Lots of tough but important questions in @yaqiu.bsky.social exploration of the way dependence on USG funding shapes China human rights advocacy. Haven't seen anything before that attempts this kind of blunt cost/benefit analysis. www.chinafile.com/reporting-op...

To Ensure a More Sustainable Future, Human Rights Work on China Should Move Away from U.S. Government Funding

Last month, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia announced that it had resumed broadcasts to audiences in China, after cuts under the Trump administration last year largely forced the outlet to ...

chinafile.com

-Zero Congressional consultation or approval. -Zero preparation of public for need/consequences of war. -Zero evidence of thought about "OK, what might the other side do?" Next month. Next year. -Zero mention of anti-nuke agreement Trump voided, or Trump claim last year that nukes "obliterated."

Just want to note that 3am in Washington is like 11:30am in Tehran. The American people are the ones he snuck up on in the dead of night to conduct this illegal attack, not the purported enemy.

In the latest update from Hǎi海 (a new thing we have in the works) @goldkorn.bsky.social has a laugh with comedian Jiaoying Summers

It’s the Year of the Horse and Comedian Jiaoying Summers is Riding Hǎi

Global China stories, global Chinese voices, and the latest community events around the world.

open.substack.com

Great piece, glad this got a big chunk of real estate in NYT Opinion

Lydia Polgreen@polgreen.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I went to Minneapolis last week. What I saw was horrifying and inspiring in equal measure. Gift link to my latest column: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/o...

I have revered Zha Jianying since I first read China Pop in the late 90s and it was was the greatest to work with her + @goldkorn.bsky.social on her part-memoir, part polemical lament, "Trains." Here's a short interview we did about the project.

ChinaFile@chinafile.bsky.social · 7mo ago

"my grandfather told her in great detail about that train station farewell, how they parted and his French wife was holding this baby girl and waving this white scarf until they disappeared and none of them knew this was going to be forever…"

An ICE agent shot and killed a person in Minneapolis on Wednesday, federal authorities said. The shooting in a residential neighborhood comes days after the Trump administration ramped up the agency’s presence in the city. Follow live updates. nyti.ms/4qgGgYU

By most rankings, DC is not even in top 20 or 30 most dangerous US cities, in per capita crime rates. And DC rates declining. "Still far more dangerous than it should be"? Sure. But so is NEARLY EVERY big US city. Dozens of them much much more than DC. No, Trump is not "right."

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · 12mo ago

Although crime is declining, Washington is still far more dangerous than it should be, Charles Fain Lehman argues. Instead of just looking tough, “the administration should focus its resources on the people and places that make the District unusually unsafe.” https://theatln.tc/6RCOGO23

New report from ChinaFile takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how information is controlled in China "...imagining China’s censorship system as a “wall” mistakes its true nature. The system isn’t static, it’s dynamic, multipart, and adaptable—and concerned with far more than […]

Good read: a detailed and accessible report published on @chinafile by Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson on China's internet censorship system, known as the "Locknet" locknet.chinafile.com/the-locknet/...

Thanks @robbiebarnett.bsky.social for referring to work by @bennoweiner.bsky.social and me for this ChinaFile discussion on the Dalai Lama’s succession www.chinafile.com/conversation...

中国网络控制已演化为智能舆论控制系统。ChinaFile最新研究显示，中国的网络控制早已超越传统"防火墙"概念，形成了一套协同运作的系统化舆论控制机制。在国家层面，中共通过立法、监管与技术手段设定控制底线，对各大平台施压执行监管，决定舆论是否推广或是屏蔽。平台层面，社交媒体平台主动筛查敏感内容，通过屏蔽、下架、限流等方式进行主动过滤或推广，形成算法式维稳。社会层面，通过实名制、自我审查、举报文化的普及，让所有人都参与到言论审查中。这套系统可根据政治敏感程度灵活调控，让每个人成为审查者和传播者。令人担忧的是，这种治理模式正通过中国科技平台的海外扩张，逐步影响和侵蚀全球网络自由空间。

One of the things I was most excited that we got to do for the Locknet report was to produce these explainers of how the internet actually works. It’s not magic!

Asia Society @asiasociety.org · last yr.

How do the components of the Internet work together? @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social and Jessica Batke discuss what they learned over the course of their investigation into China's online censorship system. Read the full report on @chinafile.bsky.social. locknet.chinafile.com/the-locknet/...

Amazing work here. One of the smartest and most comprehensive reports ever done on Chinese censorship -- a topic that's going to become so much more relevant as DeepSeek and other Chinese LLMs continue to grab territory

ChinaFile@chinafile.bsky.social · last yr.

NEW: A ChinaFile investigation into China's powerful, but leaky, internet censorship system at locknet.chinafile.com 1/21

👇 "The [PRC censorship] system...intertwines human and machine into a complex apparatus that pervades the online and offline worlds/At the same time, the system is a resource-constrained, best-guess, partially-deployed patchwork, every component of which is imperfect and subject to failure"

ChinaFile@chinafile.bsky.social · last yr.

