The New York Times’ Chris Buckley reports on the recent emergence of footage from the trial of General Xu Qinxian, who refused to lead the PLA’s 38th Group Army into Beijing to confront protesters in late...
Last month, Southern Weekly reported on a policy at some hospitals in Shanxi requiring that ADHD patients get a "Class 1 Psychiatric Drug Prescribed" stamp in their hukou household registration booklet before...
Two recent WeChat posts express concern about mounting official interference in 相声 xiàngsheng, the...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the...
The diplomatic crisis between China and Japan continues to intensify, following Japanese Prime...
We’ve heard these promises too often. All we’ve seen are similar accidents, one after another."
— WeChat blogger Canglang Hero, expressing skepticism about Kunming railway officials' promises to improve safety after a collision killed 11 workers on the tracks
The New York Times’ Chris Buckley reports on the recent emergence of footage from the trial of General Xu Qinxian, who refused to lead the PLA’s 38th Group Army into Beijing to confront protesters in late May, 1989, and was subsequently imprisoned for five years as a result. Xu’s fate remained unknown until Apple Daily located him in 2011. He died in 2021. CDT Chinese has posted a copy of the six-hour video, as well as a transcript of around 70,000 characters. From Buckley: In the trial footage, General Xu explains that he refused the order as a matter of individual...
Two recent WeChat posts express concern about mounting official interference in 相声 xiàngsheng, the...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the...
The diplomatic crisis between China and Japan continues to intensify, following Japanese Prime...
Late last month, WeChat moderators’ axe fell on "Du Fu of Huanhua Creek,"...
The catastrophic fire at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court housing complex last week has been...
The involvement of Chinese nationals in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine received widespread media attention earlier this year. This included an extended interview by Chinese journalist Chai Jing with one such combatant, "Macaron," which was was subsequently translated in two parts by CDT. The much smaller number of Chinese fighters on the Ukrainian side has received less notice. One notable exception is Peng Chenliang, who was killed in 2024 and, before joining the war, had reportedly been detained for seven months in China over his anti-Russia, pro-Ukraine posts on X....
We believe: Faith is not a crime. Worship is not a crime. Prayer is not a crime. [Chinese] This...
The death of Jerome Cohen last week at the age of 95 prompted a wave of tributes to the legendary...
Citizen journalist and COVID-whistleblower Zhang Zhan, who spent four years in prison for her...
China’s National Bureau of Statistics published new data on Wednesday showing that urban youth...
On Monday, Reuters reported on the story of a man who tried to flee Gaza by crossing the border...
In the run-up to the Global Women’s Summit slated for October in Beijing, which will mark the 30th anniversary of that city’s influential 1995 U.N. World Conference on Women, some WeChat accounts focused on feminism and women’s empowerment have been blocked or had their content deleted. Earlier this month, feminist blogger Jiang Chan (姜婵, Jiāng Chán) had her official WeChat account blocked. The account now displays a message saying that it has been blocked, and that the content cannot be viewed because it is in violation of Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) regulations. Jiang hasn’t...
Citizen journalist and COVID-whistleblower Zhang Zhan, who spent four years in prison for her...
In 2021, Tibet Action Institute (TAI) published a groundbreaking report exposing the extensive use...
Following rare mass protests that broke out in the city of Jiangyou in Sichuan province earlier...
Recent revelations have ignited widespread outrage over a Telegram group in which tens of...
After Beijing granted authorization in December, construction on what would be the world’s largest...
Last month, Southern Weekly reported on a policy at some hospitals in Shanxi requiring that ADHD patients get a "Class 1 Psychiatric Drug Prescribed" stamp in their hukou household registration booklet before receiving pharmaceutical treatment. Numerous patients reported similar experiences, with some finding that hospitals had added the stamp without telling them. Hospitals claimed they were following instructions "from above," but provincial health authorities told Southern Weekly that they are unaware of any such higher-level requirement. The report emphasized the...
Two recent WeChat posts express concern about mounting official interference in 相声 xiàngsheng, the...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the...
The diplomatic crisis between China and Japan continues to intensify, following Japanese Prime...
Late last month, WeChat moderators’ axe fell on "Du Fu of Huanhua Creek,"...
The catastrophic fire at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court housing complex last week has been...
