As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.”
Introducing the past year’s most resonant “sensitive words” or censorship triggers, CDT Chinese editors commented:
2025 saw the almost daily emergence of new "sensitive words" on China’s internet, from new nicknames or “skins” for Xi Jinping to workers seeking back-wages, driven to desperation; from the bold supporters of a bullied girl, to efforts to illuminate memories of the three years of China’s “zero-COVID” policies. If we string these data-points together, we can see that what the censorship system is really targeting is not the sensitive words themselves. Rather, it’s the acts and actors of resistance behind them, and whether they are visible and resonant enough to be taken up by society as an "erroneous collective memory" that counterbalances the official narrative.
In this battle over collective memory, sensitive words seem more like the sparks given off when the two sides cross swords. They don’t appear from nowhere, but from specific people and situations—from an individual deciding not to stay silent any longer, or a group of people choosing to stand up together. The authorities have enormous powers of content censorship and public-opinion mobilization, but public resistance has its own forms of resilience. Some people use everyday humor to disguise taboo topics; some persist in giving full accounts and preserving evidence. Some simply refuse to stop when told, even if the price is deleted posts, blocked accounts, or disappearance from search results. All of these behaviors carry a spirit of noncompliance and mockery of authority—just what the censors fear.
A still more important form of resilience is action: when speaking is an inadequate response to reality, people must switch to doing. Director Lou Ye made "An Unfinished Film" under immense pressure, documenting the experiences, feelings, and trauma of the three years of “zero-COVID” policies. In the Jiangyou case, a crowd of strangers united on behalf of one girl and her almost voiceless parents to demand fairness. In the Pingshan arson case, "800 Brother" [see below] quickly became an icon because the case stirred the long-suppressed sense of anger and powerlessness among the labor force, even if this kind of empathy was itself also swiftly stifled. Then there are forms of resistance characterized by aesthetics and attitude. When Ayumi Hamasaki’s concert was canceled by "force majeure," she performed to an empty arena, turning each empty seat into a kind of inverted witness, as if to say that even if you manage to clear the stage, you can’t empty it of artistic expression.
Though seemingly unrelated, these examples all point to the same human tendency. The people involved are not always organized, explicit resistors, but more often ordinary people forced to the brink by circumstances, and unwilling to back down. With wisdom and bravery, they resist erasure, turn to each other to ward off isolation, and learn new meeting points, alternative narratives, and escape routes from every deleted post or blocked account. So sensitive words are not just signs reading "off-limits," but more like trail blazes left by resistors to show that there was someone here who spoke, acted, or stood up.
This is why the authorities have such an endless array of tactics such as deleting, restricting, blocking, controlling, targeting, contaminating, and detaining. They’re not intended to "defeat" a particular sensitive word, but to cut off more intractable forces: how public memory is formed, how empathy coalesces, how solidarity spreads, and how action is imagined and re-enacted. In other words, what censorship really aims to suppress is the possibility of asserting one’s own presence. But as in the case of Ayumi Hamasaki’s crowdless concert, while "force majeure" may be able to clear the stage, it can’t stop the show.
New nicknames for Xi Jinping: i in ing / she dripping / shejumping / skipping / 羽哥 Yǔ gē, Brother Yu / 长生不老 chángshēng bùlǎo, grow old without aging / 150岁 150 suì, 150 years old / 习近逼 Xí Jìnbī, Xi Jinbi / 新加坡 Xīnjiāpō, Singapore / etc.
Xi Jinping continues to collect code names like a game avatar filling its virtual wardrobe with new “skins,” and as ever, these are among the most sensitive words of all. One of CDT’s "quotes of the year" described how a hapless patriot trying to cheer on naval exercises against Taiwan was banned for innocently posting “Xi Jinbi,” a homophone for "Xi Jin-c**t."
Verbal maneuvers by those referring to Xi included "i in ing," formed by omitting his name’s initial pinyin consonants. Even more oblique was counting the remaining letters from each syllable: "123." Other terms were derived from words that contain the consonant sounds "XJP," such as 新加坡 Xīnjiāpō, or "Singapore."
