Viewpoint

09.04.18

Peak Xi Jinping?

Geremie R. Barmé
The adulation of Xi Jinping, China’s State President, Party General Secretary, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, has yet to reach similar lofty heights as that of Mao Zedong. However, on September 3, the official Beijing media took a...

Conversation

04.11.18

China’s Communist Party Takes (Even More) Control of the Media

Stanley Rosen, Chris Fenton & more
China’s Communist Party made moves last month to solidify and formalize its (already substantial) control over the country’s media. China’s main state-run broadcasters are to be consolidated into a massive new “Voice of China” under the management...

Media

09.23.17

The German Edition of the Falun Gong-Affiliated ‘Epoch Times’ Aligns with the Far Right

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
On the eve of the German election Sunday, it’s no surprise that Russian state-funded media outlets are attacking German Chancellor Angela Merkel, sensationalizing migrant violence, and providing conciliatory coverage of far-right groups. Russia,...

Viewpoint

11.30.15

Court in China Adds Last-Minute Charge Against Rights Leader During Sentencing

Yaxue Cao from China Change
On August 8, 2013, Guo Feixiong (real name Yang Maodong) was arrested and then indicted on charges of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” The heavy sentence came as a shock to everyone following the case. More shockingly, the...

Western Media ‘Welcome’ in China, Xi Tells Murdoch

Agence France-Presse
South China Morning Post
Chinese President Xi Jinping has told Rupert Murdoch that Western media organisations are “welcome” in China, despite the continued blocking of numerous foreign websites for their reporting on the country. “(We) welcome foreign media and...

China’s Decision to Expel Journalists to Hong Kong is Now Blowing Up in its Face

Max Fisher
Vox
Hong Kong has one of the highest rates of Western journalists per capita of any non-Western city in the world, including a number of the best foreign correspondents in the business.

China Website Editors ‘Held for Extortion’

Damian Grammaticus
BBC
Eight people from the 21st Century financial news website and public relations firms were being investigated, Xinhua news agency said.

Guardian Website Blocked in China

Gerry Mullany
New York Times
The newspaper said that it may be due to a recently run article about ethnic tensions in the western region of Xinjiang.

Media

03.01.13

No Closer to the Chinese Dream?

Timothy Garton Ash
2013 began dramatically in China with a standoff between journalists and state propaganda authorities over a drastically rewritten New Year’s editorial at the Southern Weekly newspaper.In the first week of the New Year, the editors of Southern...

China's Press Freedom Goes South

Annie Zhang
Foreign Policy
Censorship is commonplace, but is usually more subtle, with directives described over the phone rather than by email (where it leaves a trail).

(Editorial) Why Southern Weekly Said “No”

QIan Gang
China Media Project
The road to freedom of expression as guaranteed in Article 35 of China’s Constitution will be a long one.

China Said to Crack Down on Censorship Protests

Edward Wong
New York Times
People across China have been detained or questioned for supporting protesting Southern Weekend journalists.

China Censorship Protest "Living in Truth" (Opinion)

Christian Science Monitor Editorial...
Christian Science Monitor
Protests erupt following a strike by journalists at a Chinese newspaper whose editorial on free speech was censored. Unlike most other protests in China, this one is about living in the truth.

Inside the Southern Weekly Incident

David Bandurski
China Media Project
A Hong Kong University media scholar's review of the strife that led to a strike at one of China's most influential newspapers.

Censorship Protest a Test for Reform-minded China

Jaime Florcruz
CNN
For two days, journalists at the Southern Weekly offices and hundreds of their supporters called for free speech.

Flag Raising Ceremony Held on China’s First Aircraft Carrier

Barry van Wyk
Danwei
Various front pages in China today feature glowing reports of China’s first aircraft carrier on whose platform a flag raising ceremony was held yesterday. Yet the fact that it happened is just about everything we know for sure about the ship. The...

Total Denial and the Will to Forget

Qian Gang
China Media Project
Anyone who regularly observes the topsy-turvy world of Chinese politics understands that the past, even the remote past, can exert a powerful influence on the present and future. Major historical anniversaries — like that of the 1989 Tiananmen...

China Commentary Slams Romney's "Foolish" China-Bashing

Ben Blanchard
Reuters
In a strongly worded English-language commentary, Xinhua said Romney's anti-China rhetoric, if converted into policy upon him assuming office, would trigger a catastrophic trade war and damage the already weak global economic recovery.

Is China's Global Times Misunderstood?

