Tea Leaf Nation

WeChat, a communications app, is suffering some user ire for the first time since it began its explosive growth to dominate the mobile messaging markets in China and many emerging market countries like India and Indonesia. On May 24, WeChat apps installed on the Android operating system was replaced by a gaming app after an [...]

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 to the Southern Metropolis Daily and the boat’s owner, Yu Xuejun. Yu said on his Tencent microblog, another Twitter-like social media platform popular [...]

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 [...]

A resounding victory has been scored against China’s all-powerful state-owned telecom operators — a victory for innovative, life-changing technology, for private enterprises and entrepreneurs, and for millions of users who came together on China’s social media to make their voices heard. On April 23, about a month after the head of China’s Ministry of Industry [...]

The battle lines are drawn in what is shaping up to be an epic duel between China’s all-powerful state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and its millions of Internet users. As Tea Leaf Nation previously reported, the Chinese government is contemplating plans to impose fees on Weixin, also known as WeChat, a mobile messaging app with almost 400 [...]

This article also appears in Tea Leaf Nation content partner Global Voices. Could the growth of Weixin, China’s hottest new social network, be in danger? Weixin, developed by Chinese Web giant Tencent and marketed globally as WeChat, is a free mobile communications app with about 300 million total users. It allows users to reach out to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

If one were to characterize China’s online netizens, it would be tempting to describe them as a rowdy group of hard-hitting and disillusioned social critics. But, despite their online spewing of profanity and frustration, reason does occasionally prevail, in particular when social media’s immense potential is leveraged to do good works. At Tea Leaf Nation, [...]

It’s an oldie but a goodie. Two years ago, Shen Yin, co-founder of The Founder magazine, wrote about two unnamed friends, “L” and “W.” L focused his business on China’s poor laborers, while W focused his on its elite. From L’s success, and W’s comparative frustration, Shen felt the reader could learn about the bifurcation [...]

Has China’s most famous blogger finally been brought to heel? Han Han, writer, car racer, and China’s youth opinion leader, recently sealed a deal with massive Chinese Internet company Tencent and founded an e-journal, “One.”  This is Han Han’s third attempt at founding a journal. His first, “Party,” sold 1.5 million copies of its first [...]