The concept of the Polar Silk Road emerged gradually in China between 2015 and 2018. Preliminary references appeared in China-Russia bilateral statements from 2015-2016, which mentioned “strengthening cooperation in the development and utilization of the Northern Sea Route” (加强北方海航道开发利用合作). In June 2017, China’s National Development and Reform Commission introduced the precursor concept of an “Arctic Blue Economic Passage” (北极蓝色经济通道) in its vision document for a maritime Belt and Road.

Xi Jinping (习近平) formally launched the term on the international stage on July 4, 2017, during a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow, proposing to “jointly build a Silk Road on the ice” (共同打造冰上丝绸之路). He reiterated the concept in November 2017 when Medvedev visited Beijing, linking it explicitly to Belt and Road coordination with Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union, a grouping including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Belarus that has been a geopolitical success for Russia but largely an economic failure. In December 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin reciprocated by inviting Chinese participation in building Arctic transportation corridors. That same month, the Yamal Liquefied Natural Gas project — a 27 billion dollar joint venture in which Chinese companies hold stakes — began production, becoming the Polar Silk Road’s first tangible achievement.

The Polar Silk Road received its authoritative definition on January 26, 2018, when China’s State Council Information Office released China’s Arctic Policy (中国的北极政策), the country’s first comprehensive Arctic white paper. The document stated: “China hopes to work with all parties to build a ‘Polar Silk Road’ through developing the Arctic shipping routes” (中国愿依托北极航道的开发利用，与各方共建冰上丝绸之路). It positioned China as a “near-Arctic state” (近北极国家) and “important stakeholder” in Arctic affairs, articulating participation principles of “respect, cooperation, win-win results, and sustainability” (尊重/合作/共赢/可持续). Foreign Ministry Vice Minister Kong Xuanyou (孔铉佑) explained at the white paper’s release that while the concept’s specific content required further Sino-Russian consultation, it centered on developing shipping routes that could reduce distances to Europe by 25-55 percent compared to traditional southern passages.

People’s Daily coverage in early 2018 emphasized economic opportunity and climate research cooperation. Another January 2018 article called “‘Polar Silk Road’ Attracts World Attention” (冰上丝绸之路吸引世界目光) quoted Shanghai International Studies Institute scholar Yang Jian (杨剑), who noted that “opening Arctic routes will promote overall growth of the circumpolar economic zone” (北极航道开通将促进环北极经济圈的整体增长), highlighting China’s potential contributions to regional infrastructure and digital connectivity.

International responses at that time ranged from cautious interest to outright skepticism. Iceland and Finland initially explored connections between the Polar Silk Road and their Arctic infrastructure plans, and the official Xinhua News Agency reporting in early 2018 that Arctic Circle Assembly Chairman and former Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson stated he looked forward to China expanding Sino-Icelandic scientific cooperation into areas such as glaciology and new energy.”

However, Western political players, security experts and think tanks quickly raised concerns.

A Center for Strategic and International Studies report in February 2018 by Jane Nakano and William Li noted that while China emphasized “peaceful utilization” of the Arctic, its policy was driven by energy, commercial, and geopolitical considerations. On the geopolitical side, the authors stressed that “each comes with a caveat,” noting that Arctic shipping routes could allow China to bypass routes dominated by the US Navy and traditional chokepoints such as the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca. It remained unclear, they said, whether Beijing would commit major resources to building Arctic infrastructure comparable to its Belt and Road projects elsewhere — making the long-term strategic impact of the so-called Polar Silk Road uncertain. “The Arctic offers abundant resources, as well as commercial and geopolitical incentives, suggesting that the region could become a Chinese development hot spot,” they concluded. “It may, however, be only a small piece of the larger geopolitical narrative China is pursuing as it seeks to be recognized as a responsible major power with growing global reach at a time when the United States is backing away from international commitments.”

Nordic enthusiasm cooled considerably as geopolitical tensions intensified. In September 2018, a Chinese company was sidelined from involvement in upgrades to airports in Greenland as its interest in the territory prompted controversy in Denmark. A report from Arctic Today noted that “[the] Greenlandic Parliament’s pro-Danish decision has defused possible international controversy between the US, Denmark, and Greenland over Chinese investment in an island closely guarded by the US military thanks to its air base at Thule.” Denmark and the United States pressured Greenland to reject Chinese investment proposals, particularly in rare earth mining, as concerns grew over rising economic diplomacy from China.

