Features

09.29.22

Elections? No Thank You. Performance Reviews? Maybe.

Jessica Batke
In recent years, both Chinese state and Communist Party organizations have fielded thousands of public opinion polls, on subjects ranging from hospital services, to rural revitalization, to food safety. Yet, much of the information gleaned from...

Features

12.20.20

Message Control

Jessica Batke & Mareike Ohlberg
Li Wenliang’s death had only been announced a few hours earlier, but Warming High-Tech was already on the case. The company had been monitoring online mentions of the COVID-whistleblower’s name in the several days since police had detained and...

Viewpoint

07.13.17

The Chinese Think Liu Xiaobo Was Asking For It

James Palmer from Foreign Policy
Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and Chinese dissident writer, is dying of liver cancer. He’s been in prison since 2009, his “crime” being the publication of a charter calling for political reform. But he’s not a hero to his countrymen. Most...

Despite Trump’s Rage against China, American Public Opinion Is Warming to the Asian Giant

Simon Denyer
Washington Post
As the U.S. president prepares to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Florida this week, a new survey by the Pew Research Center shows that the American public is significantly less worried about those issues than they were a couple of years...

Sinica Podcast

11.23.16

Lines of Fracture in Chinese Public Opinion: A Conversation with Ma Tianjie

Kaiser Kuo & Jeremy Goldkorn from Sinica Podcast
On this week’s episode, our guest Ma Tianjie, editor of the bilingual environmental website chinadialogue and the blogger behind Chublic Opinion, untangles the complexities and contradictions of online discussions in China. Ma shares insights into...

Unswayed by Extraordinary Public Outcry, China Executes Nail Gun Killer

Simon Denyer
Washington Post
China sends messsage that ordinary people can’t take the law into their own hands, and the Communist Party is simply not going be swayed by a public outcry.

Here’s What Africans Think of China’s Influence in Their Countries

Kim Yi Dionne
Washington Post
An African-led research network conducting surveys in 36 African countries reported on citizens’ attitudes toward China. They’re mostly positive.

Is Beijing’s Growing Power Threatened by Foreign Influences? Chinese People Seem to Think So

Nectar Gan
South China Morning Post
According to a PEW Research Center survey, Chinese perceive the U.S. as a greater threat than the economic downturn, climate change, or ISIS

How to Counter China’s Global Propaganda Offensive

Mareike Ohlberg and Bertram Lang
New York Times
It has been a difficult year for many Western democracies — and China is rubbing it in.

Media

08.17.16

How the Philippines Can Win in the South China Sea

The Philippine Islands has a problem. It has international law on its side in its quarrel with China over maritime territory, but no policeman walking his beat to enforce the law. That means that, despite an international court’s findings, the...

The Honeymoon between China and Africa Is Over and That’s a Good Thing

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
It wasn’t that long ago when it was all smiles between the Chinese and Africans. The headlines were all about “win-win” development, China’s role in helping Africa to rise above its colonial past, and investment—lots and lots of Chinese investment...

China: The People’s Fury

Richard Bernstein from New York Review of Books
It has long been routine to find in both China’s official news organizations and its social media a barrage of anti-American comment, but rarely has it reached quite the intensity and fury of the last few days. There have been calls from citizens on...

Here’s What China’s People Really Think About the South China Sea

Jessica Chen Weiss
Washington Post
Yes, Chinese people feel strongly about China’s island claims.

Sinica Podcast

04.19.16

Public Opinion with Chinese Characteristics

Kaiser Kuo & Jeremy Goldkorn from Sinica Podcast
The immense popularity of social media has afforded China watchers a terrific window onto public opinion in China. In recent years, a slew of English-language websites have emerged to interpret the various trends and phenomena, discourse, and...

Conversation

01.20.16

Beijing’s Televised Confessions

Jeremy Goldkorn, David Bandurski & more
Recent days have seen two more in a long string of televised “confessions” on China Central Television, that of Swedish human rights activist Peter Dahlin and Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai. Did these gentlemen break any Chinese laws? What do these...

Why Pollution is Good for China

Ian Johnson
New York Review of Books
I am a member of a martial arts group that performs at annual temples fairs around Beijing.

