Chinese Diaspora in the U.S. Braces for Trump’s Second Term

Like other marginalized groups in the U.S., Chinese migrants and students are anxiously preparing for the policy changes under a second presidential term of Donald Trump. The president-elect has promised to implement...

2024’s Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2024 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,...

These political conditions are growing out of poor soil. Before you can grow crops, first you have to plant grass to nourish the soil. As the soil’s fertility improves, you can cultivate better things. This is what Ruan Xiaohuan was doing."

— Statement by Bei Zhenying, wife of legendary blogger "program think" (aka Ruan Xiaohuan), after Shanghai’s High Court reaffirmed Ruan's seven-year prison sentence for "inciting subversion."

 

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Minitrue Plus Five: January 2, 2020 – Mystery Pneumonia and U.S. Trade

In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central Party authorities to state media at the beginning of that year. These directives were issued on an almost daily basis in early 2020 through the early weeks of what would become the COVID-19 pandemic, and shed light on the propaganda machinery’s efforts to grapple with the outbreak. They were originally published between September and December, 2020 as the Minitrue Diary series, after the censorship and propaganda organs’ Orwellian online nickname 真理部 Zhēnlǐ bù, or "Ministry of...

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Chinese Firms at the Center of Serbia’s Political Crisis

The collapse of Serbia’s Novi Sad train station roof last month killed 15 people and severely injured two others, igniting weeks-long, nationwide protests against government corruption that is widely perceived to be at the root of the tragedy. In the middle of the fray are two Chinese companies that were involved in recent renovations at the train station, which is a key stop along the Chinese-built Budapest-Belgrade Railway. Given the Serbian government’s enthusiastic embrace of Chinese investment under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the general lack of transparency surrounding...

Minitrue Plus Five: January 2, 2020 – Mystery Pneumonia and U.S. Trade

In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central Party authorities to state media at the beginning of that year. These directives were issued on an almost daily basis in early 2020 through the early weeks of what would become the COVID-19 pandemic, and shed light on the propaganda machinery’s efforts to grapple with the outbreak. They were originally published between September and December, 2020 as the Minitrue Diary series, after the censorship and propaganda organs’ Orwellian online nickname 真理部 Zhēnlǐ bù, or "Ministry of...

Minitrue Plus Five: January 2, 2020 – Mystery Pneumonia and U.S. Trade

In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central Party authorities to state media at the beginning of that year. These directives were issued on an almost daily basis in early 2020 through the early weeks of what would become the COVID-19 pandemic, and shed light on the propaganda machinery’s efforts to grapple with the outbreak. They were originally published between September and December, 2020 as the Minitrue Diary series, after the censorship and propaganda organs’ Orwellian online nickname 真理部 Zhēnlǐ bù, or "Ministry of...

Chinese Diaspora in the U.S. Braces for Trump’s Second Term

Like other marginalized groups in the U.S., Chinese migrants and students are anxiously preparing for the policy changes under a second presidential term of Donald Trump. The president-elect has promised to implement mass deportation that would target millions of people, and top figures in his orbit have backed plans, targeting China, to purge “un-American” elements from the body politic. Many in the Chinese diaspora, facing pressure from both the American and Chinese governments, question whether they can be safe at home in the U.S. Among the Chinese migrants that are particularly...

Bounties and Sanctions Mark Holiday Season for Overseas Activists

On Christmas Eve, Hong Kong’s national security police announced arrest warrants and bounties of HK$1 million (US$129,000) for information leading to the arrest of six exiled activists. The activists are accused of a range of national security offences, such as subversion, inciting secession, and colluding with foreign forces. These latest measures underscore the government’s expansive efforts at transnational repression against its critics. James Lee at the Hong Kong Free Press provided more detail about the six activists, their backgrounds, and why they were arrested: [Tony Chung, t]he...

Translation: Chinese Universities Install Software to Identify and Punish Students Who Circumvent the Great Firewall

A recent WeChat post reveals that some Chinese schools and universities are using special software to identify and punish students who “scale the wall”—that is, circumvent China’s Great Firewall (GFW) to access overseas websites and portals. The post begins with a not-very-convincing exchange of WeChat messages between three students—identified as “student A,” “student B,” and “student C,” respectively—discussing their university’s use of the ABT Online Behavior Management System (安博通上网行为管理, Ānbótōng shàngwǎng xíngwéi guǎnlǐ) to identify and punish fellow students who circumvented the GFW to...

