The following day, a video from the Communist Youth League Central Committee, "100 Heartwarming Seconds from the Ceremony Celebrating the 105th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China," was apparently blocked on Tencent’s QQ Space platform for "suspected violation of national policies and regulations."

“This content temporarily cannot be viewed due to suspected violation of national policies and regulations.”

As illustrated by the comments below, gathered from X by CDT Chinese editors, the blocking sparked schadenfreude and mockery online, laced with sarcastic use of “struggle” and other official formulae as well as references to factional infighting and the Youth League’s greatly diminished standing. Links have been added for context.

Kuyosuki: The CCP’s own censorship system censoring its own propaganda video feels a bit O. Henry.

ErZhong87250: If the Youth League faction’s boss can be hauled out of a meeting, is one blocked video such a surprise?

v_wallout: Since "200 Jin" [meaning Xi] personally destroyed the [Youth League] faction, the ban’s not surprising.

wanker263: This is to purge the “lingering poison” of Li Keqiang.

Proofsmith: This move by Tencent shows that content moderation is no longer about technology, but about pricing political risk.

FFayzhang: Once again, we’re in an age when if no enemy exists, one must be created.

gengzishunli: “Struggle” is the only thing the hammer-and-sickle party can do. Any time they’re not fighting among themselves, they’re lashing out at others.

Xmt0dt: Never-ending struggle, “adept at struggle” … the people just want to get on with their lives.

jaheding: Who is Chairman Xi planning to “struggle” against?

GoryRuin: Tencent: "The enemy is at Honnō-ji" [painting the platform as a treacherous ally]

krasusYu: Domestic platforms are really interesting: you can’t enter the names of influential "bad guys." Try it and see.

zpj624: By the time this struggle ends, there won’t be any successors left, and the Party will be dead, dragging the country down with it. [Chinese]

Huaqiangbei Electronics Market, by QuantFoto (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Information from FlightRadar24 and later reporting confirmed that the craft was a small single-engine plane that took off from the Eastern Pioneer flying school in Beijing’s northeastern Pinggu District. After the crash, which occurred in Beijing’s central business district several miles east of the Forbidden City and Chinese Communist Party leadership compound Zhongnanhai, local authorities quickly cordoned off the scene and imposed traffic controls. Police officers prevented residents and tourists from taking photographs, and employees working in the building were told not to discuss the crash with anyone. It also appears that restrictions were placed on flights of private light fixed-wing aircraft across the country, although no policy change has been officially announced.

A week later, on July 2, Beijing’s Chaoyang District government published a WeChat announcement identifying the pilot only by his surname Liu. A 66-year-old Beijing resident who worked freelance, lived alone after a divorce, and held both a sport-pilot license and a private-pilot’s license, Liu reportedly suffered from chronic insomnia and anxiety, and his diary contained numerous mentions of wanting to end his life. The announcement also confirmed the make and registration number of the light, two-seater aircraft Liu had been flying, and said that none of the 13 people hurt had suffered life-threatening injuries, and that one had already been released from hospital.

The crash, a rare incident in a capital city known for its highly restricted airspace, naturally attracted a great deal of attention online, soon followed by blanket censorship. CDT Chinese editors observed numerous examples of online censorship of the topic throughout the week: posts and on-the-scene videos about the crash were deleted en masse from Weibo and Xiaohongshu, WeChat quietly activated keyword censorship, and Weibo blocked searches for terms such as "Beijing plane crash." (See also CDT’s interview with Jeremy Brown on how the Party handles accidents and disasters, and a leaked internal document revealing how social-media platform Xiaohongshu censors “sudden incidents.”)

The question many Chinese citizens and international observers are asking is how, in a metropolis as heavily surveilled and policed as Beijing, such a plane crash could occur just miles from the CCP leadership compound in Zhongnanhai. Some netizens even described it as “China’s 9/11”—not in terms of the scale of casualties, but in the sense that it was a massive security breach that exposed the weaknesses of Beijing’s security and aviation perimeter. Many online commenters mentioned Beijing’s recent city-wide ban on the operation, sale, transportation, and storage of drones, which went into effect on May 1. Given such restrictions even on hobbyist drones, they wondered, how was a small plane able to fly through long-restricted airspace and crash into one of Beijing’s landmark buildings? As one social media user quipped, “How did Xi Jinping manage to half-ass Beijing’s ‘no-fly zone?’”

Among the questions that remain are how the crash will affect sports aviation and civil aviation in China, and if there will be any chilling effect on the development of the much-vaunted “low-altitude economy,” which potentially encompasses both manned and unmanned drone delivery services, flying cars, and flying taxis. China’s Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has described the low-altitude economy as a “strategic growth industry” estimated to grow into a 3.5 trillion yuan ($516 billion) market by 2035. Then there is the question of what will happen to the newly revised Civil Aviation Law, which was set to take effect on July 1, and its focus on the low-altitude economy, drone management, and high-quality industry development. One Chinese online commenter noted ruefully that nowadays, it seems as if any isolated incident can bring an entire industry to a sudden halt, and a single order from a high-ranking leader is enough to hobble a promising industry overnight.

This short article from WeChat account “Fourth-Floor OP” describes a corollary scenario in which teachers are required not to leverage their own social media accounts for the benefit of the state, but to self-police their online presence and report their social media accounts to school administrators. The author, a veteran teacher who has been quietly publishing articles on her WeChat public account, describes her alarm at hearing that her school now requires teachers to report their social-media accounts if they have more than 5,000 followers or are particularly active. Despite the relatively tame content she posts, the teacher admits to preemptively deleting a few posts out of an abundance of caution. The piece, translated in full below, illustrates the chilling effect that employer and institutional surveillance has on everyday, apolitical self-expression:

Last September, I started publishing on my WeChat public account, and on October 16, I signed up for WeChat’s ad monetization program. The reason I began writing it was just to record some of life’s joys, and maybe share some thoughts and experiences from my thirty years of teaching.

For the first few months, no one I knew, not even my husband or child, had any idea I was publishing on a public account. I was just writing for fun, for myself. I didn’t want anyone I knew to find out, in case it fueled gossip or people read too much of themselves into it.

But when I had to fill out my personal income tax declaration at the start of the new school term, my husband noticed I had a few hundred yuan in ad revenue, and asked me about it. If he hadn’t noticed, my public account could have gone on being a secret forever.

Even though he’s aware the account exists, he’s never read any of my articles, and doesn’t even know the name of my public account. Apart from asking me to help him publish two posts about math tips, he pretty much seems to have forgotten about my online writing.

Now and then, when I complain that my ad earnings don’t amount to more than a few measly yuan, he’ll tell me not to worry, and that it’s not like we’re depending on my writing income to put food on the table.

But yesterday, I saw a notification in our teachers’ group chat saying we’re required to report our social-media accounts [to the school] if they’re particularly active, or if they have more than 5,000 followers.

Now I’m a bit worried. I don’t have 5,000 followers, but I do post new content every day, so my account is fairly active. Do I have to report it? I really don’t want everyone finding out about it.

And why this sudden reporting requirement? I skimmed through all of my articles, and as far as I could tell, none touched on sensitive topics. Still though, I went ahead and deleted a few that I worried could be misconstrued.

If I report my public account to the school, will they pass that information further up the food chain? As long as I wasn’t breaking any rules or touching on sensitive subjects, writing for my public account always felt so liberating. But now it feels like I’m being caged by rules and regulations, and I’m almost afraid to keep writing.

How about you, lovelies? Do your employers require you to report your social media accounts? [Chinese]

There’s no shortage of examples of “stepping on landmines” in webnovel circles; especially when it comes to religious themes, countless authors have hit the rocks. So today, let’s chat about the mortal hazards of religious themes in online fiction, and how to avoid platform moderators’ “red lines” so you can get on with your writing in peace.

1. Religious themes are the "top taboo" in the world of webnovels

A lot of newbies think writing about Taoist priests and pursuit of immortality is too hackneyed, and that taking a lateral approach and writing about “Buddhist salvation of all sentient beings” will make them seem more highbrow. But the history of webnovels has long proven that religious themes are at the top of editors’ rejection blacklists.

It’s not that you can’t write about gods, immortals, Buddhas, or demons, but rather that you can’t touch on the sensitive topic of “real-world religion.” Let’s say you invent a “Buddha’s Halo Sect” and preach its so-called “creed”: that’s like stepping on a high-voltage power line. The platform moderators have a “zero-tolerance” policy toward religious content. At best, that chapter will be blocked; at worst, they’ll take your whole book offline. Losing your earnings is the least of it—you could face much worse consequences.

