China Society

A shop’s signboard suddenly toppled on a busy sidewalk in Shanghai’s business district on Aug. 12, killing three people and injuring six. Police surveillance video of the moment when the board fell was released, showing a thick signboard with yellow text break off and plummet down onto the crowd below amid heavy rain. Witnesses told […]

A retired prosecutor from Henan Province, China, was executed on Aug. 7 for killing or injuring a dozen students at a local school two years ago. His story exemplifies how fraudulent financial schemes can push ordinary citizens to extremes. Ma Gaochao, a retired prosecutor in Nanyang City, drove a car into Nanyang No. 1 High […]

A public hospital in Shandong Province, China, recently drew a small fine from local food and drug officials for selling fake medicine, with the punishment sparking criticism from the public as being insufficient. Dazhong Net, a state-run news site, reported on Aug. 11 that the Qingdao City Chengyang District People’s Hospital was fined 692.5 yuan […]

Even amid recent trade tensions between China and the United States, it seems Chinese citizens are enamored with the idea of living in the United States—so much so that they wish to be reincarnated there. A widely circulated online post published on Aug. 6 claimed that an ancient Buddhist place of worship in Kunming City, […]

Results of laboratory tests detailed in a report released Aug. 7 indicated traces of asbestos, lead and other dangerous chemicals exist in a number of popular school supplies—some of them manufactured in China—sold in the United States and Canada. After sending 27 school items to an independent laboratory, the U.S. nonprofit Public Interest Research Group […]

In China, consumer confidence in domestically produced vaccines shows no sign of rebounding, after another incident involving possibly faulty vaccines came to light before being quickly rebuffed by local authorities as a false alarm. On Aug. 3, an online article titled “The Vicious Vaccine! Many Children Inoculated with Expired Vaccines in Shangluo, Shaanxi. And the […]

The Changchun Changsheng Bio-tech scandal, involving over 250,000 faulty doses of the DPT infant vaccine, has further diminished the Chinese people’s trust in the authorities, just days after an expose of a defective rabies vaccine. Including chairwoman Gao Junfang, 18 Changsheng executives have been arrested and placed under investigation by local authorities in Changchun, the […]

Alumni of one of China’s top universities are so upset by a professor’s claims that they are calling for his firing. What did the offending professor do? Boast about China’s prowess. On Aug. 1, a letter signed by 27 Tsinghua University alumni began circulating on the internet, where they urged the university president to fire […]

A Chinese Buddhist monk who serves as president of the Beijing-sanctioned Buddhist Association of China has been accused of sexually assaulting several of his female disciples. Xue Cheng, 51, is an abbot of Beijing’s Longquan Monastery and heads the Buddhist Association, through which the Chinese regime monitors the activities of Buddhist practitioners in the communist […]

BEIJING—Chinese regulators are investigating Pinduoduo after media reports surfaced about third-party vendors selling counterfeit goods on its group-discounting marketplace. The probe exposes long-standing problem—Beijing’s hopes of upgrading consumption over the years has failed to materialize for large numbers of poor Chinese, despite a recent economic boom. The investigation comes just days after the Shanghai-based startup […]

Individuals without proper medical credentials posing as doctors were recently found working at a medical examination center in China that is run by one of the country’s largest health care companies. The fake doctors were revealed by an online article titled “Meinian Healthcare: If a Person Dies, You Can Only Make Money Off Him Once.” […]

A war on coffins is being waged in China. This summer, Jiangxi Province, located in southeastern China, has been swept up in the “Green Reform of Funerals,” a movement directed by the local government to replace traditional burials with cremation. “All bodies in the county must be cremated with no exception. … Burials are strictly […]

In China, protests by military veterans across multiple provinces are now entering their second month. In an attempt to quell the demonstrations, Chinese authorities recently announced an increase in monthly pensions and living subsidies for veterans. The move has done little to cool off the protests ahead of Army Day on Aug. 1, when the Chinese […]

SHANGHAI—The city of Beijing will shut about 1,000 manufacturing firms by 2020 as part of a program that’s aimed at curbing smog and boosting income in neighboring regions, state media said on July 30. The move is part of China’s plan to upgrade its manufacturing sector, with a focus on developing dynamic, high-tech industries and […]

A vaccine scandal that broke out in China late this month, has led to a nationwide uproar followed by extensive efforts by the authorities to censor public opinion online—particularly on Twitter-like social media sites such as Weibo or WeChat.   While the regime’s internet police regularly delete content the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deems political […]

As the U.S.–China trade war has left China’s financial markets in trouble amid an already slowing economy, China recently announced a plan to boost economic growth. In a July 16 article, Economic Information Daily, a newspaper run by Chinese state media Xinhua, reasoned that because of “explosive growth” in “inelastic demand” for senior care, education, […]

A recent drug safety scandal involving substandard vaccines in China has escalated after more than a week of public outrage, drawing rare public condemnation from China’s top officials. Since July 17, Chinese pharmaceutical company Changsheng Bio-Technology and its subsidiary Changchun Changsheng came under fire for producing substandard vaccines and failing to recall their products in […]

China’s censorship regime is in full swing after another domestic vaccine scandal caused an uproar—particularly as details have emerged of an apparent coverup by the Chinese pharmaceutical company involved and an egregious oversight by the Chinese authorities. On July 19, Changsheng Bio-Technology, a biotech company based in Changchun City, the capital of northeastern China’s Jilin Province, announced […]

China’s Ministry of Education recently announced a plan to clean up academic research projects, revealing the problem of corruption in the field of higher education. More than 1,400 research projects in the humanities and social sciences are past their completion deadlines and will have their allocated research funding revoked, and the project coordinators will be […]

After almost four decades of a government-imposed one-child policy that led to a severe gender imbalance and a low birth rate, the Chinese regime decided to abolish the mandate in 2015 and encourage couples to have two children. It was an attempt at reversing the population decline that threatens the country’s development. Nearly three years later, […]