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...
By inadvertently “saying the quiet part out loud,” three recent media gaffes have touched off public debate on questions usually left unspoken. For some Chinese social media users, these blunders have provided an opportunity to...
With hundreds of documented (and censored) online sobriquets, Xi Jinping is arguably the most nicknamed leader in recent Chinese history. To stay ahead of the censors, online Chinese have long resorted to using homophones,...
An underpass in Zhengzhou has quietly become a site of contention over artistic freedom. A photograph of the poem “Momma” by the little-known artist Zhang Boyi, graffitied underneath a Zhengzhou bridge in May, went viral on...
The Chinese government has suspended the publication of youth unemployment data, an indication of just how dire the labor market is for 16- to 24-year-olds in urban areas. Youth unemployment hit a record 21.3% in June. Censors...
Sometimes, it’s the censors who imbue a joke with political power. Earlier this week, Weibo user @怪以德服人猫’s account was deleted for violating Weibo policy. Their likely violation? A joke, described by some netizens as “very...
Earlier this week, Apple removed over 100 generative AI and ChatGPT-related apps from its mainland Chinese store in response to new Chinese government regulations on managing generative AI. The regulations were introduced in...
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...
A new draft patriotic education law submitted last week to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee is spurring spirited online debate. Broad in scope, the draft law includes provisions for the role of Chinese...
A stand-off between residents of a Sichuan city and chengguan, notorious street-level law enforcement officers, over the beating of an egg vendor marks the latest national controversy over the ubiquitous state agents. In recent...
Weibo has censored hashtags, curtailed discussions, and limited the visibility of a June 9 BBC Eye documentary exposing a ring of men who sell online videos of women being assaulted on public transport. The apparent leader of...
As of June 7, the Twitter account belonging to Bei Zhenying, wife of well-known blogger program-think (whose real name is Ruan Xiaohuan), appears to have been deleted. The abrupt deletion of her relatively new account...
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...
Three years and three months after whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang’s death from COVID-19, the “Wailing Wall” that emerged in the comments section under his last Weibo post continues to serve as a repository for the hopes, dreams,...
China’s infamous urban management agents, known as chengguan, have a new rural equivalent, the nongguan (“rural management”). Nongguan is the unofficial name for a new corps of agricultural law-enforcement officers, “Rural...
The suppression of news about a Beijing hospital fire that killed 29 last week has inspired vigorous discussion of censorship on the Chinese internet. Just after noon on Tuesday, April 18, a fire broke out in southwestern...
Proposed regulations on the development of generative artificial intelligence models issued by China’s top internet regulator would require “AI-produced content [to] embody core socialist values.” The 12 core socialist values...
“Kong Yiji literature” emerged as a self-deprecating meme among young Chinese netizens who joke that their academic credentials have made them “unemployable,” too overeducated or overqualified for the jobs currently available....
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