I thought only soccer matches were fixed in China. I never imagined marathons could be, too."

— Weibo user @飞天猪Jason (fēitiān zhū Jason, "flying pig Jason"), reacting to viral footage that appeared to show three runners from Kenya and Ethiopia slowing down in the final stretch of the April 14 Beijing half-marathon to allow Chinese runner Hu Jie to win the race. The controversy, ironically, emerged soon after China’s sports regulator announced it would stiffen punishments for throwing matches, fixing competitions, and sports-related misconduct.

 

CDT Highlights

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Taiwanese Drag Queen’s Victory Sparks Quiet Joy Among Fans in China

Nymphia Wind, a Taiwanese drag queen, has won the 16th season of the American reality TV competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race. Her victory has been cause for quiet celebration in China, where drag is in the ascendant despite increased state repression of the LGBTQ+ community. Nymphia Wind is the drag persona of Leo Tsao, a 28-year-old Taiwanese American fashion designer. Wind’s outspoken pride in both her Asian and Taiwanese heritage has made her a complex figure in China. At The Washington Post, Vic Chiang interviewed Nymphia Wind and wrote that Chinese netizens are keeping quiet on her...

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Scholz Visit to China Draws Trepidation Over Germany’s Economic Dependence, European Disunity

This week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz completed a three-day visit to China. It was his second trip since becoming chancellor and his first since the German government produced its China strategy last July. His previous trip to China in November 2022, only weeks after Xi’s coronation at the 20th Party Congress, was heavily criticized for undermining European unity and prioritizing business deals over human rights. This recent trip proceeded in a similar fashion, leaving many critics worried that Scholz is trading long-term sustainability for short-term gain in an attempt to sustain...

Quote of the Day: Hikvision and Dahua Claim to “Support the Ten Principles of the U.N. Global Compact on Human Rights, Labour, Environment, and Anti-Corruption”

Two Chinese manufacturers of video surveillance equipment—state-owned Hikvision and publicly traded company Dahua Technology—have joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) in an attempt to burnish their reputations, which have been  severely undermined by evidence that the companies have contributed to human rights abuses of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Both companies have been subject to restrictions by the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada for facilitating the oppression of Uyghurs by providing “highly invasive” surveillance equipment to the Chinese Party-state, underpinning their complicity...

Weibo Users Discern Pro-natalist Propaganda in Sina “DINKs” Article

On April 14, Sina News Hot Topics published a lengthy article on Weibo under the clickbait headline “The First Batch of DINKs, Exposed: Where Are They Now, and Do They All Regret Not Having Kids?” The four-part article focused on ostensible profiles of DINK (“double income, no kids”) couples, most of whom were portrayed as either lonely, estranged, divorced, bitter, or regretful that they had never had children. Some of those profiled said that they had changed their minds and decided to have kids after all. Although the article purported to present both sides of the issue, both the language...

Tighter U.S. Immigration Controls On Inbound Chinese Students Stoke Concern

In Peter Hessler’s latest piece for The New Yorker, “How Chinese Students Experience America,” he notes that “COVID, guns, anti-Asian violence, and diplomatic relations have complicated the ambitions of the some three hundred thousand college students who come to the U.S. each year.” One of the first places that some of these hurdles manifest is at the American border, where a growing number of Chinese students and researchers have recently found themselves unexpectedly barred entry to the U.S. on the basis of broad national security concerns. Experts argue that the political inertia behind...

Quote of the Day: “We Have Never Experienced Such Blatant Efforts to Evade Scrutiny of Court Proceedings in Any Country.”

An incident on Wednesday, in which a representative for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) was denied permission to enter Hong Kong to observe the national security trial of political and media figure Jimmy Lai, is yet another illustration of the precipitous decline of media freedom in that territory. Another RSF employee was allowed to enter. The episode comes on the heels of national security legislation related to Article 23, which threatens to further curtail civil liberties and press freedoms by criminalizing routine reporting, research, and advocacy work. The legislation was fast-tracked...

Translation: Special One-Month Reconnaissance Operation Against “Overseas Cyber Forces”

A pair of recently surfaced screenshots appear to offer unusual detail about a special month-long operation, held in Beijing and involving over 40 Ministry of Public Security computer specialists from around the country, to combat “overseas cyber forces” in the battle for public opinion. The apparently leaked internal instructions from the Ministry of Public Security are likely to be the result of an email breach. They include the names and locations of many of the computer-specialist officers, as well as the name and contact information of the individual in charge of the operation. At some...

New eBook: China Digital Times Lexicon, 20th Anniversary Edition

On September 12, 2003, John Battelle published the first post on chinadigitaltimes.net: Here’s what a Google Search on “china weblog” yields, I’m looking forward to seeing ours at the top soon! China’s online population at the start of that year was nearly 60 million. Ten years later, it was fast approaching 600 million, and now, after 20, it is well over a billion. This new completely revised and hugely expanded update to our ebook series, formerly known as “the Grass Mud Horse Lexicon,” aims to capture something of the enormous explosion of online speech that accompanied this growth, with...

