Liu Xiaobo Locked Up in China, Locked Out of Translation of Paul Auster Novel
Liu Xiaobo’s arrest was cut from the Chinese translation of Auster's novel without his knowledge.
‘Crotch Bomb’ in Anti-Japan War Drama Blasted by Chinese Netizens as 'Lewd, Bizarre'
When a prisoner pulls his hand from underneath the heroine's dress, he is holding a bomb, which he then detonates.
The Worrying Rise of Anti-China Discourse in the US
Forget U.S. patrols in the South China Sea. This is the real threat to U.S.-China relations.
10 Most Censored Countries
For more than 10 years, China has been among the top 3 jailers of journalists in the world, a distinction that it is unlikely to lose soon.
New App Collects Xi’s Wisdom
The free app makes available Xi’s books including “The Governance of China.”
Conversation
03.11.15
Is China Really Cracking Up?
On March 7, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by David Shambaugh arguing that “the endgame of Chinese communist rule has...
China’s Tensions With Dalai Lama Spill Into the Afterlife
Chinese Communist Party leaders are deathly afraid that the Dalai Lama will not have an afterlife.
China’s Tensions With Dalai Lama Spill Into the Afterlife
Chinese Communist Party leaders are deathly afraid that the Dalai Lama will not have an afterlife.
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."
Xi Jinping Hopes to Count in Chinese Political History With ‘Four Comprehensives’ -
Chinese President Xi Jinping has uncorked his own ordinal political philosophy.
China Starts Massive Promotion of Xi Jinping’s Political Theory the ‘Four Comprehensives’
Xi has created a slogan and formulated principles to guide his style of government.
China’s Internet Censorship Anthem Is Revealed, Then Deleted
Cyberspace Administration employees Sang lines like, “An Internet power: Tell the world that the Chinese Dream is uplifting China.”
In Sharp Words From Xi, Ominous Implications for China’s Legal Reforms
A Communist saying about the role of law states “the handle of the knife is firmly in the hands of the party and the people.”
A Softer Touch on Soft Power
Soft power has become strategically important for China because cultural productivity and influence are now regarded as important components of comprehensive national power.
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
Study Examines How Overseas Chinese Students Respond to Criticism of Their Country
Do conversations between domestic and foreign students result in mutual understanding and friendly feelings?
The Colorful Propaganda of Xinjiang
The government believes religion breeds terror and has been trying to control religious expression in the region by imposing rules on the Uighur community. Critics say it is exacerbating the terror problem.
Reading Howl in China
My generation, once impassioned by the Western literature of rebellion, is now lulled by ‘Wealthy Socialism.’
China Chides U.S. Over Ferguson Violence, American Racism
State media of the world’s largest country has stepped up coverage of the Ferguson violence and protests, publishing commentaries accusing the United States of hypocrisy in seeking to be a global guardian of human rights.
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Mao’s Little Red Book, Meet Xi Jinping’s Collected Speeches
Since its publication not quite two months ago, the somewhat turgidly named “A Reader of General-Secretary Xi Jinping’s Important Speeches” has already sold 10 million copies, its publisher reports.
Undermining China, One Knockout at a Time
While blustering essays stoking Chinese nationalism are nothing new, Zhou Xiaoping’s piece on the “real-life war” being waged on the Internet seems to have enjoyed unusually broad circulation.
China Confirms Deadly Xinjiang Attack, Shows Graphic Footage of October Violence
Chinese authorities have confirmed an attack on security personal at a checkpoint in the restive far western region of Xinjiang, which a U.S.-backed radio service said left five dead.
The China Africa Project
06.02.14
CCTV Africa: The Frontline of Soft-Power Diplomacy
Since its launch in 2012, CCTV Africa has grown considerably in its distribution and programming. However, the central question remains as to whether or not anyone is actually watching, to justify the massive investment undertaken by the Chinese...
Don’t Call Me Dude, Boss or Bro. It’s Comrade to You
A new notice demands greater “naming discipline” from party members and officials, warning that using “vulgar” terms of address in the workplace was “wrecking inner-party democracy.”
Propaganda Artists From North Korea Paint a Rose-Tinted China
Thrusting China's contemporary icons into the aesthetic landscape of early Communist propaganda provides a striking image of quite how far the country has come since Deng Xiaoping began his policy of Reform and Opening in 1978....
The NYRB China Archive
10.15.13
Old Dreams for a New China
from New York Review of BooksEver since China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, first uttered the phrase “China Dream” last year, people in China and abroad have been scrambling to decipher its meaning. Many nations have “dreams”; in Canada, the country’s most prominent popular...
