This article also appeared on ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. An active Beijing-based micro-blogger named Dongdong Wang (@東東旺) recently tweeted this image on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter: At first glance, it doesn’t look like much: Outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao (left) and outgoing President Hu Jintao (right) appear to share a laugh following a [...]
The following article also appeared in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. The early reviews are in. As the government unveiled its next generation of leaders at 11:55 a.m. during a November 15 press conference in Beijing, Chinese Web users reached quick consensus that the line-up was, as anticipated, light on would-be reformists. [...]
As citizens across the globe become better connected, it’s not surprising that politicians find themselves plugging into the Internet to access citizen voices and gauge public opinion. Governments and officials of various nations have established Twitter and Facebook profiles, providing a medium to listen to their constituents. In recent years, the appearance of high-profile politicians [...]
Politicians around the world have embraced social media as a means of communicating with their followers. U.S. President Barack Obama’s Twitter account is prolific, employing a small staff to release 10 to 20 tweets a day. Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, brings social media to a whole new level as he shovels out snowed-in citizens [...]
Hu Jintao, we hardly knew ye. Can we ever divine what truly lay behind the stoic facade? As China’s paramount leader holding down the holy trinity of titles — President of the People’s Republic of China, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission — Hu prepares to [...]
Just minutes after CNN declared Rick Santorum winner of Louisiana’s Saturday GOP primary, China’s netizens were already posting their Sunday-morning reactions — in sentence and smiley-face form — on the country’s most popular microblogging sites. “Don’t get excited too soon,” one Tencent Weibo user warned. “But at least it’s a step towards hope.” Another user [...]
Here we go again. Just weeks after Tea Leaf Nation debunked rumors of Kim Jong-Un’s demise at a North Korean embassy in Beijing, we find ourselves fending once more with China’s great Internet Rumor Machine. In what will likely become an ongoing series, we revive our 10-part checklist and apply it to these latest rumors. As [...]
The joke below from a netizen has been retweeted by Professor Han Zhiguo (@韩志国) and Professor Yang Jiacong (@王家骢的微博). Capitalists in the Mao era: those who already had their homes raided and those who will soon have their homes raided. Capitalists in the Deng era: those who have gone to jail and those who will [...]
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