(Updated June 2024)
A new independent Chinese movie – about an unfinished film that focuses on unfinished business during the pandemic – has turned the spotlight back on Covid-19 and China’s response to a pandemic that has left deep divisions in society.
An Unfinished Film, by director Lou Ye – who is known for his straightforward portrayals of problematic events in contemporary China, including the controversial Covid lockdowns that began in Wuhan in early 2020 – was shown at a special screening on May 16 at the annual Cannes Film Festival in France.
The movie has not been approved for public screenings in China and it is doubtful it would be, according to industry insiders, as content related to the film has already been removed from the internet there. However, those efforts had not stopped nationalistic condemnation of the film, with some labelling the director a “traitor” who panders to the West.
Much of the film focuses on the mobile phone screen of a film crew member character. On the phone, the audience sees actual news reports and short videos that were posted during the Covid-19 pandemic in China between 2020 and 2022 – most of which were later removed by censors.
When Guan Moye – better known by his pen name Mo Yan – became the first Chinese citizen to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012, he was the pride of the nation.The prize seemed to defy what many in China regarded as the Nobel Foundation’s long-standing anti-Beijing ideology and its tradition of celebrating dissidents of the ruling Communist Party.
When Chinese-born Gao Xingjian won the prize in 2000, he was a French citizen whose work had been banned in China since the 1980s. He never returned to China after he offended Beijing by sympathising with the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
Guan is no dissident. He is part of a state-funded association of writers and spent five years on the country’s top political advisory body.
His novels paint a nuanced portrait of Chinese society, and while they include criticism of China’s family planning policy, those works seem to have stayed within the red line set by Beijing.
When people enter the All Sages Bookstore in Beijing, the first thing they see is the shop slogan “liberation through reading”. Going deeper into the bookshelves, they will see book categories labelled “freedom, democracy and constitutionalism”.
In the corner of the bookstore are baskets of flowers, including some from dissidents previously convicted by Chinese authorities, to celebrate its recent relocation.
The scene may appear jarring in 2024, around a decade into a fight against perceived “Western values” – including constitutionalism, judicial independence and press freedom – by the Communist Party under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.
And yet the bookshop, which has been open for more than 30 years in Haidian, Beijing’s technology and education hub, still thrives selling academic books on political science, history and sociology, including many translated works of Western ideas.
On the last day of 2023, All Sages Bookstore was given new life in its most recent relocation to a major shopping centre, surrounded by prestigious universities, research institutes and tech companies.
On a chilly afternoon in late November, 16-year-old Bruce finished his morning shift at a coffee shop in a busy shopping district in Beijing and returned to his unusual rented flat in the northeastern suburbs of China’s capital.
The 18 square metre flat that Bruce (not his real name) lives in was once a temporary Covid-19 hospital. It resembles a standard room in a cheap hotel with a single bed, air conditioning, a TV and a bathroom.
It still contains clues to its original role. Buildings were assembled from containers, wire fences remain outside and the occasional medical waste bag and Covid-19 slogan are visible.
Chinese feminists fear a chilling effect and more restrictions as the journalist who helped to ignite China’s #MeToo movement stood trial recently, and now faces years in jail.
Journalist and feminist activist Sophia Huang Xueqin and her friend, labour activist Wang Jianbing, have been in detention for two years.
They stand accused of “inciting subversion of state power” and were tried in the southern city of Guangzhou on September 22, according to friends.
Hollywood’s latest comedy Barbie has stirred up a rare wave of discussion about women’s rights in China.Directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the film tells the story of dolls Barbie and Ken as they leave Barbie Land and travel to the real world on a journey of self-discovery.
Among other things, the movie pokes fun at the huge gap between Barbie Land, where women fill all the positions of power ranging from president, supreme court judges and top writers, to the real world, where “man rules the world” – which character Ken says in one scene in disbelief.
Since hitting mainland cinemas on July 21, the film’s box office earnings, which stood at 140 million yuan (US$19.6 million) as of Friday, are relatively low in China’s movie-going market, which has boomed since the lifting of Covid-19 control measures in December.
But Barbie, which entered the Chinese market under a strict quota for foreign movies and movie censorship imposed by film regulators, has seen discussion around the film and its themes gain momentum. At the heart of that discussion is the film’s presentation of toxic masculinity and its support of feminism.It comes at a time when Chinese women are arguably least represented among the ruling elite. For the first time in decades, there are no women in the 24-member Politburo after the decision-making body was unveiled in October.
A new textbook to be taught at Chinese universities cites political division in the West to justify Beijing’s ethnic integration policies, whose focus has shifted from minorities to “all ethnic groups”.
The book, An Introduction to the Community for the Chinese Nation, was published in February and will soon be listed as a compulsory text at many universities, as is the case with courses on Marxism and Xi Jinping Thought.