Awareness of the issue was also growing in Canada. A joint paper in December 2018 from Canada’s School of Public Policy and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, noted that “[managed] incorrectly, Chinese activity might leave the Asian power with a degree of de facto control over the Arctic, damaging Canadian sovereignty and imperiling the country’s ability to manage this increasingly important region on Canadian terms.”

Despite growing reticence in the West, China continued to push the concept of the “Polar Silk Road.” Meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in January 2019, Xi Jinping was quoted by Xinhua as saying that “the two sides should make full use of the convenience brought by China–Europe freight trains and other mechanisms to promote two-way trade, carry out trilateral cooperation, and explore opportunities for cooperation in projects such as the development of Arctic shipping routes, jointly building a ‘Polar Silk Road’ and promoting connectivity across the Eurasian continent.” A June 2019 report from the government-run China Daily newspaper bore the headline, over an image of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin shaking hands and smiling: “China and Russia Deepen Arctic Cooperation — the ‘Polar Silk Road’ Lets the World Share the Benefits.”

Much of the coverage lingered on the benefits of shortened trade routes that might benefit both partners. A report in Hong Kong’s Chinese government-linked CRNTT in November 2019 reported that the Polar Silk Road as pursued by the partners would “not only provide Moscow with a new commercial frontier, but will also give Beijing a relatively independent trade route outside of the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca, while at the same time directly linking China with geographically distant economies.”

Beyond growing concerns in the West, however, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was a blow to China’s ambitions, effectively suspending practical Polar Silk Road cooperation between the two countries. Western sanctions cut off Chinese access to Arctic projects through Russian partnerships, while Arctic Council cooperation froze.

State media coverage and official academic scholarship in China have emphasized pushback against the country’s polar ambitions as a matter of Western prejudice and misunderstanding. In an article for a journal published by Ocean University of China in June 2024, scholar Gao Fei (高飞) noted “significant shifts in the geopolitical landscape of the Arctic” during the Biden Administration, and said that China’s growing involvement in the region had been labeled in the West as “Polar Orientalism.” In fact, this is a complete misreading of the debate in Europe, where some commentators have noted and criticized distortions and fears over growing Polar engagement by “the East.” The term “polar Orientalism,” in fact, was introduced by Mark Nuttall and Klaus Dodds in their 2019 book The Arctic: What Everyone Needs to Know. In January 2025, Chinese media reported that US and Danish officials had lobbied against selling Greenland’s Tanbreez rare earth mine to Chinese companies, with the eventual American buyer paying “far less than Chinese companies offered” (远低于中企的出价), according to a report from Shanghai-based Observer Network (观察者网) that was highly critical of the actions of the US.

The geopolitical tug-of-war in January 2026 over US interest in Greenland and China’s Arctic ambitions prompted Chinese state media to emphasize another official phrase: the “Arctic China Threat Theory” (北极中国威胁论). A January 2026 Global Times editorial accused Western media of hyping the concept to “confuse the public” (混淆视听), claiming that portrayals of China’s Arctic activities as military threats represented “Cold War thinking and hegemonic logic” (冷战思维和霸权逻辑). Employing typical official rhetoric, the commentary characterized China as a “supporter of multilateral Arctic governance” (北极地区多边治理的支持者) and a “responsible major power” (负责任大国) while positioning US concerns about Chinese Arctic presence as diversionary tactics serving American strategic interests in Greenland.

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Based on an amalgamation of true stories about love and science in a changing China, The Second Handshake became so big that, by 1975, it had seriously alarmed China’s leaders. Yao Wenyuan (姚文元), a member of the radical faction known as the Gang of Four, banned the reproduction of the novel and had Zhang arrested.

For the crimes of “promoting idealistic theories of human nature and genius” and “glorifying bourgeois and revisionist educational lines,” Zhang was imprisoned and sentenced to death.

Zhang’s case became one of the most well-known cases of literary inquisition (文字狱) of the Cultural Revolution era. The term itself, though, is a gesture to China’s past — to its long history of legal persecution of scholar-officials for writings deemed subversive or defamatory of the court.

The earliest recorded case of literary inquisition dates back to the Spring and Autumn period, when Cui Zhu (崔杼) executed three court historians for recording Cui’s murder of the ruler Duke Zhuang of Qi (齐庄公) in official histories.

