Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to...
Government surveillance is a ubiquitous and growing phenomenon in China. New documents issued by the Ministry of State Security last month will empower Chinese law enforcement to search electronic devices without...
Transnational repression by Chinese state-affiliated actors has long targeted Tibetans, Uyghurs,...
As the Chinese economy continues to recover from the long pandemic (and post-pandemic) slowdown,...
Following his trip to France earlier this week, Xi Jinping finished his European tour in Serbia...
It is inevitable that in this process you will reflect on the world as it is now, and ask yourself what an ideal society and world might look like. The chasm between reality and the ideal makes you rethink who you are, [and] who you want to be [....] All of this can teach students so much more, and impact their lives so much more profoundly, than attending a few more classes ever could."
— From the WeChat essay “At College, There Are More Important Things Than Attending Classes,” in which a Chinese student studying overseas—cautioned by parents and other family to steer clear of pro-Palestinian campus protests or encampments—discusses the profound lessons students can glean from participating in real-life protest events.
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous incidents that have taken place within the last calendar year. Consistent with much of CDT’s 2024 coverage, the chengyu introduced below center on economic pain: impoverished farmers, distressed creditors, penny-pinching landlords—even cash-strapped police departments. Many also focus on official malfeasance: petty despotism, official greed, and wanton enforcement of...
As the Chinese economy continues to recover from the long pandemic (and post-pandemic) slowdown,...
Last week’s collapse of a stretch of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway in Guangdong province, after a...
Students from at least 174 colleges and universities across six continents have erected...
On Chinese social media, the phrase “weak spot” (软肋, ruǎn lèi) is often used metaphorically to...
In recent weeks, residents of the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu have been posting screenshots of...
This week, as expected, embattled short-video platform TikTok and its Chinese parent Bytedance launched a legal challenge to recent U.S. legislation requiring that TikTok’s American operations be either sold off within nine to 12 months, or shut down. The measure passed with bipartisan support as part of a national security package also including aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. It is the latest in a years-long series of efforts to address the perceived threat posed by the app’s Chinese ownership, given its huge popularity among primarily young Americans. Earlier attempts...
This week, Xi Jinping made his first visit to Europe in five years. The first stop on his...
Students from at least 174 colleges and universities across six continents have erected...
Over 26 months have passed since Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine. The current stalemate has...
On April 17, the Solomon Islands held its first general election since Prime Minister Manasseh...
The European Parliament voted this week in favor of regulations to ban the sale, import, and...
Transnational repression by Chinese state-affiliated actors has long targeted Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hongkongers, and members of the Chinese diaspora. One subset of these groups is Chinese overseas students, who are now the focus of Amnesty International’s latest report: “On My Campus, I Am Afraid: China’s Targeting of Overseas Students Stifles Rights.” Using in-depth interviews with 32 Chinese students, including 12 from Hong Kong, studying at universities in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S., the report highlights the climate and sources of...
Students from at least 174 colleges and universities across six continents have erected...
On Chinese social media, the phrase “weak spot” (软肋, ruǎn lèi) is often used metaphorically to...
Two Chinese manufacturers of video surveillance equipment—state-owned Hikvision and publicly...
Muslims around the world celebrated Eid-al-Fitr this week, marking the end of the holy month of...
An incident on Wednesday, in which a representative for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) was denied...
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous incidents that have taken place within the last calendar year. Consistent with much of CDT’s 2024 coverage, the chengyu introduced below center on economic pain: impoverished farmers, distressed creditors, penny-pinching landlords—even cash-strapped police departments. Many also focus on official malfeasance: petty despotism, official greed, and wanton enforcement of...
As the Chinese economy continues to recover from the long pandemic (and post-pandemic) slowdown,...
Last week’s collapse of a stretch of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway in Guangdong province, after a...
Students from at least 174 colleges and universities across six continents have erected...
On Chinese social media, the phrase “weak spot” (软肋, ruǎn lèi) is often used metaphorically to...
Today’s CDT Quote of the Day is a response to the recent tide of online public discussion about...
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous incidents that have taken place within the last calendar year. Consistent with much of CDT’s 2024 coverage, the chengyu introduced below center on economic pain: impoverished farmers, distressed creditors, penny-pinching landlords—even cash-strapped police departments. Many also focus on official malfeasance: petty despotism, official greed, and wanton enforcement of...
