Land sales measures, foreign investment data and unemployment indicators have gone dark in recent years. Data on cremations and a business confidence index have been cut off. Even official soy sauce production reports are gone.

In all, Chinese officials have stopped publishing hundreds of data points once used by researchers and investors, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

In most cases, Chinese authorities haven’t given any reason for ending or withholding data. But the missing numbers have come as the world’s second biggest economy has stumbled under the weight of excessive debt, a crumbling real-estate market and other troubles—spurring heavy-handed efforts by authorities to control the narrative.

[…] Some data are still publicly available but harder to get. Beijing passed a law in 2021 that caused data providers to make certain information—such as corporate registry data and satellite images—accessible only in mainland China.

[….] Some information that has disappeared defies explanation. Data providing estimates of the size of elementary school toilets stopped being released in 2022, then resumed publication in February. Official soy sauce production data stopped appearing in May 2021, and hasn’t returned. [Source]

Another reminder of the unreliability of China’s official statistics came in March after the U.S. announced that its embassies around the world would cease publishing data about local air quality. This long-running transparency initiative began in 2008 when the U.S. Embassy in Beijing shared real-time information about toxic levels of PM2.5 microparticles in the capital’s air. The Chinese Foreign Ministry later complained that because the U.S. data conflicted with China’s (which measured only larger PM10 particles), they were causing “confusion” and undesirable “social consequences.” Under pressure, the Chinese government eventually established its own PM2.5 monitoring system, admitted that air pollution was a significant problem, and took greater corrective measures. However, there is still insufficient transparency in this domain. A recent paper in the journal Nature revealed notable discrepancies between China’s annual and monthly official statistics regarding CO2 emissions between 2014 and 2020 when calculating near real-time estimates of those emissions.

Shaky statistics such as those help Chinese state media’s external propaganda. In an article from March titled “Fact Check: What Western media get wrong about China’s economy,” Xinhua argued that “Western media’s relentless fixation on peddling narratives of China’s economic doom demonstrates their entrenched bias and agenda-driven reporting. Contrary to those claims, […] key economic indicators showed significant improvement” in China’s economy. Western reporting aside, China’s official annual GDP growth rates have been widely seen as misleading, generating doubts about the true state of the Chinese economy. In March, Nicholas R. Lardy and Tianlei Huang at the Peterson Institute for International Economics noted that while China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has improved the quality of certain macroeconomic data—such as fixed asset investment, international trade in goods, household income and expenditure, and value-added in financial services—it continues to selectively withhold other important information:

The paradox of China’s economic data thus lies in its dual character: The disappearance of certain data points, sometimes those related to economic weakness, raise concerns about the authority’s selective transparency. Yet at the same time, Beijing has better aligned its data with international standards and improved their quality. While its push for quality improvements shows its commitment to more reliable statistics, its selective withholding of information inevitably undermines confidence in the overall picture. If Beijing really wants to build trust in its economic data, it needs to ensure greater transparency, even though some statistics may expose vulnerabilities in its economy. [Source]

Last November, Vincent Brussee published an article in The China Quarterly about the “missingness” of Chinese policy documents. Among the hundreds of thousands of policy documents he scraped from official sources between 2021 and 2023, nearly 20 percent were unavailable two years after their publication. Within the latter group, 10 percent were unavailable due to issues uploading the websites, 7.7 percent due to broken links, and 1.9 percent had been intentionally deleted. Brussee described the implications of these findings for researchers’ knowledge base of China:

As this paper demonstrates, there is significant variation in policy transparency and document availability over time. Transparency originally improved between 2008 and the mid-2010s. Today, however, transparency is in decline in several fields, especially in fields where there are related geopolitical tensions. There is also significant variation among types of documents, with top-level policies seeing significantly higher disclosure rates than lower-level documents. Variation among topics appears primarily in the extent to which a topic is related to national security or citizens’ daily lives. Finally, disappearance of documents is a real challenge for research. Thus, studies working with policy data must be open about how they mitigate missingness.

[…] This paper invites broader reflection on the fragility of our knowledge base and the use of convenient datasets in China studies. Policy documents are not propaganda, yet the fact that all these data are available to “us” also suggests that their availability serves a political purpose. The developments highlighted throughout this paper suggests that this curation of information sources is only likely to intensify. Understanding the context in which these sources are produced and what can – and, more importantly, cannot – be learned from them is crucial. [Source]

CDT has covered numerous incidents of Chinese sources publishing, and often later censoring, official data in ways that many netizens deem questionable. The following is a non-exhaustive list of examples from the past two years.

• January 2025: After online sleuths found numerous examples of data fraud in clinical trials for generic drugs in China, China’s National Medical Products Administration claimed the data irregularities were simply “editing errors” and then blocked access to the data.
• December 2024: Viral video and transcripts of two unusually critical speeches about the accuracy of official statistics on the Chinese economy—by economists Gao Shanwen and Fu Peng, respectively—were deleted from multiple Chinese social media platforms, and the economists’ WeChat accounts were shut down.
• August 2024: After the State Council Information Office hosted a series of press conferences intended to showcase government accomplishments using optimistic statistics, some netizens sardonically mentioned “launching Sputniks” or “10,000 catties per mu,” phrases that reference the insanely optimistic targets and grossly exaggerated rice and grain yields reported by localities during the Great Leap Forward.
• July 2024: Public access to a tanker-truck tracking app was suspended after investigative reports revealed that cooking oil was being transported in fuel-oil tanker trucks that were not washed between transports.
• April 2024: The NBS announcement of a high nationwide average per-capita disposable income led many netizens to mock this “daily dose of humor” and wonder, “When can I expect to receive my portion of this increase?”
• February 2024: A Guangzhou research center’s public opinion poll on the state of the private economy, the outlook for employment, and current incomes showed the largest drop in public satisfaction in 30 years. A post about the poll was deleted from WeChat.
• August 2023: After youth unemployment hit a record 21.3 percent, the government stopped publishing data on the subject and online censors targeted discussion of unemployment.
• July 2023: A report on provincial cremation statistics was removed from Zhejiang’s government website and discussion of the statistics were censored on Q&A site Zhihu, after the central government stopped publishing cremation data.
• June 2023: A series of infographics from Sohu News highlighting poverty, youth unemployment, and other social issues, using statistics mostly drawn from government sources, were scrubbed from Weibo.
• May 2023: Media outlets reported that China’s top financial data provider, Wind Information, began restricting foreign access to its data in 2022, and company information databases Qichacha and Tianyancha also shut down access for foreign users.
• January 2023: After the NBS announced China’s sharp population decline, the state-affiliated Beijing Business Today reported on a survey purporting to show that “80% of university students would like to have two children,” drawing online mockery about the misleading results.

For more on this topic, see CDT’s archives related to data and statistics, and our interview with Jeremy Wallace about data manipulation in China. (This CDT post from May 2024 also contains a related timeline about censorship of economic content in China, which includes but is not limited to content about official statistics.)

Although physical attacks against journalists are the most visible violations of press freedom, economic pressure is also a major, more insidious problem. The economic indicator on the RSF World Press Freedom Index now stands at an unprecedented, critical low as its decline continued in 2025. As a result, the global state of press freedom is now classified as a “difficult situation” for the first time in the history of the Index.

[…] For over ten years, the Index’s results have warned of a worldwide decline in press freedom. In 2025, a new low point emerged: the average score of all assessed countries fell below 55 points, falling into the category of a “difficult situation.” More than six out of ten countries (112 in total) saw their overall scores decline in the Index.

For the first time in the history of the Index, the conditions for practising journalism are “difficult” or “very serious” in over half of the world’s countries and satisfactory in fewer than one in four.

[…] Out of the 32 countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region, 20 have seen their economic score decline in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index. The systemic media control in authoritarian regimes is often inspired by China’s propaganda model. China (178th) remains the world’s largest jail for journalists and reentered the bottom trio of the Index, coming just ahead of North Korea (179th). Meanwhile, the concentration of media ownership in the hands of influential groups linked to those in power — as seen in India (151st) — combined with growing economic pressures even in established democracies, means that press freedom in the region faces mounting repression and increasing uncertainty. [Source]

For the first time, Hong Kong slipped into the “red zone,” or the lowest category of the index, alongside China. RSF also noted that Hong Kong is among the territories that now directs subsidies toward pro-government media. Tom Grundy from the Hong Kong Free Press reported on the city’s uniquely precipitous drop in the rankings:

“At RSF, we have never seen such a sharp and rapid deterioration in the press freedom record of any country or territory,” the watchdog’s Asia-Pacific Bureau Advocacy Officer Aleksandra Bielakowska⁩ told HKFP. “Today, Hong Kong increasingly resembles neighbouring China, the world’s largest prison for journalists.”

[…] Hong Kong saw sharp dips in all five of the watchdog’s indicators: political context, legal framework, economic context, socio-cultural context, and safety – adding up to a historic low score of 39.86.

The free expression NGO said: “The main factor behind this decline is the deterioration of the political indicator (-7.28 pts), notably due to the September 2024 conviction for ‘sedition’ of Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, former editors of Stand News. This is the first sedition case against the media since the UK handed over the territory in 1997.” [Source]

The 2025 RSF index of world press freedom is out.Hong Kong is ranked 140 out of 179, snuggly inbetween Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan. It is officially in the "red zone", together with China that is ranked 178. N-Korea is last. To put in context: HK was ranked 18, back in 2002.rsf.org/en/index

— lokman tsui (@lokman.org) 2025-05-02T06:57:31.409Z

HKFP is among the many media organizations facing the economic pressures highlighted by RSF:

HKFP has weathered threats, harassment, scrutiny from multiple government departments over the past year, but now facing a funding crunch. In full: buff.ly/ZxXDaLL

— Hong Kong Free Press HKFP (@hongkongfp.com) 2025-05-02T23:01:04.657Z

RSF’s Asia-Pacific advocacy manager Aleksandra Bielakowska highlighted how foreign media’s ability to operate in China has become severely limited, especially in borderland regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. She described it as “[n]ot just an authoritarian country, but a really totalitarian system where nobody can speak up, nobody can report on any issues.” “The difficulty is always safety as an exile media. Everybody is so afraid to talk with us and work with us,” said Shirley Leung Ka Lai, editor-in-chief of Photon Media from Hong Kong. She added that working anonymously creates obstacles for connecting with sources who are often reluctant to trust calls from unknown foreign numbers.

In a statement on Friday, The Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) of Hong Kong reaffirmed its support to journalists and stated that the day serves as a reminder to the city’s officials to respect their stated commitments regarding press freedom. Last month, the FCC released its Press Freedom Survey for 2025, which revealed a significant deterioration of working conditions for journalists in Hong Kong.

