Netizen Voices: Sardonic Comments on “How to Get Back at Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi” Offer Socio-Political Commentary on China
Ongoing Sino-Japanese diplomatic tensions—touched off last month by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae...
delivery drivers
CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive” Summary for September 2025
CDT presents a new monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content Archive.” Each month, we will publish a summary of content blocked or deleted (often yielding the message “404: content not...
Couriers’ Digital “Traffic Safety Codes” Stir Memories of COVID Enforcement
This year, Shanghai launched a system of traffic safety codes which “aggregates records of traffic accidents and violations involving couriers throughout the city, [and] allows the authorities to identify non-compliant...
Poem on the Death of a Delivery Driver: “A Man Is Not a Steed nor a Machine”
The plight of China’s delivery drivers is front-of-mind for the Chinese public. In August, CDT translated an account of one courier’s death in the summer heat, while a viral photograph of a Meituan driver kneeling before a...
Kneeling Delivery Driver Sparks Protest and Reflection
A photograph of a delivery driver forced to kneel before a neighborhood security guard in Hangzhou has inspired widespread calls for better labor protections for China’s working class. The viral image of the kneeling driver...
Translation: The Death of a Courier on Earth’s Hottest Day on Record
Sunday, July 21 was the world’s hottest day on record, a title it held for only 24 hours. While current record temperatures are fueled by many coinciding factors—an El Niño climate pattern, high solar output, and even,...
Quote of the Day: Neighborhood Security Guards A “Capricious, Unsupervised, and Unscrutinized Form of Violence”
Today’s quote is a rumination on the fatal stabbing of a delivery man in Qingdao. In early December, a neighborhood security guard stabbed a food delivery man during a conflict about whether the latter could park his moped...
Hangzhou Asian Games: Competition, Symbolism, and Heightened Security Measures
After being postponed for a year due to the 2022 COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown in nearby Shanghai, the 19th Asian Games are finally taking place in China’s eastern seaboard city of Hangzhou. For the Chinese government, the...
Translation: China’s Stranded Truckers Feel Like “Highway Refugees” or “Animals in Captivity”
The latest wave of Omicron outbreaks and lockdowns in Shanghai, Changchun, Dongxing, Taiyuan, and other cities has resulted in food shortages and supply chain disruptions. The lockdowns and road closures have been particularly...
Viral Videos on Food Shortages and Quarantine Conditions During Shanghai Lockdown
After conducting nucleic acid testing on its 26 million residents this week, Shanghai remains under lockdown. The metropolis has reported over 120,000 cases of COVID-19 thus far, most of them asymptomatic. Nationwide, an...
In Shanghai and Jilin, Chaos, Cover-Ups, and Hunger Under Lockdown
An outbreak of the Omicron strain that began surging through China in early March has hit Shanghai and Jilin Province with particular severity. Shanghai, the cosmopolitan city of 26 million, is under a hybrid form of lockdown...
China Battles Largest COVID Outbreak Since Wuhan in 2020
Over 50 million people are under some form of lockdown across China as the country struggles with its single biggest coronavirus outbreak since Wuhan in 2020. All of Jilin Province has been put under lockdown, as have the cities...
“996” Ruled Illegal Yet Labor Researchers, Activists Still Arrested
The Supreme People’s Court has ruled the much-reviled “996” 72-hour work week illegal. The January death of a 22-year-old Pinduoduo employee after working a late shift focused public anger on 996 overtime culture,...
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