Susan Jakes

By most rankings, DC is not even in top 20 or 30 most dangerous US cities, in per capita crime rates. And DC rates declining.

"Still far more dangerous than it should be"? Sure. But so is NEARLY EVERY big US city. Dozens of them much much more than DC.

No, Trump is not "right."

New report from ChinaFile takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how information is controlled in China

"...imagining China’s censorship system as a “wall” mistakes its true nature. The system isn’t static, it’s dynamic, multipart, and adaptable—and concerned with far more than […]

Good read: a detailed and accessible report published on @chinafile by Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson on China's internet censorship system, known as the "Locknet"

locknet.chinafile.com/the-locknet/...

Thanks @robbiebarnett.bsky.social for referring to work by @bennoweiner.bsky.social and me for this ChinaFile discussion on the Dalai Lama’s succession www.chinafile.com/conversation...

中国网络控制已演化为智能舆论控制系统。ChinaFile最新研究显示，中国的网络控制早已超越传统"防火墙"概念，形成了一套协同运作的系统化舆论控制机制。在国家层面，中共通过立法、监管与技术手段设定控制底线，对各大平台施压执行监管，决定舆论是否推广或是屏蔽。平台层面，社交媒体平台主动筛查敏感内容，通过屏蔽、下架、限流等方式进行主动过滤或推广，形成算法式维稳。社会层面，通过实名制、自我审查、举报文化的普及，让所有人都参与到言论审查中。这套系统可根据政治敏感程度灵活调控，让每个人成为审查者和传播者。令人担忧的是，这种治理模式正通过中国科技平台的海外扩张，逐步影响和侵蚀全球网络自由空间。

One of the things I was most excited that we got to do for the Locknet report was to produce these explainers of how the internet actually works. It’s not magic!

Amazing work here. One of the smartest and most comprehensive reports ever done on Chinese censorship -- a topic that's going to become so much more relevant as DeepSeek and other Chinese LLMs continue to grab territory

👇 "The [PRC censorship] system...intertwines human and machine into a complex apparatus that pervades the online and offline worlds/At the same time, the system is a resource-constrained, best-guess, partially-deployed patchwork, every component of which is imperfect and subject to failure"

"Hispanic concentration camp" Fernando tells New Times he's been at the facility since July 3, when state officials began transferring the first detainees to the hastily-built compound. He was among the earliest to arrive, processed as the 71st detainee. Since arriving, he says he's endured chaotic and unsanitary conditions: swarms of colossal mosquitoes, extreme temperature swings from freezing to sweltering, and only three showers total. He's still wearing the same orange jumpsuit he was given on day one. At one point, he says the toilets stopped flushing. When staff failed to fix the problem, detainees were forced to remove human waste — by picking it up with their hands and moving it elsewhere themselves — to use the bathroom, all with little to no privacy. Fernando describes the site as a "Hispanic concentration camp" full of mostly working-class immigrants. "We came here for opportunity," Carla says, "and then we get mistreated." Despite the harsh conditions, Fernando says he's found a sense of community with the other men at the facility, who, like himself, came to the U.S. to work in construction, roofing, or other physically demanding jobs. "My dad tells me, 'We're all like a family in there eating together,'" Carla says. "It's the Hispanic community."

The charge on this man’s record is driving without a license. Now he’s locked up in what he calls a “Hispanic concentration camp” www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-d...

Balancing What Can Be Said with What Can Only Be Implied The young Uyghur filmmaker Ikram Nurmehmet is now in a Chinese prison for “actively participating in terrorist activities.” He was likely targeted because he had studied in Turkey between 2010 and 201...

Thought provoking and informative piece by @shellyk.bsky.social for @chinafile.bsky.social www.chinafile.com/reporting-op...

1/2 You could write a book about one atrocious headline in print NYT today

(I sort of wrote this book 30 years ago, Breaking the News, but others can take a turn.)

What's wrong this headline? Mamdani "faces scrutiny" **ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY** because NYT decided to make this a "thing."

Really bad.

The accurate headline on the story would have been "Mamdani Identified as Asian and Ugandan on College Application"

The Dalai Lama’s Succession | ChinaFile How might the battle over succession play out over the coming months? If the Dalai Lama announces a successor, how will Beijing respond? How robust is the institutional framework for maintaining legitimacy without the Chinese government’s recognition, and what are its potential vulnerabilities? What are the ramifications for China’s relationship with India, which hosts the

On July 2, the Dalai Lama released a statement about the process of selecting his successor. What's going to happen next? A ChinaFile Conversation with Ian Johnson, Isabel Hilton, Tashi Rabgey, and Robert Barnett:

www.chinafile.com/co...