Transnational repression by Chinese state-affiliated actors has long targeted Tibetans, Uyghurs,...
Following his trip to France earlier this week, Xi Jinping finished his European tour in Serbia...
This week, as expected, embattled short-video platform TikTok and its Chinese parent Bytedance...
This week, Xi Jinping made his first visit to Europe in five years. The first stop on his...
Students from at least 174 colleges and universities across six continents have erected...
An incident on Wednesday, in which a representative for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) was denied permission to enter Hong Kong to observe the national security trial of political and media figure Jimmy Lai, is yet another illustration of the precipitous decline of media freedom in that territory. Another RSF employee was allowed to enter. The episode comes on the heels of national security legislation related to Article 23, which threatens to further curtail civil liberties and press freedoms by criminalizing routine reporting, research, and advocacy work. The legislation was fast-tracked...
In its annual report on the state of media freedom in China last year, the Foreign Correspondents’...
In the wake of the Article 23 legislation passed two weeks ago in Hong Kong, further constricting...
The atmosphere for media freedom in Hong Kong has become increasingly inhospitable since the 2020...
Among Xi Jinping’s many Party-bestowed titles and hundreds of banned netizen nicknames is one that...
On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s legislature unanimously passed a new national security law that grants the...
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...
Over the past two weeks, the Biden administration has issued a series of regulations intended to...
Popular online writer Shen Maohua, who writes under the pen name Wei Zhou, is known for his...
As citizens revolt against never-ending lockdowns and local governments “resolutely struggle...
On Thursday, the Canadian government announced that it will ban Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE...
On Monday of last week, Malaysian musician Namewee (Wee Meng Chee, 黃明志) learned that his YouTube...
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...
In 2014, Leta Hong Fincher published her first book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender...
Starting in March 2008, Tibetans across the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), Qinghai, Gansu, and...
Surveys have shown that Xi Jinping’s hardline foreign policy is increasingly unpopular abroad....
Jeremy Wallace, associate professor of Government at Cornell University, joined CDT to discuss his...
Evidence of human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang has...
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous incidents that have taken place within the last calendar year. Consistent with much of CDT’s 2024 coverage, the chengyu introduced below center on economic pain: impoverished farmers, distressed creditors, penny-pinching landlords—even cash-strapped police departments. Many also focus on official malfeasance: petty despotism, official greed, and wanton enforcement of...
As the Chinese economy continues to recover from the long pandemic (and post-pandemic) slowdown,...
Following his trip to France earlier this week, Xi Jinping finished his European tour in Serbia...
This week, Xi Jinping made his first visit to Europe in five years. The first stop on his...
In recent weeks, residents of the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu have been posting screenshots of...
Today’s CDT Quote of the Day is a response to the recent tide of online public discussion about...
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous incidents that have taken place within the last calendar year. Consistent with much of CDT’s 2024 coverage, the chengyu introduced below center on economic pain: impoverished farmers, distressed creditors, penny-pinching landlords—even cash-strapped police departments. Many also focus on official malfeasance: petty despotism, official greed, and wanton enforcement of...
Transnational repression by Chinese state-affiliated actors has long targeted Tibetans, Uyghurs,...
As the Chinese economy continues to recover from the long pandemic (and post-pandemic) slowdown,...
This week, as expected, embattled short-video platform TikTok and its Chinese parent Bytedance...
Last week’s collapse of a stretch of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway in Guangdong province, after a...
Students from at least 174 colleges and universities across six continents have erected...
Government surveillance is a ubiquitous and growing phenomenon in China. New documents issued by the Ministry of State Security last month will empower Chinese law enforcement to search electronic devices without either a warrant or an ongoing criminal investigation. Last week, Conor Healy from the news website IPVM reported on developments related to a government project that would dramatically increase state surveillance capacity in Shanghai’s Xuhui District, a central, bustling area that includes the former French Concession: A sweeping mass surveillance expansion underway in central...
This week, as expected, embattled short-video platform TikTok and its Chinese parent Bytedance...
In Peter Hessler’s latest piece for The New Yorker, “How Chinese Students Experience America,” he...
