By Chang Ping, published December 17, 2013 (Chinese original published on December 6)   In the walled-in court of the Chinese Communist Party’s ruling elite, big dramas proceed one after another. The Bo Xilai-Wang Lijun-Gu Kailai series was sensational enough, and the Zhou Yongkang case is going to be even more earthshaking. Rumor has it tha [...] Keep reading »

— Speech on the Opening Ceremony of Book World Prague By  Liao Yiwu, published: December 9, 2013 In the spring of 1994, not long after I had been released from prison, a friend brought me a copy of The Collected Works of Vaclav Havel through underground channels. It was the earliest Chinese translation published by Hong Kong Radical Press an [...] Keep reading »

By Wang Qinglei, published: December 9, 2013 On November 27th, 2013, I finished all of the paperwork and walked out of China Central Television’s east gate, the place where I had worked for ten years. It was the coldest day in Beijing since winter began this year. The only warmth I was able to feel was from the comment an old, retired “auntie� [...] Keep reading »

By YANG Jianli, President, Initiatives for China, former political prisoner of China (2002-2006) Published: November 9, 2013                 Last night, I was on the phone with Ms. Zhang Qing, the wife of Guo Feixiong (pen name for Yang Maodong). Guo, who was imprisoned from 2006 to 2011 for peacefully demonstrating in defense of [...] Keep reading »

By Yaxue Cao, published: November 9, 2013   I’m not the flag-waving sort; whatever flag it is. I’m wary of the word “patriotism.” As someone who grew up in China and now an amateur China watcher, it is downright ugly. What it immediately evokes, in me anyway, is government-incited demonstrators on the street who shout patriotic slogans [...] Keep reading »

One month after the street vendor was executed. By Ji Ye, published: October 24, 2013   On September 25, 2013, Xia Junfeng was executed. I was saddened and felt low for days. I have been paying attention to this name for more than two years, but what I care about is not the legal aspect of it. To us onlookers, we have no access to the core ev [...] Keep reading »

By Bao Tong, published: October 24, 2013 While the Chinese Communist Party has been crusading against the universal values domestically, the Chinese government is vigorously seeking to become a member of the UN Human Rights Council this fall. We laud the latter’s aspiration. As a Chinese citizen, I hope China will fulfill its wish. But China is a [...] Keep reading »

By Mo Zhixu, published: September 30, 2013     On Sunday, September 22, 2013, Jinan Intermediate Court sentenced Bo Xilai to life imprisonment while stripping him of his political rights for life. As such, the incident begun by Wang Lijun (王立军) entering the US Consulate in Chengdu on February 6, 2012, has come to an end nineteen months [...] Keep reading »

By Rogier Creemers, published: September 18, 2013 First published at ChinaFile.com as part of the conversation What’s Behind China’s Recent Internet Crackdown   I’d say that the current rumor crackdown is just the tip of a very large policy iceberg. Internet control sits at the confluence of a number of policy streams, which together c [...] Keep reading »