How China Uses J-Visas to Punish International Media for Critical Coverage
A new report finds Chinese authorities are "treating journalistic accreditation as a privilege rather than a professional right."
Beijing Quietly Curbs Discussion of Documentary on Air Pollution
Censors stepped in to tamp down the buzz around an air-pollution documentary that drew 100 million views.
Travels with My Censor
China’s reading public has begun to discover nonfiction books about China by foreigners.
Conversation
02.27.15
Are China and Russia Forging a New Ideological Bloc?
With evidence of ties strengthening between Beijing and Moscow—over energy contracts, the handling of the Ukraine, and their diplomats' stance toward outside interference in internal affairs, especially if it's perceived as coming from Washington—...
Media
02.23.15
Five Predictions for Chinese Censorship in the Year of the Sheep
Blocked websites, jailed journalists, and nationalist rhetoric have long been features of the Chinese Communist Party’s media control strategy. During the Year of the Horse, which just ended on China’s lunar calendar, President Xi Jinping and his...
Viewpoint
02.19.15
Beijing Touts ‘Cyber-Sovereignty’ In Internet Governance
It has been a difficult few weeks for global technology companies operating in China.
Chinese officials strengthened the Internet firewall by blocking...
China Tells Schools to Suppress Western Ideas, With One Big Exception
Some teachers and students reject the idea that foreign pedagogy and textbooks pose a threat to the government.
China Says No Room for ‘Western Values’ in University Education
Education minister says books which ‘smear socialism’ will be banned.
China Communist Party Magazine Blasts Professors Who Spread ‘Western Values’
Party journal's commentary targets liberal academics after President Xi Jinping calls for 'ideological guidance' for teachers and students
China Says Web Authors Must Use Real Names
Guidelines aim to force online authors to “take better responsibility” for their works.
China to Pay Price for ‘Closed-Internet’ Policy |
Thinking everything will look good by blocking online access may sound too simple and naive.
Chinese Director’s Film For Greenpeace Shows How Smog Changes Everything
The film follows families from Hebei, in heavily polluted industrial northern China, and from Beijing, the prosperous Chinese capital next door, that has seen epic pollution emergencies recently.
China Is Using ‘Charlie Hebdo’ to Justify Its Own Crackdown on Free Speech
“The world is diverse and there should be limits on press freedom,” read the editorial by Paris bureau chief Ying Qiang. “Unfettered and unprincipled satire, humiliation, and free speech are not acceptable.”
Sources: Nicolas Cage’s ‘Outcast’ Has Chinese Release Date Delayed Again
There have been a host of theories about why Outcast is being delayed. Some distribution sources said in September that YFG was unhappy with the number of screens made available for the film.
China’s 109-Year-Old Dissenter Is Still Fighting for Democracy
Born when a Qing dynasty emperor was on the throne, the man who helped invent the Pinyin writing system used for transliterating Chinese worldwide turns 109 on Tuesday. But Zhou Youguang's outspoken support for democracy means his writings are...
Want to Hire a Private Car in China? There Will Be No App for That
“Banning private cars from using the apps will put passengers at ease,” the ministry said. “But apps for premium car services have an innovative service model and play a positive role in meeting the high-end and differentiated transportation...
China Strives to Be on African Minds, and TV Sets
While China imposes strict controls on foreign-produced entertainment at home, it is also eager to see its cultural products embraced abroad. And in Africa, Chinese television shows have become immensely popular — at least according to the...
The Politburo’s Predicament
Freedom House
Drawing on an analysis of hundreds of official documents, censorship directives, and human rights reports, as well as some 30 expert interviews, the study finds that the overall degree of repression has increased under the new leadership. Of 17...
Sinica Podcast
12.26.14
Regulating the Fourth Estate in China
from Sinica PodcastThe explosion of the commercial media sphere in China over the last decade hasn't been particularly subtle, especially if you're anything like us and walk past multiple Chinese newsstands in the morning. But let's look beyond the way kiosks have...
Reporting & Opinion
12.23.14
China in 2014 Through the Eyes of a Human Rights Advocate
from China ChangeThis time last year, volunteers and I were busy writing and translating articles to prepare for the New Citizens Movement trials. Many Chinese voices were speaking out forcefully against these trials: law professors, rights lawyers, liberal...
Media
12.08.14
On First Annual Constitution Day, China’s Most Censored Word Was ‘Constitution’
On December 4, China’s first annual Constitution Day, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily posted the complete text of the Chinese...
Thousands of Local Internet Propaganda Emails Leaked
The archive includes correspondence, photos, directories of “Internet commentators” (网评员), summaries of commentary work, and records of the online activities of specific individuals, among other documents. Over 2,700 emails are included in the...
Conversation
12.03.14
Can China Conquer the Internet?
Lu Wei, China’s new Internet Czar, recently tried to get the world to agree to...
Gregarious and Direct: China’s Web Doorkeeper
When a major Chinese-American Internet conference convenes in Washington on Tuesday, a middle-aged Communist Party propaganda chief will be seated amid a room full of tech industry executives, American officials and web luminaries.
Environment
11.26.14
The People’s Republic of Chemicals
from chinadialogueThe name of China is almost obscured by a grey smudge on the title page of The People’s Republic of Chemicals,...
Despite Persecution, Guardian of Lake Tai Spotlights China’s Polluters
ZHOUTIE, China — By autumn, the stench of Lake Tai and the freakish green glow of its waters usually fade with the ebbing of the summer heat, but this year is different. Standing on a concrete embankment overlooking a fetid, floating array of...
