On Friday morning, four of China's prominent state-backed newspapers released scathing editorials of the United State's involvement in the Chen Guangcheng case. As the clock struck midnight that very same day, one of those papers, The Beijing News, succumbed to online criticism and offered a brief apology on its Sina Weibo account. more ›

North Korea unveils giant statues of its former leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il amid the communist state suffering major blow as its long-range rocket fails. [Euronews] more ›

Sina Weibo, China's most popular equivalent of Twitter, has become the battlefield between North and South Korea. more ›

"There are now many government Weibo accounts, and that is definitely a good thing, but it depends what you do with it. If your department's Weibo account is just a showcase, saying good things about yourself and ignoring the criticism of others, you think you can gain ground? What you get in fact is minus marks. So, if you think you've got what it takes to open a Weibo account, go for it. If not, forget it." more ›

A lot of drama has unfolded in Chongqing since its former police chief Wang Lijun was demoted, then dropped from his post for hanging out in the US consulate in Chengdu a little longer than he should. Yesterday, rumours abounded that Chongqing's beleagured party chief Bo Xilai had resigned from the Politburo. more ›

Today is Losar, or the Tibetan New Year, the single most important day in the Tibetan calendar. But for many living in the province, now closed off to the outside world, as well as other Tibetans around the world, there will be no singing and dancing this year. more ›

"The Chinese government has never really learnt how to 'speak.' You see a lot of politically correct language, and too little self-criticism. Subjects like Wang Lijun are deemed too sensitive to even be touched upon. China is generally a country that does not too bad on the whole, and the hard results are out there. If something has happened, we should talk about. The more you refuse to talk about it, the more you shroud the matter in mystery. But when you choose to talk about it, people think, oh, it's just that. Society needs criticism all the time. The more the government criticizes itself, the less the public will criticize it. The more good news there is on official media, the more bad news and rumors there will be on Weibo. That's just how things balance up." more ›

After featuring the political calligraphy of Bo Xilai prominently on its front page for two consecutive days on Feb 8 and Feb 9, Chongqing Daily appears to have done an about-face in its treatment of the municipal Communist Party chief. Today, it was Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan that occupied much of the paper's front page. more ›

Watch the documentary after the jump... more ›

"The first social responsibility and professional ethic of media staff should be understanding their role clearly and be a good mouthpiece." more ›

“There is an artiste; a world famous artiste who has donated the most to philantrophy causes, who is also the most misunderstood and suffered the most pain in the world. You may guess many names but actually, this one is Michael Jackson, the superstar of the United States. more ›

Xinhua News Agency recently blew big money on ads in New York City's Time Square, but apparently people still have no idea what it is they sell. more ›

Sohu Vice-President Liu Chun (刘春) laments in a post on his Sohu Weibo profile about the anti-Japanese propaganda productions that are shown every September 18, anniversary of the Mukden Incident in 1931, which subsequently led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria:

September 18 -- I'd like to plead with China's film industry workers. Please stop making those obscene, mythological anti-Japanese films where a child destroys a dozen (Japanese) devils, a farmer hundreds, and a guerilla thousands. Are the (Japanese) short-legged or brain-damaged? Each scene requires hordes of cameos to act as (Japanese) corpses. Please, pay a bit of attention to history. Stop turning a 14-year-long brutal war which caused the death of tens of millions into a game. more ›

Exporting China's Development to the World, a weblog with a mouthful of a title run by a group of anthropologists from Macquarie University (Sydney) and Free University (Amsterdam), tells us of how China is expanding its efforts in controlling influencing Chinese-language media outside of China. more ›

The Beijing Times and the Beijing News, two influential newspapers that have made a name for themselves for their bold reporting have been taken over by the city's propaganda bureau. more ›

And the clampdown has begun. more ›

One day after the catastrophic high-speed railway collision, party propaganda papers like the Renmin Daily, Economic Daily and Guangming Daily appeared almost oblivious to the incident, as evident by their almost identical front page covers trumpeting the recent promotion ceremony conducted by the Central Military Commission and other exploits of the CCP. Most other city dailies, however, featured the incident as their front page cover story. See image after jump... more ›

Hey, even farmers have to break out the video camera to see if they can get a few hundred thousand clicks on Youku every now and then. Farmers from Fujian province have filmed a patriotic music video, covering the Red classic, 'The East Is Red,' in their native Minnan dialect. more ›

Comrades, it's important to remember the struggles of our brothers and sisters who fought in the revolutionary wars of liberation that happened in the dark bygones of our collective 20th century saga. And what better way to do it than a Red Olympics with events like the Heroic Bunker Bombing Grenade Toss or the Red Soldier Pole Carry? more ›

It will be three weeks tomorrow since China's mega-starry propaganda film The Founding of a Party (建党伟业, called "Beginning of the Great Revival" by international media) was released in Chinese theaters in the lead up to the CPC 90th Anniversary. Here's the story so far: more ›

Nothing unexpected here, but it still feels somehow satisfying to see it confirmed. China Digital Times translates a leaked internal memo detailing the directives to China's 50 cent party (五毛党, wǔmáodǎng, or paid pro-government internet commentators) in their efforts to "circumscribe the influence of Taiwanese democracy": more ›

Want to watch US congressional candidate Mark Amodei make an idiot of himself? Sure ya do. This is the Nevada candidate's election campaign video which consists of a mock Chinese news broadcast trumpeting the decline of the US and the rise of our own good fortunes. It then cuts to Amodei himself who says he would never let the China nightmare happen and then for good measure, utters the word "independence". We really like his classy scare-tactics, how Chinese troops are edited so that they're marching over DC, but most of all how we get called a "great empire". more ›

China is the closest thing that North Korea has to a friend at the moment and we get that the People's Daily is the CCP's official mouthpiece, but they were just asking for it when reporter Zhou Ziran posted up this gushy article on the wonderful state of things in Pyongyang. Let's just say that commenters had a field day with the fluffy piece. more ›

69 years ago today, the Dear Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, was born on Mount Paektu, heralded by the appearance of a double rainbow over the mountain, or so the story goes according to his official biographers. more ›

Last Monday, Premier Wen Jiabao paid a rare visit to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls -- the government department where petitioners from all over the country go to air their grievances. It was the first time in 61 years a top government official has visited, leading many people to call it an "encouraging" effort to connect with the people. But by doing so, it seems Wen might have angered the head of the propaganda department. more ›

The Chongqing Broadcasting Group has just announced its plans to send ratings for Chongqing Satellite TV, one of fourteen channels in its portfolio, down the toilet. And what revolutionary plans they are (trying to be punny here) -- all prime-time drama serials between 7.30pm and 11pm have been cancelled and replaced with such inspiring shows as Liberating the Southwest《解放大西南》, Moving Ahead for New China《为了新中国前进》, Sounds of Gunshots on the Plains《平原枪声》, Everyday Red Songs《天天红歌会》and Liberation《解放》. more ›

China Digital Times has done us all the favor again of translating directives from various governmental authorities and this week the main focus is unsurprisingly on the Jiaozhou Lu apartment block fire here in Shanghai. Among the missives: Don't put mourning activities in a prominent position on all media outlets and websites, and withdraw issues of a magazine that dared to write about who really was responsible. more ›

Taking a gander at the various viewpoints on China's recent large-scale campaigns, Jeffrey Wasserstrom finds similar threads through the old leaders much more than they mirror anything Mao Zedong did. more ›