China Change » Analyses and Opinions

On the Lack of a Fair Judiciary in China: Reflections of a Criminal Defense Lawyer (Two)

Li Jinxing, September 28, 2023 Li Jinxing (李金星), arguably one of the most prominent defense lawyers in today’s China, has dedicated much of his career to overturning wrongful convictions, a Sisyphean task in the People’s Republic. Over the past decade or so, he proved instrumental in reversing a series of wrongful convictions, including j [...] Keep reading »

On the Lack of a Fair Judiciary in China: Reflections of a Criminal Defense Lawyer (One)

Li Jinxing, September 8, 2023 Li Jinxing (李金星), arguably one of the most prominent defense lawyers in today’s China, has dedicated much of his career to overturning wrongful convictions, a Sisyphean task in the People’s Republic. Over the past decade or so, he proved instrumental in reversing a series of wrongful convictions, including ju [...] Keep reading »

Lao Gao and I

Li Tingting, August 29, 2023 Li Tingting (李婷婷), also known as Maizi (麦子), is a feminist activist and one of the “Feminist Five.” She currently lives in New York City with her partner. In this essay, she tells the story of her decade-long interaction with a police officer named Lao Gao. – The Editors In the summer of 2011, as a risin [...] Keep reading »

Freedom Is Neither Free Nor Weak: The Political and Artistic Significance of the Chinese ‘Socialist Core Values’ Graffiti and the Counter-Graffiti in East London

Yao Bo, August 18, 2023 Yao Bo (姚博), better known as Wuyuesanren (五岳散人), was a well-known Chinese journalist, a Weibo “Big V” with a large number of followers until he was banned, and one of the 303 signers of Charter 08. In recent years he has been residing in Kyoto, Japan. He runs the popular @wuyuesanren YouTube channel commentin [...] Keep reading »

‘Not a Single Penny’: Why One Overseas Chinese Won’t Donate to ‘Disaster Relief’ Efforts in China

Wuyuesanren, August 5, 2023 Wuyuesanren (五岳散人), or Yao Bo (姚博), was a well-known Chinese journalist, a Weibo “Big V” with a large number of followers until he was banned, and one of the 303 signers of Charter 08. In recent years he has been residing in Kyoto, Japan. He runs the popular @wuyuesanren YouTube channel commenting on curr [...] Keep reading »

Ilham

Wang Lixiong, July 29, 2023 This is a China Change translation of a Radio Free Asia column by Beijing-based author Wang Lixiong (王力雄), published on July 24, 2023. Wang Lixiong is a well-known author on Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as of several works of political fiction, including the apocalyptic novel “Yellow Peril” (《黄祸》). We fe [...] Keep reading »

Young and Furiously Laughing in China

Yaxue Cao, May 28, 2023 Following the Blank Paper protests last November, I realized that I had been caught off-guard by contemporary Chinese youth, especially those born after 1990 and 2000. I didn’t know what kind of people they were, and I had subconsciously written them off from the realm of dissent, assuming that they belonged to a gener [...] Keep reading »

A Protest Song Has Emerged in China — It’s the Communist Anthem

Yaxue Cao, March 5, 2023 The first time I heard The Internationale sung in China as a protest song was when Shanghai went into lockdown for about a week last spring. At that time, I watched dozens of videos from Shanghai on social media every day. One clip left an impression on me. It was taken in a residential area populated by apparently middle-c [...] Keep reading »

The Choice Facing the Taiwanese People: Moving Towards Greater Enlightenment, or Falling Back to the Dark Age of Dictatorship?

Tsao Hsing-cheng, January 18, 2023 Is that even a choice? — you may ask. China is this mammoth totalitarian giant, and Taiwan, small as it is, is a vibrant democracy with formidable technological prowess. In one survey after another, over 80% of Taiwanese are against “reunification” with China under “One Country, Two Systems,” and ove [...] Keep reading »