2. Don’t conflate “mythological adaptations” with “religious themes”

Some people ask, “‘Journey to the West’ fan-fic and primordial chaos novels are always writing about Spirit Mountain and plots against Buddhism. Aren’t those insanely popular?”

I must stress here: those fall under the category of “mythological adaptations,” a literary genre. Writing directly about real-world religion is a totally different concept. Both readers and platform moderators clearly understand that “Journey to the West” is itself a novel, written by our literary forefather Wu Cheng’en. Its Buddhism and Taoism are fictional devices disconnected from real-world religion. But if you create your own “XX Temple” with a set of doctrines and rites like those of an actual religion, that fundamentally changes things.

3. Newbie webnovel authors, stay in the “safe lanes”

If you want to earn any money from webnovels, you’ve got to steer well clear of the religious minefield. Be on your best behavior, and stick to topics that enjoy mass popularity, such as:

• Cathartic fiction: god-tier wealth, immortality cultivation, urban "face-slapping" … readers love it, and moderators go easy on it.

• High concept: systems, post-apocalyptic, infinite flow … as long as it’s logically consistent and doesn’t contain sensitive content, you can really go for it.

• Adaptations of the classics: go the fan-fic route with mythological IP like “Journey to the West” or “Investiture of the Gods.” These give you a ready-made fanbase, and let you sidestep the sensitivities of real-world religion.

Final reminder

Webnovel moderation keeps getting stricter. Don’t gamble on "artistic license" allowing you to cross religious red lines. The platform might bring down the axe if even one person reports you, and all your earnings and hard work could be wiped out in an instant.

When you’re writing webnovels, don’t rock the boat. You can only go the distance if you stay in your lane. Instead of taking risks with religious themes, stick to safe topics and you’ll have a much better chance of writing a hit.

Discussion topic

Do you know of other minefields in online fiction? Go ahead and share in the comments below—let’s avoid the traps together, and grow as writers! [Chinese]

Responses were mixed, to say the least. Some voices expressed support, but Hu also came under attack from both sides: for allegedly defending unpatriotic "online pollution" on one hand, and for being an influential part of the problem on the other. This month, Wang Wusi added his voice emphatically to the latter camp in the following post on the serially reincarnated WeChat account New New New Silence. He also takes aim at Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun in the wake of safety issues with the company’s electric cars, or "giant four-wheeled smartphones," as Wang describes them. These include a string of fires in which some occupants were fatally trapped inside their vehicles by malfunctioning doors, and the recall of more than 100,000 cars over assisted-driving issues. More broadly, Wang argues that his compatriots have become too "tolerant" of and resigned to this kind of hazard, and that some of those calling for more "tolerance" do so only to protect their own interests.

A notable censorship evasion measure in the piece appears in the Bertolt Brecht quote, "Those who lead the country into the abyss call ruling too difficult for ordinary men." Here, "country" 国家 guójiā is replaced by the Roman letters "xx," and the second character of "ruling" 统治 tǒngzhì by its pinyin initial "Z."

Links have been added for context.

In my view, Mr. Hu Xijin has always led the life of an Egyptian catfish. I don’t mean he’s a fine delicacy; I’m talking in terms of his niche in the ecosystem of our civilization. It can get by happily in even the filthiest environment: it’s truly "like a fish in water" in the E. coli-infested waters of the Ganges, and can while away contented years even in sewers and cesspits. It shares this characteristic with Old Hu: one is a fish in water; the other a maggot in shit. But recently, the environment has deteriorated so much, and so unexpectedly, that even Old Hu can’t breathe freely or enjoy a meal in peace.

A while ago, Old Hu said on Weibo that many groups have gone quiet. "I believe that the root cause of this," he wrote, "is that society has become less tolerant." He proposed that "this requires efforts on two fronts, both on the social level and along the chain of governance." Of course, people like Old Hu have worked hard to make society the way it is. Now they say they don’t like it, and that society has become less tolerant. Society is left speechless.

What is society? According to Marxism, it is the sum total of the relations of production. According to me, society is very simple: it’s people that are complicated. As a member of society, you can say whatever you like about it, but if you claim it’s become less tolerant, I must strongly disagree. Our society may lag behind in other areas, but it leads the world in terms of tolerance. Whether our children are being poisoned by heavy metals, drinking contaminated milk formula, eating spoiled food, or burning to death in a giant four-wheeled smartphone, the families are invariably “emotionally stable,” and the responsible parties don’t have the slightest need to respond, explain, apologize, or reform. How can you say such a society is intolerant? That level of tolerance far exceeds the West’s.

Old Hu ought to have a clearer grasp than any of us of how we got to this point, but cunningly, all he can do is moan about society. I can almost see him delicately raising his fingers in an orchid gesture [used in traditional Chinese opera to convey grace and femininity] and coyly saying, "Be gentle—it hurts." If the Great Qing Dynasty hadn’t passed, I’d really wonder if Old Hu was a eunuch. In the wake of his pleas, more than a few people expressed approval, mocking or otherwise. All I can say is that those who genuinely agree with Old Hu must be fellow maggots in the same pit. Everyone has a different understanding of what constitutes a tolerant environment. For normal people, a public toilet should be clean and tidy, and not smell. A maggot would argue that you need the shit and the stink. What is a maggot supposed to feed on if you clean it all up? To a maggot, a clean toilet is the horrible one, the one with a "low tolerance level." All the old Old Hu had to do was catch the frisbee in his mouth, as "a dog in man’s clothing"; but since he retired, his working environment has changed, and he has to writhe around with his fellow maggots, as "a maggot in man’s clothing." It’s not just humans’ joys and sorrows that are not interlinked [a reference to Lu Xun]; we don’t even share the same language anymore. You think Old Hu is speaking out on behalf of people, but the truth is, he only speaks up for his fellow maggots. This beats a lot of people: most fall silent when they see their own kind suffer misfortune, but when they eat shit themselves, they do it noisily. But a maggot just burrows away in silence. Silence is golden.

Actually, it would be worthwhile for Boss Lei to read that message from Old Hu about society’s level of tolerance. Old Hu should call on Xiaomi and Tencent to stop constantly labeling people as paid trolls or smear campaigners, and stop their legal departments from being so endlessly litigious. It’s a kind of sickness, and Doctor Hu has the cure!

Cunning though Old Hu’s message is, it’s not stupid: when he talks about tolerance, he’s fighting for both the masses and the maggots. Some others who call for tolerance really only want us to exercise it toward people like Boss Lei. What kind of tolerance are they talking about? The “emotional stability” of the families of dead Xiaomi drivers? Users still lining up to buy cars that have been forcibly recalled? Is it users with undelivered vehicles saying, "We understand delivery’s been delayed, but go ahead, take your time—we can wait!” Is it everyone cheering and applauding Lei’s sales pitch through hot tears, even after they’ve seen through the big con? The grieving families haven’t yet dried their tears, the customers’ wallets are still empty, so many obvious problems still haven’t been fixed, you’re completely unrepentant, and you want tolerance? Go to hell.

These lovers of tolerance remind me of literary works like [Lao She’s] "Rickshaw Boy": "The tenant farmer who had worked a whole lifetime in his master’s house could not help but straighten his back at the sight of the master’s splendid carriage at the gate." [This quote is popular, the attribution here is apocryphal.] Or from Brecht: "Those who take the meat from the table teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the xx into the abyss call Z too difficult for ordinary men."

