“The people have sharp eyes.” (“群众的眼睛是雪亮的.”) This Communist Party slogan was heavily used during the Cultural Revolution, an era in which citizens were incentivized to spy on and even falsely accuse family and neighbors of being disloyal to authority. More than 50 years after that tumultuous era...
Since late July, Beijing has worked to promote its own counternarrative against protesters in Hong Kong. By this account, encapsulated in a recent letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which...
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....
Chinese-Swiss poet Yang Lian has dedicated the following poem to the courageous demonstrators in Hong Kong as protests in the city enter into the 14th consecutive week. Yang Lian: To the People of...
Simon Cheng, the 29-year-old Hong Kong resident formerly employed by the U.K. consulate who was detained in China for 15 days in August and accused in state-affiliated media of “soliciting prostitutes,” has now...
In August, Matters News published an interview with CDT founder and Editor-in-Chief Xiao Qiang. The interview, by freelance writer Xiran, examines the events and motivations that led Xiao to become a human rights activist and...
On Saturday, The New York Times published a report by Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley based on 403 pages of leaked documents on China’s ongoing mass detention campaign in Xinjiang. The 24 documents include speeches by Xi...
As protests in Hong Kong continue past the five-month mark, online support for the city’s pro-democracy movement has continued to pour in from various corners of mainland China despite efforts by government censors to...
Short video-sharing platform TikTok has been enjoying explosive growth in its mostly young international audience. It has been described in The Washington Post as “the first Chinese app to truly pierce the global Internet...
At The New York Times, Alan Rappeport reports that the World Bank this week announced it would scale down development work in the Xinjiang region following allegations that funds from a $50 million education project loan granted...
[Update: November 13, 9:45 am PST: For up-to-the-minute updates on the situation at CUHK and elsewhere in Hong Kong, please check Hong Kong Free Press and this Twitter list compiled by freelance journalist Laurel Chor.] Violent...
Chinese state media reported last week that Beijing’s subway system will soon use facial recognition technology to classify and divide passengers into groups for different security screenings. The news was announced at the end...
On October 29th, the Shuangqiao branch office of Chengde City Public Security Bureau in Hebei Province released a “police announcement” on Weibo. The notice said that the bureau “cracked” a case involving...
In an episode of BBC Sounds as part of her series “China and the World,” Isabel Hilton gives an in-depth look at the the Chinese government’s influence campaigns overseas, in particular programs under the...
Despite resistance from authorities, China’s #MeToo movement is making progress with small but meaningful victories in court for individuals fighting sexual harassment and assault. The Guardian’s Lily Kuo reports on the...
On October 26th, a Twitter user reported that his WeChat account was suspended for “spreading malicious rumors” after he posted a comment about Winnie the Pooh subsequent to sharing an article on President Xi Jinping. The...
The following censorship instructions, issued by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. Changle District People’s Government Office [Fujian Province]: Recently, foreign reporters were in Fuqing...
Activist Joshua Wong, who won both global recognition and stints in jail for his role leading the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests, has been denied the right to run for District Council elections in Hong Kong. Next month’s...
Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti, who is currently serving a life sentence on separatism charges, has been awarded the prestigious Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament. In granting him the honor, the European Parliament wrote:...
Journalist and #MeToo activist Sophia Huang Xueqin was arrested by Chinese police last week on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after publishing an online essay about the ongoing protests in Hong...
Youths in their teens and early twenties make up a significant proportion of the protesters in Hong Kong. Living regular lives on weekdays and donning protest gear to attend rallies on weekends has become the new routine for the...
Western institutions’ AI and surveillance research ties with China, particularly those with partners implicated in ongoing rights abuses in Xinjiang, have been coming under mounting scrutiny. This week, South China Morning...
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