New eBook: China Digital Times Lexicon, 20th Anniversary Edition

On September 12, 2003, John Battelle published the first post on chinadigitaltimes.net: Here’s what a Google Search on “china weblog” yields, I’m looking forward to seeing ours at the top soon! China’s online population at the start of that year was nearly 60 million. Ten years later, it was fast approaching 600 million, and now, after 20, it is well over a billion. This new completely revised and hugely expanded update to our ebook series, formerly known as “the Grass Mud Horse Lexicon,” aims to capture something of the enormous explosion of online speech that accompanied this growth, with...

Minitrue Plus Five: January 2, 2020 – Mystery Pneumonia and U.S. Trade

In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central Party authorities to state media at the beginning of that year. These directives were issued on an almost daily basis in early 2020 through the early weeks of what would become the COVID-19 pandemic, and shed light on the propaganda machinery’s efforts to grapple with the outbreak. They were originally published between September and December, 2020 as the Minitrue Diary series, after the censorship and propaganda organs’ Orwellian online nickname 真理部 Zhēnlǐ bù, or "Ministry of...

Chinese Diaspora in the U.S. Braces for Trump’s Second Term

Like other marginalized groups in the U.S., Chinese migrants and students are anxiously preparing for the policy changes under a second presidential term of Donald Trump. The president-elect has promised to implement mass deportation that would target millions of people, and top figures in his orbit have backed plans, targeting China, to purge “un-American” elements from the body politic. Many in the Chinese diaspora, facing pressure from both the American and Chinese governments, question whether they can be safe at home in the U.S. Among the Chinese migrants that are particularly...

CDT 2024 Year-End Roundup: Reports of the Year

As 2024 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 “2024 Editors’ Picks.” CDT Chinese publishes a column called CDT Reports, which collects external reports from think tanks, academic journals, NGOs, the media, and other sources on topics related to various human rights issues in China. This year, CDT Chinese published 150 of these...

2024’s Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2024 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 “2024 Editors’ Picks.” In this Part 2 post about 2024’s most notable censored articles and essays from CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive,” some of the topics include a food-safety scandal about oil tanker-trucks transporting cooking oil, a proposed national Internet ID system, the...

Quote of the Day: Official Disposable Income Figures Derided as “Today’s Daily Dose of Humor”

On March 16, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that the Chinese economy was off to a good start in 2024, with reported 5.3% year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter of the year. The better-than-expected data was touted by various Chinese state media outlets online, although many of those news posts had comment filtering enabled, perhaps in anticipation of negative or skeptical reactions from social media users. Two items in particular seemed to strike netizens as overly optimistic: the reported “nationwide average per-capita disposable income” figure of 11,539 yuan...

Human Rights

Latest

Minitrue Plus Five: January 2, 2020 – Mystery Pneumonia and U.S. Trade

In late 2020, CDT acquired and verified a collection of propaganda directives issued by central Party authorities to state media at the beginning of that year. These directives were issued on an almost daily basis in early 2020 through the early weeks of what would become the COVID-19 pandemic, and shed light on the propaganda machinery’s efforts to grapple with the outbreak. They were originally published between September and December, 2020 as the Minitrue Diary series, after the censorship and propaganda organs’ Orwellian online nickname 真理部 Zhēnlǐ bù, or "Ministry of...

Politics

Latest

Words of the Week: “Aim the Rifle an Inch Higher” (枪口抬高一厘米, qiāngkǒu táigāo yī límǐ)

What to do when the law and basic humanity are in opposition? The Chinese internet has an answer: “Aim the rifle an inch higher” (枪口抬高一厘米, qiāngkǒu táigāo yī límǐ). The phrase is shorthand for subverting orders that violate one’s conscience. “Aim the rifle an inch higher” has its origin in historical fact. In 1992, two former East German border guards were convicted of fatally shooting Chris Gueffroy as he fled across the no man’s land that divided East and West Berlin. While rendering the guilty verdict, the presiding judge of the trial stated: “At the end of the 20th century, no one has...

Society

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CDT 2024 Year-End Roundup: Quotes of the Year (Part 2)

As 2024 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 “2024 Editors’ Picks.” CDT’s “Quotes of the Year” are a mirror of China’s national mood in ten comments. The five quotes selected in Part One reflected displeasure with coerced rosy perspectives on China’s economy; despair over senseless deaths observed in silence; the enduring...

