Reports
07.31.12
Torture in the Name of Treatment
Human Rights Watch
More than 350,000 people identified as drug users are held in compulsory drug "treatment" centers in China and Southeast Asia. Detainees are held without due process for periods of months or years and may be subjected to physical and...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.10.12A Confucian Constitution in China (Op-Ed)
New York Times
The political future of China is far likelier to be determined by the longstanding Confucian tradition of “humane authority” than by Western-style multiparty elections. After all, democracy is flawed as an ideal. Political legitimacy is based solely...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.26.12Interview with Chen Guangcheng
New York Review of Books
The Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States last month following top-level negotiations between US and Chinese officials. Several weeks earlier, Chen had dramatically escaped from house arrest in his village in northeast...
Reports
06.26.12
Isolated in Yunnan
Human Rights Watch
Since June 2011, an estimated 75,000 ethnic Kachin have hostilities between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in northern Burma. Thousands of them have sought refuge in southwestern China’s Yunnan province, where the Chinese...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.21.12Xu Zhiyong (许志永): An Account of My Recent Disappearance
Seeing Red in China
Dr. Xu Zhiyong is a lecturer of law at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and one of the founders of Open Constitution Initiative (公盟) that offers legal assistance to petitioners and rights defenders, and has been repeatedly...
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...
Reports
05.23.12
Amnesty Internation Annual Report—China
Amnesty International
Amnesty International surveys the landscape of human rights in China during 2011 and finds that China’s economic strength during the global financial crisis increased the country’s leverage in the domain of global human rights—mostly for the worse...
The NYRB China Archive
05.10.12
On Fang Lizhi (1936–2012)
from New York Review of Books
Fang Lizhi, a distinguished professor of astrophysics, luminary in the struggle for human rights in contemporary China, and frequent contributor to The New York Review, died suddenly on the morning of April 6. At age seventy-six he had not yet...
The NYRB China Archive
02.23.12
The Chinese Are Coming!
from New York Review of Books
The day after the Russian parliamentary elections in early December, the Chinese publication Global Times, an English-language newspaper and website managed by People’s Daily, the official organ of the Communist Party official, ran an editorial on...
Reports
03.31.11
Jasmine in the Middle Kingdom: Autopsy of China’s (Failed) Revolution
Sara Segal-Williams
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
China’s version of the Arab world's “Jasmine Revolution” was a complete failure. Online calls for protests against Communist Party rule have elicited little response from would-be protesters. Yet Beijing’s reaction was swift and overwhelming—...
Reports
03.01.11
Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights
Human Rights in China
Throughout the world, terrorism continues to pose major threats to peace, security, and stability. Since September 11, 2001, intensified counter-terrorism debates and responses, including national, multilateral, and regional approaches, have been...
Reports
01.01.11
Promises Unfulfilled: An Assessment of China’s National Human Rights Action Plan
Sara Segal-Williams
Human Rights Watch
In 2009, the Chinese government unveiled the National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP), the first of its kind in China. However, two years on, deficiencies in the action plan and government failures to adequately implement some of its key...
The NYRB China Archive
12.13.10At the Nobel Ceremony: Liu Xiaobo’s Empty Chair
from New York Review of Books
On December 10, I attended the award ceremony in Oslo, Norway, for the Nobel Peace Prize, which the government of China had a few days earlier declared to be a “farce.” The recipient was a friend of mine, the Chinese scholar and essayist Liu Xiaobo...
The NYRB China Archive
10.10.10Beijing’s Bluster, America’s Quiet: The Disturbing Case of Xue Feng
from New York Review of Books
Quiet diplomacy, as it’s called, has served for years as the principle guiding U.S. relations with China: the theory is that it is far better to engage the Chinese government quietly, behind the scenes, rather than through more robust public...
Reports
07.01.10
“I Saw It With My Own Eyes”
Sara Segal-Williams
Human Rights Watch
More than two years after protests—the largest and most sustained in decades—erupted across the Tibetan plateau in March 2008, the Chinese government has yet to explain the circumstances that led to dozens of clashes between protesters and police...
Reports
07.01.10
“Justice, Justice”: The July 2009 Protests in Xinjiang, China
Amnesty International
On July 5, 2009, thousands of Chinese of Uighur ethnicity demonstrated in Urumqi, the regional capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). In the aftermath of the Urumqi protests, the authorities detained more than 1,400 people. In this...
The NYRB China Archive
05.24.10Talking About Tibet: An Open Dialogue Between Chinese Citizens and the Dalai Lama
from New York Review of Books
Following is an English translation of an Internet dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Chinese citizens that took place on May 21. The exchange was organized by Wang Lixiong, a Chinese intellectual known for his writing on Tibet and for theorizing...
