Linette Lim

Delighted that my paper was selected for the 2025 Best PhD Paper Award @psaautocracy.bsky.social ! Thanks to the panel @emisimison.bsky.social & @scottrw630.bsky.social, to my supervisor @alexdukalskis.bsky.social for nominating me, and to @ucdpolitics.bsky.social for being a great intellectual home

State Dept. cuts China experts as administration says countering Beijing top priority The State Department has shuttered the team involved in South China Sea security, getting rid of top experts on the subject at a time when the administration says security in the region is a priority.

“…The layoffs were announced while Rubio was traveling home from that trip.

"After he used us, he fired us," one fired foreign affairs officer who focused on the South China Sea said. "It's mind-boggling."

www.npr.org/2025/07/24/n...

Happy polling day. Posted mine early this week. Majulah.

Frequently asked questions about the China Targets investigation - ICIJ What's transnational repression? Is China Targets based on leaked documents? What's a GONGO? These questions and more, answered.

🧵Happy to see continued attention on the ways that China harasses and surveils abroad-- hard to find the bandwidth today, but it remains a real issue that impacts people's lives.

A few thoughts that I've raised elsewhere on how best to think about it and address it:

www.icij.org/investigatio...

This is such a good read, and perhaps of educational value to Americans newly wondering what life under full-blown authoritarianism is like. From one of China's sharpest writers:

US bans government personnel in China from romantic or sexual relations with Chinese citizens The U.S. government has banned American government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citize...

US government bans government personnel in China from romantic or sexual relations with Chinese citizens – AP: ‘the policy, which was put into effect by departing U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China.’

When China’s cyber nationalists cross Beijing’s red line Anti-West blogger Sima Nan’s tax scandal exposes lucrative hustle of patriotic fury that dodges political risk – until it doesn’t.

SCMP: Authorities slapped übernationalist Sima Nan,whose real name is Yu Li, with a fine of 9 million yuan (US$1.2 million) for tax evasion last week, proving that “cyber nationalism” has been a very lucrative hustle in #China for years
buff.ly/FcSBftW

Exclusive: Leaked data exposes a Chinese AI censorship machine One academic who reviewed the dataset said it was "clear evidence" that China, or its affiliates, wants to use AI to improve repression.

Leaked data exposes a Chinese AI censorship machine – TechCrunch: ‘133,000 examples fed into a sophisticated large language model that’s designed to automatically flag any piece of content considered sensitive by the Chinese government.’

‘Survival Comes First’ | ChinaFile Generation Z has now become the primary force among China’s growing ranks of China’s online content moderators, who number in the tens of thousands. Their physical stamina means they generally fare better with the intense demands of the job and can stay up late to respond quickly to issues with sensitive content. They now handle the bulk of the work for major internet

Confessions of a Chinese internet censor: "My impression is that they need us to know about these things to do our job properly, but…they’re afraid of us knowing too much. They’d prefer we forget everything after executing their instructions."

www.chinafile.com/re...

This puts the CCP's 'seven don't mentions' in the shade.
七不講？小巫見大巫

Update: The Atlantic Council has now received notification from the State Dept formally terminating several China-focused research and capacity-building projects. “We are currently assessing the impact of this loss of funding on our ability to continue this work,” Atlantic Council says.

can't make this up. when Jimmy Lai said he's not Chinese but Hong Konger, the judge asked 'are you yellow skinned'? extraordinary how biological racial nationalism that assumes phenotypic difference = race = nationality (and by extension =political loyalty) is explicitly invoked in legal proceedings

The article reveals both that China uses tools to summarize social media posts, launch misinformation campaigns, and that OpenAI is monitoring how its users employ AI.
So, no surprises!

Pentagon removes major media outlets, including NBC News, from dedicated workstations as part of a new 'rotation program' NBC News, The New York Times, NPR and Politico must vacate their office spaces in two weeks for other news organizations — including at least one that did not request to be added.

The Pentagon is evicting the New York Times, NPR and NBC news from their long-held office space and replacing them with organizations such as One America News and Breitbart. www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...

On "Xiaohongshu Balance-Sheet Comparisons": “Can You Still Ignore the Fact That You Live on the Wrong Side of a One-Way Mirror?” The mingling of so-called "TikTok refugees" with Chinese users on the PRC-based social network Xiaohongshu spawned a range of reactions, from some Chinese users’ excitement at the unexpected opening o...

