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...
This week, a set of reports emerged alleging that Chinese state-backed actors perpetrated cyberattacks against foreign governments. In response, Chinese state media sprang into action by relaying...
A recent incident illustrates what a minefield it has become to discuss anything, past or present,...
If the lesson last week was “Don’t laugh about the PLA,” this week’s message seems to be, “Don’t...
Exactly one year ago, a consortium of media outlets released the Xinjiang Police Files, a cache of...
These idiotically laughing people aren’t just the stuff of a moment, some brief period of time—they’re more like the long-term state of our nation. Of course, that’s not something I really want to see, but since that’s our status quo, I think I ought to continue producing them.”
— A past comment from renowned contemporary painter Yue Minjun, who this week was targeted by online nationalists for “insulting" the Chinese military with his 2007 series of paintings depicting inanely smiling and laughing PLA soldiers
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...
A recent incident illustrates what a minefield it has become to discuss anything, past or present,...
If the lesson last week was “Don’t laugh about the PLA,” this week’s message seems to be, “Don’t...
On May 18, a social media post (archived here) announced the impending closure and demolition of a...
The (talk) show is over. Comedian Li Haoshi, who made a joke involving the People’s Liberation...
Word(s) of the Week: Forge Exemplary Conduct, Fight to Win (作风优良，能打胜仗 zuòfēng yōuliáng, néngdǎ...
Tensions rose in the wake of the G7 summit last weekend, as China weathered accusations of being an economic and security threat, while countering with its own similar accusations against the West. The meeting of the multilateral group—composed of the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan, and punctuated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s surprise visit—underscored the extent to which China has become entrenched as a geopolitical antagonist in the eyes of many Western leaders. David Pierson and Chris Buckley from The New York Times described the parallels between the...
Chinese state media’s external-facing content has become increasingly known for its aggressive...
Local media outlets in Hong Kong report that hundreds of books on political topics including the...
The shuttering of the Beijing LGBT Center marks the latest setback for China’s queer community. In...
At least 12 women have accused famed screenwriter Shi Hang of sexual harassment. The accusations...
CDT English will continue for now to post as @CDT on Twitter, but has launched additional accounts...
Exactly one year ago, a consortium of media outlets released the Xinjiang Police Files, a cache of tens of thousands of files showing images of Uyghur detainees in Xinjiang’s concentration camps and manuals for enforcing their subjugation. In the year since then, despite multiple high-level U.N. reports documenting forced labor and “serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang that “may constitute […] crimes against humanity,” the CCP has continued to enforce coercive policies in the region with impunity. Recent articles and reports document a new phase of repression in Xinjiang, one marked...
The shuttering of the Beijing LGBT Center marks the latest setback for China’s queer community. In...
The full report can be read in PDF form here. Below is a brief introduction. A CDT investigation...
On April 10, civil rights lawyers Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were sentenced to 14 and 12 years in...
Civil rights lawyers Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi have been sentenced to 14 and 12 years in prison,...
In a rare instance of a legal challenge to restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights, two Tsinghua University...
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...
A recent incident illustrates what a minefield it has become to discuss anything, past or present,...
If the lesson last week was “Don’t laugh about the PLA,” this week’s message seems to be, “Don’t...
On May 18, a social media post (archived here) announced the impending closure and demolition of a...
The (talk) show is over. Comedian Li Haoshi, who made a joke involving the People’s Liberation...
May 10, 2023 marked the second anniversary of the detention of program-think (Biānchéng suíxiǎng,...
This week, a set of reports emerged alleging that Chinese state-backed actors perpetrated cyberattacks against foreign governments. In response, Chinese state media sprang into action by relaying official denials of responsibility, diverting attention to Western misconduct, and praising the benefits of China’s relationship with the host country. A short analysis of local media coverage of the events highlights the traction of Chinese state-media narratives. On Wednesday, Reuters released an investigation concluding that Chinese actors hacked into several ministries and institutions of the...
If the lesson last week was “Don’t laugh about the PLA,” this week’s message seems to be, “Don’t...
Tensions rose in the wake of the G7 summit last weekend, as China weathered accusations of being...
Chinese state media’s external-facing content has become increasingly known for its aggressive...
The (talk) show is over. Comedian Li Haoshi, who made a joke involving the People’s Liberation...
