South China Morning Post

A cartoonist in China has been detained by police for depicting Chinese people as pigs in satirical cartoons. 

Police in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui said the cartoonist, surnamed Zhang, 22, was a “jingri,” a term for Chinese people who feel spiritually Japanese, and that she loved Japanese manga and worshipped Japanese culture.

Zhang is accused of “insulting China” and “trampling on China’s dignity.”

Millions of Chinese people were killed during the Japanese invasion of the country…

A Chinese dissident, who set up a website documenting human rights abuses in the country, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for “leaking state secrets.”

Huang Qi was sentenced at the Mianyang Intermediate People’s Court in the southwestern Sichuan province on Monday, for “illegally leaking state secrets” and “providing state secrets to foreign entities,” according to an online court notice. 

Human rights groups said they feared the sentence, the third jail term for 56-year-old Huang,…

In all the years Alex Shu has spent at Capital Normal University in Beijing, he has never once used the campus swimming pool. He was always told it was under maintenance.

So he was shocked when he found out from an online video recently that the university did have a working swimming pool, only it was reserved for international students.

“The center used to be a hotel before being renovated and reserved for international students,” Shu said. “Mainland students can only get in if they are…

With the dog days of August upon Beijing, Chinese leaders are expected to gather in the coming days in a northern beach resort to escape the heat of the capital – and to talk.

The resort, called Beidaihe, is located some 180 miles east of Beijing. It provides a relaxed environment for Communist Party leaders, retired and current, to exchange views that often become policy later.

But while they might spend time on the beach, this year’s meeting will be watched particularly closely, with a host…

Hong Kong’s tax authority will now treat married gay couples the same as married opposite-sex couples.

The rule change by the Inland Revenue Department came one month after a major legal victory for the LGBT community over spousal rights.

In a written reply to an inquiry by the South China Morning Post, a spokeswoman for the department said same-sex married couples could now submit joint tax assessments, giving them access to tax benefits previously available only to married straight couples…

Three controversial anti-riot vehicles armed with water cannons will hit the streets of Hong Kong this week and be ready to handle unrest by mid-August if they pass road tests, the South China Morning Post has learned.

Operational guidelines have been finalized and the force was weighing whether to use the vehicles to spray dye on protesters to make identifying suspects easier, a senior police insider revealed.

The possible use of water cannons comes at a time of rising tensions in the city…

A group of prominent Chinese actresses have made a dramatic plea at an award ceremony on Sunday to filmmakers: cast more women in their 30s and beyond.

“Dear directors, we are older but we are wiser,” the 41-year-old actress Hai Qing said on stage as two other renowned film stars stood next to her.

“But to be honest,” she said, “the market, subject matter and other factors have barred us from working on quality films.”

Hai’s plea to an industry that critics say prizes the appeal of youth…

When Marvel cast Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, the studio’s first Asian superhero, the Chinese internet reacted with a collective gasp. 

The casting of the muscular Chinese-Canadian heartthrob, known for his role in the sitcom Kim’s Convenience, may be celebrated in the West, but for some Chinese, he just doesn’t look the part.

“He looks like how Westerners think us Asians all look,” said one commentator on China’s Twitter-like Weibo. The message is the second-most liked response to a report about…

Anti-government protests in Hong Kong, which started out as demonstrations against a now-suspended extradition bill, have been taking place for two months.

The news has dominated headlines in the city, a semi-autonomous part of China, and around the world for weeks. But how have the demonstrations been covered in mainland China itself?

This week, the country’s most-watched daily TV news program has aired a series of damning reports about protesters in Hong Kong and blamed “external forces”…

Thousands of people held a sit-in at the Hong Kong International Airport, calling on travelers to support the city’s continuing anti-government protests. 

Protesters joined airline workers, most wearing black, at the airport’s busy arrival hall on Friday afternoon, chanting slogans, signing petitions and handing out flyers to tourists. Airport operations were not affected. 

Hong Kong people have been taking to the streets every weekend for more than a month to protest against a now…