But perhaps the most famous historical case is that of Su Dongpo (苏东坡), also known by his pen name as Su Shi (苏轼), the Song Dynasty poet who was sentenced to “penal servitude” for his poetry critical of the court and of new government policies in what became known as the “Wutai Poetry Case” (乌台诗案). Su’s first indictment took particular issue with the popularity of his writings, stating: “there is nothing he has not slandered or ridiculed. The common people therefore expect that as soon as there is a flood or a famine or an outbreak of banditry, Su Shi will surely be the first to criticize the situation, attributing all blame to the New Policies.”

Paranoid about maintaining its legitimacy as a Manchu-led dynasty ruling over a Han Chinese majority, the Qing Dynasty was infamous for its aggressive censorship campaigns, which included book burnings and the sentencing of more than a hundred individuals to death.

Contemporary observers of China might readily see echoes of imperial literary inquisition in the actions of the Chinese Communist Party leadership today. In recent years, writer and blogger Yang Hengjun (杨恒均) was sentenced to a suspended death sentence in 2024 for espionage after years of detention, while citizen journalist Zhang Zhan (张展) received four years for her COVID-19 reporting from Wuhan. Legal scholar Xu Zhiyong (许志永) and activist Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜) were sentenced to 14 and 12 years respectively in 2023 for “subversion of state power” after organizing informal gatherings to discuss governance. Publisher Geng Xiaonan (耿潇男) received five years in prison in 2024 for “illegal business operations” related to publishing books critical of the government.

However, in official party media and writings, literary inquisition is a concept grounded squarely in China’s historical, pre-socialist past. For the CCP, which has cast itself as liberator, literary inquisition is a phenomenon which exposes “the barbaric, arbitrary, and cruel nature of the feudal legal system.” State media has recently wielded the term against President Lai Ching-te (赖清德) and the Democratic Progressive Party (民进党), Taiwan’s current governing party. Chinese media brands their policies as “green literary inquisition” or “modern-day literary inquisition” — “green” being a reference to the color associated with the DPP. By linking Taiwan’s democratic government to imperial-era oppression, Chinese state media attempts to cast the DPP not merely as politically misguided but as inherently illegitimate and feudal.

As recently as March 2025, Chen Binhua (陈斌华), spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, invoked the concept at a press conference. The context was investigations into a police officer in Taoyuan and a school principal for pro-China content on their Douyin social media accounts. Taiwan prohibits civil servants from using TikTok and Douyin on government devices, and the officer had identified himself as a public servant in the Zhongli Police Precinct while posting “I am Chinese” (我是中國人) and an avatar reading “I love the motherland” (我愛祖國). Chen called these disciplinary actions “an out-and-out contemporary ‘literary inquisition'” (不折不扣的当代”文字狱”), accusing the Lai administration of engaging in “green terror” (绿色恐怖) and creating a “chilling effect” (寒蝉效应) that “brutally deprives Taiwan compatriots of their basic rights and freedoms.”

The irony of such accusations is stark. Taiwan itself endured decades of genuine suppression of speech under authoritarian KMT rule from 1945 through the 1980s, including widespread arrests and executions for political dissent. But after the lifting of martial law in 1987, Taiwan began its transformation into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies, where freedom of speech now ranks among the highest in the region.

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The earliest reference to the media as a “mouthpiece” is often cited by Chinese scholars as Liang Qichao’s 1896 Shiwu Bao essay, “On the Contribution of Newspapers to National Affairs” — written amid the explosion of China’s young newspaper industry in the late Qing dynasty. But Liang’s conception of the “eyes, ears, throat and tongue” differed markedly from later ideas within the CCP of the media as “mouthpieces.” In contrast to the Party’s control-centered mindset, Liang believed that newspapers should be a vehicle for measured and moral criticism of state policies, and that journalists should act as both educators of the people and as government watchdogs to “supervise the government” (监督政府), putting journalists on equal footing with officials.

This vision stood in stark contrast to the CCP’s approach. Whereas Liang advocated for journalists to mediate relations between the people and the government and call out the government’s flaws when necessary, the CCP has generally promoted total control over propaganda and messaging. This principle was established at the First Party Congress in 1921, when the CCP declared in its first resolution that all publications must be under the leadership of Party members and that “no publication, whether central or local, may publish articles that violate the Party’s principles, policies and resolutions.” Mao reinforced this idea in 1957 with his statement that the media, in order to adequately represent the politics of the CCP, should be governed by “politicians running newspapers” (政治家办报).