The NYRB China Archive
01.27.10What Beijing Fears Most
from New York Review of Books
On December 29, four days after being sentenced to eleven years in prison for “subversion of state power,” the Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo filed an appeal to a higher court. For many familiar with the Chinese regime, the decision seemed quixotic: it...
The NYRB China Archive
12.21.09The Trial of Liu Xiaobo: A Citizens’ Manifesto and a Chinese Crackdown
from New York Review of Books
One year ago, the Chinese literary critic and political commentator Liu Xiaobo was taken away from his home in Beijing by the Chinese police, who held him without charge for six months, then placed him under formal arrest for six more months, on the...
The NYRB China Archive
12.07.09Copenhagen: China’s Oppressive Climate
from New York Review of Books
As the UN’s Climate Change Conference opens in Copenhagen this week, much attention will focus on China and the United States, who are, by a wide margin, the world’s two leading emitters of greenhouse gases. The success of the conference will depend...
Reports
11.20.09
China-U.S. Relations: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is vitally important, touching on a wide range of areas including, among others, economic policy, security, foreign relations, and human rights. U.S. interests with...
Reports
11.01.09
“An Alleyway in Hell”: China’s Abusive “Black Jails’
Human Rights Watch
Since 2003, large numbers of Chinese citizens have been held incommunicado for days or months in secret, unlawful detention facilities. These "black jails" are housed in state-owned hostels, hotels, nursing homes, and psychiatric hospitals...
The NYRB China Archive
10.21.09Obama’s Bad Bargain with Beijing
from New York Review of Books
As the echoes of China’s spectacular military parade on October 1 were subsiding, officials in the Obama administration, in quieter settings in Washington, D.C., were telling representatives of the Dalai Lama that the president was not going to meet...
Reports
07.13.09
Human Rights in China: Trends and Policy Implications
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
Human rights has been a principal area of U.S. concern in its relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), particularly since the violent government crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy movement in 1989. Some policy makers contend that the U...
Reports
03.17.09
The Tibetan Policy Act of 2002: Background and Implementation
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
U.S. policy on Tibet is governed by the Tibetan Policy Act of 2002 (TPA), enacted as part of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of FY2003 (P.L. 107-228). In addition to establishing a number of U.S. principles with respect to human rights,...
Reports
12.01.08
An Unbreakable Cycle: Drug Dependency, Mandatory Confinement, and HIV/AIDS in China's Guangxi Province
Human Rights Watch
This paper focuses on issues of drug rehabilitation practices in China. Chinese law dictates mandatory rehabilitation for drug users. Every year tens of thousands of drug users are sent—without trial or due process of law—to mandatory drug treatment...
Reports
07.29.08
People’s Republic of China: The Olympics Countdown—Broken Promises
Amnesty International
Written less than two weeks before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, this papers assesses progress made by the Chinese authorities to improve human rights in line with their own commitments made in 2001. This report provides a final summary and updates...
The NYRB China Archive
07.17.08How He Sees It Now
from New York Review of Books
It is open season on the Dalai Lama and not just for Beijing, for whom he is “a monk in wolf’s clothing,” or for Rupert Murdoch, who dismissed him as a “very old political monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes.” During his trip to London in May, when...
Reports
06.01.08
Tibet Autonomous Region: Access Denied
Amnesty International
This report, written in the aftermath of the widespread Tibetan unrest in Tibet and Tibetan regions of China in the spring of 2008, addresses the Chinese government with immediate demands. In cracking down on unrest, the Chinese government sealed...
Reports
04.12.08
Denied Status, Denied Education: Children of North Korean Women in China
Human Rights Watch
This report delves into the situation of the children of undocumented North Korean refugees and Chinese nationals in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. It explains that many children of North Korean parents are not able to be registered with...
Reports
04.01.08
Walking on Thin Ice: Control, Intimidation and Harassment of Lawyers in China
Human Rights Watch
While major gains have been made in terms of the rule of law over the past thirty years, this report from Human Rights Watch details consistent patterns of abuses against legal practitioners. These include intimidation, harassment, suspension of...
Reports
03.01.08
People’s Republic of China: The Olympics Countdown—Crackdown on Activists Threatens Olympics Legacy
Amnesty International
With little more than four months to go before the Beijing Olympics, few substantial reforms have been introduced that will have a significant, positive impact on human rights in China. This is particularly apparent in the plight of individual...
Reports
06.29.07
Hong Kong’s Return to Chinese Sovereignty: Ten Years On
Amnesty International
Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty on 1 July 1997 after more than one hundred years as a British colony. This report looks at how certain basic human rights have fared since the handover and assesses how far the HKSAR government has taken the...
Reports
06.12.07
State Secrets: China's Legal Labyrinth
Human Rights in China
This report describes and examines the PRC state secrets system and shows how it allows and even promotes human rights violations by undermining the rights to freedom of expression and information, and by maintaining a culture of secrecy that has a...
