Last week, the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping took steps to finally move away from its zero-COVID policy, following two weeks of protests in multiple cities. The unrest and anti-government sentiment was perhaps the most pronounced since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. And while these events gave Western observers an opportunity to grapple with the complexity of Chinese politics, generational and regional differences in the views of the population, and ultimately how the authoritarian government responds to public pressure, it also gave us a chance to see how the Chinese censorship and surveillance apparatus operates. 

This week’s Tech Policy Press podcast comes in two parts. In both, we’ll hear from reporters covering the intersection of China and technology. This is the second part, and it features a conversation with two individuals covering China for the New York Times, Paul Mozur and Muyi Xiao. In their collaborative coverage they have mixed open source visual investigations methods with traditional reporting to get a sense of the protests and the state’s response.