Overview

An eye-opening exploration of the Chinese internet that reveals the intricate dance between freedom and control in contemporary China In the late 1990s, as the world was waking up to the power and emancipatory promise of the internet, Chinese authorities began constructing a system of online surveillance and censorship now known as the Great Firewall. But far from being a barren landscape, the digital world that sprouted up behind the firewall brimmed with new subcultures and tech innovations, offering many Chinese citizens previously unimaginable connection and opportunity. Today, as the country’s leadership intensifies its control of public discourse and Western headlines reduce the Chinese public to a faceless monolith, journalist Yi-Ling Liu presents an intimate portrait of China’s online ecosystem—and a crucial lens into the on-the-ground reality of life there. Tracing the last three decades of the Chinese internet’s evolution—from its lexicon to its memes to the precise nature of its censorship—she equips readers with a critical tool to assess the past, present, and future of a global power. Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, The Wall Dancers weaves together the stories of individuals navigating China’s transformation into both the world’s largest online user base and one of its most populous authoritarian states. As these entrepreneurs, activists, artists, and dreamers experience the internet’s power as a tool for both control and liberation, they grapple with universal questions of success and authenticity, love and solidarity, faith and resilience. The Wall Dancers is at once an unforgettable work of human storytelling and a vital exploration of what it means to live with dignity and hope within the technological systems that now shape all our lives.

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Reviews

“With profound nuance, clarity, and courage, Yi-Ling Liu writes about a cast of individuals who deftly navigate the complex inner workings of the Chinese internet. And yet in Liu’s expert rendering, their stories embody so much more: a history of China’s dramatic rise, a portrait of those who molded and were molded by it, and an examination of the true scorecard of the global internet on free speech and expression. At once intimate and expansive, Dancing In Shackles is a masterpiece, made only more impressive by Liu’s own exquisite dancing. To gain this level of access and trust to sources in China to breathe humanity and agency into an often faceless story can only be pulled off by a journalist of the highest caliber.” —Karen Hao, New York Times bestselling author of Empire of AI

Author Information

Yi-Ling Liu’s work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, WIRED, and The New York Review of Books. She has been a New America Fellow, a recipient of the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award, and an Overseas Press Club Foundation Scholar. Born and raised in Hong Kong, and a graduate of Yale University, she now lives in London.

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