By Liu Yu, published: February 25, 2015 “You see?  No hands are raised by those who are absent in the classroom.  Everyone is here. What a wonderful class!”   I complain about China now and then, and a friend of mine pointed out my failing to appreciate it. “China is in great shape now,” she pointed to the window. “Can’t you see? [...] Keep reading »

By @beidaijin, published: February 17, 2014 Total control that leaves no stone unturned.    In November, 2014, 163.com suddenly announced that it would close down its microblog service, or Weibo. Three months ago, qq.com announced that it would not add new features to its microblog service. It is unsure how long qq’s microblog will last before [...] Keep reading »

By Hu Shaojiang, published: February 10, 2015 Bring back thought policing……    Yesterday [January 29], the Chinese Minister of Education Yuan Guiren (袁贵仁) called in a conference for the implementation of “The Opinions on Further Strengthening and Improving Propaganda and Ideological Work in Higher Education under the New C [...] Keep reading »

By Chang Ping, published: January 20, 2015   On January 11, the Chinese human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强) spent his fiftieth birthday behind bars. No one knows what was going through the mind of this famous and very vocal lawyer and writer. However, many lawyers, legal scholars and journalists wished him a happy birthday on the Chine [...] Keep reading »

By Chang Ping, published: January 18, 2015 Three months after friend and assistant Zhang Miao (張淼) was arrested, Angela Köckritz, Beijing correspondent for the German paper DIE ZEIT, wrote a detailed account to publicize the case and her own experience in the event. I admire Ms. Köckritz’s action. In similar cases, the Chinese government ha [...] Keep reading »

By Tsering Woeser, published: January 14, 2015   Following the massacre of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, millions of people, including leaders from over 40 countries, went to the streets of Paris on January 11th to condemn terrorism and reiterate their determination to defend freedom of expression. Two days earlier, Mark Zuckerberg, founder [...] Keep reading »

By Xiao Shu, published: January 11, 2015   I no longer have the desire to argue about the treatment of Guo Yushan and his colleagues from a legal perspective. We know that “illegal business practices” was the charge for which Guo was formally arrested on December 6th, after remaining in extralegal detention for more than two months. Back [...] Keep reading »

By Xiao Shu, published: January 8, 2015 A verdict awaits the pioneer of China’s rights movement after he stood trial the second time last November. Veteran commentator Xiao Shu, writing originally in the New York Times Chinese, places Guo Feixiong in the larger picture of the rights struggle in China. – The Editor   A civil rights movement [...] Keep reading »

By Teng Biao, published: January 6, 2015 A shorter version of the article appeared in Washington Post on December 28, 2014. Here is the full text.  – The Editor   I’m afraid that those of you who excitedly applauded the Communist Party’s rehashing of the term “governing the country according to the law” have forgotte [...] Keep reading »