Children taught hatred and exposed to hateful ideas [...] will tend to defer to the powerful and tyrannize the weak. [...] But it’s not only happening in our schoolyards. In adult society, don’t we also hear daily calls to 'resist this,' or 'boycott that,' or 'rid ourselves' of some other thing? That’s the sound of hatred, a high-decibel clamor."

— From WeChat essayist "Old Xiao,” reflecting on the recent case of three adolescent "left-behind children" in rural Handan, Hebei province, who bullied a classmate to death. The case has prompted heated online discussion about school bullying, the plight of left-behind children, and how youthful offenders should be punished.

 

CDT Highlights

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Weibo Essay Comparing Party-State’s Economic Policy to Gangsterism Censored

Weibo censors deleted an essay blaming China’s stagnating economic growth on “a failure of political reform” that also compared the Party-state to gangsters and “underworld bosses.” The essay by popular blogger “Mr. Liu Dake” (@刘大可先生, @Liú Dàkě Xiānsheng) was an uncanny echo of an opinion piece by Hong Kong columnist Lew Mon-hung in the Singaporean outlet Lianhe Zaobao that caused a stir—and was censored—in August of last year. Lew’s piece laid the blame squarely on Xi Jinping and offered a “simple prescription” for high-quality economic growth: political reform. Liu’s piece, too, traced the...

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Hong Kong Legislature Unanimously Passes Fast-Tracked National Security Law

On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s legislature unanimously passed a new national security law that grants the government sweeping powers to crack down on opposition. Linked to Article 23 of the city’s Basic Law, the legislation expands on the already draconian 2020 National Security Law imposed by Beijing and threatens to further curtail civil liberties. Mercedes Hutton from the Hong Kong Free Press reported on the “historical” scene inside the Legislative Council Chamber: Lawmakers gathered in the Legislative Council (LegCo) Chamber on Tuesday to vote on the Safeguarding National Security Bill, just...

Diverse Sinophone Groups Voice Support for Gaza

Israel’s war in Gaza has elicited increasing attention from the Sinophone world, as five months of violence have led to the deaths of 32,000 Palestinians, an imminent famine in northern Gaza, and little progress on freeing Israeli hostages. While the Chinese government maintains its criticism of Israel from the sidelines and Chinese state media airs weekly footage of the destruction in Gaza, netizens of diverse backgrounds and across various platforms have spoken out against the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of human rights and humanitarian law. Some of this discourse, particularly...

Weibo Essay Comparing Party-State’s Economic Policy to Gangsterism Censored

Weibo censors deleted an essay blaming China’s stagnating economic growth on “a failure of political reform” that also compared the Party-state to gangsters and “underworld bosses.” The essay by popular blogger “Mr. Liu Dake” (@刘大可先生, @Liú Dàkě Xiānsheng) was an uncanny echo of an opinion piece by Hong Kong columnist Lew Mon-hung in the Singaporean outlet Lianhe Zaobao that caused a stir—and was censored—in August of last year. Lew’s piece laid the blame squarely on Xi Jinping and offered a “simple prescription” for high-quality economic growth: political reform. Liu’s piece, too, traced the...

Weibo Essay Comparing Party-State’s Economic Policy to Gangsterism Censored

Weibo censors deleted an essay blaming China’s stagnating economic growth on “a failure of political reform” that also compared the Party-state to gangsters and “underworld bosses.” The essay by popular blogger “Mr. Liu Dake” (@刘大可先生, @Liú Dàkě Xiānsheng) was an uncanny echo of an opinion piece by Hong Kong columnist Lew Mon-hung in the Singaporean outlet Lianhe Zaobao that caused a stir—and was censored—in August of last year. Lew’s piece laid the blame squarely on Xi Jinping and offered a “simple prescription” for high-quality economic growth: political reform. Liu’s piece, too, traced the...

