history

How AI Allows Us to Talk With Ancient Chinese People

Contributions from individuals with unique perspectives to share. Hear from everyone, from experts and commentators to those whose voices are often marginalized.

VOICES & OPINION

AI software has made it possible to consistently analyze thousands of historical texts, allowing scientists to carefully map how people’s viewpoints changed between centuries and across regions.

Chen Yuqi

The Hidden History of Suzhou Prints

Your questions, answered. In-depth interviews with the minds and makers shaping today’s China.

Q & A

In Qing-era Suzhou, color prints were a popular and affordable art form for everyday people. As such, they have long lacked the recognition they deserve.

Zheng Haiyao

The Historian Showing How Trade Shaped China’s Ties to the World

From silk and porcelain to cotton and tea, Li Bozhong traces how centuries of exchange bound China to global markets long before modern globalization.

Wu Haiyun

Looking Back at a Mascot of Future Optimism

Fifteen years ago, 73 million people visited the Shanghai Expo. Recently, the cartoon figure used to promote it has become an object of nostalgia.

Wang Zhanhei

100 Years Ago, Beijing’s Forbidden City Opened Its Doors

For centuries, the imperial palace at the heart of China’s capital was off-limits to commoners. When the Qing dynasty fell, that slowly began to change.

Xu Wanling

The Literature Professor Reframing China Narratives

Since the 1990s, Professor He Guimei has been researching constructions of China across contemporary literature. In her latest book, she challenges the way narratives frame “Chineseness” itself.

A 969-Year-Old Pagoda, Too Fragile to Climb, Gets a Fitting Facelift

China’s tallest and oldest timber structure pagoda is a marvel of Buddhist art and structural ingenuity. And while old age has limited its access, a new book full of vivid detail gives the public a better look than ever.

Li Yijia

Qin Dynasty Rock Carving in Remote Qinghai Verified as Authentic

Timely reports on issues and events from across China. Drawing on a vast range of sources, these succinct articles provide insights into the significance of each issue in a wider context.

NEWS

Disputed since it was discovered in 2020, the stone carving has now been authenticated as 2,200 years old, making it the only Qin-era inscription preserved in its original location.

Fan Yiying

AI ‘Ghostbots’ Update China’s Relationship With the Dead

Talking to an AI version of a late lost one is not so different from the photos and other mementoes people have always cherished.

Lin Bibo

Cultural Resistance: China’s Other War During the Japanese Invasion

Amid 14 years of invasion and upheaval, China’s artists, writers, and filmmakers used their work to preserve identity, inspire unity, and fight back.

The Underground WWII Effort to Save China’s Books

When Japan fully invaded China in 1937, the country was thrown into chaos for the next eight years. Throughout it all, a group of Shanghai intellectuals fought to keep China’s historic tomes from disappearing.

Wu Zhen

When the Lens Turned Left: Cinema in Resistance-Era China

As cinema evolved from silent-era drama to a key front in China’s fight against Japanese aggression, filmmakers turned class struggle, social injustice, and war into stories that rallied a nation.

Wang  Peilei

Wartime Woodcuts: The Art That Helped China Fight Japan

Easy reproducibility and striking visuals made woodcut printing China’s main art form during WWII.

Huang Wei

From Cinema to Tian’anmen: How China Got Its National Anthem

‘March of the Volunteers’ was initially the theme song to a 1935 movie about fighting the Japanese.

Wu  Haiyong

The ‘Archeologists’ Unearthing China’s Pre-Digital Fonts

Movable type printing techniques filled the interlude between woodblock carving and digital publishing. Now, enthusiasts are bringing it back.

Liu Yuli

The Ancient Secrets Buried in Jade

Over the years, Chinese archaeologists have uncovered new jade relics that may shed light on the dawn of Chinese civilization itself.

The Scholars Helping to Keep WWII Sex Slavery From Being Forgotten

Ahead of this year’s International Memorial Day for Comfort Women, Sixth Tone sat down with Su Zhiliang to learn more about the system behind the wartime atrocity — and the future of its research as the number of surviving victims dwindles.

The Chinese Architect Who Brought Art Deco to Shanghai

Art Deco made its way from Paris to Shanghai in the 1920s, and forever changed the city.

Why China’s Master of Ancient Armor Hasn’t Given Up the Fight 

Archaeologist Bai Rongjin is 90 years old and still going strong.

300,000-Year-Old Tools in China Show Early Humans Dug for Plants

A team of Chinese scientists has discovered wooden tools in Yunnan province dating back approximately 300,000 years, shedding light on how early humans dug for plant-based foods.