Viewpoint
05.22.23
‘They Are Men Who Acted out of Conscience’
from Bu Mingbai Podcast
Last month, a Chinese court sentenced the civil rights activists and lawyers Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi to fourteen and twelve years in prison for “subverting state power,” a charge arising from an informal gathering of fellow activists the two had...
The NYRB China Archive
01.13.21
Seeing the CCP Clearly
from New York Review of Books
The split between the two friends is a small example of a wider disagreement between “Trump boosters” and “Trump critics” in the Chinese dissident community. The rift is plainly visible both inside and outside China and is likely to persist in one...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.07.15China’s Empty Promise of Rule by Law
China Change
I’m afraid that those of you who excitedly applauded the Communist Party’s rehashing of the term “governing the country according to the law” have forgotten the famous words of Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Jiang Yu, who once warned sternly, “Don’t...
Reporting & Opinion
12.23.14
China in 2014 Through the Eyes of a Human Rights Advocate
from China Change
This time last year, volunteers and I were busy writing and translating articles to prepare for the New Citizens Movement trials. Many Chinese voices were speaking out forcefully against these trials: law professors, rights lawyers, liberal...
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...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.22.14China’s Growing Human Rights Movement Can Claim Many Accomplishments
Washington Post
Since Xi Jinping became president of China, there has been a sustained crackdown on advocates of democracy and civil society. A couple hundred Chinese citizens have been arrested and tried or await trial. Lawyer and activist Xu Zhiyong&...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.05.13The Confessions of a Reactionary
China Change
When Xu Zhiyong and I received the “Ten People in Rule of Law in 2003” award at CCTV, neither of us, nor the two sponsors of the event would have thought that, in a few years, the two of us would become “the enemies of the state.”...