Today, the school issued its latest notice: in order to prevent us from leaving campus on Saturdays and Sundays, classes have been rescheduled to weekends. I have no idea when things will return to normal."

— From an essay from a young college student describing the crackdown that followed the exuberant youthful trend of "night-cycling to Kaifeng" for fun, food, and frivolity

 

CDT Highlights

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Words of the Week: “Revenge on Society” Attacks Lead to Government Monitoring of “Individuals With ‘Four Lacks and Five Frustrations’” (四无五失人员, sìwú wǔshī rényuán)

A series of violent “revenge on society” attacks by disgruntled individuals—most recently, targeting innocent bystanders in Changde, Wuxi, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai—has prompted an array of suggestions about how to deter and punish such incidents. After a November 11 car-ramming attack that killed 35 and injured 43 in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, Xi Jinping issued a rare response in which he called for "strengthened prevention and control of risks at the source." In a meeting on Friday, China’s Ministry of Justice “urged local mediators to carry out...

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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...

Fears Rise for Health of Pioneering Lawyer Xu Zhiyong, Nearly One Month Into His Hunger Strike to Protest Mistreatment in Prison

Concern is mounting over the health of imprisoned civil society activist and human-rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who has been on a nearly one-month hunger strike to protest his mistreatment in Shandong’s Lunan Prison. Many human rights groups and supporters have raised the alarm about Xu’s hunger strike, weight loss, and declining health, and have urged Chinese authorities to halt his mistreatment and provide him with medical care. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns have also spoken out on Xu’s behalf. #XuZhiyong on hunger strike, day 26: No update. It's...

Words of the Week: “Revenge on Society” Attacks Lead to Government Monitoring of “Individuals With ‘Four Lacks and Five Frustrations’” (四无五失人员, sìwú wǔshī rényuán)

A series of violent “revenge on society” attacks by disgruntled individuals—most recently, targeting innocent bystanders in Changde, Wuxi, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai—has prompted an array of suggestions about how to deter and punish such incidents. After a November 11 car-ramming attack that killed 35 and injured 43 in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, Xi Jinping issued a rare response in which he called for "strengthened prevention and control of risks at the source." In a meeting on Friday, China’s Ministry of Justice “urged local mediators to carry out...

Words of the Week: “Revenge on Society” Attacks Lead to Government Monitoring of “Individuals With ‘Four Lacks and Five Frustrations’” (四无五失人员, sìwú wǔshī rényuán)

A series of violent “revenge on society” attacks by disgruntled individuals—most recently, targeting innocent bystanders in Changde, Wuxi, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai—has prompted an array of suggestions about how to deter and punish such incidents. After a November 11 car-ramming attack that killed 35 and injured 43 in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, Xi Jinping issued a rare response in which he called for "strengthened prevention and control of risks at the source." In a meeting on Friday, China’s Ministry of Justice “urged local mediators to carry out...

Hong Kong Sentences 45 Pro-Democracy Figures to up to Ten Years in Prison

At the end of a landmark national security trial that concluded on Tuesday, Hong Kong’s High Court sentenced 45 pro-democracy figures to up to ten years in prison. Forty-seven democratic politicians, activists, and organizers were arrested and charged in January 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion under the National Security Law. The charges related to their participation in organizing an unofficial primary election in 2020 ahead of a legislative election. In February 2023, the trial began. In May of this year, the court convicted 14 defendants who contested the accusations and...

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...

Xi Meets Biden at APEC Summit in the Shadow of Trump’s Second Term

On Saturday, Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden met in Lima, Peru on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The meeting was their third in-person, and likely their last as leaders of their respective countries. China-U.S. bilateral relations are expected to enter a much more volatile period following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election earlier this month. Alluding to Trump’s hawkish economic plans vis-a-vis China, Xi stated that “neither decoupling nor supply chain disruption is a solution,” and he called on APEC members to “tear...

Words of the Week: “Revenge on Society” Attacks Lead to Government Monitoring of “Individuals With ‘Four Lacks and Five Frustrations’” (四无五失人员, sìwú wǔshī rényuán)

A series of violent “revenge on society” attacks by disgruntled individuals—most recently, targeting innocent bystanders in Changde, Wuxi, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai—has prompted an array of suggestions about how to deter and punish such incidents. After a November 11 car-ramming attack that killed 35 and injured 43 in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, Xi Jinping issued a rare response in which he called for "strengthened prevention and control of risks at the source." In a meeting on Friday, China’s Ministry of Justice “urged local mediators to carry out...

Translation: Students Line Up at Facial Recognition Gate While Fleeing Fire

On WeChat last weekend, "Fatty Zhao, scholar of Song Dynasty history" reflected on a recent fire at a Shandong university. The students’ escape route was blocked by facial recognition turnstiles through which they scanned one by one, even as the smoke made that more difficult. Despairing of the students’ compliance in the face of danger, Zhao cites a pair of historical episodes by way of explanation: Recently, I’ve been busy working on a book manuscript, and haven’t had time to post on WeChat or check the news. Only after finishing the first draft yesterday did I have a...

Words of the Week: “Revenge on Society” Attacks Lead to Government Monitoring of “Individuals With ‘Four Lacks and Five Frustrations’” (四无五失人员, sìwú wǔshī rényuán)

A series of violent “revenge on society” attacks by disgruntled individuals—most recently, targeting innocent bystanders in Changde, Wuxi, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai—has prompted an array of suggestions about how to deter and punish such incidents. After a November 11 car-ramming attack that killed 35 and injured 43 in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, Xi Jinping issued a rare response in which he called for "strengthened prevention and control of risks at the source." In a meeting on Friday, China’s Ministry of Justice “urged local mediators to carry out...

