By Yaxue Cao, May 11, 2016     Former Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen (钱其琛) wrote a memoir titled Ten Episodes in China’s Diplomacy soon after retiring in 2003. With sweeping promotion by the Party’s propaganda apparatus that directs much of the state media, it became a bestseller. One of the ten episode deals with the Chin [...] Keep reading »

Open Letter from Chinese Human Rights Lawyers to Republican Candidate Donald Trump March 15, 2016   According to CNN, at the televised Republican debate on March 10 the moderator put the following question to billionaire Donald Trump: “Some of your Republican critics have expressed concern about comments you have made praising authoritarian [...] Keep reading »

March 11, 2016     We are appalled by the U. S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s remarks about the Chinese government’s 1989 massacre during the 12th Republican presidential candidate debate last Thursday, in which he called the heroic pro-democracy protest in Beijing a “riot”, and praised the Chinese governme [...] Keep reading »

By Song Zhibiao, Qiao Mu, and Mo Zhixu, published: January 6, 2016   As the year 2015 was drawing to its end, a new expression was born on China’s social media: “the Zhaos” (“赵家人”).  New phrases pop up regularly online in China, but “the Zhaos” has been hailed as revolutionary. Never has an expression captured the essence [...] Keep reading »

By Mo Zhixu, published: December 21, 2015 “Pu Zhiqiang has many facets to his character. He is a rights lawyer, an Internet opinion leader, and a dissident, in the broader sense of the word. His commitments and pursuits over the past 26 years help to explain how Pu has come to be so influential.”     On December 14, 2015, renowned hum [...] Keep reading »

By Yang Jianli, published: December 7, 2015   In Washington, D.C. recently, my friend Alan Curtis invited me to watch Chimerica, which was written by the British playwright Lucy Kirkwood. The play focuses on finding clues to the identity of Tank Man, the iconic and still unknown protester from Tiananmen Square, and explores the contemporary re [...] Keep reading »

– A commentary in the wake of false charges against Guo Feixiong Gao Zhisheng, November 28, 2015 Translated by Matthew Robertson; posted on December 3, 2015 Gao Zhisheng composed the following letter after hearing about the six year prison sentence handed to rights activist Guo Feixiong, and after reading Guo’s spirited defense and condemna [...] Keep reading »

Guo Feixiong, November 27, 2015 Translated by Louisa Chiang and Perry Link; posted on December 3, 2015 On November 27, a year after the trial of Guo Feixiong and Sun Desheng, the Tianhe court in Guangzhou sentenced Guo Feixiong to six years in prison by adding a last-minute charge in order to procure a lengthier sentence. In doing so, the Chine [...] Keep reading »

China Change, published: November 27, 2015   On August 8, 2013, Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄, real name Yang Maodong [杨茂东]) was arrested and then indicted on charges of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” The case stems from Guo’s activism around the “Southern Weekend” incident, in which he made speeches outside [...] Keep reading »