Reports
04.30.07
Dissident Dissonance
Sara Segal-Williams
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
The United States has applied a different standard on human rights and dissent to China than it did to the Soviet Union. Several things explain this. First, beginning in 1972, relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were intended to...
Reports
03.01.07
Internal Migrants: Discrimination and Abuse
Amnesty International
Numbering just two million in the 1980s China's internal migrants are now part of the largest peacetime migration in history, with some experts estimating their numbers to swell to 300 million by 2015. While they have served as laborers fueling...
Reports
02.01.07
China: Minority Exclusion, Marginalization and Rising Tensions
Human Rights in China
This report documents the serious impediments to the fulfillment of China's human rights obligations, in the areas of ethnic minority political participation, development, and preservation of cultural identity. Given the destabilizing levels of...
Reports
10.01.06
Amnesty International Calls on China to Start the Process to Sign Up to the New International Criminal Court
Amnesty International
As of 1 October 2006, 102 states had ratified the Rome Statute, establishing the International Criminal Court to prosecute genocide. China is one of only seven nations to vote against. Based on the strong political support expressed for the Court...
Reports
09.20.06
People’s Republic of China: The Olympics Countdown—Failing to Keep Human Rights Promises
Amnesty International
This report summarizes a number of Amnesty International's human rights concerns in China—concerns which the organization is continuing to highlight as key areas for reform in the run-up to the Olympics. They are: the continuing use of the...
Reports
12.01.05
“We Could Disappear at Any Time”: Retaliation and Abuses Against Chinese Petitioners
Human Rights Watch
This 2005 report is the first in-depth look at the treatment of Chinese citizens who travel to Beijing to demand redress to their complaints of mistreatment by officials. While petitioning has long been in use in China, it is now on the rise; an...
Reports
07.15.05
Hong Kong 2005: Changes in Leadership and Issues for Congress
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has recently recovered from an economic downturn and the SARS virus outbreak of 2002-2003 which crippled trade and tourism. There has also been a major change in top government personnel, with the...
The NYRB China Archive
07.17.03
On Leaving a Chinese Prison
from New York Review of Books
“What I did, what landed me in prison, was really quite simple—I just said in public what my fellow citizens were saying in all those other nooks.” —Jiang Qisheng
Reports
01.31.03
China-U.S. Relations
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, U.S. and PRC foreign policy calculations appear to be changing. The Administration of George W. Bush assumed office in January 2001 viewing China as a U.S. “strategic...
The NYRB China Archive
01.27.03China’s Psychiatric Terror
from New York Review of Books
1.At its triennial congress in Yokohama last September, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) overwhelmingly voted to send a delegation to China to investigate charges that dissidents were being imprisoned and maltreated as “political maniacs”...
The NYRB China Archive
09.26.02Taking Rights Seriously in Beijing
from New York Review of Books
Last May I was invited to China for two weeks, first to take part in a two-day conference at the law school of Tsinghua University in Beijing, and then to give several public lectures there and in other cities. The Tsinghua conference was arranged...
Reports
12.17.01
China’s Relations with Central Asian States and Problems with Terrorism
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
Over a number of years, the United States has been actively engaged in efforts to improve human rights conditions in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, some analysts suggest that the events of September 11, 2001, may make it more...
Reports
10.01.01
Beginning the Journey: China, the United States, and the WTO
Elizabeth Economy
Council on Foreign Relations
The main finding of this report is that both the United States and China will run risks as Beijing moves ahead with membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), but the potential payoffs for both countries are well worth it. It also points out...
The NYRB China Archive
11.04.99Misfortune in Shanghai
from New York Review of Books
Connoisseurs of traditional Peking opera would have enjoyed the recent meeting in Shanghai sponsored by Fortune to consider “China: The Next 50 Years.” The audience of approximately three hundred CEOs of US and other companies and over a dozen...
The NYRB China Archive
08.13.98Democratic Vistas?
from New York Review of Books
In August 1980 Deng Xiaoping laid down the Communist Party’s view of democracy. It continues to cripple China and is used both inside the country and by its apologists abroad to avoid the issue of repression. Deng said:
Democracy without...
The NYRB China Archive
03.05.98Talking with Wei Jingsheng
from New York Review of Books
Speaking to a small group in London this January, nearly two months after he was expelled from China, the Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng told his somewhat startled listeners, “The earliest human rights movement in the world was the ‘People’s...
The NYRB China Archive
01.31.91Brutality in China
from New York Review of Books
At the same time that President Bush is speaking up against Saddam Hussein’s human rights atrocities, he is appeasing China’s octogenarian leaders on the very same issue. In order to persuade China to cooperate in the United Nations actions against...