Word(s) of the Week: Forge Exemplary Conduct, Fight to Win (作风优良，能打胜仗 zuòfēng yōuliáng, néngdǎ...
Local media outlets in Hong Kong report that hundreds of books on political topics including the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre are no longer available in the city’s public libraries, after the city’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department ordered librarians to ensure that their collections contained nothing in violation of the National Security Law. This is the latest example of government censorship in Hong Kong that further restricts free speech and attempts to rewrite history. Helen Davidson from The Guardian described the extent of the book purge: On Tuesday, Hong Kong media outlets reported...
World Press Freedom Day, on May 3, has rarely been a time for celebration in China, where...
This week, a long-expected national security trial of 47 Hong Kong pro-democracy figures began....
The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been...
On Saturday, a Hong Kong court sentenced pro-democracy figure and former Apple Daily owner Jimmy...
Hong Kong’s national security purge shows no signs of slowing down, two and a half years after...
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...
As citizens revolt against never-ending lockdowns and local governments “resolutely struggle...
On Thursday, the Canadian government announced that it will ban Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE...
On Monday of last week, Malaysian musician Namewee (Wee Meng Chee, 黃明志) learned that his YouTube...
Surveys have shown that Xi Jinping’s hardline foreign policy is increasingly unpopular abroad. Given the CCP’s mixed success using soft power to repair China’s image, party propagandists have increasingly resorted to sharper global-influence operations, often via foreign media. Pro-CCP narratives are propagated through the media, particularly on sensitive topics such as former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang. These narratives reveal that the media is a major component of China’s influence operations abroad. Understanding how the...
Jeremy Wallace, associate professor of Government at Cornell University, joined CDT to discuss his...
Evidence of human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang has...
China’s soft power initiatives are often derided by Western observers as ineffective or...
This is the full transcript, edited lightly for grammar and clarity, of an interview with Jeremy...
Xi Jinping’s call in 2013 to “tell China’s story well” accelerated an existing trend of Chinese...
Exactly one year ago, a consortium of media outlets released the Xinjiang Police Files, a cache of tens of thousands of files showing images of Uyghur detainees in Xinjiang’s concentration camps and manuals for enforcing their subjugation. In the year since then, despite multiple high-level U.N. reports documenting forced labor and “serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang that “may constitute […] crimes against humanity,” the CCP has continued to enforce coercive policies in the region with impunity. Recent articles and reports document a new phase of repression in Xinjiang, one marked...
Tensions rose in the wake of the G7 summit last weekend, as China weathered accusations of being...
On May 18, a social media post (archived here) announced the impending closure and demolition of a...
In recent weeks, Chinese authorities have raided foreign firms, imposed exit bans, restricted...
China’s infamous urban management agents, known as chengguan, have a new rural equivalent, the...
The following instructions were posted online. To all provincial, autonomous regional, and...
This week, a set of reports emerged alleging that Chinese state-backed actors perpetrated cyberattacks against foreign governments. In response, Chinese state media sprang into action by relaying official denials of responsibility, diverting attention to Western misconduct, and praising the benefits of China’s relationship with the host country. A short analysis of local media coverage of the events highlights the traction of Chinese state-media narratives. On Wednesday, Reuters released an investigation concluding that Chinese actors hacked into several ministries and institutions of the...
A recent incident illustrates what a minefield it has become to discuss anything, past or present,...
If the lesson last week was “Don’t laugh about the PLA,” this week’s message seems to be, “Don’t...
Exactly one year ago, a consortium of media outlets released the Xinjiang Police Files, a cache of...
On May 18, a social media post (archived here) announced the impending closure and demolition of a...
The (talk) show is over. Comedian Li Haoshi, who made a joke involving the People’s Liberation...
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...
Tensions rose in the wake of the G7 summit last weekend, as China weathered accusations of being...
May 10, 2023 marked the second anniversary of the detention of program-think (Biānchéng suíxiǎng,...
The full report can be read in PDF form here. Below is a brief introduction. A CDT investigation...
Snow? In Hebei? In May? Don’t even joke about it.A young man in a small city in southern Hebei was...
The following instructions were posted online. To all provincial, autonomous regional, and...
