As 2024 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and...
The most important thing isn’t whether or not you resist. These political conditions are growing out of poor soil. Before you can grow crops, first you have to plant grass to nourish the soil. As the soil’s fertility...
What to do when the law and basic humanity are in opposition? The Chinese internet has an answer: “Aim the rifle an inch higher” (枪口抬高一厘米, qiāngkǒu táigāo yī límǐ). The phrase is shorthand for subverting orders that violate...
Viral video and transcripts of two unusually critical speeches about the state of the Chinese economy—by economists Gao Shanwen and Fu Peng, respectively—have been deleted from multiple platforms almost as fast as netizens can...
A spate of “revenge against society” attacks that have left dozens dead and more injured over the last week-and-a-half have left many in China grasping for an explanation: what is driving these “Xianzhong” rampages? The short...
Less than a week after a shocking “Xianzhong” car attack that left 35 dead in Zhuhai, a recent graduate of a Jiangsu technical school stabbed eight people on the campus to death. On Tuesday, a man rammed elementary school...
China is leading the global trend towards cyber sovereignty, a norm based on the use of technology to control what sort of information can be accessed and exchanged within a national boundary and by whom. Several recent reports...
A murderous rampage in Zhuhai, Guangdong that left 35 dead and scores wounded was met with a now all-too-familiar refrain on the Chinese internet: “Xianzhong” is back. Zhang Xianzhong (张献忠, Zhāng Xiànzhōng), a Ming-era peasant...
The specter of arrest has made Halloween extra spooky this year. In Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Wuhan, Halloween revelry has been marred by strict police curfews, the detention of costume-clad partygoers, and bans on organized...
Domestic critics of the Chinese Communist Party sometimes compare it to a mafia; that was literally the case recently in Harbin, the capital of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. A public request for tips on a criminal...
In a remarkable interview, a censor for one of China’s biggest search engines described what gets deleted from the Chinese internet and how—as well as their perspective on the morality of their work. The interview was...
WeChat has censored an article on a trending question on Douyin: “Why are jails packed this year?” The article, a short synthesis of a viral genre of short video, claimed that detention centers are overfilled due to China’s...
Yesterday, police in Xi’an announced the arrest of a 33-year-old woman for rumor mongering. Her crime? Posting a video claiming that it was snowing in Xi’an, when in fact it was not. In a notice posted to WeChat, local police...
A recent WeChat post reveals that some Chinese schools and universities are using special software to identify and punish students who “scale the wall”—that is, circumvent China’s Great Firewall (GFW) to access overseas websites...
Last week, the Chinese government announced that it will raise the retirement age. The long-expected move is deeply unpopular but, the government holds, necessary to relieve strain on China’s work force and pension funds. The...
Microblogging platform Weibo is cracking down on speech about crackdowns on speech. In a weekly “safety” digest published to an official Weibo administrators’ account, the platform announced that it had...
The Chinese public has been transfixed and outraged by news of a decade-long scheme involving the theft and illegal sale of thousands of corpses for use as bone-graft raw material in dental procedures. A document leaked last...
The reported theft and illegal sale of thousands of human corpses for use as raw material in bone graft procedures has shocked the Chinese public and sparked a breathtaking wave of censorship online. Last Thursday, a Beijing...
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