The New York Times’ Chris Buckley reports on the recent emergence of footage from the trial of General Xu Qinxian, who refused to lead the PLA’s 38th Group Army into Beijing to confront protesters in late May, 1989, and was subsequently imprisoned for five years as a result. Xu’s fate remained unknown until Apple Daily located him in 2011. He died in 2021. CDT Chinese has posted a copy of the six-hour video, as well as a transcript of around 70,000 characters. From Buckley: In the trial footage, General Xu explains that he refused the order as a matter of individual...
Last month, Southern Weekly reported on a policy at some hospitals in Shanxi requiring that ADHD...
Two recent WeChat posts express concern about mounting official interference in 相声 xiàngsheng, the...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the...
The diplomatic crisis between China and Japan continues to intensify, following Japanese Prime...
Late last month, WeChat moderators’ axe fell on "Du Fu of Huanhua Creek,"...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the death toll now stands at 159—tragedy struck again at Kunming’s Luoyang railway station. A test train ran into a group of workers in the early hours of the morning, killing 11 and injuring two more. Reuters’ report on the accident noted that two more workers were killed the same day in a separate incident in Sichuan province. Many on Chinese social media were quick to link the Hong Kong and Kunming incidents. Some drew comparisons between Hong Kong authorities’ relatively open...
The catastrophic fire at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court housing complex last week has been...
“After six years of reporting in Hong Kong, and at eight months pregnant, I’m very sad to be...
You Must Take Part in Revolution is a graphic novel by Badiucao, political cartoonist and former...
June 30 marked the fifth anniversary of Beijing’s imposition of a heavy-handed national security...
This year’s 36th anniversary commemorations of the June 4 crackdown were marked by intense,...
In June, ChinaFile published a new report, "The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters"—the product of 18 months’ work by Jessica Batke, ChinaFile’s senior editor for investigations, and Laura Edelson, assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University. The report gives a concise but thorough overview of China’s online censorship system, including the motivations behind it and the mechanisms by which it is implemented. It expands on the familiar image of the "Great Firewall" as a perimeter barrier, adopting a broader...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
A recent WeChat post reveals that some Chinese schools and universities are using special software...
In the two weeks since the Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration of China...
You Must Take Part in Revolution is a graphic novel by Badiucao, political cartoonist and former CDT contributor, and Melissa Chan, a journalist who in 2012 became the first reporter to be expelled from China in more than a decade. The book was conceived in the wake of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and follows the divergent paths of three friends in Hong Kong and Taiwan from their involvement in the protests through to 2035. CDT: I’m sure anyone reading CDT is familiar with each of you separately. How did the two of you come to join forces? Melissa Chan: I’d interviewed Badiucao for a...
On September 12, 2003, John Battelle published the first post on chinadigitaltimes.net: Here’s...
In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender...
Starting in March 2008, Tibetans across the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), Qinghai, Gansu, and...
Surveys have shown that Xi Jinping’s hardline foreign policy is increasingly unpopular abroad....
Jeremy Wallace, associate professor of Government at Cornell University, joined CDT to discuss his...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the death toll now stands at 159—tragedy struck again at Kunming’s Luoyang railway station. A test train ran into a group of workers in the early hours of the morning, killing 11 and injuring two more. Reuters’ report on the accident noted that two more workers were killed the same day in a separate incident in Sichuan province. Many on Chinese social media were quick to link the Hong Kong and Kunming incidents. Some drew comparisons between Hong Kong authorities’ relatively open...
The diplomatic crisis between China and Japan continues to intensify, following Japanese Prime...
The catastrophic fire at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court housing complex last week has been...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content...
Last Saturday, November 8, was China’s National Journalists’ Day—often an occasion for mixed...
The New York Times’ Chris Buckley reports on the recent emergence of footage from the trial of General Xu Qinxian, who refused to lead the PLA’s 38th Group Army into Beijing to confront protesters in late May, 1989, and was subsequently imprisoned for five years as a result. Xu’s fate remained unknown until Apple Daily located him in 2011. He died in 2021. CDT Chinese has posted a copy of the six-hour video, as well as a transcript of around 70,000 characters. From Buckley: In the trial footage, General Xu explains that he refused the order as a matter of individual...