NEW: A ChinaFile investigation into China's powerful, but leaky, internet censorship system at locknet.chinafile.com 1/21

The charge on this man’s record is driving without a license. Now he’s locked up in what he calls a “Hispanic concentration camp” www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-d...

Thought provoking and informative piece by @shellyk.bsky.social for @chinafile.bsky.social www.chinafile.com/reporting-op...

Balancing What Can Be Said with What Can Only Be Implied

The young Uyghur filmmaker Ikram Nurmehmet is now in a Chinese prison for “actively participating in terrorist activities.” He was likely targeted because he had studied in Turkey between 2010 and 201...

chinafile.com

1/2 You could write a book about one atrocious headline in print NYT today (I sort of wrote this book 30 years ago, Breaking the News, but others can take a turn.) What's wrong this headline? Mamdani "faces scrutiny" **ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY** because NYT decided to make this a "thing." Really bad.

The accurate headline on the story would have been "Mamdani Identified as Asian and Ugandan on College Application"

Tom Scocca@tomscocca.bsky.social · last yr.

What the Times' reporting revealed was in fact that Mamdani, born in Uganda to a Ugandian-Indian father and an Indian mother, had answered a question asking about his ethnic identity by checking the boxes for "Asian" and "African American or Black" and then writing in "Ugandan."

On July 2, the Dalai Lama released a statement about the process of selecting his successor. What's going to happen next? A ChinaFile Conversation with Ian Johnson, Isabel Hilton, Tashi Rabgey, and Robert Barnett: www.chinafile.com/co...

The Dalai Lama’s Succession | ChinaFile

How might the battle over succession play out over the coming months? If the Dalai Lama announces a successor, how will Beijing respond? How robust is the institutional framework for maintaining legitimacy without the Chinese government’s recognition, and what are its potential vulnerabilities? What are the ramifications for China’s relationship with India, which hosts the

chinafile.com

NEW: A ChinaFile investigation into China's powerful, but leaky, internet censorship system at locknet.chinafile.com 1/21

So looking forward to interviewing Leslie Tai about this surprising and riveting film. I first saw it last year, can't wait to see it again, and hope you'll come watch it with us.

Asia Society New York@newyork.asiasociety.org · last yr.

On June 25, @chinafile.bsky.social presents a screening of 'How To Have An American Baby,' a "kaleidoscopic voyage into the booming shadow economy" catering to birth tourism from China to the U.S. Followed by a Q&A with director Leslie Tai and @susanjakes.bsky.social. asiasociety.org/new-york/eve...

#bebest

“I don’t even know if they can give me this visa that I just got.” We spoke with student visa applicants in Beijing following the Trump administration’s announcement that it would begin “aggressively” revoking the visas of Chinese students.

Chinese Students Are Frustrated With U.S. Visa Bans: ‘What Now?’

nytimes.com

Lemme explain what bilateral trade deficits are, so that you can better understand -- and perhaps be infuriated by -- the intellectual error that's transforming our economy. #TeachEcon

On June 25, @chinafile.bsky.social presents a screening of 'How To Have An American Baby,' a "kaleidoscopic voyage into the booming shadow economy" catering to birth tourism from China to the U.S. Followed by a Q&A with director Leslie Tai and @susanjakes.bsky.social. asiasociety.org/new-york/eve...

ChinaFile Presents: ‘How to Have an American Baby,’ a Film Screening and Discussion

Join ChinaFile for a screening of 'How to Have an American Baby,' followed by discussion with the filmmaker, Leslie Tai.

asiasociety.org

I don’t think you can be too pro technocrat. But if it is an offense, I guess I’ll cop to it. The US population had a good thing and discarded it for (generously) a pack of snake oil salesmen.

Aster Olsen@asterolsen.bsky.social · last yr.

Not to be too pro technocrat, but it is astounding how much this country depended on the selflessness of like a few hundred thousand highly educated public servants who, for peanuts, made sure our food and medicine and environment etc were safe. And in return these servants were demonized.

In China people have long counseled keeping quiet to stay safe. China scholar Michael Berry now finds himself giving thay advice to his foreign students in America-https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/notes-chinafile/cautioning-his-students-stay-quiet-scholar-of-china-hears-echoes

Cautioning His Students to Stay Quiet, A Scholar of China Hears Echoes of Its Past in America's Present

For several generations now, the overriding philosophy of life for many Chinese intellectuals and average citizens has been “mingzhe baoshen,” (明哲保身) which dictionaries define as “a wise man looks aft...

chinafile.com

This is the person who has the official power to judge whether the available evidence says he should launch nuclear weapons

Tom Scocca@tomscocca.bsky.social · last yr.

The fraud was supposed to just be the claim that the string of tattoos secretly meant "M-S-1-3" but the idea that explanatory text can be added to a picture was too subtle and complicated for his melted brain so he invented a whole even dumber fraud to believe in