Features
04.05.22
Arrest Data Show National Security Law Has Dealt a Hard Blow to Free Expression in Hong Kong
On December 29, 2021, two hundred national security police officers raided a newspaper headquarters and arrested several individuals at various locations across Hong Kong. The exceptional number of police officers involved suggested those arrested...
Viewpoint
02.01.22
Verdicts from China’s Courts Used to Be Accessible Online. Now They’re Disappearing.
Judicial transparency in China has taken a significant step backward in recent months. Beginning at least a year ago, China’s Supreme People’s Court has considerably scaled back the number of cases available on its China Judgments Online web portal...
Viewpoint
09.09.21
A Farewell to My Students
Xu Zhangrun addresses this letter to the students and young scholars who participated in “The Three Talents Salon” which Xu founded in 2003, a biannual symposium devoted to fostering “three talents” or skills in the participants: in-depth reading,...
Features
05.03.21
New Data Show Hong Kong’s National Security Arrests Follow a Pattern
In the nine months since the Hong Kong National Security Law was passed, more than 90 people have been arrested under the new legislation. Though they have been charged with various breaches of national security ranging from inciting secession to...
Viewpoint
04.23.21
‘I Stand the Law’s Good Servant, but the People’s First’
Former legislator and prominent lawyer Margaret Ng was given a suspended sentence of 12 months. In her sentencing statement, which she read out in open court, Ng recounted her career in law and politics, interweaving her own story with the decades-...
Conversation
06.19.19
Hong Kong in Protest
On June 16, an estimated 2 million people took to the streets to protest the Hong Kong government’s handling of a proposed extradition bill. This followed two massive demonstrations against the bill earlier in the month, including one where police...
Viewpoint
06.19.19
What Does the Pause of Hong Kong’s Extradition Bill Mean?
The Hong Kong people’s historic mass protests during the past 10 days have demonstrated their awareness that the now suspended extradition bill proposed by Chief Executive Carrie Lam represented a threat to Hong Kong’s promised “high degree of...
05.20.19
What Would Amending Hong Kong’s Law on Extradition Mean for International Non-Profits?
Hong Kong legislators are currently engaged in a fierce struggle over the proposed passing of a bill that would expand Hong Kong's policy to allow for extradition, on a case-by-case basis, to countries with which the territory does not have...
Photo Gallery
02.12.19
The Face of China’s #MeToo Movement Enters the Fray
In the summer of 2014, Zhou Xiaoxuan, then a 21-year-old living in Beijing, filed a report with the local police. She described what had happened the previous day when she had delivered a basket of fruit to one of China’s most prominent news anchors...
Sinica Podcast
03.06.18
Courts & Torts: Driving the Chinese Legal System
from Sinica Podcast
“Having read hundreds and hundreds of these cases, I have decided that I’m never going to drive in China.” That is what Benjamin Liebman, the director of the Center for Chinese Legal Studies at Columbia University, concluded after his extensive...
Viewpoint
03.01.18
Maybe the Law Does Actually Matter to Xi Jinping
The February 25 announcement that the Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.) has proposed a constitutional amendment that would remove term limits on the office of the presidency is arguably the most significant Chinese political and legal development in...
Viewpoint
01.23.18
Who’s to Blame for Hong Kong’s Weakening Rule of Law?
Rimsky Yuen, Hong Kong’s third Secretary for Justice, stepped down in early January. He leaves his department, and the city’s reputation for rule of law, markedly worse than they were when he took office in July 2012.According to the Department of...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.18.17Thousands in China Watch as 10 People Sentenced to Death in Sport StadiumThousands in China Watch as 10 People Sentenced to Death in Sport Stadium
Guardian
A court in China has sentenced 10 people to death, mostly for drug-related crimes, in front of thousands of onlookers before taking them away for execution.
Viewpoint
12.14.17
Can Environmental Lawsuits in China Succeed?
Air and water pollution are rising in China, and so is the number of lawsuits against polluters. Access to the courts is growing: Chinese prosecutors and some NGOs have been empowered to sue polluters, and activist lawyers increasingly participate...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.29.17In China, Fears That New Anticorruption Agency Will Be Above the Law
New York Times
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is pushing to establish a new anticorruption agency with sweeping powers to sidestep the courts and lock up anyone on the government payroll for months without access to a lawyer — a plan that has met surprisingly vocal...