Last month, Southern Weekly reported on a policy at some hospitals in Shanxi requiring that ADHD...
Two recent WeChat posts express concern about mounting official interference in 相声 xiàngsheng, the...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the...
The diplomatic crisis between China and Japan continues to intensify, following Japanese Prime...
Late last month, WeChat moderators’ axe fell on "Du Fu of Huanhua Creek,"...
Last month, Southern Weekly reported on a policy at some hospitals in Shanxi requiring that ADHD patients get a "Class 1 Psychiatric Drug Prescribed" stamp in their hukou household registration booklet before receiving pharmaceutical treatment. Numerous patients reported similar experiences, with some finding that hospitals had added the stamp without telling them. Hospitals claimed they were following instructions "from above," but provincial health authorities told Southern Weekly that they are unaware of any such higher-level requirement. The report emphasized the...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the...
Late last month, WeChat moderators’ axe fell on "Du Fu of Huanhua Creek,"...
Last week’s CDT Chinese 404 Archives podcast highlighted the recent revival of the Silent...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content...
This week, a report at IT Home described recent corporate initiatives in the fight to promote...
The New York Times’ Chris Buckley reports on the recent emergence of footage from the trial of General Xu Qinxian, who refused to lead the PLA’s 38th Group Army into Beijing to confront protesters in late May, 1989, and was subsequently imprisoned for five years as a result. Xu’s fate remained unknown until Apple Daily located him in 2011. He died in 2021. CDT Chinese has posted a copy of the six-hour video, as well as a transcript of around 70,000 characters. From Buckley: In the trial footage, General Xu explains that he refused the order as a matter of individual...
Last month, Southern Weekly reported on a policy at some hospitals in Shanxi requiring that ADHD...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content...
The image above shows a one-man protest that reportedly took place at the high-end Taikoo Li...
Police and media silence after a car plowed into a large crowd of students and parents near an...
At The New York Times on Monday, columnist Li Yuan describes how, as "wages stagnate and jobs disappear, the promise of upward social mobility is eroding, especially for those from modest backgrounds. For many […], the Chinese Dream no longer feels achievable." Similar themes have featured prominently on CDT in recent months, from uproar over the "4+4" fast-track for medical qualifications to commentary on the decline of former "golden ticket" degrees like computer science and the resurgent appeal of official careers. Other examples include gallows humor...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
On March 16, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that the Chinese economy was...
A recent WeChat post from oft-controversial entrepreneur, publicity hound, and philanthropist Chen...
Even before the lifting of China’s long-standing “zero-COVID” policy in early December of last...
In the run-up to the Global Women’s Summit slated for October in Beijing, which will mark the 30th anniversary of that city’s influential 1995 U.N. World Conference on Women, some WeChat accounts focused on feminism and women’s empowerment have been blocked or had their content deleted. Earlier this month, feminist blogger Jiang Chan (姜婵, Jiāng Chán) had her official WeChat account blocked. The account now displays a message saying that it has been blocked, and that the content cannot be viewed because it is in violation of Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) regulations. Jiang hasn’t...
Citizen journalist and COVID-whistleblower Zhang Zhan, who spent four years in prison for her...
In 2021, Tibet Action Institute (TAI) published a groundbreaking report exposing the extensive use...
The inaugural IndieChina Film Festival (IndieChina电影节, IndieChina Diànyǐngjié), which was set to run from November 8-15 in New York City, has been forced to close due to what appears to be a coordinated transnational pressure campaign by the Chinese government. Citing intimidation and threats made against the families of Chinese organizers and volunteers, as well as unrelenting pressure on participating directors to pull their films from the festival, IndieChina curator Zhu Rikun issued a statement on November 5 announcing that for the safety of all involved the festival would not go...
Following more than a week of speculation that Chengdu’s You Xing Bookstore (有杏书店, Yǒu Xìng...
The following translations are from a series of posts on WeChat public account 育知录 Yuzhilu—a...
Taiwanese singer Zheng Zhihua’s complaint about a difficult experience boarding a flight at Shenzhen’s main airport has spurred heated online debate about barrier-free access for disabled people in China. Both Zheng and the airport offered apologies and Zheng, after being attacked online for the way he worded his complaint, has reportedly deleted his Weibo account. The 63-year-old singer, who performs frequently in both China and Taiwan, is well-known on both sides of the strait for such hit songs as "Sailor," "Star Lighting," "The Great Citizen," and “33...
