The deaths of two ethnic Mongolians, allegedly killed by Han Chinese, in China’s Inner Mongolia region in May, has sparked the worst riots this region has seen in decades. Many areas, including the regional capital, Hohhot, are under martial law....
Journalist Song Zhibiao has been suspended by the Southern Metropolis Daily for writing an editorial remembering the Sichuan earthquake, referring also to the dissident artist Ai Weiwei. The Chinese editorial not only referred to Ai Weiwei’s...
With the news that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to make a second visit to China this year, speculation that Facebook is set to grovel its way back into China, speculation that has been doing the rounds for months, has picked up again....
Last Friday, a newspaper editorial musing on the missing artist Ai Weiwei was blocked online. The editorial, which was appeared in the Southern Metropolis Daily, marked the third anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake, an event that Ai investigated....
China has set up a new office wielding the whip of internet censorship, as if current levels of online control weren’t enough. China’s State Council Information Office (the government’s propaganda arm) said was creating a new agency, the State...
With Ai Weiwei still missing in action, and dozens of other government undesirables, such as activists and rights lawyers also disappearing, it’s no wonder that the director of the Songzhuang Documentary Film Festival got cold feet. Zhu Rikun told...
Ten years in the making and with a price tag of US$400m, the freshly-opened National Museum of China on the eastern edge of Tiananmen Square may be the world’s biggest museum. Unarguably grand architecturally, its permanent exhibition on China’s...
The Chinese authorities detained dissident artist Ai Weiwei more than a week ago. Yesterday, Ai’s wife Lu Qing, also an artist, spoke to Justin Webb on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme about her husband’s arrest, saying that they have no reason to...
Outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has joined the ranks of other dissidents who have irked the government. He has simply gone missing. Police detained Ai at Beijing Airport on Sunday, as he was en route to Hong Kong. His Beijing studio was also...
The fear comes in not knowing. This is something Geng He, the wife of Gao Zhisheng, a Chinese rights lawyer who disappeared on April 10 last year, well knows. Geng wrote a touching appeal in the New York Times today calling attention to her...