What do you need to know as a China watcher in 2023? (Part 1: narrative) | Following the yuan

The 'scary China, weird China' narrative intensifies as the country becomes increasingly like a black box. Let's talk about it (on June 13?🤓).

When I was briefly working at Sixth Tone last year, a Shanghai-based publication that despite its state ties, tells good human-centered stories and tries hard to defy censorship rules, I was stricken on my first day.

My very first piece for the site blew up. It was just a simple daily story about tech giant Tencent Games’ new time-sensitive facial recogn…