Two posts from nationalist pundit and former Global Times Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin criticizing...
Public backlash has forced local officials in Pengyuan—a community in the city of Jiangmen,...
The news that two more Japanese scientists were awarded Nobel Prizes in the natural sciences has been met with considerable consternation on the Chinese internet. Shimon Sakaguchi of Osaka University and two American scientists, Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in recognition of their work in identifying “a key pathway the body uses to keep the immune system in check, called peripheral immune tolerance.” And Kyoto University’s Susumu Kitagawa—along with Richard Robson at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Omar M. Yaghi at the...
This is the full transcript, lightly edited for grammar and clarity, of an interview with Jessica...
The critically acclaimed U.S.-Australian body-horror movie “Together” launched in China on...
The New York Times’ Chris Buckley reports on the recent emergence of footage from the trial of General Xu Qinxian, who refused to lead the PLA’s 38th Group Army into Beijing to confront protesters in late May, 1989, and was subsequently imprisoned for five years as a result. Xu’s fate remained unknown until Apple Daily located him in 2011. He died in 2021. CDT Chinese has posted a copy of the six-hour video, as well as a transcript of around 70,000 characters. From Buckley: In the trial footage, General Xu explains that he refused the order as a matter of individual...
Last month, Southern Weekly reported on a policy at some hospitals in Shanxi requiring that ADHD...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content...
A pair of recently surfaced screenshots appear to offer unusual detail about a special month-long operation, held in Beijing and involving over 40 Ministry of Public Security computer specialists from around the country, to combat “overseas cyber forces” in the battle for public opinion. The apparently leaked internal instructions from the Ministry of Public Security are likely to be the result of an email breach. They include the names and locations of many of the computer-specialist officers, as well as the name and contact information of the individual in charge of the operation. At some...
Over the past two weeks, the Biden administration has issued a series of regulations intended to...
Popular online writer Shen Maohua, who writes under the pen name Wei Zhou, is known for his...
Two recent WeChat posts express concern about mounting official interference in 相声 xiàngsheng, the traditional northern-Chinese form of fast-paced stage comedy known in English as crosstalk. These anxieties are acute, but not new. David Moser wrote in 2009, for example, that, "The Chinese government has systematically stifled crosstalk by bowdlerizing its tradition, restricting its natural growth and evolution, and reducing the form to a sycophantic, unsatisfying — and unfunny — shadow of its former self." This process, he wrote, began as soon as the CCP took power, with sexual...
The diplomatic crisis between China and Japan continues to intensify, following Japanese Prime...
Late last month, WeChat moderators’ axe fell on "Du Fu of Huanhua Creek,"...
At The New York Times on Monday, columnist Li Yuan describes how, as "wages stagnate and jobs disappear, the promise of upward social mobility is eroding, especially for those from modest backgrounds. For many […], the Chinese Dream no longer feels achievable." Similar themes have featured prominently on CDT in recent months, from uproar over the "4+4" fast-track for medical qualifications to commentary on the decline of former "golden ticket" degrees like computer science and the resurgent appeal of official careers. Other examples include gallows humor...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central...
Last month, Southern Weekly reported on a policy at some hospitals in Shanxi requiring that ADHD patients get a "Class 1 Psychiatric Drug Prescribed" stamp in their hukou household registration booklet before receiving pharmaceutical treatment. Numerous patients reported similar experiences, with some finding that hospitals had added the stamp without telling them. Hospitals claimed they were following instructions "from above," but provincial health authorities told Southern Weekly that they are unaware of any such higher-level requirement. The report emphasized the...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the...
Late last month, WeChat moderators’ axe fell on "Du Fu of Huanhua Creek,"...
CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content Archive.” Each month, we publish a summary of content blocked or deleted (often yielding the message “404: content not found”) from Chinese platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu (RedNote), Bilibili, Zhihu, Douban, and others. Although this content archived by CDT Chinese editors represents only a small fraction of the online content that disappears each day from the Chinese internet, it provides valuable insight into which topics are considered “sensitive” over time by the...