“Compass-in-Chief”: The 240+ Topics Xi Jinping Has “Pointed The Way Forward” On

Among Xi Jinping’s many Party-bestowed titles and hundreds of banned netizen nicknames is one that points to his penchant for claiming personal leadership over and insight into seemingly everything: “Compass-in-Chief.” The nickname derives from a standard Party formulation that holds that Xi has “pointed the way forward” on a vast array of policy issues. (For more on the phrase, see CDT’s 20th Anniversary Edition Lexicon.) The breadth of topics which Xi has claimed to “point the way forward” on, and the frequency of the formulation’s use, has turned the phrase into an object of...

Translation: Special One-Month Reconnaissance Operation Against “Overseas Cyber Forces”

A pair of recently surfaced screenshots appear to offer unusual detail about a special month-long operation, held in Beijing and involving over 40 Ministry of Public Security computer specialists from around the country, to combat “overseas cyber forces” in the battle for public opinion. The apparently leaked internal instructions from the Ministry of Public Security are likely to be the result of an email breach. They include the names and locations of many of the computer-specialist officers, as well as the name and contact information of the individual in charge of the operation. At some...

New eBook: China Digital Times Lexicon, 20th Anniversary Edition

On September 12, 2003, John Battelle published the first post on chinadigitaltimes.net: Here’s what a Google Search on “china weblog” yields, I’m looking forward to seeing ours at the top soon! China’s online population at the start of that year was nearly 60 million. Ten years later, it was fast approaching 600 million, and now, after 20, it is well over a billion. This new completely revised and hugely expanded update to our ebook series, formerly known as “the Grass Mud Horse Lexicon,” aims to capture something of the enormous explosion of online speech that accompanied this growth, with...

Weibo Essay Comparing Party-State’s Economic Policy to Gangsterism Censored

Weibo censors deleted an essay blaming China’s stagnating economic growth on “a failure of political reform” that also compared the Party-state to gangsters and “underworld bosses.” The essay by popular blogger “Mr. Liu Dake” (@刘大可先生, @Liú Dàkě Xiānsheng) was an uncanny echo of an opinion piece by Hong Kong columnist Lew Mon-hung in the Singaporean outlet Lianhe Zaobao that caused a stir—and was censored—in August of last year. Lew’s piece laid the blame squarely on Xi Jinping and offered a “simple prescription” for high-quality economic growth: political reform. Liu’s piece, too, traced the...

Weibo Essay Comparing Party-State’s Economic Policy to Gangsterism Censored

Weibo censors deleted an essay blaming China’s stagnating economic growth on “a failure of political reform” that also compared the Party-state to gangsters and “underworld bosses.” The essay by popular blogger “Mr. Liu Dake” (@刘大可先生, @Liú Dàkě Xiānsheng) was an uncanny echo of an opinion piece by Hong Kong columnist Lew Mon-hung in the Singaporean outlet Lianhe Zaobao that caused a stir—and was censored—in August of last year. Lew’s piece laid the blame squarely on Xi Jinping and offered a “simple prescription” for high-quality economic growth: political reform. Liu’s piece, too, traced the...

U.S., U.K. Impose Sanctions on Chinese State-Affiliated Hackers

Xi Jinping’s efforts to point the way forward on China becoming a “major cyber-power” have met growing resistance from foreign governments. On Monday, the U.S. and U.K. announced sanctions and filed criminal charges against a company and individuals accused of working on behalf of the Chinese government to conduct cyber attacks against U.S. and European lawmakers, academics, activists, journalists, and private companies, among other targets. Jonathan Greig at The Record provided an overview of the measures taken against these Chinese actors: The U.S. sanctioned a Wuhan-based company believed...

Quote of the Day: “‘Uniform’ Has Been Transformed From a Noun Into a Verb”

A recent altercation captured on video shows an off-duty, uniformed toll-booth employee in Yulin, Shaanxi province, berating a truck driver at a restaurant and trying to force him to eat food from a garbage can. The disturbing video has provoked much discussion online about the perceived impunity of individuals in uniform, the abuse of petty authority, and how the problem of school bullying may be a reflection of the prevalence of bullying behavior in society at large.  An official statement, issued on March 23 by the Yuwu Branch of the Shaanxi Transportation Authority, confirmed that the...

