Cautioning His Students to Stay Quiet, A Scholar of China Hears Echoes of Its Past in America's Present
For several generations now, the overriding philosophy of life for many Chinese intellectuals and average citizens has been “mingzhe baoshen,” (明哲保身) which dictionaries define as “a wise man looks after his own hide” or “put one’s own safety...
Three Potential Pitfalls of Trump’s Approach to China
Many observers argue that the first Trump administration played an important role in consolidating a bipartisan U.S. “consensus” on China, the core element of which is a judgment that Beijing is Washington’s foremost strategic competitor....
ChinaFile Presents: Shifting Terrain in U.S.-China Relations, Xi Jinping’s Vision for China’s Future
On March 11, ChinaFile and the Center for China Analysis (CCA) hosted a conversation between Julian Gewirtz, a historian, China expert, and former senior director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the National Security Council under President Joe...
‘Survival Comes First’
from China Media ProjectGeneration Z has now become the primary force among China’s growing ranks of China’s online content moderators, who number in the tens of thousands. Their physical stamina means they generally fare better with the intense demands of the job and...
Former Chinese Enemies Increasingly Aligned on Taiwan
A conservative party pledging to return the country to a glorious imagined past. Massive budget cuts across government ministries. Concerns about foreign influence. An unprecedented challenge of governmental checks and balances as...
Why Were 40 Uyghurs Extradited from Thailand to China?
On February 28, Thailand extradited 40 Uyghur men to China. The men were part of a larger group that fled to Thailand in 2014 to escape increasing repression in China. They had been in detention for over a decade as Bangkok tried to avoid...
Xi Jinping’s Purges Have Escalated. Here’s Why They Are Unlikely to Stop
The final months of 2024 witnessed a new wave of purges in Xi Jinping’s China. On November 28, the Defense Ministry announced the suspension from his...
In Taiwan, a Growing Cohort of ‘Preppers’ Readies Itself for an Uncertain Future
Jenny Huang is practicing cleaning water from the creek near her apartment in Linkou, northwest of Taipei. She pours the water through pantyhouse to filter out sediment, then coffee filters for smaller particles, and finally adds...
Can the U.S. Find a Balance between Scientific Openness and Security?
In online spaces where Chinese students and researchers congregate, complaints about the state of scientific research in China abound. Online censorship makes accessing international research resources difficult; universities lack...
U.S. and China Just Set New Road Rules for Science Collaboration. Americans Will Benefit If We Don't Scrap Joint Research
from Foreign PolicyAmid heightened U.S.-China strategic and technology competition, bilateral scientific collaboration has become increasingly challenging. China’s broad...
The Paradox of Bride Price in Contemporary China: Q&A with Shirley Xinyi Cai
Shirley Xinyi Cai is a researcher in comparative politics and political theory, pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science at McGill University. One of her ongoing projects is about the caili (彩礼, i.e. bride price or betrothal gift), a deep-...
ChinaFile Presents: ‘Her Lotus Year,’ a Conversation with Paul French
Paul French is a prolific author of books on pre-revolutionary 20th Century China and the stories of foreigners who lived and worked there, including the bestselling true-crime history, Midnight in Peking. His work is...
‘What Happened, Mama? In 1989, Were You Just Like Me?’
Two things motivated me to come to the U.S. for college in 2021. I believed in the fourth estate and wanted to become an investigative journalist, and I knew China had no space for speaking truth to power. I also wanted to run away from my family...
Xi vs. Xu: Two Visions for China’s Future
In late October, Radio Free Asia reported that Chinese civil rights advocate and lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who is serving a 14-year sentence for state subversion, has been hunger striking to protest the conditions of his incarceration. Xu’s imprisonment...
‘A Nation Was Forged by Literary Writers’
from GrantaThis year, I returned to a Beijing I hardly recognized. It was not the capital I first glimpsed as a child in the 1980s, when groups of men in thin jackets stood smoking in the cold, and tides of cyclists seemed ready to carry me...
Trains: A Chinese Family History of Railway Journeys, Exile, and Survival
Every morning, I crossed a stretch of railway tracks on the way to my school. The tracks lay less than a hundred meters from the school gate, and a train often appeared in the late afternoon just as we were discharged. Sometimes it was a freight...
ChinaFile Presents: ‘Nikah,’ a Film Screening and Discussion
The film ‘Nikah,’ set in China’s Uyghur region in 2017, spans the months between two weddings. It follows Dilber, a young woman approaching a crossroads amid the Chinese government’s surveilling and detaining of members of her community. As even...
Is China’s Cultural Outreach to Muslims in Indonesia Working?
Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority country. So as Beijing ramps up its engagement with the Global South and with the Muslim world, it is unsurprising that it has been reaching out to various Muslim organizations and strengthening...
Can China’s Scholarships and Cultural Diplomacy Efforts Succeed in Pakistan?
In Washington, D.C., China has a bad reputation for the way it treats its Muslim minorities. But views differ greatly in many majority-Muslim countries in Asia. Educational programs and exchanges are a key part of this. Pakistan is an exemplar:...
How a Crackdown Transformed LGBTQ Activism in China
In 2020, events took a turn. Soon after wrapping up Pride Month festivities, Shanghai Pride announced it was ending its 12-year run. Organizers soon revealed the reason for the closure was that they no longer felt safe under intensifying...
From Wild Exuberance to State Control in China’s Art Market
The scholar and journalist Kejia Wu is the author of A Modern History of China’s Art Market, a...
Southeast Asia Doesn’t Want to Choose between China and the U.S.
