On the evening of December 23, 2009, a large poster outside Zhang Ziyi's home in Beijing was splashed with ink. The following January, socialite Zhao Xinyu came forward claiming a grudge with Zhang Ziyi, and brought Shanghai businessman Mr. A into the picture.
Li Botan founded the Moutai Club in a government-owned courtyard house in Beijing, gathering red aristocrats, financial tycoons, and private entrepreneurs to form a covert organizational platform connecting power and capital.
In November 2009, Southern Weekly left its front-page headline blank, using an empty layout to protest the propaganda department's forced removal of an editorial accompanying an interview with Obama.
On November 11, 2009, the Shenyang Intermediate People's Court sentenced Xia Junfeng to death for intentional homicide in a first-instance ruling; his defense lawyer said the court refused to accept testimony from six eyewitnesses and instead relied on the testimony of chengguan officers.
Zhang Yiming founded 99fang, scraping, cleaning, categorizing and deduplicating housing listing information from different websites and feeding it into a mobile app.
On August 14, 2009, Sina Weibo began closed beta testing; on September 25, it officially added @, direct messages, comments, and reposting functions.
In August 2009, Typhoon Morakot destroyed Xiaolin Village in Jiasian Township, Kaohsiung, burying 474 people alive, and the government at the time was questioned over its inadequate disaster prevention and rescue efforts.
From the evening of July 7, 2009, Fanfou suspended its service under the impact of the Urumqi riots, and was subsequently closed for a long period, until the page could be opened again only in November 2010.
In April 2009, China demanded that Google remove from the google.cn homepage the link leading to google.com, but the request was refused; on June 18, the Internet Society of China issued a notice condemning Google for disseminating obscene, pornographic and vulgar information, while CCTV's Xinwen Lianbo and Focus Report criticized it in succession, and Google was temporarily cut off.
On June 16, 2009, the court of Badong County, Hubei, found Deng Yujiao guilty of intentional injury in the first-instance ruling, but, taking into account such circumstances as excessive self-defense and voluntary surrender, exempted her from criminal penalty.
On May 16, 2009, Xia Junfeng and his wife were penalized by chengguan for setting up an unlicensed street stall in Shenyang. A conflict broke out at the Binhe duty room, in which Xia stabbed two chengguan officers to death. The defense argued that he had been beaten by a group first and acted in self-defense, but the court did not accept the claim.
On May 16, 2009, Xia Junfeng and his wife were caught operating an unlicensed street stall by chengguan in Shenhe District, Shenyang, and Xia Junfeng went with the law enforcement officers to the Binhe duty office to receive punishment.
Deng Yujiao, a hotel waitress in Badong County, Hubei, fought back against officials who forced her to provide "special services," resulting in one death. Amid intense nationwide public attention and online support, she was ultimately found by the court to have exceeded the bounds of self-defense and was exempted from criminal punishment.
On the evening of May 10, 2009, Deng Yujiao, a hotel attendant in Yesanguan Town, Badong County, Hubei, stabbed one person to death and wounded another after being pestered by officials; after the case spread through the internet, it drew nationwide attention.
Zhao Xiaolan's sister, Zhao Anji, serves as an independent director of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, marking the entry of a Zhao family member into the internal governance of a Chinese state-owned listed shipbuilding company.
Around the 20th anniversary of the 2009 June Fourth incident, China blocked overseas platforms such as Google, YouTube and Facebook.
Following the July 5 Xinjiang riots in 2009, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were permanently blocked in China.
At the 2009 Boao Forum, Jackie Chan made the remark “We Chinese need to be controlled”; the video contrasts it with Stephen Chow’s later public statement.
Zhou Jiugong, head of the Jiangning District Housing Bureau in Nanjing, was brought down and in 2009 was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The Liunan Reservoir underwent risk-removal and reinforcement work in 2009, with the related tender budget exceeding 70 million yuan.
Since 2015, the Chinese government has begun providing large-scale subsidies for the electric vehicle industry, with cumulative direct and indirect subsidies reaching 3 trillion yuan. This policy drove the rapid development of China's electric vehicle industry, but also laid the groundwork for subsequent overcapacity.