Is This Lazy Panda China’s Zuckerberg?
State-owned China Network Television has installed more than 30 cameras at a panda reserve in Western China, designed a fancy website providing access to the cameras, launched a mobile app so the pandas can be watched on-the-go, and then...
A Rising China Needs a New National Story
It is time for China and the more vociferous propagandists in Beijing to move beyond declarations about China’s “one hundred years of national humiliation.” That period has come to an end.
Beijing Unveils Fresh Campaign to Promote "Chinese Dream" Abroad
The Communist Party's propaganda chief has unveiled a new plan for the broad realisation and promotion of the "Chinese dream" abroad, a campaign championed by party general secretary Xi Jinping.
Can N. Korea Learn From Coca Cola? (China Did)
“The military-first regime derives support from the public perception that it is feared and respected around the world. So international ridicule may well put the regime under more pressure to carry through on at least some of its rhetoric...
Chinese Cinemas Cancel Propaganda Film Screenings
Theater operators in several cities called off showings of government-backed “Young Lei Feng” after the film failed to sell a single ticket during its premiere on Monday.
Sanmao Learns From Lei Feng
Learn how to be a selfless good Samaritan like Lei Feng through Zhang Leping's Sanmao comics.
Rebel Chinese Newspaper Dares To Challenge Party Line
Operating out of two rooms in a dilapidated pharmaceutical factory, and with a staff of four, the Voice of the People is a muckraking freesheet challenging the local propaganda paper.
Media
01.25.13
Former China State TV Director Bemoans Anti-Japanese Propaganda: “Where’s the Creativity?”
Are Chinese audiences growing weary of anti-Japanese propaganda? It would seem that some, at least, are growing sick of the pathetic villains, superhuman heroes, and lame endings that many Chinese movies and television series about World War II,...
Mo Yan and the Hazards of Hollow Words
In Chinese, there are an impressive number of ways to describe saying nothing at all. When a person is determined to speak at length but not in depth, he can embark on a long jog of feihua—literally, wasted words—or perhaps pass the time at the...
China’s Great Political Leap Backward
After years of parsing China's political jargon, I wasn't expecting anything dramatic from the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which opened in Beijing last week. It was foolish, I knew, to look for bold statements on the...
Xinhua Insight: China Will Never Copy Western Political System
Xinhua says Hu Jintao wants China to support state power and at the same time improve the system of community-level democracy.
The Five “Vermin” Threatening China
In Yuan Peng’s 2012 repertoire of what are now popularly known as the ‘New Black Five Categories of People’ were identified as: rights lawyers, underground religious activities, dissidents, Internet leaders and...
National Identity: Pictures of the Enemy
The national identity has become so unfortunately bound up with demonstrations against Japan. So we turn from recent differences to subjects less timely. The horrors of the Nanjing massacre of 1937 have long stoked the imagination of Chinese...
Keywords: Preserving Stability
The two-character Chinese phrase weiwen is an abbreviated form of the full phrase, weihu wending, meaning to preserve or safeguard stability. The Chinese Communist Party has many such shortened phrases, compact verbalisms that pack a political...
Watchwords: The Life of the Party
To outsiders, the political catchphrases deployed by China’s top leaders seem like the stiffest sort of nonsense. What do they mean when they drone on about the “Four Basic Principles,” or “socialism with Chinese characteristics”? Most Chinese...
Searching for a People
The disaffected characters of Pirandello’s work offer us perhaps a way to understand the complaints and parodies of Communist Party rule that abound on the Chinese Internet. If unelected rule had previously allowed China’s party-state to claim...
Editor Suicide Linked to Pressure
The suicide this week of a top features editor at the Communist Party official newspaper People's Daily has sent shock waves through the tightly controlled world of China's state-run media, commentators said on Thursday. Xu Huaiqian, 45...
Measuring China’s “National Revival”
Citizens of the PRC are accustomed to having reams of statistics thrown at them – indeed, contemporary Chinese rhetoric demands that any important speech begin with a recitation of numbers and percentages. The accuracy of such statistics is not...
Beijing’s Growing Credibility Gap
Authoritarian regimes have traditionally relied heavily on controlling the flow of information that their subjects receive as a critical element of maintaining political power. The Chinese Communist Party is no different: they have an extensive...
Hong Kong Protests Patriotism Classes
Amid fears that the mainland is increasing their involvement in Hong Kong politics, the San Francisco Chronicle reports ...