Weibo Users Discern Pro-natalist Propaganda in Sina “DINKs” Article

On April 14, Sina News Hot Topics published a lengthy article on Weibo under the clickbait headline “The First Batch of DINKs, Exposed: Where Are They Now, and Do They All Regret Not Having Kids?” The four-part article focused on ostensible profiles of DINK (“double income, no kids”) couples, most of whom were portrayed as either lonely, estranged, divorced, bitter, or regretful that they had never had children. Some of those profiled said that they had changed their minds and decided to have kids after all. Although the article purported to present both sides of the issue, both the language...

Weibo Users Discern Pro-natalist Propaganda in Sina “DINKs” Article

On April 14, Sina News Hot Topics published a lengthy article on Weibo under the clickbait headline “The First Batch of DINKs, Exposed: Where Are They Now, and Do They All Regret Not Having Kids?” The four-part article focused on ostensible profiles of DINK (“double income, no kids”) couples, most of whom were portrayed as either lonely, estranged, divorced, bitter, or regretful that they had never had children. Some of those profiled said that they had changed their minds and decided to have kids after all. Although the article purported to present both sides of the issue, both the language...

Tighter U.S. Immigration Controls On Inbound Chinese Students Stoke Concern

In Peter Hessler’s latest piece for The New Yorker, “How Chinese Students Experience America,” he notes that “COVID, guns, anti-Asian violence, and diplomatic relations have complicated the ambitions of the some three hundred thousand college students who come to the U.S. each year.” One of the first places that some of these hurdles manifest is at the American border, where a growing number of Chinese students and researchers have recently found themselves unexpectedly barred entry to the U.S. on the basis of broad national security concerns. Experts argue that the political inertia behind...

Tighter U.S. Immigration Controls On Inbound Chinese Students Stoke Concern

In Peter Hessler’s latest piece for The New Yorker, “How Chinese Students Experience America,” he notes that “COVID, guns, anti-Asian violence, and diplomatic relations have complicated the ambitions of the some three hundred thousand college students who come to the U.S. each year.” One of the first places that some of these hurdles manifest is at the American border, where a growing number of Chinese students and researchers have recently found themselves unexpectedly barred entry to the U.S. on the basis of broad national security concerns. Experts argue that the political inertia behind...

Quote of the Day: Official Disposable Income Figures Derided as “Today’s Daily Dose of Humor”

On March 16, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that the Chinese economy was off to a good start in 2024, with reported 5.3% year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter of the year. The better-than-expected data was touted by various Chinese state media outlets online, although many of those news posts had comment filtering enabled, perhaps in anticipation of negative or skeptical reactions from social media users. Two items in particular seemed to strike netizens as overly optimistic: the reported “nationwide average per-capita disposable income” figure of 11,539 yuan...

Human Rights

Latest

Quote of the Day: Hikvision and Dahua Claim to “Support the Ten Principles of the U.N. Global Compact on Human Rights, Labour, Environment, and Anti-Corruption”

Two Chinese manufacturers of video surveillance equipment—state-owned Hikvision and publicly traded company Dahua Technology—have joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) in an attempt to burnish their reputations, which have been  severely undermined by evidence that the companies have contributed to human rights abuses of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Both companies have been subject to restrictions by the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada for facilitating the oppression of Uyghurs by providing “highly invasive” surveillance equipment to the Chinese Party-state, underpinning their complicity...

Politics

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Nationalists “Pinkfished” Into Calling Mao Zedong a Traitor

One of the subtler ways Chinese internet users voice their displeasure with the status quo is through “pinkfishing” (粉红钓鱼, fěnhóng diàoyú), tricking nationalist “little pinks” into criticizing Party leaders—generally by quoting those leaders without attribution. A classic example from 2021 saw online nationalists berate a Weibo user as a “race traitor,” “Japanese devil,” and general lunatic for writing, “We should not despise a nation because a small cadre of militarists in their midst instigated an invasion …” while quoting a People’s Daily post memorializing the Nanjing Massacre. The call...

Society

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Hemophilia Charity’s Generous Donation to Chinese Government Raises Eyebrows

A recent donation from a medical non-governmental organization (NGO) to the Beijing municipal and Chinese central governments has raised eyebrows and prompted online discussion about the legality of a medical charity transferring private donations to the government. On March 26, the official WeChat account for Hemophilia Home – Rare Disease Support Center (@血友之家罕见病关爱中心, Xuèyǒu zhī jiā hǎnjiàn bìng guān’ài zhōngxīn) announced that the center had decided to donate 100,000 yuan to the Beijing municipal government and one million yuan to the Chinese central government. The donations...

China & the World

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Attitudes in Global South Tilt Towards China at Expense of U.S.

Recent public opinion polls from countries in the Global South point to a slight shift in attitudes vis-a-vis China and the U.S. By small but significant margins, a growing number of people in many of these countries appear to favor China over the U.S. This appears due at least as much to perceptions that the U.S. government has been hypocritical over Israel’s war in Gaza and lacks a compelling global vision for the future as to China’s increasingly active diplomatic engagement around the world. To some, the surveys merely show a snapshot in time; for others, they reflect a deeper trend of...

