China Media Project has published a translation of an extended article by Qin Shi at the Mang Mang newsletter, detailing the work and attitudes of some of China’s legions of low-paid, overworked online content reviewers....
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...
One of the subtler ways Chinese internet users voice their displeasure with the status quo is through “pinkfishing” (粉红钓鱼, fěnhóng diàoyú), tricking nationalist “little pinks” into criticizing Party leaders—generally by quoting...
A middle school literature exam in Chengdu has triggered the latest outburst of anti-Japanese nationalism. Students were asked to analyze an excerpt from “Fallen Azaleas,” an amateurish piece of fiction by the virtually unknown...
Margaret Hillenbrand, professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford, joined CDT to discuss her two latest books: “On the Edge: Feeling Precarious in China” (2023) and “Negative Exposures: Knowing...
Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017) is a monumental figure in modern Chinese history. The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate died in custody in a Shenyang hospital in 2017 while being treated for liver cancer. A prolific writer, Liu first rose...
A top Party outlet has created a Xi Jinping Thought-themed combined Bluetooth speaker and power bank for distribution to cadres across the country. The contraption, clunkily titled the “‘Xi Jinping’s “The Governance of China”...
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...
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