Tea Leaf Nation

News of an earthquake in North Korea spread quickly in China, with parts of the country actually experiencing the effects of the quake itself. Shortly after news of the quake was reported, it became apparent that it was man-made – a nuclear test. Chatter on Chinese social media quickly took off, many speculating about the [...]

This article also appears on ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Beijingers are choking on their air — again. Just seventeen days after Chinese cyberspace erupted with complaints about pollution so bad that it was “beyond index,” denizens of the Chinese capital awoke once again to a city blanketed with smog. Over the past [...]

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 [...]

“Foreign forces,” indeed. On the same day that Chinese propaganda authorities issued a warning that widespread online and offline anti-censorship protests were being driven by “foreign forces,” a user with a handle meaning “strange Chinese news” (@中国奇闻) has taken to Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, to share this image of an American flag flying on Chinese [...]

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 [...]

Last night President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney hit off their second debate of the 2012 presidential campaign series at Hofstra University, with a majority of analysts declaring Obama the debate’s winner.  The candidates argued over a range of topics such as the embassy attack in Libya, social policy, and foreign relations. Most [...]

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, [...]

At the end of August—a month filled with miserable, bloody accidents in China–finally came a piece of good news. On August 30, the Chinese Ministry of Health, together with five other bureaus, launched a new healthcare insurance program, referred to by Chinese media as “Severe-disease Insurance” (大病医保). The new program would reimburse at least 50% [...]

China’s social Internet has proven to be a great leveler–an organ of investigation and discovery that keeps a watchful eye trained on the plainest street sweeper or the highest government official. Recently, its watchful eye was trained on some organs that we can only say are, well, NSFW. (Don’t know what that means? Look here.) [...]

Following blind rights lawyer Cheng Guangcheng’s daring recent escape from years of house arrest, observers waited with baited breath to see how China’s media would break its silence on the news. This morning, the relatively pro-party Global Times took the first step with articles in Chinese and English which, the Wall Street Journal reported, tried [...]