Law

Latest

Tighter U.S. Immigration Controls On Inbound Chinese Students Stoke Concern

In Peter Hessler’s latest piece for The New Yorker, “How Chinese Students Experience America,” he notes that “COVID, guns, anti-Asian violence, and diplomatic relations have complicated the ambitions of the some three hundred thousand college students who come to the U.S. each year.” One of the first places that some of these hurdles manifest is at the American border, where a growing number of Chinese students and researchers have recently found themselves unexpectedly barred entry to the U.S. on the basis of broad national security concerns. Experts argue that the political inertia behind...

Information Revolution

Latest

WeChat “Bug” Turns Out To Be Obscure Insult for Xi Jinping

A group of students under the impression they had discovered a WeChat “bug” that hides the phrase “200 jin of dumplings” (roughly 220 pounds) had in fact stumbled upon an obscure insult for Xi Jinping that triggers automatic censorship.  In the course of daily conversation, the students found that messages preceded by the term “200 jin of dumplings” (200斤饺子) were not received by their counterparts. Juvenile hilarity ensued. They sent each other curses and confessions: “200 jin of dumplings, you’re a stupid c***,” “200 jin of dumplings, you’re an idiot,” “200 jin of dumplings, piggy,” and...

Culture & the Arts

Latest

Taiwanese Drag Queen’s Victory Sparks Quiet Joy Among Fans in China

Nymphia Wind, a Taiwanese drag queen, has won the 16th season of the American reality TV competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race. Her victory has been cause for quiet celebration in China, where drag is in the ascendant despite increased state repression of the LGBTQ+ community. Nymphia Wind is the drag persona of Leo Tsao, a 28-year-old Taiwanese American fashion designer. Wind’s outspoken pride in both her Asian and Taiwanese heritage has made her a complex figure in China. At The Washington Post, Vic Chiang interviewed Nymphia Wind and wrote that Chinese netizens are keeping quiet on her...

The Great Divide

Latest

Quote of the Day: Official Disposable Income Figures Derided as “Today’s Daily Dose of Humor”

On March 16, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that the Chinese economy was off to a good start in 2024, with reported 5.3% year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter of the year. The better-than-expected data was touted by various Chinese state media outlets online, although many of those news posts had comment filtering enabled, perhaps in anticipation of negative or skeptical reactions from social media users. Two items in particular seemed to strike netizens as overly optimistic: the reported “nationwide average per-capita disposable income” figure of 11,539 yuan...

Sci-Tech

Latest

Tighter U.S. Immigration Controls On Inbound Chinese Students Stoke Concern

In Peter Hessler’s latest piece for The New Yorker, “How Chinese Students Experience America,” he notes that “COVID, guns, anti-Asian violence, and diplomatic relations have complicated the ambitions of the some three hundred thousand college students who come to the U.S. each year.” One of the first places that some of these hurdles manifest is at the American border, where a growing number of Chinese students and researchers have recently found themselves unexpectedly barred entry to the U.S. on the basis of broad national security concerns. Experts argue that the political inertia behind...

Environment

Latest

African Union Bans Donkey-Hide Trade in Response to Unsustainable Chinese Demand 

At a recent summit in Ethiopia, the African Union (AU) decided to approve a 15-year continent-wide ban on the slaughter of donkeys for their hides. Donkey hides are a key component of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) ingredient known as ejiao (“donkey-hide gelatin”), whose demand in China has boomed over the past decade and decimated donkey populations in Africa. The Donkey Sanctuary, one of the world’s largest equine charity organizations, celebrated the announcement and described its significance This historic decision taken by the African Union recognises, at the highest level of...

Hong Kong

Latest

Quote of the Day: “We Have Never Experienced Such Blatant Efforts to Evade Scrutiny of Court Proceedings in Any Country.”

An incident on Wednesday, in which a representative for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) was denied permission to enter Hong Kong to observe the national security trial of political and media figure Jimmy Lai, is yet another illustration of the precipitous decline of media freedom in that territory. Another RSF employee was allowed to enter. The episode comes on the heels of national security legislation related to Article 23, which threatens to further curtail civil liberties and press freedoms by criminalizing routine reporting, research, and advocacy work. The legislation was fast-tracked...

Taiwan

Latest

Whirlwind Weeks of Diplomacy In Beijing Center On Ukraine, Green Tech, Taiwan

Over a whirlwind two weeks of diplomacy in Beijing, China has sought to strengthen its ties to both the United States and Russia—a difficult balancing act. Xi Jinping took a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden last week which was followed with a four-day trip through China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The day after Yellen’s departure, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Xi Jinping in Beijing in preparation for “upcoming contacts at the highest level,” a sign that Russian leader Vladimir Putin may be planning a Beijing trip this calendar year. Soon after, China’s...

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