “Tiger Moms Battle for the Hottest Ticket in China: a Tour of a Factory Floor,” The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2026, https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/the-hardest-reservation-in-china-is-a-factory-tour-3df0d4cc.

• Kaiser Kuo, “The Great Reckoning: What the West Should Learn from China,” The Ideas Letter, October 16, 2025, https://www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-great-reckoning/.

• Khushboo Razdan, “Rubio swaps hawk for diplomat in year-end pivot on China,” South China Morning Post, Updated December 20, 2025, https://www.scmp.com/news/us/diplomacy/article/3337142/rubio-swaps-hawk-diplomat-year-end-pivot-china.

• Muyi Yang, Biqing Yang, Sam Butler-Sloss, Euan Graham, Xunpeng Shi, and Richard Black, “China Energy Transition Review 2025,” Ember, September 9, 2025, https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transition-review-2025/.

• Ryan Fedasiuk, “In Search of a China Strategy,” The American Enterprise Institute, December 15, 2025, https://theamericanenterprise.com/in-search-of-a-china-strategy/.

• Seaver Wang, Ted Nordhaus, and Vijaya Ramachandran, “Greenwashing With Chinese Characteristics,” The Ecomodernist, The Breakthrough Institute, December 12, 2025.

Greenwashing With Chinese Characteristics

• Tiarna and Sokol, “The changing face of China’s underground club scene,” Dazed, December 5, 2025, https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/69234/1/photography-changing-face-china-underground-club-scene-sokol-nightlife.

• Weijian Shan, “Unraveling China’s Productivity Paradox,” Gavekal Research, November 6, 2025, https://research.gavekal.com/article/unraveling-chinas-productivity-paradox/.

• William C. Kirby, “Engineering China: Birth of the Developmental State, 1928-37,” in The Pacific in the Age of Early Industrialization, ed. Kenneth Pomeranz (London: Routledge, 2009).

• Yoko Kubota, “14-Hour Shifts and $1 a Delivery—but China’s Army of Gig Workers Keeps Growing,” The Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/14-hour-shifts-and-1-a-deliverybut-chinas-army-of-gig-workers-keeps-growing-81ce58e4.

• Zheng Xiaoqiong (trans. Eleanor Goodman), “The Makers of Modern China,” Equator, December 10, 2025, https://www.equator.org/articles/the-makers-of-modern-china.

• Zongyuan Zoe Liu, “China’s Long Economic War: How Beijing Builds Leverage for Indefinite Competition,” Foreign Affairs, December 16, 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-long-economic-war-zongyuan-zoe-liu.

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Note: Readers will see that most of the recommendations above are from non-Chinese sources. My unfamiliarity with the language is a challenge. To get insights from Chinese sources, I usually refer to the following newsletters and websites:

• The China Global South Project by Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden

• The Wire China by David Barboza

• China Open Source Observatory by the Council on Foreign Relations

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