The Law is Not a Shield!

By Sophie Beach on May 15, 2012

For his latest contribution to the Hexie Farm CDT series, cartoonist Crazy Crab looks at last week’s expulsion of Al Jazeera English bureau chief Melissa Chan from China. At a press conference, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei referred repeatedly to “relevant laws and regulations” but failed to answer foreign journalists’ questions about why Chan was not invited back to report from China. All the phrases in this cartoon come from questions asked at the press conference.

China Digital Times

on May 15, 2012

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From their website:

China Digital Times (CDT) is an independent, bilingual media organization that brings uncensored news and online voices from China to the world.

We achieve this through:

  • Filtering and aggregating news from English-language media and placing it in a broader social and political context;
  • Amplifying the voices of Chinese citizens through translation;
  • Revealing the hidden mechanisms of state censorship by collecting and translating filtered keywords, propaganda directives, and official rhetoric;
  • Interpreting the resistance discourse of Chinese netizens by introducing and translating the codes, metaphors, and satire created in response to breaking news and censored topics.

CDT English was launched in 2003 as a blog to track the development of the Internet in China and quickly grew into a more comprehensive news portal. In 2010, we launched CDT Chinese to aggregate content that has been censored or blocked in Chinese cyberspace. We select the most valuable and relevant material from CDT Chinese to translate for our English readers. CDT is based in Berkeley, CA, but our team contributes to the site from across the globe.

At any time, we welcome your feedback and suggestions. We also encourage you to join the discussions on our various social media sites.

To increase connectivity to our readers in China, we have also set up a mirror site for English and Chinese.

The Cost and Limitations of Control

By David Bandurski on May 15, 2012

While China’s leaders have shown a renewed determination—desperation?—to employ press controls to maintain a white-fisted grip on the agenda, they have unwittingly exposed the cost and limitations of control in the face of a networked public with a keen interest in social, economic and political affairs.

China Media Project

on May 15, 2012

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Now based in the U.S. and Taiwan, the China Media Project began in 2004 at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre as a research program focused on China's media landscape. Founded by veteran journalist Qian Gang and award-winning journalist and educator Yuen-ying Chan, CMP works today to promote journalism and freedom of expression in the Chinese-language space globally.

With Images of Rare Diseases, a Hope to Spur Action

By Mark Bussell on May 14, 2012

My head turned when I saw the poster. I was in China for the Dali International Photography Exhibition — where I was curating two shows — when I saw this beautiful image of a dignified little girl whose face bore the traces of some genetic disease. Yet there she was in her little pink dress, posed as if she were about to perform a complicated ballet move.

Can short fiction take us to China?

By Richard Lea on May 14, 2012

It all started with a question from the translator Nicky Harman: "What are you going to do about the market focus on China at the London Book Fair?" Well, I don't know, I just stared at my cup—we were in the Guardian canteen, of course. In my defence, I'd like to point out that this was months ago, way before Christmas, and by the time I'd finished my coffee we'd cooked up a plan to publish some of the most exciting new short fiction from China.