Observers say it is the most direct articulation of China’s ethnic integration policies since President Xi Jinping first coined the term “a sense of community for the Chinese nation” in 2014.
They also say it signals that affirmative action for ethnic minority groups will be further rolled back as Beijing backs down from emphasising the distinctive qualities of those groups.
The book argues that after the 1970s, under the influence of neoliberalism in the West, “antagonisms between various groups based on subnational and subcultural identities have continued to grow, with racial and ethnic tensions being particularly intense”.
A decade after President Xi Jinping called for “a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” as the cornerstone of his ethnic affairs policy, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region has emerged as a model for implementing the leader’s vision.
The region in northern China, bordered by the country of Mongolia in the north, prides itself on its efforts to assimilate its ethnic minority groups – mainly Mongols – with the rest of the Chinese population while promoting a single national identity.The measures include the compulsory use of Mandarin as the teaching language in schools, censorship of art and cultural works, and repealing local laws that do not align with the ethnic affairs policy.
While Inner Mongolia has trumpeted its success, analysts have raised concerns that the policies could weaken the identity of ethnic minority groups. They say the region’s policies are a sign of things to come for China’s other autonomous regions.
As Xinjiang held its annual “two sessions” political meetings this week, the far western region tried to open up to outsiders by inviting overseas media and diplomats to the opening ceremonies of its advisory body and legislature.
But only a select few got a look behind the curtain.
The annual sessions of the political advisory body and legislature of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region began on Monday at the People’s Hall of Xinjiang in the regional capital Urumqi.
It is the first time the region has invited delegations from outside mainland China to attend its key political event of the year, according to the Xinjiang government, which is aiming to improve its international image amid allegations of human rights abuses and forced labour.
China’s official media has dramatically increased its use of the term “Xizang”, rather than “Tibet”, when referring to the autonomous region in western China in English articles, after a white paper on Tibet was released by China’s cabinet, the State Council, in early November.
The white paper, titled “CPC Policies on the Governance of Xizang in the New Era: Approach and Achievements”, outlines developments in Tibet since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.
It is the latest in a series of white papers on Tibet issued by the State Council Information Office, usually designed to showcase Tibet’s economic, livelihood and cultural development under Communist Party leadership. But it was the first in the series to use “Xizang” as the English translation for the Tibet autonomous region.
“Xizang” is the pinyin, or Chinese romanisation, of the Mandarin script for “Tibet”.
The Chinese Communist Party’s annual Central Committee plenums are arguably the most important political event of the year.
The decisions and goals announced at the meeting will be followed up by a wide range of government agencies with specific policies and timelines.
The gatherings usually see the attendance of the Central Committee, which consists of over 370 full and alternate members who hold key party and state positions, including members of the Politburo, ministers, provincial party secretaries, senior generals and heads of state-owned enterprises.
Despite the opaqueness around the gathering, a rough pattern has emerged over the past four decades. This is how they generally operate.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned top cadres to get ahead of political risks, saying a “butterfly effect” could turn small threats into big dangers.
Xi conveyed the message to senior officials at an internal meeting in February, but the comments were only made public earlier this month in a book released by Central Party Literature Press.
“Now, various risks and dangers are highly correlated, strongly linked and rapidly transmitted. A little carelessness can cause a butterfly effect,” Xi told hundreds of senior officials at the meeting on February 7.
“Small risks will become big risks, risks will become general risks, and economic and social risks will become political risks.”
In the speech, Xi also asked officials to “identify risks early, act quickly, take command at the front and make immediate judgments as soon as they arise”.
China’s legislature is set to amend its emergency law, which experts fear may pose fresh restrictions on press coverage of disasters and accidents by Chinese media.China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), released a draft amendment to the Emergency Response Law for consideration on Friday, which stipulates that “no institution or individual shall fabricate or spread false information about emergencies on purpose”.
The draft proposes the establishment of a “news interviewing and reporting system”, as well as “supporting news media to do reporting”, without elaborating on what that means.
Lawyers and experts argue that the proposed Article 34 would give grass roots police – who operate at the county level – unevenly large powers which could be abused. They also expressed concern that it could add more oxygen to extreme nationalism.
The three-week trial was the first of its kind and brought the process out into the open.
In a US federal court in Brooklyn, prosecutors and witnesses laid out the case against Chinese nationals Zhu Yong and Zheng Congying and private investigator Michael McMahon.
The men were accused – and found guilty – of stalking a family in New Jersey on behalf of the Chinese government.
Their main target was Xu Jin, a former Chinese official wanted in China on suspicion of bribery and abuse of power, and one of thousands pursued as part of “Operation Fox Hunt”, Beijing’s massive campaign to chase down fugitives abroad.
The campaign is nearly a decade old but it is only really until now – in the US court – that the methods behind it have come to light.
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