This article also appears in ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s death on March 5, 2013 came in the same week as the “Two Sessions” began in China, when China’s national legislature meets in Beijing. It was also almost exactly a year since the spectacular political demise of Bo Xilai, [...]
What did China search for in 2012? It wasn’t the hotly disputed Diaoyu Islands or the widely-watched London Olympics. On Baidu.com, China’s homegrown search engine commanding about 83 percent of the Chinese search market, the most popular searches focus on stories discovered and spread by Internet denizens themselves. Chinese web users were not only passive [...]
This article also appeared in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. What a year it has been on the Chinese Internet. In Chinese politics, 2012 brought a long-anticipated leadership transition at the highest levels, but incoming president Xi Jinping hasn’t dominated the headlines all by himself. A post on Weibo, China’s Twitter, by [...]
A recent viral tweet on China’s Internet starts this way: “He didn’t try to flee to the U.S. consulate, and he didn’t try to abscond to the U.S. with 200 million RMB. He’s not some big official with hundreds of apartments and countless mistresses. He’s just a little village official waiting for justice.” This man, [...]
The widely-publicized Party expulsion of Bo Xilai has not just made China’s netizens angry; it’s made them tired. Commenters have called for a final reckoning with the awful legacy of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution in hopes of ending China’s ongoing legacy of sensational political strife. One post by liberal columnist Zhao Chu @赵楚 on Sina [...]
The purge is on. Bo Xilai, a former Chinese power-broker whose family’s rise was torpedoed by a weakness for bribery, backstabbing, and killing people, is now out—or as the Chinese might say, “ao te” (奥特)–of China’s Communist Party. On China’s Weibo platforms, the country’s major online gathering places for speech and debate, the Bo-related comments [...]
Coded language on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, is ascending new heights. After a hasty conclusion to the trial of Wang Lijun, the erstwhile police chief of the megacity of Chongqing, China’s official news service Xinhua released its version of the events leading to Wang’s–and his boss Bo Xilai’s–stunning downfall. The money line involves Bo Xilai [...]
Gu Kailai (谷开来), the wife of former Chongqing mayor Bo Xilai (薄熙来), has been accused and convicted earlier this week of homicide against British national Neil Heywood. Gu received a two year commuted death sentence, which means a death sentenced with a delayed execution. The accusations against Gu Kailai can be read in a previous [...]
Season 2 of China’s hottest political drama in more than a decade formally began with the announcement of the murder indictment of Gu Kailai and an assistant for poisoning a Brit, Neil Heywood. If you missed the sensational Season 1, you can catch Tea Leaf Nation’s coverage here and here, and our profiles of Gu’s [...]
Season 2 of China’s hottest political drama in more than a decade formally began with the announcement of the murder indictment of Gu Kailai and an assistant for poisoning a Brit, Neil Heywood. If you missed the sensational Season 1, you can catch Tea Leaf Nation’s coverage here and here, and our profiles of Gu’s [...]
If it’s true, it may be the greatest case of blanket censorship in history. Netizens in China reported yesterday that most Japanese domains had been blocked outright. One netizen tweeted on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter: “Craziness. China has now blocked most domain names in Japan, with the key blocked term being ‘.co.jp.’ This is the [...]
If it’s true, it may be the greatest case of blanket censorship in history. Netizens in China reported yesterday that most Japanese domains had been blocked outright. One netizen tweeted on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter: “Craziness. China has now blocked most domain names in Japan, with the key blocked term being ‘.co.jp.’ This is the [...]
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