Media
03.08.18Weibo Whack-a-Mole
from Weiboscope
China might be the world’s second-largest economy, and have more Internet users than any other country, but each year it is ranked as the nation that enjoys the least Internet freedom among the 65 sample nations scored by the U.S.-based Freedom...
The NYRB China Archive
03.02.18The Brands That Kowtow to China
from New York Review of Books
There’s been no joking as the apologies to China have come thick and fast in recent weeks, issued not by teenage singers but by some of the largest and richest multinational corporations in the world—the German luxury car manufacturer Daimler, the...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.01.18China Box Office Surges 39 Percent in First Two Months of 2018
Hollywood Reporter
China is once again rapidly closing the gap with North America, still narrowly the world’s largest film market.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.01.18Why China Is Censoring Winnie the Pooh—and the Letter ‘N’
Fortune
Chinese President Xi Jinping has had a fruitful five plus years in his current position.
Sinica Podcast
03.01.18Can Chinese Journalists Criticize the Party-State?
from Sinica Podcast
Outside observers typically view China’s media as utterly shackled by the bonds of censorship, unable to critique the government or speak truth to power in any meaningful sense. In part, this is true. Censorship and other pressures do create “no-go...
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02.27.18China’s Media Is Struggling to Overcome Its Racial Stereotypes of Africa
Quartz
For most Chinese people, the Spring Festival is a time to honor family ties, friendships and acquaintances.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.14.18‘You Are Our Lucky Star’: Chinese Media in Overdrive on Xi Jinping’s New Year Tour
Guardian
Xi Jinping has flown into one of rural China’s most deprived corners to champion his war on extreme poverty before the country’s week-long Lunar New Year holiday.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.13.18China to Select Theaters Nationwide to Show Propaganda Films
CNBC
The state will boost the box office of these propaganda movies with group sales, discounted tickets and other financial backing.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.12.18Disney Can Stream Its Movies in China Again, Thanks to Alibaba
CNN
Disney is trying again to get its movies and TV programs into China.
Conversation
02.05.18Is the Belt and Road Anti-Democratic?
During her visit to Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan January 31-February 2, Prime Minister Theresa May attempted to improve her country’s trade relations with China—an increasingly important partner for the post-Brexit United Kingdom. And yet, May was...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.26.18China Embraces a Game About a Traveling Frog
New York Times
A few short weeks after its release, a Japanese mobile game featuring a traveling frog has become a hit in China.
Media
01.24.18China’s Animated Underbelly
from China Film Insider
A tousled-haired young man in a third-tier Chinese city is desperate to fix the botched plastic surgery done on his fiancée’s face. At knifepoint, he steals a satchel of one million yuan from a local gangster, setting off a chain-reaction of greed...
Infographics
01.19.18China According to Trump
Keeping up with the Trump administration’s statements on China and U.S.-China relations can be hard work. ChinaFile has just made it easier. Our new interactive database contains a growing collection of quotations from the President and senior...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.09.18Americans Can’t Agree If They Loved or Hated ‘the Last Jedi.’ but China Definitely Hated It
Fortune
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” brought in an estimated $28.7 million in its opening weekend in China, coming in below its two predecessors in the world’s fastest-growing market.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.08.18BBC China Editor Carrie Gracie Quits Post in Equal Pay Row
BBC
The BBC’s China editor Carrie Gracie has resigned from her post, citing pay inequality with male colleagues.
Culture
01.05.18Reflections on ‘Youth’ and Freedom—A Conversation with Feng Xiaogang and Yan Geling
The movie “Youth” is the first collaboration between Feng Xiaogang, the celebrated Chinese director, and prolific novelist Yan Geling. It is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story about the time both spent in the People’s Liberation Army during...
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12.22.17China's Real-Life Magic Realism of 2017, According to Chinese Netizens
Quartz
In China, the term is beloved by netizens who use it when surfacing the absurd in political and social phenomena they witness daily.
