Censorship in China

A former lawyer and citizen journalist who reported on the coronavirus outbreak from central China has been formally arrested on public disturbance charges in Shanghai, her father has confirmed. The family was notified on Friday of Zhang Zhan’s arrest for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a catch-all charge often used by the authorities to detain dissidents in China.  Prosecutors approved the arrest in Shanghai’s Pudong district. According to the official notice given to her parents, Zhang, 37, was in police custody in the district. “I’m very worried about her health and the detention conditions, and her mother is heartbroken,” Zhang’s 63-year-old father, who declined to g

Cui Yongyuan may not be a household name in the West, but the former state media television host has almost 20 million social media followers in China, or about double those tracking the Twitter account of CNN’s Anderson Cooper in the US. Cui was one of the highest-profile bloggers on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, where he was known for his social commentary and whistle-blowing. But last year his posting stopped and in May he found that posts containing his nickname “Xiaocui” had been blocked. That same month his account on WeChat, which has 1 billion active users worldwide, was suspended citing fraud, according to screenshots he posted on Twitter. “My name is censored. Are you tryi

A 37-year-old Chinese citizen journalist, Zhang Zhan, has been detained after reporting from Wuhan, the city in central China where the global coronavirus pandemic first emerged. She last appeared on social media on May 14, 2020, live-streaming on YouTube from Wuhan’s Hankou railway station. Before her detention, at least three other citizen journalists have disappeared since they posted videos about the pandemic.

China has threatened more curbs on US media operating in the country after saying it will expel journalists from three American newspapers. “China called on the US to stop suppressing Chinese media. If the US continues to be on the wrong track, China will be forced to take further countermeasures,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Wednesday.  The Ministry said on Tuesday it was revoking the press credentials for American journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, describing it as a response to the Trump administration’s recent measures against Chinese state media outlets in the United States. Washington last month labeled five Ch

China has suggested that it will retaliate against the United States for reducing the number of Chinese nationals allowed to work in the US offices of major Chinese state-owned media organizations. Hua Chunying, the head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s information department, on Tuesday condemned the Trump administration’s restrictions on five Chinese state-run media outlets that will result in the effective expulsion of dozens of Chinese journalists from the US. “Now the US kicked off the game, let’s play,” she said in a tweet. The US said on Monday it will put a “personnel cap” on five organizations the Trump administration considers propaganda arms of the Chinese government. The restri

July 21, 2019 remains seared into Hongkongers’ memories for the shocking images and videos of white-shirted men, some suspected to be gangsters, beating protesters and train passengers with sticks in the Yuen Long railway station. Over the border in mainland China, the date evokes a memory of a different scenario: black-clad protesters converging on Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong and defacing the national emblem of the People’s Republic of China. Until that day, Chinese media had been silent on protests erupting in Hong Kong. The protests were sparked by a now withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be sent for trial on the mainland, among other jurisdi

The videos look innocuous enough. Selfies. Stunts. Scripted comedy. cat lady in training pic.twitter.com/LKovVQYknh — TikTok (@tiktok_us) November 2, 2019 But TikTok, a rare Chinese-owned social media app that has thrived outside China, has found itself the target of a serious accusation: threatening American security. The intensifying scrutiny on the app, owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance, has come amid rising suspicion in Washington of Beijing’s growing global influence. US lawmakers and critics of the Chinese government have accused the popular video-sharing app of potentially allowing China’s ruling Communist Party to exploit information about its millions of American users f

Publishers from Australia and New Zealand are looking for printers outside China after falling foul of censorship laws that require maps to be vetted. A number of businesses have been hit by delays or cancellations – even if the books in question are not intended for local distribution or do not contain China-related content. Awa Press, a New Zealand publisher, suffered a one-month production delay in October last year when printing the fourth edition of a travel book called Antarctica Cruising Guide because the book contained a map of Antarctica and the Chinese printers needed the extra time to have the map vetted. “We would have to think about whether we will continue printing in China or

A martial arts movie depicting a group of Chinese swordsmen battling the Japanese army in 1933 has become the latest film to be canceled amid growing censorship in China’s entertainment industry.  The producer of The Hidden Sword cited “market reasons” for its cancelation, a euphemism that industry insiders say refers to censorship.  The pulled film is the latest example of an expanding censorship drive in the entertainment industry, during a year with many political anniversaries.  The Hidden Sword is about a group of outgunned soldiers from the Chinese Nationalist Party who resort to using swords, handguns and hand grenades in a key battle against Japanese troops equipped with ample heavy

Part of living in mainland China is living with a censored internet. But what’s that doing to the people growing up behind the “Great Firewall”? A recent study has found that the perils of living with such a controlled internet go beyond simply having limited access to valuable information. In fact, censorship in China is fostering a society where people no longer demand uncensored information at all, according to research published in the American Economic Association. “Citizens with access to uncensored internet may not seek out politically sensitive information, due to lack of interest in politics, fear of government reprisal, and unawareness or distrust of foreign news outlets,” the rese