In What Purport to be Lifestyle Videos, Uyghur Influencers Promote Beijing’s Narrative on Their Homeland
For the past few years, Uyghur and other young members of ethnic minority groups from Xinjiang have been creating videos like Anniguli’s in which they appear to display details of their personal lives while simultaneously evincing support for the...
Wang Jixian: A Voice from The Other China, but in Odessa
In Xinjiang, Rare Protests Came Amid Lockdown
Six months after China rolled out its first coronavirus lockdown in Wuhan in late January 2020, Urumqi was placed under quarantine. The first lockdown specifically targeting the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, rather than the...
China’s First Big #MeToo Case Tests the Party
from New York Review of BooksIn November, a court at last notified Zhou Xiaoxuan, known more commonly by her nickname, Xianzi, that it would try her case, a civil lawsuit filed in 2018 against television host Zhu Jun, who she alleges sexually harassed her. But when the trial...
Technical Difficulties
Citing national security concerns, the Trump administration announced...
What Just Happened with the NBA in China?
Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted—and then quickly deleted—a post supporting the protests in Hong Kong. The tweet generated an immediate outcry. The Chinese Basketball Association announced it was suspending cooperation with the...
Thwarted at Home, Can China’s Feminists Rebuild a Movement Abroad?
A small number of China’s feminist movement’s influential thinkers and organizers have relocated overseas, in search of an environment more hospitable to their activism. Today, though their numbers are relatively small, they have succeeded in...
China’s Government Wants You to Think All Mainlanders View Hong Kong the Same Way. They Don’t.
Mainland Chinese flood the Internet with messages calling protesters in Hong Kong “useless youth.” They send obscene messages and death threats to supporters of the Hong Kong demonstrations. But reports on episodes like this, while important, are...
Facebook’s Return to China Thrown into Doubt
The company, like all major US tech platforms, has been blocked in the country since 2009. Facebook said on Wednesday it had secured a licence to set up an “innovation hub to support Chinese developers, innovators and start-ups”. But 24 hours...
‘Ruling Through Ritual’: An Interview with Guo Yuhua
from New York Review of BooksGuo Yuhua is one of China’s best-known sociologists and most incisive government critics. A professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, she has devoted her career to researching human suffering in Chinese society, especially that of peasants,...
Censored
As authoritarian governments around the world develop sophisticated technologies for controlling information, many observers have predicted that these controls would be ineffective because they are easily thwarted and evaded by savvy Internet users. Margaret Roberts demonstrates that even censorship that is easy to circumvent can still be enormously effective. Taking advantage of digital data harvested from the Chinese Internet and leaks from China’s Propaganda Department, this book sheds light on how and when censorship influences the Chinese public.
In China, Photo of Trade Talks Embodies ‘Young’ Country Passing Aging U.S.
A distinct age gap between Chinese delegates and American lawmakers.
Gap Apologizes for Selling T-Shirt with 'Incorrect Map' of China
Disputed territories including south Tibet, Taiwan and the South China Sea were omitted.
A Documentary Reveals the Dangerous Fickleness of Online Fame in China
In The People’s Republic of Desire, Hao Wu films the lonely shadows where the lines between online and offline dissolve.
A Ban on Gay Content, Stopped in Its Tracks
On April 13, China’s major microblogging platform Sina Weibo announced that, in order to create “a sunny and harmonious” environment, it would remove videos and comics “with pornographic implications, promoting bloody violence, or related to...
Alibaba Opens Car Vending Machine in China That Gives Free Test Drives for People with Good Social Credit
Alibaba and Ford signed a deal to form a partnership last year that would see both companies working together on new technological opportunities.
A Reporter Rolled Her Eyes, and China’s Internet Broke
A reporter's eye-roll at China's legislature meeting went viral.
Forbidden Feeds: Government Controls on Social Media in China
Based on extensive interviews with writers, poets, artists, activists, and others personally affected by the government’s grip on online expression, as well as interviews with anonymous employees at Chinese social media companies, this report...
