Snowden Says He Took No Secret Files to Russia

James Risen
New York Times
He also asserted that he was able to protect the documents from China’s spies because he was familiar with that nation’s intelligence abilities, saying that as an N.S.A. contractor he had taught a course on Chinese...

Former Google China Chief Faces Online Attacks

Josh Chin
WSJ: China Real Time Report
Major Chinese Internet portals have republished an essay from an official media website that implies that Kai-fu Lee lied about being diagnosed with cancer, in what some of his supporters are calling a coordinated ad hominem effort...

‘Where Are the Riots?’: China Watches the Shutdown

Jiayang Fan
New Yorker
In China’s social media - what amounts to China’s largest and most liberal classroom - microbloggers are taking the opportunity to teach one another the difference between federal and local authority in America and the protections, and perils, of...

The World’s Most Active Twitter Country?

Victor Lipman
Forbes
In terms of active Twitter users (defined as those “who used or contributed to the platform at least once a month”), the country with the most users was China, with 35.5 million, even though Chinese netizens are restricted from using Twitter.&...

Sina C.E.O. Charles Chao on How Weibo Is Changing China

Liz Gannes
All Things Digital
“Before, if anything happened, any accident or disaster, the information can be withheld or contaminated by government media control; but now it’s impossible, almost, to withhold information,” Chao said at the Stanford University China 2.0...

No, Facebook Can’t Conquer China With Free Trade

Ryan Tate
Wired
Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has now been legalized inside a forthcoming free-trade zone within Shanghai, but the beachhead will likely remain just that, as it’s unlikely Facebook will be able to penetrate other regions or...

A Chill, Ill Wind Blows Across China

Elizabeth Economy
Council on Foreign Relations
Beijing’s anti-corruption campaign against public intellectuals and corrupt officials—while widely heralded by the official Chinese media—seems like one destined for short-term gain but long-term pain. 

Hacker Group in China Linked to Big Cyber Attacks

Jim Finkle
Reuters
Researchers at Symantec Corp have discovered a group of highly sophisticated hackers operating for hire out of China, a U.S. computer security company said, and it linked them to some of the best-known espionage attacks in recent years...

China Broadcasts COnfession of Chinese-American Blogger

William Wan
Washington Post
Chinese authorities have increasingly been broadcasting interviews after big-name arrests, forcing suspects to confess publicly to alleged crimes prior to trial or conviction.  

Some of China’s Prominent Internet Voices

Chris Buckley
New York Times
A run-down of some of Sina Weibo’s most followed figures, complete with background information, a sampling of posts, and the type of content you ought to expect from them, from irreverant property developers to optimistic high-tech investors.

Books

09.12.13

Blocked on Weibo

Jason Q. Ng
Though often described with foreboding buzzwords such as “The Great Firewall” and the “censorship regime,” Internet regulation in China is rarely either obvious or straightforward. This was the  inspiration for China specialist Jason Q. Ng to write an innovative computer script that would make it possible to deduce just which  terms are  suppressed on  China’s most important social media site, Sina Weibo. The  remarkable and groundbreaking result is Blocked on Weibo, which began as a highly  praised blog and has been expanded here  to list over 150 forbidden keywords, as well as offer possible explanations why the Chinese government would find these terms sensitive.As Ng explains, Weibo (roughly the equivalent of Twitter), with over 500 million registered accounts, censors hundreds of words and phrases, ranging from fairly obvious terms, including “tank” (a reference to the “Tank Man” who stared down the Chinese army in Tiananmen Square) and  the names of top government officials (if they can’t be found online, they can’t be criticized), to deeply obscure references, including “hairy bacon” (a coded insult referring to Mao’s embalmed body).With dozens of phrases that could get a Chinese Internet user invited  to the  local  police station “for a cup of tea” (a euphemism for being detained by the  authorities), Blocked  on Weibo offers an invaluable guide to sensitive topics in modern-day China as well as a fascinating tour of recent Chinese history.  —The New Press{chop}

It’s O.K. to Protest in China, Just Don’t March

Shankar Vedantam
NPR
King has just completed two studies that peer into the Chinese censorship machine — including a field experiment within China that was conducted with extraordinary secrecy. The studies refute popular intuitions about what Chinese censors are after...

Tweeting Rumors in China Can Now Land You 3 Years in Jail

Charlie Custer
Tech in Asia
The latest barrage from the government in China’s ongoing war on rumors is a Supreme Court document that announces any post “clicked and viewed more than 5000 times, or reposted more than 500 times” will be considered...