With the well of viable Chinese homophones threatening to run dry, some users turned to rather tenuous English ones like "she dripping," "shejumping," or "skipping." Graphically derived nicknames included 羽哥 Yǔ Gē or "Brother Yu," using a character comprising the doubled radical form of 习, Xi’s surname. Then there were indirect allusions, such as references to Xi’s conversation with Putin about technological life extension which was caught on a hot mic in September: 长生不老 chángshēng bùlǎo, "live on without ageing" or “immortality”; or 150岁 150suì, Xi’s guess for the lifespan that may be possible by the end of the century. (Xi would turn 147 in 2100.)
While some of these may be less entirely cryptic in context, they do highlight the longstanding issue that such heavily veiled speech can end up making itself incomprehensible to general observers.
滨崎步 Bīnqí bù, Ayumi Hamasaki / 滨崎步上海演唱会 Bīnqí Bù Shànghǎi yǎnchàng huì, Ayumi Hamasaki Shanghai Concert / 空椅子演唱会 kōng yǐzǐ yǎnchàng huì, empty chairs concert / 一个人的演唱会 yīgè rén de yǎnchàng huì, concert of one
Tensions between China and Japan sharpened in November after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi affirmed her country’s willingness to help defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese naval blockade. Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki’s scheduled concert in Shanghai on November 29 was one casualty. (Another concert, by singer Maki Otsuki, was halted mid-song.) On Instagram, Hamasaki posted a "curtain call" photo with a comment implying that the show had gone ahead: "With 14,000 empty seats but felt so much love of TAs ["Team Ayu," referring to her fans] from all over the world, it was one of the most unforgettable show ever to me. I appriciate 200 of Chinese and Japanese crew, band members, dancers who made this stage happen."
Chinese authorities insisted that what had taken place was only a rehearsal. State media publicized an online apology from a member of the videography crew who had leaked footage online and "fueled false narratives on social media, including the untrue claim that Hamasaki ‘performed an entire concert alone in an empty venue’." Conflicting claims were deleted, as were some accounts making them.
Travel was another casualty of the heightened tensions, with many Japan-bound flights canceled amid China’s official warnings that Japan is “unsafe” for Chinese visitors. One WeChat post argued that the Chinese government has a history of treating tourism as a "chamber pot": "something to be picked up when needed, and cast aside when it is not [….] Over the past decade, I have witnessed the tourism industry being used, time and again, like an on-off switch in strategic situations such as pandemic control, economic recovery, and diplomatic spats." Cultural exchanges, it appears, occupy a similarly lowly rank. Chinese social media users have suggested a range of satirical suggestions for fighting back against Takaichi, from getting Japanese citizenship and voting against her to punishing her by making her live the life of an ordinary Chinese citizen.
徐勤先 Xú Qínxiān, Xu Qinxian / 徐勤先受审 Xú Qínxiān shòushěn, Xu Qinxian standing trial / 徐勤先庭审 Xú Qínxiān tíngshěn, Xu Qinxian trial / 徐勤先抗命 Xú Qínxiān kàngmìng, Xu Qinxian refusal to follow orders
These terms were all subject to search blocks after the emergence, on November 25, of video footage from the 1990 trial of PLA General Xu Qinxian. The previous year, Xu had refused orders to lead the 38th Group Army under his command into Beijing ahead of the June Fourth crackdown. Xu argued that the protests should be resolved by political means, and that it would be impossible to implement martial law without bloodshed. He was imprisoned for five years, and remained in obscurity for many more until he was located by the Apple Daily newspaper in 2011. He died in 2021.
CDT Chinese has archived a copy of the six-hour video, and also published a 70,000-character Chinese-language transcript. Scraps of information on his decision to disobey had circulated before, drawn from interviews and other sources, but CDT Chinese editors noted that "these scattered and long-marginalized records, now mutually corroborated by courtroom images, turn Xu Qinxian’s refusal to be ‘a sinner in the eyes of history’ from a matter of rumor to one of verifiable historical fact." The fact that the topic has been rendered "invisible" on P.R.C. online platforms highlights the nature of its sensitivity: "What’s blocked is not merely a courtroom recording, but rather a historical memory incompatible with the official narrative."
江油霸凌事件 Jiāngyóu bàlíng shìjiàn, Jiangyou bullying incident / 江油事件 Jiāngyóu shìjiàn, Jiangyou incident / 江油抗议 Jiāngyóu kàngyì, Jiangyou protest / 江油示威 Jiāngyóu shìwēi, Jiangyou demonstration
On July 22, a 14-year-old girl in Jiangyou, Sichuan, was beaten in an abandoned building for several hours by three other children. Public anger was fueled by local authorities’ callous handling of the matter, and the lenient punishments given to the bullies. This anger escalated into mass protests that were suppressed with riot police and pig-transport trucks used to remove participants. The deployment of cellphone jammers did not stop footage from circulating more broadly online, where it sparked further public outrage. Ultimately, search terms were blocked, posts and videos deleted, and discussion suppressed.