If history provides a guide to the future, upholding human rights will continue to be sidelined in the U.S.’ Southeast Asia policy, and priority will be given to relationships and policies that benefit the U.S. as it seeks to build leverage over...
ChinaFile Presents: Peter Hessler’s ‘Other Rivers: A Chinese Education’
“The Police’s Strength Is Limited, but the People’s Strength Is Boundless”
The Committee that Ended the Age of Engagement?
The U.S. Congress’ special China committee has a packed agenda for the few months left this term. But its most consequential work may be done: a more confrontational U.S. policy towards China. The Select Committee on the Strategic Competition...
35 Years Later: A Retrospective of Our Work on the 1989 Tiananmen Protests and Crackdown
This year is the 35th anniversary of the 1989 mass demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and elsewhere around China, and their brutal suppression on June 4. The memories of these events are receding into the past, a...
Beijing’s Culinary Crusade: Erasing Uyghur Identity through Food
Instruction began early on a November 2018 morning. This lesson was not taught in a classroom, but in a makeshift kitchen as part of Xinjiang’s “household school” program. There, a teacher stood before her class of adult women and asked: “What do...
Why the African Union Stopped the Donkey Hide Trade with China
The African Union’s unprecedented decision to ban the trade of donkey skin ended a hitherto fast-evolving China-Africa business. It also is the result of an unusual agreement between the 55 African Union member countries on a matter that affects...
Updates to Our Database of Arrests under the Hong Kong National Security Law
We updated our suite of graphics tracking the impact of Hong Kong’s National Security Law. The law, which went into effect on June 30,...
Lessons from Tiananmen for Today’s University Presidents
Thirty-five years ago, in April 1989, Chinese students from Beijing’s elite universities began their occupation of Tiananmen Square. Their issues were different from those of American students today. Chinese demonstrators voiced concerns about...
A New Round of Restrictions Further Constrains Religious Practice in Xinjiang
Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region rang in 2024 by announcing an update to the region’s strictures on religious practice. Changes include new rules to ensure that sites of religious worship, like mosques, look adequately “...
Xinjiang Authorities Are Retroactively Applying Laws to Prosecute Religious Leaders as Criminals
from Foreign Policy
ChinaFile Presents: A Wild Ride through China’s Economy with Author Anne Stevenson-Yang
The 1980s were an extraordinary time of hope in China, both for its citizens and for foreign visitors. Anne Stevenson-Yang first went to China in 1985, where she was enchanted by the lively cultural scene and what seemed to be the growing...
Studying in China May Have Gotten Harder for Americans, But We Shouldn’t Stop Trying
The U.S.-China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, but it is at its worst point since President Richard Nixon visited in 1972—more than 50 years ago. Getting the relationship right is not easy, but getting it...
“There Is No CPEC in Gwadar, Except Security Check Posts”
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is one of the major spokes of Beijing’s multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious attempt to remake global trade and transport infrastructure. CPEC’s terminus is Gwadar, a port...
“When It All Comes down to It, China Has No Real ‘New Year’”
I’ve written all of this because friends urged me to offer some reflections on the year gone by and jot down a few thoughts for the upcoming year. But I didn’t want to waste my time looking up data points. Anyway, I don’t see that there was all...
New Security Measures Curtailing the Study of China Alarm Educators
Late last year, The New York Times reported on a new state-level bill in Florida that was creating unintended consequences for prospective Chinese graduate students. The bill restricts universities from accepting grants from or participating in...
“It’s Too Convenient to Say That Xi Jinping Is a Second Mao”
The Chinese Communist Party, an organization of over ninety million members, remains opaque to many outsiders, even within China. Wall Street Journal reporter Chun Han Wong spent years in Beijing documenting social, political, and...
Beijing Is Pouring Resources into Its UN Human Rights Review—All to Prevent Any Real Review from Taking Place
On January 23, a large delegation of Chinese officials will appear at the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) to try to defend the indefensible. For the first time since 2018, China will undergo a Universal Periodic Review (UPR), in which...
Updates to Our Database of Arrests under the Hong Kong National Security Law
We updated our suite of graphics tracking the impact of Hong Kong’s National Security Law. The law, which went into effect on June 30, 2020, and the...
Hong Kong Finds Its Voice at the UN—And Uses It to Cheerlead for Beijing
Last May, in a meeting room at the United Nations in Geneva, I sat and listened as a delegate from my hometown of Hong Kong called me a liar. I was there as a representative from the civil society organization Hong Kong Watch, participating in a...
Debating Whether China Is Getting Stronger or Weaker Won’t Make U.S. Policy More Sound
Does the United States have more to fear from a powerful China that continues to strengthen or from a powerful China that begins to decline? While the question takes into account the economic, military, and diplomatic strides China has made over...
Does America Have an End Game on China?
from Foreign PolicyThis fall, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan noted that the Biden administration is “often asked about the end state of U.S. competition with China.” He argued that “we do not expect a transformative end state like the one that...
No One Is Talking About the Plight of Uyghurs with Disabilities in Detention. The World Owes Them More.
In 2016, Chinese authorities began rounding up Uyghur intellectuals. Among those detained was Ababekri Muhtar, the founder of Misranim, a popular social media site used by Uyghurs to debate with and learn from each other. Muhtar relies on a...
China-Saudi RMB Settlement Will Insulate the Oil Trade from U.S. Sanctions
In recent years, Beijing has made efforts to facilitate the settlement of China-Saudi oil trade in renminbi (RMB) rather than in U.S. dollars, a move that would steel China’s trade from financial sanctions and disrupt the global market for oil....