Still, critical reporting has been tolerated to varying degrees throughout PRC history. In the 1980s, as China emerged from the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, media were afforded slightly more liberty to expose social and political ills through reporting and commentary, in large part recognizing that extreme media control under Mao had contributed to the excesses of power. The aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 brought a sharp reassertion of CCP media controls and the mouthpiece role. In the wake of the June 4 massacre, the country’s new top leader, Jiang Zemin, again stressed the importance of the media’s role as “the government’s and the people’s mouthpiece,” and singled out such outlets as CCTV and the People’s Daily for “‘not transmitting the correct voice of the Central Committee’ in the weeks leading up to June 4,” as the scholar Anne-Marie Brady has written.

By the late 1990s, as China’s economy accelerated, developments in the media again complicated the “mouthpiece” role. In the “golden era” of Chinese investigative journalism of the 2000s, Taiwanese media scholar Luo Shih-hung writes, a new generation of market-oriented newspapers “gradually developed a free and independent character distinct from the ‘mouthpiece’ party newspapers and periodicals.” Metropolitan newspapers like the Southern Metropolis Daily were well known for producing watchdog journalism, often seen as unwelcome by government officials. 

Since assuming leadership of the Party in late 2012, Xi Jinping has forcefully reasserted the Party’s dominance of the media. Issued by the Party’s general office in 2013, Document Number 9, warned explicitly against “the West’s idea of journalism” as “society’s public instrument” and as the “Fourth Estate.” Three years later, in his first full address on media policy, Xi said that the media “must be surnamed Party,” an idiomatic expression meaning the media must fundamentally belong to and identify with the Party. The words underscored the CCP and its prerogatives as defining the core nature of media work.

The term “mouthpiece” continues to be applied in a current context to define the role of the media as subservient to Party interests. A 2025 article in the official journal Seeking Truth (求是) described the media as “the Party’s and the people’s mouthpiece,” emphasizing that outlets must faithfully project the Party’s voice.

Ironically, state-run media in China have in recent years applied the derogative sense of “mouthpiece” — as often understood in the West — to attack US-supported media outlets such as Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA). A report by Shanghai’s Observer outlet in March 2025 characterized US President Donald Trump’s executive order to cut federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), as an effort “to eliminate waste and reduce excessive government power.” The report noted that among the eight federal agencies affected was USAGM, “which oversees Voice of America (VOA) and several other government ‘mouthpieces.'”

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To “seek truth from facts,” in the Maoist sense, has its origins in Marxist dialectics. The philosophy of dialectical materialism suggests that opposing material factors work in a contradictory relationship with one another to induce development. Karl Marx later applied this theory to class conditions, suggesting that history is propelled forward by the continuous exploitation of lower classes by the dominant classes — a process which encourages struggle, leading inevitably to revolution. 

As scholar Pang Laikwan has explained in a chapter on the subject, Mao differed from orthodox Soviet thinkers in his belief that “people do not act on history unidirectionally, but rather engage in a dialectical struggle with it.” Therefore, given there was no pre-determined “end” to history, Mao believed strongly in the necessity of integrating theory (理论) with practice (实践) in order to carry out the revolution in China. He condemned “dogmatic” reliance on theory alone. This meant scientifically investigating China’s social classes and conditions. The integration of “universal” Marxist principles with the “actual conditions” of the Chinese revolution represents the essence of “seeking truth from facts,” as Mao explained in a 1941 speech:

Such an attitude is one of shooting the arrow at the target. The “target” is the Chinese revolution, the “arrow” is Marxism-Leninism. We Chinese Communists have been seeking this arrow because we want to hit the target of the Chinese revolution and of the revolution of the East. To take such an attitude is to seek truth from facts. “Facts” are all the things that exist objectively, “truth” means their internal relations, that is, the laws governing them, and “to seek” means to study.

“Seeking truth from facts” also plays an important role in the Maoist principle of the “mass line” (群众路线) – a concept that Xi Jinping has attempted to revive – in that, in theory, the solicitation of public opinion contributes directly to policymaking decisions made by the Party on behalf of the people.