An Inside Look at China’s Censorship Tools

Paul Mozur
WSJ: China Real Time Report
To get inside the system, professor Gary King and two Ph.D. students started their own fake social network over the past year, which—while it never formally went online—allowed them to reach out to some of China’s many companies offering censorship...

Caixin Media

09.04.13

China’s Shale Gas Development Goals Just Pipe Dreams

China wants to reap the benefits of a shale gas revolution similar to the one in the United States, but there are many obstacles to this happening, experts say.In the first half of 2013, fifty-six shale gas wells were in the exploratory phase in the...

Cyber-Disconnect at Joint U.S.-China Press Conference

Anna Murline
Christian Science Monitor
Defense Secretary Hagel called a new U.S.-China cyberaffairs working group a ‘venue for addressing issues of mutual concern.’ His Chinese counterpart, General Chang Wanquan, denied there was a problem. 

China Prepares for Psychological Warfare With Flying Broadcast Station

Aaron Jensen
Diplomat
P.L.A. psychological warfare efforts could potentially have a devastating effect on Taiwanese troops. Prior to, and during, a conflict with Taiwan, the Gaoxin-7 would likely be used to broadcast messages to demoralize Taiwanese troops, and...

Buffett-Style Dinner Auctions Lure Chinese Seeking Just Society

Bloomberg
Proceeds from a Taobao store go to support human rights activists and the families of jailed political dissidents. The site’s following means a growing number of Chinese are willing to take small actions that together pose a challenge to China’s one...

Dalai Lama’s Chinese Website Infecting Visitors, Expert Warns

Jim Finkle
Reuters
A prominent computer security firm has warned that the Dalai Lama’s Chinese-language website has been compromised with malicious software that is infecting computers of visitors with software that could be used for spying.

Monster Zombie Spider to Crush Super Mario’s China Dreams

Bloomberg
Can Nintendo’s Super Mario take on Tencent Holding’s giant, undead Spider? As the country ends a 13-year ban on consoles, a generation of gamers have grown used to a free online model and increasingly migrating to mobile...

Conversation

08.07.13

What Will Come out of the Communist Party’s Polling the People Online?

David Wertime, Duncan Clark & more
David Wertime:Simon Denyer’s recent article (“In China, Communist Party Takes Unprecedented Step: It Is Listening,” The Washington Post, August 2, 2013) provides a valuable look at some of the ways that Chinese authority mines domestic micro-...

The Changing State of Smartphone Competition in China

Bill Bishop
Deal Book
Xiaomi has released a new Android phone so agressively priced, it could cause damage to competitors and other component suppliers. Consequently, Apple’s iPhone is no longer the most sought out phone in the country. 

The Price of ‘Made in China’

Peter Navarro
New York Times
The $34 milllion in steel production and fabriation needed to refurbish North America’s longest suspension bridge, the Verrazano-which connects Brooklyn and Staten Island has been outsourced to China.

Europe and China Agree to Settle Solar Panel Fight

James Kanter, Keith Bradsher
New York Times
The European Union’s trade chief said on Saturday that a deal had been reached with China to settle a dispute over exports of low-cost solar panels that had threatened to set off a wider trade war between two of the world’s largest economies.

China Pushes Europe to Lower Hurdles to Solar Deal

Ethan Bilby
Reuters
A European Commission document dated July 12 said China wants any solar agreement to expire by the end of 2014, that the so-called certain parts of the panels should be excluded from tariffs and that any cap on Chinese exports should be...

After Protest, China Cancels Plans for Uranium Plant

Gerry Mullany
New York Times
The protest in Jiangmen was the latest display of growing public disquiet about environmental hazards, which could frustrate China’s ambitious plans for nuclear power and technology. 

Censoring the News Before It Happens

Perry Link
New York Review of Books
Chinese censors number in the hundreds-of-thousands. Their duties are to not only block stories they disapprove of, but to alter and obscure details in published stories, and promote stories that cast the Party in a good light.

China Likely to Lift Foreign Game Console Ban

George Chen
South China Morning Post
China is expected to soon end a 13-year ban on the sale of gaming consoles with only one key condition: foreign firms like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft must make their products in Shanghai’s new free trade zone. 

Don’t Let Cyber Security Overshadow Key China-U.S. Dialogue

Yang Qingchuan
China Daily
To complete the unprecedented task of forging new-type relationship between the world’s largest developing nation and&...

