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The Collapse of Yesterday’s World – A Chinese Millennial’s Chronicle of the ‘Reform and Opening Up’ That Never Was, Part One
Jia Jia, October 7, 2025 Truman Capote once said, “… one person’s story can be the story of his time.” This is one such account. Now based in Tokyo, Jia Jia (贾葭) is a Chinese journalist, columnist, and editor who worked at several prominent publications in China and Hong Kong, including Oriental Outlook (瞭望东方周刊), Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊), GQ Chinese Edition, iSun Affairs (陽光時務), and Initium Media (端傳媒) during a vibrant period for journalism. Over time, however, the environment for journalism grew increasingly bleak to the point that he finally left the country. We hope Jia Jia’s testimony offers valuable insights for those seeking to understand China’s trajectory over the past four decades. — The Editors On August 23, 2022, I sat in a café on […]
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  • ‘Socialist Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics’: Establishment, Destruction, Reconstruction, Reform, and Reversal

    ‘Socialist Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics’: Establishment, Destruction, Reconstruction, Reform, and Reversal

    Li Fangping, August 21, 2025 It’s been seven decades since the promulgation of Communist China’s first Constitution in 1954. To evaluate the journey of its rule of law, the successes and failures, I’m going to divide my analysis into four periods. I. The CCP’s founding leaders never meant to honor PRC’s first Constitution The 1954 Constitution of the People’s Republic of …
  • 1,296 Days in Limbo: The Trial of Xie Yang and the Eleven Notices That Delayed It for Thirty-Two Months By Way of Punishment

    1,296 Days in Limbo: The Trial of Xie Yang and the Eleven Notices That Delayed It for Thirty-Two Months By Way of Punishment

    Yaxue Cao, July 29, 2025 I. At 10 a.m. Beijing time on July 30, 2025, after 1,296 days in detention, lawyer Xie Yang (谢阳) is  finally standing trial at the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court. He is charged with “inciting subversion of state power.” This is the second time Xie Yang has been imprisoned since the internationally known “709 Crackdown” on …
  • A Decade On — It’s Time to Stop

    A Decade On — It’s Time to Stop

    Chen Guiqiu, ex-wife of Xie Yang Human rights lawyer Xie Yang (谢阳) was arrested in January 2022, shortly after displaying a banner in support of an elementary school teacher in his province who had been arbitrarily detained in a mental hospital for online expression. As of today, he has been held for 1,295 days without trial. His trial is now …
  • The Global Chinese Anaconda

    The Global Chinese Anaconda

    Rana Siu Inboden, May 12, 2025 Scholar Perry Link famously referred to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as the “anaconda in the chandelier” whose omnipresent monitoring meant that the Chinese people often engaged in self-censorship or preemptive obedience, avoiding saying or doing things that might get them on the wrong side of the Chinese government.  The People’s Republic of China …
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Interviews and profiles
  • 709 － A New Documentary

    709 － A New Documentary

    China Change, July 25, 2025 (Email subscribers may have to view in browser to see the embedded YouTube link.) This documentary offers, for the first time, an authoritative overall account and analysis of the 709 Crackdown on human rights lawyers in China that began ten years ago in 2015, covering all aspects of the incident: arrests, smear campaign, torture, forced …
  • An Interview With Ai Weiwei, Part Three: China, the World, and Freedom of Expression

    An Interview With Ai Weiwei, Part Three: China, the World, and Freedom of Expression

    China Change, July 6, 2023 (Continued from Part One: The Year 2008 and Part Two: Ruins. Rebars. Water Lilies.) China, the World, and Freedom of Expression YC: Throughout your work, what really astonishes me, and what seems to me incomprehensible, is the scale: one hundred million sunflower seeds, 1001 Chinese people going to Germany, 90 tons of rebar… AWW: Nearly 200 tons, …
  • An Interview With Ai Weiwei, Part Two: Ruins. Rebars. Water Lilies.

    An Interview With Ai Weiwei, Part Two: Ruins. Rebars. Water Lilies.

    China Change, June 30, 2023 (Continued from Part One: The Year 2008) Ruins. Rebars. Water Lilies. YC: Many details have left a deep impression on me from reading your autobiography. I want to bring up two ruins in front of which you stood. One is the ruins of schools that collapsed in the Wenchuan earthquake in May 2008, where you …
  • An Interview With Ai Weiwei, Part One: The Year 2008

    An Interview With Ai Weiwei, Part One: The Year 2008

    China Change, June 29, 2023 I interviewed Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei in May in Portugal. It was my first meeting with him, and as many Chinese activists do, I called him by his nickname “Aunt Ai” (“艾婶儿”). Out of the hundreds of interviews with Ai Weiwei, I hope readers find this one worthwhile. The interview will be posted …
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