The slogan took on new significance under Deng Xiaoping, who introduced the related concept of “emancipating the mind” (解放思想) as China prepared to enter a new era in the late 1970s. In his 1978 speech at the third plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP, Deng heavily criticized Hua Guofeng’s “two whatevers,” emphasizing that only by “emancipating the minds” of the Chinese people from the rigid ideology of the previous era and adhering to the more pragmatic principle of “seeking truth from facts” could China achieve socialist modernization. 

The return to the “party line” in the late 1970s and early 1980s was accompanied by numerous articles in the People’s Daily condemning Lin Biao the Gang of Four and as counter-revolutionary “idealists” who had “seriously damaged the mass line.” The rehabilitation of individuals who had been persecuted during the Cultural Revolution was seen as in line with the principle of “seeking truth from facts” as a return to the party line which had been abandoned.

Since Deng, China’s leaders have continued to emphasize the importance of “seeking truth from facts,” developing their own “thought” on the principle in each era. Jiang Zemin added that emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts must “keep pace with the times” (与时俱进) as China’s market reforms advanced. Hu Jintao added “seek truth and be pragmatic” (求真务实) as part of his signature “scientific outlook on development” (科学发展观) as he attempted to address development issues like the wealth inequality gap. The Party enshrines these doctrines in its constitution as core to the Party line to which all cadres must adhere.

Xi Jinping has emphasized the importance of “seeking truth from facts” as a matter not only of ideology, but of “whether Party spirit (党性) is strong or not,” referring to a borrowed Soviet term that implies adherence to the Party’s line and priorities.  According to Xi, whether or not a cadre adheres to this principle can be judged by whether they are “telling the truth, doing practical things and seeking practical results” (讲真话，讲实话，干实事，求实效). As a 2021 article in Qiushi explained, adherence to “seeking truth from facts” in this sense is not only a test of one’s political stance but also of one’s “moral quality” (道德品质) and a testament to “selflessness and disregard for personal gains and losses” — an obvious gesture to Xi’s drives to strengthen party leadership and discipline while rooting out corruption.

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While the notion of the “civilizational state” is absent from official party discourse, it has been promoted strongly by several thinkers with close ties to the leadership over the past decade. One of the main proponents of the term has been Zhang Weiwei (张维为), director of Fudan University’s Institute for China Studies, who in May 2021 led a collective study session of the Politburo on the country’s external communication and who has urged the building of a distinct “Chinese discourse and narrative system.”  

Zhang’s interest in the civilizational frame dates back at least to his 2011 book The China Wave: The Rise of a Civilizational State, in which he sought to explain what makes China distinct from other states. The modern Chinese “civilizational state,” he wrote, integrates the strengths of both “civilization states” (文明国家) and “nation states,” (民族国家) and is characterized by the “four supers” (四超) and the “four uniques” (四特) — referring in the first case to China’s massive population, vast territory, long historical tradition, and deep cultural wisdom; and in the second to its unique language, politics, society, and economics.

All of China’s 56 peoples, Zhang argued, had remained unified under “harmony in diversity” (和而不同) rather than “collapsing” as Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union had into smaller nation-states. Urging against the adoption of the “Western model” as opposed to the “China model” (中国模式), Zhang said that the abandonment of the latter would mean losing “the greatest advantage of our ‘civilizational state.’” Three years later, in a speech at Oxford University that was republished in the Guangming Daily, a newspaper directly under the Central Propaganda Department, Zhang argued that China’s “civilizational state” was a fusion of an ancient, unbroken 5,000-year civilization and a modern superpower.

Since the civilizational discourse became central to the CCP’s construction of political legitimacy under Xi Jinping in 2022, Zhang has combined the “civilizational state” argument with prevailing political discourse claiming that China, under the CCP and drawing on ancient traditions, has arrived at “a new form of human civilization” (人类文明新形态) that is meant to enrich the world under Xi Jinping’s “Global Civilization Initiative” — offering historical-cultural support on the rhetorical level for China’s bid for international leadership.

The idea of a distinct civilizational history asserted by the notion of China as a “civilizational state” reflects the country’s determination to resist what it sees as Western notions of “democracy” and “human rights” — partly, perhaps, out of a desire to forge its own path, but also substantially out of a need to define the legitimacy of the ruling CCP outside of democratic values that are seen as a potential threat.