A friend of mine says that collective shamelessness is a defining characteristic of our times, but so is solitary resistance. I would add that the greatest evil of our times is when a crowd of “benevolent” people band together to commit evil, and the greatest disgrace is when a group of “respectable” people band together to behave disgracefully. It’s not that society is intolerant; it’s that bad actors have gotten too good at "acting good," and the genuinely good are barely treated as human. Those who teach you to glorify suffering are the very ones who caused it. The powerful never complain that life is unfair, because they created that unfairness. [Chinese]

Below is a list of key topics and some related deleted articles from CDT’s summary of deleted content for May 2026. Between May 1-31, CDT Chinese added 43 new articles, primarily from WeChat, to the archive. (Note that the dates refer to when an article was published on the CDT website, not when it was deleted from Chinese social-media platforms.) Topics targeted for deletion in May included:

• The participation of Chinese elementary school students in the Russian “Victory Day” Parade in Vladivostok
• Wuhan University distancing itself from an alumnus who created a controversial Mother’s Day ad for smartphone manufacturer OPPO
• The Liushenyu coal mine explosion in Shanxi province that killed 82 miners and injured 128
• A promising response from the Supreme People’s Court on LGBTQ+ rights
• German criminal prosecutions of men involved in a Chinese-language Telegram group that shared information on drugging and raping women
• Douyin’s banning of academic-fraud activist and whistleblower Geng Hongwei’s account
• Continuing police harassment of environmental activist Wu Qiang, in retaliation for his work exposing industrial pollution in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province
• Accusations that “foreign forces” are behind a food-safety scandal involving adulterated bayberries
• MSS claims that unnamed “foreign forces” are promoting “lying down” (slackerism) among Chinese youth

The participation of Chinese elementary school students in the Russian “Victory Day” Parade in Vladivostok

In early May, before the respective Xi-Trump and Xi-Putin summits, online controversy erupted over Sputnik news agency footage of Chinese schoolchildren, clad in retro Red Army uniforms, marching in a Vladivostok parade in the run-up to Russia’s May 9 “Victory Day” commemoration of the defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII. CDT editors observed unusually stringent censorship of the topic, with at least a dozen deleted articles, including one promptly scrubbed from the People’s Daily website.

Ceded by the Qing to Tsarist Russia in the mid-19th century period of “unequal treaties,” Vladivostok was later the site of massacres of ethnic Chinese residents. Many Chinese bloggers and commenters argued that given the city’s history, it was deeply offensive to allow Chinese schoolchildren to be used as “props” in a Russian military parade there. Some critics described it as “dancing on their ancestors’ graves” and “forgetting where they came from.” According to one widely circulated analogy: “It’s like if someone broke into your ancestral home, confiscated the house, and banished your ancestors, but generations later you decide to foot the bill to send your kids to the marauders’ commemoration.”

Some of the Vladivostok-themed deleted pieces were critical of the double standards applied to former Chinese territories now occupied by Russia, and those occupied by Japan or other nations with whom the PRC has a frostier diplomatic relationship. “When First-Graders Set Foot in the ‘Ruler of the East,’” a deleted long-form article from WeChat account 新观察笔记 (Xīnguānchá bǐjì, “Journal of New Observations”), makes this point in the excerpt below:

Today, 160 years after the fact, [unequal] treaties can go unmentioned, historical enmities can be set aside, and it’s fine to say that we should focus on the future. But standing in the middle of a city whose name means “Ruler of the East,” listening to declarations like "Our heroes fought for your children!" feels a bit like this: several generations after your family was dispossessed of their ancestral home, the descendants of the occupiers invite your kids into their yard and dress them up in old military uniforms to help celebrate their historical "victory." Call it what you will—friendship, exchange, or internationalism—but in this case, language obscures more than it reveals.

[…] The term "double standard" couldn’t be more apt here. Ponder this simple question: If a Western nation were still holding military parades in a city ceded from China, and inviting Chinese children to attend and help commemorate a "just war" totally unrelated to that city’s cession, how do you think the Chinese public would react?

I don’t think I need to spell it out; you know as well as I do what the reaction would be. On some historical questions, our reaction is knee-jerk, a conditioned response. But when it comes to Russia, there are suddenly all sorts of justifications: “it was understandable,” or “grounded in practical interests,” or “it’s time to turn the page on that history.” That’s not diplomatic caution, it’s a double standard. These two very different reaction systems operate in parallel and no one thinks it strange, but it is our "dual-SIM" mentality that gives rise to such absurdities. [Source]

Wuhan University distancing itself from a graduate who created a controversial Mother’s Day ad for smartphone manufacturer OPPO

Following PR fallout from OPPO’s Mother’s Day ad campaign (“my mom has two husbands,” about a fangirl mom who considers her entertainment idol her “second husband”), Wuhan University took the unusual step of distancing itself from one of its alumnae—OPPO China region brand strategy director, Yu Siyue, whose team created the controversial ad. The university’s response met with dismay and derision online, and CDT Chinese editors have archived five censored articles on the topic.

A deleted piece from current-affairs blogger Wei Chunliang, “Wuhan University, Please Treat Your Students With the Respect Adults Deserve,” describes the university’s response as “ridiculous” and writes that it was unlikely anyone would have drawn a connection between the director of the ad campaign and the school, had Wuhan University not made a point of calling attention to the matter. “Why Did Wuhan University Overreact Today?” by blogger Jiang Ye, describes the OPPO ad as “obscene and vulgar,” and posits that Wuhan University has become thin-skinned in response to various recent criticisms, thus explaining its assertive reaction to the OPPO flap. A deleted satirical piece, “A Mysterious Alien Force Has Invaded Wuhan University,” from WeChat account Liushen Leilei Reads Jin Yong, characterizes the university’s response as “bizarre” and jokes that perhaps its social media department has been overrun by hostile extraterrestrial forces.

A deleted article from a legal blogger, titled “Wuhan University Hands You a Rope,” suggests that OPPO would have been wise to consult its legal department before releasing the problematic ad, and then goes on to list some of Wuhan University’s more notorious alumni, including cadres imprisoned for corruption. Blogger Wang Wusi—via his oft-reincarnated WeChat account, now known as New New New Silence—mines a similar theme, mentioning the many ethical missteps of other Wuhan University alumni, including Xiaomi founder Lei Jun. Wang wonders why Wuhan University was so oddly critical of advertising exec Yu, while neglecting to distance itself from its many other, much more controversial alums.

The Liushenyu coal mine explosion in Shanxi province that killed 82 miners and injured 128

Public anger and attendant online censorship ran high after a May 22 gas explosion at Liushenyu coal mine in Shanxi province killed at least 82 miners and injured 128 others—China’s deadliest mine accident in nearly 17 years. While the cause of the accident remains under investigation by a team assembled by China’s State Council, Xinhua reported that “concealed mining tunnels, falsified drawings and outsourced and unregistered ⁠miners, who had not been provided with required life-saving location trackers, were contributing factors to the deadly incident.”

CDT Chinese editors archived nine articles about the mine disaster, at least three of which were deleted from WeChat. One of the censored pieces, from Xu Peng’s WeChat account History Rhymes, focused on the workers and families affected, and speculated about whether the names of the 82 miners who died in the disaster will ever be made public. Another deleted article on a similar theme, from former journalist Huang Zhijie, argued that the best way to prevent cover-ups of mining and other industrial accidents is to release the lists of victim names.

“The Moment Instructions Came Down From Beijing, the Death Toll in the Shanxi Coal Mine Disaster Rose Tenfold,” from WeChat blogger Li Yuchen, includes a timeline showing that as soon as higher authorities in Beijing issued instructions to be more forthcoming in releasing information, the reported death toll in the mine disaster quickly went from eight to 82, suggesting that information on casualties had been suppressed. A portion of Li’s translated article appears below:

So 247 people went down into the mine. That number, 247, was in compliance with procedure. Eight deaths were reported, then 82, then 90, all procedurally compliant. Past mine-safety violations resulted in fines, in compliance with procedure, but no shutdowns were ordered, because that wouldn’t be in line with procedure. Downplaying the initial death toll, then revising the figures upward? Just following procedure. Ren Tiezhu serving as a People’s Congress delegate, his mine being twice-fined but allowed to continue operating, and Ren being detained only after the tragedy occurred? Check, check, check—everything compliant with procedure.

Everyone behaved in accordance with procedure. Procedure wasn’t the problem—it was those 90 people trapped underground. Numbers like that are never released all at once: you report one figure first, wait for approval from the higher-ups, then report the next figure. That’s the procedure.

While search and rescue operations were still underway at Liushenyu mine, CCTV News reported that the State Council had issued a directive calling for “all-out efforts to locate and rescue trapped personnel, provide medical treatment to the injured, properly handle the aftermath of the accident, release information in a timely and accurate manner, ascertain the cause of the accident as soon as possible, and identify and punish those responsible in accordance with laws and regulations."

Note that one particular phrase: “Release information in a timely and accurate manner.”