Conversation
12.19.17Trump’s National Security Strategy and China
On December 18, U.S. President Donald J. Trump announced the United States’ new national security strategy. He called China a “strategic competitor,” and, along with Russia, called it a “revisionist power.” Those two nations, Trump said, are...
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12.11.17China's Top Paper Says Australian Media Reports Are Racist
Reuters
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said last week he took reports very seriously that China’s Communist Party had sought to interfere in his country.
Conversation
12.06.17Apple in China: WTF?
In November, the non-profit watchdog Freedom House called China “the worst abuser of Internet freedom” of the 65 countries it surveyed. And yet, on December 3, Apple CEO Tim Cook keynoted China’s annual World Internet Conference. “The theme of this...
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12.06.17Will Tech Firms Challenge China’s ‘Open’ Internet?
BBC
China has been smart and ruthless in its control of the internet within its borders. It blocks some foreign sites altogether and it censors - heavily - what Chinese are allowed to see.
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12.04.17Apple CEO Backs China’s Vision of an ‘Open’ Internet as Censorship Reaches New Heights
Washington Post
Reading headlines from the World Internet Conference in China, the casual reader might have come away a little confused. China was opening its doors to the global Internet, some media outlets optimistically declared, while others said Beijing was...
Books
11.30.17Finding Women in the State
Finding Women in the State is a provocative hidden history of socialist state feminists maneuvering behind the scenes at the core of the Chinese Communist Party. These women worked to advance gender and class equality in the early People’s Republic and fought to transform sexist norms and practices, all while facing fierce opposition from a male-dominated Chinese Communist Party leadership, from the local level to the central level. Wang Zheng extends this investigation to the cultural realm, showing how feminists within China’s film industry were working to actively create new cinematic heroines, and how they continued a New Culture anti-patriarchy heritage in socialist film production. This book illuminates not only the different visions of revolutionary transformation but also the dense entanglements among those in the top echelon of the Party. Wang discusses the causes for failure of China’s socialist revolution and raises fundamental questions about male dominance in social movements that aim to pursue social justice and equality. This is the first book engendering the People’s Republic of China high politics and has important theoretical and methodological implications for scholars and students working in gender studies as well as China studies. —University of California Press{chop}
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11.28.17“Coco” Looks Like a Surprise Hit in China—Where It Technically Should Be Banned
Quartz
Coco, Pixar’s latest animated movie, beat two superhero films to top the US box office over Thanksgiving weekend. It could also become one of Pixar’s top-grossing films in China—a country where the studio has struggled to win over audiences.
The NYRB China Archive
11.27.17China’s Art of Containment
On the evening of May 20, 1989, in response to weeks of mass demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government placed Beijing under martial law. The following morning, in Hong Kong, far to the south, Wen Wei Po, the main Communist-...
Viewpoint
11.22.17The Accomplice in Chief
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump declared victory following his 12-day Asia trip. On the campaign trail, Trump had repeatedly promised to stop making nice with his country’s adversaries; now, thanks to his efforts, he proclaimed, “America is...
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11.22.17Victoria's Secret Meets China's Security
Bloomberg
At one point, it must‘ve seemed like a good idea. Victoria‘s Secret, the American lingerie brand, was making a major push to expand its business globally.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.21.17Skype Vanishes from App Stores in China, Including Apple’s
New York Times
For almost a month, Skype, the internet phone call and messaging service, has been unavailable on a number of sites where apps are downloaded in China, including Apple’s app store in the country.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.21.17Chinese Social Media Giant Is Worth More Than Facebook
CNN
Tencent shares closed more than 2% higher in Hong Kong on Tuesday, valuing the social media and gaming giant at around $522 billion, according to FactSet. Facebook is currently worth a little over $519 billion.
