Nicholas Bequelin is East Asia Director at Amnesty International, based in Hong Kong. A former Visiting Scholar at The China Center, Yale Law School, and previously at Human Rights Watch, he obtained his Ph.D. in History from the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris, in 2001, and is a graduate in Chinese from the School of Oriental Languages and Civilizations. He is a regular interviewee of major international media on legal, political, and human rights developments in China. Bequelin’s publications have appeared in The China Journal, The China Quarterly, and The Journal of Asian Studies, as well as various newspaper and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, and Foreign Policy.
How much of a reformer is China’s new leader, Xi Jinping? The January announcement that China is going to stop “Re-education Through Labor” by the end of the year could offer an important clue.