[…] There is only reason for such an addition: the higher-ups had already anticipated that the information would not be released ‘in a timely or accurate manner.’” [Source]

A promising response from the Supreme People’s Court on LGBTQ+ rights

In May, Chinese LGBTQ+ groups reacted with various levels of optimism to news that China’s highest court, in a written reply to a citizen petition, considers “discrimination and rights violations based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” to be unlawful in legal practice. The court’s reply, while not a binding legal document and not officially confirmed as genuine, was widely circulated online in screenshot form. It was reportedly issued in response to a request for legal clarification from a postgraduate in Qingdao (nicknamed “Xiao Tu”) who “urged the court to establish clearer judicial standards against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

CDT editors archived three deleted articles on the topic from LGBTQ+-themed WeChat accounts, expressing support for the court’s response and interpreting it as a positive sign. One author praised Xiao Tu’s proactive approach, observing that such efforts to spur progress should be supported and perhaps even emulated. An archived piece from WeChat account “The Harmonious Rainbow Speaks” described the court’s response as “a belated but significant reassurance” whose value “lies not only in reviewing past precedents, but also in clarifying the direction for the future.” Another archived article, from WeChat account “Action for Love,” was perhaps the most optimistic, praising the court’s response as a “landmark document in the history of Chinese jurisprudence, signifying equal protection for sexual minorities.” But the mere fact that these three predominantly laudatory articles were censored indicates the continuing suppression of online discussion about LGBTQ+ rights and legal efforts to combat discrimination in schools, workplaces, and the courts.

German criminal prosecution of one of eight men involved in a Chinese-language Telegram group that shared information on drugging and raping women

In May, CDT editors archived four censored articles about international criminal investigations and prosecutions of eight men (including a doctor, an IT manager, and graduate students) involved in a Chinese-language Telegram group that shared content and information about the drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) of women. The most recent court case concluded in April in Munich, where a man named Jiang Zhongyi was sentenced to over 11 years in prison on two counts of attempted murder and seven counts of aggravated rape. The investigations and prosecutions have attracted much attention on Chinese social media, with many netizens wondering why—given the fact that nearly all of the perpetrators and victims were Chinese, and that while most of the assaults occurred overseas, some took place in China—it wasn’t until overseas law enforcement got involved that the group was disbanded and its members arrested and tried.

All of this month’s four deleted articles on the topic (1, 2, 3, and 4) are long-form pieces that list the names of the men, the details of their crimes, the criminal charges filed against them, and the length of their prison sentences (the maximum sentence thus far was 14 years; one of the accused committed suicide while awaiting trial). Ongoing online censorship about the group and the trials has focused mainly on articles from feminist-themed accounts, and indicates the shrinking online space for discussion about topics ranging from sexual assault and violence against women, to feminism and women’s rights.

Douyin’s banning of academic-fraud activist and whistleblower Geng Hongwei’s account

In May, amid news that Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese counterpart) had banned the account of academic-fraud activist and whistleblower Geng Hongwei—also known online as “classmate Geng”—CDT editors archived two censored articles about Geng and his invaluable contributions to academic honesty and accountability. A former doctoral candidate turned academic-fraud whistleblower, Geng has leveraged the powers of AI and online video platforms to expose numerous cases of data manipulation and other forms of academic fraud, resulting in the dismissal of some very prominent academics and sending a collective shiver through the halls of Chinese academe. In one of the deleted pieces, “In Support of Classmate Geng: Our Society Should Be Tolerant of People Who Want to Make Things Better,” former journalist Huang Zhijie argues that depriving Geng of his living and his online following (over two million on Douyin and over two million on Bilibili, at last count) is unfair, and a way of punishing the messenger rather than addressing the problem. Another censored piece from WeChat blogger Mu Bai, “How Did ‘Classmate Geng’ End Up Like This?” also addresses the unfairness of punishing Geng for simply exposing the malfeasance of others.

Continuing police harassment of environmental activist Wu Qiang, in retaliation for his work exposing industrial pollution in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province

CDT also archived two deleted articles, both published in late May, about the continuing police harassment of environmental activist Wu Qiang, and about the mistreatment he suffered while he was being held in detention last year. Wu himself describes how in April 2025, just two days after filming and posting a video showing water pollution in a local river, he was arrested on charges of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." During his year-long detention in a detention center, Wu alleges he was subjected to sustained sleep deprivation, forced labor, restricted food and water, and hours of being made to stand on his feet. Upon completing his sentence, Wu was placed under a further six-month period of "residential surveillance," which his defense lawyer has argued is illegal, because his sentence cannot be increased on appeal and the original term has already been served. Now, a year after Wu’s release, police have been pressuring him to delete videos documenting his case, summoned him to a police station, and warned him that any further posts will result in immediate detention, suggesting that the authorities’ primary concern is suppressing Wu’s account of his mistreatment.

Accusations that “foreign forces” are behind a food-safety scandal involving adulterated bayberries

After authorities in Fujian province punished nearly two dozen officials in May for oversight failures regarding illegal adulteration of fresh bayberries (such as soaking them in the preservative sodium dehydroacetate, banned in China for use in fresh fruit), an online commenter suggested that outside elements had “maliciously hyped” the story to stir public anxiety about food safety. WeChat public account Old Xiao’s Random Jottings responded with a scathing assault on the rhetorical strategies used to deflect or diminish China’s many food safety scandals, the weaponization of patriotic posturing, and the tendency to blame those who highlight problems instead of those who actually caused them. An excerpt from that archived and translated article appears below:

What’s really hurting fruit farmers isn’t the people raising the problem, it’s conspiracy theories about external forces that undermine normal regulatory efforts, hinder solutions to the problem, and end up harming the whole fruit sector.

The real crisis isn’t "external forces" magnifying anxiety, it’s the discourse trap that equates "raising questions” with “hurting farmers” and “being unpatriotic." This zips people’s mouths shut so that no one dares speak out, and allows dishonest vendors to go on making their dirty money and negligent regulators to keep slacking off.

The toxins in doped bayberries won’t become a miracle cure if you stick a "foreign forces" label on them, just as the dogshit on your shoe won’t become less sticky or less stinky if you say "external forces" shat it out.

If you’re using tricks like this to cover up problems, you’d be better off blaming everything on the moon’s gravitational pull. At least that way, you’ll still look pretty smart, because no “cosmic forces” are going to show up and start disputing your point. It’s certainly a step up from lazily scapegoating "external forces."

Is there anything lower than making dirty money and shirking one’s official duties, on one hand, while raising a memorial arch proclaiming "We care about the nation and its people," on the other?

As long as these human offal exist and are able to go on conning people, they’ll just keep wreaking general havoc, and the nation and society will suffer for it. [Source]

MSS claims that unnamed “foreign forces” are promoting “lying down” (slackerism) among Chinese youth

On the topic of unfounded accusations that “foreign forces” are fomenting all manner of societal ills, there continued to be some online censorship in May—following a raft of deleted pieces in April—of commentary on Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) claims that unnamed “foreign organizations” are trying to brainwash Chinese youth into “lying down” (slacking off). Back in April, these claims met with intense backlash online, as comments sections on Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, Kuaishou, Zhihu filled with responses challenging the framing and factuality of the MSS article, and pointing out that the slackerist movement is being driven by domestic socioeconomic forces such as high unemployment, unrelenting competition, excessive overtime and “996” schedules, weak labor-law enforcement, and declining social mobility.

On May 5, CDT Chinese editors archived a creatively humorous response, deleted from Q&A site Zhihu, in which the author purports to find “evidence” that hostile foreign forces have been wreaking havoc on China for millennia. Titled “Tao Yuanming’s ‘Lying Down’ Case: Ironclad Evidence of Foreign Infiltration into the Eastern Jin Dynasty,” the satirical piece dissects the “malign foreign hand” that purportedly prompted Tao (365–427 C.E.) to withdraw from the civil service into a life of idyllic rustication, filled with the pleasures of poetry, wine, farming, and the infrequent visitor. “Comrades, open your eyes to history!” exhorts the Zhihu author. “This case amply demonstrates that lying down is never a personal choice, but rather a conspiracy by foreign forces that has remained unchanged for thousands of years. […] We must be on guard against the various ‘contemporary Tao Yuanmings’ emerging on the internet today. […] Be vigilant, vigilant, vigilant!!”

For Apple users in China, the resulting situation is what the following meme describes as 一[苹]果两制 yī [píng]guǒ liǎng zhì, or "One Apple, Two Systems"—a pun on the official formulation 一国两制 yī guó liǎng zhì, or "One Country, Two Systems," referring to the principle by which Hong Kong and Macau exercise increasingly limited autonomy within China.

“Others are already using AI. You’re still waiting for Siri to evolve
One world, different permissions
Apple Intelligence
iOS 27 • International Edition
‘One Apple, Two Systems’
One world, two kinds of Siri.”