China Chides Tech Firms over Privacy Safeguards
China reprimanded three top tech firms on Friday over poor privacy protections, as tech companies face an increasing backlash from consumers and authorities over excessive data collection practices.
Chinese boy with frozen hair reignites poverty debate
An eight-year-old Chinese pupil, dubbed "Ice Boy" by social media users after images emerged of him arriving at school with swollen hands and frost on his hair and eyebrows, has sparked renewed discussion online about child poverty.
China's Social Media Giants Want Their Users to Help out with the Crushing Burden of Censorship
China’s social media giants are ramping up efforts to get their users to turn in people circulating taboo content, as the Communist Party further tightens its grip on the country’s internet.
Central Planning, Local Experiments
The “Social Credit System” is designed to monitor and rate citizens and companies in China and to guide their behavior. “It is a wide-reaching project that touches on almost all aspects of everyday life,” the authors Mareike Ohlberg, Bertram Lang...
Skype Vanishes from App Stores in China, Including Apple’s
For almost a month, Skype, the internet phone call and messaging service, has been unavailable on a number of sites where apps are downloaded in China, including Apple’s app store in the country.
Chinese Social Media Giant Is Worth More Than Facebook
Tencent shares closed more than 2% higher in Hong Kong on Tuesday, valuing the social media and gaming giant at around $522 billion, according to FactSet. Facebook is currently worth a little over $519 billion.
In China, Trading Begins on WeChat
Regulators elsewhere may be clamping down on the financial industry’s use of private messaging apps, but in the world’s second-largest economy the practice is flourishing.
Facebook Blocks Chinese Billionaire Who Tells Tales of Corruption
A Chinese billionaire living in virtual exile in New York, Guo Wengui has riled China’s leaders with his sometimes outlandish tales of deep corruption among family members of top Communist Party officials.
Fame Academy, the Chinese College Offering Classes in How to Become an Internet Celebrity
Chongqing Institute of Engineering has already enrolled 19 students, mainly female, to be taught about how to present themselves online to attract viewers and translate fame into profit.
The Timing May Be Right for Facebook to Enter China next Year, Analyst Predicts
A Mizuho report pointed out that Beijing tends to lessen its media scrutiny during an administration's second term, and Facebook may have “an opening” after Xi Jinping begins his second five-year term in November.
China Communist Party Youth Twitter Account Prompts Abuse
Setting up a Twitter account may seem a fairly obvious thing for a political party to do, but the step has not so far worked out too well for China’s Communist Party.
China's WeChat Crackdown Drives Bitcoin Devotees to Telegram
With administrators personally liable for what is said on groups they run, users of bitcoin exchanges OKCoin, Huobi and BTCChina are migrating to services beyond the Chinese government’s reach.
Blocked in China, Facebook Is Said to Seek a Shanghai Office
The social media giant in recent months has quietly scouted for office space in Shanghai, according to two people with knowledge of its efforts there. Those offices would house employees working on Facebook’s effort to make hardware but could...
Wanda Sues over 'False' Reports on Chairman Wang Jianlin
Dalian Wanda Group, the property and entertainment giant controlled by billionaire Wang Jianlin, has filed defamation suits against at least 10 Chinese social media accounts that published reports the company says sent its shares and bonds...
Facebook Tests Way Into China Via Secret Photo—Sharing App
A photo—sharing app has appeared on Apple’s App Store in China that looks exactly like Facebook’s Moments app, and analysts say it may be a way for the US tech group to finally break into its most coveted market.
KFC—Yes That KFC—Is Selling Its Own Smartphones in China
Kentucky Fried Chicken celebrated its 30th anniversary of operations in China by unveiling a limited edition smartphone it had collaborated on with Chinese smartphone maker Huawei.
China, Where the Pressure to Marry Is Strong, and the Advice Flows Online
Although women in their 20s are greatly outnumbered by men in the same age group in China, a product in part of the since-abandoned one-child family policy and a cultural preference for sons, they face enormous pressure to marry. Those who do not...