At an April 8 press conference to unveil IM Motors’ new L6 electric sedan, company CEO Liu Tao...
Two Chinese manufacturers of video surveillance equipment—state-owned Hikvision and publicly...
Over a whirlwind two weeks of diplomacy in Beijing, China has sought to strengthen its ties to...
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous incidents that have taken place within the last calendar year. Consistent with much of CDT’s 2024 coverage, the chengyu introduced below center on economic pain: impoverished farmers, distressed creditors, penny-pinching landlords—even cash-strapped police departments. Many also focus on official malfeasance: petty despotism, official greed, and wanton enforcement of...
Transnational repression by Chinese state-affiliated actors has long targeted Tibetans, Uyghurs,...
This week, as expected, embattled short-video platform TikTok and its Chinese parent Bytedance...
On Chinese social media, the phrase “weak spot” (软肋, ruǎn lèi) is often used metaphorically to...
Today’s CDT Quote of the Day is a response to the recent tide of online public discussion about...
The latest corruption investigation into a senior Ministry of Justice official has inspired...
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...
A recent WeChat post from oft-controversial entrepreneur, publicity hound, and philanthropist Chen...
Even before the lifting of China’s long-standing “zero-COVID” policy in early December of last...
After conducting nucleic acid testing on its 26 million residents this week, Shanghai remains...
Evergrande offices across China have been beset by protesting retail investors and homeowners...
Anyone who has boarded an airplane in the last 20 years knows what stands between arrival at the...
Transnational repression by Chinese state-affiliated actors has long targeted Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hongkongers, and members of the Chinese diaspora. One subset of these groups is Chinese overseas students, who are now the focus of Amnesty International’s latest report: “On My Campus, I Am Afraid: China’s Targeting of Overseas Students Stifles Rights.” Using in-depth interviews with 32 Chinese students, including 12 from Hong Kong, studying at universities in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S., the report highlights the climate and sources of...
Students from at least 174 colleges and universities across six continents have erected...
On Chinese social media, the phrase “weak spot” (软肋, ruǎn lèi) is often used metaphorically to...
Z-Library, an online database with tens of millions of pirated and uncensored books and articles available for free download, is closing its Chinese WeChat account. In a statement posted to WeChat, Z-Library claimed that Chinese legal authorities had “attacked” its volunteer staff and intimated that they had refused to comply with censorship demands. The statement also seemed to encourage Chinese users to download virtual private networks (VPNs) (or other “scientific” means) in order to access the website despite “internet surveillance-and-control” policies: In our informatized,...
56 years after her wrongful execution, the poet-journalist turned dissident Lin Zhao is still...
After a decades-long infrastructure spending spree, many of China’s local governments now find...
On April 14, Sina News Hot Topics published a lengthy article on Weibo under the clickbait headline “The First Batch of DINKs, Exposed: Where Are They Now, and Do They All Regret Not Having Kids?” The four-part article focused on ostensible profiles of DINK (“double income, no kids”) couples, most of whom were portrayed as either lonely, estranged, divorced, bitter, or regretful that they had never had children. Some of those profiled said that they had changed their minds and decided to have kids after all. Although the article purported to present both sides of the issue, both the language...
Hu Chenfeng, a Chinese content creator who first rose to fame making videos about poverty, has...
Beijing’s half-marathon is under investigation after three runners from Kenya and Ethiopia...
Nymphia Wind, a Taiwanese drag queen, has won the 16th season of the American reality TV competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race. Her victory has been cause for quiet celebration in China, where drag is in the ascendant despite increased state repression of the LGBTQ+ community. Nymphia Wind is the drag persona of Leo Tsao, a 28-year-old Taiwanese American fashion designer. Wind’s outspoken pride in both her Asian and Taiwanese heritage has made her a complex figure in China. At The Washington Post, Vic Chiang interviewed Nymphia Wind and wrote that Chinese netizens are keeping quiet on her...
This week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz completed a three-day visit to China. It was his second...
Throughout Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, China has sidestepped the conflict, criticized it from...
Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous incidents that have taken place within the last calendar year. Consistent with much of CDT’s 2024 coverage, the chengyu introduced below center on economic pain: impoverished farmers, distressed creditors, penny-pinching landlords—even cash-strapped police departments. Many also focus on official malfeasance: petty despotism, official greed, and wanton enforcement of...