Caixin Media

07.08.13

Central Bank Raises the Red Flag over P2P Lending Risks

A recent report by the central bank about peer-to-peer (P2P) lending websites in China has shed light on some severe problems in the business for which there is, as yet, little regulation.The original idea for P2P lending websites was that they were...

More Passages Thru Sea of Japan

Global Times
China has the potential to become a non-hegemonic global power. Such potential, if not wasted, would be a great contribution to mankind.

Media

06.25.13

China’s “Urban Enforcers” Caught in a Vicious Cycle

Last week, another anecdote about chengguan— China’s urban enforcers whose main tasks include enforcing urban beautification ordinances and cracking down on unlicensed street vendors— caught the public’s attention. On June 15, a web user called @岔巴子...

Conversation

06.25.13

How Badly Have Snowden’s Leaks Hurt U.S.-China Relations?

Matt Schiavenza
Matt Schiavenza:In the understatement of the day, the United States is unhappy with the recent developments of the Edward Snowden situation. Just three days ago, Washington was in negotiations with Hong Kong to file a warrant for Snowden's...

Conversation

06.18.13

What’s Right or Wrong with This Chinese Stance on Edward Snowden?

Shai Oster & Steve Dickinson
For today’s ChinaFile Conversation we asked contributors to react to the following excerpt from an op-ed published on Monday June 17 in the Global Times about Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old American contract intelligence analyst who last...

China Could Supplant U.S. as the Supercomputing Superpower

Robert McMillan
Wired
The United States, long the dominant power in supercomputing, won’t have a comparable supercomputer system to China's Tihane-2 until around 2016, when the U.S. Department of Energy is expected to build a Tihane-2-range supercomputer called...

China's Latest 'Sacred' Manned Space Mission Blasts Off

Ben Blanchard
Reuters
A Chinese manned spacecraft blasted off with three astronauts on board on Tuesday on a 15-day mission to an experimental space lab in the latest step towards the development of a space station. It is China's fifth manned space mission since...

Defending an Open, Global, Secure, and Resilient Internet (Video)

Council on Foreign Relations
The C.F.R.-sponsored Independent Task Force report finds that as more people and services become interconnected and dependent on the Internet, societies are becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks. 

Getting China to Talk About Cyberespionage

Washington Post
There’s plenty of nasty stuff in cyberspace that both countries probably can’t control, but Mr. Xi could agree to a sustained and deeper engagement on the topic, perhaps with an accelerated pace of bilateral working groups. 

Europe and China Trade Talks End Bitterly

Keith Bradsher
New York Times
China called on the European Union to refrain from imposing tariffs on solar panels, and the European trade commissioner complained that China was pressuring individual countries to prevent Europe from reaching a consensus. 

Confidential Report Lists U.S. Weapons System Designs Compromised By Chinese Cyberspies

Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post
Experts warn that the electronic intrusions gave China access to advanced technology that could accelerate the development of its weapons systems and weaken the U.S. military advantage in a future conflict. 

Hackers Find China Is Land of Opportunity

Edward Wong
New York Times
Whether it is used to break into private networks, track online dissent back to its source or steal trade secrets, hacking is openly discussed and even promoted at trade shows, inside university classrooms and on Internet forums. 

Chinese Suggestions For Improving Internet Disappear

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
Thriving microblogging culture has become China’s de facto town square. But as more alleged rumors and critical commenters are quieted or deleted this center of civil society becomes a less interesting place to visit. 

Chinese Automakers Quietly Build a Detroit Presence

Bill Vlasic
New York Times
Chinese-owned companies are investing in American businesses and new vehicle technology and hiring experienced engineers and designers in an effort to soak up the talent and expertise of domestic automakers and their suppliers. 

China’s Baidu to Pay $370 Million for Internet Video Business

Neil Gough
Deal Book
Acquiring the video business from P.P.S. will increase Baidu’s position in China’s fractious market for online entertainment and help iQiyi compete better against Youku Tudou. 

U.S. Turns Up Heat On Costly Commercial Cybertheft In China

Tom Gjelten
NPR
A recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China , found 26 percent of respondants (all U.S. businesses) reported somebody stealing business data from their computers, and 42 percent said the problem is getting worse. 

Censorship Feeds Criticism of Poisoning Case

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
For a Chinese government determined to corral public opinion in its favor, the failed attempt to shut down the debate about a once-obscure 19-year old poisoing case is nothing short of a spectacular public-relations failure. 