Online Gossip Clampdown in China Leads to Netizen Outcry
Chinese netizens have decried a government campaign to shut down many of the nation's top celebrity gossip outlets as Beijing escalates its control over online content.
The Classic Chinese Text That Ivanka Trump’s Kids Recited for Xi Jinping Was Long Banned in China
For decades, Sanzijing had been banned from all public kindergartens and schools in China as the Communist regime cracked down on non-socialist ideas.
Chinese Blame America for United Airlines
from Foreign PolicyThe video of David Dao being dragged kicking and screaming off a United Airlines flight by Chicago police set the American Internet aflame Monday. That’s not a surprise: Whether you blame the greed of American airlines or...
China and the Legend of Ivanka
That such a vexed figure may serve as the role model for Chinese women who are just beginning to grapple with their identity in a society that has historically been hostile to their empowerment seems like a regression.
China’s Twitter Clone Will Soon Have More Users Than Twitter
While Twitter is going through some rough times, Weibo, which went public in the U.S. in 2014, is thriving. In fact Weibo is on track to surpass its U.S. counterpart in one of the key metrics for social media platforms: monthly active users.
Trump’s Feminist Critics Gagged by Chinese Internet Giant Weibo
Chinese feminists have hit out at their country’s answer to Twitter after it gagged one of their movement’s most visible social media accounts in an apparent bid to stifle criticism of U.S. president Donald Trump.
Live-Streaming in China Now Requires a Broadcast License If You’re Not a Citizen
Live streaming is taking off in China, but foreigners won’t be able to join in the fun.
China’s Weibo Eclipses Rival Twitter’s Market Capitalization
Shares rally on back of Chinese social platform’s ability to monetize subscriber base
U.N. Social Media Posts Removed in China After Backlash
A massive backlash on social media in China has apparently led the United Nations to take down two Lunar New Year posts on refugees and poverty from their Chinese Weibo social media site.
Chinese Send Fake Trump Tweets as Jokes, New Year Wishes
In China, Twitter is blocked but fake tweets by @realdonaldtrump look set to become the latest internet sensation.
Twitter China Chief Kathy Chen Departs
Twitter Inc.’s controversial China chief has departed after only eight months, the latest executive to leave amid a global reorganization. A stream of executives has left the company since it announced layoffs in October amid continued losses....
China Warmly Welcomes a Giant Rooster With Trumpian Characteristics
Trump's golden quiff has appeared on a 23-foot tall rooster statue outside a shopping mall in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan
Chinese Middle Class in Uproar Over Alleged Police Brutality
Thousands are signing online petitions to protest the dropping of a police brutality case, representing a rare display of white-collar outrage with Beijing
The Memes That Took Over China’s Internet in 2016
This year's most popular memes reflected a more ruthless and aggressive—but also more fragile—China
Chinese Propaganda Video Warns of West’s “Devilish Claws”
The video has been widely promoted online by public security offices that oversee the police, including the Ministry of Public Security
China’s Millennial Consumers: What Victoria’s Secret Got Wrong, and Nike Got Right
Chinese millennials are conflicted between their national pride and their love for western brands
Students in China Were Made to Take Exams Outdoors in Toxic Smog
Widely circulated photos of the students, sitting at desks while blanketed in choking pollution, starkly dramatize the Chinese "airpocalypse"
Drone Diplomacy
Trump's tweets at China over a drone are intensifying an already strained relationship
China’s State Media Has Been Mocking Donald Trump’s ‘Unpresidented’ Tweet
"Trump is not behaving as a President who will become master of the White House in a month"
Donald Trump Accuses China of 'Unpresidented' Act Over US Navy Drone
President-elect makes spelling error in belligerent early morning tweet; China says ‘hyping up’ of issue is not helpful but agrees return of vehicle
China’s Digital Dictatorship
Turn the spotlight on the rulers, not the ruled: Instead of rating citizens, the government should be allowing them to assess the way it rules