In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, which used the lens of home ownership and marital property rights to examine...
Current affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang has had his Weibo account banned for reporting Hu Xijin, a nationalist blogger and retired editor-in-chief of the Global Times, for using a VPN to circumvent...
In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist...
Mao Anying, Mao Zedong’s son, was killed by American bombers on November 25, 1950 while fighting...
In the latest installment in our interview series focusing on Tibet, we talk to Tenzin Norgay, a...
The over-reliance on technology by many government departments is lazy governance. As technology displaces concrete administrative work, the functioning of these departments becomes completely reliant on third parties [who provide the technology], making local officials into puppets."
— From “Bureaucratic Formalism Has Made It Impossible for Local Cadres to Get Anything Done,” an essay by Lu Dewen, a Wuhan University sociologist whose research focuses on rural governance
In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, which used the lens of home ownership and marital property rights to examine women’s rights in China and the broader social, political, and economic factors that have prevented Chinese women from achieving full equality. Hong Fincher interviewed hundreds of women, many of whom shared deep unease and fear about entering into a marriage and giving birth under such a fundamentally unequal system. Since the book was published, both marriage and childbirth rates have plummeted in...
Current affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang has had his Weibo account banned for reporting Hu Xijin, a...
In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist...
Mao Anying, Mao Zedong’s son, was killed by American bombers on November 25, 1950 while fighting...
In the latest installment in our interview series focusing on Tibet, we talk to Tenzin Norgay, a...
In this poetic essay, first published in Matters, author Lola muses on the various types of walls...
Expectations were low going into this week’s meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping on the side of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco. Since their last meeting in Bali one year ago, bilateral relations have deteriorated to the lowest point in decades and risk spilling over into conflict. That both leaders finally agreed to talk in person was seen by many as a positive step in itself, albeit the bare minimum responsibility for the world’s two superpowers. The encounter has provided a delicate foundation for rebuilding trust and pursuing...
This week, Xi Jinping is visiting San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)...
The Chinese government’s position on the Israel-Hamas war has evolved from non-committal to...
Early on Friday morning, former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang passed away at the age of 68. According...
Correction: This article has been expanded to include several paragraphs that were inadvertently...
At Global Voices, Oiwan Lam presents translated highlights from a recent 37-minute conversation...
In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, which used the lens of home ownership and marital property rights to examine women’s rights in China and the broader social, political, and economic factors that have prevented Chinese women from achieving full equality. Hong Fincher interviewed hundreds of women, many of whom shared deep unease and fear about entering into a marriage and giving birth under such a fundamentally unequal system. Since the book was published, both marriage and childbirth rates have plummeted in...
In the latest installment in our interview series focusing on Tibet, we talk to Tenzin Norgay, a...
On November 5, 2023, the Double Exposure Film Festival in Washington, D.C. screened the U.S....
The Chinese government’s position on the Israel-Hamas war has evolved from non-committal to...
In December 2021, Tibet Action Institute (TAI) issued a report “Separated from Their Families,...
In the current repressive environment, how do Tibetans in Tibet hold onto their cultural identity?...
Current affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang has had his Weibo account banned for reporting Hu Xijin, a nationalist blogger and retired editor-in-chief of the Global Times, for using a VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Hu Xijin has long been known for his “wolf-warrior-style” rhetoric on social media, including on overseas platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) that are blocked in mainland China and require a VPN to access. The drama began on November 24, with a video released by the People’s Court of Wenchuan county, in Sichuan province, sternly warning Chinese internet users:...
In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist...
In this poetic essay, first published in Matters, author Lola muses on the various types of walls...
As Chinese state media tone down their anti-U.S. rhetoric and promote the Weibo hashtag #感受中美民意暖流#...
A fawning Xinhua article on Xi Jinping’s concern for citizens affected by natural disasters has...
A brief, fiery essay excoriating totalitarianism has been censored on WeChat, and appears to have...
In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, which used the lens of home ownership and marital property rights to examine women’s rights in China and the broader social, political, and economic factors that have prevented Chinese women from achieving full equality. Hong Fincher interviewed hundreds of women, many of whom shared deep unease and fear about entering into a marriage and giving birth under such a fundamentally unequal system. Since the book was published, both marriage and childbirth rates have plummeted in...
In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist...
Mao Anying, Mao Zedong’s son, was killed by American bombers on November 25, 1950 while fighting...
In the latest installment in our interview series focusing on Tibet, we talk to Tenzin Norgay, a...
Expectations were low going into this week’s meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping on the...
As Chinese state media tone down their anti-U.S. rhetoric and promote the Weibo hashtag #感受中美民意暖流#...
A new draft patriotic education law submitted last week to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee is spurring spirited online debate. Broad in scope, the draft law includes provisions for the role of Chinese media outlets and online platforms in promoting patriotic education; punishments for various behaviors deemed insulting or unpatriotic; and guidelines for expanding patriotic education in Hong Kong, Macao, self-governing Taiwan, and even overseas Chinese communities further afield. While the draft law emphasizes “promoting the spirit of patriotism,” the broader...
