Can we really say Wen is insincere?
Wen Jiabao’s lack of action on political reform, has led many to doubt his sincerity. But what about those other eight guys on the politburo?
Wen Jiabao’s lack of action on political reform, has led many to doubt his sincerity. But what about those other eight guys on the politburo?
Reviewing decades of disaster and human folly, and years of wasted words about political reform, Zhai Minglei makes an impassioned case for democracy as the only way forward for China.
In the early post-Mao era a quarter century ago, China began experimenting with the idea of independent, bottom-up civil society organizations. Since that time, China’s relationship with civil society, and with global organizations, has been a study in contrasts — between the benefits to society and the potential dangers to the state.
Chinese developers hope to build the AI of the future. What, if anything, will it have to say about the past?
At this year’s gathering of top propaganda officials in China, held last week, the emphasis was once again on the CCP’s dominance of the message — in the media, propaganda, and culture more broadly. The prominent use of a new Xi Jinping catchphrase made clearer than ever who is in charge of the national narrative.
In this wonderful reflection from our 2014 archives, former CMP director and veteran journalist Qian Gang shares his experiences as pro-democracy demonstrations gripped China in the spring of 1989 — and the consequences of his own support for a newspaper editor at the center of events.
Beijing says it has created “a new form of human civilization” for other countries to emulate, built around Xi Jinping’s theories. But what exactly is China talking about when it talks about civilization, and what will it mean for the world to be Xivilized?
The Chinese leadership sees transparency as important to promote state legitimacy. But it treats it as a matter of discipline and top-down supervision, rather than as a question of press freedom and citizen participation. The right to “open government information” (政府信息公开) is recognised in law, but may not infringe upon the interests of the Party State.
The study of keywords can unlock the secrets stored away in the CCP’s bewildering official reports. But using the wrong terms only adds to the confusion.
A historical look at the internal system of not-so-secret codes by which those in positions of power in China can make their views known through the official media system.