CDT translated excerpts from a longform article from the "Aquarius Eras" Substack newsletter explaining why the incident aroused such intense local anger and solidarity. In their annual roundup post, CDT Chinese editors likewise examined the issue:
The crux of why this incident erupted beyond the normal bounds of "schoolyard bullying" to grow into a mass incident is that it touched on the shared experience of so many people: the weak have no recourse in the face of the system, justice is diluted by delays and official statements, and public anger is rapidly silenced under the rationale of "stability maintenance." Related Weibo trending topics were quickly deleted on August 4 and 5; hashtags such as #JiangyouBullying and #JiangyouPoliceViolence were blocked; and there were clear signs that other related discussions were being censored.
A crowd of strangers willing to stand up for a single child and her seemingly helpless parents is a form of collective action rarely seen in Chinese society today. Some praised them as the "righteous people of Sichuan," and others kept asking why an episode of school bullying grew into a mass incident. The answer, they suggested, is the pervasive mindset of "rigid governance" that favors banning speech, deleting posts, arresting people, and even resorting to violence to maintain stability.
一部未完成的电影 Yī Bù Wèi Wánchéng de Diànyǐng, “An Unfinished Film”
Director Lou Ye’s "An Unfinished Film" portrays Chinese experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic through the frame of a fictional documentary about the resumption of a long-abandoned film project that is interrupted by the Wuhan lockdown in January 2020. The film was screened at Cannes in 2024, but since gaining wider distribution this year, has struck a deep chord with many who lived through those events. Naturally, given the Party’s aggressive monopoly on defining "correct collective memory" of the pandemic, the film was not cleared for formal release within the P.R.C. Furthermore, searches for the film’s title were blocked on Chinese social media, and reviews were deleted from Douban. CDT Chinese editors commented:
Rather than treating the city’s lockdown as an abstract historical backdrop, Lou uses detailed images and characters to restore the experiences of that time to tangible, relatable, and memorable reality. […] "An Unfinished Film" touches precisely on the "pandemic memory" that the authorities will not allow to be retold or revisited. What the censors are really targeting when the public tries to discuss or recall their experiences during those three years is the very possibility that "we still remember."
八百哥 Bābái gē, Eight Hundred Brother / 800哥 Bābái gē, 800 Brother / 八爷 Bā yé, Eighth Master / 八哥 Bā gē, Eighth Brother
In May, a 27-year-old factory worker set fire to his employers’ textile plant in Sichuan, causing tens of millions of yuan in damage. Rumors quickly spread that this was the arsonist’s desperate final response to a dispute over 800 yuan (about U.S. $110-115) in unpaid wages. He became the perhaps unlikely focus of an outpouring of online sympathy and even praise, receiving titles from the familiar ("800 Brother") to the heroic ("Eighth Master”). This sense of helplessness is similar to the feelings which fueled the mass response to the Jiangyou bullying incident, and to frustration with the authorities’ "selective concern" about labor issues expressed in one of CDT’s "Quotes of the Year" for 2025. CDT Chinese editors wrote that the man’s action was "understood as an ‘eruption’ after years of the working class’s oppression and obstruction from defending their rights. Some declared that ‘800 Brother ignited the workers’ fury,’ or that ‘he burned himself to give light to others.’ The fire, they felt, ‘taught a lesson to factory bosses across the country,’ and some offered donations to his family, contributions for his legal defence, and more."
According to Radio Free Asia: "Police, however, said the claim that ‘800 yuan in wages were owed’ was false, and that the company was in the process of approving payment of 5,370 yuan in wages. It blamed the factory fire on the arsonist’s suicidal thoughts, and said police would deal strictly with those spreading rumors." Search terms including 800 Brother’s various sobriquets were blocked, and much related content deleted.
