Interview with Dr. Gyal Lo: Tibetan Children Are Becoming “Strangers in Their Own Homes”
In 2021, Tibet Action Institute (TAI) published a groundbreaking report exposing the extensive use...
government policy
Netizen Voices on New Childcare Subsidies: “Are They Going to Refund All the Fines Paid by People Who Exceeded Childbirth Quotas Back in the Day?”
In an effort to combat falling birthrates, China’s central government has announced a plan to provide families with annual cash subsidies of 3,600 yuan per child under the age of three. Ninety percent of the funding will...
Censored Statistics, Deleted Data Muddy the Waters
As China continues to tighten information flows in and out of the country, how reliable are statistics from official Chinese sources? Recent media pieces have highlighted the deepening lack of government transparency and...
Amid Broad Public Support for Proposed Abolition of Divorce “Cooling-off” Period, Weibo Censors Related Hashtag
China’s annual Two Sessions political meetings recently drew to a close, minus the presence of National People’s Congress (NPC) Chairman Zhao Leji, the nation’s third most senior official. (Zhao’s unexpected absence was...
Words of the Week: “Breaking in to Turn on Lights” (撬锁点灯, qiàosuǒ diǎndēng)
Earlier this month, netizens were incensed over a viral video that showed firefighters and other uniformed officers breaking into a shop in Datong, Shanxi province late at night in order to turn on the lights—ostensibly, to...
Muted Public Response to State Council’s New Slate of Policies to Promote Parenthood
Confronted with a rapidly aging population, a declining birthrate, and socioeconomic shifts that have made younger people less likely to marry or have children, China’s State Council this week unveiled a new slate of policies...
Quote of the Day: “They’ll Stoop to Anything to Reduce the Divorce Rate”
The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs has unveiled a revised draft law that would make it simpler to register marriages and potentially more difficult to divorce. The proposed changes, billed as helping to create a “family...
Quote of the Day: “Laid Off at 35, Re-employed at 60”
Chinese netizens have had a lot to say about economist Ma Jiantang’s prescription for adapting to the “era of longevity” by reclassifying workers between the ages of 60-70 as “the youthful elderly,” those between the ages of...
Quote of the Day: “People Are Working ‘996’ Schedules for 12 Days Straight, in Exchange for a Five-Day Holiday Celebrating the Advent of an ‘Eight-Hour’ Workday”
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...
Weibo Users Discern Pro-natalist Propaganda in Sina “DINKs” Article
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...
Translation: The Problems of Inefficient Infrastructure Spending Are Beginning to Surface
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...
Quote of the Day: “Stop Obsessing About Ordinary People’s ‘Pocket Change.’ They Know Better Than You Where That Money Ought to Be Spent.”
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...
Words of the Week: Xi Jinping’s Penchant for “Pointing the Way Forward”
The use of the standard Party formulation of Xi Jinping “pointing the way forward” on various policy issues has become so commonplace that the phrase has become an object of satire, a way of mocking Xi’s cult of personality and...
Fiddling with Commas While the Economy Burns
This year’s “Two Sessions,” which concluded on March 11, were more Party-choreographed than ever, as evidenced by the elimination of the premier’s customary post-NPC press conference, the weakening of the State Council via a...
“Two Sessions” Conclude with Xi, CCP Further Consolidating Power
The story of this year’s Two Sessions was that it has become ever more scripted by the Party, with Xi Jinping at its core. At the annual gatherings of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) and advisory Chinese People’s...
China’s “Two Sessions” in Progress, but Premier Will Not Meet the Press
This year’s Two Sessions—the annual meetings of the legislative National People’s Congress (NPC) and the advisory Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)—are taking place amid grim economic conditions. The...
Word(s) of the Week: “Driving in Reverse” (开倒车, kāidàochē)
This week, a 2016 People’s Daily article predicting that China would enter the club of “high-income” nations by 2024 was reposted and widely shared online, attracting many sardonic comments before it was eventually deleted from...
Translation: Lu Dewen—“Bureaucratic Formalism Has Made It Impossible for Local Cadres to Get Anything Done”
In a recent essay, Lu Dewen (吕德文, Lǚ Déwén)—a sometimes controversial Wuhan University sociologist whose research focuses on rural governance—argues that bureaucratic formalism, meaningless busywork, and technological hegemony...
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