CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Sensitive Words

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports,...

When confronted by that force constantly threatening to drag us down, we must deliberately exert a countervailing force, lest we be overcome by that downward momentum. [...] Don’t give in to anger, or lower yourself to the level of your opponents, or succumb to defeatism if at first you don’t succeed."

— Legal scholar Lao Dongyan, in one of 2025's most notable Chinese essays, offering advice for combatting "political depression"

 

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CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” This is Part Two of CDT’s compilation of the most notable censored articles and essays from 2025, chosen by CDT Chinese editors from among the 425 new pieces of content added this year to our public, searchable, Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive.”...

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The Guardian Interviews Chinese Fighters for Ukraine

The involvement of Chinese nationals in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine received widespread media attention earlier this year. This included an extended interview by Chinese journalist Chai Jing with one such combatant, "Macaron," which was was subsequently translated in two parts by CDT. The much smaller number of Chinese fighters on the Ukrainian side has received less notice. One notable exception is Peng Chenliang, who was killed in 2024 and, before joining the war, had reportedly been detained for seven months in China over his anti-Russia, pro-Ukraine posts on X....

Ahead of Global Women’s Summit in Beijing, More Feminist Content Blocked on WeChat

In the run-up to the Global Women’s Summit slated for October in Beijing, which will mark the 30th anniversary of that city’s influential 1995 U.N. World Conference on Women, some WeChat accounts focused on feminism and women’s empowerment have been blocked or had their content deleted. Earlier this month, feminist blogger Jiang Chan (姜婵, Jiāng Chán) had her official WeChat account blocked. The account now displays a message saying that it has been blocked, and that the content cannot be viewed because it is in violation of Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) regulations. Jiang hasn’t...

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” This is Part Two of CDT’s compilation of the most notable censored articles and essays from 2025, chosen by CDT Chinese editors from among the 425 new pieces of content added this year to our public, searchable, Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive.”...

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” This is Part Two of CDT’s compilation of the most notable censored articles and essays from 2025, chosen by CDT Chinese editors from among the 425 new pieces of content added this year to our public, searchable, Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive.”...

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” This is Part Two of CDT’s compilation of the most notable censored articles and essays from 2025, chosen by CDT Chinese editors from among the 425 new pieces of content added this year to our public, searchable, Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive.”...

Interview: Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson on China’s “Locknet”

In June, ChinaFile published a new report, "The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters"—the product of 18 months’ work by Jessica Batke, ChinaFile’s senior editor for investigations, and Laura Edelson, assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University. The report gives a concise but thorough overview of China’s online censorship system, including the motivations behind it and the mechanisms by which it is implemented. It expands on the familiar image of the "Great Firewall" as a perimeter barrier, adopting a broader...

Interview: Badiucao and Melissa Chan on Their Graphic Novel, You Must Take Part in Revolution

You Must Take Part in Revolution is a graphic novel by Badiucao, political cartoonist and former CDT contributor, and Melissa Chan, a journalist who in 2012 became the first reporter to be expelled from China in more than a decade. The book was conceived in the wake of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and follows the divergent paths of three friends in Hong Kong and Taiwan from their involvement in the protests through to 2035. CDT: I’m sure anyone reading CDT is familiar with each of you separately. How did the two of you come to join forces? Melissa Chan: I’d interviewed Badiucao for a...

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” This is Part Two of CDT’s compilation of the most notable censored articles and essays from 2025, chosen by CDT Chinese editors from among the 425 new pieces of content added this year to our public, searchable, Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive.”...

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” This is Part Two of CDT’s compilation of the most notable censored articles and essays from 2025, chosen by CDT Chinese editors from among the 425 new pieces of content added this year to our public, searchable, Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive.”...

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 1)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” CDT Chinese editors’ introduction to the most notable censored articles and essays this year describes some of the key censorship trends we observed in 2025: In 2025, the state of censorship on the Chinese internet was characterized by ubiquity,...

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Sensitive Words

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” Introducing the past year’s most resonant “sensitive words” or censorship triggers, CDT Chinese editors commented: 2025 saw the almost daily emergence of new "sensitive words" on China’s internet, from new nicknames or “skins” for Xi Jinping to...

Translation: Plunging Prices, Sprouting Weeds, and Broken Dreams

At The New York Times on Monday, columnist Li Yuan describes how, as "wages stagnate and jobs disappear, the promise of upward social mobility is eroding, especially for those from modest backgrounds. For many […], the Chinese Dream no longer feels achievable." Similar themes have featured prominently on CDT in recent months, from uproar over the "4+4" fast-track for medical qualifications to commentary on the decline of former "golden ticket" degrees like computer science and the resurgent appeal of official careers. Other examples include gallows humor...

Human Rights

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Ahead of Global Women’s Summit in Beijing, More Feminist Content Blocked on WeChat

In the run-up to the Global Women’s Summit slated for October in Beijing, which will mark the 30th anniversary of that city’s influential 1995 U.N. World Conference on Women, some WeChat accounts focused on feminism and women’s empowerment have been blocked or had their content deleted. Earlier this month, feminist blogger Jiang Chan (姜婵, Jiāng Chán) had her official WeChat account blocked. The account now displays a message saying that it has been blocked, and that the content cannot be viewed because it is in violation of Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) regulations. Jiang hasn’t...