Transnational repression by Chinese state-affiliated actors has long targeted Tibetans, Uyghurs,...
This week, as expected, embattled short-video platform TikTok and its Chinese parent Bytedance...
A group of students under the impression they had discovered a WeChat “bug” that hides the phrase “200 jin of dumplings” (roughly 220 pounds) had in fact stumbled upon an obscure insult for Xi Jinping that triggers automatic censorship. In the course of daily conversation, the students found that messages preceded by the term “200 jin of dumplings” (200斤饺子) were not received by their counterparts. Juvenile hilarity ensued. They sent each other curses and confessions: “200 jin of dumplings, you’re a stupid c***,” “200 jin of dumplings, you’re an idiot,” “200 jin of dumplings, piggy,” and...
This week saw the proliferation of COVID conspiracy theories on Chinese social media, the...
While the official position from Beijing is that China remains a neutral observer of the...
Z-Library, an online database with tens of millions of pirated and uncensored books and articles available for free download, is closing its Chinese WeChat account. In a statement posted to WeChat, Z-Library claimed that Chinese legal authorities had “attacked” its volunteer staff and intimated that they had refused to comply with censorship demands. The statement also seemed to encourage Chinese users to download virtual private networks (VPNs) (or other “scientific” means) in order to access the website despite “internet surveillance-and-control” policies: In our informatized,...
Nymphia Wind, a Taiwanese drag queen, has won the 16th season of the American reality TV...
Beijing’s half-marathon is under investigation after three runners from Kenya and Ethiopia...
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...
A recent WeChat post from oft-controversial entrepreneur, publicity hound, and philanthropist Chen...
Even before the lifting of China’s long-standing “zero-COVID” policy in early December of last...
Government surveillance is a ubiquitous and growing phenomenon in China. New documents issued by the Ministry of State Security last month will empower Chinese law enforcement to search electronic devices without either a warrant or an ongoing criminal investigation. Last week, Conor Healy from the news website IPVM reported on developments related to a government project that would dramatically increase state surveillance capacity in Shanghai’s Xuhui District, a central, bustling area that includes the former French Concession: A sweeping mass surveillance expansion underway in central...
This week, as expected, embattled short-video platform TikTok and its Chinese parent Bytedance...
In Peter Hessler’s latest piece for The New Yorker, “How Chinese Students Experience America,” he...
At a recent summit in Ethiopia, the African Union (AU) decided to approve a 15-year continent-wide ban on the slaughter of donkeys for their hides. Donkey hides are a key component of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) ingredient known as ejiao (“donkey-hide gelatin”), whose demand in China has boomed over the past decade and decimated donkey populations in Africa. The Donkey Sanctuary, one of the world’s largest equine charity organizations, celebrated the announcement and described its significance This historic decision taken by the African Union recognises, at the highest level of...
This week in Dubai, after two weeks of negotiations among representatives from almost 200...
As the U.N. COP28 Climate Summit is underway in the United Arab Emirates, bringing together...
An incident on Wednesday, in which a representative for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) was denied permission to enter Hong Kong to observe the national security trial of political and media figure Jimmy Lai, is yet another illustration of the precipitous decline of media freedom in that territory. Another RSF employee was allowed to enter. The episode comes on the heels of national security legislation related to Article 23, which threatens to further curtail civil liberties and press freedoms by criminalizing routine reporting, research, and advocacy work. The legislation was fast-tracked...
In its annual report on the state of media freedom in China last year, the Foreign Correspondents’...
In the wake of the Article 23 legislation passed two weeks ago in Hong Kong, further constricting...
Over a whirlwind two weeks of diplomacy in Beijing, China has sought to strengthen its ties to both the United States and Russia—a difficult balancing act. Xi Jinping took a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden last week which was followed with a four-day trip through China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The day after Yellen’s departure, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Xi Jinping in Beijing in preparation for “upcoming contacts at the highest level,” a sign that Russian leader Vladimir Putin may be planning a Beijing trip this calendar year. Soon after, China’s...
Among Xi Jinping’s many Party-bestowed titles and hundreds of banned netizen nicknames is one that...
Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost its legislative majority in the country’s...
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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