About Annie Luman Ren
Annie Luman Ren served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian Centre on China in the World and was a co-editor of The China Story.
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About Graeme Smith
Graeme Smith is affiliated with the Australian National University’s Department of Pacific Affairs. His research focuses on Chinese investment, migration, military interactions, technology, and aid within the Asia-Pacific region. He also co-hosts the Little Red Podcast alongside Louisa Lim.
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About Linda Jaivin
Linda Jaivin is the author of The Shortest History of China and has written 11 additional books. She is also a literary translator and serves as an editorial associate at the Australian Centre on China in the World.
View all posts by Linda Jaivin
China's social credit initiatives originated twenty-five years ago, as officials and companies aimed to address issues such as the prevalence of counterfeit goods, triangular debt situations—where A lends to B, B lends to C, and C lends back to A, resulting in a stalemate of problematic debts that jeopardize financial stability—and a general lack of respect for the nation's laws and regulations. As a result, the central government and multiple ministries dedicated many years to creating data-sharing frameworks among typically segmented governmental bodies, along with establishing blacklists to penalize substantial offenders and incentives to encourage 'trustworthy' conduct.
Chinese digital nationalism is experiencing a notable rise. A significant indication of this is the increasing public interest in cultural heritage across the nation, particularly among younger generations. They showcase their passion through the enthusiastic purchase of heritage items, such as traditional Hanfu 汉服 fashion, which includes the classic skirt known as mamianqun 马面裙 and the cheongsam, a widely recognized women's dress style from the early 20th century, also referred to as qipao. As reported by Alibaba’s digital marketing platform, in January 2024, sales of mamianqun rose by nearly 25 percent, while cheongsam sales increased by over 31 percent.
China boasts a significant level of linguistic diversity, with 281 languages belonging to nine different language families. However, the distribution of speakers among these languages is highly uneven. Of its total population exceeding 1.4 billion, 91.11 percent are Han Chinese who communicate in Putonghua and/or other Sinitic languages; the remaining 8.89 percent comprises non-Han Chinese or minority ethnic groups who speak an additional 200 languages.
A common saying regarding communist regimes is that their leaders tend to overlook the intelligence provided to them. Martin Dimitrov explores the different internal reference materials under Xi and asserts their ongoing importance. In China, similar to other communist regimes, there are two categories of media: one that is publicly available and another that is restricted, accessible solely to regime insiders with the necessary clearances. This second category, referred to as neibu 内部 or 'internal circulation,' has not been as thoroughly examined by scholars.
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In April 2024, Nymphia Wind, a drag queen from Taiwan, made history as the first East Asian winner of RuPaul's Drag Race. Clips of her in a shimmering golden outfit gained widespread attention online, bringing Taiwan into the global media spotlight and establishing her as a kind of queer representative for Taiwanese authenticity to the world. As she humorously noted, this role can be compared to a wai jiao guan 外焦官 – ‘external banana official’, a play on words with the term for 'ambassador' 外交官.
In April 2024, the Taiwan Constitutional Court conducted a hearing regarding the potential violation of constitutional human rights guarantees by the death penalty. On September 20, it decided to maintain the death penalty, introducing some new safeguards for its application. Although a coalition of abolitionist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and research institutions, spearheaded by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP), has spent twenty years campaigning for its abolition, numerous polls have consistently shown significant public resistance to eliminating the death penalty.
Thank you for engaging with the China Story. The moment has arrived for us to part ways. The website will cease updates starting February 2025.