In the E.U.’s case, the issue is the requirement under the Digital Markets Act that third-party AI services must receive the same data and system access as Apple’s own. The company issued a lengthy statement this week arguing that this would present unacceptable privacy and security risks, and criticizing European regulators’ "extreme interpretation" of the law and refusal to accept compromises it had offered.

Curiously, Apple does not appear to have published any similarly in-depth explanation and objection in China’s case, offering only a footnote saying that "Siri AI and the other new Apple Intelligence features will not be available in China while Apple works through regulatory requirements." The company has worked with local partners to enable a Chinese launch of earlier Apple Intelligence features, which were announced in mid-2024, but these efforts have yet to bear fruit. Apple Intelligence features did appear briefly on China-based devices in March of this year, but this was reportedly an error: Bloomberg Apple reporter Mark Gurman posted on X that "it’s been ready to go for months but Apple doesn’t yet have regulatory approval."

Political guardrails will be key among the regulatory requirements in question. The Wall Street Journal’s Stu Woo noted in December that domestic chatbots must undergo internal and external safety checks related to 31 risk categories, with “incitement to subvert state power and overthrow the socialist system” topping the list. (Other risks cover less contentious ground such as promotion of violence or discrimination, or unauthorized use of others’ likeness.) One recent result is ByteDance chatbot Doubao’s refusal to explain the meaning of the English phrase "It’s my duty," which is associated with the 1989 Tiananmen protests.

Chinese users are hardly without domestic alternatives, and Apple is widely seen as lagging behind the competition even in markets where its AI features are actually available. But as illustrated by the controversial "Apple People vs Android People" discourse led by deplatformed former influencer Hu Chenfeng, the company and its products still have an aura of prestige and sophistication for many Chinese consumers. AI has also been more warmly embraced in China than in the West, so continuing to miss out on Apple Intelligence is galling for some.

For more on AI in the context of China’s online censorship, see China Media Project’s China Chatbot series, and related discussion in our interview with "Locknet" report authors Jessica Battke and Laura Edelson.

What does [the English phrase] "it’s my duty" mean?

This content is in suspected violation of Doubao’s terms of use. If you believe this is an error, please press and hold this message and select "Dislike" to submit feedback. [Chinese]

"It’s my duty" refers to an iconic scene from the BBC’s coverage of the 1989 protest movement before its violent suppression. The clip was filmed by a BBC crew driving alongside a young man cycling joyfully through Beijing wearing a red headband. Asked where he was headed, the man responded in English: "Going to march! Tiananmen Square! … Why? I think it’s my duty!"

The clip captures something of the protest movement’s optimism and sense of possibility, now often forgotten in the shadow of the subsequent tragedy. The phrase "it’s my duty"—either in English or in Chinese transliterations like 麦丢替 mài diūtì—has become a potent symbol of protest and defiance. CDT Chinese reported that the phrase was blocked on Weibo after users posted it en masse around June 4, 2022. It appeared again later that year amid the White Paper protests in Beijing against draconian zero-COVID policies, in a prose poem recited by a Chinese student at Columbia, and in a song inspired by the poem the following year.

A more ironic echo of the phrase came after a pro-democracy protester was beaten and dragged onto the grounds of China’s consulate in Manchester, U.K. in October 2022. After being filmed pulling a protester’s hair, consul-general Zheng Xiyuan explained to reporters that "he was abusing my country, my leader. I think it’s my duty."

CDT Chinese editors noted that three other PRC-based chatbots proved similarly evasive about the anniversary. More traditional temporary controls were also in evidence this year, such as blocks on profile changes or candle emoji. KFC’s regular "Crazy Thursday" promotion was caught in the crossfire because it happened to fall on June 4, while Taylor Swift’s album "1989" (named for her birth year) could not be shared on QQ Music. The Weibo account of the British Embassy in Beijing was reportedly suspended in response to a post about the anniversary; the account is back, but the post is not.

For more on June 4th-related censorship, see our recent collection of search-censored "sensitive words." For more on AI in the context of China’s online censorship, see China Media Project’s China Chatbot series, and related discussion in our interview with "Locknet" report authors Jessica Battke and Laura Edelson.

While eating bayberries recently, I bit into the most ridiculous "truth" under heaven: it turns out that all those cases of bayberries soaked in illegal preservatives were not, at heart, a matter of unscrupulous homegrown profiteering. It was all the sneaky doing of vile "external forces."

With one flap of the lips, someone elevates a clear matter of right and wrong to the level of us-vs-them contradiction and the fate of the nation.

"First strawberries, then bayberries, then lychees: it feels like external forces are actively working to harm our Chinese fruit farmers."

Each of these incidents is a deliberate attempt by external forces to "strike at our country’s agricultural sector" by "amplifying food safety anxiety."

The rise and fall of nations rests upon a single poisoned bayberry … what a waste that the creative genius behind that concept isn’t in Hollywood writing spy thrillers.

In the eyes of "strategic geniuses" like this, the concrete pools for soaking adulterated bayberries were secretly dug by spies in the dead of night. The illegal sodium dehydroacetate was smuggled over the mountains and furtively poured in. All that’s missing is a signed confession from a crooked local vendor caught red-handed, twisted to show "an innocent coerced into a life of crime by malign external forces."

As if this gang of crooked scoundrels were just honest merchants, pure as the driven snow, who would never have dreamed of doing something so grubby were it not for “external forces’” pointing a gun at their heads.

The implication is clear: if you dare to dig for the truth, to raise uncomfortable questions, then you’re a traitor in the pay of the U.S., helping "external forces" wage public opinion warfare.

Those able to muddy the waters like this are more cunning than a swindler at the mahjong table. After sneaking good tiles into their own hand and filling their pockets with winnings, they insist on sweeping the whole table into chaos, banging their fist and yelling "Someone messed with the shuffle!" and leaving everyone else at the table in confusion and wondering who the guilty party is.

Every case of excessive agricultural residue that’s been made public to date, like illegally adding sodium dehydroacetate to bayberries, or detection of the illegal insecticide carbofuran in freeze-dried strawberries or excessive levels of carbendazim in lychees, involved illegal practices by domestic traders to increase shelf life or sweetness and cut costs. In none of them has any official investigation revealed the involvement of foreign forces.

Agricultural espionage cases reported by the state security organs have focused on theft of parent seed stock or agricultural data, not issues of pesticide residue in agricultural produce. The goals, methods, and legal nature of these two things are completely unrelated to one another.

Some might say these braindead arguments aren’t worth responding to. The problem is, however you look at it, their blathering this time doesn’t seem merely thoughtless. This kind of malicious, deliberate misdirection is even more detestable than mindlessly spewing bullshit. Bullshit is thoughtless, while malice is calculated. This is not a trivial distinction.

After all these years, I’ve come up with this rule of thumb: almost inevitably, whatever the situation, when someone brings up hostile foreign forces, they have no intention of being reasonable about it.

Thinking it over, those dragging external forces into the bayberry doping affair tend to be one of three types of lowlife:

First, those who dress stupidity up as sense using patriotism as a business strategy.

They can twist any topic into a political stance: even eating fruit can be spun as some sort of “divine mission.” The moment you raise an issue with bayberries, they accuse you of being “unpatriotic.” In one breath, they’ll say “the enemy wants us in disarray”; in the next, they’ll claim, “you’re aiding the enemy.”

They can’t even be bothered to learn what sodium dehydroacetate is, and are hazy on whether you can add preservatives to fresh fruit, yet they dare denounce people as traitors for asking questions. When you bring up facts and regulations with them, they’ll respond with political posturing and conspiracy theories. Patriotism is an all-purpose brick you can use anywhere, ideal for blocking up the mouths of ordinary people.

Are they stupid? Not necessarily: it’s just that they’re rotten to the core, wielding patriotism as a talisman while helping bad guys cheat our own people and imagining that they’re doing Heaven’s will.

The second group are shills for corrupt business interests.

They know better than anyone who’s really soaking bayberries: local brokers who’d pour any illegal chemical into the tanks if it meant a longer-lasting product and doubled profits. These types have less shame than snake-oil salesmen.

But they insist no one can lift the lid on it, and lay the whole thing at the feet of “external forces,” like a thief who snatches a wallet, points the finger at someone else, shouts “Stop that thief!” and while everyone’s distracted by the commotion, hides the loot neatly away.

Since foreign forces are invisible and intangible, it costs nothing to throw the label around. If you can muddy the waters, it’ll completely obscure the homegrown corruption, and the ill-gotten gains will pour in.

