Two Americans Detained in China

by Sophie Beach | Oct 17, 2019

Two Americans, Jacob Harlan and Alyssa Petersen, were detained in Jiangsu Province in late October, and the company they work for, China Horizons, has closed down. Harlan is the owner and Petersen is the director of the company. The group helped bring English teachers and volunteers to China, and describes itself as, “an English teaching program that offers an immersive experience within a Chinese school.” The Chinese government announced they had been detained for “illegally moving people across borders.” Anna Fifield reports for the Washington Post: A GoFundMe page...

The current Kashmir shutdown, and in particular the turning off of the Internet and communications, is awfully similar to the one in Xinjiang post-2009 riots. One wonders if [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi is taking a page from the Chinese book there.

- James Millward in The Nation

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The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The names of the issuing bodies have been omitted to protect the sources. All websites: Remove all reports related to the NBA from the dual homepages [site-wide and news] (including [social media] clients), and move articles to the backend of the site. Cool down and do not hype related topics. During this sensitive period, do not mislead public opinion. (October 10, 2019) [Chinese] In the wake of a political firestorm launched by a tweet by Houston Rockets general...

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Two Americans Detained in China

Oct 17, 2019

Two Americans, Jacob Harlan and Alyssa Petersen, were detained in Jiangsu Province in late October, and the company they work for, China Horizons, has closed down. Harlan is the owner and Petersen is the director of the company. The group helped bring English teachers and volunteers to China, and describes itself as, “an English teaching program that offers an immersive experience within a Chinese school.” The Chinese government announced they had been detained for “illegally moving people across borders.” Anna Fifield reports for the Washington Post: A GoFundMe page...

Two Americans Detained in China

Oct 17, 2019

Two Americans, Jacob Harlan and Alyssa Petersen, were detained in Jiangsu Province in late October, and the company they work for, China Horizons, has closed down. Harlan is the owner and Petersen is the director of the company. The group helped bring English teachers and volunteers to China, and describes itself as, “an English teaching program that offers an immersive experience within a Chinese school.” The Chinese government announced they had been detained for “illegally moving people across borders.” Anna Fifield reports for the Washington Post: A GoFundMe page...

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Translation: Socialist Core Value Humor

Oct 10, 2019

CDT has translated a selection of Chinese political jokes that have been making the rounds on social media. These jokes all poke fun at China’s so-called core socialist values, a set of 12 words used by the CCP to promote socialism with Chinese characteristics. It consists of the words “prosperity,” “democracy,” “civility,” “harmony,” “freedom,” “equality,” “justice,” “rule of law,” “patriotism,” “dedication,” “integrity,” and “friendliness.”...

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Two Americans Detained in China

Oct 17, 2019

Two Americans, Jacob Harlan and Alyssa Petersen, were detained in Jiangsu Province in late October, and the company they work for, China Horizons, has closed down. Harlan is the owner and Petersen is the director of the company. The group helped bring English teachers and volunteers to China, and describes itself as, “an English teaching program that offers an immersive experience within a Chinese school.” The Chinese government announced they had been detained for “illegally moving people across borders.” Anna Fifield reports for the Washington Post: A GoFundMe page...

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Oct 3, 2019

At Quartz, Jane Li reports on a statement released late last month by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, that anyone applying for a new mobile and data service plan will need to have their faces scanned by their telecom provider. Effective December 1, this new verification requirement is an update of longstanding real-name verification regulations for cell phone and internet platform registration, and is the latest regulation to tighten the Xi administration’s control over internet access. MIIT said the step was part of its efforts to “safeguard the legitimate rights...

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Q&A: Leta Hong Fincher on China’s Resilient Feminists

Q&A: Leta Hong Fincher on China’s Resilient Feminists

Jun 5, 2019

A former journalist, Leta Hong Fincher was the first American to receive a PhD in Sociology from Tsinghua University in Beijing. Her research there led to her first book, “Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China,” which examined rising gender inequalities in China today through the lens of economics, marriage, and the real estate market. Her widely acclaimed second book, “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China,” examines the rise of a new feminist movement in China and profiles several of the key participants, including the...

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Oct 11, 2019

As the ongoing controversy with the NBA over a team general manager’s tweet in support of Hong Kong has laid bare, foreign corporations and other entities operating in China face an increasingly erratic environment, where they cannot easily predict how their actions will impact their status in the country. For the NBA, the one tweet set off a chain of events which has threatened the franchise’s highly successful, decades-long foray into the China market. In The New York Times, Amy Qin and Julie Creswell discuss several recent cases that have put the foreign business community on...

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Two Americans Detained in China

Oct 17, 2019

Two Americans, Jacob Harlan and Alyssa Petersen, were detained in Jiangsu Province in late October, and the company they work for, China Horizons, has closed down. Harlan is the owner and Petersen is the director of the company. The group helped bring English teachers and volunteers to China, and describes itself as, “an English teaching program that offers an immersive experience within a Chinese school.” The Chinese government announced they had been detained for “illegally moving people across borders.” Anna Fifield reports for the Washington Post: A GoFundMe page...