Sinica Podcast
07.17.17
Jerome A. Cohen on Human Rights and Law in China
from Sinica Podcast
Professor Jerome A. Cohen began studying the law of what was then called “Red China” in the early 1960s, at a time when the country was closed off, little understood, and much maligned in the West.Legal institutions were just developing at that time...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.07.17China’s New Civil Code Light on Individual Rights Reforms
Reuters
China’s Communist leaders will this week introduce sweeping new laws that codify social responsibilities for the country’s 1.4 billion citizens while also providing some modest new protections.
Depth of Field
01.17.17
House Calls on the Tibetan Plateau, Children of Divorce, Celebrity Secrets
from Yuanjin Photo
In the final galleries of 2016, the publishing juggernaut Tencent again shows its leadership in the documentary photography space, but iFeng’s choice to publish a personal photo gallery by Zhou Xin is also worth a good look, especially since...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.12.17Hong Kong Human Rights Situation ‘Worst Since Handover to China’
Guardian
Amnesty International report says rule of law, freedom of speech, and trust in government all deteriorated in 2016
ChinaFile Recommends
12.08.16Michael Jordan Owns Right to His Name in Chinese Characters, Too, Court Rules
New York Times
Michael Jordan has pulled out a victory in an arena long known as unfriendly to visitors: the Chinese legal system
ChinaFile Recommends
12.02.16China’s Top Court Exonerates Man 21 Years After Execution
Case puts spotlight on accusations that judges accept coerced confessions and that police torture is rampant, activists say
Sinica Podcast
11.30.16
The Intersection of Chinese Law and Politics
from Sinica Podcast
China’s legal system is much derided and poorly understood, but its development has, in many ways, been one of the defining features of the reform and opening-up era. Rachel Stern, a professor of law and political science at the University of...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.02.16Drug Giant Faced a Reckoning as China Took Aim at Bribery
New York Times
China sought to make an example of GlaxoSmithKline in a case that involved bribery of doctors and investigators and ended with guilty pleas and record penalties
ChinaFile Recommends
10.19.16How the Party’s Absolute Power Undermines its Efforts to Strengthen China’s Rule of Law
South China Morning Post
While Chinese leaders support the need for a credible legal system, it is their iron-clad grip that is the stumbling block to its development
ChinaFile Recommends
09.30.16When China Began Streaming Trials Online
BBC
Boot up your laptop or turn on your smartphone and take a peek inside legal proceedings
Media
08.11.16
The Future of China’s Legal System
In early August, Beijing held show trials of four legal activists—a disheartening turn for those optimistic about legal reform in China. What are the prospects for the development of the rule of law in China under Communist Party Secretary Xi...
Caixin Media
06.21.16
Mother’s Fight to Exonerate Executed Son Highlights Gaping Holes in Justice System
More than two decades after a young man in the northern province of Hebei was executed for the alleged rape and murder of a woman, his mother is anxiously awaiting a retrial to clear his name.Zhang Huanzhi’s only son, Nie Shubin, was executed in...
Viewpoint
02.25.16
A Looming Crisis for China’s Legal System
In China, politics continues to control law. The current leadership has rejected many of the universal legal values that China accepted—at least in principle—under communist rule in some earlier eras. Today, for example, to talk freely about...
Viewpoint
12.30.15
No, Pu Zhiqiang’s Release Is Not A Victory
Pu Zhiqiang is a well-known Chinese human rights lawyer and outspoken intellectual who has taken on many precedent-setting cases defending freedom and protecting civil liberties. But his outstanding contributions in the judicial realm and his...
Viewpoint
11.30.15
Court in China Adds Last-Minute Charge Against Rights Leader During Sentencing
from China Change
On August 8, 2013, Guo Feixiong (real name Yang Maodong) was arrested and then indicted on charges of “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” The heavy sentence came as a shock to everyone following the case. More shockingly, the...
Caixin Media
09.08.15
Amnesty As a Stepping Stone to Rule of Law
A recent amnesty declaration affecting convicted criminals deemed no threat to society was a poignant reminder of China’s tradition of prudent punishment, support for human rights, and progress toward of rule of law.The recent decision by the...
Media
06.11.15
Zhou Yongkang’s Mask of Fear Falls Quietly Away
Zhou Yongkang—erstwhile oil czar, former chief of China’s dreaded state security apparatus, a man once swaggering and fit enough to perform 50 to 100 pushups in front of fawning onlookers—has completed his transformation into a sad historical...
Viewpoint
05.19.15
Hong Kong’s Not That Special, And Beijing Should Stop Saying It Is
As political wrangling in Hong Kong continues over changes to how the city’s chief executive will be selected in 2017, Beijing marks the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Hong Kong Basic Law—the Special Administrative Region’s...