Furthermore, this narrative benefits China’s claims over Hong Kong and Taiwan. As both had historically been part of Chinese civilization, the argument goes, the Taiwanese may eventually naturally accept the concept of “one country, two systems,” as has already happened in Hong Kong. “Their conception of sovereignty is separate from the Western nation-state perception of sovereignty,” Jacques argued in 2011. “For the Chinese, sovereignty is separate from system.” Hong Kongers who watched their system crumble after 2019, and did not exactly accept the arrangement, may beg to differ.

Zhang may claim that the civilizational state idea is catching on internationally – particularly in Russia and India – because the world moving past nationalism. But the narrative fails to explain why other nations which have historically been part of the “Sinosphere,” namely Korea, Japan and Taiwan, have chosen the paths of liberal democracy as opposed to China’s system of “democratic dictatorship.” Importantly, as the Chinese and Russian “civilizational states” seek to assert their historical inheritance over Taiwan and Ukraine, Taiwanese and Ukrainian national identity only grow stronger in response.

And of course, China’s history is far less continuous and unified – and its relations with minority peoples far less harmonious – than Zhang may like to admit. China was twice conquered by foreign regimes, the Yuan and the Qing, the latter governing Han China as only one part of its empire and maintaining boundaries between its major ethno-cultural groups, scholars have argued.

Yet today, as Dutch historian Frank Dikotter wrote in 1996 — referring to the mythical emperor credited as a paragon of culture and statecraft — all the peoples of China are “increasingly represented as the descendants of the Yellow Emperor.” This is why Dikötter characterized contemporary China as “not so much a ‘civilization pretending to be a state,’ in the words of Lucien Pye, but rather an empire claiming to be a nation-race.”

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While this list of issues encompasses many points of contention — including territorial disputes and oil and gas reserves in the South China Sea, and environmental questions over China’s use of water resources in the Mekong region — their softer treatment through the metaphor of “home” seeks to downplay those aspects of China’s diplomacy that might seem coercive to its southern neighbors. 

The basic idea behind the “Five Major Homes” concept is to stress the idea of historic and geographic closeness between China and Southeast Asia. It envisions a “peaceful home” (和平家园) and (at least in principle) emphasizes dialogue over confrontation. In its more concrete aspects, the concept involves, for example, creating a “secure home” (安宁家园) through health security initiatives such as vaccine diplomacy; and making a more “prosperous home” (繁荣家园) by advancing economic integration across the region through economic development programs like the Belt and Road Initiative. 

In a 2023 article, the CCP’s official People’s Daily (人民日报) framed the “Five Homes” policy as evidence of China’s benevolent leadership in the region, emphasizing the mutual benefits of this specific relationship with China. It described the concept as being about “good neighbors, good friends, good partners” (好邻居、好朋友、好伙伴). 

When ascertaining the concrete meanings of seemingly congenial phrases like these, it is important to place CCP discourse in context. China’s official notion of “friendship” under the CCP, for example, has typically been narrowly understood as actions and positions that support the Chinese party-state and its interests — implying assent by foreign countries and “friends” to China’s understanding of its core interests. 

The “Five Major Homes” concept was widely used during Xi Jinping’s April 2025 tour of Southeast Asia, which included visits to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia. On April 12, the People’s Daily framed Xi’s trips as a showcase for China’s new neighborhood diplomacy, which focuses on creating “the ‘Five Major Homes’ of peace, security, prosperity, beauty, and friendship.” The paper positioned the tour as “an important practice of China’s sincere, friendly, mutually beneficial and inclusive neighborhood diplomacy,” emphasizing that it would “write a new chapter of China working hand-in-hand with neighboring countries to build a community with a shared future and jointly march toward modernization.”

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By March 2015, the women already had a history going back several years of peaceful actions against gender discrimination and domestic violence. These included the 2012 “Occupy Men’s Toilets” demonstrations in the southern city of Guangzhou and in the capital Beijing, during which demonstrators temporarily occupied men’s toilets to draw attention to the relative lack of proper facilities for women. Significantly, these actions received coverage at the time even from state-run media, including the Global Times and China Daily (though most reports were published in English only). Up to 2015, in fact, the Chinese media covered issues of women and gender in ways that seem surprising today. For example, in a 2012 report by China Consumer News about controversial pre-employment physical examinations for female civil servants, Wu Rongrong, then a gender equality specialist at the grassroots Beijing Yirenping Center (北京益仁平中心), argued that non-medical gynecological examinations could damage women’s dignity and intensify their fear during job hunting. She emphasized that women have the right to keep information about their bodies private from others unless for personal healthcare purposes.

