Xu Zhiyong, translated by Leo Timm, April 2, 2024 Note From the Editor Born in 1973, Dr. Xu Zhiyong (许志永) is a legal scholar, pioneer of China’s rights defense movement, and a founder of the New Citizens Movement. On April 10, 2023, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of “subverting state power.” Before this, he had served [...] Keep reading »

Chang Ping, Yaxue Cao, February 28, 2021 (continued from Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four) Under attack in 2008 for a FT column on Tibet In 2005 I returned to Guangzhou and founded Southern Metropolis Weekly (《南都周刊》). In those years China saw the emergence of civil rights activities and NGOs, and new ideas thrived. Several [...] Keep reading »

Chang Ping, Yaxue Cao, February 26, 2021 (continued from Part One, Part Two, and Part Three) An incubator for public intellectuals Yaxue Cao: I left China in the early 1990s, and for years, I knew little about what was going on in China and its societal changes. Working on China Change over the last few years has been a steep learning curve. I’ve [...] Keep reading »

Chang Ping, Yaxue Cao, February 24, 2021 (continued from Part One and Part Two) The 20th anniversary of Reform and Opening up I encountered a big event soon after I arrived at Southern Weekend, that is, the 20th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up, December 18, 1998. Twenty years ago, on December 18, 1978, the Communist Party opened [...] Keep reading »

Chang Ping, Yaxue Cao, February 23, 2021 Continued from Part One Joining Southern Weekend That was July 1998. When I arrived in Guangzhou, the weather was very hot. My friend helped me rent a house in the so-called urban village in Guangzhou. It was very dilapidated and could not compare with the housing conditions in Chengdu. But I was young and d [...] Keep reading »

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 »

Yaxue Cao, October 31, 2020 1. The Arrest The ancient city of Dali (大理), a small town in China’s southwest, boasts a history of more than 600 years. For visitors from China proper, the most eye-catching features of the Yunnan plateau may be the sapphire-blue sky and the grey tiles and elaborately carved beams of the white-walled houses. Becau [...] Keep reading »

China Change, September 16, 2018   Unsettling news from China has been emerging in a constant stream for some time now, in news, on social media and from our own sources in the country. Not every new development is suited to a fully fleshed-out analysis, and as with so much to do with China, many reports and developments cannot be immediately [...] Keep reading »

By Chang Ping, July 18, 2017     On July 7, the German professor Markus W Büchler, Chairman of the Department of Surgery, University of Heidelberg, traveled to Shenyang to take part in diagnosing the condition of Liu Xiaobo. Media reports noted that it was the first time in almost a decade that Liu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, had seen [...] Keep reading »