Of the 69 respondents, 43 (62%) said that their working environment as a journalist in Hong Kong had changed for the worse since July 2023, the time of the last press freedom survey. The National Security Law, its related trials, and the perceived exodus of international news organisations were mentioned as reasons for the change.

Respondents also noted that their sources have become more concerned about sharing their own opinions, with 44 (64%) saying that their sources are less willing to be quoted or discuss sensitive subjects.

Journalists are cautious about their own writing as well, with 45 (65%) saying they had self-censored in the last 18 months, and 12 (18%) saying they had self-censored “considerably”.

Ten respondents (16%) reported facing minor interference in their reporting, and one noted significant interference.

The perception of the media environment is also noteworthy, with four people (6%) saying they are “very concerned,” and 36 people (52%) being “slightly concerned” about the possibility of arrest or prosecution over their reporting or opinion articles or work they have edited. [Source]

For more on this topic, see CDT’s past coverage of press freedom in China and Hong Kong, including last year’s annual report of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, which showed a similar picture of surveillance, obstruction, and intimidation of journalists.

As marriage registrations in China continued to decline in the first quarter of the year, local governments have dangled cash rewards as high as 40,000 yuan (US$5,487) in front of young couples in a bid to rekindle the will to wed and stave off the worst of a demographic crisis.

In the first three months of 2025, 1.81 million couples registered for marriage, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said last week. This represents a decrease of 159,000 couples compared to the same period last year for an 8 per cent drop, with a simultaneous 10 per cent increase in the number of divorce registrations.

[...] Last year, China recorded the lowest number of new marriages since 1980; only 6.10 million couples in China tied the knot in 2024, down 20.5 per cent from 2023, according to the ministry. [Source]

Earlier this month, the government announced a revision to the marriage registration ordinance, the first since its enactment in 2003, that will reduce paperwork and give couples more flexibility to choose where to register their marriage, including in locations beyond their places of permanent residence. Last week, The Economist described how Hohhot and other cities have offered child-care subsidies as part of their pro-natalist push, but that these have been received without much enthusiasm:

In Hohhot, however, the uptake so far appears weak. On March 13th, with fanfare in national media, the city announced one of the biggest cash-for-kids schemes in the country. Mothers will now be paid 10,000 yuan for a first child, 50,000 yuan over five years for a second and 100,000 yuan over ten years for a third. That third-child reward is double the city’s average annual salary. But Hohhot is not offering much beyond the cash payments, and at one local office that processes subsidy registrations an employee said that they have received only seven or eight inquiries in the month since the policy announcement.

Ms Liu at the baby store, who is 35 and has one child, said she would like to have a second if she had more money, but the new incentives do not offset the lack of child-care support and the high costs of raising children in a competitive environment. “The policy might change the minds of people on the fence about having kids, but people like me won’t consider it,” she says.

For Ms Wu, a 29-year-old civil servant about to give birth to her first child, the 10,000 yuan “adds flowers to the brocade” and could help with her mortgage or car loan, but “50,000 yuan is not going to cover the costs of a second child”. It costs high-income families 1.3m yuan to raise a child to adulthood, estimates YuWa Population Research Institute, a think-tank in Beijing. The figure is more like 130,000 yuan for low-income families. Wang Feng of the University of California, Irvine, thinks Hohhot’s policy will not “make a dent” in the city’s population decline. “Babies cannot be bought,” he says. “The cost is lifelong and it’s not just monetary.” [Source]

Many Chinese women have balked at government plans to raise the birth rate. Even Xinhua shared a comment last week by one Weibo user who wrote, “If I were married, there’s no way I’d enjoy the kind of freedom I have now,” and another who wrote, “If I can’t find the right person, I’d rather stay single than settle.” One major impediment is that the government has also made it harder for couples to divorce. This was one of the main points made by behavioral economist Jia Yongmin, who recently published an opinion piece in Fengsheng OPINION discussing why China’s recent pro-matrimony policies are failing to persuade young people to get married:

In fact, increasing impediments to divorce have had a dissuasive effect on marriage. "Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out." The preceding quote comes from Qian Zhongshu’s [1947] masterpiece "Fortress Besieged." Although they are the words of a novelist, the theory behind them has been borne out by economic research.

A paper published by Hauert et al. in the journal Science proved that the freedom of participants to choose to withdraw is a necessary condition for the emergence and maintenance of cooperation. Marriage is undoubtedly a cooperative undertaking. Without the freedom to exit that "fortress besieged", there will surely be less incentive to enter it in the first place. [Chinese]

Highlighting another pro-natalist effort gone awry, women have reported receiving unsolicited WeChat messages from their local “family doctor,” apparently tasked with contacting women aged 14-49 in their district and asking them, “Has your period been normal recently? On what date did you last get your period? Please respond via text. Thank you!” According to screenshots of these messages on Chinese social media shared by Teacher Li, some netizens interpreted this as a call to have children. The incident is similar to reports from last fall that netizens had received calls from local government authorities asking, “Are you pregnant? Do you plan to be? Do you have a boyfriend?”

More promising approaches might be found elsewhere. Elsie Chen at the AP reported on Tuesday about how young Chinese singles are looking for love in video chats:

Frustrated with traditional dating and using the apps, Chen jumped on a new trend among young, single people in China. Those looking for love go into video chatrooms hosted by what’s called a “cyber matchmaker,” all while thousands of viewers watch and comment in real time.

The number of single people in China over 15 reached a record-high of 240 million in 2023, according to government data. Facing a plummeting birth rate and an aging population, the government encouraged single people to marry and have multiple children. Last year, the State Council, China’s cabinet, mandated that local governments build various platforms for youth to have more opportunities to date.

[...] For those who want to get married though, the livestreamed videos are an appealing alternative to traditional matchmaking methods, like marriage markets — where families exchange resumes and arrange dates for their unmarried children.

They’re also another option for those tired of dating apps. [Source]

As part of the investigation, ICIJ coordinated reporters across five continents to interview targets and analyze their cases. ICIJ also reviewed a 2004 Chinese police textbook and confidential guidelines for domestic security officers dating to 2013. The reporters then compared the tactics described in the internal documents with the experiences of the 105 targets, as well as with secretly recorded police interrogations, and phone calls and text messages between 11 security officers in China and nine targets overseas. The comparison shows the tactics recently deployed against the subjects mirrored the guidelines on how to control individuals labeled as domestic security threats.

Half of the targets interviewed by ICIJ and its media partners said the harassment extended to family members back home, who suffered intimidation and were interrogated by police or state security officials one or more times. Several victims told ICIJ that their family members in China or Hong Kong were harassed by police shortly after they had participated in protests or public events overseas. Sixty said they believed they had been followed or were targets of surveillance or spying by Chinese officials or their proxies; 27 said they were victims of an online smear campaign, and 19 said they had received suspicious messages or experienced hacking attempts, including by state actors. Some said their bank accounts in China and Hong Kong had been frozen. Officers from both the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security — two of the Chinese agencies with intelligence capacity — were responsible for intimidating some of the targets and their families, the testimonies show. Twenty-two people said they received physical threats or had been assaulted by civilian CCP supporters.

Most of those interviewed by ICIJ and its partners said they had not reported state-sponsored threats to the authorities in their adopted countries, explaining that they feared retaliation from China or didn’t have faith in authorities’ ability to help. Of those who had filed a report, several said police did not follow up on their case or told them that they couldn’t do anything because there was no evidence of a crime. [Source]

The ICIJ investigation described the phenomenon of Beijing-backed “GONGOs” (government-organized non-governmental organizations) that monitor and intimidate human rights activists critical of the Chinese government. During China’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session at the U.N. Human Rights Council last year, CDT reported that the number of China-based “civil society” organizations listed in China’s UPR summary report nearly tripled over the course of two UPR cycles from 2013 to 2024, which may have dampened criticism of China’s human rights record. At The Washington Post, reporting in partnership with ICIJ, Greg Miller, Jelena Ćosić, and Tamsin Lee-Smith described the scale of Chinese NGOs at the U.N. that have hidden ties to the CCP:

The ICIJ investigation identified 106 NGOs that have received U.N. accreditation and are registered in or affiliated with China. At least 59 appear to violate U.N. rules meant to ensure that NGOs testifying in Geneva aren’t doing so under government influence or pressure.

More than 50 of the 106 NGOs included language in charter documents pledging loyalty to the CCP, with some acknowledging that they defer to the party on decisions of hiring and funding, the investigation found. Forty-six listed directors or others in leadership roles who simultaneously held positions in Chinese state agencies or the CCP. Records show that at least 10 received the bulk of their funding from Chinese government sources.

[…] The number of Chinese organizations with U.N. credentials has nearly doubled since 2018, the year of the initial U.N. report on Xinjiang. Many of these organizations were formed at least a decade ago but only sought NGO accreditation after 2018. The surge reflects an effort that has been backed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and involves nearly every level of government in China.

[…] Last year, 33 Chinese NGOs made nearly 300 appearances at Human Rights Council sessions, according to data gathered by the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), an independent nonprofit group. An examination of their statements and testimony found not a single instance in which any had uttered words that could be construed as critical of China. [Source]

Ethnic minority groups are often targets of Beijing’s transnational repression, as the ICIJ highlighted. Alongside the investigation is a report by Citizen Lab detailing how Uyghur-language software was hijacked to deliver malware that was extremely well customized to reach the target population of Uyghurs in exile. The report states that the cyberattack replicates a pattern of Chinese-government-aligned threat actors digitally targeting marginalized communities. Earlier this month, CDT documented other reports on the expansion of China’s digital repression of Tibetans, including those in diaspora, via a Chinese state-owned digital forensics firm that provides offensive cyber-operations training for Lhasa’s Tibet Police College. The Guardian, another ICIJ partner, recently uncovered an online campaign of transnational repression against Hongkongers in the U.K. The campaign included 29 accounts that published over 150 posts last August doxxing Hongkongers and exhibiting similarities to other online influence operations by a Chinese security agency. ICIJ partners provided other local case studies, as well.

Another focus of the ICIJ investigation was the Chinese Party-state’s attempts to instrumentalize Interpol. The Chinese government has increasingly used Interpol red notices to target a wide range of its citizens abroad, and China “does not appear to be among the countries currently subject to Interpol corrected measures for alleged misuse of the organization’s system,” the ICIJ wrote. Along with other ICIJ partners, Simon Leplâtre at Le Monde described how Interpol is used as a tool in China’s arsenal of transnational repression, using the story of Huang Youlong (referred to as "H."), a close confidant of Jack Ma:

Like H., hundreds of individuals whom China considers to be persons of interest have been targeted by abusive red notices. In collaboration with 42 media outlets and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Le Monde investigated several cases that illustrate China’s use of Interpol and the lack of safeguards within the institution. Despite attempts to reform it, Interpol, based in the French city of Lyon, still lacks transparency in its procedures and never publicly holds countries that abuse it accountable – a boon for authoritarian regimes.