In the latest example of shrinking space for free expression in Hong Kong, authorities there have...
Sunday marked the 34th anniversary of the 1989 June 4th crackdown. In Hong Kong, in a stark sign...
Local media outlets in Hong Kong report that hundreds of books on political topics including the...
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....
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...
In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, which used the lens of home ownership and marital property rights to examine women’s rights in China and the broader social, political, and economic factors that have prevented Chinese women from achieving full equality. Hong Fincher interviewed hundreds of women, many of whom shared deep unease and fear about entering into a marriage and giving birth under such a fundamentally unequal system. Since the book was published, both marriage and childbirth rates have plummeted in...
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...
China’s soft power initiatives are often derided by Western observers as ineffective or...
Expectations were low going into this week’s meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping on the side of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco. Since their last meeting in Bali one year ago, bilateral relations have deteriorated to the lowest point in decades and risk spilling over into conflict. That both leaders finally agreed to talk in person was seen by many as a positive step in itself, albeit the bare minimum responsibility for the world’s two superpowers. The encounter has provided a delicate foundation for rebuilding trust and pursuing...
A recent comment by Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of China’s National Bureau of Statistics,...
While Western leaders rushed to Israel as a bloody war between Israel and Hamas threatens to...
The censorship of a WeChat article about gender- and age-based employment discrimination against...
This week, China hosts its third Belt and Road Summit to mark ten years since the launch of the...
After 200 days, the long-running “Arctic Catfish” scandal has reached a conclusion, dissatisfying...
In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, which used the lens of home ownership and marital property rights to examine women’s rights in China and the broader social, political, and economic factors that have prevented Chinese women from achieving full equality. Hong Fincher interviewed hundreds of women, many of whom shared deep unease and fear about entering into a marriage and giving birth under such a fundamentally unequal system. Since the book was published, both marriage and childbirth rates have plummeted in...
Current affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang has had his Weibo account banned for reporting Hu Xijin, a...
In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist...
Mao Anying, Mao Zedong’s son, was killed by American bombers on November 25, 1950 while fighting...
In the latest installment in our interview series focusing on Tibet, we talk to Tenzin Norgay, a...
In this poetic essay, first published in Matters, author Lola muses on the various types of walls...
Current affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang has had his Weibo account banned for reporting Hu Xijin, a nationalist blogger and retired editor-in-chief of the Global Times, for using a VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Hu Xijin has long been known for his “wolf-warrior-style” rhetoric on social media, including on overseas platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) that are blocked in mainland China and require a VPN to access. The drama began on November 24, with a video released by the People’s Court of Wenchuan county, in Sichuan province, sternly warning Chinese internet users:...
In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist...
In this poetic essay, first published in Matters, author Lola muses on the various types of walls...
At Global Voices, Oiwan Lam presents translated highlights from a recent 37-minute conversation...
A Weibo user who works as a computer programmer in Chengde, Hebei province, has reported that he...
In July, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s powerful internet regulator,...
Current affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang has had his Weibo account banned for reporting Hu Xijin, a nationalist blogger and retired editor-in-chief of the Global Times, for using a VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Hu Xijin has long been known for his “wolf-warrior-style” rhetoric on social media, including on overseas platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) that are blocked in mainland China and require a VPN to access. The drama began on November 24, with a video released by the People’s Court of Wenchuan county, in Sichuan province, sternly warning Chinese internet users:...
In a darkly ironic but all too familiar twist, WeChat censored an essay explaining that there is...
On November 5, 2023, the Double Exposure Film Festival in Washington, D.C. screened the U.S....
The censorship of a WeChat article about gender- and age-based employment discrimination against...
In the span of a week, court cases targeting individuals from a variety of backgrounds have...
A Weibo user who works as a computer programmer in Chengde, Hebei province, has reported that he...
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...
In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, which used the lens of home ownership and marital property rights to examine women’s rights in China and the broader social, political, and economic factors that have prevented Chinese women from achieving full equality. Hong Fincher interviewed hundreds of women, many of whom shared deep unease and fear about entering into a marriage and giving birth under such a fundamentally unequal system. Since the book was published, both marriage and childbirth rates have plummeted in...
In the latest installment in our interview series focusing on Tibet, we talk to Tenzin Norgay, a...
On November 5, 2023, the Double Exposure Film Festival in Washington, D.C. screened the U.S....
In online slang, “rushing the tower” (冲塔 chōngtǎ) means posting politically sensitive commentary knowing full well that it will be censored, with potentially worse consequences ranging from account deletion to detention. The term is borrowed from the language of multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video games. A recent post from the WeChat account @冲破黎明前的黑暗 (Chōngpò límíng qián de hēi’àn, “Breach the darkness before dawn,” in English) is an illustrative example of the genre. In an essay titled “Arise, Ye Bloggers Who Refuse to be Slaves!” (a reference to the first line of...
Hangzhou’s Center for the Practice of Whole-Process People’s Democracy has become the butt of...
