Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

China Digital Times highlighted some discussion on gender gap in China. Even though the overall percentage of working women is not very low, as a result of urbanization, employment rate for working-age women in urban areas fell to a new low of 60.8 percent in 2010, down from 77.4 percent 20 years earlier.

David Bandurski from China Media Project explained the idea of “online social management”, a set of tactics to increase the capacity for channeling online public opinion, put forward by Fu Siming, a professor at the Central Party School.

China's state-run People’s Daily ran a piece titled “The Post-80′s Generation is Dispirited: Early Decline Cause for Alarm[zh],” arguing that China’s youth born after 1980 face “spiritual confusion and a loss of identity” despite better material living conditions. In response, social media celebrity and social critic “Zuoyeben“[zh] wrote an essay on the real cause of this issue. The essay, which reveals different social problems in today's China, has found resonance among many Weibo users. Tea Leaf Nation has translated the essay.

Hong Wrong rounded up Hong Kong citizens’ responses to the city's security chief's comment on the soaring of rape cases. The police head, Lai Tung-Kwok, told women to cut down on drinking in a press conference.

Off Beat China translated Chinese netizens’ reaction to Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy. Comments are mixed, some find the act courageous, some say it is over-reaction.

Yueran Zhang from Tea Leaf Nation reviews the Chinese petition system and discusses directions for future reform:

Ongoing reforms should include the enhancement of the institutional powers of bureaus of letters and visits. On the other hand, the citizens flooding the petitioning offices, which are considered a last resort, reveal the ineffectiveness of other channels for hearing complaints and grievances. Enhancement and clarification of the roles of the People’s Congress, NGOs, the arbitration system and the judiciary branch could lessen the burden on the petitioning system.

After Kunming's Anti-PX protest on May 4, 2013, local government has tried to stop further protests by sending text messages, “visiting” protest organizers, and censoring information online. East by Southeast has more details.

WeiboSuite is a new toolbox for journalists and netizens. Created by data journalists from the University of Hong Kong, WeiboSuite provides English translations of censored materials on Weibo and tools to translate textual images.

High Peaks Pure Earth has published Elliot Sperling's translation of prominent Tibetan writer, Woser's recent blogpost urging the world to save Lhasa from being turned into another tourist shopping mall.

Patrick Lozada and James Griffiths from Shanghaiist explained on the findings of a report that found that around 50 percent of Chinese men admit to sexually assaulting their partners:

In publishing our original post, and this follow up, we are not seeking to demonise Chinese men [...] Domestic violence is a serious issue in China, but one that the government has long dragged its heals on and shown little inclination to deal with.

Two confidential Hong Kong Government memorandums has been leaked. The documents would take effect from 1 June 2013 and require

an assessment on Mainland reaction and related public relations measures will become a mandatory requirement for all policy committee papers and Executive Council submission.

Bad Canto believes that “Hong Kong is finished” if such documents come to effect.

The current Chinese Communist Party leaders are the second generation red and the third and the fourth generations are emerging in the political scene. The political system in China is more and more like a hereditary monarchy, said Chinese netizens. Off Beat China summarized the discussion.

The White House petition for the Zhu Ling case has received 137,676 signatures by May 8, 2013. Some web users have made light of the fact that Chinese have turned to an American petition site seeking justice. The following image shared on Sina Weibo is Obama in the Oval Office, which has been re-imagined as China’s Letters and Visits Office. CHINA MEDIA PROJECT has more details.

The term Party's benevolence is frequently used in political propaganda in China. Mary Ann O'Donnell looks into how's the term being used in ordinary people's daily life.

Chinese police have caught a gang of traders who bought rat and fox meat and sold it as lamb. When the scandal was featured in Chinese newspapers and websites, it caused outrage among consumers who have been hit by a series of food scandals in recent years. TeaLeafNation has translated[zh] some online comments from Sina Weibo.

The Economic Observer[zh] ran a piece on China's dual-track pension system, which reveals the huge inequality between migrant workers and civil servants. ChinaSmack has translated the Chinese article as well as some online comments.

Due to the recent poisoning case at Shanghai's Fudan University, Chinese netizens have taken renewed interest in another well-known university poisoning from 20 years ago. In 1994, Tsinghua University chemistry student Zhu Ling was nearly killed and permanently paralyzed due to thallium poisoning. Although cleared from charges, her roommate Sun Wei remains a suspect to many due to her family's high-level political connections. Netizens have taken not only to Weibo (which has subsequently dropped searches for terms related to the case), but also started a White House petition asking that Sun Wei be deported back to China. NEW REPUBLIC has more details.

The cancer rate in Shanghai is 25 percent higher than the national average, over 80 people die from the disease every day, according to the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The pollution, food and water crisis are likely to be the cause of the increased cancer rates. Shanghaiist has more details.

Peter from China Whisper recommends 10 coolest novels about modern China.

Alec Ash from LARB talks with Chinese science fiction writer Fei Dao about science fiction in China.

Chengdu Living has an interesting post on the potential disappearance of relatively free weed smoking atmosphere in China as the police has recently started to crack down on Marijuana trade.

Hong Kong based inmediahk.net's Facebook page shared an image circulated widely on Chinese social media which shows spells written on money, that says, “This is a donation for a Ya'an earthquake victim, those who dare to misuse this money will go to hell.”
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While Chinese people still remember Red Cross China's corruption scandal during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, a new scandal has exposed, this time it also involves Guo Meimei, a then “manager at China Red Cross”, showed off her fancy sports cars and luxury handbags on Sina Weibo in 2011. This time it involves a sex tape showing someone who looks like Guo having sex with a few high-ranking China Red Cross officials. More from Offbeat China.

Seeing Red in China has translated current affair commentator, Jia Jia's Chinese dream. Nowadays, most Chinese middle class want to see their daughters and sons going to the U.S and become Americans.

ChinaFile and TeaLeafNation analyzed the important role social media has played in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake that has killed 208 people. Social media's instant reactions to the quake has made a difference when compared to the coverage of the 2008 earthquake dominated by China's state media.

The wife of jailed Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo has been seen in public for the first time on April 23 after years under house arrest.On her way to the trial of her brother who has been accused of real estate fraud, she shouted to the public: “Tell everyone I'm not free”. Shanghaiist has more details.

As the price of gold drops worldwide, mainland Chinese Tourists travel cross the border to Hong Kong to clear local banks and jewellery shops. See Hong Wrong for story detail.

Is Your Company Bribing Anyone?  The United States vigorously enforces its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which penalizes improper payments to foreign officials by US companies.  In certain situations, US companies can be liable under the FCPA for payments made by their Chinese partner.  Canada and most European countries have their own somewhat similar corrupt practices acts, as does China.

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Offbeat China looks into the distribution and discussion on China's social media on the recent 7.0 earthquake in Sichuan Ya'an:

Unlike many of China’s typical disaster reporting from traditional media that focuses more on government officials’ whereabouts and works, these netizens who are at the front line of disaster relief are reporting on what’s needed and what’s not in real time.