Our investigation shows that Interpol is one of the components of China’s arsenal of repressive measures used against its targets abroad, whether they are political dissidents, members of minorities that are oppressed in China – such as Uyghurs or Tibetans – businesspeople and political leaders, either corrupt or the victims of purges.

[…] Ted Bromund, a researcher and expert witness in legal cases involving Interpol procedures, explained that "Interpol is a tool. So is sending text messages to people. So is stalking them physically. So is revoking their passports. (…) By itself, it’s not generally particularly effective with China. But the way I like to put it with the Chinese is that Interpol is like a pin through a butterfly in an insect collection. It holds someone down, locks them in place so they can’t get away. And then it’s much easier to apply all of these other tools because you’ve got someone located." [Source]

Responding to the ICIJ investigation on Bluesky, Jeremy Daum at China Law Translate shared a thread urging caution with the terminology and framing of the term “transnational repression” when contemplating appropriate responses to the phenomenon:

🧵Happy to see continued attention on the ways that China harasses and surveils abroad– hard to find the bandwidth today, but it remains a real issue that impacts people's lives.A few thoughts that I've raised elsewhere on how best to think about it and address it: www.icij.org/investigatio…

— China Law Translate / Jeremy Daum (@chinalawtranslate.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T14:53:30.795Z

Chinese state-controlled media’s coverage on his death has been terse. The Chinese government extended its condolences nearly 24 hours after the Vatican’s announcement of the pope’s death – when asked about it at a regular news conference at its foreign ministry.

“In recent years, China and the Vatican have maintained constructive contact and engaged in beneficial exchanges. The Chinese side is willing to work together with the Vatican to promote the continued improvement of China-Vatican relations,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the ministry, told reporters on Tuesday.

China’s minimalist response underscores the sensitivity of ties between the atheist ruling Communist Party and the Holy See. [Source]

After the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005, the Chinese government did not send a representative to his funeral and instead criticized then-Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian’s planned trip to the Vatican as a separatist move. The Vatican is one of 11 countries worldwide and the only country in Europe that officially recognizes Taiwan. This week, current Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te expressed his “sincerest condolences on behalf of the people of Taiwan to the Catholic community and everyone mourning the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis,” adding, “We will continue to draw inspiration from his lifelong commitment to peace, global solidarity, and caring for those in need.” Taiwan reportedly hopes to send President Lai to attend Pope Francis’ funeral, and is awaiting a response from the Vatican. Hong Kong’s Catholic Church and religious leaders also expressed their “deepest condolences.” The Dalai Lama stated, “His Holiness Pope Francis dedicated himself to the service of others, […] consistently revealing by his own actions how to live a simple, but meaningful life. The best tribute we can pay to him is to be a warm-hearted person, serving others wherever and in whatever way we can.”

Unlike many of his predecessors, Pope Francis never met with the Dalai Lama, as he tried to thread the needle of the Vatican’s sensitive relationship with China. The Chinese government’s restrictions on Catholicism have produced a decades-long split among the 10-12 million Catholics in China, between the state-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association churches and persecuted underground churches that profess loyalty to the pope. Pope Francis reached a landmark agreement with the government in 2018—which was renewed in 2020 and 2022, and renewed again last October for another four years—that ostensibly recognizes the pope as the religious authority of all Chinese Catholics, gives the pope the power to veto appointments of all new bishops nominated by Beijing, and legitimizes those that had been appointed by Beijing without prior papal approval.

Details of the agreement have remained secret. Critics lament that in reality the Chinese government has over the past few years made several high-profile, unilateral appointments that forced the pope to retrospectively ratify in order to maintain the Church’s formal position in China. The Vatican’s muted reaction to Hong Kong’s arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun in May 2022, just months before the agreement with China was renewed, added to the controversy. And despite these agreements, religious persecution and Sinicization campaigns have only grown under Xi Jinping.

Laura Zhou, Shi Jiangtao, and Lawrence Chung at the South China Morning Post reported how China’s ties with the Vatican might change under a new pope:

“It depends on who will succeed him,” said Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre think tank in Washington.

“If it is a more conservative and orthodox pope, the Vatican will be likely to withdraw some of Pope Francis’ engagement, outreach and pragmatic approach to China, such as the authority to appoint bishops.”

[...] “This issue is not likely to be resolved, whoever will represent the Vatican in this relationship going forward,” [a] specialist on Sino-Christian studies said.

“Beijing will remain pragmatic, the question is to what extent pragmatism will serve the Holy See and China’s Catholic Church.”

[...] “Beijing is unlikely to pay too much attention to the China policy of the Vatican, because China’s position has been consistent and will not be changed because of a new pope,” said Deng Yuwen, former deputy editor of the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper Study Times.

“But of course Beijing would be keen to see a successor who is friendly to China, and who will not have a too close relationship with Taiwan.” [Source]

Pope Francis’ efforts to bridge the Vatican and China will likely not be the last. “The next pope may not be as gifted or confident with Chinese or Asian situations, but it’s going to remain a priority,” Dr. Michel Chambon, a Catholic theologian at the National University of Singapore, told The Sydney Morning Herald. “The next election [for pope] will be probably the first time that, when they select candidates, they will check his view on China. It will be a key criteria that he has a subtle, constructive view on how to engage China.” At Le Monde, Frédéric Lemaître described how, despite the limitations of Pope Francis’ approach, the Vatican is pursuing a realist and long-term strategy:

This key man in Vatican diplomacy[, Benoît Vermander, a Jesuit who teaches philosophy at Fudan University in Shanghai,] is in favor of the agreement, but noted that many Catholics feel that the price to be paid to move toward this greater unity of the Church is high. While Pope Francis was very discreet about human rights abuses in China – only once was he heard praying for "the poor Uyghurs" – Xi clearly has no intention of granting greater autonomy to the Churches. Quite the contrary, in fact. Since 2017, he has been insisting on the Sinicization of religions, a term which means that they must in effect accept the primacy of the Chinese Communist Party. In an interview with the American Catholic channel EWTN News in March 2023, Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states, acknowledged that this 2020 agreement is "certainly not the best deal possible."

"Everything is done obviously in the context of Chinese domestic politics (…) And therefore, we can only achieve so much," Gallagher said. "But one of the things that the Chinese and the Catholic Church and the Holy See have in common is that we don’t think in months, or even in years. We’re thinking in terms of a much longer time. And we hope that, in time, the relations between the Catholic Church in China will be shall we say much more ‘normal,’ much more fluid, much more fruitful." While Francis may have been a visionary, it has to be said that he was up against a formidable tactician determined to do him no favors. [Source]

It is not just drones that are promising – or threatening – to upend the tempo of urban life in China. Humanoid robots are particularly buzzy. The highlight of this year’s Spring festival gala, which was viewed nearly 17bn times, was a dance performed by a troupe of humanoid robots made by a company called Unitree. On Saturday, the world’s first humanoid v human race – a half marathon – took place on the outskirts of Beijing.

“Applying artificial intelligence to robots basically really kicked into high gear last year,” says Rui Ma, a China technology analyst and investor based in San Francisco. The shift could allow the industry to grow at a much faster rate in 2025 than in previous years. Reinforcement learning, which means training robots to learn from experience rather than relying on rigid models, allows humanoid robots to be trained in months rather than years, hastening the pace of innovation. Toy robot dogs are already part of daily life in China. At a wholesale market in Yiwu, a trading hub in east China’s Zhejiang province, a child plays with a robot dog while his mother haggles with exporters over the price of false eyelashes. On the streets of Shanghai, a woman walks her robot dog, which is helpfully carrying a basket of shopping on its back.

The development of China’s robotics industry is intimately linked to advances in AI. For years, China has been trying to catch up with the United States. Xi wants to drive economic growth through “new quality productive forces”, a concept that includes advanced technologies. [Source]

Some scientists and observers have tried to manage the public’s expectations of China’s AI rollout. Zeyi Yang at WIRED described the setbacks of the “stumbling and overheating” humanoid robots competing in the half marathon, and also noted that “by the end of the race, many people who tuned into the livestream started to comment on how exhausted the robots’ human operators looked.” At a meeting last Wednesday, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ordered representatives from dozens of automakers to stop hyping up the capabilities of smart driving technology. (This followed a highly publicized incident last month, in which a Xiaomi electric car crashed and killed three passengers while the vehicle’s autopilot feature was engaged.) Similarly, leading AI scientist Zhu Songchun recently warned that AI hype and reality have become detached in China, partially because the media have fed the public “exaggerated” stories about AI. Alex Colville at China Media Project described how Zhu’s critical stance appears to have been ignored, if not overridden:

Zhu’s critique of the propaganda-driven approach appears to have fallen victim to precisely the dynamic of hype he described. While his remarks found outlets in more market-oriented publications like Tencent Technology, Caixin and The Paper, flagship state media organizations like Xinhua and the People’s Daily conspicuously omitted his warnings from their coverage. Instead, these Party organs continued to showcase a parade of applications and robots — the very surface-level achievements that Zhu suggested are distracting China from the deeper scientific work needed to truly lead in artificial intelligence. In a system where positive messaging trumps critical analysis, even warnings from one of the nation’s top AI scientists can be edited out of the narrative.

[...] This disconnect was illustrated once again over the weekend, as Beijing hosted a half marathon where Chinese-built robots raced alongside human competitors. The CCP’s official People’s Daily described the event as a “fierce competition” that had pushed the robots to their limits. Xinhua sang about “infinite possibilities,” and proclaimed in its headline that the racing event had “closed the distance between us and the future.” The less stellar reality, alluded to in a report by Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily that noted the “many problems” holding the race down, was that the robots had suffered constant failures and necessitated nearly constant repairs by the exhausted human crews running alongside them. In the end, only six of the 21 robot entries completed the race, and one quite literally lost its head.