Photo Of Breastfeeding Mom In Public Ignites Online Storm In China

Shen Lu and Katie Hunt
CNN
Some criticized the woman for exposing her "sexual organs" in public.

U.S., China Least Concerned About Climate Change

Agence France-Presse
China and the United States are the world's biggest polluters, but their residents are among the least concerned about the harms of climate change.

A Land China Loves and Hates

Murong Xuecun
New York Times
The Chinese hostility to America is first and foremost the result of government propaganda.

A Year on, Mixed Views on What Hong Kong Protests Achieved

Vincent Yu
Associated Press
"Has the Umbrella Movement accomplished anything? If so, what?"

Media

09.28.15

What’s China’s Mood Under Xi? New Data Gives a Glimpse

David Wertime
China, under the presidency of Xi Jinping, has invited a number of breathless pronouncements about the state of the country. Chinese media regularly conjure the “Chinese Dream,” one of Xi’s favored phrases, which means whatever readers want it to...

The Worrying Rise of Anti-China Discourse in the US

Chen Dingding
Diplomat
Forget U.S. patrols in the South China Sea. This is the real threat to U.S.-China relations.

How to Be a Chinese Democrat: An Interview with Liu Yu

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
Liu Yu is one of China’s best-known America-watchers. A professor of political science at Tsinghua University, she lived in the U.S. from 2000 to 2007 and now researches democratization in developing countries, including her own. The thirty-eight-...

Key Points in China’s Flood of Legal Reform Rhetoric

Stanley Lubman
Wall Street Journal
One core focus of the plenum documents is extra-judicial interference in the work of the courts, which is a source of intense public dissatisfaction with China’s legal system. Notably, they call for the establishment of “circuit courts” operating...

He Exposed Corrupt China Before He Left

Perry Link from New York Review of Books
In the late 1970s, when the passing of Mao made it possible for foreign journalists to work in China for the first time in three decades, the first reporters to get in wrote wide-ranging books that addressed nearly everything they could learn.1...

CCTV Africa: The Frontline of Soft-Power Diplomacy

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
Since its launch in 2012, CCTV Africa has grown considerably in its distribution and programming. However, the central question remains as to whether or not anyone is actually watching, to justify the massive investment undertaken by the Chinese...

Publisher of Book Critical of China’s Leader Is Arrested

Chris Buckley
New York Times
Yiu Mantin, a retired engineer from Hong Kong, had plans to distribute a withering denunciation of Xi Jinping. 

Survey: Fewer Americans Support the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty

Asahi Shimbun
Some observors say the decline may be due to a reluctance to involve the U.S. in Sino-Japanese disputes. 

China Will Surpass U.S. As Leading Superpower

Greg Myre
NPR
Data from a Pew Research Center survey showed that in 23 of the 39 countries surveyed majorities or pluralities said China has or will overtake America. In China two-thirds believe their country already has or eventually will supplant...

Chinese Lead World in Economic Optimism

Zachary Keck
Diplomat
China also topped the list in terms of the percentage of respondents saying their country is headed in the right direction, with 85 percent of Chinese expressing this sentiment. 

Is China’s Mystery Blogger Xi Jinping Himself?

Calum McLeod
USA Today
A mystery blogger who appears to have close access to the daily activities of China's new leader may be the leader himself, say China watchers.

Eye-Stinging Bejiing Air Risks Lifelong Harm to Babies

Daryl Loo and Natasha Khan
Bloomberg
Air quality in the Chinese capital deteriorated beyond World Health Organization safe limits every day last month as smoke from coal-powered generators, factory emissions, car fumes, and dust amassed over the city of 20 million people.

Conversation

02.06.13

Airpocalypse Now: China’s Tipping Point?

Alex Wang, Orville Schell & more
The recent run of air pollution in China, we now know, has been worse than the air quality in airport smoking lounges. At its worst, Beijing air quality has approached levels only seen in the United States during wildfires.All of the comparisons to...

One Author’s Plea for a Gentler China

Murong Xuecun
There is one clear advantage to living in mainland China: It’s always easy to separate theory and reality. We have some rights in theory, but in reality, they do not exist. Income has increased in theory, but once you get to the market, you’ll see...

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...