The detention of the “Feminist Five” was an unfortunate turning point for feminist activism in China and for coverage and public discussion of related issues. As the crackdown on feminist activism and Chinese civil society more broadly was underway in 2015, the only coverage in domestic media voiced support for repressive actions. A Chinese-language report from the Global Times defended the detention of the “Feminist Five” activists ahead of International Women’s Day and dismissed Western criticism of the judicial process as unwarranted interference. The piece argued that “female rights in China are not a sensitive topic” while drawing a critical distinction between legitimate advocacy and what it called “unlawful rallies intended to upset social order” (用非法抗议来挑战社会秩序) — demonstrating how the Party frames even peaceful protest as a threat to stability.

But the legacy of the “Feminist Five” remains strong, as they continue to participate in the Chinese feminist movement, often through online forums. The Feminist Five inspired a shift in Chinese activism, driving a more diverse and inclusive feminist movement. If you want to know more about the “Feminist Five,” their activism, and what it means to be a feminist activist in China, here are three great interviews with Li Maizi on China’s feminist movement and her personal experiences:

• “The Ten Years I’ve Experienced Since the ‘Feminist Five'” — Matters, March 7, 2025
• “From Bullied Youth to Feminist Activist, From Political Prisoner to Exile — I’m Still Doing What I Can” — Wainao, March 7, 2025
• “Activists’ Struggle as Space to Challenge Power Shrinks” — Dasheng (大声), June 2025

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The term first gained academic attention in a 2020 article from Tsinghua University’s School of Journalism and Communication, which looked carefully at the term’s problematic and derogatory nature. By 2021, the magazine Motherland (祖国杂誌), a bimonthly publication with nationalist leanings, adopted the term in an article that characterized feminists with what it felt were more extreme views — such as blaming their personal setbacks on men — as engaging in “Women’s Fist-ism” as “hostile toward men” (敌视男性) and aspiring ultimately to “return to a matriarchal society” (回到母系社会).

The phrase went viral in April 2022 following controversy over a Chinese Communist Youth League (共青团) Weibo post celebrating male contributions to nation-building while overlooking women’s roles. After female users criticized the post, Beijing Evening News (北京晚报), a newspaper under the municipal propaganda department, ran a commentary condemning these critics as practitioners of “extreme feminism” (极端女权) and “Women’s Fist-ism” who were “stirring up trouble” (兴风作浪).

The goal of the linguistic framing achieved by this derogatory term is to relabel women advocating for equality as simply attacking men. It creates a distorted narrative of feminism, reducing substantive gender equality discussions to stereotypical emotional outbursts — a rhetorical strategy that undermines legitimate discourse on women’s rights in China.

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In recent years, China’s leaders have promoted the concept of a “community of shared future in cyberspace” (网络空间命运共同体) as an alternative vision of internet governance for the world, and have worked to enlist cooperation and legitimation of the concept from leaders across the world. In August 2021, for example, China launched the “China-Africa Initiative on Jointly Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace” at a forum attended by representatives from 14 African countries, outlining joint frameworks for digital infrastructure, security, governance, and economic development. 

First proposed by Xi Jinping at the 2015 World Internet Conference in Wuzhen as a concept related to his broader foreign policy vision of a “community of shared future for mankind” (人类命运共同体), the phrase was more comprehensively defined in a 2022 White Paper issued by the State Council. At its core is the idea that cyberspace belongs to everyone, but that each state has the right to control its internet standards and infrastructure. Importantly, this idea underscores the assertion internationally that states, as opposed to multi-stakeholder groups including organizations and citizens, are ultimately responsible for the exercise of cyberspace governance and policy. 

The formal framework of Xi’s “community of shared future in cyberspace” promotes four essential principles under the overarching state-centered approach, according to the State Council white paper: “improving global network infrastructure”(全球网络基础设施建设). “encouraging cultural interchange” (网上文化交流共享平台), “creating creative digital economies” (网络经济创新发展) and “maintaining network security” (网络安全). 

