What Lies Behind The Great Firewall: A Vast Great Shopping Mall Internet Complete With Mall Cops Moderators

February 1, 2021 by An Xiao Mina

An Xiao Mina and Xiaowei Wang write in the Knight First Amendment Institute blog:

In the West, we’ve become accustomed to reports of censorship in China as the result of a menacing authoritarian regime that threatens the core tenets of free expression. While a convenient construction, this centers authoritarianism as…

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Finding Solace & Entertainment Under Quarantine: China’s Netizens Pave the Way

March 12, 2020 by Jason Li

There’s been a raft of great coverage recently about how people in China are adapting to life under quarantine, especially the ways that they’re leveraging technology to entertain themselves at this stressful situation. Below is a recap of some of what we’ve seen (with a hearty shout-out to those who first reported on it).

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As The Coronavirus Rages On, Cartoonists Lash Out With Irony, Quiet And Candor

February 10, 2020 by Jason Li

A muscular half person, half snake has wrapped a bunch of doctors and journalists in its arms and is gesturing for them to be silent. — Created by 撒旦君 Sadan via Weibo.

Despite dramatic measures taken to stem the tide, the coronavirus is still spreading across China and the rest of the world. Confined to their homes, independent cartoonists in China continue expressing their views around the epidemic through their works. Some creators have…

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21 Chinese Cartoonists Unite in a Dragonball Fanfic to Fight the Coronavirus

January 31, 2020 by Jason Li

A fight sequence between the heroes and villains of Dragonball. Goku starts casting a spirit bomb.

The villain is defeated by the spirit bomb that collects the energy of the people of the earth.

Setting the scene for our current disaster: the coronavirus in Wuhan.

A Hubei hero is trying to cast a spirit bomb but requires more energy. An SOS text message is sent to the rest of the world requesting their help.

People around the world raise their hands to give energy to the spirit bomb, part one.

People around the world raise their hands to give energy to the spirit bomb, part two.

People around the world raise their hands to give energy to the spirit bomb, part three.

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Chinese Cartoonists Grieve, Pray & Respond to the Coronavirus Outbreak

January 24, 2020 by Jason Li

An anxious seal and octopus in a crowded room with their suitcase. Everyone has surgical masks on. — Illustration by Wang XX from Weibo.

As Wuhan and other nearby cities in China remain in lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak, the normally festive Lunar New Year season is now beset with anxiety and grief. People across the country have taken to social media…

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Photo essay: China Residencies’ 2019 cross-country tour of arts spaces

July 10, 2019 by Jason Li

Montage of our photos of people and art in China

Ahead of its sixth Crystal Ruth Bell Residency program (apply now – it’s fully funded!), the team at China Residencies took a cross-country tour around China to visit art and culture spaces new and old. Below we’re featuring photo highlights from this strip, which have been culled…

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Stop Calling It A Cold War

February 18, 2019 by Graham Webster

From Technology Review’s The US and China aren’t in a “cold war,” so stop calling it that, by Graham Webster:

Unlike the US and USSR, in which science and technology developed on largely independent tracks, the US and China are part of a globally intertwined ecosystem. As an example, ZTE, the Chinese maker of network equipment and smartphones, was…

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An Anthology of Naked Underground Chinese Comics

February 13, 2019 by Jason Li

I started working with Orion at Paradise Systems a few months ago, and ICYMI we launched a Kickstarter campaign to publish an anthology of semi-illicit, nudity-flaunting comics from China:

Naked Body is a 100-page, full color anthology edited by Yan…

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The Internet’s Warring States Period

January 29, 2019 by An Xiao Mina

From Foreign Policy’s The War-Torn Web, by Sean McDonald and An Xiao Mina:

Contention on how the internet should be run isn’t new. Some have identified this as a world of parallel internets, or rifts in the vision of how the internet should operate. But the gulfs in governance and action opening up and the active efforts to influence…

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Cyberpunk Pollution Masks, Editor’s Picks from China

November 16, 2018 by Jason Li

Photos of smoke, dust and children — Image from the UBT Taobao store.

As the deadliest fire in California’s history rages on, we trawled through over 500 items on China e-commerce behemoth Taobao to find you the most stylish pollution masks on earth today. What we found was better than anything created by this Dutch designer or this Swedish…

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