A series of state-media reports on the theme of the May 1 International Workers Day provide a window into the CCP’s perception of labor rights in China. This week, China Daily published a series of quotes by Xi Jinping to...
The first reaction by China’s state-media apparatus following the escalating U.S.-China trade war last week was to censor online commentary about the scale of tariffs. Now, it has responded with targeted messaging intended to...
A new report by the Open Technology Fund (OTF) explores the growing demand for human-powered censorship in China. While the Party-state under Xi Jinping has increasingly restricted political expression, expanded its censorship...
A photo showing three construction workers suspended from a gateway in their safety harnesses has sparked discussion online over the use of Cultural Revolution-style humiliation, workplace discipline versus personal dignity, the...
Although an executive order signed by President Trump on Monday gave Bytedance-owned TikTok a 75-day reprieve from an impending U.S. ban, the future—and future ownership—of the popular short-video sharing platform remains...
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....
A recent scandal involving the organized theft and trafficking of thousands of corpses that were later processed into bone-graft material for dental procedures has prompted horror among the Chinese public, and tremendous...
News of plans to raise China’s retirement age, found in documents issued after the recently concluded Third Plenum, have ignited a social media firestorm. The text of the plenum’s “resolution,” published to Xinhua, held:...
Today’s quote of the day derives from netizen backlash to the Communist Youth League’s (CYL) recent video broadside against “lying down”—referring to the much-discussed phenomenon of people slacking off, quietly giving up, or...
Chinese netizens have had a lot to say about economist Ma Jiantang’s prescription for adapting to the “era of longevity” by reclassifying workers between the ages of 60-70 as “the youthful elderly,” those between the ages of...
As the Chinese economy continues to recover from the long pandemic (and post-pandemic) slowdown,...
Today’s CDT Quote of the Day is a response to the recent tide of online public discussion about the new “adjusted leave” (调休, tiáoxiū) holiday schedule that has lengthened certain Chinese public holidays, while at the same time...
At an April 8 press conference to unveil IM Motors’ new L6 electric sedan, company CEO Liu Tao enumerated the many sacrifices his workers had made, which suggested to some observers that the company’s punishing schedules were...
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...
On the surface, neither the film “Barbie” nor a write-up of an academic’s research on migrant laborer poverty would seem to have anything to do with the South China Sea. Yet both are embroiled in censorship controversies related...
This week, a striking series of infographics meant to highlight social issues such as poverty, disability, depression, youth unemployment, and elder care were scrubbed from Weibo, leaving only the blank gray boxes that Weibo...
On May 18, a social media post (archived here) announced the impending closure and demolition of a well-known museum dedicated to documenting the lives and improving the welfare of China’s migrant workers. The Museum of Working...
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,...
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