But in another sense, the race pointed the way toward the possibility of a healthier, more open and more self-critical attitude toward technology and progress — an alternative to the propaganda of constant rise. The Global Times, though in English-language coverage only, remarked somewhat disingenuously that “[behind] this ‘imperfect’ robot half-marathon is the mature atmosphere of tolerance, understanding and acceptance of failure that has developed in Chinese society from top to bottom toward the high-tech industry.” If that were true, of course, no public moderation of Zhu Songchun’s remarks behind closed doors would have been necessary. It would be perfectly acceptable to say: We are getting this wrong. But the Global Times was on to something. [Source]

China’s rapid deployment of embodied AI is at least partially fueled by its competition with the U.S. for technological superiority. Liu Gang, a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin, stated, “We are picking a path where we lower the costs for innovation and industrialization,” adding, “When many can do things with a comparable quality, whoever makes it more cheaply will have a bigger chance to win.” This is evident in the significantly lower costs of Chinese robot dogs and humanoid robots compared to American ones, and in the free rollout of DeepSeek’s AI chatbot. A recent Foreign Affairs article titled “What America Gets Wrong About the AI Race” underlined this dynamic: “The real lesson of DeepSeek’s success is that AI competition is not simply about which country develops the most advanced models but also about which can adopt them faster across its economy and government.”

Indeed, China’s robotics industry is surging ahead. According to a recent industry report, China will likely produce over 10,000 humanoid robots this year, amounting to over half of global production. Late last month, Du Zhihang, Bao Hongyun, Liu Peilin, and Han Wei from Caixin Global provided a deep dive into China’s production of humanoid robots, underscoring the government’s major investments in this booming sector:

Embodied intelligence has become a buzzword in AI and investment circles in the past two years. Unlike traditional industrial robots, such as mechanical arms, embodied intelligence focuses on humanoid robots that can adaptively perceive and interact with their environments using human-like physical forms. These robots emphasize advanced motor coordination — akin to a cerebellum — and cognitive abilities in vision, language and movement, enabling more natural and versatile interactions. This shift represents a move beyond factory automation toward robots capable of more complex, human tasks.

[...] Since 2024, several Chinese regions have rolled out incentive policies to support AI and robotics industries as the country aims to lead the global tech race. Hangzhou in the eastern Zhejiang province offers up to 5 million yuan in rewards and 25% project funding subsidies, while Beijing has established a 100-billion-yuan government investment fund to support startups. Southern Guangdong province provides up to 50 million yuan for robotics companies and 10 million yuan for AI firms, and Shenzhen has set bold targets for embodied intelligence, aiming to cultivate more than 10 companies valued at more than 10 billion yuan and achieve an industry scale exceeding 100 billion yuan by 2027. Shanghai and the southwestern Sichuan province have also introduced supportive measures.

[...] While China and the United States are seen as equals in AI and robotics technology, China’s strengths in large-scale manufacturing and software optimization give it an edge in industrializing humanoid robots.

[...] As China’s governments increase support for AI and embodied intelligence, leading companies stand to benefit. In March 2025, embodied intelligence was named one of four future industries — alongside biomanufacturing, quantum technology and 6G — in the government work report. [Source]

While the occupation of a three-million-square-mile island nearly two thousand miles from China might charitably be described as fanciful, China’s development of capabilities to project maritime power further across the region is more grounded in reality. A new report from Domingo I-Kwei Yang at the Prague-based Sinopsis also takes the recent naval exercises as a starting point, arguing that economic and commercial activities carried out under the Belt and Road Initiative lay foundations for potential future militarization. From the report’s introduction:

In February 2025, Australia, New Zealand, and regional actors were caught off guard when the PLA conducted live-fire exercises there with little notice, forcing dozens of flights to reroute. The incident served as a wake-up call, highlighting China’s expanding military reach beyond the Third Island Chain [[See background on the Pacific’s strategic island chains]. China’s military presence in the Pacific will continue to grow, driven by its expanding hegemonic ambitions in the region. China has been steadily building its military capabilities and extending its security sphere through infrastructure projects in the Pacific for many years.

China’s military reach is hidden, embedded in its foreign investments and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. While research on the BRI has expanded since 2013, most studies focus on economics and foreign aid, downplaying its security and military dimensions. Even as China’s overseas basing ambitions draw attention—especially after its first military base in Djibouti in 2017—the security risks of its Pacific infrastructure projects remain largely ignored.

[…] This policy paper explores whether China is preparing to weaponise its infrastructure in the Pacific to strengthen its hard power presence. It first analyses the strategic nature of the BRI in the region, arguing that China’s geopolitical ambitions outweigh its economic objectives. It then identifies four key categories of strategic infrastructure: ports and wharves, fishery facilities, aeronautical hubs, and ICT networks. The paper further explores how these assets could be militarised before assessing China’s long-term strategy for leveraging them in the Pacific.

This paper argues that China uses its development projects in the Pacific as covert infrastructures to advance the PLA’s force projection toward the Third Island Chain. Far from serving purely economic interests, these projects act as force multipliers—tangible and intangible assets that enhance military capability and strategic value. Through dualuse infrastructure, technology, software, and hardware, China expands its influence and strengthens its military reach. In a transition from peace to war, these assets could be weaponised to restrict regional actors’ freedom of action. [Source]

The paper concludes:

If China consolidates control over […] strategic nodes, it could manipulate trade flows, disrupt global markets, and exert political pressure on both regional and global actors. Countries that rely on open and secure sea lanes—such as the U.S., Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific small island developing states—must recognise the long-term risks posed by China’s infrastructures located at geostrategic chokepoints.

Ultimately, China’s expansion in the Pacific is not only about territorial influence but about shaping the future balance of power. Chinese infrastructure projects have the potential to become military footholds and multiply power projection capability. A proactive response—through strengthened alliances, strategic investments, and regional cooperation—is essential to preserving peace and stability. For the U.S., its allies, and regional actors, this is not just about countering China; it is about defending a free, open, and rules-based international order in the Pacific. [Source]

The report ends with a set of recommendations emphasizing the importance of solidarity and collaboration with allies across the region.

China’s reliance on dual-use resources was also highlighted in a recent New York Times report on the development of new landing barges apparently intended for use in the event of an invasion of Taiwan:

The satellite images did not show any vehicles actually being unloaded. But ferries and cargo ships that took part were of a kind built or modified to handle heavy armed vehicles, like armored personnel vehicles or even tanks, said Jason Wang, the chief operating officer of ingeniSPACE, a company that analyzes satellite images and other data, including about the Chinese military.

Taiwan’s western coastline, facing the Chinese mainland, has relatively few beaches or ports where landing is easy, and those areas are relatively well guarded. The barges would theoretically enable China to pick other areas on Taiwan’s coast that might be more difficult to land on but are less defended, from which to come ashore, several experts said.

[…] “China still doesn’t have enough gray hull naval ships to assault Taiwan’s main island on their own,” Mr. Wang said, referring to the typical color of warships. But when you add specialized dual-use ferries and cargo ships, “then that becomes a different story,” he said.

“You’re then starting to have enough vessels to be able to deliver a battalion on shore quickly,” he said. [Source]

Recent procurement documents reveal that Meiya Pico, a Chinese state-owned digital forensics firm, will provide an offensive cyber operations training environment and digital forensic laboratory to the Tibet Police College in Lhasa. This development underscores the Chinese government’s strategic investment in advanced Public Security Bureau (PSB) training infrastructure in Tibet and highlights Meiya Pico’s integral role in meeting these specialized requirements.

[...] Over the past decade, Meiya Pico has become a cornerstone of China’s digital surveillance complex. From developing covert phone spyware apps and forensic hacking devices for police, to building big-data platforms that mine email communications, Meiya Pico’s technology has been deployed at the front lines of repression in Xinjiang and Tibet. The company was identified as presenting a significant risk to the national security of the U.S. in 2019 and placed on its Entity List alongside companies like iFlytek and SenseTime – citing involvement in human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

[...] Meiya Pico is typical of this ecosystem in that it serves a dual role: enabling police surveillance on the home front in the PRC’s frontier regions, and the export of China’s digital repression model abroad. Whether through equipping PRC police in Tibet’s historic and cultural capital, Lhasa, with remote intrusion techniques or training foreign police forces, Meiya Pico exemplifies the global ambitions of China’s surveillance and security industry. [Source]

The digital realm has long been a target and instrument of state surveillance in Tibet. In CDT’s 2023 Cloud Cover report, we found that local and provincial Tibetan governments have spent over 55 million yuan on Police Geographic Information Systems (PGIS) technology over the past two decades. Other reports have covered how the Chinese government has expanded digital surveillance and DNA collection in Tibet. On Sunday, Human Rights Watch published a report about the increasing number of arrests of Tibetans for their internet and phone use. It described how this phenomenon has grown in tandem with police offering cash rewards for informing on fellow citizens, expanding manual phone searches on a mass scale, forcing Tibetans to download a government “anti-fraud” app that allows for backdoor government surveillance, and imposing restrictions on religious practice:

The full scale of such arrests and prosecutions is unknown, as Chinese authorities do not disclose official data for political offenses. The more than 60 reported cases appear related to an increase in government surveillance during this period, including through mass phone searches and the use of mandatory phone apps with built-in government surveillance, as well as a tightened regulatory regime on data and religion.

“For Tibetans, simply using a cellphone has become dangerous, and everyday activities like posting a humorous video or contacting loved ones abroad can bring arrest, detention, and torture,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. “Tibetans, particularly those living in remote areas, once celebrated the arrival of cellphones so they could stay in touch with friends and family, but their phones have effectively become government tracking devices.”

[...] In many cases, those arrested were accused of keeping “banned content” on their phones or sharing it online. Such “banned content” typically includes references to Tibetan religious figures, particularly the exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and expressions of pro-Tibetan sentiment. Chinese authorities have applied the ambiguous language of the law broadly: in one case, a man was arrested for setting up a WeChat group celebrating the birthdays of 80-year-old Buddhist monks. The police said it was “illegal” to form such a chat group “without permission.” [Source]

A prime example of this sort of government repression took place earlier this month following the death of influential Tibetan Buddhist leader Tulku Hungkar Dorje. After Chinese authorities announced his death on April 2, they interrogated and detained local Tibetans who posted photos and messages online mourning his death, placed his monastery in Golog prefecture of Qinghai Province under round-the-clock police surveillance, and conducted random inspections of locals’ phones. Tulku Hungkar Dorje went missing in August 2024 after being harassed by Chinese authorities for his work on the preservation of Tibetan language and culture, and for allegedly snubbing the Chinese government-installed 11th Panchen Lama during the latter’s visit to his monastery. He was detained in Vietnam last month and reportedly died the day he was handed over to a visiting Chinese police squad. Five Tibetan monks, accompanied by Chinese embassy officials, were shown his face for two minutes but not allowed to see other parts of his body.

