Chinese internet users are taking issue with a recent announcement that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and Ministry of Education are trying to standardize online speech by cracking down on the use of...
In a remarkable interview, a censor for one of China’s biggest search engines described what gets deleted from the Chinese internet and how—as well as their perspective on the morality of their work. The...
The latest draconian decree issued by the Taliban on Monday was a gradual media ban on all images...
Two years after Peng Lifa’s courageous one-man protest on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge against Xi...
International media coverage of China’s territorial disputes often focuses on India, Taiwan, and...
Critics should aim their barbs at the source of the problem, not at workers like us, who are just carrying out orders. Cogs in the machine are replaceable—if it weren’t us, they’d just find someone else to do the work."
— From an interview with a Gen-Z online censor about the nature of his work and how he feels about it. He explains that he does this sort of work just to make a living and survive: "The problem isn’t the job; it’s the people who created this job."
Chinese internet users are taking issue with a recent announcement that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and Ministry of Education are trying to standardize online speech by cracking down on the use of “irregular and uncivilized language and text” appearing on the homepages, trending search lists, and suggested content sections of major online platforms. Such verboten speech includes variant or homophonic Chinese characters, abbreviations, online slang, “bad” memes, and phrases whose meaning seems obscure. An October 11 Weibo post from The Paper (a digital...
In a remarkable interview, a censor for one of China’s biggest search engines described what...
Ren Xinyi, the daughter of Ren Zhiqiang—a 73-year-old former real-estate magnate currently serving...
An October 8 stabbing outside an elementary school in Guangzhou, in which two nine-year-old...
WeChat has censored an article on a trending question on Douyin: “Why are jails packed this year?”...
Chinese netizens and bloggers have responded to two recent fatal stabbings—one at home and one...
China’s investments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are increasingly moving away from large infrastructure projects backed by massive state lending and towards smaller projects in electric vehicles and high-tech projects led by Chinese companies. But massive projects in the extractive industries remain a cornerstone of China’s relationship with the region: China now purchases 34 percent of LAC’s mineral exports, accounting for about half of the global trade in unprocessed lithium carbonate and copper ores. These projects continue to take a toll on local residents, particularly in...
Leaders of southeast Asian countries gathered in Laos this week for the annual ASEAN summit and...
Three years after the Chinese government’s cautiously supportive stance toward the Taliban’s...
Several recent reports and articles highlight the experience of those in China who seek to leave...
In a two-part podcast interview with The Economist’s Drum Tower, former Canadian diplomat...
In what is becoming an increasingly regular occurrence, a militant group carried out a deadly...
Two years after Peng Lifa’s courageous one-man protest on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge against Xi Jinping and the CCP’s autocratic rule, his whereabouts are still unknown, although it is widely presumed that he remains under detention. During his October 13, 2022 protest, Peng shouted slogans through a megaphone and hung two banners from Sitong Bridge that read: “We want food, not COVID tests; reform, not Cultural Revolution. We want freedom, not lockdowns; elections, not rulers. We want dignity, not lies. Be citizens, not slaves;” and “Boycott classes. Boycott work. Depose the traitorous despot...
China’s investments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are increasingly moving away from...
Ren Xinyi, the daughter of Ren Zhiqiang—a 73-year-old former real-estate magnate currently serving...
In a two-part podcast interview with The Economist’s Drum Tower, former Canadian diplomat...
New research documents the repressive effects of Hong Kong’s national security laws. This week,...
In the face of growing government repression, many residents of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and various...
Chinese internet users are taking issue with a recent announcement that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and Ministry of Education are trying to standardize online speech by cracking down on the use of “irregular and uncivilized language and text” appearing on the homepages, trending search lists, and suggested content sections of major online platforms. Such verboten speech includes variant or homophonic Chinese characters, abbreviations, online slang, “bad” memes, and phrases whose meaning seems obscure. An October 11 Weibo post from The Paper (a digital...
In a remarkable interview, a censor for one of China’s biggest search engines described what...
Ren Xinyi, the daughter of Ren Zhiqiang—a 73-year-old former real-estate magnate currently serving...
An October 8 stabbing outside an elementary school in Guangzhou, in which two nine-year-old...
WeChat has censored an article on a trending question on Douyin: “Why are jails packed this year?”...
Chinese netizens and bloggers have responded to two recent fatal stabbings—one at home and one...
Chinese internet users are taking issue with a recent announcement that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and Ministry of Education are trying to standardize online speech by cracking down on the use of “irregular and uncivilized language and text” appearing on the homepages, trending search lists, and suggested content sections of major online platforms. Such verboten speech includes variant or homophonic Chinese characters, abbreviations, online slang, “bad” memes, and phrases whose meaning seems obscure. An October 11 Weibo post from The Paper (a digital...
