Xiao Qiang (, born November 19, 1961) is the Director and Research Scientist of the Counter-Power Lab, an interdisciplinary faculty-student research group focusing on digital rights and internet freedom, based in the School of Information,

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He also serves as the director of the China Internet Project at Berkeley. Xiao is an adjunct professor at the School of Information and the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of ''

China Digital Times China Digital Times (CDT; ) is a US-based 501(c)(3) organization that runs a bilingual news website covering China. The site focuses on news items which are blocked, deleted or suppressed by China's state censors. History The website was started ...

'', a bilingual news website. Xiao teaches classes Digital Activism, Internet Freedom and Blogging in China at both the School of Information and the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California at Berkeley. In fall 2003, Xiao launched ''China Digital Times'' to explore how to apply cutting edge technologies to aggregate, contextualize and translate online information from and about China. His current research focuses on state censorship,

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

and

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...

, as well as

mass surveillance in China Mass surveillance in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the network of monitoring systems used by the Chinese central government to monitor Chinese citizens. It is primarily conducted through the government, although corporate surveillance ...

Biography

A theoretical physicist by training, he studied at the

University of Science and Technology of China A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

and entered the PhD program (1986–1989) in Astrophysics at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

. He became a full-time

human rights activist A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campai ...

after the

1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

. Xiao was the executive director of the New York-based organization Human Rights in China from 1991 to 2002 and vice chairman of the steering committee of the

World Movement for Democracy World Movement for Democracy is an international network of individuals and organizations who share the common goal of promoting democracy. The World Movement was launched in February 1999 when the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and two n ...

Recognition

Xiao is a recipient of the

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...

in 2001, and is profiled in the book "Soul Purpose: 40 People Who Are Changing the World for the Better" ( Melcher Media, 2003). He was also a visiting fellow of the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, includ ...

in Spring, 2002. In January 2015, Xiao has been named to ''

Foreign Policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...

'' magazine's Pacific Power Index, a list of "50 people shaping the future of the U.S.-China relationship." He was named on the list "for taking on China's

Great Firewall The Great Firewall (''GFW''; ) is the combination of legislative actions and technologies enforced by the People's Republic of China to regulate the Internet domestically. Its role in internet censorship in China is to block access to selected for ...

of censorship."

References

External links

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Rock-n-Go
Xiao's personal blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Xiao, Qiang Chinese dissidents MacArthur Fellows Chinese journalists Chinese bloggers Chinese emigrants to the United States University of California, Berkeley School of Information faculty Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters alumni Living people Writers from Santa Fe, New Mexico Chinese human rights activists Chinese physicists Theoretical physicists 1961 births