Last week, Weibo censors took down a post by a popular food blogger describing how all her bank accounts were frozen due to a local police department’s arbitrary and unprofessional “anti-fraud” case work. Her Kafka-esque account...
China’s hottest television show, HunanTV’s “Singer 2024,” has inspired nationalist angst after two foreign contestants took first and second place—easily besting a field that included legendary Chinese pop star Na Ying. The show...
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous...
As the Chinese economy continues to recover from the long pandemic (and post-pandemic) slowdown,...
Last week’s collapse of a stretch of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway in Guangdong province, after a period of heavy rains and extreme weather, killed at least 48 motorists and injured 30. Despite the high number of casualties and...
Students from at least 174 colleges and universities across six continents have erected encampments in solidarity with Palestine. Their movement has sprouted over the past few weeks, as many administrators have rejected student...
On Chinese social media, the phrase “weak spot” (软肋, ruǎn lèi) is often used metaphorically to refer to family members—particularly children—used as leverage by public security, state security, or government authorities to...
In recent weeks, residents of the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu have been posting screenshots of their natural gas bills online and complaining of mysterious gas consumption spikes since the installation of new “smart” gas...
Today’s CDT Quote of the Day is a response to the recent tide of online public discussion about the new “adjusted leave” (调休, tiáoxiū) holiday schedule that has lengthened certain Chinese public holidays, while at the same time...
The latest corruption investigation into a senior Ministry of Justice official has inspired schadenfreude among lawyers in China. The investigation into Liu Zhiqiang, a former Vice-Minister of Justice, follows closely after...
Z-Library, an online database with tens of millions of pirated and uncensored books and articles available for free download, is closing its Chinese WeChat account. In a statement posted to WeChat, Z-Library claimed that Chinese...
56 years after her wrongful execution, the poet-journalist turned dissident Lin Zhao is still mourned in China. Lin, a Peking University student persecuted during the anti-Rightist Campaign, was executed at the height of the...
Nymphia Wind, a Taiwanese drag queen, has won the 16th season of the American reality TV competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race. Her victory has been cause for quiet celebration in China, where drag is in the ascendant despite...
On April 14, Sina News Hot Topics published a lengthy article on Weibo under the clickbait headline “The First Batch of DINKs, Exposed: Where Are They Now, and Do They All Regret Not Having Kids?” The four-part article focused...
After a decades-long infrastructure spending spree, many of China’s local governments now find themselves saddled with unsustainable levels of debt and a surplus of vastly ambitious but often underutilized infrastructure...
Hu Chenfeng, a Chinese content creator who first rose to fame making videos about poverty, has been suspended from Bilibili and Weibo after a livestream viewer asked him: “Do you think Xi Jinping is a dictator?” CDT a published...
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...
A recent WeChat post from oft-controversial entrepreneur, publicity hound, and philanthropist Chen Guangbiao urging the Chinese government to keep its hands off people’s pocketbooks has attracted many supportive comments from...
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