Exactly one year ago, a consortium of media outlets released the Xinjiang Police Files, a cache of tens of thousands of files showing images of Uyghur detainees in Xinjiang’s concentration camps and manuals for enforcing their subjugation. In the year since then, despite multiple high-level U.N. reports documenting forced labor and “serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang that “may constitute […] crimes against humanity,” the CCP has continued to enforce coercive policies in the region with impunity. Recent articles and reports document a new phase of repression in Xinjiang, one marked...
May 10, 2023 marked the second anniversary of the detention of program-think (Biānchéng suíxiǎng,...
The full report can be read in PDF form here. Below is a brief introduction. A CDT investigation...
Snow? In Hebei? In May? Don’t even joke about it.A young man in a small city in southern Hebei was...
At least 12 women have accused famed screenwriter Shi Hang of sexual harassment. The accusations...
A master list of “violent and terrorist” multimedia files Xinjiang police use to flag Uyghurs and...
Even before the lifting of China’s long-standing “zero-COVID” policy in early December of last year, there were signs of a surge in Omicron cases nationwide. Since then, China has experienced a tsunami of infections—first in larger cities, and then in the countryside—amid concerns about shortages of needed medications, the increasing risk of medical debt, and unreliable official data on the numbers of infections and deaths. Despite the recent Lunar New Year celebration in which hundreds of millions of residents went traveling and returned to their hometowns, there are signs that the wave of...
After conducting nucleic acid testing on its 26 million residents this week, Shanghai remains...
Evergrande offices across China have been beset by protesting retail investors and homeowners...
Anyone who has boarded an airplane in the last 20 years knows what stands between arrival at the...
This spring, while nationalist fervor to “support Xinjiang cotton” swelled online,...
In early December, President Xi Jinping declared that China had eliminated absolute poverty. His...
Exactly one year ago, a consortium of media outlets released the Xinjiang Police Files, a cache of tens of thousands of files showing images of Uyghur detainees in Xinjiang’s concentration camps and manuals for enforcing their subjugation. In the year since then, despite multiple high-level U.N. reports documenting forced labor and “serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang that “may constitute […] crimes against humanity,” the CCP has continued to enforce coercive policies in the region with impunity. Recent articles and reports document a new phase of repression in Xinjiang, one marked...
The shuttering of the Beijing LGBT Center marks the latest setback for China’s queer community. In...
The full report can be read in PDF form here. Below is a brief introduction. A CDT investigation...
“Zero-COVID nail houses” (防疫钉子户, fángyì dīngzihù) are people who still adhere to strict virus prevention measures despite the end of the national zero-COVID policy. It is often used self-deprecatingly by “nail houses” themselves in group chats dedicated to sharing their experiences. The term is a riff on China’s mass demolition-era “nail houses,” a phrase which has entered the lexicon as a humorous catch-all for holdouts who refuse to go along with changes to the status quo. It is also a play on “Epidemic Prevention Hobbyists” (防疫爱好者, Fángyì àihào zhě), the derisive term for the volunteer...
A WeChat essay on the “sore need” for a continuation of the May Fourth Movement’s legacy of...
In a remarkable violation of Party discipline, an organization partially under the auspices of the...
On March 25th, Guangdong-based rapper Liu Wanli, better known as Vyan (pronounced “vee-yen”) was invited to appear on “One Seat,” a lecture program that has been called “China’s TED Talks.” In his appearance, he performed an original rap song titled “Land of Hope,” which made reference to a number of current events and societal issues, including the case of Xiaohuamei, a trafficked woman and mother of eight who was kept chained in a shed in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province. Vyan’s performance attracted a great deal of attention online, with many netizens praising his...
Three years and three months after whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang’s death from COVID-19, the...
The suppression of news about a Beijing hospital fire that killed 29 last week has inspired...
Heavy fighting between rival military groups in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum has put local and foreign civilians in peril. Over the past week, Chinese, American, and other governments implemented evacuation plans to escort their citizens to safety, traversing breakdowns in multiple ceasefires between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. China completed two rounds of large-scale maritime evacuations that carried over 1,300 of its citizens to safety. And while state media outlets celebrated the operation, which was particularly successfully compared to previous ones in...
On Wednesday, CCP Secretary General Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to...
Proposed regulations on the development of generative artificial intelligence models issued by...
Exactly one year ago, a consortium of media outlets released the Xinjiang Police Files, a cache of tens of thousands of files showing images of Uyghur detainees in Xinjiang’s concentration camps and manuals for enforcing their subjugation. In the year since then, despite multiple high-level U.N. reports documenting forced labor and “serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang that “may constitute […] crimes against humanity,” the CCP has continued to enforce coercive policies in the region with impunity. Recent articles and reports document a new phase of repression in Xinjiang, one marked...