Translation: My Hometown Survived the Pandemic

Even before the lifting of China’s long-standing “zero-COVID” policy in early December of last year, there were signs of a surge in Omicron cases nationwide. Since then, China has experienced a tsunami of infections—first in larger cities, and then in the countryside—amid concerns about shortages of needed medications, the increasing risk of medical debt, and unreliable official data on the numbers of infections and deaths. Despite the recent Lunar New Year celebration in which hundreds of millions of residents went traveling and returned to their hometowns, there are signs that the wave of...

Human Rights

Latest

Diverse Sinophone Groups Voice Support for Gaza

Israel’s war in Gaza has elicited increasing attention from the Sinophone world, as five months of violence have led to the deaths of 32,000 Palestinians, an imminent famine in northern Gaza, and little progress on freeing Israeli hostages. While the Chinese government maintains its criticism of Israel from the sidelines and Chinese state media airs weekly footage of the destruction in Gaza, netizens of diverse backgrounds and across various platforms have spoken out against the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of human rights and humanitarian law. Some of this discourse, particularly...

Politics

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Quote of the Day: “Still Not As Good As a Certain Someone Who Was Reelected Unanimously.”

Following Sunday’s carefully controlled and largely predetermined election, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been reelected with nearly 88 percent of the vote. With years of legal and administrative harassment having weeded out any real rivals to Putin, leaving only token challengers, the result came as little surprise. Thousands of Russian voters lined up at polling stations exactly at noon to participate in a symbolic show of defiance known as “Noon Against Putin,” while others sought to express their support for recently deceased opposition leader Alexei Navalny by writing...

Society

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Fiddling with Commas While the Economy Burns

This year’s “Two Sessions,” which concluded on March 11, were more Party-choreographed than ever, as evidenced by the elimination of the premier’s customary post-NPC press conference, the weakening of the State Council via a revision to the State Council Organic Law, the unrelenting focus on Xi Jinping and Xi Jinping Thought, and stringent online censorship to control public discourse about the tepid sessions. CDT Chinese editors compiled a list of terms (and combinations of terms) censored on Weibo during this year’s Two Sessions. Among them were references to self-serving representatives...

China & the World

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Chinese Investments in Pakistan Face Ongoing Friction

Chinese state media often describe the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a “flagship project” of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Pakistan’s city of Gwadar as a “flagship project” of the CPEC. The CPEC has attracted tens of billions of dollars in Chinese investment for construction of a network of highways, railways, and energy pipelines for transporting goods from Xinjiang through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea via the Gwadar port. But over a decade after these initiatives began, investments have slowed alongside a host of chronic issues that appear to have intensified, as...

Law

Latest

Quote of the Day: “‘Uniform’ Has Been Transformed From a Noun Into a Verb”

A recent altercation captured on video shows an off-duty, uniformed toll-booth employee in Yulin, Shaanxi province, berating a truck driver at a restaurant and trying to force him to eat food from a garbage can. The disturbing video has provoked much discussion online about the perceived impunity of individuals in uniform, the abuse of petty authority, and how the problem of school bullying may be a reflection of the prevalence of bullying behavior in society at large.  An official statement, issued on March 23 by the Yuwu Branch of the Shaanxi Transportation Authority, confirmed that the...

Information Revolution

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WeChat “Bug” Turns Out To Be Obscure Insult for Xi Jinping

A group of students under the impression they had discovered a WeChat “bug” that hides the phrase “200 jin of dumplings” (roughly 220 pounds) had in fact stumbled upon an obscure insult for Xi Jinping that triggers automatic censorship.  In the course of daily conversation, the students found that messages preceded by the term “200 jin of dumplings” (200斤饺子) were not received by their counterparts. Juvenile hilarity ensued. They sent each other curses and confessions: “200 jin of dumplings, you’re a stupid c***,” “200 jin of dumplings, you’re an idiot,” “200 jin of dumplings, piggy,” and...

