An indelible, deeply reported human narrative of contemporary China in which the country’s carefully regulated internet offers a lens into the broader national tension between freedom and control

In the late 1990s, as the world was waking up to the power of the internet, Chinese authorities began constructing a system of online surveillance and censorship that became known as the Great Firewall. But far from being a barren landscape, the online world that sprouted up behind the firewall evolved into a space where Chinese citizens could find previously unimaginable connection and opportunity, teeming with new subcultures and tech innovations.

Today, as the country's leadership has intensified its control of public discourse and western headlines reduce the Chinese public to a faceless monolith, journalist Yi-Ling Liu offers an intimate portrait of China’s online ecosystem–and a crucial lens into the on-the-ground reality of life there. In tracing the evolution of the Chinese internet—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.

The Wall Dancers spans the last three decades in China, a period that encapsulates the country’s transformation into both the world’s largest online userbase and one of its most populous authoritarian states—from 1995, when ordinary Chinese people first logged onto the internet, swept up by its emancipatory promise, to the present day, as China closes off its virtual borders. Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, Liu weaves together the stories of individual citizens navigating this transformation: the entrepreneurs, activists, artists, and dreamers striving for freedom and connection within the state’s shifting boundaries. As Liu’s subjects experience the internet’s power as a tool of 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 of our lives.