Chang Ping, Yaxue Cao, February 23, 2021 Interviewer’s Note I first interviewed Chang Ping in Toronto when he received the CJFE 2016 International Press Freedom Award. We spoke for about two hours before I had to catch a flight back to Washington, DC. In the next few years, as I continued to interview and profile more people for China Change and [...] Keep reading »

China Change, February 3, 2021 The arrests started a year and half ago during the summer break. From July to August, all the way into October, 2019, China rounded up scores of young people from multiple provinces and cities. Some are in their twenties, and others are teenagers still in school. The 24 defendants were first detained in Maoming Munici [...] Keep reading »

January 15, 2021 Zhang Zhan (张展), a resident of Shanghai and a former lawyer, went to Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in February, video recorded what she saw, spoke to locals, wrote down her observations and thoughts, and posted them on social media platforms inside and outside China. She was detained in May and sentenced to f [...] Keep reading »

Attorney Zhang Keke, January 1, 2021 A website run by China’s Supreme Court (中国庭审公开网) live streams thousands of court hearings on any given work day, but almost never broadcasts trials of political prisoners — with the exception of occasional “show trials.” Zhang Zhan’s lawyers made a request for live streami [...] Keep reading »

December 28, 2020 Per request of the filmmaker, who wishes to remain anonymous, China Change posts this short film about Zhang Zhan. Zhang Zhan (张展), a lawyer who practiced in Shanghai, went to Wuhan in early February, determined to document the coronavirus outbreak in the city that was the epicenter of what would soon become a pandemic around [...] Keep reading »

Ai Xiaoming, December 27, 2020 Zhang Zhan (张展), a lawyer who practiced in Shanghai, went to Wuhan in early February, determined to document the coronavirus outbreak in the city that was the epicenter of what would soon become a pandemic around the world. In the three months she stayed in the city, she made 122 posts on YouTube. It was not a coi [...] Keep reading »

Chen Chunyi, September 24, 2020 Due to the arrest of the 12 Hong Kong residents who were brought to Shenzhen to face charges, the phenomenon of “government-designated lawyers” (官派律师, i.e. those approved by the Chinese authorities to represent defendants in politically sensitive cases) has attracted widespread attention from the [...] Keep reading »

Chang Ping, March 6, 2020 A friend asked me: “I wouldn’t dare to believe the official figures. Are things really under control outside of Hubei?” I said, “From now on, they’ll have nothing but good news for you. Whether you believe it or not is up to you.” Needless to say, the subject was China’s novel coronavirus epidemic [...] Keep reading »

Ye Du, February 26, 2020 In 2009, the late Dr. Li Wenliang registered a Twitter account (@xiaolwl) in 2009 when he was working on a master’s degree at Wuhan University, making him one of the earliest Twitter users in China. He browsed the site by circumventing the Great Firewall, but made few comments of his own, preferring to lurk. He was someon [...] Keep reading »