"Every time I see our famous professors, famous writers, famous doctors, famous actors, famous entrepreneurs, famous cultural figures, famous artists, famous investors, famous media professionals, famous anchorpersons and all other famous figures meeting with government officials with fear and trepidation, afraid to displease them, I feel a deep sense of grief, one that consumes my entire being. I am sad not just for myself but for the country I live in, because when communication requires such a position, the cost of communication and psychological pressure is immense." more ›

As you may have heard, China's two biggest micro-blog services Sina and Tencent Weibo have been forced to suspend their comment functions from 8 a.m, March 31 to 8 a.m, April 3. While microbloggers have been restricted from commenting on tweets, they are still free to post their own original tweets and retweet what others have posted. more ›

China's ruling Communist Party is mulling a series of political reform measures, including the reassessment of the 1989 Tiananmen student protests, multiple Hong Kong media outlets, including the Apple Daily have reported. more ›

CY Leung hasn't officially taken over as Chief Executive, but he is already doing a fine job of pissing off the people of Hong Kong. Just one day after winning that farce of an "election", Leung was spotted making a visit to the Beijing Liaison Office (you can think of that as China's "embassy" in HK), and spending some 90 minutes there. more ›

The difference between Mainlanders and Hong Kongers is that the former have votes but do not know who they are electing, while most of the latter do not have votes but know who they are electing. more ›

The British were able to appoint a Governor General without asking what Hong Kongers thought of it, and nobody in Hong Kong had any reaction. Now, although the Central Government would have some influence, there is an election anyway. But the Hong Kongers are always complaining and protesting. Why? Why are we always doing things that nobody appreciates? more ›

CY Leung (梁振英) has become Hong Kong's third Chief Executive, winning 689 of 1132 votes cast by a Hong Kong election committee. His main contender for the position, Henry Tang, once thought to be Beijing's anointed one, secured just 285 votes following a campaign marred by scandals and personal infidelities. The only pro-democracy candidate in the "election", Albert Ho, won a meagre 76 votes. more ›

With democracy making strides in Wukan, a new infographic from iSun Affairs (translated by Tea Leaf Nation) asks whether the tiny Guangdong fishing village is a more democratic place than Hong Kong, long thought to be China's bastion of freedom and democracy. For our part, though we think that recent Wukandidates (like Xue Jianwan) were certainly an inspiration, we still would rather live in a city governed by the Hong Kongress that is LegCo. more ›

Ten parents of Chinese homosexuals have written to China's top legislative organ and political advisory organ to call for a legislation to stop discrimination against gays. In an open letter to the NPC and the national CPPCC, the parents say there are around 60 million gays in China, going by the ratio of 3 to 5 gays among every 100 people. more ›

Residents of Guangdong province's Wukan village which held elections after they won rare concessions from autocratic Beijing reflect on the the experience. The previous authorities were forced out after a row over land and corruption. [AFP] more ›

Radio Free Asia reports that the daughter of Xue Jinbo, the Wukan village leader whose death in police custody led to the expulsion of authorities from the Guangdong village in December, has been forced out of her position as a primary school teacher for wanting to run in local village elections. more ›

Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, founding chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), the largest pro-Beijing political party in Hong Kong, has officially bowed out of the upcoming Chief Executive election. more ›

"Many people see rampant bribery as evidence that village elections don’t work or matter. And it definitely isn’t a good thing from the perspective of democracy. But actually elections must be working fairly well for candidates to see bribery—an expensive proposition—as necessary to win. If the elections didn’t matter or if it were easier to stuff the ballot or undermine the election in another way, no one would spend so much money on bribery to win them. The elections ensure that the developers and local officials have to share some of the wealth that they might otherwise just pocket themselves.” more ›

In a place where most people have never even seen ballot papers, there's always someone who'll always say that the one-person one-vote is dangerous. The 'good citizen certificates' of yesteryears were the same as now. The (Japanese) devils said, "We can't issue 'good citizen certificates' for everyone, or else the Eighth Route Army would penetrate." I'm not talking about representative systems to you. I'm just telling you that the one-person one-vote is a right right. We're not talking about one-person one-gun here. What are you so afraid of?" more ›