Allen Carlson
Diplomat
A growing conviction is taking root in America that Chinese views of the international system are becoming increasingly assertive and nationalistic. One of the prime referents for this contention is the Global Times (Huanqiu Shibao), a hugely...

Keywords: Preserving Stability

Qian Gang
China Media Project
The two-character Chinese phrase weiwen is an abbreviated form of the full phrase, weihu wending, meaning to preserve or safeguard stability. The Chinese Communist Party has many such shortened phrases, compact verbalisms that pack a political punch...

Winter For Chinese Media: Why So Many Respected Journalists Are Leaving the Field

Yueran Zhang
Although the government’s control over news media has always been tight, the range and intensity of the purge this year has been rarely seen, suggesting that the censors’ controlling hand is tightening. As Wang Keqin, a former investigative...

With Extra Frames, a Chinese Photographer Looks Inward

Sim Chi Yin
New York Times
 (Part 2) Li Zhensheng, a newspaper photographer who was active in the 1960s in northern China, documented the country’s Cultural Revolution, in honest, cinematic images.

Decoding the ‘Voice of China’ Through Media Reports

Graham Webster
88 Bar
As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wraps up meetings today in Beijing, it’s hard to say how her most recent Asia-Pacific trip has gone. And that’s partly because interpreting media reports from the Chinese side is more art than science.

Self-censorship in Hong Kong: How Prevalent Is It?

Cam MacMurchy
Zhongnanhai Blog
The Asian American Journalists Association organized a roundtable at the Foreign Correspondents Club tonight on self-censorship in Hong Kong, an issue which is prescient in light of the recent Chief Executive election, national education protests,...

Editor at Communist Party Mouthpiece Blasts Leaders

Shi Jiangtao
South China Morning Post
A senior editor of Study Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, has launched a blistering broadside at the country's outgoing leaders, who are about to step down in a once-a-decade shake-up, accusing them of stalling long-overdue political reform...

China Editor's Suicide Sparks Web Debate

Yuwen Wu
BBC
The suicide of a senior editor working for China's Communist Party newspaper has sparked strong reaction from Chinese cultural and media circles and on the internet. Xu Huaiqian, 44, was editor-in-chief for the Dadi (Earth) supplement...

China State Media at Odds Over Myanmar Censorship Move

Lillian Lin
WSJ: China Real Time Report
News on Monday that Myanmar had decided to end press censorship has prompted different takes from Chinese media outlets, as well as doubts from the online community that China will its own tight restrictions anytime soon.

China's Party Papers, Losing Touch?

China Media Project
The influence of China’s Party-run newspapers has been sliding steadily for almost two decades now. Ever since the mid-1990s, these “mouthpieces“, operated by top Party leaders at various levels of China’s vast bureaucracy — and full of tinder-dry...

Hong Kong After Island Landing: Who You Calling Unpatriotic?

Te-Ping Chen
WSJ: China Real Time Report
We don’t need patriotism lessons, Hong Kongers say—and yesterday’s successful landing on the contested Senkaku Islands proves it. On Thursday, local newspapers across the city carried full-page spreads showing photos of Hong Kong activists...

China’s Boldest Media: Losing the Battle?

David Bandurski
China Media Project
Over the past few years there have been repeated signs that newspapers in the southern province of Guangdong, long known to be among the China’s most outspoken, have come under intensified pressure from the authorities. CMP reported last May that a...

China's Olympic Debate

Elizabeth Economy
Council on Foreign Relations
The Chinese currently stand second in the Olympic medals table—in both gold and overall—but you would never know it from what’s going on in their media. Of course, there is celebration of the country’s athletes. Yet the flawless performances of the...

China Pulls Paper Over Flood Story: Rights Group

Agence France-Presse
China has pulled a Beijing newspaper from the newsstands after it criticised the official handling of the July floods and said the government had underreported the death toll, a rights group said Tuesday. Authorities in China's capital...

Fears of Chinese Media Crackdown Ahead of Leadership Transition

Tom Phillips and Malcolm Moore
Telegraph
On Wednesday it emerged that Lu Yan and Sun Jian, the publisher and deputy editor of Shanghai's often-combative Oriental Morning Post, had been removed from their positions. It is unclear exactly what triggered the editorial changes and some...

China's Malformed Media Sphere

Qian Gang
China Media Project
From July 2 to July 3, the residents of the city of Shifang in China’s western Sichuan province staged protests to oppose a molybdenum-cooper project they feared would poison their community. The protests were marked by fierce conflict, and the...