In a remarkable interview, a censor for one of China’s biggest search engines described what...
Two years after Peng Lifa’s courageous one-man protest on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge against Xi...
Leaders of southeast Asian countries gathered in Laos this week for the annual ASEAN summit and...
Ren Xinyi, the daughter of Ren Zhiqiang—a 73-year-old former real-estate magnate currently serving...
Several recent reports and articles highlight the experience of those in China who seek to leave...
The People’s Republic of China celebrated its 75th anniversary on Tuesday, October 1. The anniversary is both political spectacle and the advent of a week-long holiday marked by decidedly apolitical leisure travel. On the eve of the anniversary, Xi Jinping delivered a speech in front of 3,000 guests, both foreign and domestic, in the Great Hall of the People. At The Guardian, Helen Davidson wrote about the relatively muted political celebrations in Beijing: “The road ahead will not be smooth, there will definitely be difficulties and obstacles, and we may encounter major tests such as...
New research documents the repressive effects of Hong Kong’s national security laws. This week,...
In the face of growing government repression, many residents of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and various...
The first sentencing under Hong Kong’s new Article 23 national security law (officially called the...
Uyghur villages have been Sinicized in Xinjiang. Local communities have been displaced for...
The work environment for journalists in Hong Kong continues to deteriorate. Last month, Stand News...
A recent WeChat post reveals that some Chinese schools and universities are using special software to identify and punish students who “scale the wall”—that is, circumvent China’s Great Firewall (GFW) to access overseas websites and portals. The post begins with a not-very-convincing exchange of WeChat messages between three students—identified as “student A,” “student B,” and “student C,” respectively—discussing their university’s use of the ABT Online Behavior Management System (安博通上网行为管理, Ānbótōng shàngwǎng xíngwéi guǎnlǐ) to identify and punish fellow students who circumvented the GFW to...
In the two weeks since the Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration of China...
A pair of recently surfaced screenshots appear to offer unusual detail about a special month-long...
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 September 12, 2003, John Battelle published the first post on chinadigitaltimes.net: Here’s what a Google Search on “china weblog” yields, I’m looking forward to seeing ours at the top soon! China’s online population at the start of that year was nearly 60 million. Ten years later, it was fast approaching 600 million, and now, after 20, it is well over a billion. This new completely revised and hugely expanded update to our ebook series, formerly known as “the Grass Mud Horse Lexicon,” aims to capture something of the enormous explosion of online speech that accompanied this growth, with...
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...
Evidence of human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang has...
Three years after the Chinese government’s cautiously supportive stance toward the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan led to Chinese netizens blasting their government for being “Taliban in spirit,” China has maintained its friendly relationship with the Taliban, and numerous diplomatic and investment deals demonstrate their growing cooperation. While most other countries have criticized the Taliban’s severe suppression of women’s most basic human rights, China has used its leverage to instead legitimize the new de-facto government. Several recent articles discuss how Beijing’s priorities lie...
In what is becoming an increasingly regular occurrence, a militant group carried out a deadly...
WeChat has censored an article on a trending question on Douyin: “Why are jails packed this year?”...
The European Union is the latest actor to impose punitive tariffs against Chinese electric...
Anura Kumara Dissanayake was sworn in on Monday as the new president of Sri Lanka after the...
German auto manufacturer Volkswagen (VW) has courted controversy for maintaining a business...
Chinese internet users are taking issue with a recent announcement that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and Ministry of Education are trying to standardize online speech by cracking down on the use of “irregular and uncivilized language and text” appearing on the homepages, trending search lists, and suggested content sections of major online platforms. Such verboten speech includes variant or homophonic Chinese characters, abbreviations, online slang, “bad” memes, and phrases whose meaning seems obscure. An October 11 Weibo post from The Paper (a digital...
In a remarkable interview, a censor for one of China’s biggest search engines described what...
Two years after Peng Lifa’s courageous one-man protest on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge against Xi...
China’s investments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are increasingly moving away from...
An October 8 stabbing outside an elementary school in Guangzhou, in which two nine-year-old...
Several recent reports and articles highlight the experience of those in China who seek to leave...
Chinese internet users are taking issue with a recent announcement that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and Ministry of Education are trying to standardize online speech by cracking down on the use of “irregular and uncivilized language and text” appearing on the homepages, trending search lists, and suggested content sections of major online platforms. Such verboten speech includes variant or homophonic Chinese characters, abbreviations, online slang, “bad” memes, and phrases whose meaning seems obscure. An October 11 Weibo post from The Paper (a digital...