After Beijing granted authorization in December, construction on what would be the world’s largest...
As China continues to tighten information flows in and out of the country, how reliable are...
Only hours after last week’s catastrophic Wang Fuk Court fire in Hong Kong—from which the death toll now stands at 159—tragedy struck again at Kunming’s Luoyang railway station. A test train ran into a group of workers in the early hours of the morning, killing 11 and injuring two more. Reuters’ report on the accident noted that two more workers were killed the same day in a separate incident in Sichuan province. Many on Chinese social media were quick to link the Hong Kong and Kunming incidents. Some drew comparisons between Hong Kong authorities’ relatively open...
The catastrophic fire at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court housing complex last week has been...
“After six years of reporting in Hong Kong, and at eight months pregnant, I’m very sad to be...
The diplomatic crisis between China and Japan continues to intensify, following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s affirmation last month of Japan’s willingness to defend Taiwan in the event of Chinese naval blockade of the island, a situation she described as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Takaichi’s comments, made in response to a question from an opposition legislator in the Japanese Diet, were a marked departure from the Japanese government’s long-standing doctrine of “strategic ambiguity” regarding a potential conflict over Taiwan. Her remarks drew furious responses...
Taiwanese singer Zheng Zhihua’s complaint about a difficult experience boarding a flight at...
This week, a report at IT Home described recent corporate initiatives in the fight to promote...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
CDT is a non-profit media site, and we need your support. Your contribution will help us provide more translations, breaking news, and other content you love.
![Photo: Family [Yuyuan Shopping Center / Shanghai], by d’n’c](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Family-Yuyuan-Shopping-Center-Shanghai-by-dnc-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Night piece of Guiyang, Guizhou Province [HiRes+], by QuantFoto](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Night-piece-of-Guiyang-Guizhou-Province-by-QuantFoto-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Harbin [St. Sophia Cathedral], by Xiquinho Silva](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Harbin-by-Xiquinho-Silva-e1672460089395-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Zhangye Danxia Landform [Gansu Province], by vil.sandi](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Zhangye-Danxia-Landform-by-vil.sandi_-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: 兰州 [Lanzhou], by hongliang ren](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/兰州-by-hongliang-ren-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Shenzhen [Lihu Lake], by Tony](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Shenzhen-Lihu-Lake-by-Tony-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: 希拉穆仁草原 [Xilamuren Grassland, Inner Mongolia], by Frank Wang](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/希拉穆仁草原-Xilamuren-Grassland-Inner-Mongolia-by-Frank-Wang-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Untitled [Dujiangyan, Sichuan], by Jason](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Untitled-Jason-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Photo [Sunset at the Great Wall], by Bruno Abreu](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Photo-Sunset-at-the-Great-Wall-by-Bruno-Abreu-01182022-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: The summit [Changbaishan / 长白山天池], by Caitriana Nicholson](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/The-Summit-Changbaishan-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Photo [a street in the Muslim quarter of Xi’an], by Bruno Abreu](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Photo-a-street-in-the-Muslim-quarter-of-Xian-by-Bruno-Abreu-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: DSC01164 [New Century Global Center, Chengdu], by Felix Filnkoessl](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/DSC01164-New-Century-Global-Center-Chengdu-by-Felix-Filnkoessl-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: DSC_3584 [Ili, Xinjiang, China], by Felix Guan](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Felix-Guan-Ili-DSC_3584-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Skating [Shichahai, Beijing], by b cheng](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Skating-Shichahai-Beijing-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Dongfeng 153 [Taxkorgan, Kashgar, Xinjiang Region, China], by hans-johnson](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Dongfeng-153-by-hans-johnson-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: 瑞丽莫里瀑布 [Moli Waterfall, Ruili, Yunnan Province], by llee_wu](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/瑞丽莫里瀑布-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: 九华山 [Mount Jiuhua, Anhui Province], by Thomas_Yung](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/九华山-Mount-Jiuhua-Anhui-Province-by-Thomas_Yung-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: DSC_8623.06.莆田.步行街 [Putian Walking Street], by Michael Wong](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/14473421951_ae37ed70e2_k-440x264.jpg)
![Photo: Basketball [Hong Kong], by Robert Anders](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/33466895688_bf74abd0f4_c-440x264.jpg)