Features
05.06.15
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
On the morning of March 16, 48-year-old Huang Shunfang went to her local hospital located in Fanghu Township in the central Chinese province of Henan. Her doctor diagnosed her with gastritis, gave her a dose of antacids through an IV, and sent her...
Viewpoint
01.16.15
The Plight of China’s Rights Lawyers
As the year came to a close, at least seven prominent Chinese human rights lawyers rang in the New Year from a jail cell. Under President Xi Jinping, 2014 was one of the worst years in recent memory for China’s embattled civil society. Bookending...
Viewpoint
01.15.15
Chinese Lawyers to Chinese Lawmakers: Let Us Defend Our Clients
Legal Opinion on Article 35 of the Ninth (Draft) Amendment to the Criminal Law: "We are a group of legal professionals who care about the rights of lawyers and reform of the judicial system and who have taken note of the draft for the Ninth...
The NYRB China Archive
10.19.14
China’s Unstoppable Lawyers: An Interview with Teng Biao
from New York Review of Books
Teng Biao is one of China’s best-known civil-rights lawyers, and a prominent member of the weiquan, or “rights defenders,” movement, a loosely knit coalition of Chinese lawyers and activists who tackle cases related to the environment, religious...
Viewpoint
10.15.14
How China’s Leaders Will Rule on the Law
Last week, as the world watched the student demonstrations in Hong Kong, China’s Politburo announced the dates for the Communist Party’s annual plenary session would be from October 20-23. As in previous years, top leaders will gather in Beijing to...
Media
09.25.14
An Internet Where Nobody Says Anything
Here is what a court in Urumqi, the capital of China’s western Xinjiang region, concludes Ilham Tohti, a balding, thick-set, 44-year-old professor, did: “Using ‘Uighur Online’ as a platform, and taking advantage of his role as a university professor...
Sinica Podcast
08.30.13
The Trial of the Century
from Sinica Podcast
The spectacular trial of Bo Xilai seized the media’s attention last week as the fallen politburo member—still widely admired in Chongqing and Dalian and heavily connected among the Party elite—defended himself with unexpected vigor against charges...
Media
08.27.13
The Surprise Loser of China’s Trial of the Century: Its Corruption Watchdog
It seems like everybody has something to gain from Show Trial 2.0, a.k.a. the semi-live tweeting of fallen politician Bo Xilai’s day in court.Bo Xilai the showman takes a bow with a flourish; Gu Kailai, the scorned wife, exacts sweet revenge;...
Books
06.25.13
Civil Society in China
This is the definitive book on the legal and fiscal framework for civil society organizations (CSOs) in China from earliest times to the present day. Civil Society in China traces the ways in which laws and regulations have shaped civil society over the 5,000 years of China’s history and looks at ways in which social and economic history have affected the legal changes that have occurred over the millennia.This book provides an historical and current analysis of the legal framework for civil society and citizen participation in China, focusing not merely on legal analysis, but also on the ways in which the legal framework influenced and was influenced in turn by social and economic developments. The principal emphasis is on ways in which the Chinese people—as opposed to high-ranking officials or cadres—have been able to play a part in the social and economic development of China through the associations in which they participateCivil Society in China sums up this rather complex journey through Chinese legal, social, and political history by assessing the ways in which social, economic, and legal system reforms in today’s China are bound to have an impact on civil society. The changes that have occurred in China’s civil society since the late 1980’s and, most especially, since the late 1990’s, are nothing short of remarkable. This volume is an essential guide for lawyers and scholars seeking an in depth understanding of social life in China written by one of its leading experts. —Oxford University Press
ChinaFile Recommends
08.06.12Will Chinese Courts Refuse to Accept Suits Involving Internet Censorship?
As the Chinese Internet hurtles headlong into an uncertain future, the country’s legal system struggles to catch up. Pressed for time, the government’s reaction may be to fashion the legal equivalent of a blunt axe, rather than a finely crafted...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.08.12The World's Toughest Job: Pu Zhiqiang
Slate
It wasn’t safe for Pu Zhiqiang to go home. Or, to be more precise, he could go home, but once there he might not be able to leave again. Over the previous 48 hours, Chinese authorities had detained more than a dozen lawyers and activists. More than...
Out of School
02.22.12
Chinese Law: Using the Past to Escape the Present
Amid the skyscrapers, bullet trains and brio of contemporary China, the Mao era may seem remote. Discussions of Chinese law, for instance, typically consign it to a squib if they acknowledge it at all. But this is a grave mistake. Legal reformers...