Culture & the Arts

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Words of the Week: Xi Jinping’s Penchant for “Pointing the Way Forward”

The use of the standard Party formulation of Xi Jinping “pointing the way forward” on various policy issues has become so commonplace that the phrase has become an object of satire, a way of mocking Xi’s cult of personality and penchant for claiming personal leadership over any number of policy spheres. It has also given rise to some of Xi’s many nicknames, including “the immortal compass” and “Compass-in-Chief.” Recently, the influential X (née Twitter) account “Teacher Li is Not Your Teacher” shared a list of over 240 topics on which Xi Jinping has pointed the way forward. The...

The Great Divide

Latest

Translation: My Hometown Survived the Pandemic

Even before the lifting of China’s long-standing “zero-COVID” policy in early December of last year, there were signs of a surge in Omicron cases nationwide. Since then, China has experienced a tsunami of infections—first in larger cities, and then in the countryside—amid concerns about shortages of needed medications, the increasing risk of medical debt, and unreliable official data on the numbers of infections and deaths. Despite the recent Lunar New Year celebration in which hundreds of millions of residents went traveling and returned to their hometowns, there are signs that the wave of...

Sci-Tech

Latest

U.S., U.K. Impose Sanctions on Chinese State-Affiliated Hackers

Xi Jinping’s efforts to point the way forward on China becoming a “major cyber-power” have met growing resistance from foreign governments. On Monday, the U.S. and U.K. announced sanctions and filed criminal charges against a company and individuals accused of working on behalf of the Chinese government to conduct cyber attacks against U.S. and European lawmakers, academics, activists, journalists, and private companies, among other targets. Jonathan Greig at The Record provided an overview of the measures taken against these Chinese actors: The U.S. sanctioned a Wuhan-based company believed...

Environment

Latest

African Union Bans Donkey-Hide Trade in Response to Unsustainable Chinese Demand 

At a recent summit in Ethiopia, the African Union (AU) decided to approve a 15-year continent-wide ban on the slaughter of donkeys for their hides. Donkey hides are a key component of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) ingredient known as ejiao (“donkey-hide gelatin”), whose demand in China has boomed over the past decade and decimated donkey populations in Africa. The Donkey Sanctuary, one of the world’s largest equine charity organizations, celebrated the announcement and described its significance This historic decision taken by the African Union recognises, at the highest level of...

Hong Kong

Latest

“Compass-in-Chief”: The 240+ Topics Xi Jinping Has “Pointed The Way Forward” On

Among Xi Jinping’s many Party-bestowed titles and hundreds of banned netizen nicknames is one that points to his penchant for claiming personal leadership over and insight into seemingly everything: “Compass-in-Chief.” The nickname derives from a standard Party formulation that holds that Xi has “pointed the way forward” on a vast array of policy issues. (For more on the phrase, see CDT’s 20th Anniversary Edition Lexicon.) The breadth of topics which Xi has claimed to “point the way forward” on, and the frequency of the formulation’s use, has turned the phrase into an object of...

Taiwan

Latest

“Compass-in-Chief”: The 240+ Topics Xi Jinping Has “Pointed The Way Forward” On

Among Xi Jinping’s many Party-bestowed titles and hundreds of banned netizen nicknames is one that points to his penchant for claiming personal leadership over and insight into seemingly everything: “Compass-in-Chief.” The nickname derives from a standard Party formulation that holds that Xi has “pointed the way forward” on a vast array of policy issues. (For more on the phrase, see CDT’s 20th Anniversary Edition Lexicon.) The breadth of topics which Xi has claimed to “point the way forward” on, and the frequency of the formulation’s use, has turned the phrase into an object of...

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