Three men were handed jail sentences for up to a decade in a secret trial last year for "inciting subversion of state power" through their criticisms of former president Jiang Zemin. The details of the trial have only now emerged through a Hong Kong-based rights organisation, writes Will Clem of the South China Morning Post: more ›

"If only Hong Kongers knew this: that if the mainland does not have democracy, Hong Kong will not have democracy, and there will be no changes in its circumstances. If Hong Kong does not have democracy, then there will be no security for Hong Kong's liberty and rule of law, and there will be no change in its circumstances. If Hong Kongers took their dissatisfaction and anger, and used it to push for democracy in Hong Kong and the mainland, then Hong Kong would stand to gain from it, and so would the mainland." more ›

Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where demonstrations are a normal thing. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where marches don’t end in disaster. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) roots out the dirt. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where the government isn’t in bed with business. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where refuge is provided for exiles [from the Tiananmen Protests]. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where June 4 is not forgotten. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where magazines are free. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where you don’t have to scale the [Internet] wall. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where the sense of human rights is strong. Thank goodness there is Hong Kong, where there are prospects for democracy. Thank goodness there is Taiwan and Hong Kong, when the mainland’s back bristles with thorns and no one dares step too far out of bounds! more ›

Gordon Chang, the China skeptic famed for his apocalyptic pronouncements on the People's Republic, begins his latest essay, "China's Unstoppable Billion", with the following anecdote: more ›

BBC's Beijing correspondent Damian Grammaticas is back from a week in Taiwan covering the recent elections. He reflects: more ›

Guangdong's Wukan village will re-elect new village leaders after a wave of massive protests which lasted for around 3 months captured nationwide attention. Lin Zulian (林祖恋), the protest leader as well as the chief of a committee running the village after protesters gained control, has been appointed as the village's Party Chief and is to organize the upcoming village election. more ›

"This is how a free and democratic New China will be. All governments at various levels all the way to the central government will be elected through popular, fair and anonymous voting. They will be responsible to the people that elected them. It will be a fulfillment of Sun Yat-Sen's Three Principles of the People, of Lincoln's idea of government of the people, by the people, for the people; and Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. This will guarantee the independence, solidarity and unity of the nation, as well as its cooperation with the democratic nations of the world." more ›

Two days after Ma Ying-jeou's successful re-election, Chinese internet users still can't stop talking about Taiwan's 2012 presidential election. On Sina Weibo, China's largest microblogging platform, the election has remained the top trending topic as Chinese netizens look across the Taiwan straits and ponder over their own democratic future. Here is a selection of some of the most viral posts on Sina Weibo on the Taiwan election: more ›

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou speaking to international reporters in English yesterday morning in Taipei. Another video after the jump... more ›

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'Tis the season for exceptionally harsh prison sentences. China seems to have made a habit of convicting its political activists at Christmas time, and this year is no exception. In the last week, two Chinese democracy advocates, Chen Wei and Chen Xi, have been sentenced to prison terms of 9 and 10 years, respectively. And today, a couple goes on trial for campaigning against forced evictions. more ›

Taiwan's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party has released a new music video urging voters to show up at the polls to vote for Taiwan's future.Lyrics after the jump... more ›

Protesters in Wukan, the village that captivated China watchers around the world during their bold stand-off with the Chinese government, have packed up shop and gone home after government concessions. more ›

"For the first time on record, the Chinese Communist party has lost all control, with the population of 20,000 in this southern fishing village now in open revolt." So begins Telegraph correspondent Malcolm Moore's report of what he has personally witnessed in the fishing village of Wukan, Guangdong over the past few days. Enraged over government land grabs, villagers have now overrun local authorities and driven police out. They remain barricaded within their village, roadblocks set up by both police and villagers preventing food and water from entering. Here's a roundup of what's happening. more ›

“I want to see your elections with campaign flags flying all over the place. Taiwan and China are one country. How can you arrest me for illegal entry?” more ›