[AlecSchueler]

> development happening in China but I find it very hard to find resource in English about what’s actually happening.

For years I've had this issue with pretty much everything happening in China, from business to politics to culture. For me personally, getting a window into China has been the number one game changer with LLMs. It's easier than ever to find and digest Chinese sources.

[Mr_Minderbinder]

I feel like this a problem in general for topics outside “the West” or even just the Anglosphere. There is a tantalising amount of information that is siloed away in other languages. I was reading a Wikipedia article on one of the campaigns waged by the Ottomans in Europe and the English version was threadbare (and poorly written) in comparison to the Hungarian Wikipedia equivalent which was three times longer and had more images, maps and diagrams. It also cited a wealth of sources that were, again, not in English. This is a natural result of the fact that the ones “closest” to the event in question will generally be the ones most qualified and ready to report upon it.

[lmm]

> the fact that the ones “closest” to the event in question will generally be the ones most qualified and ready to report upon it.

Or are the most motivated to push a narrative in relation to it.

[Mr_Minderbinder]

Paradoxically (or not) this is precisely what makes their scholarship better than that of a “distant” observer. The problem is that truly neutral authors are also often indifferent ones. Since the Ottomans had such a large influence on the history of Hungary, the scholars of that nation are far more interested in that topic and therefore will study and research it to a much greater level of detail than a scholar working in English from the Anglo cultural sphere where that history is less relevant to them. Also “distant” observers will lack a lot of the context necessary to interpret the events and topics in question. The best books on the American Civil War will be written by American scholars working in English, their biases notwithstanding. To make matters worse there is a natural human bias rooted in in-group vs out-group psychology where information provided by an out-group (information in a foreign language) is viewed with more scepticism than that provided by an in-group, even when the topic at hand concerns the out-group.

[johnisgood]

I am Hungarian, and lord, our history is really damn extensive (for a country of this size). I can see why it would be 3 times longer. :)

[jorl17]

Do you have any resources (search engines, prompts, MCP, other tools) to help with this?

I feel that it is quite obvious the next century will have China leading the pack, and I'd really like to be able to prepare for that.

[alisonatwork]

I'm not sure what the parent poster is getting at about information on Chinese business, politics and culture being hard to find because that stuff is widely written about in the global media, and there are plenty of English language sources. It almost seems counterproductive to provide links to resources because it's artificially limiting what you will be exposed to, but here we go anyway...

China Media Project (media analysis) - https://chinamediaproject.org/

China Leadership Monitor (political analysis) - https://www.prcleader.org/

Made in China Journal (social analysis) - https://madeinchinajournal.com/

What's on Weibo (pop culture reporting) - https://www.whatsonweibo.com/

The China Project (formerly SupChina, general reporting) - https://thechinaproject.com/

* edit to add: seems like The China Project shut down end of 2023, but leaving the link for context

Sixth Tone (state-owned media specializing in human interest stories) - https://www.sixthtone.com/

On the state-owned media tip there are also more blatant propaganda outlets like Global Times, People's Daily etc, plus private-owned media that largely toe the party line like South China Morning Post.

There are also a set of mostly US-based thinktanks that do solid macro-level reporting on geopolitical and economic issues, guys like Jamestown, CSIS, German Marshall Fund etc.

Then there are countless blogs and newsletters and influencers who report on specific niches, everything from economic analysis to boyslove fandom... You can jump on Bilibili to watch shows and see all the "bullet chat" jargon and memes, you can rub shoulders with the upper middle class on Xiaohongshu, read millions of Steam reviews or check out the forums of games popular in China, follow ABC or expat channels on YouTube etc. I find it very hard to believe that people in 2025 can't find any information about what's going on in China.

All that said, I do share the sense that there is a bit a trough between Chinese tech workers and foreign tech workers, and it's because most Chinese tech workers don't tend to prioritize learning English to the same degree that tech workers around the rest of the world do. There are lots of publications that report on the Chinese tech industry from an investor or economic perspective, probably written by all those MBAs who went to study overseas, but nerd-to-nerd level exchange is lacking imo. I suppose you could ask an LLM to summarize content from v2ex.com (HN-ish Reddit), tieba.baidu.com (Reddit-ish Reddit), segmentfault.com (StackOverflow) etc, but that doesn't really do much to engage in a social way so I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for. Chinese-language Github projects are one place you could explore, if you specifically want to interact with developers over there.

[fragmede]

Thank you for the link to V2ex.com!

Their comments section has

Please do not copy and paste AI-generated content when answering technical questions

on their footer.

[rbanffy]

> For years I've had this issue with pretty much everything happening in China, from business to politics to culture

China is mindblowingly huge. There has to be A LOT happening at any one time.