The CCP’s recently concluded Third Plenum yielded a final communiqué that acknowledged current economic, geopolitical, and ideological risks and the need for continued systemic reforms but offered little (yet) in the way...
Chinese bookstore shelf arrangements rarely go viral—that is, unless they contain a hidden message...
Explaining a meme often takes the wind out of a joke’s sails. Not so in this case. A recent Xi Jinping quote published by Xinhua, China’s official state news agency, has breathed new life into a long-running meme...
The use of the standard Party formulation of Xi Jinping “pointing the way forward” on various policy issues has become so commonplace that the phrase has become an object of satire, a way of mocking Xi’s cult of personality and...
Among Xi Jinping’s many Party-bestowed titles and hundreds of banned netizen nicknames is one that points to his penchant for claiming personal leadership over and insight into seemingly everything: “Compass-in-Chief.” The...
This year’s recently concluded “Two Sessions,” the annual gatherings of China’s rubber-stamp National People’s Congress (NPC) and advisory Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), were more Party-scripted and...
The story of this year’s Two Sessions was that it has become ever more scripted by the Party, with Xi Jinping at its core. At the annual gatherings of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) and advisory Chinese People’s...
The Two Sessions, the annual gatherings of China’s rubber-stamp National People’s Congress and advisory Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, are often accompanied by the censorship of discussion of the goings-on...
This year’s Two Sessions—the annual meetings of the legislative National People’s Congress (NPC) and the advisory Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)—are taking place amid grim economic conditions. The...
The following themes, and the six covered in part two, are not the “most censored” words of 2023 but rather a retrospective of topics that the Party-state deemed unfit for Chinese eyes, selected by our Chinese team. While some...
At the close of 2023, CDT Chinese has compiled a series of year-end articles on various special topics, from sensitive words and censored articles to a human rights report and a “person of the year.” This post introduces the...
Expectations were low going into this week’s meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping on the side of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco. Since their last meeting in Bali one year ago,...
A fawning Xinhua article on Xi Jinping’s concern for citizens affected by natural disasters has become the latest piece of “low-level red, high-level black” propaganda. Intended to tout Xi’s steadfast leadership, it...
Correction: This article has been expanded to include several paragraphs that were inadvertently left out in the initial editing process. Amid this month’s Belt and Road Forum, Chinese state actors trumpeted a series of new...
On October 16, it was reported online that a recent reprint of the historical biography “The Chongzhen Emperor: Diligent Ruler of a Failed Dynasty” (《崇祯：勤政的亡国君》Chóngzhēn: Qínzhèng de Wángguó Jūn, ISBN 9787549640775)...
In only his second trip abroad this year, Xi Jinping attended this week’s BRICS summit in South Africa in the hope of scoring a major political victory. The five-member group—comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South...
After one month without making a public statement or appearance, Qin Gang was removed from his position as foreign minister on Tuesday. At least for now, he will be replaced by his boss Wang Yi, who leads the CCP’s foreign...
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...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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