In Box Office Hit, American Dream Is Still Alive—In a Maturing China
Over the last two weeks, the movie American Dreams in China (中国合伙人) has been the number one box office hit in China, selling over 400 million tickets to date. The movie is a gritty and at times tongue-in-cheek comedy that tells the true...
Chinese Web Users React to U.S. National Security Agency Surveillance Program
The online reactions to the PRISM incident, in which the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been revealed to conduct a far-ranging surveillance program affecting many both in the U.S. and abroad, have been as fascinating as the event itself...
How China Views Obama-Xi Meeting in California
Comments about Xi’s arrival in the Golden State barely made waves on China’s Twitter-like social-media service Sina Weibo. The bulk of Friday’s traffic focused on the annual university-entrance exams that are currently under way....
Phonemica: A Quest to Save China’s Languages
Phonemica, or xiangyinyuan, is an innovative project that documents China’s myriad dialects and languages, many of which are slowly disappearing due to state-sponsorship of Mandarin as the national language. ...
How Would Facing Its Past Change China’s Future?
David Wertime:
The memory of the 1989 massacre of protesters at Tiananmen Square remains neither alive nor dead, neither reckoned nor obliterated. Instead, it hangs spectre-like in the background, a muted but latently powerful...
On Eve of Tiananmen Anniversary, China’s Prominent Weiborati Speak Out
“Don’t worry about forgetfulness—at least the Sina censors remember,” tweeted Jia Zhangke, a film director.
Like 2013, 1989 was the year of the Snake on the Chinese calendar. It was also a year that Chinese authorities prefer not to...
Online Outrage After Chinese City Proposes Fine on Single Mothers
Women giving birth out of wedlock in China have to contend with family pressure, social stigma, and financial hardship. Now, some of them may have to pay a hefty fine as well.
Wuhan, a city of more than 10 million people in Central China,...
Defending an Open, Global, Secure, and Resilient Internet
The Task Force recognizes that there are both considerable opportunities and perilous challenges in cyberspace. This report identifies guiding principles and makes policy recommendations to mobilize a coalition of old friends and rising cyber...
In China, Second Thoughts About ‘Dishonest Americans’ Column
The column, launched in March, has provoked a backlash among ordinary Chinese at this targeting of the morals of another nation in the party’s flagship media.
Trending on Weibo: #AIDSPatientsCanBeTeachers#
In the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, carriers of the AIDS virus are now allowed to teach schoolchildren. The recently-announced change in regulations marks a step forward for AIDS activists, with the hashtag #AIDSPatientsCanBeTeachers#...
Why Is China’s Internet Turning to Obama To Solve a Decades-Old Poisoning Mystery?
On May 3rd, an anonymous Chinese expat posted on the White House website a petition demanding justice for the woman who many believe is responsible for Zhu Ling’s poisoning. In six days it has collected over 140,000 signatures....
Chinese Anxiety—In Debate About Overwork, a Glimpse of Shifting Expectations
Almost half of all Chinese report feeling “more anxiety” now than they did five years ago. What, exactly, is driving these concerns, or increasing reports...
Chinese Restaurants in America
In his 1925 account of Chinese restaurants in America, G.H. Danton introduces the reader to the cuisine, clientele and commercial considerations of the industry which had ‘supplanted the Chinese laundryman in typifying for America where...
Presumption of Guilt Stirs More Questions (Op-Ed)
The public has quickly jumped to assume the guilt of both Sun and related officials. In all likelihood, if there had been solid evidence the perpetrator would not have gone unpunished.
China’s Baidu to Pay $370 Million for Internet Video Business
Acquiring the video business from P.P.S. will increase Baidu’s position in China’s fractious market for online entertainment and help iQiyi compete better against Youku Tudou.
Chinese Suggestions for Improving Internet Disappear
Few things irritate Chinese netizens as much as how their government acts on the Internet: blocking access to many foreign websites, censoring content and comments on Chinese websites and directing ...
Why Can’t China Make Its Food Safe?—Or Can It?
The month my wife and I moved to Beijing in 2004, I saw a bag of oatmeal at our local grocery store prominently labeled: “NOT POLLUTED!” How funny that this would be a selling point, we thought.
