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 »

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 and your assistan [...] Keep reading »

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 [...] Keep reading »

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 »

Ding Jiaxi, April 9, 2023 After a decade-long successful career as a successful commercial lawyer in Beijing, Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜) joined the New Citizens Movement in 2011 led by legal scholar Xu Zhiyong (许志永). The citizen movement chiefly concerned itself with calling upon Chinese to become true citizens, exercising their rights and should [...] Keep reading »

Jiang Xue, February 18, 2023 Based on the information we have been able to gather so far about the protesters in Liangmaqiao (亮马桥), Beijing, on November 27, 2022, it seems that the Chinese police have set their eyes mostly on two groups of people: a circle of young women and a small community of DJ bar owners and musicians. We’ve since lear [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, January 13, 2023 The article was first published by the Uyghur Human Rights Project. A Chinese version is also available.   I wrote down the title the way I pop in two pills to ease the rising blood pressure in my skull. There is no conversation, as Ilham Tohti, the former economics professor at Minzu University in Beijing, recipien [...] Keep reading »

Jiang Xue, January 3, 2023 In Beijing, at least 11 young people have been detained in connection with the “Blank Paper” (白纸抗议) protests, of whom two are confirmed to be journalists, another two musicians, an editor, a curator, and a white-collar employee at a foreign company. The identities of the rest are still unclear. — The Editors [...] Keep reading »

China Change, October 19, 2022 ‘One man’s anger shakes the earth and moves mountains’   It’s too early to evaluate the full impact of the extraordinary one-man protest staged by Peng Zaizhou (彭载舟), real name Peng Lifa (彭立发), on Sitong Overpass (四通桥) on October 13, 2022 in Beijing. But this much we already know: h [...] Keep reading »