重庆反共标语 Chóngqìng fǎngòng biāoyǔ, Chongqing anti-CCP slogans / 三里屯反共标语 Sānlǐtún fǎngòng biāoyǔ, Sanlitun anti-CCP slogans
Recent years have seen a string of solitary banner or "warrior" protests across China, most famously by Peng Lifa at Beijing’s Sitong Bridge in October, 2022. Peng was reportedly sentenced to nine years in prison, but others have followed undeterred, hanging banners from bridges, holding placards in hand or, in two cases, using remotely activated projectors to display slogans on the sides of buildings. Protester Chai Song pioneered this method in February, 2023, projecting "Down with Xi Jinping! Down with the Communist Party!" onto the side of Jinan’s Wanda Plaza while already en route to the United States. In August this year, Qi Hong mounted a similar protest in Chongqing, with the slogans: “Only without the Communist Party will there be a New China"; “Freedom is not something bestowed; we must fight to reclaim it”; “Arise, those who do not wish to be slaves, and reclaim your rights”; “Down with Red fascism and Communist Party tyranny”; “We want truth, not lies; we want freedom, not slavery”; and “The tyrannical Communist Party must step down.” Qi is now in the United Kingdom, and discussed his protest on an episode of the Bumingbai Podcast.
Another protest reportedly occurred on October 25: a photograph circulating online showed a man wielding a megaphone while displaying banners hung from a walkway at a high-end mall in Beijing’s Sanlitun neighborhood: “The Communist Party is essentially an anti-human cult. They will inevitably bring endless disasters to China,” and “Lift the ban on political parties; allow free formation of political parties, free competition, and free choice; and establish a new China that is free, humane, and governed by rule of law.” Another photograph showed the man apparently being escorted away from the scene. His identity and current whereabouts are unknown. The following combinations were censored on Weibo in the wake of the incident: "Sanlitun + lift the ban on political parties", "Sanlitun + protest", "Sanlitun + warrior", "Fourth Plenum + Sanlitun", and "Teacher Li is not your teacher + Sanlitun" (referring to the Italy-based microblogger Li Ying, who has been a key channel of information on this and other protests). Several of these were also blocked on various Baidu platforms, along with "Sitong Bridge + Sanlitun", "cult + Sanlitun", and "anti-human + Sanlitun". Other banner protests took place this year in Chengdu, Kunming, and Suzhou.
黎智英 Lí Zhìyīng, Jimmy Lai / 黎智英庭审 Lí Zhìyīng tíngshěn, Jimmy Lai trial / 黎智英国安案 Lí Zhìyīng guó’ān àn, Jimmy Lai national security case
Jimmy Lai, the founder of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper, was found guilty on December 15 of one count of conspiracy to publish seditious publications and two counts of conspiracy to foreign collusion. He is now awaiting sentencing in what his daughter describes as severely deteriorating health. Outside the courts, Lai has faced spurious accusations of encouraging the United States to use nuclear weapons against China. A profile in The Guardian last month argued that his trajectory, from 12-year-old stowaway to media tycoon to political prisoner, "mirrored that of Hong Kong itself."
CDT Chinese found that some related search results were blocked, online discussion was restricted, and only statements aligned with the official position were displayed. As our editors wrote:
In the wake of the verdict, a flood of government statements reinforced the official line. From Beijing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun welcomed the outcome, saying that Hong Kong judicial authorities had acted "fairly, reasonably, and lawfully, without bowing to outside interference." He also denounced the "brazen slanders and smears" of "certain countries" that had criticized Hong Kong’s judiciary. On the Hong Kong side, Chief Executive John Lee and numerous government department heads and senior disciplinary officials issued a stream of statements in support of the court’s ruling, insistently framing it as "safeguarding national security" and "due punishment in accordance with the law." The intense endorsement and coordinated language provided a real-time case study of official attempts to instruct the public in "how to correctly understand this case."
Roughly coinciding with the announcement of the verdict, there was a concerted attempt to shape the orientation of public opinion. You could search for "Jimmy Lai" on mainland social media, but essentially all the results were from official media or official statements. The dominant voices criticized Lai for "opposing China and destabilizing Hong Kong," and supported the verdict, while there were clear restrictions on other perspectives. Information was not yet completely erased, but rather channeled toward a single narrative: you were allowed to see, but only from one angle.
The tidal wave of declarations and unified speech from senior Hong Kong officials reflected the rapid “mainlandization” of Hong Kong’s official culture. When a major political case arises, there’s no longer any diversity of opinion, but only a political ritual of promptly falling into line and voicing unanimous support. And underlying this ritual is the sweeping redefinition of Hong Kong’s political ecology.