A collage depicting blimps, planes, drones, and ships trawling the sea and sky for digital devices and information.

NEW: A ChinaFile investigation into China's powerful, but leaky, internet censorship system at locknet.chinafile.com
1/21

So looking forward to interviewing Leslie Tai about this surprising and riveting film. I first saw it last year, can't wait to see it again, and hope you'll come watch it with us.

#bebest

Chinese Students Are Frustrated With U.S. Visa Bans: ‘What Now?’

“I don’t even know if they can give me this visa that I just got.” We spoke with student visa applicants in Beijing following the Trump administration’s announcement that it would begin “aggressively” revoking the visas of Chinese students.

Lemme explain what bilateral trade deficits are, so that you can better understand -- and perhaps be infuriated by -- the intellectual error that's transforming our economy. #TeachEcon

ChinaFile Presents: ‘How to Have an American Baby,’ a Film Screening and Discussion Join ChinaFile for a screening of 'How to Have an American Baby,' followed by discussion with the filmmaker, Leslie Tai.

On June 25, @chinafile.bsky.social presents a screening of 'How To Have An American Baby,' a "kaleidoscopic voyage into the booming shadow economy" catering to birth tourism from China to the U.S. Followed by a Q&A with director Leslie Tai and @susanjakes.bsky.social. asiasociety.org/new-york/eve...

I don’t think you can be too pro technocrat. But if it is an offense, I guess I’ll cop to it. The US population had a good thing and discarded it for (generously) a pack of snake oil salesmen.

Cautioning His Students to Stay Quiet, A Scholar of China Hears Echoes of Its Past in America's Present For several generations now, the overriding philosophy of life for many Chinese intellectuals and average citizens has been “mingzhe baoshen,” (明哲保身) which dictionaries define as “a wise man looks aft...

In China people have long counseled keeping quiet to stay safe. China scholar Michael Berry now finds himself giving thay advice to his foreign students in America-https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/notes-chinafile/cautioning-his-students-stay-quiet-scholar-of-china-hears-echoes

This is the person who has the official power to judge whether the available evidence says he should launch nuclear weapons

It's working, I'm now aware of more antisemitism than I was before

Chinese Scientists in America Come Under New Wave of Suspicion FBI scrutiny and visa revocations under President Trump are worrying STEM researchers as China looks to recruit them to come home.

www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

What Even Is Trump’s China Strategy? When it comes to China, there are several different factions pushing the Trump Administration in different directions: MAGA nationalists who favor economic, cultural, and possibly military warfare aga...

A @chinafile.bsky.social Conversation with Wendy Cutler,
Michael Hirson, Lizzi C. Lee, @isabelh.bsky.social, and Andrew Polk:

Superpowers at Odds: A Face Off Live event Join Jane Perlez and Orville Schell for a live episode of the FACE OFF: U.S. vs China podcast.

On April 8, join former New York Times Beijing bureau chief Jane Perlez and Orville Schell for a special live podcast taping of Face-Off: The U.S. vs China. The episode will cover their decades of experience reporting on the U.S. and China, and what comes next. asiasociety.org/center-us-ch...

Ma présentation a été annulée par l’Université de New York Mon «alma mater» a préféré jouer de surobéissance préventive pour ne pas froisser le gouvernement Trump.

Not in the US news yet, but the ex-president of Doctors Without Borders had a talk on humanitarian work cancelled by NYU's department of emergency medicine seemingly because it mentioned that in 2024 Gaza was one of the places with the largest number of "humanitarian victims"

H.H.S. Scraps Studies of Vaccines and Treatments for Future Pandemics (Gift Article) Federal officials cited the end of the Covid-19 pandemic in halting the research. But much of the work was focused on preventing outbreaks of other pathogens.

The Trump administration has canceled funding for dozens of studies seeking new vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 and other pathogens that may cause future pandemics.

nyti.ms/43Xz77q

A screenshot from The Atlantic illustrating the following scene: “Six minutes later, the vice president, apparently confused by Waltz’s message, wrote, “What?” At 2 p.m., Waltz responded: “Typing too fast. The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.” Vance responded a minute later: “Excellent.”

Many have pointed out how the larger conversation about the group chat eludes discussion of the horrors of war, but seeing a civilian woman just accepted as “excellent” collateral is … pretty ghastly