But 7 years later as we prepared to return...
Maoism: The Most Severe Threat to China
Ma Licheng (马立诚) is a former Senior Editorials Editor at People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s most important mouthpiece, and the author of eleven books. In 2003, when...
Unrest in Beijing Over Mysterious Death of Young Woman
A rare protest in Beijing involving hundreds of people was documented by photos posted on China’s social media (scroll down to see a sample photo). The cause of the protest was the death of a twenty-two-year-old migrant worker, who fell several...
Alibaba Buys Stake In Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter
Alibaba and Sina also agreed to cooperate in improving ways to marry social networking with e-commerce, as microblogging services like Sina’s continue to grow in popularity.
Lao She in London
Lao She remains revered as one of China’s great modern writers. His life and work have been the subject of volumes of critique, analysis and study. However, the four years the young aspiring writer spent in London between 1924 and 1929 have largely been overlooked. Dr. Anne Witchard, a specialist in the modernist milieu of London between the wars, reveals Lao She’s encounter with British high modernism and literature from Dickens to Conrad to Joyce.
28,000 Rivers Disappeared In China
Official explanations from the Chinese government have attributed the significant reduction to statistical discrepancies, water and soil loss, and climate change, but Netizens aren’t satisfied with these answers.
China Seeks Soft Power Influence In U.S. Through C.C.T.V.
“This fixation on soft power arises from their deep and abiding insecurity and sense of not being respected and of being hectored and bullied by the world over the last century and a half.”
Why Is a 1995 Poisoning Case the Top Topic on Chinese Social Media?
With a population base of 1.3 billion people, China has no shortage of strange and gruesome crimes, but the attempted murder of Zhu Ling by thallium poisoning in 1995 is burning up China’s social media long after the trails have gone cold. Zhu, a...
The PEN Report: Creativity and Constraint in Today’s China
The report which follows measures the conditions for freedom of expression through literature, linguistic rights, Internet freedom and legal obligations. This is an approach anchored both in the breadth of history and in today’s realities, one...
The Wall Street Journal: Covering China Past and Present
The Wall Street Journal was one of the first American publications to set up a bureau in Beijing. Since its establishment, scores of the Journal’s correspondents have traveled in and out of the country to cover China’s economic and...
The Long Battle Over “White Pollution”
In the past weeks, Chinese citizens have learned that the styrofoam boxes from which they eat their lunches will soon be legal. On February 16, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s highest economic policy-making body,...
Watch Imprint On Quake Official’s Wrist Goes Viral
A picture showing an official's wrist, with what appears to be the imprint of a watch, has gone viral with many Netizens wondering whether the timepiece was removed in light of scandals involving corrupt officials caught wearing expensive...
After Quake, Chinese Donors Seek Out Private Charities
The Red Cross Society of China, a state-run organization that is one of the country’s largest charities, has yet to recover from a 2011 scandal that struck a serious blow to China’s nascent notions of philanthropy.
China Reacts To The Boston Bombing, Draws Parallels To China
While the traditional jabs at America are still present on Chinese social media, it’s notable that so many reflected on the peace and safety both countries are trying to achieve.
Katzenberg Unveils China Film Project
The Hollywood power broker has lately turned his marketing skills on China, which is expected to surpass the U.S. box office by the end of the decade, driven by a boom in cinemas across the country. Tibet will be the topic of one of the...
China Censors The Word ‘Censorship’
‘China’s Spielberg’, film director Feng Xiaogang, gave an emotional acceptance speech for ‘director of year’ in which he referred to censorship as a “torment” for Chinese filmmakers. The video - in which the word ‘censorship’ was censored...
Tale Of China’s Leader In A Taxicab Is Retracted
The state-run news media, which had initially given credence to the story, abruptly reversed course, and the tale was in shreds. What does it mean when feel-good propaganda cannot be trusted even on its own fanciful terms?
...
China’s Social Media Gurus Face Off In The Weibo/WeChat Debate
In China’s rapidly expanding social media sphere, most of the buzz is split between Tencent’s WeChat, a text and voicemail service and Sina Weibo, a microblogging service where users post unfiltered snippets of news in a cat-and-mouse game...