On "Xiaohongshu Balance-Sheet Comparisons": “Can You Still Ignore the Fact That You Live on the Wrong Side of a One-Way Mirror?”
"[T]hey can come and go as they wish, [...but] that one-way mirror was made just for you."
chinadigitaltimes.net/2025/01/on-x...

Biggest thief of intellectual property (I.e. all of our works) then complains about IP theft

Honoured to start 2025 with an invited talk at Kobe University, after presenting at the Japanese Society for Quantitative Political Science winter meeting. Got great feedback, got to personally thank 2 researchers for the R packages they created, & had many nice chats & meals with fellow travellers

Randomly found out that there's a Dublin Road in Singapore, and there's a German Biergarten right on it! This photo symbolically captures the homes I inhabit and move in between. To more travel, learning and growing, and homecomings in 2025. Happy new year!

Recruitment ads for CCP youth branch secretaries at Ngee Ann Polytechnic removed from LinkedIn after queries - The Online Citizen Two recruitment ads posted on a LinkedIn account under the name "Communist Youth League of China" have drawn the attention of Singaporean netizens. The ads advertised positions for a "Branch Secreta...

Recruitment ads for CCP youth branch secretaries at Singapore’s Ngee Ann Polytechnic removed from LinkedIn after queries – The Online Citizen: ‘However, the authenticity of the [Communist Youth League of China’s] LinkedIn page has raised further eyebrows.’

Home for a bit. I have missed the tropical heat and rain, my mom's cooking, and the public infrastructure and social services of this non-liberal nation (e.g. a network of public gyms costing 1.8 USD/EUR per entry)

《还珠格格》回魂夜：被误读的琼瑶，和她的反权威宇宙

sharing this podcast to celebrate the late Taiwanese novelist Chiung Yao, who - through the tv adaptation of 还珠格格 - transformed an entire generation brought up to not talk about feelings, to not question authority, and to operate driven by duty rather than passion
open.spotify.com/episode/45rz...

Document 9: A ChinaFile Translation This weekend, China’s leaders gather in Beijing for meetings widely expected to determine the shape of China’s economy, as well as the nation’s progress, over the next decade. What exactly the outcome...

#FromtheChinaFiles

In 2013, Document 9 or Document No. 9 set the ideological tone for Xi Jinping's government, and we're still living in the world it shaped. Here is our translation of it:

I was raised by Teochew grandaunts who endured incredibly hard lives, from being transplanted from China to Singapore as babies, to having marriage prospects & education disrupted by WW2, & losing family wealth & starting from scratch. Today, they are finally all reunited (in Pure Land hopefully)

Exclusive | Chinese Ship’s Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles to Cut Baltic Cables NATO warships have surrounded Yi Peng 3, a Chinese bulk carrier at the center of an international probe into suspected sabotage.

Investigators suspect a Chinese bulk carrier deliberately severed two critical data cables last week as its anchor was dragged along the Baltic seabed for over 100 miles.

Their probe now centers on whether the captain of the ship was induced by Russian intelligence.

www.wsj.com/world/europe...

Volkswagen Exits Xinjiang After Criticism About Complicity in Human Rights Abuses On Wednesday, German auto manufacturer Volkswagen (VW) announced that it would sell its operations in Xinjiang. The move comes after years of pressure from rights groups that have documented the Chine...

Volkswagen Exits Xinjiang After Criticism About Complicity in Human Rights Abuses

I've updated the "Sociologists Studying China Starter Pack" to include not only more sociologists but also historians, political theorists, political scientists, historical IR scholars, cultural anthropologists, critical geographers, & media scholars who examine Chinese society from various angles.

In China’s regimented society, youth find release at underground raves In recent years, space for culture and creativity has been shrinking in China as the authorities have ramped up censorship of concerts, shows, and other cultural events.

A couple thoughts on this story by Elsie Chen and me:
-Upper-middle class urban China has become cool and fashionable! Little of that has reached foreign audiences except maybe through TikTok, because of the firewall and all those expelled journalists…
apnews.com/article/chin...

I have finally made the jump here. Looking forward to sharing my research here, as well as building up for myself a new resource for ideas and information