The Chinese government’s efforts to suppress Tibetan language and culture, particularly via Chinese schooling, have attracted growing media attention. Harold Thibault from Le Monde recently traveled to Golog prefecture, the location of Tulku Hungkar Dorje’s monastery, and reported how state boarding schools “sever [the] roots” of Tibetan children. He described the story of a 14-year-old girl named Dolma, who at age seven was sent to one such boarding school located more than 12 hours from her home in Sichuan:

[E]verything suggests that the project is at least as political as it is educational. It aims to integrate these students into Chinese society to assimilate them further, to the detriment of their mother tongue and local culture. In these high schools, located in cities with a predominantly Han Chinese population, most classes are taught in Chinese, and patriotic education permeates everyday life.

[...] Given Dolma’s young age, her mother had asked an older girl sent to the same boarding school to look after her before her departure. But they were not placed in the same dormitory and rarely saw each other. Dolma felt very lonely. At such a distance, it was unthinkable to return home on weekends, so she spent eight months a year away from her family. She could only make the journey for the nearly two months of winter vacation (between the Gregorian New Year and the Tibetan New Year) and the two months of summer vacation. "When I returned, the first weeks, I no longer understood the dialect spoken by my family; I had to re-learn it in a way. A distance was created, and we lost our closeness," she recounted from another country where she now lived.

At school, Chinese was the main language. There was indeed a Tibetan class, but the teacher seemed to come from a region so far from hers that she could not understand him. Political education, however, was central. "We were taught to love China, that China protects the Tibetans, that China is the best country," the teenager recounted.

[...] The subject is a sensitive one for China. Upon leaving the regional airport, Le Monde’s reporter was followed by at least three cars and five individuals, plainclothes agents sharing the same hotel in the evening, the same breakfast, and then ensuring at the terminal that he took a return flight. [Source]

Five senior members of the Democratic Party had earlier told Reuters that Chinese officials or middlemen had warned it in recent months to disband or face serious consequences, including possible arrests.

The party, founded three years before Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule from Britain in 1997, has been the Asian financial hub’s flagship opposition, uniting democratic forces to push Beijing on democratic reforms, and to uphold freedoms.

Party head Lo Kin-hei told reporters that 90 percent of 110 members had voted at Sunday’s meeting for a three-person committee to start making arrangements for disbandment, including resolving legal and accounting matters.

[…] If the party disbands, it would mark the end of nearly 30 years of opposition party politics in Hong Kong. [Source]

The party’s manifesto maintained that Hong Kong is an indivisible part of China, but its “relatively moderate position didn’t really effectively improve the relationship between Hong Kong and Beijing over the past decade,” said Ma Ngok, an associate professor of government at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. New measures in 2021 limiting legislative elections to only "patriots” effectively barred the Democratic Party from fielding candidates, and at least five Democratic Party members are currently behind bars, including two former chairpersons, Albert Ho and Wu Chi-wai. Nonetheless, the party continued to provide pro-bono legal services and voice criticism of some government policies. The Civic Party, the second-largest opposition group, officially disbanded in March 2020. Yeung Sum, co-founder of the Democratic Party, said, “I’m not very happy about it, but I can see if we refuse the call to disband, we may pay a very huge price for it.” While acknowledging that disbandment would be a “very huge setback” that would challenge the “one country, two systems” principle, Yeung also said, “But I think people’s hearts for democracy, they will not fade out. They still keep it, maybe in different form.”

Hong Kong opposition forces are re-organizing outside of the city. On Tuesday, Amnesty International announced the launch of its new Hong Kong office based overseas, following the closure of its local office in 2021. Officially registered in Switzerland, the new office will be led by diaspora activists operating in Australia, Canada, Taiwan, the U.K., and the U.S., and it will “focus on advocating for human rights of Hongkongers, within Hong Kong and abroad, amplifying their voices and fostering a strong diaspora community globally.” Among its board members are ex-lawmaker Fernando Cheung and former student activist Joey Siu, one of the 19 activists for which the Hong Kong government has placed a HK$1 million bounty. The press release from Amnesty International provided more details about the initiative, in the words of its leaders:

“The opening of Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas [AIHKO] marks a new chapter in the organization’s strengthened commitment to human rights in Hong Kong and its support for the Hong Kong diaspora around the world,” said Chi-man Luk, the new AIHKO Executive Director.

“The gutting of Hong Kong’s civil society has been a tragedy for the city with more than 100 non-profits and media outlets shut down or forced to flee. But since the closing of Amnesty International Hong Kong three years ago, our dedication has only grown. We are now ready to intensify our efforts by building new communities of support driven by the Hong Kong diaspora.”

[…] AIHKO is Amnesty International’s first-ever section founded and operated entirely “in exile”, and follows the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers who have gone abroad in search of safety and freedom.

“Being overseas provides us with a degree of protection, allowing us to speak more freely and engage in advocacy work. We have a responsibility to do more to support those who remain in Hong Kong and continue their vital efforts,” said Fernando Cheung, AIHKO board member and former Hong Kong legislator. [Source]

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government held its 10th National Security Education Day on Tuesday, during which Education Secretary Christine Choi warned of the “dangerous aspect” of “soft resistance,” which could “easily penetrate the heart and mind.” In other news, the government attracted criticism last week by refusing entry to British lawmaker Wera Hobhouse. After landing at Hong Kong airport, she was questioned and put on a flight back to the U.K. hours later. Caroline Davies from The Guardian provided more detail on the ordeal and possible justifications, which may relate to Hobhouse’s criticism of Hong Kong:

The UK government is “greatly concerned” and wants an account of why the Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse was denied entry to Hong Kong on a family visit to meet her three-month-old grandson for the first time.

[…] Hobhouse told the Sunday Times her passport was confiscated, she was asked about her job and the purpose of her trip, her luggage was searched and swabbed, then she was escorted to the boarding gate by four immigration officers.

Her son, a university academic living in Hong Kong since 2019, was waiting in the arrivals hall. Her husband, William, a businessman, was allowed entry but chose also to return to the UK. She is believed to be the first MP refused entry since the 1997 handover of Hong Kong.

Hobhouse, who has never visited Hong Kong, said she was given no explanation but believes it was because she is an MP. She is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), an international group of politicians that scrutinises Beijing’s approach to human rights and has criticised the crackdown on free speech in Hong Kong. [Source]

This dizzying back-and-forth has generated a surge in online commentary on Chinese social media, some of which have been subject to apparent censorship. On Thursday, CDT Chinese published a list of Weibo hashtags—some taken from state-media or government talking points—that yielded no results at all on Weibo:

• #U.S. imposes 104% tariffs on China, effective today
• #104 tariffs
• #U.S. to impose 104% tariff on Chinese goods
• #145% tariffs

Others displayed results only from "Big V" verified users:

• #Foreign Minstry responds to 104% U.S. tariffs on China
• #We will fight to the end
• #This is China’s attitude
• #Trump tariff measures could put 200,000 Americans out of work
• #Foreign media: U.S. suffering is self-inflicted
• #China doesn’t provoke trouble, but isn’t afraid of it
• #If the American side insists on following this path, China will fight to the end
• #China has the confidence to handle its own affairs
• #America’s so-called reciprocal tariffs are mutually destructive unilateral bullying
• #If the American side wants dialogue it should show some respect
• #America’s unilateral bullying wil eventually backfire
• #Who do U.S. tariff policies hurt?
• #U.S. wages trade war while pleading for eggs
• #Several countries decline to give U.S. eggs

Last Monday, the People’s Daily attempted to calm nerves in China with an article headlined “The Sky Is Not Falling,” stating that Trump’s trade war cannot crush China’s economy. The article was widely criticized as unrealistic and overconfident. Jing Ziku from the WeChat account New New Youth posted a now censored article titled “The Real Danger is Thinking You’re Omnipotent,” which criticized the People’s Daily article for being out of touch. Jing wrote: “Empty and hollow, vapid and naive, this article speaks only of peaceful things, but does not condescend to look down and see the lives of the common people. It refuses to recognize the problem, and not recognizing the problem is the biggest problem of all.” That day, Teacher Li wrote on X, “One blogger said, ‘Today you have to be careful what you say about the stock market, especially if your comments are bearish. I’ve seen a lot of people’s posts being deleted.’”

On Wednesday, the WeChat account 老干体v posted another now-censored article, “104%! The Worst-Case Scenario Has Come to Pass: We’re Taking on America Alone.” The author describes three possible tariff scenarios outlined by Zhao Wei, a professor of economics at Zhejiang University, and argues that the least desirable—number three—appears to be happening: (1) “The U.S. vs. many,” in which China and dozens of countries respond in kind, global trade war breaks out, and the U.S. is outmatched; (2) “The U.S. vs. many, limited edition,” in which China and some E.U. countries respond in kind, resulting in a global trade war; and (3) “China vs. many,” in which other countries choose to compromise with the U.S., leaving China to face America alone.

Reuters reported that Chinese internet censors took down many posts from Chinese companies highlighting the negative impact of Trump’s tariffs, while allowing comments mocking the U.S. and depicting it as a globally irresponsible trading partner. On Wednesday, Vivian Wang at The New York Times provided more detail about Chinese social media censorship related to the trade war:

On Weibo, a popular social media platform, several hashtags that used the number 104 — such as “104 tariff rate” or “America to impose 104 percent tariff on Chinese goods” — returned an error message that said: “Sorry, the content of this topic is not displayed.”

But other hashtags that focused more squarely on mocking the United States, or on touting China’s strengths, were allowed to trend — and in fact were explicitly initiated by state media. “America is fighting a trade war while begging for eggs” was one popular hashtag started by CCTV, China’s state broadcaster. “China does not provoke trouble but is never afraid of it” was another.

[…] It was not clear whether other more negative posts had been censored, or why censors had targeted the hashtags about the 104 statistic in particular. Many individual posts that mentioned the figure were still visible, even as the hashtags themselves were blocked, and they generally expressed confidence about China’s prospects in the trade war.

[…] “I think the CCP may not want to reveal how serious things are,” [said Ja Ian Chong, a professor of political science at the National University of Singapore], referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

The party and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, “may not have a plan on how to address such complications as yet, so are probably trying to control narratives and direct vitriol toward the U.S. and Trump,” he added. [Source]

Censorship of trade war commentary was also imposed offline. He Bin, deputy director of the Public Policy Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), touched off a firestorm when he posted this criticism of the Chinese government’s tariff response to the Public Policy Center’s WeChat Moments: “This is an utterly mistaken ‘countermeasure.’ It’s akin to saying, ‘Well, if you’re going to beat your wife, then I’m going to beat my wife, too.’ Just because the U.S. is shooting itself in the foot by raising tariffs doesn’t mean that we should shoot ourselves in the foot as well. The correct countermeasure is to unilaterally abolish tariffs on imports from all countries.” The consequences of He’s post quickly compounded. As Yuanyue Dang reported for the South China Morning Post, CASS released a statement on Sunday explaining that its Public Policy Center, including the center’s social media accounts and website, were being shut down “amid a new round of ideological reinforcement”:

The now-defunct centre was once headed by economist Zhu Hengpeng, who was also deputy director of the Institute of Economics. He was last seen in public at the end of April 2024.

