TV Drama Pulled Before Premiere, Likely For “Historical Nihilism”
Would-be viewers of the long-delayed historical drama “A Love Never Lost” were left disappointed Monday when the show was pulled just two hours before its premiere. The broadcast was replaced with a...
View ArticleHong Kong Police Use Colonial-era Sedition Law to Arrest Man Mourning...
Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, Hongkongers have used the subsequent period of mourning to air their emotions in rare public gatherings of political solidarity. The citizens...
View ArticleCensors Delete History Journal Article On Hu Jintao After Exit From Party...
On Saturday, October 22, Xi Jinping’s predecessor Hu Jintao was unceremoniously escorted out of the closing of the 20th Party Congress in front of the domestic and international press. Hu’s highly...
View ArticleMourning for Victims of Urumqi Fire Escalates into Nationwide Anti-Lockdown,...
On Thursday, a deadly fire broke out in a predominantly-Uyghur residential building under COVID-19 lockdown in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, and kicked off a series of nationwide protests calling for an...
View ArticleFive Slogans Show Protest Movement’s Diversity, Unity
The spontaneous protests that swept China last week were remarkable for a number of reasons, among them their diversity. While all the demonstrations were loosely tied together by mourning the loss of...
View ArticleThe Clash of the 2022 Year-End Retrospectives
Recent year-end retrospectives and New Year’s messages published by various Chinese media outlets—including People’s Daily, Xinhua, Southern Weekly, and NetEase News—have offered vastly different...
View ArticleUnemployed Youth Skeptical That “Red Flag Canal Spirit” Will Alleviate Their...
China’s youth employment crisis is at least partly a matter of attitude, according to People’s Daily. In two recent editorials calling for youth to “establish a correct perspective on employment” and...
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Xi Parallels Suspected Behind Withdrawal of Book on Ill-fated Chongzhen Emperor
On October 16, it was reported online that a recent reprint of the historical biography “The Chongzhen Emperor: Diligent Ruler of a Failed Dynasty” (《崇祯：勤政的亡国君》Chóngzhēn: Qínzhèng de Wángguó Jūn, ISBN...
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Translation: “Don’t Expect Kindness and Humanity From Totalitarian Dictators”
A brief, fiery essay excoriating totalitarianism has been censored on WeChat, and appears to have precipitated the closure of a Jiangxi-based current- and legal-affairs blog. First posted on the...
View ArticleFamous Chef Accused of Mocking Mao, Again
Mao Anying, Mao Zedong’s son, was killed by American bombers on November 25, 1950 while fighting in the Korean War. A persistent, unfounded, rumor (officially tagged as “historically nihilist”) holds...
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Party-State’s Omertà on History Mutes Popular Book Series, Academic...
Some recent restrictions placed on historical books, museum exhibits, and academic discourse have brought renewed attention to the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to rewrite history, control the...
View ArticleThe Top ███ Chinese ██████s of 2023 (Part One: 64 to 2952)
The following themes, and the six covered in part two, are not the “most censored” words of 2023 but rather a retrospective of topics that the Party-state deemed unfit for Chinese eyes, selected by...
View ArticleInterview: Perry Link on His New Book, “I Have No Enemies: The Life and...
Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017) is a monumental figure in modern Chinese history. The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate died in custody in a Shenyang hospital in 2017 while being treated for liver cancer. A...
View ArticleInterview: Margaret Hillenbrand on Her Books “On the Edge” (2023) and...
Margaret Hillenbrand, professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford, joined CDT to discuss her two latest books: “On the Edge: Feeling Precarious in China” (2023) and...
View ArticleNetflix’s “3 Body Problem” Sparks Debates About Censorship, History, and...
Film censorship has long plagued China’s creative arts industry and stifled foreign products seeking domestic Chinese audiences. The shrinking space for artistic expression, along with rising...
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