To mark the tenth anniversary on Monday of his sentencing to life in prison, Marie Holzman writes...
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Commerce proposed rules to ban Chinese technology from...
A recent WeChat post reveals that some Chinese schools and universities are using special software...
The plight of China’s delivery drivers is front-of-mind for the Chinese public. In August, CDT...
China dominates the global electric vehicle (EV) industry. Last year, China accounted for...
Two years after Peng Lifa’s courageous one-man protest on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge against Xi Jinping and the CCP’s autocratic rule, his whereabouts are still unknown, although it is widely presumed that he remains under detention. During his October 13, 2022 protest, Peng shouted slogans through a megaphone and hung two banners from Sitong Bridge that read: “We want food, not COVID tests; reform, not Cultural Revolution. We want freedom, not lockdowns; elections, not rulers. We want dignity, not lies. Be citizens, not slaves;” and “Boycott classes. Boycott work. Depose the traitorous despot...
Ren Xinyi, the daughter of Ren Zhiqiang—a 73-year-old former real-estate magnate currently serving...
In a two-part podcast interview with The Economist’s Drum Tower, former Canadian diplomat...
Chinese netizens and bloggers have responded to two recent fatal stabbings—one at home and one...
A local cadre from the northern province of Heilongjiang was recently expelled from the Chinese...
Yesterday, police in Xi’an announced the arrest of a 33-year-old woman for rumor mongering. Her...
On March 16, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that the Chinese economy was off to a good start in 2024, with reported 5.3% year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter of the year. The better-than-expected data was touted by various Chinese state media outlets online, although many of those news posts had comment filtering enabled, perhaps in anticipation of negative or skeptical reactions from social media users. Two items in particular seemed to strike netizens as overly optimistic: the reported “nationwide average per-capita disposable income” figure of 11,539 yuan...
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...
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...
Two years after Peng Lifa’s courageous one-man protest on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge against Xi Jinping and the CCP’s autocratic rule, his whereabouts are still unknown, although it is widely presumed that he remains under detention. During his October 13, 2022 protest, Peng shouted slogans through a megaphone and hung two banners from Sitong Bridge that read: “We want food, not COVID tests; reform, not Cultural Revolution. We want freedom, not lockdowns; elections, not rulers. We want dignity, not lies. Be citizens, not slaves;” and “Boycott classes. Boycott work. Depose the traitorous despot...
China’s investments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are increasingly moving away from...
Ren Xinyi, the daughter of Ren Zhiqiang—a 73-year-old former real-estate magnate currently serving...
This week, Israel invaded southern Lebanon and continued airstrikes on Beirut, while Iran launched direct missile strikes against Israel. Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 1,100 people over the past two weeks and displaced over 1.2 million residents, prompting the Chinese government to evacuate over 200 Chinese citizens and their family members from Lebanon, including three Hongkongers. Zhao Ziwen from the South China Morning Post provided more details: “On [Tuesday], 146 Chinese citizens in Lebanon and five of their foreign family members arrived safely in Beijing,” the...
Amid state-media silence and Chinese Foreign Ministry insistence that two fatal anti-Japanese...
Chinese human rights website Weiquanwang has reported that lawyer-turned-citizen journalist Zhang...
While China’s athletes won glory in Paris at this year’s Olympics and Paralympics, there was widespread agreement on Chinese social media that the country’s reporters did not. Bloggers and athletes alike rolled their eyes at the inanity of the Chinese press corps’ questions to competitors. One particular flashpoint was a comment by Nanfang Daily’s Zhu Xiaolong, who questioned 17-year-old diving gold-medalist Quan Hongchan’s educational level and emotional maturity during a livestream. But the storm over Zhu’s comments was a microcosm of broader discussion about the...
Wednesday’s fatal stabbing of a Japanese fifth-grader as he walked to his school in the southern...
A 10-year-old Japanese boy was stabbed on his way to school in Shenzhen on Wednesday, September...
The latest draconian decree issued by the Taliban on Monday was a gradual media ban on all images of living things in news coverage. Repression of the media and civil rights may be even harsher under the Taliban than under the CCP, but there has recently been a growing exchange of ideas between Chinese and Afghan media and officials that sheds light on deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan and their relation to China. This week, the WeChat official account “正面连接” published a 10,000-word series of letters from an Afghan woman named Khadija Haidary who described life under the Taliban....
International media coverage of China’s territorial disputes often focuses on India, Taiwan, and...
Whether in Hong Kong or Europe, museums that showcase exhibitions related to China sometimes...
