Any kid on the playground knows that if the boys get together and make an exclusive club, sooner or later the girls are going to try to join — or at least beat the guys at their own game. The ageless dynamic is playing itself out right now in the high-profile world of Chinese hacking, a career that brings its more successful members money, power and something akin to super-stardom in the eyes of normal......

Local officials are still trying to strike the proper balance between transparency and the traditional Chinese methods of information dissemination (or lack thereof) which we have all become so familiar with — namely, "monitoring," "controlling" and "blocking." If the government had been open about the details of the "unusual death" of the girl in Weng'an on June 22nd, could it have prevented the destructive mass protests nearly a week later? That is the question......

Three weeks after Canada's CBC News announced that it had re-secured permission to broadcast live from Tiananmen Square during the Olympics, more announcements have come out indicating that BOCOG is moving toward giving games broadcasters more freedom to report in Beijing this August. This Wall Street Journal report says an agreement was reached Wednesday that will allow broadcasters to air coverage live from Tiananmen from 6 to 10 a.m. and from 9 to 11 p.m.......

It won’t just be athletes and tourists descending on Beijing for the Olympics — an estimated 25,000 foreign journalists will be coming to the city to provide coverage for the event. We’ve already mentioned some of the tools being offered to the reporters, but a new report by New York organization Human Rights Watch released yesterday makes it clear how badly those resources may be needed. The report alleges that the Chinese government has violated......

After Xinhua reported that county officials in Weng’an—including its Communist Party secretary, Wang Qin, and head of the county government, Wang Haiping—were fired on Friday following the June 28 riots, Western media has hailed Weng’an as a turning point for China. Both WSJ and TIME remark that Xinhua’s handling of the Weng’an incident is remarkable in itself; not only did state media report the riots almost immediately, but quickly produced "unusually long investigative stories." Adding......

We already knew that Chinese blogs were some of the main free speech forums in the country, but another form of electronic communication is getting recognized as an opportunity for uncensored commentary: text messaging. A recent NPR piece says texting is popular in China not only because it is relatively inexpensive, but also because it is out of the range of government censorship, at least for now. In a culture that is traditionally emotionally reserved,......

Work began Tuesday on a high-speed rail line from Shanghai to neighboring Nanjing, creating an even stronger link between the two economic powerhouses. Authorities say travel time, currently two hours, will be cut in half and that the line will be open by July of 2010, just in time for the World Expo. Seem to good to be true? Marc van der Chijs certainly thinks so, pointing out that a vehicle with a maximum speed......

To help foreign media confront the challenges posed by covering the Beijing Olympics, the International Federation of Journalists has teamed up with Play the Game, a non-profit democracy advocacy organization working in global athletic coverage, to produce a series of helpful tools for reporters on a new website — Play the Game for Open Journalism. The aids include an online discussion forum and a series of background and tips for reporting in China. Most impressive,......

While yet more versions of the Weng'an, Guizhou riot have surfaced on the internet, the Guizhou provincial government has also finally given its version — which, believe it or not, has sparked off a new pop phrase on the Chinese internet — "I'm here to do push-ups" (我来做俯卧撑的). Netizens are now suddenly flooding the forums with pictures of TV host Ou Zhihang (区志航) doing push-ups in his birthday suit by famous Chinese landmarks such as......

By Hilary Faxon and Adrienne Wong Youku.com, one of China's two largest video sharing sites, announced at midnight last night that it has closed a funding round of $30 million. Youku said in a statement that it netted $30 million from existing investors Farallon, Sutter Hill, Chengwei, and Brookside, and an additional $10 million in venture debt from Western Technology Investment. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, Youku has more than 100 million video views a day. Ku6.com......

In our past life as a media whore public relations executive, we learnt that one of the defining elements of PR with Chinese characteristics is that cash is not only frequently extended in return for positive coverage, it is actually industry standard that you hand out the cash to journalists in nice little envelopes discreetly tucked into the media kit as "travel expenses" (车马费). That this is standard practice is hardly news, but tough luck......

China Digital Times reports that a new virus is being distributed through e-mails with anti-China headings that ask readers to click on what looks like an embedded video player, but instead release a brutal virus onto the machine. Messages with subjects like “China is paralyzed by new earthquake,” “2008 Olympic Games are under the threat,” and “A new deadly catastrophe in China,” should be treated as potentially harmful.......

He may be the President of 1.3 billion people, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t surf the internet like you and me. President Hu had his first interactive webcast through the People’s Daily Online this morning, answering tough questions like what he reads on the internet, and where he goes to feel for the pulse of netizens. For the full transcript of the webcast, click here.......

On the list of things that seriously really piss us off children’s movies, Americanized kung fu and animated pandas don’t exactly play a starring role. In fact, it’s probably fair to say they don’t even make a cameo. Unfortunately for artist Zhao Bandi (赵半狄), all these things seem to be at the top of his list, and all these things are clearly evident in DreamWorks’ new film Kung Fu Panda. To display his righteous outrage,......

Unrequited love has led a young Chinese woman to create a website, and publish all the photos of her ex-boyfriend Li Pengfei (李鹏飞) in the most compromising positions (wanking in bed, performing cunnilingus on her, etc.) in a last ditch attempt to get back at him. The sexy pictures were published along with all the sordid details of how the little casanova was supposed to have tricked her out of her money and love......

On the internet grapevine, a story surfaced yesterday that had China Unicom launching Apple’s new 3G iPhone here on the mainland come August. The wildly popular iPhone 1.0 never made it to the PRC (well not officially, the local grey market was pretty well supplied). The rift between folks over at Cupertino and Chinese wireless carriers was over Apple’s subscription revenue sharing business model, one that would have had the carrier partner giving Apple a......