Halloween celebrations in Shanghai doubled as an outlet for mild political “gags,” spooking...
Chinese state media has announced that the late former Premier Li Keqiang, who died in Shanghai last Friday of a sudden heart attack, will be cremated in Beijing on Thursday, November 2. He will not be given a state funeral, but flags will be flown at half-mast at Tiananmen Square, the Great Hall of the People, the Chinese foreign ministry, seats of local governments across the country, and overseas diplomatic missions. Li, who retired last fall, was largely overshadowed and politically sidelined by Xi Jinping while in office, yet his death has sparked an outpouring of emotional online and...
The death of Li Keqiang has dominated discussion on the Chinese internet. Censors have tightly...
The following censorship instructions, issued by government authorities, have been leaked and...
The recent escalation of Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza has incited fierce reactions around the world and put Beijing in an uncomfortable position. The latest figures show that at least 1,300 Israelis were killed by Hamas’ terrorist attack on Saturday, and at least 1,400 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli government’s retaliatory strikes, while over 338,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced. While China attempts to maintain positive relations with both Israel and Palestine (and their respective allies), its official response to the crisis garnered criticism for its non-committal...
A skit reenacting former Japanese President Shinzo Abe’s assassination—staged during a high school...
China-Kenya relations have weathered a tumultuous year. Anti-China protests, Chinese hacking...
Current affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang has had his Weibo account banned for reporting Hu Xijin, a nationalist blogger and retired editor-in-chief of the Global Times, for using a VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Hu Xijin has long been known for his “wolf-warrior-style” rhetoric on social media, including on overseas platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) that are blocked in mainland China and require a VPN to access. The drama began on November 24, with a video released by the People’s Court of Wenchuan county, in Sichuan province, sternly warning Chinese internet users:...
In a darkly ironic but all too familiar twist, WeChat censored an essay explaining that there is...
On November 5, 2023, the Double Exposure Film Festival in Washington, D.C. screened the U.S....
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...
Mao Anying, Mao Zedong’s son, was killed by American bombers on November 25, 1950 while fighting in the Korean War. A persistent, unfounded, rumor (officially tagged as “historically nihilist”) holds that the younger Mao gave away his position by making egg fried rice on the battlefield. In some corners of the Chinese internet, November 25 is celebrated as a “Chinese Thanksgiving” that saved the People’s Republic of China from turning into a hereditary dictatorship in the mode of North Korea. (American Thanksgiving, unlike other imported holidays such as Halloween or Christmas, is not widely...
In the latest installment in our interview series focusing on Tibet, we talk to Tenzin Norgay, a...
In this poetic essay, first published in Matters, author Lola muses on the various types of walls...
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...
Current affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang has had his Weibo account banned for reporting Hu Xijin, a nationalist blogger and retired editor-in-chief of the Global Times, for using a VPN to circumvent the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Hu Xijin has long been known for his “wolf-warrior-style” rhetoric on social media, including on overseas platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) that are blocked in mainland China and require a VPN to access. The drama began on November 24, with a video released by the People’s Court of Wenchuan county, in Sichuan province, sternly warning Chinese internet users:...
In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist...
In this poetic essay, first published in Matters, author Lola muses on the various types of walls...
As an extreme heat wave across Earth’s northern hemisphere fuels record-breaking temperatures in China, Europe, and North America, U.S. special envoy for climate change John Kerry is visiting Beijing this week for high-level discussions on climate-change issues. The resumption of dialogue that had stalled due to geopolitical tensions between the world’s two largest greenhouse-gas emitters is a positive sign, but substantive policy agreements are urgently needed to meet global climate goals and avoid existential catastrophe. At Sixth Tone, Ding Rui summarized the record-breaking heat wave...
At the halfway point of the COP27 international climate-change summit, there are encouraging signs...
A massive, months-long heat wave has scorched regions in central China. Intense droughts and...
A new draft patriotic education law submitted last week to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee is spurring spirited online debate. Broad in scope, the draft law includes provisions for the role of Chinese media outlets and online platforms in promoting patriotic education; punishments for various behaviors deemed insulting or unpatriotic; and guidelines for expanding patriotic education in Hong Kong, Macao, self-governing Taiwan, and even overseas Chinese communities further afield. While the draft law emphasizes “promoting the spirit of patriotism,” the broader...
In the latest example of shrinking space for free expression in Hong Kong, authorities there have...
Sunday marked the 34th anniversary of the 1989 June 4th crackdown. In Hong Kong, in a stark sign...
A new draft patriotic education law submitted last week to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee is spurring spirited online debate. Broad in scope, the draft law includes provisions for the role of Chinese media outlets and online platforms in promoting patriotic education; punishments for various behaviors deemed insulting or unpatriotic; and guidelines for expanding patriotic education in Hong Kong, Macao, self-governing Taiwan, and even overseas Chinese communities further afield. While the draft law emphasizes “promoting the spirit of patriotism,” the broader...
U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping met on Monday in Bali for their...
Over the past two weeks, the Biden administration has issued a series of regulations intended to...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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