Time up for TikTok?

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Aynne Kokas, Julian G. Ku & more on March 15, 2024

On March 13, in a rare moment of bipartisanship, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that could result in TikTok’s being unable to do business in the U.S. What does the rapid passage of the bill in the House say about the state of Washington’s attitude to China? How would a potential sale work? How is Beijing likely to react? Is TikTok really a threat to the U.S.? What does the Act tell us about the state of the world and the global Internet in 2024?

Louise Matsakis

on March 15, 2024

Louise Matsakis is a freelance journalist covering technology and China. She is the author of You May Also Like, a newsletter about e-commerce and the global rise of Chinese tech giants. She previously worked as an editor and reporter at Semafor, NBC News, WIRED, Rest of World, and other outlets. An investigation she co-wrote about the Chinese fast fashion giant Shein won the 2022 Society of Publishers in Asia award for excellence in business reporting.

Jeremy Daum

on March 14, 2024

Jeremy Daum is a Senior Research Scholar in Law and a Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale University. He is based in Beijing, and has more than a decade of experience working in China on collaborative legal reform projects. His principal research focus is criminal procedure law, with a particular emphasis on the protection of vulnerable populations such as juveniles and the mentally ill in the criminal justice system. He is also an authority on China’s “social credit system.” Daum has spoken about these issues at universities throughout China and the United States and has co-authored a book on U.S. capital punishment jurisprudence for Chinese readers. He is the founder and contributing editor of the collaborative translation and commentary site Chinalawtranslate.com, dedicated to improving mutual understanding between legal professionals in China and abroad.

Xinjiang Authorities Are Retroactively Applying Laws to Prosecute Religious Leaders as Criminals

A Leaked Court Verdict Details the Logic Behind One Cleric’s Prosecution and 17-Year Sentence

By Darren Byler on March 8, 2024

Sholpan Amirkhan and her aunt gasped when the guards carried her brother-in-law Nurlan Pioner into the Jimunai County People’s Court, on the border with Kazakhstan in China’s western region of Xinjiang. He was gaunt, and a fetid smell followed him. When she shouted his name, she did not see any recognition on his face. He trembled, barely able to maintain a sitting posture as the guards settled him into the seat in the defendant’s cage. Here was a man that everyone in Amirkhan’s community adored and admired, a vital and eloquent religious leader wrecked by 14 months in detention.

ChinaFile Presents: A Wild Ride through China’s Economy with Author Anne Stevenson-Yang

By Anne Stevenson-Yang & Jeremy Goldkorn on March 7, 2024

The 1980s were an extraordinary time of hope in China, both for its citizens and for foreign visitors. Anne Stevenson-Yang first went to China in 1985, where she was enchanted by the lively cultural scene and what seemed to be the growing openness of the country’s political system. But there’s very little of that optimism left.

Studying in China May Have Gotten Harder for Americans, But We Shouldn’t Stop Trying

By Amy E. Gadsden on March 5, 2024

The U.S.-China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, but it is at its worst point since President Richard Nixon visited in 1972—more than 50 years ago. Getting the relationship right is not easy, but getting it wrong is not an option. Universities have an opportunity and a responsibility to help, but they face headwinds. COVID closed the borders for three years, with only a trickle of American university students finding a way to study in China between 2020 and 2023. But deteriorating U.S.-China tensions, which began well before the pandemic and are ongoing, are causing students, faculty, and administrators to think twice about engagement since the borders reopened last spring. Universities have a chance now to lead the way on re-engagement, but we have to get on a plane and demonstrate that it is both feasible and advantageous for faculty and students to return.

“There Is No CPEC in Gwadar, Except Security Check Posts”

China’s Trade Route through Pakistan Promised Investment but Faces Regional Backlash

By Akbar Notezai on March 1, 2024

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is one of the major spokes of Beijing’s multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious attempt to remake global trade and transport infrastructure. CPEC’s terminus is Gwadar, a port city in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, near the Iranian border. The plan for CPEC is to connect Gwadar with Xinjiang, the enormous “Uyghur Autonomous Region,” through a network of highways, railways, and pipelines. CPEC would boost trade between Pakistan and China, and give China access to the Indian Ocean for exports as well as a shorter route for imports of Middle Eastern oil. Despite growing local discontent and an insurgency that targets Chinese interests, Pakistani and Chinese officials continue to talk up Gwadar’s potential. During a press junket last year in Beijing that included journalists from Pakistan, Assistant Foreign Minister Nong Rong called Gwadar “the second Shenzhen,” likening it to the onetime southern Chinese fishing village that has become a symbol of China’s economic and technological success.