WorldcrunchThe Initium is a Singapore-based, Chinese-language digital media outlet that covers news, opinion, and lifestyle content directed to Chinese readers worldwide. It was founded in 2015.
Hong Kong only decriminalized homosexuality in 1991, but there had long been an underground LGBTQ+ culture, including male sex workers. They have learned to survive in difficult conditions, but their experiences are far from how they’re portrayed in films.
China is facing its biggest political protests in decades as frustration grows with its harsh Zero-COVID strategy. However, the real reasons for the protests run much deeper. Could it be the starting point for a new civic movement?
While street demonstrations have spread in China to protest the strict Zero-COVID regulations, some Chinese university students have taken up public acts of crawling to show what extended harsh lockdowns are doing to their mental state.
The deepening ties between China and Africa are a hot topic, but the voices we hear are usually the same — white and Western. So what does China look like to an African? Nigerian journalist Solomon Elusoji is the best person to ask.
Around China, Zero COVID policy has shut down entire towns and workplaces. But in the high-tech Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, famous for cranking out iPhones, employees were forced to work even if they tested positive. Exclusive testimony from some of those who fled Foxconn premises last week.
When China cracked down on cyber crime, many involved in the industry moved to Cambodia. The Southeast Asian country has since become synonymous with online scams and forced labor. But the Cambodian government isn’t just turning a blind eye — it is actively benefiting.
Too much has been put in to the state-sponsored truth that minimal spread of the virus is the at-all-cost objective. Xi Jinping may eventually have no choice but to renounce the harsh measures, but at this week’s Communist Party Congress, the Chinese President was giving no ground.
Tensions between Taiwan and China have ratcheted up over the last two years, peaking with Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August. The Taiwanese who have lived peacefully on the mainland for many years are now questioning their place in an increasingly hostile environment.
The city in southern China was put under harsh lockdown earlier this month after just a few positive COVID tests. Then a bus carrying quarantined residents crashed, killing 27. The senseless accident left residents more fearful and suspicious of each other than ever.
In an attempt to counter an aging population, China announced its “three-child policy” last year. It has also cracked down on sex education and contraception. The move has meant that abortion is often the only option for Chinese girls and women in the post-family planning era.
Following the escalation of the Chinese-U.S. trade war in 2018, the “Made in China” label is not as ubiquitous as it once was. Southeast Asian economies are on the rise — but their growth doesn’t necessarily threaten Chinese dominance.
“Taiwanese would laugh at the leader worship of the North Koreans, but wasn’t that what we did in the days of Chiang Kai-shek?”
Emerging religions and cults in Asia are deeply intertwined with politics: in China, religions need political approval, while in Japan religious groups use political platforms to assert themselves. Not even the killing of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, carried out by a member of the Unification Church, has prompted a closer look at exactly what role religion plays in society.
“She’s now the leader of the Western movement recognizing the existence of a democratic Taiwan, aiming to break Beijing’s “one-China principle…” A Taiwanese political scientist argues the 19-hour visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have real lasting impact.
A new regulation in China is cracking down hard on tattoos. The law is ostensibly about minors, but some argue that it’s going too far and actively erasing the glorious Chinese past.
Thousands of students and young people were detained during Hong Kong’s democracy protests in 2019. Now with criminal records, many are struggling to re-integrating into a changed society
Enduring COVID restrictions are the final straw for many expats in Hong Kong. They’re leaving by the thousands, threatening the city’s reputation as a financial hub.
Not only strict rules of freedom of movement as part of Zero-COVID policy but also an increase in censorship has raised many questions for the expat population in the megacity of 26 million that had long enjoyed a kind of special status in China as a place of freedom and openness. A recent survey of foreigners in the Chinese megacity found that 48% of respondents said they would leave Shanghai within the next year.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put China’s stance on Taiwan back in the spotlight. But despite shared narratives of national unity, there are key differences in how Beijing and Moscow approach territories they consider their own.
China has no specific laws on transgender groups, and even the word “transgender” does not appear in any legal provisions. But the real-life issues of public bathrooms is forcing Chinese to confront the issue, especially after the murder in the city of Wuhan of a trans woman earlier this month.
A recent video of a chained woman has raised the alarm of the poor treatment of the mentally ill in China. It’s worse for women in rural areas, where the stigma around mental illness is high.
The COVID-19 outbreak has reshaped the world’s emerging superpower both at home and abroad, making China emerge as a more efficient power and helping Chinese overcome their inferiority complex vis-a-vis the West.
Do you long for bedtime stories told remotely? Or miss the companionship a voice provides? There’s an app for that, which also responds to special COVID-19 needs of dating apps that allows for more direct online communication.
Crunching the numbers of South Korea’s personal and household debt offers a glimpse into what drives the win-or-die plot of the Netflix hit produced in the Asian country.
In its diaspora around Asia and the rest of the world, Hong Kong’s identity is closely tied to its food and tea. Now with the pressures from the mainland, the stakes are suddenly multiplied.
A stand-up comedian in China recently used the term “single panic” to describe fears among women about being alone, and the words have since resonated in online discussions. The “panic” is a product, the female comedian pointed out, of pressure and prejudices in Chinese society against single women. The only way for single women to […]
Over the past 30 years, more than 170,000 Chinese-born children have been raised by U.S. families. Most of the parents are white and many live in areas where Asians are almost nonexistent.
From global politics to the pandemic, problems abound for the Tokyo Games. Next year, when Beijing hosts the Winter Olympics, things could get messier still.
BEIJING — “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to join the party…” Yanru, a 22-year-old university student studying at a well-known university in northern China, just became a CCP member last year. For her and her peers, joining the Chinese Communist Party is something that just seems natural: “It has led us […]
If someone is unhappy, that’s one thing. But if a city is unhappy, that means something very different.
Reports have come in from LGBTQ activists around the country that the government has shut down the organizations pages on WeChat, the top Chinese platform.
The Northeast is the Chinese equivalent to Greece …
Zunyi, in the mountainous province of Guizhou, is chock full of communist-themed museums and memorials, and is attracting especially large crowds this year.
Was this the last media ready to take on the regime in Bejing?
With real estate prices high and job prospects low, a growing number of young Chinese say they choose to both work and spend less in order to escape the pressures of contemporary life.
Think about what other *advice the government is giving people…
After having just a handful of cases, the virus is suddenly spreading on the island nation. Despite a relatively loose lockdown, residents boast that they know how to shut COVID down on their own.
Though Beijing is not likely to launch any overt operation right away, experts predict it’s most likely to try to force Taiwan’s reunification between 2025 and 2030. This would almost certainly prompt a U.S. response.
As a growing number of people pack up and leave the former British colony, the question arises: What to do about the family dog?
BEIJING — Menglin’s boyfriend accompanied her to the clinic. It took less than 10 minutes for the doctor to place the contraceptive implant in Menglin’s upper left arm. It’s now very unlikely she’ll get pregnant in the next three years. She is 31, a good age to give birth, but she is reluctant to start […]