After Yang Jia was executed, his mother Wang Jingmei opened a blog on Sina. Her first post wrote of the grief of losing her son. The blog was soon forced to close. Ai Weiwei cited this case in a blog roundtable discussion in January 2009 to illustrate the power of individual voices, and how afraid the authorities are.
Photos of Zhou Jiugong smoking famous-brand cigarettes and wearing a luxury watch during a meeting were posted online, and netizens used them to investigate his consumer goods and income.
On the morning of November 26, 2008, Yang Jia was executed by lethal injection in Shanghai at the age of 28. This was only five days after the Supreme People's Court issued its approval ruling, and less than a day after his mother received the ruling.
Three days before Yang Jia was executed, Wang Jingmei, who had been held for four months, was brought by police from a psychiatric hospital in Beijing to a detention center in Shanghai to visit her son. It was the first time mother and son had met since the incident, and also the last.
On November 21, 2008, the Supreme People's Court issued a criminal ruling approving the death sentence of Yang Jia. It was only after 7 p.m. on November 25 that Wang Jingmei received this ruling, with only one night left before the execution.
On November 9, 2008, Yang Jia's aunt, Wang Jingrong, went to a psychiatric hospital under the arrangement of Beijing police to see her younger sister Wang Jingmei, who was being held there. This was the first time the family had seen Wang Jingmei since she disappeared four months earlier. She had been confined at the Compulsory Treatment Management Division of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, known externally as Ankang Hospital.
On November 5, 2008, the State Council executive meeting decided to launch an investment plan of about 4 trillion yuan to cope with the international economic crisis, which was announced publicly on November 9; most of the funds were invested in infrastructure.
On October 20, 2008, the Shanghai High People's Court issued Criminal Ruling (2008) Hu Gao Xing Zhong Zi No. 131, rejecting Yang Jia's appeal, upholding the first-instance death sentence, and reporting it to the Supreme People's Court for review and approval. When the ruling was issued, Yang Jia's mother, Wang Jingmei, was still confined in a psychiatric hospital.
On the day of Yang Jia's second-instance trial, a large crowd gathered outside the Shanghai High People's Court, with some shouting "Long live Yang Jia." About a dozen protesters wearing T-shirts printed with Yang Jia's portrait and the words "If you don't give me an explanation, I'll give you one" were taken away on the spot in front of the police. This was a rare street action in China in support of a defendant.
At 9:30 a.m. on October 13, 2008, the Shanghai High People's Court opened the second-instance trial of the Yang Jia case in a closed hearing. The defense lawyer requested a new psychiatric evaluation, but the court rejected it on the spot, ruling that the grounds were insufficient. During the hearing, the prosecution and the defense debated the appearance of witnesses, the qualifications of the appraisal institution, and whether Yang Jia had been beaten at the police station.
On the day of the second trial, a man who had come to observe the proceedings was dragged, beaten and taken away by a group of police officers on the road in front of the Shanghai High People's Court, and has been missing ever since. His pregnant wife publicly asked Hu Jintao to return her husband. Petitioners estimate that between 9 a.m. and noon that day, five vans full of people were taken away, more than 100 in total.
Fu Daxin, a 69-year-old five-guarantee household recipient in Qidong County, Hunan Province, whose monthly pension was only 50 yuan, was sentenced to two years in prison for attempted robbery after wielding a fruit knife at Beijing Railway Station in order to be cared for in prison.
In the face of the global financial tsunami, in September 2008 Wen Jiabao led the State Council in announcing a large-scale 4 trillion yuan bailout plan for infrastructure investment.
On the morning of September 1, 2008, the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court announced its verdict, sentencing Yang Jie to death for intentional homicide and deprivation of political rights for life. Yang Jie and his defense lawyer did not speak throughout the announcement, nor did they indicate whether they would appeal. Online questions about the closed trial, the qualifications of the appraiser, and the identity of the defense lawyer immediately spread.
On the afternoon of August 26, 2008, the Yang Jia case was heard in first instance at the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court; the hearing was postponed to this day because of the Beijing Olympics. The court gave all the gallery seats to the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, more than 20 domestic and foreign media outlets and citizens who came to observe were turned away, and the hearing notice was only displayed on the electronic screen in front of the court. No verdict was announced that day.