Do they believe these conspiracy theories, you might ask? Not in the least, it’s all to help the villains keep things under wraps. The whole fruit market suffers the rot, the masses get cheated, and these purveyors of conspiracy theories are the ones raking in the cash.

The third kind, most odious of all, are the craven officials trying to duck their regulatory duties.

There are massive loopholes in oversight, additive bans go unenforced, and inspections of violations are cursory at best. When the public raises questions, instead of reflecting on their own dereliction of duty, the officials leap straight to yelling “This is sabotage by external forces!” Inadequate oversight isn’t our fault, they claim—the enemy is simply too cunning.

Every case investigated by our own law enforcement agencies has been traced back to domestic illegal manufacturing operations, with not a hint of foreign forces to be found.

Why not say external forces meddled with that sampling gear you’re holding, and forced you to dilute those regulations you made?

Pulling out the great banner of “external forces” whenever problems arise is typical scapegoating rhetoric. In essence, it’s evasion of responsibility for industrial oversight and management.

This bunch of garbage people have scraped together another pile of spurious excuses: "Talking about toxicity without taking into account the dosage is just scaremongering."

There’s some scientific truth in this: the error is in using it as a blanket denial of dangers from agricultural residue. The key distinction is that detecting trace amounts of legal residue ≠ detecting excessive or illegal residue.

Refusing to carry out spot-checks or accept responsibility because "trace amounts are harmless" amounts to tacitly condoning the argument that "as long as it’s within statutory limits, anything goes."

Tell them that "this chemical isn’t allowed anyway," and they reply "toxicology tests are part of the compliance process." Tell them "consuming ten times the limit is harmful," and they’ll say "trace amounts never killed anyone."

If little old me was to sprinkle 0.01g of arsenic onto your rice right now, could I then claim with confidence, "Toxicity depends on the dosage! A little residue won’t kill you, so all this moaning of yours is just scaremongering!"

When did the state say it was OK to soak fresh fruit in banned preservatives? The point of the GB 2763 National Food Safety Standard MRLs for Pesticides in Foods is to set red lines for safe use of compliant agricultural chemicals, not to give illegal or illegally applied ones the green light.

‌"Trace residues aren’t harmful" is fine in the context of legally compliant use, but it has no explanatory power when it comes to illegal additives. Consumers are worried about "unwitting high-risk exposure," not "theoretical risk at lab-measured doses."

The nonsense deepens with this claim: "No food’s clean under a microscope." Consumers can eat fresh fruit that meets national safety standards without a care in the world; there’s no need to talk about "no food being clean under a microscope" to justify illegal practices.

Pursuing absolute zero toxicity was never the point of the current regulations. The point is effective enforcement of bans and limits, and accountability for overstepping, so the masses have a baseline of safety they can rely on.

What the public objects to has never been legally compliant residue, it’s people secretly using banned chemicals, endangering others’ lives by overusing them, and not being held to account when people get sick. When has anyone ever demanded absolutely zero residue?

Why not mention that our fruit exports to the E.U. consistently meet standards far higher than those we have at home? We can control these things when we want to, but domestic regulations are lax, and the cost of flouting them is low.

The most stomach-turning thing of all is using the argument "But it harms fruit growers" as a cudgel. Saying that exposing the problem has wrecked their livelihoods—but who is it who’s really driven honest farmers to despair?

Fruit growers who play by the rules incur costs 50% higher than those selling adulterated fruit, and now sales are down across the industry in the wake of the scandal. And then you don’t blame the profiteers, you don’t fix the regulatory loopholes—you just attack those who exposed and questioned these practices. Isn’t that a bit like a murderer taking hostages to use as human shields, and then having the nerve to claim it’s for their own good?

What’s really hurting fruit farmers isn’t the people raising the problem, it’s conspiracy theories about external forces that undermine normal regulatory efforts, hinder solutions to the problem, and end up harming the whole fruit sector.

The real crisis isn’t "external forces" magnifying anxiety, it’s the discourse trap that equates "raising questions” with “hurting farmers” and “being unpatriotic." This zips people’s mouths shut so that no one dares speak out, and allows dishonest vendors to go on making their dirty money and negligent regulators to keep slacking off.

The toxins in doped bayberries won’t become a miracle cure if you stick a "foreign forces" label on them, just as the dogshit on your shoe won’t become less sticky or less stinky if you say "external forces" shat it out.

If you’re using tricks like this to cover up problems, you’d be better off blaming everything on the moon’s gravitational pull. At least that way, you’ll still look pretty smart, because no “cosmic forces” are going to show up and start disputing your point. It’s certainly a step up from lazily scapegoating "external forces."

Is there anything lower than making dirty money and shirking one’s official duties, on one hand, while raising a memorial arch proclaiming "We care about the nation and its people," on the other?

As long as these human offal exist and are able to go on conning people, they’ll just keep wreaking general havoc, and the nation and society will suffer for it. [Chinese]

Another response to the bayberries scandal came from Wang Wusi at the serially reincarnated WeChat account New New New Silence, who used it as the launchpad for an energetic barrage against prominent nationalist academics.

Direct references:

• 六四 liùsì, "64" in Chinese characters
• 六4 liù4, "64" in a mix of Chinese and Arabic numerals
• 6肆 6sì, another mix using an anti-fraud character for "4"
• 陆肆 lùsì, 64 in anti-fraud characters
• 8 de + píngfāng, "8 squared"
• 535 + 64. “535” refers to “May 35th,” a coded reference to June 4th that is now itself targeted for censorship
• 64 + 29 nián, "64 + 29 years," likely carried over from 2018

Person + incident:

• 胡耀邦+六四+纪念 ‌Hú Yàobāng + liùsì + jìniàn, "Hu Yaobang + 64 + commemoration." Hu was the popular General Secretary whose death on April 15, 1989 triggered the movement that was crushed on June 4th.
• 耀邦+六四 ‌Yàobāng + liùsì, "Yaobang + 64"
• 耀邦+周年 ‌Yàobāng + zhōunián, "Yaobang + anniversary"
• 胡耀邦天安门 ‌Hú Yàobāng Tiān’ānmén, "Hu Yaobang Tiananmen"
• 习近平+天安门母亲 Xí Jìnpíng + Tiān’ānmén Mǔqīn, "Xi Jinping + Tiananmen Mothers"

Setting + action:

• 六四烛光 ‌liùsì zhúguāng, "64 candlelight"
• 六四戒严 ‌liùsì jièyán, "64 impose martial law"
• 六四+冤魂 liùsì + yuānhún, "64 vengeful spirits"
• 屠城 ‌túchéng, "butcher a city"
• 流血事件 ‌liúxuè shìjiàn, "bloodletting incident"
• 坦克+安门 tǎnkè + ānmén, "tank + …anmen," likely blocked in response to use of "…anmen" as a censorship evasion term without the "Tian"
• 烧坦克 ‌shāo tǎnkè, "burning tank"
• 人+坦克 ‌rén tǎnkè, "person + tank"
• 坦克+人 tǎnkè rén, "tank + person"
• 事件+坦克 ‌shìjiàn tǎnkè, "incident + tank"
• 枪声+广场 qiāng shēng guǎngchǎng, "gunfire + square"

Coded variants:

• 学运 xué yùn, "student movement"
• 學運 xué yùn, "student movement" in traditional characters
• 八九年 bājiǔ nián, "’89"
• 32年前 32 nián qián, "32 years ago," likely carried over from 2021
• 32年前+民主 32 nián qián + mínzhǔ, "32 years ago + democracy"
• 天安門 ‌Tiān’ānmén, "Tiananmen" in traditional characters
• 天安门 Tiān’ānmén, "Tiananmen" in simplified characters
• 惨案+六十四 cǎn’àn liùshísì, "massacre + sixty four"
• 六十四+惨案 liùshísì + cǎn’àn, "sixty four + massacre"

Other:

• 64+分化 ‌64 + fēnhuà, "64 + division"
• 6+4+领袖 ‌6 + 4 + lǐngxiù, "6 + 4 + leader"
• 64+领袖 64 + lǐngxiù‌, "64 + leader"
• 6+4+祭 ‌6 + 4 + jì, "6 + 4 + memorial"
• 期間+64 qíjiān + 64‌, "period + 64" in traditional characters

CDT Chinese editors highlighted the term “64 + division” as “worth noting. This phrase hints at the authorities’ high level of alertness for societal polarization resulting from the topic of June 4.” Other topics in the Chinese Sensitive Words post include Taiwan, Trump and Putin’s recent state visits to Beijing, the alleged role of foreign forces in encouraging young Chinese to slack off, and a vehicular attack in Chengdu last month.