Sources familiar with the matter said that Zhu had been investigated and removed from his post in May for criticising China’s economic policies in a group discussion on WeChat.

CASS, once home to many liberal academics who were vocal in their criticism of the authorities, is undergoing a major shift towards greater loyalty to the ruling Communist Party.

In August, the academy replaced the economic institute’s leadership, including the director and party secretary, without explanation. A few months earlier, CASS had initiated an academy-wide major study campaign on party discipline.

The campaign, which began in June, required researchers to “take absolute loyalty to the party as the starting and ending point of all their work”. [Source]

Meanwhile, in response to Trump’s tariffs, the Chinese government has dug in its heels. The Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday, “China will fight to the end.” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning posted to X, “We won’t back down,” and shared a video of Mao Zedong in 1953, during the Korean War, proclaiming, “No matter how long this war will last, we’ll never yield.” On Wednesday, the Chinese government released a white paper outlining its position on China-U.S. economic and trade relations and arguing that the U.S. tariffs “reveal the isolationist and coercive nature of U.S. conduct.” On Thursday, the Chinese government announced that it would further curb the number of American films allowed to screen in China. Last week, it launched an anti-monopoly probe into American multinational chemical company DuPont, imposed export curbs on certain rare earths and other restrictions on dozens of American companies. A wide range of other Chinese countermeasures are expected to follow.

Opinion leaders on both sides of the Pacific shared their gloom about the inevitability of prolonged tensions. “I do not remember ever being this pessimistic about the trajectory of US-China relations, […] with no obvious off-ramps or even desire to walk things back,” wrote Sinocism’s Bill Bishop on Wednesday. A WeChat article by popular science writer and commentator Xiang Dongliang, titled “U.S.-China Decoupling Has Reached the Point of No Return,” discussed how decoupling and tit-for-tat tariffs might affect the lives and fortunes of ordinary Chinese people. Xiang included a list of practical recommendations, advising Chinese citizens to make a realistic assessment of their career prospects, re-evaluate their investments and purchases, have a back-up plan and enough cash on hand to cover a year of living expenses, to give up any hope of immigrating to the U.S. in the near future, and even to approach studying in the U.S. with caution. Chairman Rabbit, the pseudonym of influential commentator Ren Yi, wrote, “The trade war is not simply an economic friction but ‘a war without smoke,’” adding, “Decoupling is absolutely not China’s goal, but it is a necessary response at this stage.” Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Xinhua Net Liu Hong wrote on Tuesday, “what goes around comes around. The storm that the tariff war will bring to the United States has only just begun.”

Translations by Cindy Carter and Samuel Wade.

This week’s streams showed that both IShowSpeed’s team and the Chinese coordinators behind the scenes were even better prepared for the livestreamed visits and the enormous spectacle it brings to the places he goes. Some Chinese state media even started livestreaming his streams as well. In just ten days, Watkins has become a mega-celebrity in China, where he wasn’t that famous before — and he’s been trending on social media practically every day since March 24. Outside of China, his influence is also growing. During his Hong Kong stream, he reached a personal record of 38 million YouTube subscribers.

IShowSpeed is no longer just an American personality — he’s a marketing platform. Chinese authorities, state media, companies, brands, e-commerce channels, and influencers are all jumping in on the hype to benefit from his popularity.

From the top-down narrative perspective, his China tour has been a huge success. Kung fu performances, traditional opera, pandas, Chinese dance and music, local cuisine highlights, the Great Wall, traditional medicine and yin-yang, futuristic cities alongside ancient culture, high-speed rail, noodles, dancing aunties, and Shaolin monks — his streams became an ultimate representation of the Chinese cultural promotion playbook, and were reported on as such. China’s national broadcaster CCTV aired an entire 8-minute segment on his China tour, covering his adventures. [Source]

The influencer’s tour was largely seen as a success in projecting a positive image of China to Western audiences, and Chinese state-media actors were happy to reinforce that framing. “U.S. Internet star ‘IShowSpeed’ explores the magic of Chongqing,” read a Xinhua headline. “iShowSpeed livestreams show world an unfiltered China,” wrote China Daily. “How US influencer IShowSpeed’s live-stream episodes cast light on real China,” explained the Global Times. In an article titled “IShowSpeed’s in China Did More for its Soft Power Than Most Diplomats,” RADII noted that pro-CCP commentator Shaun Rein said, “Speed has done more to help China’s soft power in one day than I have in my 30 year career. All hail Speed.” Other prominent American influencers praised IShowSpeed for managing to “cut through the noise and show a side of china that is rarely ever seen by american eyes.”

However, IShowSpeed encountered several awkward moments of apparent anti-Black racism that undercut the magic of his tour. One supposed fan gave him a banana wrapped in a KFC bag and then started making monkey noises. Others gave him a bouquet of cotton and a watermelon. Yet others repeatedly called him the N-word, including a female cosplayer in Chengdu whose clip went viral. IShowSpeed took most of these incidents in stride. CDT Chinese editors compiled online reactions to the racism and its effect on the tour’s propaganda value:

披萨馆的战术板: Discrimination on the Chinese internet is as natural as breathing, so in that sort of environment, it’s no surprise that some idiots would go batshit crazy offline, as well.

takanas56121817: One little pink had a brilliant idea, and managed to completely trash the carefully scripted "dream" of [China’s] internal and external propaganda efforts.

大眼仔药丸: The [Chengdu] Bureau of Culture and Tourism must be freaking out. Even if they expel her from school and blacklist her from colleges and universities, it won’t be enough to repair the damage she’s done.

98896692757_bili: She has no clue how much impact her words are going to have abroad. [Chinese]

IShowSpeed’s tour presented a sharp contrast with official Chinese messaging, which is typically tightly controlled and much less popular. Zhang Chang, an associate professor at Communication University of China’s school of government and public affairs, said that propagating a more positive national image of China would require a “diverse and sustained supply of content” that reflected the country’s multifaceted nature: “The most effective communication seems to occur spontaneously and naturally. However, this is underpinned by a societal environment that is open, confident and enriched by a dynamic cultural life.” The spontaneity was not unbroken: after Mango TV’s coverage of IShowSpeed’s highly anticipated encounter with Chinese singer Da Zhang Wei, netizens pushed the topic “Mango cringe” to the top of Weibo’s hot search list, registering their disappointment with the TV station’s shameless self-promotion and tight grip on IShowSpeed’s itinerary.

The tour’s success invites the question of whether it might be repeated with equally strong results. Yaling Jiang expressed skepticism in her Following the Yuan newsletter, arguing that the "unfiltered" nature of the streams was key to their appeal, and would be hard to replicate:

If anyone were to replicate his trip, given Speed’s precedent, local governments may likely control the environment by doing more staging and prepping with the passersby, which would eventually make the show boring. The viewers are sensitive, and there are already domestic online comments saying that the last few stops seem to have more interference from the local cultural and tourism bureaus.

In China, residents are often asked to close their curtains and stay indoors while top political leaders visiting their communities. And here are two more specific examples on what Chinese-style staging looks like: 1. During COVID, the former Vice Premier Sun Chunlan was rumored to have conducted her inspection in Shanghai on a rooftop, which was renovated to resemble a street scene, 2. A global milk powder employee wrote on RedNote this March that consumer interviews were rehearsed five times during global executives’ visits, and local employees were required to stay in the office during 8:30am to 7pm.

[…] Assuming China’s authorities are inspired to see YouTube streams a golden ticket to local tourism and take note on the above accidents, they must feel the need to censor or, from their perspective, plan better. Then the organic interactions and reactions would be gone…

I have no doubt that the propaganda departments are planning this already.[Source]

The difficulties have already been demonstrated in Hong Kong, where authorities have pledged to "seize every opportunity" to help visiting influencers amid criticism of the city’s failure to capitalize on IShowSpeed’s visit.

Lawmaker Dominic Lee Tsz-king posted on social media that the arrangement did not include the "best side of Hong Kong," such as Victoria Harbour, West Kowloon Cultural District, and Kai Tak Sports Park.

He compared Speed’s experiences in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, highlighting the influencer’s engagement with drone food delivery, interaction with robotics, and acquisition of foldable phones in mainland. In contrast, Speed just tasted the street food in Hong Kong and participated in the traditional ritual of villain-beating.

Lee added that Hong Kong lost valuable opportunities to its neighboring city, Shenzhen, and failed to promote Hong Kong’s international character, which is the city’s unique advantage.

Meanwhile, he questioned whether the government had been aware of the influencer’s visit in advance, noting that Shenzhen authorities had arranged multiple activities for Speed.

In response to media requests, the Hong Kong Tourism Board stated that authorities had contacted the YouTuber’s team and offered assistance during his visit. However, the board did not receive any requests. [Source]

Among 142 skyscrapers in Bangkok, the only one to collapse after the earthquake, whose epicenter was 1,000 kilometers away, was a 30-storey building under construction by China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group, the primary contractor. At least 15 people inside were killed and dozens more are missing. Coverage of the building collapse was censored across Chinese social media on Friday. This included a short article by Phoenix News indicating that the collapsed building was being constructed by a Chinese state-owned contractor. The WeChat account History Rhymes published an article that speculated about what structural flaws might have caused the building to collapse, and stated that even during the magnitude 8.0 Sichuan earthquake in 2008, no skyscrapers collapsed in Chengdu, only 50 kilometers from the epicenter. Netizens also took screenshots of an older WeChat post by the Chinese contractor promoting the building; the post was deleted immediately after the collapse. Ironically, the deleted promotional post mentioned that the building was slated to be the new headquarters of the Thai government’s audit bureau, and that leaders of the bureau had visited the site several times and reportedly praised the safety and quality of the project. Alex Colville from China Media Project described the efforts by the Chinese contractor and authorities to sweep the project under the rug:

Shortly after the collapse, the China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group removed a post from its WeChat account that had celebrated the recent capping of the building, praising the project as the company’s first “super high-rise building overseas,” and “a calling card for CR No. 10’s development in Thailand.” Archived versions of this and other posts were shared by Thais on social media, including one academic who re-posted a deleted promo video to his Facebook account — noting with bitter irony that it boasted of the building’s tensile strength and earthquake resistance.