During the Beijing Olympics, the authorities set up a demonstration zone. On August 18, the Beijing Public Security Bureau said it had received 77 applications involving 149 person-times in total, and not a single one was approved.
On August 17, 2008, two elderly people, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying, who had applied to petition in the Beijing Olympics protest zone because their homes were forcibly demolished, were decided to be subjected to one year of re-education through labor on the grounds of disturbing public order; on August 29, that decision was rescinded under pressure from international public opinion.
Zhang Yimou served as chief director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 29th Beijing Olympic Games, presenting the country's image and a visual spectacle to the world through massive human formations and militaristically precise choreography.
On July 19, 2008, the Shanghai Bar Association publicly stated that Yang Jia had officially hired Xie Youming and Xie Jin as his defense attorneys for the first instance trial. Xie Youming is also a legal advisor to the Zhabei District government, and the crime scene was the Zhabei District Public Security Bureau. The legal community and netizens questioned whether this violated legal regulations and constituted a conflict of interest.
On the afternoon of July 5, 2008, the Shanghai Justice Bureau received a commission from the police, and experts from the Institute of Forensic Science of the Ministry of Justice arrived at the detention center that same day to complete the psychiatric evaluation of Yang Jia, concluding that he had no mental illness and possessed full criminal responsibility. An evaluation that normally takes 30 days was completed in a single day. Lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan pointed out that the evaluation procedure was seriously unlawful, and the body that conducted the evaluation was also accused of lacking forensic evaluation qualifications. During the second trial, the lawyer again applied for a re-evaluation, which was rejected by the court.
After the Yang Jia case occurred, artist Ai Weiwei published a series of posts on his blog, pressing questions about the details of Yang Jia's case, the circumstances of his mother being committed to a psychiatric hospital, and the violations of procedure during the trial; his blog at one point became a gathering point for online public opinion. After that, he spoke out for Yang Jia multiple times.
The night after the Yang Jia case occurred, his mother Wang Jingmei was first taken to the Datun Police Station in Chaoyang District, and was then sent by Shanghai and Beijing police to the Ankang Psychiatric Hospital of the Beijing Public Security Bureau in Shunyi District and forcibly detained. Her family only learned of her whereabouts four months later, and legal professionals pointed out that there was no regulatory basis whatsoever for sending her to a psychiatric hospital.
On July 1, 2008, Yang Jia, a young man from Beijing, walked alone into the Zhabei Public Security Bureau in Shanghai, stabbing six police officers to death and wounding four officers and one security guard, and was arrested on the spot. In October of the previous year, while riding a rented bicycle in Shanghai, he was stopped and questioned by Zhabei police, taken into the police station and beaten. For the following nine months he filed complaints everywhere but could not get any redress. On November 26 of the same year, Yang Jia was executed by the Chinese Communist Party's tyrannical regime.
The video claims that in June 2008 Hu Jintao presided over a Politburo meeting to deploy Olympic security, with Beijing mobilizing 50,000 police officers and more than 1 million militia patrol members and volunteers; no public reports of this meeting or these figures can be found.
Liu Shaokun, a teacher in Deyang, Sichuan, photographed school buildings that collapsed during the earthquake and questioned the construction quality. He was taken away by police on June 25, 2008, and was later sentenced to one year of re-education through labor.
On June 18, 2008, in an episode of Kangsi Coming, female entertainer Xiang Ying showed a T-shirt printed with the Tibet independence flag, and hosts Kevin Tsai and Little S did not interrupt or correct her at any point. After the episode aired, mainland netizens condemned the show and demanded that it be banned; Kangsi Coming issued a statement saying it would reflect on the matter.
In June 2008, Wang Yi, Vice President of the China Development Bank, who had been in a relationship with Liu Fangfei and paid off her mortgage, was taken away by a special investigation team of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection for 'shuanggui' (a form of detention for party members). He was later sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2010.
On May 12, 2008, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck Wenchuan. Statistics as of September 25 of that year showed about 69,000 people killed and 18,000 missing, with large numbers of students buried under collapsed school buildings.
On May 12, 2008, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck Wenchuan, Sichuan. Official statistics as of September 25 recorded 69,227 dead and 17,923 missing, with a large number of houses collapsed; the video links the casualties to building quality.