In Resolution on History, Party Depicts Glorious Future
A major Chinese Communist Party conclave on history has consecrated Xi’s place next to Mao in the pantheon of Party leadership. The Sixth Plenum of the 19th Party Congress ended on Thursday, November...
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In Shanghai, The Jokes Are No Longer Funny
An essay tracing the evolution of Shanghai lockdown memes from giddy jests about Shanghai culture to gallows humor and gloomy meditations on the state of society was censored last week after going...
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Beijing Bridge Protest Scraped From Web as Censorship Tightens Before Party...
A solitary protestor hung two banners calling for Xi Jinping to be removed from office and exhorting the populace to “Be citizens, not slaves,” an extremely rare act of overt political defiance on the...
View Article“Beijing Man” Is No Laughing Matter For Censors
A Party-controlled Weibo account’s attempt to shame a young woman for violating pandemic restrictions backfired this week after one netizen flipped the prompt on its head by blaming Xi Jinping for...
View ArticleCensorship Strikes Satirical Essay “How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love...
Censors have deleted an illustrated WeChat essay in which author “里尔李” (“Lierli,” a pen name), channeled the dark humor of Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” to grapple with her tortured relationship with PCR...
View ArticleTranslation: “Ten Questions for Central Government Policymakers” (Attributed...
The following article addresses “central government policymakers” and poses ten direct questions about China’s long-running “zero-COVID” policy, which was in effect until a sudden policy shift on...
View ArticleMosque Demolition Sparks Clashes Between Armed Police and Hui Muslim...
The partial demolition of a historic mosque in rural Yunnan this past weekend ignited conflict between local Hui Muslim residents and armed police. The clashes in Najiaying, a village in Yuxi, China,...
View ArticleUnemployed Youth Skeptical That “Red Flag Canal Spirit” Will Alleviate Their...
China’s youth employment crisis is at least partly a matter of attitude, according to People’s Daily. In two recent editorials calling for youth to “establish a correct perspective on employment” and...
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Zhengzhou Underpass Poem “Momma” Sparks Artistic Freedom Debate
An underpass in Zhengzhou has quietly become a site of contention over artistic freedom. A photograph of the poem “Momma” by the little-known artist Zhang Boyi, graffitied underneath a Zhengzhou...
View ArticleTributes to Pioneering Public Health Advocate and AIDS Whistleblower Dr. Gao...
Retired gynecologist and public health advocate Dr. Gao Yaojie (高耀洁, Gāo Yàojié), who exposed the role of government-approved blood-selling schemes in fueling China’s rural AIDS epidemic, died of...
View ArticleZhihu Post Backfires, Inspires Venting About Political Repression
A recent question posted to the Q&A site Zhihu may have been intended to elicit praise about China’s state of political affairs, but has instead become the latest telling example of the pessimistic...
View ArticleInterview: Perry Link on His New Book, “I Have No Enemies: The Life and...
Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017) is a monumental figure in modern Chinese history. The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate died in custody in a Shenyang hospital in 2017 while being treated for liver cancer. A...
View ArticleInterview: Margaret Hillenbrand on Her Books “On the Edge” (2023) and...
Margaret Hillenbrand, professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford, joined CDT to discuss her two latest books: “On the Edge: Feeling Precarious in China” (2023) and...
View ArticleNetflix’s “3 Body Problem” Sparks Debates About Censorship, History, and...
Film censorship has long plagued China’s creative arts industry and stifled foreign products seeking domestic Chinese audiences. The shrinking space for artistic expression, along with rising...
View ArticleQuote of the Day: “If We Don’t Face Our History Squarely, How Can We Hope to...
Chinese social media has been awash with interest in Netflix’s new series “3 Body Problem,” an adaptation based on the Hugo Award-winning novel by Chinese author Liu Cixin. On the day of its release,...
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