Coverage of the anniversary elsewhere includes reports on the unprecedented ban on cemetery visits by the Tiananmen Mothers, parents of the crackdown’s victims. The group issued its annual statement ahead of the anniversary:

We reaffirm our three longstanding demands:

Disclose the full truth of the June Fourth Massacre;

Provide just compensation for the victims and their families;

Hold those responsible legally accountable in accordance with the law. [Source]

The Hoover Institution’s Rowena He wrote on the cemetery ban at The Diplomat:

For over three decades, Wan’an Cemetery served as the sole sanctioned space where grieving families could mourn together each June 4 – though always under heavy police surveillance. When I showed footage of the cemetery grounds to my Harvard freshman class 15 years ago, my students were stunned to see surveillance cameras deliberately installed over the burial sites of Tiananmen victims. Even the headstones told a story of fear: many originally omitted “June 4” as the date of death, with families adding it only years later.

[…] For decades, the CCP barely tolerated the Tiananmen Mothers’ quiet grief, allowing them limited space to mourn once a year while suppressing all public memory. But this fragile status quo shattered when a six-hour video of Major General Xu Qinxian’s 1990 secret military trial was recently leaked. Xu, commander of the 38th Army, had refused to deploy his troops to crush the 1989 protest movement. For this act of conscience, he was court-martialed, imprisoned for five years, and expelled from the CCP. His trial revealed what the regime had long concealed: that even within the military, there had been opposition – and that the supposed “consensus” about June 4 was enforced through punishment and fear.

The leak represented a dangerous crack in the official memory. The Tiananmen Mothers, with their persistent documentation and annual commemorations, suddenly posed a greater threat to a regime whose legitimacy rests on lies. They were not only grieving parents but keepers of a counter-memory that could now connect to evidence of elite resistance. [Source]

CDT Chinese published a 70,000-character transcript of the trial video in December, while CDT English collected commentary on the video’s context, provenance, and significance.

Elsewhere, Hong Kong Free Press covered the "patriotic" carnival that has replaced the city’s traditional commemorations in recent years, as well as police interference with smaller-scale commemorative activities and the criminal trials of other activists. New Bloom’s Brian Hioe noted support for Hong Kong activists from their counterparts in Taiwan, while Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te himself posted a statement expressing "hope that China can face up to the June 4 incident of 37 years ago, acknowledge the truth, soothe the pain, and open the door to reconciliation and dialogue."

At China Books Review, Yangyang Cheng examined Tiananmen in Chinese and diasporic fiction, and the Party’s own shifting narratives about it. In the Lingua Sinica newsletter, China Media Project’s David Bandurski identified June Fourth as a pivotal moment in the Party’s approach to narrative control in general: "For the hardliners who prevailed in that fateful political moment, the upheaval that spring was first and foremost a failure of media policy. And that perceived failure would shape the Party’s approach to media and information for decades to come, right through Xi Jinping’s undisguised declaration of media subservience in 2016." The Guardian’s Amy Hawkins, meanwhile, profiled the China Unofficial Archives project that aims to gather and preserve alternative materials on June Fourth and other sensitive topics.

2026: Deregistration

An ordinary night in April 2026.

An inquisitive alumnus realised that that campus media outlet’s Weibo account had been deregistered. Its WeChat account showed as deregistered as well. They entered the account name they’d used for a decade: nothing. Searched again: nothing. Tried a different platform: nothing.

More than 600 articles, accumulated over 20 years. The blood, tears, arguments, and reconciliations of so many successive cohorts of students. A place where so many young people fought their way through confusion and found clarity.

Wiped out in a single click.

There was no announcement or explanation, no "thanks for your efforts over the past 20 years," no "goodbye."

It’s like walking past a place you lived for a long time and realising that the house number’s been taken down, the door’s locked, and the curtains are closed. You stand on the doorstep, not knowing what happened or even who to ask about it.

People in the comments said: "It wasn’t enough to stop updating the account? They had to wipe the old content as well?"

Stopping updates meant goodbye; wiping the account deleted even the evidence of that.

What happened between 2016 and 2026 wasn’t a sudden disappearance but a gradual process, a matter of degrees. First the range of possible reporting shrank; then the space for doing that reporting went away; then the name of the organization fell out of use; until at last, every trace of its existence was expunged from the digital world..

There are probably many reasons. In the current environment, campus new media’s submission, review, and content management oversight has become standard practice at universities across the country. As adults, years later, many people express understanding of this cautious management. Every era has its problems, and every job its challenges.

But there’s one thing that many people have found regrettable: there was never any explanation.

It’s not that they can’t accept an outlet’s closure. Every story comes to an end. But if a place has sustained so many through their youth, then when it’s time for it to depart, perhaps a word of farewell is in order. Just one.

Declining, but not alone

The decline of campus media never took place in isolation.

It was part of the same shift as the disappearance of news kiosks on campus: the "news grandpa" who’d run his stand for more than 20 years said: "If I stop selling papers here, no one will." It was part of the same shift as the departure of campus bookstores: the retreat of academic bookstores like Shengshiqing and Moxiang meant fewer spaces to sustain intellectual culture. It was part of the same shift as the changes in campus management: the installation of turnstiles changed the university’s traditional openness. It was part of the same shift as the controversy over journalistic training: with people calling journalism a "dead-end major" and students switching careers as soon as they graduated, the plight of campus media was just a microcosm of the waning appeal of the journalism industry as a whole.

This is the challenge of our era.

We happen to have experienced a period of phenomenally swift change. In 2016, a WeChat public account could still catapult an ordinary person to unlikely prominence. Now, in 2026, the information ecosystem looks completely different. The past decade has seen the remolding of information channels, the maturation of the attention economy, and the continuous optimization of strategies for managing them.

In such an era, the departure of that campus media outlet, like those of its peers, was all but inevitable.

They were too slow. Deep investigative reporting takes weeks, but hot topics cool down within hours.

They were too unruly. Student reporters lack "a proper sense of restraint," and tend to push the boundaries.

They were too idealistic. In the age of AI, they still believe that "journalism should record the truth."

So they had to yield, in the name of "safety," "efficiency," and "stability."

But stepping aside doesn’t mean disappearing.

An anthropologist once said that each of us is a convergence of elements in the world, a temporary convergence under historical conditions. There are things that must yield to reality’s demands, and spaces that need to be repurposed. But stepping aside doesn’t mean leaving nothing behind, like a certain quality, a certain spirit.

The scent of hotpot

That campus media outlet could be wiped off the servers, but its deep influence on a generation of people can’t be deleted.

The habit of asking tough questions honed in pitch meetings, the empathy cultivated through interviewing, the patience gained through writing … these "aromas" will linger throughout their lives.

Some became journalists, some teachers, some entrepreneurs. Some sit in offices, staring blankly at blank documents. But they all remember that "hotpot," and those indelible words: "To enduring insight."

Perhaps all we can do for now is preserve the fragments that can still be found: screenshots, PDFs, print editions, residual back-end data. Gather the fragments, and piece together the memories.

Then: wait.

Wait for a day when spring comes again. Wait for a day when the flame’s lit under a new hotpot. Wait for a day when young people can sit together again and debate what stories should be covered, believing in the power of words and in "striving to capture complex truth in elegant prose."

An Exquisite Heart [an allusion to Shang Dynasty minister Bi Gan, executed for his candid criticism of the ruler]

We’ve hit rock bottom. Renmin University student publication Youth, Peking University’s Here, our own Xueren, they’re all gone, though something of them lives on.

This is an attitude I came to after living through some life-and-death experiences. Compared with challenges like that, I have no real complaints about most things, only a slight sense of regret.

What’s regrettable is that there’s one less training ground for young people who might have become journalists, authors, or social commentators. What’s regrettable is that there’s one less channel for telling the stories of delivery drivers, retired athletes, and marginalized people on campus.

But regret is not the end of it.

Through their 20 years of story selection, newsgathering, and drafting, the young people of that campus media outlet set a standard of curiosity, intellectual inquiry, and consideration for others. This standard isn’t bound to a particular building, title, or motto. It’s in the generations of people who passed through it.

Those of you who carry the “aroma” of that hotpot have scattered to the four corners of the earth.