As Cancer Rates Rise In China, Trust Remains Low
At the top of the list of reasons China may be facing a cancer crisis is the crucial issue of mistrust between patient and doctor. The lack of trust, reflected in regular accounts in the Chinese news media, is rooted in a perception that...
No Poultry Contact In Some Chinese Bird Flu Cases
W.H.O. spokesman Gregory Hartl confirmed that “there are people who have no history of contact with poultry”, after a top Chinese scientist was quoted as saying this applied to about 40 percent of those infected.
Chinese Media Seize On Death Of Promising Student
The family of Lu Lingzi, the young Chinese woman killed in the attack at the Boston Marathon, didn’t want their daughter’s name revealed, but at least 12,000 people had left comments in her memory on her microblog account after it was...
China Sees The Best And Worst Of America In Boston Bombing
Chinese Web users seemed to draw two general conclusions: that China would be more effective at preventing a Boston-style attack, but that the U.S. is better equipped to respond to and cope such an event.
Hollywood Descends On China For Beijing International Film Festival
At this year’s festival Keanu Reeves debuts his upcoming movie, LucasArts’ Kathleen Kennedy delivers a keynote speech on modern storytelling, and many other Hollywood bigwigs come to town for business, screenings, signings, and more.
China Dismisses N.Y.T.'s Pulitzer-Winning Report On Wen
The article provoked anger from authorities in China, who said it was part of a “smear” by “voices” opposed to the country’s development. The Times’ Chinese and English websites were subsequently blocked in China and remain inaccessible as...
Social Media’s Role in Ya’an Earthquake Aftermath is Revealing
China’s social media was in mourning yesterday as users turned their profile photos to grey in remembrance of the victims of the 7.0 earthquake that struck the Ya’an region in Sichuan province on Saturday. As of April 22, the...
Bird Flu’s Latest Talons Force Fresh Defense
A surprise attack by a new strain of the bird flu virus has forced Chinese authorities into the trenches for a two-pronged defense against unseen enemies.
The primary threat is the deadly virus that scientists identified as a new strain of...
In China, The World’s Biggest Movie Lot Gets Even Bigger
Some of China’s most iconic buildings have been erected on Hengdian’s sprawling lot, giving the place the ersatz-historical feel of Colonial Williamsburg.
‘Old School’ Hip-Hop Radio Station Likely To Change To Chinese-Language Programming
The owners of the Los Angeles classic hip-hop radio station 93.5 FM KDAY have agreed to sell their stations to Hong Kong-based R.B.C. Communications. If the deal closes, it will likely to change to a Chinese-language format. ...
‘Daily Show’ Clip Mocking Kim Jong-un Gets 2.8 million Chinese Views
The voraciousness with which Chinese viewers are watching the segment suggests that their appetite for such coverage, for publicly criticizing an ally that has become something of an embarrassment, far exceeds what they’re getting from...
PLA Officer Calls H7N9 Virus A U.S. ‘Bio-Psychological Weapon’
A senior military official has caused an outrage among netizens for calling the current avian flu outbreak in mainland China an American conspiracy and belittling a string of deaths from the virus.
Why is China Still Messing with the Foreign Press?
To those raised in the Marxist tradition, nothing in the media happens by accident. In China, the flagship newspapers are still the “throat and tongue” of the ruling party, and their work is directed by the Party’s Propaganda Department....
Tencent Lets WeChat’s Rapid Growth Do the Talking
Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s free messaging service, WeChat, has seen its popularity grow among both individual users and businesses, even amid a dispute with the Big Three telecom operators [China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom].
...
China’s Internet: A Giant Cage
Not only has Chinese authoritarian rule survived the internet, but the state has shown great skill in bending the technology to its own purposes, enabling it to exercise better control of its own society and setting an example for other...
Leftist Hawks and Conspiracy Theorists: The People’s Liberation Army’s Online Presence
Is Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, turning into a new war zone? Dai Xu, a colonel in the Chinese Air Force and military strategist, thinks so.
“A month ago, a pseudo-Japanese devil [derogatory term for pro-Japan Chinese] at Shanghai’s Fudan...