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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
A photo of an American teacher introducing himself to a Chinese university class with a slide presentation proclaiming, “I am not a spy” has gone viral, eliciting much mirth online. It also highlights an increasingly tense...
Word(s) of the Week: “It is a bit ridiculous, but you must obey.” (是有点搞笑，但是你要服从, Shì yǒudiǎn gǎoxiào, dànshì nǐ yào fúcóng.) A policeman admitting that a traffic restriction “is a bit ridiculous, but you must obey”...
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