Reports and other media articles over the past month detail the ways in which the technology and norms underpinning China’s surveillance industry are proliferating in other countries around the world. This week, Emily Baker-White at Forbes published an investigation finding that Intel, which recently agreed to give the U.S. government a ten-percent stake in the […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
In 2021, Tibet Action Institute (TAI) published a groundbreaking report exposing the extensive use of colonial boarding schools to indoctrinate and forcibly assimilate Tibetan children into Han Chinese culture and society. (See CDT’s two-part interview with TAI’s Lhadon Tethong on this topic.) This May, TAI issued a follow-up report that looked more closely at the […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
China is scheduled to host a large-scale “Victory Day” military parade on September 3 to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II (referred to in China as the “War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.”) China and Japan’s diverging narratives around the war have generated tension between the two countries. The Japanese […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
“After six years of reporting in Hong Kong, and at eight months pregnant, I’m very sad to be leaving my colleagues, friends and the place I’ve called home,” wrote senior Bloomberg News reporter Rebecca Choong Wilkins in an X post on Saturday. As other outlets confirmed, the Hong Kong government refused to renew Choong Wilkins’ […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
In the wake of early August’s spontaneous mass protests in the city of Jiangyou, Sichuan province over official inaction in a severe bullying case, there has been unusually stringent online censorship of videos, photos, hashtags, articles, comments, and other content related to the case, the protests, and the heavy-handed police response to the protesters. A […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
The two back-to-back summits that U.S. President Donald Trump hosted over the past week, first with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and then with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders in Washington, D.C., may not have delivered an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine. But the summits did inspire reflection on Chinese […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
Following rare mass protests that broke out in the city of Jiangyou in Sichuan province earlier this month in response to the bullying of a 14-year-old girl, CDT Chinese editors have tracked unusually intense online censorship of related videos, photos, hashtags, articles, comments, and other content. The protests were sparked by a July 22 incident […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
Recent articles have highlighted the ways in which various Chinese groups attempt to circumvent censorship in the liminal spaces of its enforcement. Across different domains, shifts in censorship capacity and communication methods provide opportunities to expand the limits of free speech, albeit sometimes only temporarily. As mentioned in a previous CDT post, the Made in […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
The recently concluded Humanoid Robot Games, a three-day event in Beijing, brought together over 500 humanoid robots, built by 192 universities and 88 private companies, representing 280 teams from 16 countries. The robots competed in a variety of sports and other challenges to showcase global innovations in AI and robotics. Held in one of the […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
The struggle for a better life has long pushed many Chinese citizens to escape difficult conditions at home. In the most recent waves of emigration, tens of thousands of Chinese migrants have made perilous journeys through Central America along the “walking route,” or zǒuxiàn (走线), in an attempt to reach the southern U.S. border. But […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
In March, despite questionable jurisdiction, Xinjiang authorities hit Yunnan-based independent filmmaker Guo Zhenming with a 75,000 yuan (US$10,300) fine and the confiscation of some of his equipment for alleged "unauthorized filmmaking." Guo had previously been barred from traveling overseas or renewing his passport. Recently, Guo posted about the intrusive monitoring he had been subjected to […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
A prominent Thai art gallery became embroiled in a scandal last week when it removed parts of an exhibition following pressure from the Chinese embassy. Ironically, the title of the exhibition, hosted at the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre (BACC), is “Constellation of Complicity: Visualising the Global Machinery of Authoritarian Solidarity.” An introduction on its […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa met Chairman Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang for a summit marking 50 years of diplomatic ties between the E.U. and China. The affair demonstrated just how tense their relationship has become, battered by trade imbalances, export controls on critical […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
This week, many organizations and media outlets commemorated the tenth anniversary of the 709 (July 9) or "Black Friday" crackdown, a coordinated detention of more than 300 rights lawyers and activists in 2015 that coincided with a marked authoritarian shift in the early Xi Jinping era. CDT has published a roundup of tenth anniversary coverage […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
Wednesday is the tenth anniversary of the 709 (July 9) or "Black Friday" crackdown, a coordinated detention of more than 300 rights lawyers and activists in 2015 that was a key moment in the authoritarian shift in the early Xi Jinping era. At The Guardian, Amy Hawkins marked the occasion by talking to some of […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
At The New York Times on Monday, columnist Li Yuan describes how, as "wages stagnate and jobs disappear, the promise of upward social mobility is eroding, especially for those from modest backgrounds. For many […], the Chinese Dream no longer feels achievable." Similar themes have featured prominently on CDT in recent months, from uproar over […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
This year’s 36th anniversary commemorations of the June 4 crackdown were marked by intense, AI-aided censorship on the Chinese internet, muted memorials and arrests in Hong Kong, and a wide variety of online and offline memorials across the world. Noteworthy coverage of the anniversary includes a statement from the Tiananmen Mothers, an interview with exiled […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
June 4, the date of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, is among the most sensitive dates on the Chinese political calendar. Any attempts to draw attention to the event are routinely censored on the Chinese internet. This year, as people in China, Hong Kong, and around the world commemorated the 36th anniversary of the massacre, censors […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
Updated at 07:53:00 PDT on June 5, 2025: This post has been updated to include information about the number of people arrested and detained in Hong Kong by the end of the day on June 4. This Wednesday, June 4 marks the 36th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. Hongkongers had for decades commemorated the […]| China Digital Times (CDT)
The massive success of Ne Zha 2, boosted by patriotic group-buys and shielded by censors, buoyed a series of triumphal state media headlines earlier this year. Box office takings for the year to date were indeed up substantially from 2024, but this was a relatively low bar after a sharp slump from a spike in […]| China Digital Times (CDT)