May 10, 2023 marked the second anniversary of the detention of program-think (Biānchéng suíxiǎng,...
The full report can be read in PDF form here. Below is a brief introduction. A CDT investigation...
A group of students under the impression they had discovered a WeChat “bug” that hides the phrase “200 jin of dumplings” (roughly 220 pounds) had in fact stumbled upon an obscure insult for Xi Jinping that triggers automatic censorship. In the course of daily conversation, the students found that messages preceded by the term “200 jin of dumplings” (200斤饺子) were not received by their counterparts. Juvenile hilarity ensued. They sent each other curses and confessions: “200 jin of dumplings, you’re a stupid c***,” “200 jin of dumplings, you’re an idiot,” “200 jin of dumplings, piggy,” and...
This week saw the proliferation of COVID conspiracy theories on Chinese social media, the...
While the official position from Beijing is that China remains a neutral observer of the...
A recent incident illustrates what a minefield it has become to discuss anything, past or present, related to the Chinese military. This week, a history lecturer at Lanzhou University was accused by someone online of “distorting” facts about the Korean War: in other words, of committing “historical nihilism” by offering an interpretation at odds with CCP historical orthodoxy. Luckily for the lecturer, the university came to their defense and the controversy was quickly defused, but given the timing, the lecturer could have found their job—or even their freedom—at risk. The incident was...
If the lesson last week was “Don’t laugh about the PLA,” this week’s message seems to be, “Don’t...
On May 18, a social media post (archived here) announced the impending closure and demolition of a...
Even before the lifting of China’s long-standing “zero-COVID” policy in early December of last year, there were signs of a surge in Omicron cases nationwide. Since then, China has experienced a tsunami of infections—first in larger cities, and then in the countryside—amid concerns about shortages of needed medications, the increasing risk of medical debt, and unreliable official data on the numbers of infections and deaths. Despite the recent Lunar New Year celebration in which hundreds of millions of residents went traveling and returned to their hometowns, there are signs that the wave of...
After conducting nucleic acid testing on its 26 million residents this week, Shanghai remains...
Evergrande offices across China have been beset by protesting retail investors and homeowners...
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...
Tensions rose in the wake of the G7 summit last weekend, as China weathered accusations of being...
May 10, 2023 marked the second anniversary of the detention of program-think (Biānchéng suíxiǎng,...
At the halfway point of the COP27 international climate-change summit, there are encouraging signs that China and the U.S. may put aside geopolitical tensions in order to collectively stave off existential catastrophe for the world. However, both countries are currently falling short of the emission-reduction goals agreed upon in the 2015 Paris Agreement, and small, developing nations most at risk of a warming planet are demanding greater efforts. Caixin summarized China’s engagement with the U.S. at COP27: China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said he met with his U.S. counterpart John Kerry...
A massive, months-long heat wave has scorched regions in central China. Intense droughts and...
This Wednesday marked the one-year anniversary of floods in Henan on July 20, 2021, when historic...
Local media outlets in Hong Kong report that hundreds of books on political topics including the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre are no longer available in the city’s public libraries, after the city’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department ordered librarians to ensure that their collections contained nothing in violation of the National Security Law. This is the latest example of government censorship in Hong Kong that further restricts free speech and attempts to rewrite history. Helen Davidson from The Guardian described the extent of the book purge: On Tuesday, Hong Kong media outlets reported...
World Press Freedom Day, on May 3, has rarely been a time for celebration in China, where...
This week, a long-expected national security trial of 47 Hong Kong pro-democracy figures began....
U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping met on Monday in Bali for their first in-person meeting since Biden took office. Buoyed by their recent political victories at home, the two leaders sought to stabilize the deteriorating Sino-U.S. relationship and clarify their respective priorities. Some progress was made by renewing high-level talks on important issues such as climate change, but it remains to be seen whether this meeting provided a sustainable foundation for the fraught rivalry between the two countries. At The Wall Street Journal, Andrew Restuccia, Ken...
Over the past two weeks, the Biden administration has issued a series of regulations intended to...
On Sunday, another U.S. Congressional delegation traveled to Taiwan, less than two weeks after...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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