Politics

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Translations: Enthusiasts Fear Tightening Grip on Crosstalk Stage Comedy

Two recent WeChat posts express concern about mounting official interference in 相声 xiàngsheng, the traditional northern-Chinese form of fast-paced stage comedy known in English as crosstalk. These anxieties are acute, but not new. David Moser wrote in 2009, for example, that, "The Chinese government has systematically stifled crosstalk by bowdlerizing its tradition, restricting its natural growth and evolution, and reducing the form to a sycophantic, unsatisfying — and unfunny — shadow of its former self." This process, he wrote, began as soon as the CCP took power, with sexual...

Society

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CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive” Summary for October 2025, Part Two

CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content Archive.” Each month, we publish a summary of content blocked or deleted (often yielding the message “404: content not found”) from Chinese platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu (RedNote), Bilibili, Zhihu, Douban, and others. Although this content archived by CDT Chinese editors represents only a small fraction of the online content that disappears each day from the Chinese internet, it provides valuable insight into which topics are considered “sensitive” over time by the...

China & the World

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Translations: Mourning the Decline of Investigative Reporting on China’s National Journalists’ Day

Last Saturday, November 8, was China’s National Journalists’ Day—often an occasion for mixed feelings among China’s beleaguered independent journalists. The WeChat account 磨稿子 Mó Gǎozi, or “Polishing Manuscripts,” for example, marked the date by interviewing three formerly prominent investigative reporters—including Jian Guangzhou, who broke the Sanlu milk powder scandal—about their lives since leaving the field. “These three colleagues all left journalism a long time ago, and their current occupations are all fairly similar: Jian Guangzhou started selling liquor, Kang Shaojian...

Law

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CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Sensitive Words

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” Introducing the past year’s most resonant “sensitive words” or censorship triggers, CDT Chinese editors commented: 2025 saw the almost daily emergence of new "sensitive words" on China’s internet, from new nicknames or “skins” for Xi Jinping to...

Information Revolution

Latest

Translation: Special One-Month Reconnaissance Operation Against “Overseas Cyber Forces”

A pair of recently surfaced screenshots appear to offer unusual detail about a special month-long operation, held in Beijing and involving over 40 Ministry of Public Security computer specialists from around the country, to combat “overseas cyber forces” in the battle for public opinion. The apparently leaked internal instructions from the Ministry of Public Security are likely to be the result of an email breach. They include the names and locations of many of the computer-specialist officers, as well as the name and contact information of the individual in charge of the operation. At some...

Culture & the Arts

Latest

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” This is Part Two of CDT’s compilation of the most notable censored articles and essays from 2025, chosen by CDT Chinese editors from among the 425 new pieces of content added this year to our public, searchable, Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive.”...

The Great Divide

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Translation: Plunging Prices, Sprouting Weeds, and Broken Dreams

At The New York Times on Monday, columnist Li Yuan describes how, as "wages stagnate and jobs disappear, the promise of upward social mobility is eroding, especially for those from modest backgrounds. For many […], the Chinese Dream no longer feels achievable." Similar themes have featured prominently on CDT in recent months, from uproar over the "4+4" fast-track for medical qualifications to commentary on the decline of former "golden ticket" degrees like computer science and the resurgent appeal of official careers. Other examples include gallows humor...

Sci-Tech

Latest

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 1)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” CDT Chinese editors’ introduction to the most notable censored articles and essays this year describes some of the key censorship trends we observed in 2025: In 2025, the state of censorship on the Chinese internet was characterized by ubiquity,...

Environment

Latest

CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive” Summary for November 2025, Part One

CDT presents a monthly series of censored content that has been added to our “404 Deleted Content Archive.” Each month, we publish a summary of content blocked or deleted (often yielding the message “404: content not found”) from Chinese platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin (TikTok’s counterpart in the Chinese market), Xiaohongshu (RedNote), Bilibili, Zhihu, Douban, and others. Although this content archived by CDT Chinese editors represents only a small fraction of the online content that disappears each day from the Chinese internet, it provides valuable insight into which topics are...

Hong Kong

Latest

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” This is Part Two of CDT’s compilation of the most notable censored articles and essays from 2025, chosen by CDT Chinese editors from among the 425 new pieces of content added this year to our public, searchable, Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive.”...

Taiwan

Latest

CDT 2025 Year-End Roundup: Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2025 draws to a close, CDT editors are compiling a series of the most notable content (Chinese) from across the Chinese internet over the past year. Topics include this year’s most outstanding quotes, reports, podcasts and videos, sensitive words, censored articles and essays, “People of the Year,” and CDT’s “2025 Editors’ Picks.” This is Part Two of CDT’s compilation of the most notable censored articles and essays from 2025, chosen by CDT Chinese editors from among the 425 new pieces of content added this year to our public, searchable, Chinese-language “404 Deleted Content Archive.”...

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