China’s hottest television show, HunanTV’s “Singer 2024,” has inspired nationalist angst after two foreign contestants took first and second place—easily besting a field that included legendary Chinese pop star Na Ying. The show...
In part two of our retrospective on the most sensitive topics of 2023, as selected by our Chinese team, we focus on dissent and disasters. In part one we covered long-standing taboos on discussions about Xi Jiping and the...
Censors took down a Zhihu question-and-answer that asked, “Why don’t young people watch Xinwen Lianbo anymore?” Xinwen Lianbo, China Central Television’s flagship evening news program since 1978, is among the most watched...
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”...
The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. Carry out a comprehensive cleanup of all content related to the band “Slap” (delete...
China’s not-so-new culture cops, now colloquially referred to as wenguan, have gone viral on Weibo amidst concerns over the perceived expansion of China’s police state. Earlier this year, the nationwide establishment of...
A performance video of “Red Child’s Eighteen Wins,” a January 2023 song by the folk-rock band Slap (耳光乐队, Erguang Yuedui), has been attracting much attention lately on Chinese social media and Chinese Twitter. The folk tune...
On March 25th, Guangdong-based rapper Liu Wanli, better known as Vyan (pronounced “vee-yen”) was invited to appear on “One Seat,” a lecture program that has been called “China’s TED Talks.” In his...
Every movement needs its anthem. In the now-censored musical parody “Sunny Side Kong Yiji,” the emergent “Kong Yiji literature” wave seems to have found one of its own. “Kong Yiji literature” is a genre of self-deprecating...
“Voices of Protest” is a special edition of CDT’s monthly “Voices of…” video series. This 15-minute video is a compilation of video footage, images, and audio from the large, spontaneous public protests that broke out in a...
The recent protests commemorating victims of the November 24 fire in Urumqi and criticizing harsh pandemic measures and repressive government policies employed a wide variety of protest-themed slogans, artwork, poems, essays,...
“Voices of May” is the first in CDT’s monthly “Voices of …” series of viral audio-visual content from pandemic lockdowns in Shanghai and other Chinese cities. Inspired by the original audio-visual compilation “Voices of April,”...
A YouTube video performance of “New Slave” 《新奴隶》, a song by Shanghai-based rapper Astro, has drawn attention for its frank lyrics about the chaos during Shanghai’s recent lockdown. After being widely circulated on...
On Monday of last week, Malaysian musician Namewee (Wee Meng Chee, 黃明志) learned that his YouTube account had been hacked and all of its content deleted. His account, created in 2006, had 3.27 million subscribers and over 1,000...
Nobody was surprised when Clubhouse, the viral app on which Chinese users shared their unfiltered views with global audiences, was blocked in China. Users had widely anticipated that Clubhouse would have to die. But the sudden...
These poems, attributed to 伯罗奔尼撒, or “Peloponnese,” were posted to WeChat by user 1号档案馆, or “Number 1 Archive.” CDT Chinese editors have archived them, and they are translated below with added links for...
“In This World” was a song by Chinese singer Wang Jianfang. In 2017, the song was a...
A government order to Chinese broadcasters issued last week, along with the hasty removal of...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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