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

Fears Rise for Health of Pioneering Lawyer Xu Zhiyong, Nearly One Month Into His Hunger Strike to Protest Mistreatment in Prison

Concern is mounting over the health of imprisoned civil society activist and human-rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who has been on a nearly one-month hunger strike to protest his mistreatment in Shandong’s Lunan Prison. Many human rights groups and supporters have raised the alarm about Xu’s hunger strike, weight loss, and declining health, and have urged Chinese authorities to halt his mistreatment and provide him with medical care. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns have also spoken out on Xu’s behalf. #XuZhiyong on hunger strike, day 26: No update. It's...

Politics

Latest

Word of the Week: “Xianzhong,” The Ming Rebel Cited as Emblem of Modern Massacres

A murderous rampage in Zhuhai, Guangdong that left 35 dead and scores wounded was met with a now all-too-familiar refrain on the Chinese internet: “Xianzhong” is back. Zhang Xianzhong (张献忠, Zhāng Xiànzhōng), a Ming-era peasant rebel notorious for his mythical bloodlust, has become an online by-word for “revenge against society” attacks against innocents by disgruntled men. In 2021, CDT flagged “Xianzhong,” which literally translates as “demonstrate loyalty,” as one of the most censored words of the year—it remains as sensitive as ever. Running tallies of Xianzhong attacks circulate on the...

Society

Latest

Chinese Perspectives on the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

Given the potential global consequences of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, it has naturally attracted worldwide attention. In China, initially reticent coverage by state media has given way to editorializing about the “unprecedented chaos” of the race and depictions of American democracy as a “messy” affair. Cartoons published this week by China Daily and the Global Times deride the enormous cost of the election and a “tide” of vitriol that is depicted as being spewed by both political parties, threatening to drown the American public. At the South China Morning Post, Dewey Sim, Hayley...

China & the World

Latest

Global North Bucks Responsibilities at COP29, China Embeds with Global South

The U.N. climate summit known as COP29 concluded over the weekend in Baku, capital of the oil-rich country of Azerbaijan after two weeks of tense negotiations. Some of the major outcomes include an agreement by rich countries to provide $300 billion in climate finance annually by 2035, a broad goal for public and private actors to raise $1.3 trillion in climate finance annually by 2035, and an agreement on global market rules for buying and selling carbon credits. Global South countries, which are disproportionately impacted by climate change, blasted these results as woefully inadequate and...

Law

Latest

Words of the Week: “Revenge on Society” Attacks Lead to Government Monitoring of “Individuals With ‘Four Lacks and Five Frustrations’” (四无五失人员, sìwú wǔshī rényuán)

A series of violent “revenge on society” attacks by disgruntled individuals—most recently, targeting innocent bystanders in Changde, Wuxi, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai—has prompted an array of suggestions about how to deter and punish such incidents. After a November 11 car-ramming attack that killed 35 and injured 43 in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, Xi Jinping issued a rare response in which he called for "strengthened prevention and control of risks at the source." In a meeting on Friday, China’s Ministry of Justice “urged local mediators to carry out...

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

Translation: Students Line Up at Facial Recognition Gate While Fleeing Fire

On WeChat last weekend, "Fatty Zhao, scholar of Song Dynasty history" reflected on a recent fire at a Shandong university. The students’ escape route was blocked by facial recognition turnstiles through which they scanned one by one, even as the smoke made that more difficult. Despairing of the students’ compliance in the face of danger, Zhao cites a pair of historical episodes by way of explanation: Recently, I’ve been busy working on a book manuscript, and haven’t had time to post on WeChat or check the news. Only after finishing the first draft yesterday did I have a...

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

Translation: Students Line Up at Facial Recognition Gate While Fleeing Fire

On WeChat last weekend, "Fatty Zhao, scholar of Song Dynasty history" reflected on a recent fire at a Shandong university. The students’ escape route was blocked by facial recognition turnstiles through which they scanned one by one, even as the smoke made that more difficult. Despairing of the students’ compliance in the face of danger, Zhao cites a pair of historical episodes by way of explanation: Recently, I’ve been busy working on a book manuscript, and haven’t had time to post on WeChat or check the news. Only after finishing the first draft yesterday did I have a...

Environment

Latest

Global North Bucks Responsibilities at COP29, China Embeds with Global South

The U.N. climate summit known as COP29 concluded over the weekend in Baku, capital of the oil-rich country of Azerbaijan after two weeks of tense negotiations. Some of the major outcomes include an agreement by rich countries to provide $300 billion in climate finance annually by 2035, a broad goal for public and private actors to raise $1.3 trillion in climate finance annually by 2035, and an agreement on global market rules for buying and selling carbon credits. Global South countries, which are disproportionately impacted by climate change, blasted these results as woefully inadequate and...

Hong Kong

Latest

Hong Kong Sentences 45 Pro-Democracy Figures to up to Ten Years in Prison

At the end of a landmark national security trial that concluded on Tuesday, Hong Kong’s High Court sentenced 45 pro-democracy figures to up to ten years in prison. Forty-seven democratic politicians, activists, and organizers were arrested and charged in January 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion under the National Security Law. The charges related to their participation in organizing an unofficial primary election in 2020 ahead of a legislative election. In February 2023, the trial began. In May of this year, the court convicted 14 defendants who contested the accusations and...

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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