In March 1989, the book Yangtze Yangtze was published by the Guizhou People's Publishing House just as the Tiananmen student protests were about to begin in Beijing. The book fed into this intellectual ferment, challenging the technocratic reasons for the Three Gorges Dam, which eventually would dam the Yangtze River in the name of flood control and electrical power generation.
The book was edited by the journalist Dai Qing, the daughter of a well-known Communist Party activist and leader. The book challenged the project's decision-making process, with a broad array of scientists, journalists, and intellectuals arguing that it was not democratic and did not take into account all viewpoints. It was widely read in China and translated into foreign languages.
After the Tiananmen protests were violently suppressed, Dai Qing was arrested and imprisoned for ten months in Qincheng Prison as an organizer of the uprising. Yangtze Yangtze was criticized as “promoting bourgeois liberalization, opposing the Four Fundamental Principles (of party control), and creating public opinion for turmoil and riots.” The book was taken off the shelves and destroyed, with some copies burned. It became the first banned book resulting from the decision-making process of the Three Gorges Project.
The book is banned in China. The English-language edition can be read online at Probe International: https://journal.probeinternational.org/three-gorges-probe/yangtze-yangtze/.
On June 12, 2025, the Hong Kong–based NGO China Labour Bulletin (CLB) announced its dissolution. This marks yet another Chinese civil society organization that ceased operations following the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law. Founded in 1994, CLB was dedicated to promoting the Chinese labor movement and had long focused on labor rights in China. Headquartered in Hong Kong, its founder Han Dongfang was a workers’ leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Democracy Movement and one of the founders of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation.
Over the years, China Labour Bulletin published dozens of reports in Chinese and English on China’s labor movement, addressing issues related to migrant workers, food delivery couriers, women workers, child labor, coal mining, and pneumoconiosis, among others. Following the organization’s dissolution, the China Labour Bulletin website was also taken offline.
In response, the China Unofficial Archives website immediately downloaded and preserved 80 Chinese- and English-language reports from the site. The following 26 reports are studies on the labor rights protection in China published between 2004 and 2024, including titles such as “Research Report on China’s Food Delivery Industry,” “Labor Rights in the Construction Industry,” “Healthcare Workers’ Rights Report,” and “Workers’ Rights in the Manufacturing Sector,” among others.
On June 12, 2025, the Hong Kong–based NGO China Labour Bulletin (CLB) announced its dissolution. This marks yet another Chinese civil society organization that ceased operations following the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law. Founded in 1994, CLB was dedicated to promoting the Chinese labor movement and had long focused on labor rights in China. Headquartered in Hong Kong, its founder Han Dongfang was a workers’ leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Democracy Movement and one of the founders of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation.
Over the years, China Labour Bulletin published dozens of reports in Chinese and English on China’s labor movement, addressing issues related to migrant workers, food delivery couriers, women workers, child labor, coal mining, and pneumoconiosis, among others. Following the organization’s dissolution, the China Labour Bulletin website was also taken offline.
In response, the China Unofficial Archives website immediately downloaded and preserved 80 Chinese- and English-language reports from the site. The following 15 reports are observation reports on China's workers' movement.
On June 12, 2025, the Hong Kong–based NGO China Labour Bulletin (CLB) announced its dissolution. This marks yet another Chinese civil society organization that ceased operations following the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law. Founded in 1994, CLB was dedicated to promoting the Chinese labor movement and had long focused on labor rights in China. Headquartered in Hong Kong, its founder Han Dongfang was a workers’ leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Democracy Movement and one of the founders of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation.
Over the years, China Labour Bulletin published dozens of reports in Chinese and English on China’s labor movement, addressing issues related to migrant workers, food delivery couriers, women workers, child labor, coal mining, and pneumoconiosis, among others. Following the organization’s dissolution, the China Labour Bulletin website was also taken offline.
In response, the China Unofficial Archives website immediately downloaded and preserved 80 Chinese- and English-language reports from the site. The following 18 reports are studies concerning trade union reform in China.