Mao Anying, Mao Zedong’s son, was killed by American bombers on November 25, 1950 while fighting in the Korean War. A persistent, unfounded, rumor (officially tagged as “historically nihilist”) holds that the younger Mao gave...
In online slang, “rushing the tower” (冲塔 chōngtǎ) means posting politically sensitive commentary knowing full well that it will be censored, with potentially worse consequences ranging from account deletion to detention....
A Singapore paper’s publication of a blistering opinion piece criticizing Xi Jinping did not escape notice on Weibo, where netizens surreptitiously praised it. Titled “The Economy Is The Problem, Its Root Is Politics,” the...
China’s youth employment crisis is at least partly a matter of attitude, according to People’s Daily. In two recent editorials calling for youth to “establish a correct perspective on employment” and “seek out hardships,” the...
Jeremy Wallace, associate professor of Government at Cornell University, joined CDT to discuss his new book, Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts: Information, Ideology, and Authoritarianism in China. In a wide-ranging conversation,...
A Sichuan city’s adoption of Yuan Dynasty-style community policing has inspired fears of a return to the despotism of yore. Zigong is the latest municipality to launch a trial of the shihuzhang, or “ten-household captain...
Several of China’s major social media companies have launched a campaign to clean up “historical nihilism” on their platforms. The push comes on the heels of an April 20 essay published in Study Times by the head of the...
Xinhua reports that Xi’an has “basically” achieved “social clearance,” the end of community transmission of the coronavirus. Approximately 13 million people remain in lockdown, tens of thousands are spread across hundreds of...
This is the full transcript, edited lightly for grammar and clarity, of an interview with Jeremy Brown, a historian at Simon Fraser University, on his book “June Fourth: The Tiananmen Protests and Beijing Massacre of...
A major Chinese Communist Party conclave on history has consecrated Xi’s place next to Mao in the pantheon of Party leadership. The Sixth Plenum of the 19th Party Congress ended on Thursday, November 11, with the passage of a...
Since his ascension to the top of the Party in 2012, Xi Jinping has shown little tolerance for “historical nihilism,” a catch-all term for critical appraisals of the Party’s rise and rule. The Party made a concerted push to...
On July 1, weeks of secretive preparations for the Party’s centenary culminated in a massive ceremony in Tiananmen Square punctuated by a martial speech delivered by Xi Jinping. Xi warned that anyone who dare bully, oppress, or...
While various manifestations of China’s deepening authoritarianism have been well documented, the ideological frameworks underpinning it have tended not to receive as much attention as the thinking of those at odds with the...
Mao Zedong wrote, “The people have sharp eyes.” The phrase incited people to spy on their neighbors and loved ones during the Cultural Revolution. In 2015, that slogan was resurrected for Sharp Eyes, an aggressive government...
The New York Times’ Chris Buckley reports on a new campaign against corruption and disloyalty in China’s public security machinery: Officials in China’s law-and-order apparatus have been ordered to “drive the blade...
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China,...
Li Rui, a former personal secretary to Mao Zedong turned fierce critic of the authoritarian leader...
This series is a recap of censorship instructions issued to the media by government authorities in...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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