Depth of Field
11.20.17Fake Girlfriends, Chengdu Rappers, and a Chow Chow Making Bank
from Yuanjin Photo
Lonely dog owners in Beijing and a rented girlfriend in Fujian; the last Oroqen hunters in Heilongjiang and homegrown hip hop in Chengdu; young Chinese in an Indian tech hub and Hong Kong apartments only slightly larger than coffins—these are some...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.20.17Australian Furor over Chinese Influence Follows Book's Delay
New York Times
The book was already being promoted as an explosive exposé of Chinese influence infiltrating the highest levels of Australian politics and media. But then, months before it was set to hit bookstore shelves, its publisher postponed the release,...
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11.17.17"A Man Who Makes Things Happen": Chinese State Media's 8,000-Word Profile on Xi Jinping
Quartz
Chinese president Xi Jinping officially became the most powerful leader in China since Mao Zedong at a recently concluded Communist Party congress. Now, you can read all about why Xi is so great in a lengthy profile published today...
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11.15.17U.S. Congress Urged to Require Chinese Journalists to Register as Agents
Reuters
A report to the U.S. Congress released on Wednesday accused Chinese state media entities of involvement in spying and propaganda and said their staff in the United States should be required to register as foreign agents.
Viewpoint
11.10.17Bathed in the Xi Jinping Bromance
Sitting in a grand salon of the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square and awaiting the official arrival ceremony of President Trump was to be taken back to that period of Sino-Soviet amity when Stalin was Mao’s “big brother” and the Chinese...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.10.17Trump's Visit to China Provides a Propaganda Bonanza
New York Times
#TrumpHasArrived! The Chinese news media broke out the hashtags this week as soon as Air Force One landed in Beijing, delivering both President Trump and an irresistible propaganda opportunity for President Xi Jinping of China.
Viewpoint
11.06.17On the Road with Trump in Asia: Day One, Tokyo
Many are fearful that Xi Jinping’s ability to awe his visitors with over-the-top manifestations of pomp and ceremony will turn Donald Trump to Jell-o. But having watched Trump arrive in Japan yesterday on the first leg of his five-country trip, it’s...
Conversation
11.02.17Trump Goes to Asia
Chinese officials like to talk about practicing “win-win” diplomacy. Their American counterparts sometime joke that this means China wins twice. From November 3 to November 14, Donald Trump will visit Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines,...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.26.17Life Is about to Get Even Harder for Foreign Media in China
Diplomat
It is widely known that foreign journalists encounter various strict restrictions when reporting on China — particularly since Chinese President Xi Jinping came into office five years ago. But China just sent another strong message to the “trouble-...
The NYRB China Archive
10.26.17Sexual Life in Modern China
from New York Review of Books
Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, Chinese writers grappled with the traumas of the Mao period, seeking to make sense of their suffering. As in the imperial era, most had been servants of the state, loyalists who might criticize but never seek to...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.17.17Exile Guo Wengui Casts Shadow over China's Party Congress
Financial Times
If anyone thought that what happens in the Chinese Communist party stays in the Chinese Communist party, a determined gadfly ensconced in New York has proven them wrong.
Viewpoint
10.16.17Why Do We Keep Writing About Chinese Politics As if We Know More Than We Do?
In the coming weeks, every major Western newspaper and many top China analysts will be making strong claims about Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s political position in the wake of the 19th Party Congress. These reports will build off years of tea-leaf...
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10.16.17“We Could All Be Potential Refugees”: Ai Weiwei on the Epic Journey Of “Human Flow”
Salon
Ai shot 900 hours of footage and conducted 600 interviews over the course of a year, and edited the film over six months.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.16.17In China, Trading Begins on WeChat
Bloomberg
Regulators elsewhere may be clamping down on the financial industry’s use of private messaging apps, but in the world’s second-largest economy the practice is flourishing.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.09.17‘Blade Runner 2049’ Secures China Release Date (Exclusive)
Hollywood Reporter
A disappointing North American debut has placed added pressure on the major Asian territories where the film has yet to open, led by the massive China market.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.09.17Accelerating Fintech in China
TechCrunch
China’s expeditious adoption of fintech is generating profits not only for startups, but also the companies investing in them. Sitting in the headquarters of FinPlus, a fintech venture capital firm and accelerator, its CEO, Mosso Lau, said, “There...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.09.17This Year's Oscar Contenders from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Are the Perfect Lens into the Places They're From
Quartz
The Oscar nominations coming from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China have not attracted much buzz internationally, but each region’s submission touches on issues in that capture the ambitions, desires, and insecurities of its people. Taken as a trio, they...
