Author(s) Xingmiu Liao and Wen-Hsuan Tsai Keywords censorship, China, legitimacy, media, journalist, survey experiment, collective actions, conjoint experiment, political criticism Abstract Recent literature claims that China censors information that has the potential to ignite collective action. This article extends this finding by arguing that Chinese censors respond differently to political challenges than they do to performance challenges. Political challenges call into questioning the Party’s leading role, whereas performance challenges are directed at the failures of public goods provisions. A survey experiment of about 60 media professionals finds that censors are inclined to block political challenges and to tolerate criticism of the government’s performance. However, when criticism contains both performance and political challenges, censorship is far more likely. By exploring the range of censorship activities, the results suggest that the Chinese regime’s reliance on popular support constrains its censorship decisions. Author(s) Bio Xingmiu Liao is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. His main research includes Chinese Politics and Society, Development of Chinese Ethnic Minorities, and the CCP’s United Front. Wen-Hsuan Tsai, (Corresponding Author, whtsai@gate.sinica.edu.tw) is Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. His main areas of research include Chinese Political Development, Comparative Politics and Comparative Authoritarian Regimes. DOI: doi:10.1017/jea.2018.26