China & the World

Latest

South Korean Martial Law Chaos Stirs Memories of Tank Man on Weibo

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s late-night declaration of martial law—and the immense pushback from lawmakers and the public that forced him to rescind the order—has been the talk of the Chinese internet. Online discussion was marked by comparisons to the 1989 imposition of martial law in Beijing, which culminated in the Tiananmen Massacre; dark comedy by netizens; and uncharacteristically nimble reporting from Chinese state media. Hashtags dedicated to the extraordinary events in the Korean capital made up over 30 of the top 50 trending topics on Weibo at one point. The top five...

Law

Latest

2024’s Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2024 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 “2024 Editors’ Picks.” In this Part 2 post about 2024’s most notable censored articles and essays from CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive,” some of the topics include a food-safety scandal about oil tanker-trucks transporting cooking oil, a proposed national Internet ID system, the...

Information Revolution

Latest

Canada Kicks Out Huawei, U.S. Weighs Further Sanctions on Hikvision, China Invests in Undermining Sanctions

On Thursday, the Canadian government announced that it will ban Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE from its 5G networks. The move comes as the Biden administration debates imposing further sanctions on Hikvision, a Chinese surveillance camera company, for supplying and operating equipment in Xinjiang mass detention camps. Both of these developments bring renewed attention to the role of Chinese technology companies in problematic surveillance activities and the role of sanctions in combating their alleged abuses. Catharine Tunney and Richard Raycraft from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation...

Culture & the Arts

Latest

2024’s Most Notable Censored Articles and Essays (Part 2)

As 2024 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 “2024 Editors’ Picks.” In this Part 2 post about 2024’s most notable censored articles and essays from CDT’s “404 Deleted Content Archive,” some of the topics include a food-safety scandal about oil tanker-trucks transporting cooking oil, a proposed national Internet ID system, the...

The Great Divide

Latest

Quote of the Day: Official Disposable Income Figures Derided as “Today’s Daily Dose of Humor”

On March 16, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that the Chinese economy was off to a good start in 2024, with reported 5.3% year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter of the year. The better-than-expected data was touted by various Chinese state media outlets online, although many of those news posts had comment filtering enabled, perhaps in anticipation of negative or skeptical reactions from social media users. Two items in particular seemed to strike netizens as overly optimistic: the reported “nationwide average per-capita disposable income” figure of 11,539 yuan...

Sci-Tech

Latest

CDT 2024 Year-End Roundup: Reports of the Year

As 2024 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 “2024 Editors’ Picks.” CDT Chinese publishes a column called CDT Reports, which collects external reports from think tanks, academic journals, NGOs, the media, and other sources on topics related to various human rights issues in China. This year, CDT Chinese published 150 of these...

Environment

Latest

Dam Construction in Tibet Threatens Local Communities and Environment

Infrastructure projects in Tibet have often drawn controversy for failing to balance development, human rights, and environmental protection. As CDT has covered this year, state-sponsored hydropower projects have forcibly displaced local communities and led to violent reprisals against protesters. A series of recent reports expand on this topic to highlight the social and environmental perils of these projects. Last week, the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) published a report titled, “Chinese Hydropower: Damning Tibet’s Culture, Community, and Environment.” The report includes an...

Hong Kong

Latest

Bounties and Sanctions Mark Holiday Season for Overseas Activists

On Christmas Eve, Hong Kong’s national security police announced arrest warrants and bounties of HK$1 million (US$129,000) for information leading to the arrest of six exiled activists. The activists are accused of a range of national security offences, such as subversion, inciting secession, and colluding with foreign forces. These latest measures underscore the government’s expansive efforts at transnational repression against its critics. James Lee at the Hong Kong Free Press provided more detail about the six activists, their backgrounds, and why they were arrested: [Tony Chung, t]he...

Taiwan

Latest

Independent Bookstores Under Pressure; Taiwanese Books Shut Out

At the Associated Press, Fu Ting reports mounting pressure on China’s independent bookstores and other cultural channels and venues: Independent bookstores have become a new battleground in China, swept up in the ruling Communist Party’s crackdown on dissent and free expression. The Associated Press found that at least a dozen bookstores in the world’s second-largest economy have been shuttered or targeted for closure in the last few months alone, squeezing the already tight space for press freedom. One bookstore owner was arrested over four months ago. The crackdown has had...

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