China strategically promotes the concept by linking it with tangible technical assistance programs throughout the Global South, and around the world. This approach combines digital ideology with practical development aid, creating dependencies that advance China’s governance model. In Africa, China partners with the International Telecommunication Union on technical assistance projects to build “Digital Uganda”; in Southeast Asia, Chinese firms have developed ASEAN’s first 5G smart hospital; and in Latin America, China collaborates with Brazil and Ecuador on digital initiatives for Amazon rainforest protection. These projects, highlighted at the World Internet Conference, showcase how China bridges digital divides while simultaneously expanding its cyber governance framework in developing regions.

China’s vision reveals a dichotomy: while it promotes cyber sovereignty, peace, and an apparently open digital environment, China is effectively exporting its model of cyberspace governance to countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Countries receiving Chinese digital infrastructure funding have implemented components of Beijing’s internet governance framework.

While promoting global partnerships and ostensibly respecting each country’s right to choose its internet governance, China is creating digital dependencies through initiatives such as the Digital Silk Road (数位丝绸之路), which embed governance frameworks prioritizing state authority over individual digital rights. For example, China has offered advanced surveillance technologies and digital infrastructure to Iran, allowing Tehran to strengthen state control over cyberspace while conforming with China’s idea of cyber sovereignty.

As this concept becomes more widespread, it represents more than just a framework for digital collaboration; it embodies a fundamental conflict over the internet’s future design. China’s strategic ambiguity — promoting shared governance while extending state control — advancing cyber standards without explicitly challenging existing ones.

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But in Chinese media, particularly across the Taiwan Strait in the mainland PRC, another, more offensive moniker lives on: renyao (人妖). Literally “human monster,” it is variously translated as “ladyboy” or  “tranny.” The term is considered a slur according to modern sensibilities, directed at feminine-presenting people assigned male at birth. But it has a history that goes back to some of China’s earliest dynasties. 

One of the first occurrences of the word can be found in the History of the Southern Dynasties (南史), compiled by Li Yanshou (李延寿) during the early Tang dynasty (618-907). The phrase is therein used to describe a woman dressed as a man, noting with unmistakable discomfort that “this person is a human monster — a [female element] yin (陰) pretending to be a [male element] yang (陽), which cannot be.”

Fast forward to the twentieth century, and while Chinese language and society have undergone a sea change the intrinsic discomfort around renyao remains undampened. “What sort of thing is a renyao?” asks a short article in Suzhou’s Ming Pao (蘇州明報) newspaper in 1947. “Men who dress up as women to mingle amongst them,” it concludes, “evading the notice of others to commit deviant sexual acts.”

Between then and 2004, governments may have come and gone, but the tone around renyao remained consistent. That year, the weekend edition of Nanjing Daily (南京日报), the official CCP newspaper in the city, ran an article on a victim of human trafficking who had been coerced into gender reassignment surgery and sex work, labeling her “China’s first man-made renyao.” In another story, they related the ordeal of a university graduate from Hunan who was led by false promises of employment in Thailand to similarly undergo forced surgery. In both cases, renyao are the objects of not only derision and suspicion but also pity — monsters born of a monstrous process, not complex individuals with their own agency and motivations.

“Some Disease”

In 2021, beauty and dance influencer Abbily (艾比) revealed to her more than 2 million Weibo followers that she had been assigned male at birth and had successfully undergone gender-affirming surgery. “I have become a real girl now,” the online celebrity wrote. I hope everyone can be inclusive towards me.” Many of the comments under Abbily’s post were positive, but the negative responses resorted to the same prejudices from centuries earlier. “I’m afraid it’s some disease,” one wrote, “I really hate transgenders more and more.” Another opined that “genetically Y [male] people only talk about transformation but do not practice it — they are just using the name of freedom to do filthy things.”

Today, renyao is still widely used in Chinese media — and it hasn’t lost its sting. One of the latest examples can be found in a blog post to the web portal Sohu (搜狐网). It follows the story of a wealthy Chinese businessman named Bao Xi (鲍玺) and Nisha (妮莎), a trans woman from Thailand who won the transgender beauty pageant “Miss Tiffany’s Universe.” The post recounts the trajectory of their relationship from their first meeting to their marriage, highlighting the couple’s challenges and struggles. While it tries to tell a love story, however, the post still has judgemental undertones. Nisha is ultimately denied her womanhood, described as “looking like a woman but actually being a man.” The businessman Bao Xi is depicted as her savior, plucking her from the undignified existence normally the lot of renyao.

Stories like this highlight the persistent prejudices that transgender people face in China and the Sinpophone world, and that continue to be aired with impunity across many Chinese-language media.

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