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Is Xinjiang Inspiring Modi’s Crackdown in Indian Kashmir?

Oct 16, 2019

The ongoing crackdown by the Xi administration in the Xinjiang region has been described as an effort to “re-engineer” the Uyghur identity and as a form of “cultural genocide.” Officially launched in 2014, the steadily intensifying crackdown has mostly targeted Xinjiang’s predominately Muslim Uyghur minority, and has included limits on Islamic dress, the banning of religious customs, and the promotion of practices forbidden in Islam. The campaign has been fueled by the application of cutting edge technology—including surveillance and AI-driven profiling—culminating in a mass detention...

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As Beijing and Washington continue ratcheting up their rhetoric while keeping their eyes open for an opportunity to restart stalled trade talks, last week Fox Business News host Trish Regan and CGTN anchor Liu Xin took a Twitter debate over the ongoing trade war to the air. The two anchors squared off for 15 minutes on prime-time television, garnering attention from Chinese state censors and achieving trending status on Weibo for a debate that some commentators saw as largely falling flat. The following essay, written as a reflection on the debate and censored in China, gives an example of...

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Politics

Latest

Two Americans Detained in China

Oct 17, 2019

Two Americans, Jacob Harlan and Alyssa Petersen, were detained in Jiangsu Province in late October, and the company they work for, China Horizons, has closed down. Harlan is the owner and Petersen is the director of the company. The group helped bring English teachers and volunteers to China, and describes itself as, “an English teaching program that offers an immersive experience within a Chinese school.” The Chinese government announced they had been detained for “illegally moving people across borders.” Anna Fifield reports for the Washington Post: A GoFundMe page...

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Human Rights

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Basketball Fans in China and the U.S. Angered Over Free Speech Controversy

Oct 7, 2019

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Information Revolution

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Ideological Test to Determine Journalists’ Eligibility to Work

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Under Xi Jinping, Chinese journalists have faced tightening controls from the government, as officials have imposed ideological, political, and legal limits on their reporting while escalating online censorship and sending numerous journalists to prison. During a 2016 visit to state media offices, Xi emphasized that all official media “must work to speak for the Party’s will.” New regulations will now require journalists for state-run media to pass a test on Party ideology, the results of which will determine their eligibility to obtain a press pass and work in the media. From...

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Culture & the Arts

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Translation: Socialist Core Value Humor

Oct 10, 2019

CDT has translated a selection of Chinese political jokes that have been making the rounds on social media. These jokes all poke fun at China’s so-called core socialist values, a set of 12 words used by the CCP to promote socialism with Chinese characteristics. It consists of the words “prosperity,” “democracy,” “civility,” “harmony,” “freedom,” “equality,” “justice,” “rule of law,” “patriotism,” “dedication,” “integrity,” and “friendliness.”...

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The Great Divide

Latest
Translation: “What’s the Point of Further Discussion?”

Translation: “What’s the Point of Further Discussion?”

Jun 9, 2019

As Beijing and Washington continue ratcheting up their rhetoric while keeping their eyes open for an opportunity to restart stalled trade talks, last week Fox Business News host Trish Regan and CGTN anchor Liu Xin took a Twitter debate over the ongoing trade war to the air. The two anchors squared off for 15 minutes on prime-time television, garnering attention from Chinese state censors and achieving trending status on Weibo for a debate that some commentators saw as largely falling flat. The following essay, written as a reflection on the debate and censored in China, gives an example of...

More Stories

Sci-Tech

Latest

Is Xinjiang Inspiring Modi’s Crackdown in Indian Kashmir?

Oct 16, 2019

The ongoing crackdown by the Xi administration in the Xinjiang region has been described as an effort to “re-engineer” the Uyghur identity and as a form of “cultural genocide.” Officially launched in 2014, the steadily intensifying crackdown has mostly targeted Xinjiang’s predominately Muslim Uyghur minority, and has included limits on Islamic dress, the banning of religious customs, and the promotion of practices forbidden in Islam. The campaign has been fueled by the application of cutting edge technology—including surveillance and AI-driven profiling—culminating in a mass detention...

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Jul 5, 2019

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Protests in Hong Kong continue in their fourth month, with more than 200 arrested over the weekend as violence continued to flare. On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and two other acts that support democracy in Hong Kong, in a rare show of bipartisan support. On Monday night, protesters in Hong Kong had gathered to call on the U.S. government to support their efforts to protect the territory’s democratic rights, as The Washington Post’s Shibani Mahtani reports: The demonstration, the first approved by...

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Taiwan

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Minitrue: Find and Delete Information about Taiwanese Movie “Detention”

Sep 29, 2019

The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source. All websites: Immediately find and delete all information related to the Taiwanese movie “Detention.” (September 29, 2019) [Chinese] The recently released psychological horror movie “Detention,” based on a video game with the same name, is set in 1960s Taiwan under martial law. The new movie is apparently being targeted by Chinese censors because of its political storyline. From Josh Ye...

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