Tea Leaf Nation

China’s social media was in mourning yesterday as users turned their profile photos to grey in remembrance of the victims of the 7.0 earthquake that struck the Ya’an region in Sichuan province on Saturday. As of April 22, the death toll has risen to 192. The Ya’an earthquake is the most serious natural disaster to [...]

This article also appears in Tea Leaf Nation content partner Global Voices. Could the growth of Weixin, China’s hottest new social network, be in danger? Weixin, developed by Chinese Web giant Tencent and marketed globally as WeChat, is a free mobile communications app with about 300 million total users. It allows users to reach out to [...]

This article also appears on The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Yesterday, CCTV, China’ state-run television network, ran an expose on Apple, generating to an outcry against the company on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. News quickly broke, however, that CCTV had paid celebrities to post anti-Apple remarks. A slip up on [...]

[Update: Tea Leaf Nation subsequently reported that some Weibo users are accusing others of having been paid to criticize Apple Inc. You can read more here.] Will Apple’s share price take another pounding? March 15 — the Ides of March — is a day that strikes fear into the hearts of many of China’s corporate bosses. [...]

On March 3, an article entitled “Focusing and Building up a ‘Strong Military’ Dream” appeared on the front page of the PLA Daily. At first glance, the article appeared to be a typical propaganda piece, appropriate to publish during China’s Two Sessions, the meeting of China’s congress. The article was replete with slogans like, “Obeying [...]

This article also appears on The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. My favorite video of Henry Winter shows him strolling down the streets of Shanghai’s central business district wearing a wool poncho, a red-plumed cowboy hat, white wrap-around sunglasses, and knee-high leather boots. It’s an outfit that would probably pass as unspectacular in [...]

It was the best piece of news that many Chinese people had heard in years — they may soon be able to receive medical treatment in hospitals without having to pony up a hefty deposit first. This would have marked a major change from the current, much-maligned system that sometimes denies life-saving treatments to those who [...]

This article also appears on ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. As The New York Times reported yesterday evening, U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant has just released a deeply troubling report called “Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units.” The report alleges wide-spread hacking sponsored by the People’s Liberation Army, which is controlled by the [...]

Smog isn’t the only kind of pollution making headlines in China. Environmental activist Deng Fei recently encouraged users of Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, to share pictures of polluted rivers from their hometowns, taking on local issues in a national campaign. While the aesthetic aspect of this pollution has been a source of great dissatisfaction, news of [...]

This article also appears on ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Is “bromance” in the air? Not according to state-run China Central Television (CCTV). Thousands of fans yelled “Get together” in unison when piano prodigy Li Yundi made a guest appearance at Chinese-American pop sensation Leehom Wang’s New Year’s Eve concert at the end of 2012, fueling speculations [...]

What has the world come to? Is nothing sacred anymore? The venerable propagandist institution known as the 7pm newscast on China Central Television (CCTV) usually offers comfort to those drowning in the turbulent sea of information by producing hopelessly formulaic segments on comings and goings of China’s top leadership, night after night. Alas, the February 6 [...]

This article also appears on The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Xi Jinping, China’s new Communist Party chief and presumptive next president, is perhaps the only one in the country who can change the national conversation merely by making a comment to an article. But a recent comment about food waste, which has [...]