Graph from WSJ Blogs Western journalists have long lauded China's blogs as edgy, provocative and balanced alternatives to China's official newspapers. Now, we have science on our side: In a new study at Middlebury College, assistant professor Ashley Esarey analyzed the 2006 news content of over 500 Chinese blogs. Esarey found that some 61% of Chinese blogs carry criticism, with only 19% of Chinese official news media doing the same. While Imagethief does point......

Just after we so recently expressed our jealousy over the upcoming arrival of the iPod 3G in Hong Kong, Apple has announced the opening of its first botique store in mainland China this August. Sorry Shanghai, the honor is slated to go to Beijing, which will see a three story giant open at Sanlitun Village.The BBC, the only British media allowed into Olympic stadiums, has announced they will not hide demonstrations and protests that may......

Last week Shanghai saw the introduction of ">handy tri-colored boxes in communication stores throughout the city to be used to recycle or properly dispose of cell phones. The initiative could make a huge impact in helping the city's environment: Shanghai Mobile reports 3.2 million phones are trashed in the city each year. The local trend may be indicative of a nation-wide movement. During his recent visit to China, Samsung CEO Lee Yoon-Woo announced the company’s......

Tough times ahead, it seems, for the English-language magazines up north in Beijing. Too months ahead of the Olympics, the powers that be have declared time out on Time Out Beijing, writes Jane Macartney of The Times:The June issue of Time Out Beijing has been banned from distribution by China's censors, The Times has learnt. But the decision seems to have been taken not because of any racy or politically incorrect content. Time Out Beijing......

Fons Tuinstra of China Herald suggests that lots of hotel rooms, in particular 4-star rooms, are still available during the Beijing Olympics. Is Beijing really expecting 500,000 foreigners in August?Latest visa rumour from Richard Brubaker of All Roads Lead to China: Anyone born after 1983 will no longer be offered a Z visa.The Opposite End of China informs us of a Uyghur attack on a police station last week in Sangong, Xinjiang, which is right......

In this week's edition of Opinionist, we present to you an excerpt of the speech made by Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong made at the Society of Publishers in Asia's awards dinner on the 19th anniversary of the June 4 incident. The senior writer of the Singapore-based Straits Times was detained by Chinese authorities in April 2005 for over 1,000 days on charges of spying for Taiwan. In this speech, Ching Cheong spoke at length......

So that live fish key chain souvenir didn't turn out to be very official, but this latest Olympic cheer, "Go Olympics! Go China!" (奥运加油！中国加油！) definitely is, as it comes with the stamp of approval of the Party Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance (GODPP), the Ministry of Education, BOCOG, and CCTV. There are four highly complex moves to the cheer, but don't worry because Danwei has this step-by-step pictorial guide to help you along.......

Kaiser Kuo of the Ogilvy China Digital Watch breaks the news: Video sharing site 56.com has been temporarily shut down by "the Guangdong provincial branch of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), acting on orders from SARFT’s national leadership, according to a highly-placed industry insider who declined to be named. The closure seems to have been in effect since 6pm on June 3". A spokesperson from 56.com has cited server malfunction and......

Cara Anna of the AP reports police dragged away over 100 parents protesting outside the courthouse in Dujiangyan (都江堰) holding pictures of their children who died in the Sichuan earthquake:"Why?" some of them yelled. "Tell us something," they said as black-suited police wearing riot helmets yanked at them. The parents had been kneeling in front of the courthouse yelling, "We want to sue." Police dragged an Associated Press reporter and two photographers who were......

UPDATE: More photos are available here (link in Chinese). We should warn you that they are pretty tasteless though. (h/t to Danwei) ----- The New Travel Weekly (旅游新报), a Chongqing based magazine, has been closed down by the government after it ran a series of pictures of scantily clad models surrounded by rubble at the start of this week's 3-day period of mourning for the lives lost in the Sichuan earthquake. Government officials in the......

This picture you see on the right taken during President Hu Jintao's meeting with Emperor Akihito during his trip to Japan (just before the earthquake struck) appeared on the front page of the May 9 edition of Jiefang Daily 《解放日报》[screenshot here just in case]. As you can see, President Hu is talking to the Emperor and Mrs Hu is talking to the Empress. Take a careful look. Do you see what's there coming out from......

Several tales of motherly love have emerged and are being repeated throughout several Chinese stations and media:One mother was found buried dead while still suckling her three month old.One picture of a female police officer Jiang Xiaojuan has been making its rounds on the internet. A new mother herself, Jiang has been breastfeeding eight babies orphaned by the quake.A third baby was found by rescue workers alive in the arms of his mother who......

It's early Monday morning and the China twitterati are abuzz with the news that all major Chinese web sites have been ordered to shutdown for the three days of national mourning which begins today. Here is an announcement sent out by the government in Hefei, Anhui, followed by Shanghaiist's translation. Good reason to believe similar announcements have been sent in other provinces and municipalities:各市、县委宣传部，各市、县网宣办（外宣办），省直各厅局，各有关网站： To all propaganda departments, online propaganda units and foreign affairs offices,......

ESWN draws our attention the heart-rending story of Chen Jian. Be very sure you watch all the way to the fourth video, or don't watch at all if you don't intend to cry today: Part 1: It's May 15 at the start of this video, and 26 year old Chen Jian has already been trapped under the rubble for 73 hours. While waiting for the lifting equipment to arrive, he chatted with the reporter Zhang......