Tea Leaf Nation

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 [...]

This article also appeared in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. “There is such a bakery in Nanjing: about one third of its employees are people with mental disabilities; it’s called ‘Ai De Bakery’ [Amity Bakery in English]. They are han han”—the character for “han” means simple and naïve, but also straightforward and [...]

This article also appears on ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. It appears that Chinese environmental activism is going further mainstream. The Sina micro-blogging account of Global Times, a well-known Communist Party mouthpiece, has just shared news about the horrific proliferation of “cancer villages” in China. Earlier today, @环球时报 wrote: A map of China’s ‘cancer [...]

This article also appears in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Over the last few days, new regulations on China’s real estate information system have provoked another wave of anti-corruption sentiment. According to the Southern Metropolis Daily (@南方都市报), the government of Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province instituted a regulation on February 16 restricting access [...]

Before the public shaming begins in court, Zhao Hongxia, whose sex tape led to the downfall of eleven Chinese executives and officials last December, wanted to remind the country that she was also a mother and wife. “Right now I only care about whether pictures of my husband and son have been exposed in public,” [...]

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 [...]

On February 1, a truck carrying fireworks exploded on a bridge in Henan province. According to state news reports, the explosion caused an 87-yard section of the bridge to collapse, in turn killing nine and injuring at least 15. Another news agency reported 26 dead. The Global Times, which usually hews closely to the Communist [...]

This article also appears on The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. When the National Statistics Bureau announced China’s 2012 GINI coefficient – a measure of income inequality – on January 21, the figure caught everyone by surprise, like a genie out of a bottle. The reaction was as much about the number itself [...]

For the past five days, the air in Beijing has been a toxic, murky haze, but the media discussion around this sensitive topic has been refreshingly open. From official state newspapers to the myriad online portals, Chinese media have reported unflinchingly on the severity of the air pollution – including the presence of PM 2.5, [...]

Following the series of protests against heavy-handed censorship of China’s influential weekly paper Southern Weekend, the state-run Global Times recently ran an editorial that criticized employees of the paper for their protests and their strike. The Chinese version of the editorial is harsher by far than its English counterpart, averring that media who choose to [...]

What do people in China really think about U.S. President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Southeast Asia? A glance at Chinese mainstream and social media depicts conflicting narratives, with topics ranging from President Obama’s now-infamous kiss with Aung San Suu Kyi to geopolitical power dynamics between China, Myanmar, and the United States. Kisses, flirtatious eyes, [...]

The below article also appeared in ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Speech on the Chinese Internet, it seems, is beginning to thaw once more following the country’s leadership transition. After months of speculation, new Chinese leader Xi Jinping was announced on November 15 at the close of the 18th Party Congress, which accompanied a [...]