Trying to access news of the building collapse inside China, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported that queries on domestic search engines returned only deleted articles from Shanghai-based outlets such as The Paper (澎湃新闻) and Guancha (观察网). In a post to Weibo, former Global Times editor Hu Xijin (胡锡进) confessed that the building “probably had quality issues.” Even this post was rapidly deleted, making clear that the authorities were coming down hard on the story.

Searches on Weibo today for “Bangkok” and “tofu-dreg projects” (豆腐渣工程), a term often used in Chinese to describe shoddy and dangerous construction, return almost entirely results prior to March 18, ten days before the collapse in Bangkok. [Source]

Evidence of poor construction standards and other labor issues have emerged. Mana Nimitmongkol, president of the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand, told Reuters that his organization’s visits to the construction site had “raised concerns about delays, worker shortages and possible corner-cutting.” Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra ordered an investigation into the building collapse, with initial findings expected this week. The disaster recalls a similar incident in Serbia last November, when a subsidiary of China Railway (the parent company of the contractor involved in the Bangkok building collapse) was blamed, along with Serbian officials, for a train-station canopy collapse that killed 15 people and sparked nationwide Serbian protests against corruption. Damien Cave and Muktita Suhartono at The New York Times highlighted other issues with the Chinese company’s construction standards:

Workers in Bangkok told The New York Times that China Railway 10th, which was part of a consortium constructing the building, underpaid contractors who turned to lower quality materials, and used columns narrower than usual.

Thai officials testing twisted metal from the ruins said they found substandard steel bars — made by a Thai factory with Chinese owners that the authorities had shut down in December.

An anti-corruption watchdog also said it had flagged construction irregularities at the 30-story tower before March 28, when fleeing workers watched the high-rise implode.

[…] Adding suspicion, four Chinese nationals who identified themselves as subcontractors were caught on camera the day after the earthquake removing documents from an office behind the rubble. They told the authorities it was for an insurance claim. The police seized the documents; the men were detained, then released. [Source]

In Myanmar, the earthquake has devastated local populations already suffering from years of civil war between the military junta and ethnic armed organizations. Myanmar’s ruling military junta has been very restrictive about what sort of aid can pass through its checkpoints, and on Wednesday its soldiers fired on a Chinese Red Cross convoy trying to deliver food and medicine. Under pressure the next day, the junta announced a 21-day ceasefire to support relief efforts. The Chinese government announced $14 million in assistance for Myanmar, including 1,200 tents, 8,000 blankets and 40,000 first aid kits. Many Western media outlets highlighted the contrast between China’s rapid response and the U.S.’ tepid response to the earthquake. While Chinese media was generally less explicit in pointing out the discrepancy, the Global Times did provide in-depth coverage of “the unbreakable bonds of the China-Myanmar ‘Paukphaw’ friendship.” On Thursday, Poppy Mcpherson and Antoni Slodkowski at Reuters described the domestic media coverage of China’s relief efforts:

China has sent more than 30 rescue teams with over 600 personnel, and the Chinese Red Cross has provided 1.5 million yuan ($205,563.93) in cash help, the [Chinese foreign] ministry told Reuters.

[…] Beijing has used its state media machine to broadcast its relief efforts.

English-language state broadcaster CGTN was one of the few international media outlets with reporters sending on-camera dispatches from Mandalay, the epicentre of the disaster.

State-run news agency Xinhua has also run extensive reports showing China’s relief efforts. [Source]

The sale of CK Hutchison’s two ports at each end of the Panama Canal was part of a US$23 billion deal to sell 43 ports spread over 23 countries to a consortium led by United States investment firm BlackRock. CK Hutchison will pocket US$19 billion.

[…] “We have noticed this transaction, and will review it in accordance with the law to ensure fair competition in the market and safeguard the public interest,” a spokesman from the anti-monopoly department under [China’s State Administration for Market Regulation] said in a written reply.

The watchdog did not reveal when the investigation would be launched but its response was later reposted on the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office website.

[…] Earlier on Friday, a source close to CK Hutchison said the conglomerate would not go ahead with the expected signing of the deal [this] Wednesday.

“There will not be an official signing of the two Panama ports deal next week,” a source close to CK Hutchison told the Post [last Friday].

April 2 was a deadline set for CK Hutchison and the BlackRock consortium to sign a definitive agreement over the deal for the two ports, according to an announcement of the sale on March 4. [Source]

The Chinese government signaled its opposition to the deal through the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office’s reposting of over half a dozen articles published by pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao that criticized the deal. The articles described the deal as being “in concert with US hegemony” and said it would lead to “historic mistakes”. On Saturday, the CCTV-linked Weibo account Yuyuantantian posted that the deal was “tantamount to handing a knife to an opponent,” but the post was deleted just minutes later. (See our recent explanation of “handing someone a knife” for more details on the phrase.) On Monday, Oiwan Lam at Global Voices described the criticism of CK Hutchison’s deal in these articles:

Hong Kong-based Chinese propaganda slammed CK Hutchison’s deal as a betrayal of the “motherland” through a series of commentaries which were republished on the website of Beijing’s top office on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs.

The patriotic opinion pieces were first published in China’s state-funded Ta Kung Pao on March 14. The first piece rejects CK Hutchison’s explanation that the deal was a purely commercial decision. It describes Blackrock’s role as an expanding US port operator that would repress China’s international trade upon taking over CK Hutchison’s port and concludes the deal was an act of betrayal:

[…] The second commentary praises other Hong Kong business leaders, including Henry Fok Ying-tung and Yue-kong Pao, for staying loyal to the party and, in particular, highlights Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei’s role in safeguarding the technological sovereignty of the Chinese telecommunication industry. It urges Chinese businessmen to safeguard China’s national interest. The third and fourth pieces were written in a similar manner, stressing the need for the business sector to serve national interest and demanding that CK Hutchison suspend the deal.

Pro-Beijing influencers also relay China’s discontent. @Hnbhger17, for example, argued on X that CK Hutchison should prioritize selling its port to Chinese corporations, or the deal would negatively impact China’s national security. [Source]

The issue of Li Ka-shing’s patriotism, or alleged lack thereof, has been the subject of heated debate by Chinese netizens, and many online articles and comments supportive of Li have been deleted by platform censors. CDT Chinese editors have archived ten recent essays and articles on the subject, at least three of which have since been censored. A now-deleted satirical essay from WeChat public account 捉刀漫谈max (Zhuōdāo màntán max, "Ghostwriter Chat max") posed the facetious question “How About If Li Ka-Shing Just Sells the Ports to Russia?” and mocked the blind nationalism of those urging Li to ignore business fundamentals and bend the knee to Beijing. An article by WeChat blogger Xu Peng noted the irony of those who would criticize Li for not being “patriotic” enough—despite his decades of generous donations to charitable causes in China—while conveniently overlooking nationalist pundit Sima Nan’s rather unpatriotic record of tax evasion. A now-censored article by science and current-affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang pointed out that CK Hutchison’s proposal only involves the sale of usage rights to the ports—because the ports themselves are under the sovereignty of the nations in which they are located—and that the company does not plan to sell the usage rights to any ports located in China or Hong Kong. Xiang argued that the proposed sale is motivated by CK Hutchison’s need to hedge economic and geopolitical risk, and that absent other Chinese buyers (who would be subject to the same challenges), it is only rational for the company to offload usage rights to the ports to American consortium BlackRock. If the Chinese government and online nationalists are genuinely concerned about port control falling into American hands, Xiang wrote, they should encourage so-called “patriotic” Chinese companies such as Huawei or Hongxing Erke to bid for the ports instead.

A selection of Weibo comments compiled by CDT Chinese editors gives some sense of the heated nationalist rhetoric on Chinese social media in response to Li Ka-shing and CK Hutchison’s plan. “Li Ka-shing’s ‘selling out the country for his own benefit’ deserves the contempt of every Chinese person,” fumed one Weibo user. "Those who insist on ‘short-selling’ their own motherland will disappear in the end!" wrote another. Some of the critical comments brushed aside arguments that the proposed sale was simply a sound business decision: “The interests of the nation and the people should always outrank individual benefit,” one Weibo user opined. “Businesspeople must not be solely profit-driven.”

While Beijing announced it was investigating CK Hutchison’s deal, legal experts said it could be difficult to prove a real risk of breaching China’s anti-monopoly laws. Alonso Illueca at the China-Global South Project described how the Chinese government might also resort to Hong Kong’s National Security Law in order to stop the deal:

In this case, articles 31 and 37 of the national security law allow for its application to companies. Although CK Hutchison is registered in the Cayman Islands and its owner, Li Kai-Shing, has moved most of its assets to Canada, both China and Hong Kong still retain some leverage.

There are reports of ongoing talks to find “a reasonable way out” of the current situation, accompanied by a pause in new collaborations between Chinese state-owned companies and CK Hutchison. Given the broad interpretation of “safeguarding national security,” the principle that guides the Hong Kong national security law, Beijing and Hong Kong could argue that the CK Hutchison-BlackRock deal threatens China’s national security and warrants intervention from the State to safeguard it.

Moreover, Ta Kung Pao called for applying China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law against CK Hutchison, which allows Beijing to impose countermeasures on foreign entities that enforce sanctions or harm China’s interests and has advocated for punitive measures if the deal goes forward. The newspaper also invoked Hong Kong’s National Security Ordinance, further signaling potential legal challenges. [Source]

#Panama: Why did #China pressure Hutchison Port Holdings to delay the @BlackRock deal?

Hutchison was the single largest Chinese company in the business. A deal for 43 ports in 23 countries–199 berths–would have meant one-third of #PRC's global port network wiped out instantly. pic.twitter.com/fYxyAqV8R1

— Ryan Berg, PhD (@RyanBergPhD) March 28, 2025

Many commentators highlighted the consequences should Beijing succeed in blocking CK Hutchison’s deal. Bryan Mercurio, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said “it would be an unprecedented move that could reinforce the claims of President Trump and others asserting that Hong Kong’s trade, finance and policies are not entirely independent from China.” Josh Lipsky, senior director at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, said, “Torpedoing the deal . . . would send shockwaves all around the financial world.” Commentator Xiang Dongliang noted the potentially chilling effects: “Global investors would conclude that there is no real difference between the government oversight of Hong Kong companies and mainland Chinese companies.” Sinocism’s Bill Bishop predicted, “Now that the PRC has made clear the national security concerns about [the] ports deal, all of their ports globally may be suspect. So they may block this deal, but expect pressure on PRC port holdings in other parts of the world now.”