U.S. Blames China’s Military Directly for Cyberattacks

David E. Sanger
New York Times
Until now the administration avoided directly accusing the People’s Liberation Army of using cyberweapons against the United States in a deliberate, government-developed strategy to steal intellectual property and gain strategic advantage. 

China Not Embracing Electric Cars

Nathan Bomey
Detroit Free Press
China faces the same obstacles as the U.S. in the push for electric vehicles: They’re still expensive, many consumers don’t understand them and many drivers don’t have anywhere to charge the batteries.   

A Long Ride Toward a New China (Video)

Stephen Maing
New York Times
Every summer, the 59-year-old Chinese blogger Zhang Shihe rides his bicycle thousands of miles to the plateaus, deserts and hinterlands of North Central China. In this Op-Doc video, we meet Mr. Zhang, known to his many followers online as “...

Zhu Ling Attempted Murder Case On Weibo

Emily Parker
New Republic
The 19-year-old case has again become so blazing hot on Chinese social media that as of Saturday, the name of the victim, Zhu Ling, was censored on Weibo. But it's too late: The case has been brought to the attention of tens of millions of...

Why Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. Is On Weibo But Not Twitter

Gwynn Guilford
Quartz
Notable is the recent aggressive outreach to Chinese audiences by Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr. Not only did he visit China for the first time in his life to talk up the film, but Downey also set up a personal account on Sina Weibo. 

Caixin Media

05.13.13

Competitors Try Curbing China Mobile’s 4G Urge

The wireless Internet technology race is intensifying a longstanding rivalry between China’s largest mobile phone operator, China Mobile, and its smaller competitors China Telecom and China Unicom.Since 2011, China Mobile customers in fifteen cities...

Pentagon Paying China – Yes, China – To Carry Data

Noah Shachtman
Wired
Even if the data passing over the Chinese sattelite is encrypted, the coded traffic could be used to give Chinese cryptanalysts valuable clues about how the American military obfuscates its information. 

Alibaba Buys Stake In Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter

Michael J. De La Merced
Deal Book
Alibaba and Sina also agreed to cooperate in improving ways to marry social networking with e-commerce, as microblogging services like Sina’s continue to grow in popularity.

Mandiant: No Drop In Chinese Hacking Despite Talk

Paul Mozur and Josh Chin
WSJ: China Real Time Report
The only change, Mandiant’s Chief Security Officer said, has been a noticeable drop in cyber attacks from Unit 61398, a group within the People’s Liberation Army that Mandiant accused in February 2013.  

U.S. Eyes Pushback On China Hacking

Siobhan Gorman
Wall Street Journal
Current and former officials said the offensive shift turned on two developments: new intelligence showing the Chinese military directing cyberspying campaigns, and a sudden change in U.S. companies’ willingness to acknowledge Chinese...

China Reacts To The Boston Bombing, Draws Parallels To China

Lily Kuo
Quartz
While the traditional jabs at America are still present on Chinese social media, it’s notable that so many reflected on the peace and safety both countries are trying to achieve. 

Six Reasons Why Chinese People Will Drive The Next Bull Market In Bitcoin

Gwynn Guilford
Quartz
The virtual currency’s decentralized and speculative nature, combined with the country’s experience with online currencies and “gold-mining” in the past are all cited as possible factors contributing to Bitcoin’s future take off in China.

China Surpasses U.S. In Clean-Energy Investment

Keith Johnson
Wall Street Journal
Globally, clean-energy investment fell last year 11% to $269 billion. But China bucked the trend, attracting of $65.1 billion in clean-energy investment in 2012, a 20% uptick over 2011 and nearly one-third of the total investment in G-20 countries...

Books

04.19.13

The Power of the Internet in China

Guobin Yang
Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has revolutionized popular expression in China, enabling users to organize, protest, and influence public opinion in unprecedented ways. Guobin Yang’s pioneering study maps an innovative range of contentious forms and practices linked to Chinese cyberspace, delineating a nuanced and dynamic image of the Chinese Internet as an arena for creativity, community, conflict, and control. Like many other contemporary protest forms in China and the world, Yang argues, Chinese online activism derives its methods and vitality from multiple and intersecting forces, and state efforts to constrain it have only led to more creative acts of subversion. Transnationalism and the tradition of protest in China’s incipient civil society provide cultural and social resources to online activism. Even Internet businesses have encouraged contentious activities, generating an unusual synergy between commerce and activism. Yang’s book weaves these strands together to create a vivid story of immense social change, indicating a new era of informational politics.              —Columbia University Press