Much has been said, on this site and others, about the recent spate of websites — even English ones — being blocked. Perhaps a more interesting question is what, if anything these blocks accomplish. Generally speaking, the Chinese government and supporters hold that the blocks contribute to national stability and security as well as...
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Facebook is blocked, and if you're the kind of person who lives in China and enjoys using Facebook, it might be time to finally get that VPN set up because it's looking like you're not going to see legal Facebook access for some time.
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Much has been said here (and elsewhere) about the rioting in Xinjiang, where the situation remains unresolved and violent rioters/protesters/whatever have been threatened with the death penalty. Hu Jintao has ditched the G-8 summit and come back to China. It is undoubtedly the topic of choice, and you’ve probably already read a lot of...
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A brief update: some of our contacts are reporting the Western social networking site Facebook is down in China. Herdict confirms this, listing 40 inaccessible reports and one accessible one. If you currently live in China, give facebook a test and let us know the results. If Facebook is blocked, it would be the...
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For those who aren’t already aware, the unrest in Xinjiang continues as Han mobs have been reported attempting to reach Uighur enclaves in Urumqi and elsewhere. Lifted straight from the New York Times: Paramilitary forces fired tear gas Tuesday at Han Chinese protesters armed with clubs, lead pipes, shovels and meat cleavers. The mob...
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Violent events in China tend to spark controversy. When details are vague — and they almost always are, at least at first — it’s up to individual news teams to make decisions about how their coverage is going to portray the events. The recent riots in Urumqi are no exception; thus far a couple...
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One of our frequent commenters, Wahaha, pointed us to this very recent news story. Details are still a bit sketchy. According to the report, “On July 5th at around 8:00 P.M., incidents of rioting and beating occurred in Urumqi. People in People’s Square, Jiefang St., the bus station, Xinhua South Street, Outer Ring Road,...
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In recent days, it seems like any discussion of China and the internet centers around censorship and the possible destabilizing influence presented by the free information exchange afforded by the web. Of course, the internet is used for other things too, but those just lead to more censorship, which leads back to the aforementioned...
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When Li Chunhua was being detained, her toes were bound with wire, she was shackled to an iron chair and then tortured using electrocution! She was going to Beijing to report to the authorities; she was trying to report them for illegally using electricity to torture a citizen! However, in Beijing -- "the best...
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…kind of. Apparently, the game itself isn’t quite ready, but the official site and registration are already online, and not a moment too soon for the game’s Chinese publisher NetEase, who was apparently losing 4.22 million RMB every day the game was offline. Soon, Chinese gamers can get their fix again, although they’ll need...
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