The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its excerpts from The Congressional-Executive Commission on China Report.
The Chinese government continued its hardline approach to exerting control over journalists and other independent voices. In 2019, China reportedly had detained the highest number of imprisoned journalists in the world. This past year, the Chinese government expelled New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post journalists from mainland China and Hong Kong while strengthening government and Party control of domestic media outlets. Hundreds of citizens have been penalized for sharing online information and concerns about the COVID–19 outbreak and have been accused of ‘‘rumor-mongering.’’ Authorities reportedly detained two Beijing-based legal scholars—prominent civil society advocate Xu Zhiyong and leading public intellectual Xu Zhangrun— in connection with their criticism of Xi Jinping.
Civil society played a critical role in the COVID–19 response, as citizens worked through civil society organizations and grassroots volunteer groups to assist the most vulnerable people impacted by the pandemic. The people of China continued to participate in diverse forms of collective organization for mutual and public interest, including popular protest, issue-based grassroots advocacy, and professionalized charities and social enterprises. In recent years, rights advocates working on a broad range of issues, from gender equality to labor to disability rights, have been targets of government repression and exclusion. For example, several rights advocates who gathered informally to discuss civil society developments in December 2019 were detained and charged with ‘‘inciting subversion of state power.’’ Meanwhile, organizations aligned with official priorities have become integral to providing public services.
Criminal law and police power continued to be used to punish government critics, rights advocates, religious believers, and ethnic minority groups. Various types of arbitrary detention, including some forms of extrajudicial detention, were used to deprive individuals of their liberty, contravening international human rights standards.
Five years after the July 2015 ‘‘709 Crackdown’’ on human rights lawyers and rights defenders, many of those Chinese lawyers and rights defenders are surveilled by public security authorities in what one leading expert has termed ‘‘non-release release.’’ Lawyers continued to face repression, intimidation, and punishment for attempting to protect human rights in China. Besides detention and imprisonment, the Chinese government used administrative measures, including disbarment, to target lawyers who express critical views or who advocate for clients whom the Chinese government has tried to suppress.
The Chinese government further intensified the campaign of ‘‘sinicization’’ to bring religion in China under closer official control and in line with officially sanctioned interpretations of Chinese culture, thereby curtailing religious freedom. The rights of religious believers continued to be violated, as churches, mosques, and temples were demolished; underground religious groups were targeted; surveillance was expanded; and religious leaders were detained and imprisoned. Wang Yi, the founder and pastor of the Early Rain Covenant Church, was sentenced to nine years in prison for ‘‘inciting subversion of state power,’’ despite the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention deeming his detention ‘‘arbitrary’’ according to international human rights standards.
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Women in China have faced even more difficult circumstances due to the disproportionate risks and burdens associated with the essential role they have played in the COVID–19 response. During the pandemic, domestic violence rose substantially, and experts predicted that already existing gender gaps in employment and well-being would be further exacerbated by the economic and social disruption caused by the outbreak. Women’s rights advocacy continues to face heavy repression, but the inclusion of anti-sexual harassment provisions in the Civil Code in May 2020 shows that their advocacy has had an impact.
Independent trade unions are banned in China. Labor rights advocates and citizen journalists continued to be targeted and detained for their work, including for documenting numerous workers’ strikes and subsequent crackdowns. The level of unemployment and labor unrest is significant, although the severity is difficult to ascertain due to censorship and government control of information.
Everyone deserves a government that respects their human rights, their culture, and their hopes and dreams for a better life for themselves and their families. As the Chinese government expands its global influence, the international community must be aware that intensifying authoritarianism in China is also a threat to internationally recognized human rights norms as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is essential that the U.S. Congress and the Administration work together to promote effective policies to support human rights and the rule of law in China.
Photo: China Defence Ministry