At times, parsing propaganda for deeper meaning is difficult. At others, the (unintentional) message is hidden in plain sight. In October 2018, one bus passenger in Guizhou’s Nayong County realized that a roadside billboard...
“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...
A Party-controlled Weibo account’s attempt to shame a young woman for violating pandemic restrictions backfired this week after one netizen flipped the prompt on its head by blaming Xi Jinping for instituting the restrictions in...
In his landmark political report before the 20th Party Congress, Xi Jinping hailed China’s “tenacious pursuit” of its dynamic zero-COVID policy, an indication the policy is here to stay, despite consistent domestic criticism. At...
Following one man’s daring political protest against Xi Jinping’s continued rule and harsh zero-COVID policies on the eve of China’s 20th Communist Party Congress, citizens and activists have launched a poster campaign in...
Late last week, censors wiped Weibo clean of posts documenting the chaos of pandemic control measures in Lhasa, Tibet. In mid-August, Tibet began reporting thousands of new cases in the region’s first documented outbreak...
At a press conference on September 13, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning fielded a reporter’s question about the Biden administration’s plans to expand restrictions on semiconductor exports to China with a fiery...
On August 30, the Chengde High-Tech Industry Development Zone in Hebei province announced a range of detailed and draconian punishments for anyone violating local pandemic prevention measures. Most extraordinarily, the...
A Chinese government official’s Weibo post lecturing Japan about the danger of amending its constitution—standard nationalist fare on the microblogging site—turned into a forum for criticizing a 2018 Chinese constitutional...
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated on Friday, July 8 while campaigning in Nara, Japan. Abe, 67, was the longest serving Prime Minister in Japanese history—he held office briefly from 2006-2007 and then...
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) criticized China’s zero-COVID policy and called on the government to transition to another strategy for dealing with the pandemic. The move was poorly received by the Chinese...
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...
A group of students under the impression they had discovered a WeChat “bug” that hides the phrase “200 jin of dumplings” (roughly 220 pounds) had in fact stumbled upon an obscure insult for Xi Jinping that triggers automatic...
A collection of 40 jokes about China’s “zero-COVID policy” and its enforcers was posted by @丁逸峰 on Zhihu, the popular Chinese question-and-answer site. Many are styled in the grand tradition of “Soviet Jokes,” which have, at...
As the Chinese New Year holiday approaches, social media is buzzing with “malicious” comments about “malicious” activities like “malicious homecomings.” This miasma of malice materialized on January 20 thanks to a viral video...
Editor’s Note: As we enter 2022, CDT has compiled a special series of features for our readers, offering a look back at the people, events, controversies, memes and sensitive words that defined the past year. Some of this...
Early reports on Xi’an’s lockdown—the strictest since the 2020 Wuhan lockdown, according to Chinese state media—indicate that hunger is a problem in the city of 11 million people. Food prices have soared and residents are unable...
These are trying times for imaginary friends, and for the media outlets who rely on them for timely, conveniently “on-message” quotes. A July 24 Facebook post by purported Swiss biologist Wilson Edwards cast doubt on the WHO...
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