A Ban on Gay Content, Stopped in Its Tracks

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Siodhbhra Parkin, Steven Jiang & more on April 18, 2018

On April 13, China’s major microblogging platform Sina Weibo announced that, in order to create “a sunny and harmonious” environment, it would remove videos and comics “with pornographic implications, promoting bloody violence, or related to homosexuality.” On April 16, after a public outcry, Sina reversed the ban on gay-themed content. Although Beijing decriminalized homosexuality in 1997, and stopped classifying it as a mental disorder in 2001, a 2016 United Nations Development Program survey found only 5 percent of the country’s gender and sexual minorities were publicly “out.” What does the Sina Weibo incident say about gay rights in China? How much of a factor was the protest against the initial ban? And what, if anything, does it portend for the relationship between public protest and government censorship?

Has Xi Jinping Changed China? Not Really

By Teng Biao on April 16, 2018

Xi Jinping has had an eventful early spring. After he abolished presidential term limits and was unanimously elected—if it can be called an election—to serve another term in that post, Xi got the world’s attention again by holding a meeting with Kim Jong-un. Xi was also in the spotlight when he addressed the 2018 Boao Forum for Asia, promising more openness in the face of a looming trade war. Many observers now seem convinced that Xi has changed China and maybe, even, the international order. But has he really?

Angola: China’s Risky Gamble in Africa

A China in Africa Podcast

By Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more on April 16, 2018

China has loaned Angola an estimated U.S.$60 billion dollars since the two countries established diplomatic relations back in 1983, making it one of the top destinations for Chinese financing in Africa. Angola is especially attractive for the Chinese because of its abundant oil reserves that it uses to pay back all those loans.

Ana Cristina Dias Alves

on April 15, 2018

Ana Cristina Dias Alves is an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. She received her Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2012. She holds a Bachelor’s degree (1996) and a Master’s (2005) in International Relations from the School of Political and Social Sciences (ISCSP, Portuguese acronym) – Technical University of Lisbon (currently University of Lisbon).

Previously, Alves worked as researcher at the Orient Institute (1998-2006) and lecturer at ISCSP (2000-2006), in Lisbon, teaching subjects related to Asia. In 2006, she went to London to pursue her Ph.D. with a scholarship from the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Her dissertation was a comparative study of China’s engagement in the oil industries in Angola and Brazil. In 2010, she moved to Johannesburg as a Senior Researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, ranked as the top think tank in Sub-Saharan Africa. There, she researched China, Brazil, and other emerging powers’ engagement with the continent. She has published widely on China-Africa relations, including a book co-edited with Marcus Power called China in Angola: A Marriage of Convenience? (Fahamu, 2012).

China’s Trade Surplus with U.S. Soars in First Quarter but March Exports Falter

By Elias Glenn, Stella Qiu on April 13, 2018

China’s trade surplus with the United States surged nearly 20 percent in the first quarter, with some analysts speculating exporters were rushing out shipments to get ahead of threatened tariffs that are spurring fears of a full-blown trade war.

Economy, Politics
Trade, Export