Media
09.29.17Trump on China
In the run-up to and during his race toward the presidency of the United States, Donald Trump made frequent statements about China, its people, and the government in Beijing, in remarks that ranged from effusive praise to outright attack, and which...
Conversation
09.27.17How are NGOs in China Faring under the New Law?
In September 2016, Beijing implemented a new law governing charities, which changed the ways domestic charitable organizations can register and fundraise. Then in January 2017, Beijing began implementation of a new law on the management of foreign...
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09.26.17China's Cricket Catchers Cashing in on Insects That Can Float Like a Butterfly and Sting Like a Bee
South China Morning Post
An annual cricket craze is sweeping a rural area of east China as demand for the leaping insects soars among “trainers” who use them for fighting and gambling, online media reported.
Media
09.23.17The German Edition of the Falun Gong-Affiliated ‘Epoch Times’ Aligns with the Far Right
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,...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.21.17Fame Academy, the Chinese College Offering Classes in How to Become an Internet Celebrity
South China Morning Post
Chongqing Institute of Engineering has already enrolled 19 students, mainly female, to be taught about how to present themselves online to attract viewers and translate fame into profit.
Conversation
09.21.17What Will China Do if the U.S. Attacks North Korea?
During a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 19, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that if North Korea threatened the United States or its allies, he would “totally destroy” the nation. As tensions continue to rise between...
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09.20.17The Timing May Be Right for Facebook to Enter China next Year, Analyst Predicts
CNBC
A Mizuho report pointed out that Beijing tends to lessen its media scrutiny during an administration's second term, and Facebook may have “an opening” after Xi Jinping begins his second five-year term in November.
ChinaFile Recommends
09.18.17China Communist Party Youth Twitter Account Prompts Abuse
BBC
Setting up a Twitter account may seem a fairly obvious thing for a political party to do, but the step has not so far worked out too well for China’s Communist Party.
Conversation
09.15.17Bannon Says the U.S. Is at ‘Economic War with China.’ Is He Right?
Steve Bannon, whose controversial views on China remain hugely influential in the White House, is visiting Hong Kong this week to speak at a China investment conference. In August, before he left his White House position as chief strategist, Bannon...
Viewpoint
09.15.17There Is Only One China, And There Is Only One Taiwan
One of Beijing’s least favorite people is Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who won a landslide election victory 18 months ago on a platform calling for more separation from China—a coded way of rejecting one of the mainland’s most sacred principles...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.15.17China's WeChat Crackdown Drives Bitcoin Devotees to Telegram
Bloomberg
With administrators personally liable for what is said on groups they run, users of bitcoin exchanges OKCoin, Huobi and BTCChina are migrating to services beyond the Chinese government’s reach.
Sinica Podcast
09.11.17China’s Tightening Grip on Cyberspace
from Sinica Podcast
Adam Segal returns to Sinica to comment on China’s recent cybersecurity law—where it came from, how it changed as it was being drafted, and how it may shape the flow of information in China in the future. Other issues discussed include the...
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09.11.17Pro-Independence from China Posters Appearing on Hong Kong Campuses Stoke New Tension
Reuters
Thirteen Hong Kong universities and academic institutions accused the Chinese-ruled city’s leader of undermining freedom of expression amid a row over pro-independence banners appearing on campuses.
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09.11.17The Chinese Female Gamers Putting Male Players in the Shade
BBC
In the world’s newest superpower, professional video gaming is a booming industry set to be worth billions. Female players struggle to earn as much as their male competitors – but that's not stopping one talented team of young women.