In an article for Al Jazeera, Erin Hale described Li’s evolution from having close relations to Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, to his waning political influence under Xi Jinping, along with his gradual divestment away from China. The article references Kevin Yam as saying that “Beijing could use the deal to make an example of the Li family, much as it did to Alibaba founder Jack Ma.” (In 2020, Xi took the dramatic move to suspend the initial public offering of Ma’s Ant Group after Ma openly challenged government regulators.) A now-deleted article from Sina Finance highlighted the precarity of Li’s situation—and indeed that of all Chinese entrepreneurs—where national interests are at stake: “When capital collides with the contest between great powers, even the smartest entrepreneurs discover that they are just ordinary people—buffeted by the tides of history, or trapped between a rock and a hard place, and utterly unable to control their own destiny.”

First uncovered by Marc Hofer of the NetAskari newsletter, the data is essentially a reservoir of articles that require labeling, each article in the dataset containing a repeated instruction to prompt the LLM in its work: “As a meticulous and serious data annotator for public sentiment management, you must fully analyse article content and determine the category in which it belongs,” the prompt reads. “The ultimate goal is to filter the information for use in public opinion monitoring services.”

[…] First, it reveals a sophisticated classification system with 38 distinct categories, running from more mundane topics like “culture” and “sports” to more politically sensitive ones. Tellingly, the three categories marked as “highest priority” in the dataset align distinctly with state interests as opposed to commercial ones. Topping the list is “information related to the military field,” followed by “social developments” (社会动态) and “current affairs developments” (时政动态). This prioritization underscores how private tech companies like Baidu — though it could not be confirmed as the source of this dataset — are being enlisted in the Party-state’s comprehensive effort to monitor and shape online discourse.

[…] The exact purpose of this dataset remains unclear. Were these classifications developed internally by Baidu — or were they mandated by state regulators? Nevertheless, the unsecured data offers a glimpse into the inner workings of China’s AI content dragnet. What was once a labor-intensive system requiring thousands of human censors is rapidly evolving, thanks to the possibilities of AI, into an automated surveillance machine capable of processing and categorizing massive volumes of online content. [Source]

On Wednesday, Charles Rollet at TechCrunch shared experts’ views on how such AI-powered content categorization for the purpose of “public opinion work” would ultimately enhance the state’s censorship abilities:

[CDT’s] Xiao Qiang, a researcher at UC Berkeley who studies Chinese censorship and who also examined the dataset, told TechCrunch that it was “clear evidence” that the Chinese government or its affiliates want to use LLMs to improve repression.

“Unlike traditional censorship mechanisms, which rely on human labor for keyword-based filtering and manual review, an LLM trained on such instructions would significantly improve the efficiency and granularity of state-led information control,” Qiang told TechCrunch.

[…] Michael Caster, the Asia program manager of rights organization Article 19, explained that “public opinion work” is overseen by a powerful Chinese government regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), and typically refers to censorship and propaganda efforts.

The end goal is ensuring Chinese government narratives are protected online, while any alternative views are purged. Chinese president Xi Jinping has himself described the internet as the “frontline” of the CCP’s “public opinion work.” [Source]

Recent developments reflect ongoing attempts to instrumentalize AI for online surveillance and censorship. In February, OpenAI reported that a Chinese-origin network used ChatGPT to build a tool for collecting social media activity on sensitive political and social topics and marketing it to Chinese authorities. Another data leak discovered last month by Sentinel Labs revealed additional types of collaboration between public and private actors in China for the purpose of monitoring and censoring content on the Chinese internet. (On a related note, a whistleblower alleged that in its failed attempt to access the Chinese market, Facebook “developed a censorship system for China in 2015 and planned to install a ‘chief editor’ who would decide what content to remove and could shut down the entire site during times of ‘social unrest,’” as The Washington Post reported earlier this month.)

Beyond surveillance and censorship, AI has been employed across a wide swath of Chinese society. Its ubiquity has led the Cyberspace Administration of China to mandate that online platforms accurately label any content that is generated by A.I. China Media Project’s China Chatbot column has also documented the intersection of Chinese media and AI. Over the past few weeks, dozens of Chinese automakers, medical and pharmaceutical companies, banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms, and even local governments have announced that they are using DeepSeek AI in their products, research, and training to enhance a variety of tasks. Amber Wang at the South China Morning Post reported on Sunday that even China’s PLA is using DeepSeek AI for non-combat support, and potentially other military tasks:

DeepSeek’s open-source large language models (LLMs), which have drawn global attention and praise, are being used in PLA hospitals, People’s Armed Police (PAP), and national defence mobilisation organs, according to publicly available information.

[…] Some units of PAP – a paramilitary police force under the command of the Central Military Commission, which also directs the PLA – are using the app for daily physical training and psychological counselling.

[…] The PLA has called for the incorporation of high-end technology, particularly AI, to strengthen its combat capabilities. This would include boosting the effectiveness of drone swarm tactics, improving the efficiency and realism of pilot training, and battlefield decision-making support.

[…] Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military analyst, said DeepSeek’s applications in routine physical training and logistical support “demonstrate the PLA’s commitment to ‘staying up-to-date and fully utilising AI technology to enhance comprehensive combat capabilities’.”

“It cannot be ruled out that DeepSeek has been used for other combat functions,” Fu said, adding that “the integration of AI into command systems has been under way for a considerable time”. [Source]

The investigation was launched earlier this month, and Belgian authorities last week arrested four people on charges of corruption and being a member of a criminal organisation. A fifth person was charged with money laundering but released after questioning.

Among the arrested suspects is a lobbyist for Huawei who used to work as an assistant in the European parliament. He is suspected of orchestrating the payment of bribes to parliament workers — notably to secure support for a letter several MEPs signed defending the Chinese company’s interests.

[…] The letter, signed by eight EU lawmakers and sent to the European Commission in January 2021, warns about the “politicisation of the deployment of 5G technology” and criticises the ban of foreign 5G devices based out of an “unsubstantiated fear of national security risks”.

[…] Two people familiar with the investigation said the alleged bribes also included offers of Huawei smartphones and tickets to see a match of the local Anderlecht football team. [Source]

According to the investigative judge in charge of the Belgian probe, “A sum of €15,000 [over $16,000 U.S. dollars] was offered to the writer of the 5G letter, while each co-signatory was offered €1,500,” and “suspicious payments” worth tens of thousands of euros were allegedly arranged in exchange for the related services. Huawei said it takes the allegations “seriously” and has a “zero tolerance policy towards corruption or other wrongdoing.” After the corruption case was announced, E.U. institutions expelled Huawei lobbyists from their premises, but some lawmakers expressed concern about loopholes that the lobbyists could use to circumvent the ban, including using a visitor pass or lobbying through umbrella trade associations that continue to represent Huawei. Last week, Politico described Huawei’s extensive record of lobbying within the E.U.:

The company threw lavish parties in glamorous venues featuring fancy buffets and dance performances — like its reception celebrating the Chinese new year at the Concert Noble in Brussels — and was known for thanking contacts with generous gift bags, some including a Huawei phone.

[…] To navigate the geopolitical storm [over security and espionage concerns that spiked after 2019], the firm offered six-figure salaries to former Western journalists and politicians with direct lines to places of power like the Elysée and Westminster.

[…] According to EU transparency register data, Huawei Technologies spent between €2 million and €2.25 million on EU lobbying in 2021, 2022 and 2023 — a lot, but still below its lobbying costs in preceding years, which were estimated at around €3 million in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Huawei in October declared it had 11 full-time EU lobbyists, nine of whom were accredited to access the European Parliament. At its peak it declared 21. [Source]

On Monday, Alexander Fanta and Simon van Dorpe at Dutch investigative news outlet Follow the Money published an article about the scandal, underlining the alleged, long-running role of top Huawei executives:

The bribery allegations, including the amounts allegedly paid to the signatories, correspond to a complaint that the NGO Transparency International EU received in 2022 and forwarded to the EU anti-fraud office OLAF. However, OLAF decided not to open an investigation, stating there was “no sufficient suspicion”.

[…] According to the arrest warrant, the money transfers intended to disguise the bribes “would have been endorsed by the Chinese executives of Huawei, in particular Abraham Liu”, who at the time was the company’s vice-president for the European region and its chief EU representative. The warrant does not state why investigators believe Chinese executives were involved.

[Valerio] Ottati, Huawei’s Belgian-Italian head of public affairs [who is accused of orchestrating the bribery operation], allegedly told a Polish Huawei employee that Brussels lobbyists “often cross the line and even pay for amendments”, according to a wiretap in his Volkswagen Tiguan, referred to in the arrest warrant.

Former Huawei staff members in Brussels told Follow the Money, Knack and Le Soir that Ottati’s problematic behaviour was widely known within the company, but tolerated by higher-ups. Several employees said they had raised concerns about Ottati, including warnings about possible corruption, but that these were never seriously followed up on. [Source]

The current Huawei corruption scandal evokes the 2022 Qatargate corruption scandal, in which European authorities seized 1.5 million euros in cash and arrested four MEPs on corruption charges related to illicit influence by Qatar, Morocco, and Mauritania. (The full investigation is still ongoing.) Politico noted that one of the offices sealed in the Huawei probe belonged to Adam Mouchtar, co-founder of a group that had as its president Eva Kaili, who was arrested in the Qatargate probe. In reaction to the Huawei probe, Nicholas Aiossa, Director at Transparency International EU, said “These new allegations are as sweeping and serious as Qatargate and make a mockery of democracy at the European Parliament. For too long, MEPs have taken a carefree approach to ethics and continue to exist in a culture of impunity. If MEPs want to protect the integrity of the Parliament, they need to bring about swift, wide-ranging, and substantial ethics reform.”

Against the backdrop of the Huawei scandal is a shifting and at times contradictory E.U. policy landscape vis-a-vis China. Last week, The Financial Times reported that the European Commission had begun an investigation into whether China provided unfair subsidies for a BYD electric car plant in Hungary, underscoring the E.U.’s concern with Chinese economic and security threats. But recent data also shows that 17 E.U. member states have not fully implemented the Commission’s 5G cybersecurity toolbox from 2020 that mandates a ban on Huawei and ZTE from their networks. The nationalist tabloid Global Times pounced on these divergences in three recent editorials, arguing that “Europe should dismantle the barriers of suspicion” when it comes to Chinese telecom suppliers and make “a rational choice to turn further toward China.” However, the Global Times has so far made no mention of the Huawei corruption probe. Acknowledging the growing fractures in the transatlantic relationship, a recent article in The Economist suggested that “Europe will have to zip its lips over China’s abuses” in order to safeguard its broader trade goals.