One year after a very similar incident occurred in the waters between China and North Korea, North Koreans once again allegedly hijacked a Chinese fishing boat, kidnapping 16 crew members and demanding a ransom of 600,000 yuan, according …
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“Wanted: Evildoer, drug lord, arms trafficker, may be wearing ladies’ makeup to avoid detection. If you spot him, you should immediately report it to the American FBI.” Criminal lawyer Gan Yuanchun’s February 12 announcement on …
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It’s been a fascinating year in Chinese cyberspace. Chinese Internet users now number about 538 million, with hundreds of millions of those generating over 100 million posts per day on Sina Weibo, China’s most vibrant micro-blogging …
Read MoreWe’ll start with the (very) good news. Twenty nine innocent Chinese fisherman, by all accounts essentially kidnapped for ransom by North Koreans while working in Chinese territorial waters approximately two weeks ago, have been released, …
Read MoreWith one policy shift, China’s government could save thousands of lives. On April 18, Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun quoted a Chinese provincial official who said China was ceasing its policy of repatriating North Koreans who have …
Read MoreWhat a way to spend 450 million dollars. The regime of North Korea’s new (and likely insecure) young leader, Kim Jong-Un, will almost certainly scramble to save face after inviting international reporters to a botched …
Read MoreHere 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 …
Read MoreAh, memories. The bluster; the tone-deafness; the hero worship; the (sometimes) empty threats–it’s as if Chairman Mao were alive today. On March 6, North Korea’s government, or someone pretending to represent North Korea’s government, opened …
Read More“Intentional murder.” That’s how one netizen, @飞天, described the Chinese government’s forced repatriation of North Korean defectors. The issue has again risen to the fore after Chinese authorities recently conducted a mass arrest of 30 …
Read MoreAt Tea Leaf Nation, we spend a lot of time in China’s blogosphere wading through rumors. Sometimes, the rumor is likely to be true; other times, the reactions to the rumor are themselves worthy of …
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