Two years after Peng Lifa’s courageous one-man protest on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge against Xi Jinping and the CCP’s autocratic rule, his whereabouts are still unknown, although it is widely presumed that he remains under detention. During his October 13, 2022 protest, Peng shouted slogans through a megaphone and hung two banners from Sitong Bridge that read: “We want food, not COVID tests; reform, not Cultural Revolution. We want freedom, not lockdowns; elections, not rulers. We want dignity, not lies. Be citizens, not slaves;” and “Boycott classes. Boycott work. Depose the traitorous despot...
Ren Xinyi, the daughter of Ren Zhiqiang—a 73-year-old former real-estate magnate currently serving...
In a two-part podcast interview with The Economist’s Drum Tower, former Canadian diplomat...
On Thursday, the Canadian government announced that it will ban Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE from its 5G networks. The move comes as the Biden administration debates imposing further sanctions on Hikvision, a Chinese surveillance camera company, for supplying and operating equipment in Xinjiang mass detention camps. Both of these developments bring renewed attention to the role of Chinese technology companies in problematic surveillance activities and the role of sanctions in combating their alleged abuses. Catharine Tunney and Richard Raycraft from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation...
On Monday of last week, Malaysian musician Namewee (Wee Meng Chee, 黃明志) learned that his YouTube...
A group of students under the impression they had discovered a WeChat “bug” that hides the phrase...
Several recent reports and articles highlight the experience of those in China who seek to leave the country in search of better opportunities or greater freedom abroad. On Wednesday, the Pew Research Center published a report detailing why Asian immigrants come to the U.S. and how they view life in the States. According to survey results, 75 percent of Chinese immigrants cited the absence of state censorship as a benefit of life in the U.S. versus China, and 71 percent said that conditions for raising children were better in the U.S. than in China. In a piece published on Tuesday titled...
The People’s Republic of China celebrated its 75th anniversary on Tuesday, October 1. The...
Whether in Hong Kong or Europe, museums that showcase exhibitions related to China sometimes...
On March 16, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that the Chinese economy was off to a good start in 2024, with reported 5.3% year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter of the year. The better-than-expected data was touted by various Chinese state media outlets online, although many of those news posts had comment filtering enabled, perhaps in anticipation of negative or skeptical reactions from social media users. Two items in particular seemed to strike netizens as overly optimistic: the reported “nationwide average per-capita disposable income” figure of 11,539 yuan...
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...
Chinese internet users are taking issue with a recent announcement that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and Ministry of Education are trying to standardize online speech by cracking down on the use of “irregular and uncivilized language and text” appearing on the homepages, trending search lists, and suggested content sections of major online platforms. Such verboten speech includes variant or homophonic Chinese characters, abbreviations, online slang, “bad” memes, and phrases whose meaning seems obscure. An October 11 Weibo post from The Paper (a digital...
To mark the tenth anniversary on Monday of his sentencing to life in prison, Marie Holzman writes...
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Commerce proposed rules to ban Chinese technology from...
Two research reports published this week underscore how authorities in Tibet have displaced local communities to impose state-sponsored projects, undermining environmental protection and human rights. The collaborative research network Turquoise Roof published the first report, “Occupying Tibet’s rivers: China’s hydropower ‘battlefield’ in Tibet.” The report details how violent paramilitary reprisals have stifled protests against the construction of the planned Kamtok hydropower dam along the Drichu (Yangtze) river, threatening the displacement of villages and Buddhist monasteries: The...
At a recent summit in Ethiopia, the African Union (AU) decided to approve a 15-year continent-wide...
This week in Dubai, after two weeks of negotiations among representatives from almost 200...
The People’s Republic of China celebrated its 75th anniversary on Tuesday, October 1. The anniversary is both political spectacle and the advent of a week-long holiday marked by decidedly apolitical leisure travel. On the eve of the anniversary, Xi Jinping delivered a speech in front of 3,000 guests, both foreign and domestic, in the Great Hall of the People. At The Guardian, Helen Davidson wrote about the relatively muted political celebrations in Beijing: “The road ahead will not be smooth, there will definitely be difficulties and obstacles, and we may encounter major tests such as...
New research documents the repressive effects of Hong Kong’s national security laws. This week,...
In the face of growing government repression, many residents of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and various...
While the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre was massively censored within mainland China and Hong Kong, people elsewhere around the world made tributes in order to highlight the incident and reflect on its significance in the present era. The Hongkonger compiled an inexhaustive list of commemorative events that took place in 18 cities across four continents. The Hong Kong Free Press reported on commemorations in Canada and the U.K., among other countries: On June 4, over 300 people joined an assembly in front of the Chinese Embassy in Britain to share and hear memories of the...
On Monday, May 20, Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party was inaugurated the president...
Over a whirlwind two weeks of diplomacy in Beijing, China has sought to strengthen its ties to...
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