Shortly after midnight on March 18, a phone call awoke Steven Lee Myers in his Beijing apartment. The call was followed by a flurry of messages: WhatsApp, text, email. Friends and colleagues were asking him questions: What is going on? What does...
At the end of last year Bytedance, one of China’s most talked-about technology firms, seemed to have the world at its feet.
China’s Communist Party made moves last month to solidify and formalize its (already substantial) control over the country’s media. China’s main state-run broadcasters are to be consolidated into a massive new “Voice of China” under the...
A reporter's eye-roll at China's legislature meeting went viral.
Outside observers typically view China’s media as utterly shackled by the bonds of censorship, unable to critique the government or speak truth to power in any meaningful sense. In part, this is true. Censorship and other pressures do create “no-...
It is widely known that foreign journalists encounter various strict restrictions when reporting on China — particularly since Chinese President Xi Jinping came into office five years ago. But China just sent another strong message to the “...
The deaths of two Chinese prompt widespread calls for retribution. Beijing, seeking favour in the region with its Belt and Road Initiative, remains curiously silent.
Tillerson’s aversion to dealing with U.S. journalists have added to growing questions about the Trump administration’s commitment to a free press and transparent government.
China has launched a Donald Trump-style attack on foreign media, branding claims that a leading human rights lawyer was tortured by government agents “fake news.”
According to the 2016 report by the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, there has been a broad corrosion of freedoms
Propaganda officials warn state media off using moniker after push to portray leader as man of the people appears to backfire.
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As a liberal, I no longer feel I have a future in China,” a prominent Chinese think tank head in the process of moving abroad recently lamented in private. Such refrains are all too familiar these days as educated Chinese...
Chinese state news agency Xinhua warned against people using “Fools’ Day” to start or spread rumors online.
“To lose speech is to lose power,” Yang Zhenwu wrote in a lengthy essay published Monday.
It was a message of defiance: Despite a monumental edifice of controls, censorship is losing.
The Great Firewall is fluid, and restrictions get stricter or looser based on political needs.
Since last year, China has been promoting its
Before the Internet age, it used to be relatively straightforward for authoritarian regimes to dictate popular news consumption: just control all the major newspapers, as China’s ruling Communist Party has done since the founding of the People’s...
Four Chinese journalists have been suspended after inadvertently – and incorrectly – announcing the resignation of president.
Observers have long thought that Chinese authorities censor the media depending on type: the censorship of traditional media is primarily conducted in advance, with a thorough inspection of news and discussion before publication;...
The Chinese government is shutting down the mobile service of residents in Xinjiang.
As mobile users try to evade censorship in China through software, the government appears to be trying a new technique to head off such attempts.
China continues to lump terrorist groups and peaceful activists together — and to censor media coverage of both.
In a recent harangue on the imperative of better journalism, a website run by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department tore a...
On November 18, the Islamic State (IS) released photos of what it claimed were two executed hostages. The photos, appearing in the terrorist group’s English-language magazine Dabiq, depict two men with bloodied faces, the word “executed...
China’s stock markets have been in free-fall for some time. Now, so is a financial journalist who had the temerity to write about them. On August 31, Chinese journalist Wang Xiaolu confessed on state-run China Central Television (CCTV) to writing...
In August 1975, Typhoon Nina, one of the most powerful tropical storms on record, surged inland from the Taiwan Strait, causing floods so catastrophic they overwhelmed dam networks...
The hosts of the Sinica Podcast are not surprised that Gady Epstein is moving on. We used to buy the papers for his “Telegrams from the Orient”, but then he took that Economist gig and his productivity plummeted and it has become hard to even...
He preached ‘Asian values’ and turned a tiny, poor city-state into an astonishing economic success. Is Lee’s ‘Singapore model’ the future of Asia?
Singapore won an outsize influence with China after they embarked on an experiment with controlled capitalism.
Chinese leaders admired Singapore's founder Lee Kuan Yew for toughness, economic pragmatism, and insistence on respect for authority.
“Mr. Lee Kuan Yew was an old friend of the Chinese people,” Chinese President Xi Jinping wrote to Singapore President Tony Tan.
Thinking everything will look good by blocking online access may sound too simple and naive.
If you’ve been following all of the news and gossip involving China for the last year, join Kaiser and Jeremy as they take call-in questions and talk insider politics on everything from the ongoing anti-corruption campaign to the question of...
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...
The 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...
Research Associate Amy Chang explores the political, economic, and military objectives of China’s cybersecurity apparatus; reveals drivers and intentions of Chinese activity in cyberspace; and analyzes the development of Beijing’s cybersecurity...
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.”
Forsythe left Bloomberg after writing an article that threatened the Publication's presence in China.
The newspaper said that it may be due to a recently run article about ethnic tensions in the western region of Xinjiang.
China Central Television has come a long ways since its founding as a domestic party propaganda outlet in 1958. The domestic service has been supplemented by an international service, boasting three major global offices in Beijing, Washington,...
This report provides a survey of the phenomenon of censorship and its recent evolution as it pertains to the news media sector, though similar dynamics also affect the film, literature, and performing arts industries. Specifically, this report...
The sustained vitriolic tone of the state-run campaign against Apple is prompting observers here to wonder what could possibly be behind it, with some speculating it is retribution for America’s treatment of Chinese flagship telecoms...
The People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) is using various components of public diplomacy to influence the media in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. China’s primary purposes appear to be to present China as a reliable friend and partner,...
