This past summer in Chengdu, a blatantly insecure boyfriend forced his girlfriend to endure beatings, sleep deprivation and a chastity belt over his suspicions she was cheating on him. more ›

The plainclothes "fake police" trying to "lure foreign kids into their cars" two days ago were actually legitimate police officers who simply had a miscommunication with the young students due to their poor spoken English. more ›

Attention all parents, you'll want to take note of this one! Fake police officers have been caught trying to lure students of the Dulwich College Shanghai into their cars in broad daylight outside Carrefour Jinqiao. The following letter sent by the Deutsche Schule Shanghai and Dulwich College to parents (you'll find the English portion on page 2) was forwarded to us by a concerned reader. If you have kids attending school in Shanghai, make sure they know they should never ever talk to strangers, accept food from them, or enter their vehicles. more ›

Police have arrested a 34-year-old man named Li Hao on charges that he kept sex slaves in a dungeon buried beneath a residential complex in Luoyang, Henan province. He is suspected of kidnapping a total of six women from KTV bars, murdering at least one, and keeping them prisoner for periods of up to two years! more ›

On Wednesday, four Chinese employees working for a Sinochem affiliate in Caqueta, Columbia were kidnapped by what the Chinese embassy in Bogata has confirmed were Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) members. Likely kidnapped for extortion, local media reported that the four were forced out of their car at gunpoint and into the jungle. Their driver was then released to report the kidnapping. The Columbian military has dispatched air and ground forces in search and rescue efforts, but there have been few developments so far. more ›

The story of corrupt local officials in Hunan snatching children from poor rural families to sell to adoption agencies isn't a new one--the LA Times covered this story two years ago--but the issue is garnering far more attention after a recent in-depth investigative report from Caixin came out on the 9th of this month. In this video, an Al Jazeera reporter heads to Shaoyang, Hunan to interview families who've lost their children. more ›

Chinese-Australian political blogger and writer Yang Hengjun (杨恒均) has finally broken the silence on his two-day disappearance in Guangzhou. Here's a quick recap of what happened: Shortly after tweeting one day in late March that he was being followed by three men at the Guangzhou Baiyun airport, Yang went incommunicado, sparking off a series of international media reports that yet another Chinese intellectual had gone missing. The Australian government began pulling its strings, and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, when pressed by foreign correspondents on the whereabouts of Yang, famously quipped, "I have not heard of that person." On March 31, just two days after his disappearance, Yang resurfaced, assuring everyone he was safe, "recovering" from an "illness", and on his way back to Australia. more ›

John Garnaut of the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

An Australian writer who many consider to be the most influential political commentator on the Chinese language internet has disappeared, apparently at the hands of Chinese police. more ›

A seven year old boy who was kidnapped in Shenzhen in 2008 has been reunited with his father yesterday, in a miracle that could only have happened in this day and age, thanks to the internet. more ›

On February 2, a four-year-old boy was kidnapped in Fujian province. The next day, a post appeared on a anti-trafficking weibo (micro-blogging) account describing the child and asking for help: more ›

The picture to the right shows a kidnapped young boy called Yang Weixin. He was taken from his home in Quanzhou, Fujian on July, 20, 2009. His parents have been earnestly searching for him for a heartbreaking past 2 years. Their search was nothing but a series of dead ends until one day his mother found a photo of him online begging. more ›

This past weekend was a particularly bloody one here in Shanghai as we had at least 3 separate cases of violent crimes occur across the city: more ›

We'd like to take this time to direct special attention to Charles Custer (captain of one of our favorite China blogs) and his new project: a documentary about kidnapped children in China. They are currently trying to raise funds on Kickstarter to finish it off. more ›

The Chinese government has kicked itself into gear finding the hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of children that go missing in China each year, thanks probably in part to the sudden media attention the issue garnered last April when hundreds of parents set to the streets in a peaceful march, begging local and national bureaus for help. As part of the government-sponsored efforts, they've set up this website: "Babies Looking for Home", which cycles through pictures of 60 children who were kidnapped from their families and were recently recovered in police stings. more ›

• Here's a 4-year-old girl who loves her beer [People's Daily Online] "A 4-year-old girl in Penglai, Shandong province, loves beer so much that she wants to have a glass of the alcoholic beverage with each meal. The toddler first tasted beer about a year back, and has since refused to eat if there wasn't a glassful beside her plate. Her careless parents are now desperately seeking help to get their daughter give up the habit."
• Kids Put The Heat On Police Exam Cheaters In China [CBS News] "Police officers contemplating cheating on promotion exams met their match this week in northwestern China _ 18 serious-faced fifth-graders walking the beat. The students were decked in blue and white school uniforms, and photos on the local government Web site showed them standing behind podiums and sauntering up and down aisles of various classrooms to monitor 265 police test-takers in Liangzhou county in Gansu province."
• Xu Zhiyong: Destined To Fight For Social Justice [China Digital Times] "It is very unusual for a human rights activist to be profiled by official media in China. The Economic Observer recently published a profile of Xu Zhiyong, a legal scholar and activist who relentlessly seeks social justice. Excerpts translated by CDT’s Linjun Fan."

Four men were arrested yesterday for allegedly kidnapping a real estate mogul and taking a 5.8 million yuan ransom for his release. The four said they had gotten the idea for their scheme from a television drama. more ›