Paper Published by Communist Party Endorses Charge Against Veteran Journalist Gao Yu
Gao, 70, denied the charges in a closed-door hearing on Friday. She faces a maximum sentence of death. The document in question is believed to outline curbs on the spread of Western civil liberties in China.
At China Online Coming-Out Party, Beijing Spells out Internet Control Ambition
China showed governments and the planet's biggest tech firms last week its vision for global Internet governance—clean, controlled and choreographed.
Sinica Podcast
11.25.14
Internet Wrangling in Wuzhen
from Sinica PodcastKaiser Kuo hosts alone this week as we turn our attention to the World Internet Conference (English site) last week, when a...
Google Looks to Get Back Into China
Google Inc. is considering bringing a version of its Play mobile-app store to China, a tentative but important step back into a country that Google mostly exited in 2010.
“Hunger Games” China Release Date canceled, Likely Due to “Revolutionary” Political Content
The film's sudden withdrawal may be due to the film's apparently incendiary content, depicting a fictitious revolution aimed at toppling a dystopian future government. It's feared that movie-goers might draw parallels to Taiwan's Sunflower...
Viewpoint
11.21.14
“Getting Pantsed” by the “Central People’s Court”
In December of last year CCTV producer Wang Qinglei wrote a post on his Weibo account criticizing the Chinese government’s campaign-style attacks on prominent social media figures and arguing the media had also been drawn in and was “sidestepping...
Newspaper Calls on Chinese Academics to Cut the Criticism
Liaoning Daily, a Communist Party-run newspaper in northeast China, published the article, “Teacher, Please Don’t Talk About China Like That: An Open Letter to Teachers of Philosophy and Social Science,” last week in response to a...
In China, Blunt Talk to Reporters on Access
Mr. Xi’s comments come as several journalists for The New York Times and other news organizations have been forced to cover the country from outside its borders, after producing articles that were embarrassing for the Chinese leadership...
Unable to Clean Air Completely for Apec, China Resorts to Blocking Data
China has made a gargantuan effort to clear Beijing’s smoggy air for an important regional summit this week, closing hundreds of factories and forcing cars off the road, but its efforts have only been partially successful.
Cut the Shawl Talk: Chinese Censors Wipe Putin’s Move on China’s First Lady
At an APEC event to watch the fireworks in Beijing on Monday night, Russian President Vladimir Putin created a few of his own by slipping a shawl over the shoulders of Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Ali Baba’s Cave and Pandora’s Box
When Lu Wei — the man who reportedly led the crackdown on the “Big V” Weibo account holders last year — was asked at a press conference why sites like Facebook (which is blocked in China) had been “shut down,” he responded with a homespun...
Plenum Didn’t Decide on Zhou Graft Case ‘As He Is No Longer State Leader’
The Party's anti-graft watchdog announced three months ago that it was investigating Zhou—making him the first serving or former member of the elite Politburo Standing Committee to be probed—but there has been no word since on progress in the...
China’s Crackdown on Dissent Shows How Nervous Its Leaders Are
The legal assault on a critic of Mao gives a flavor of the current climate. Tie Liu is the pen name of Huang Zerong, 81, who has collected and published memoirs of people who were purged by Chinese dictator Mao Zedong in the 1950s and 1960s.
China’s Decision to Expel Journalists to Hong Kong is Now Blowing Up in its Face
Hong Kong has one of the highest rates of Western journalists per capita of any non-Western city in the world, including a number of the best foreign correspondents in the business.
Foreign Journalists in China See Decline in Reporting Conditions
Conditions for foreign journalists working in China have gone from bad to worse over the past year, according to a report issued on Friday by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China.
Can Frank Underwood Beat China’s Censors?
At first glance, the Chinese government’s announcement of regulations restricting foreign programming that can be shown on Chinese streaming-video sites would appear to be very bad news for business.
China to Limit Foreign TV Shows on Video-Streaming Sites
Regulators expected to cap amount of imported television content at 30 percent.
New Political News Website Scolded by Party Propaganda Officials for 'Incorrect Practices'
Thepaper.cn given a 'stern warning' after it likely irked propaganda officials.
Beijing Independent Film Festival Shut Down by Chinese Authorities
Organizers forced to sign documents promising not to hold festival, as China's crackdown on freedom of speech continues.
China’s Xi Jinping Seeks Launch of New Media Clusters
Xi said that the new groups should be “diversified,” “advanced,” and “competitive” and said that state authorities should properly integrate and manage traditional and new media.”
Conversation
07.17.14
How to Read China’s New Press Restrictions
On June 30, China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television posted a statement on its website warning Chinese journalists not to share...
Blood-Drenched Chinese Story to Finally Grace Big Screen … in Korea
The film “Chronicle of a Blood Merchant,” based on the 1995 novel of the same name by best-selling Chinese writer Yu Hua, has finally begun shooting nearly 14 years after it was first announced. But it won’t be a Chinese film...
China Bans Xinjiang Officials From Observing Ramadan Fast
Activists have accused Beijing of exaggerating the threat from Uighur separatists to justify a crackdown on the Uighurs’ religious and cultural freedoms.
‘There Are No Rules in China’
When dissident author Murong Xuecun returns home, he says he will tell Beijing authorities they can come and get him.
China’s Complicated Relationship with Golf
Dan Washburn, managing editor of the Asia Society and author of the new book “The Forbidden Game,” tells Jessica Marksbury that golf in China is both banned and booming.
Do Chinese Classrooms Need to Talk About Sex?
Sex education is taught inadequately in school and avoided by parents, resulting in generations of Chinese children growing up wondering if babies come out of armpits, or from the garbage dump, as others have also cited.