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...
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...
The new word “humineral” (人矿 rén kuàng) has taken the Chinese internet by storm and is now a sensitive word subject to censorship. First introduced in a now-censored Zhihu post on January 2, 2023, “humineral”—a portmanteau of 人...
China is set to investigate school textbooks after illustrations deemed to be sexually suggestive or politically inappropriate caused an uproar on social media. On Monday, the Chinese Ministry of Education ordered a nationwide...
Several of China’s largest social media companies including Weibo, Douyin, Toutiao, Zhihu, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu have announced that they will display users’ IP addresses. The measure, which will affect the majority of...
Numerous Chinese activists, bloggers and ordinary netizens have experienced being “invited to tea” by the police—ostensibly for a casual discussion at the police station over a real or metaphorical cup of tea. At best, the...
Chinese internet users have just scored a rare win against censorship. On September 3, the swear word shǎbī 傻逼, politely translated as “dumbass,” was banned from Baidu’s messaging forum Tieba. In the aughts, a mythical creature...
This week, many Chinese netizens, like the rest of the world, have been fixating on a crisis-stricken Afghanistan. The Chinese government has reiterated that it would not “interfere with Afghanistan’s internal affairs,” and that...
Dr. Li Wenliang’s death on February 7, 2020 resulted in an unprecedented spontaneous outpouring of grief on China’s social media. The young ophthalmologist was widely identified as one of eight whistleblowers punished for...
A Chinese student’s fatal fall from a building on Sunday has triggered a public uproar in China, as thousands took to social media to demand a transparent investigation into the boy’s death. Chengdu police had...
Chloé Zhao made history on Sunday as the first woman of color to win an Oscar for best director. Her film “Nomadland” also took the top prize as the 2021 best picture. But in China, the country of Zhao’s birth,...
Two weeks after the U.S.’ and China’s foreign ministers met for face-to-face dialogues for the first time under the Biden administration, relations between the two governments remain solidly frosty. But as both sides...
After making history at the beginning of this month by becoming the first Asian woman to win best director for her movie “Nomadland,” Chloé Zhao was initially showered with praise from Chinese state media. That was...
Viral Content is a new CDT series introducing terms coined and used by Chinese netizens during the 2019-2020 COVID-19 outbreak. These terms include both subversive critiques of government policies and nationalistic support of...
In 2020, CDT Chinese editors launched the CDT Censorship Digest series. The series will collect and quote from news and online speech that was censored by Chinese authorities during the previous month, as well as summarize...
This week, Chinese magazine People (Renwu 人物) published an interview with Ai Fen, the director of the emergency department at Wuhan Central Hospital. In the interview, which was quickly censored, Ai detailed her censure by...
The Word of the Week comes from the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by...
The Word of the Week comes from the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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