Tea Leaf Nation

Surviving as a journalist under China’s strict censorship regime is no picnic, but recent moves by the Chinese government have made it clear that lives of journalists in China will more likely get harder. Chinese journalists are some of the most active users on China’s social media — not only can they uncover hidden stories [...]

This article also appears on The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Real name registration has applied to Sina Weibo and many other popular microblogs in China for over a year now. But you wouldn’t know it. The rule requires Web users to register their real name and their national identification number with online [...]

This article also appears on ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Does Sina Weibo, China’s major micro-blogging site, provide an equal platform for expression for both men and women in China? According to a recent study conducted by Sun Huan, a graduate student in Comparative Media Studies and a research assistant at the Center [...]

According to the Wall Street Journal, a recent study from Hong Kong University found that over 57% of the 500 million-plus registered users on Sina Weibo, China’s favorite microblogging service, may be “zombie” accounts that post no original tweets. The study further found that just over 10% of users appear active in a given week, [...]

This is a part of a Tea Leaf Nation series covering gender issues in today’s China.  On February 22, a report released by Internet portal Sina made waves among China’s youth. A post on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, attracted heated discussion: “According to relevant regulations, the first marriage of males aged 25 or older and [...]

This article also appears on ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, announced on February 20 that it had surpassed half a billion users — more people than live in South America, and approximately the population of North America. Thickly-settled Europe edges out Weibo by about 230,000, but [...]

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 [...]

The Chinese Web version of Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest newspapers, posted the following image on Sina Weibo, China’s most active microblogging platform: The screenshots shows two remarkably similar posts, the top from Sina’s Weibo platform, which has about 400 million users, the lower from Internet giant Tencent’s own Weibo platform, which, according to [...]

To pick out three similar but unrelated incidents on Weibo and call them a trend is to risk forfeiting one’s right to say anything about the social media site ever again, except some things so defy responsible behavior that they deserve to be on the receiving end themselves.  Roughly two weeks ago, Zhou Yan, a [...]

While a social media-inspired “jasmine revolution” for upending China’s existing order a la Egypt’s Tahrir Square continues to be – in the words of one high-ranking Chinese official – “preposterous and unrealistic,” the past few months have seen the next closest thing to a mass online movement, one yet to be crushed by censors. Call [...]

The U.S. Pentagon has its drones, but China has its censors. With a swift surgical strike, China’s new secret weapon just took out a key instrument of American influence in China. The official account of the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, was deleted by Sina on July 12 without any warning. [...]

The U.S. Pentagon has its drones, but China has its censors. With a swift surgical strike, China’s new secret weapon just took out a key instrument of American influence in China. The official account of the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, was deleted by Sina on July 12 without any warning. [...]