Some are in media, doggedly pursuing deep investigations; some are in education, assuring students that their viewpoints matter; some are in the public benefit sector, busying themselves on behalf of underprivileged groups. Some are just ordinary people, but when they see injustice, they might still subconsciously ask the question: "Why?"

That’s the seed.

There’s no need for a spectacular comeback, just for preserving the habit of asking questions, the capacity for empathy, and the belief in the power of words among the cracks and corners of everyday life.

(As this story "went to press," the RedNote thread reporting the account’s disappearance was also “disappeared.” What are they so afraid of?)

Postscript: The age of AI, a new enemy, and what it means to be human

Having covered those ten years, this piece should end here.

But the story’s not over. Bitterness and difficulty are part of writing’s essence. The delete key is always the first to wear out, and the callus where you grip the pen is always the thickest. Maintaining your focus on writing and avoiding paralysis by perfectionism is an ongoing struggle to avoid losing your intuition for words, your perception of new phenomena, and your awareness of “what it means to be you.” Technological innovation can enforce higher productivity, but when it comes to crafting words that exhibit depth of thought, or political precision, or genuine warmth—that kind of writing requires a human being behind it.

If you’re writing about comprehensive rural revitalization, and don’t stand at the edge of the fields to see how the wheat seedlings are growing and how moist the soil is, you can’t convey the implacable urgency of the agricultural cycle. If you’re reporting on people’s livelihoods, and don’t listen to the old folks’ chatter in neighborhoods, villages, and towns, you can’t understand the dialectic that links day-to-day concerns with the big picture. If you’re writing a draft on risk governance without digging into "trouble zones” or wandering the “back alleyways,” you can’t gain a visceral understanding of the problems at hand.

AI can boil down a hundred reports to a single summary, but it can never take the place of a person squatting at the entrance to a courier station, waiting for an interviewee who’s willing to talk. It can mimic anyone’s voice, but it can never write about how something struck "me" at the instant of perception.

As long as there are people out there earnestly haggling over phrasing late at night, too excited by their subject to sleep, as long as there’s someone who believes that "this is worth writing about," then "The Snowman" has not yet melted. Bolstered by this era of big data, it will certainly be resurrected in a new, non-commercial form. When that time comes, it will certainly be a mighty and irresistible force, and everyone will be able to share in the joy that was once ours.

Of this I am certain.

Those outlets have faded, but have taken new forms, and will continue to grow.

Information in parts of this article is based on material from publications including the ‘Campus Media Development Report’ and ‘Chinese Higher Education Communications Media Unified Survey.’ All people are referred to using pseudonyms. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy in the timeline and details; your understanding is requested in the event of any discrepancies. [Chinese]

On May 22, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced that it would punish three popular stock-trading apps (Futu, Tiger Brokers and Long Bridge) for offering mainland Chinese investors access to overseas stocks without licenses. This was followed by the news that some banks in Hong Kong, seeking to comply with Beijing’s crackdown on capital flows, would require mainland clients seeking to open investment accounts to sign a ⁠declaration confirming their funds come from overseas rather than China.

At South China Morning Post, Zhang Shidong reported on the new restrictions and what they bode for Hong Kong’s stock market and for mainland investors:

The sweeping campaign may affect between HK$150 billion to HK$180 billion worth of assets owned by mainland Chinese investors with Hong Kong stock accounts at Futu Securities International, Tian Liang, chief financial analyst at Citic Securities, said in a note on Sunday. Between an estimated HK$45 billion and HK$50 billion of similar assets at Tiger Brokers could also be affected, he said, totaling around HK$250 billion worth of assets in Hong Kong when including amounts from other brokerages, such as Long Bridge Securities, which were affected by the crackdown, according to the report.

[…] The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) made an abrupt move on Friday to punish Futu, Tiger Brokers and Long Bridge for offering mainland Chinese investors trading access to overseas stocks without licenses. Gains from the unlicensed trades were confiscated by the regulator at all three organisations, and they were given two years to clean up the accounts, during which time stock buying would be prohibited and only selling would be allowed.

The move marks an escalation in a campaign that began at the end of 2022, when the CSRC first focused on unlicensed trading by banning Futu and its peers from adding new clients on the mainland. [Source]

CDT Chinese editors have compiled a selection of comments, translated below, from Xiaohongshu (RedNote) and X in response to the new policies. Some commenters bemoaned the fact that yet another investment avenue seems to have been cut off for mainland investors, and wondered why the announced retroactive audits of brokerage accounts would only go back three years, to January of 2023. Others suggested that Hong Kong’s economic policy is now being dictated by Beijing, and that Hong Kong’s loss of stature as a financial capital will likely be Singapore’s gain. Many commenters offered sardonic praise for the “wisdom” of these restrictive new financial policies:

Momo: Bummer that you can’t choose where you were born.

BLANC: Even assuming you can still make money on U.S. stocks, it’s getting harder to open an account.

别瞅: A financial system in ruins. [referring to Hong Kong]

Lord21: Hong Kong, a district of Shenzhen.

ALEX: “Asia’s financial hub”

牛哥: Singapore says: Turns out we can win without lifting a finger!

黑龙江小助手: The audits are only retroactive for three years? Shouldn’t that be “three decades”? [This refers to 2024 reports that China’s State Taxation Administration had conducted retroactive corporate tax audits going back twenty or even thirty years.]

Sth.Crazy: So they’re just going to ignore everything before January 2023? Seriously?

好想快啲退休: Exactly, now be a good little boy and do what mother says.

徐磊: Seems pointless to go there [HK] now. They’ll just ask where your money comes from, and if it’s from the mainland, odds are you won’t be allowed to open a brokerage account, anyway.

北山北下种番茄: Retail investors are state-owned assets. Futu and Tiger Brokers caused a hemorrhage of state-owned assets, so they deserve to be struck hard. I fully support this!

骆驼的咖啡馆: Now these funds will flow back in to prop up domestic markets …

JH@dream: I’m more worried about Hong Kong stocks. As a long-term Tencent shareholder, should I bail out ASAP? U.S. stocks probably won’t take much of a hit, but Hong Kong stocks are definitely going to go belly up.

two3pro: Capital flows follow their own logic. Meddling will only backfire.

xpnikapax: Excellent! Now we can finally achieve that laudable goal: “Don’t let capital flow abroad—everyone’s happier at home!”

realjiucai: How many more signals do slow-on-the-uptake people need before they get it: Hong Kong is done for!

twyard2013: Who’d have thought? They’re even nationalizing “the chives.” [Chinese]

On May 26, Bloomberg reported another type of outward-bound restriction—overseas travel for certain top Chinese AI professionals will now reportedly be subject to government approval:

China is restricting overseas travel for top AI professionals in private firms such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and DeepSeek, suggesting an escalation in measures intended to safeguard its technology and catch up to the US in a pivotal sphere.

Government agencies have begun imposing restrictions on individuals involved in advanced AI work and considered strategically important to the country, people familiar with the matter said. That means they need approval from relevant authorities before embarking on overseas travel, the people said, asking for anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

Beijing has for years imposed travel restrictions on key personnel from prominent college researchers to nuclear scientists and executives at state firms. The government is now specifically targeting talent within the AI sphere. Among the key industry professionals who’ve been informed they’ll be subject to such restrictions are a mix of startup founders, researchers and executives, the people said. [Source]

The news that the nation’s top AI engineers would now be regarded by the Chinese government as “strategic assets” was met with incredulity online, and speculation about whether this would undermine Chinese AI companies efforts to recruit and retain talent. A selection of online comments on the topic, from Xiaohongshu (RedNote) and X, are translated below:

giantcutie666: I thought it was a rumor, but turns out it’s actually a Bloomberg report. What genius came up with the brilliant idea of restricting top talent from leaving the country?

djkfxs: Damn, didn’t this sort of treatment used to apply only to government and SOE employees? Why are they doing it to private companies now?

james17_Canada: The CCP thinks that locking talented people up like prisoners means they’ll still be able to come with amazing inventions and innovations. It’s the height of idiocy.

old5: The flow of talent follows the direction of civilization.

shhhsjmm: The unspoken implication of this "exit requires approval" policy is terrifying: in this country, if your skills are considered valuable, you will forever be deprived of your freedom of movement. Your brain belongs to the rulers, and your rights are worth nothing.

xpnikapax: Don’t try to make a “run” for it, bros. The government has blocked off your escape routes. Just hunker down and “involute” at home.

BelloKevinBob: It’s looking more and more like the Cultural Revolution, when the country was closed off, and only top officials got to travel abroad. [Chinese]