A news article published in early May suggests that reform may be in the works for China’s long-standing petitioning system, also known as the Letters and Visits system, which is often associated with scandals involving cruelty and inhumanity. On May 9, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported that in March, the State Bureau for Letters and [...]
The White House surely has a full plate already. But it can add one more item to its long to-do list: Respond to Chinese petitioners. Starting on May 3, the White House’s petition website has become a favored landing spot for Chinese Web users, and the hashtag #occupytheWhiteHouse, and a variety of related memes, has [...]
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments,” advised the Bard. While no one doubts that their minds are true and the potential synergy is great, in the heady, $586 million marriage of Alibaba, the owner of China’s dominant e-commerce site Taobao, and Sina Weibo, China’s favorite microblogging platform, what might [...]
Guerrilla warfare, Mao Zedong’s favorite modus operandi, is being used against the army he created. And the grassroots warriors have just scored a small victory. China’s Internet users began a campaign earlier this year to post photos of luxury cars carrying special military plates on China’s social media, mainly the sites Sina Weibo and Tianya. Vehicles with easily recognizable [...]
Surviving as a journalist under China’s strict censorship regime is no picnic, but recent moves by the Chinese government have made it clear that lives of journalists in China will more likely get harder. Chinese journalists are some of the most active users on China’s social media — not only can they uncover hidden stories [...]
Xi Jinping, where were you the night of March 1? Yesterday, both domestic and foreign news outlets were reporting that the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping had taken a ride in a taxi cab that night; Hong Kong paper Ta Kung Pao broke the news on April 18, which was then [...]
Modern Chinese literature is flourishing—at least for those who have an Internet connection. A survey by Chinese Internet market research firm iResearch counted a total of 12.2 million daily readers among China’s top ten literary websites. These websites together contain millions of online books, some reaching millions of Chinese characters in length. Qidian.com is the [...]
This article also appears on The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. David Barboza, the New York Times correspondent and Shanghai bureau chief, won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for exposing the wealth amassed by the extended family of former premier Wen Jiabao. The report, which tackles head-on the politically sensitive topic of [...]
This article also appears on ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. 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 University besieged me and [...]
China’s state-run media reported on April 8 that Huang Sheng, former deputy provincial governor of Shandong, was being tried in the city of Nanjing for accepting bribes. What drew the most attention, however, were not the bribes – which allegedly amounted to 12.23 million RMB, or almost US$2 million – but the news that the [...]
Fast vehicles and racy women have always been the playthings of the rich. But when a car is too fast to handle, the driver may find himself and his exotic cargo just where he didn’t want to be: the limelight. On the afternoon of April the 5, Yeh Mao-hong (葉茂宏), president of Architecture World (葉財建設), [...]
Chinese authorities have confirmed 14 cases of humans infected with bird flu, and of those, 5 have already died. It’s no surprise, then, that “bird flu” and “H7N9” have been trending on Chinese social media sites. Internet users are taking to social media to spread information about preventative measures, the latest news about confirmed infections, [...]
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