ChinaFile

Vanishing Point

Patrick Wack — Thursday, December 16, 2021 - 2:58pm

The French photographer Patrick Wack first traveled to Xinjiang in 2016. The pictures he made during those visits to Xinjiang between 2016 and 2019 document both the changes wrought by the government campaign of cultural and political repression of the region’s primarily Muslim ethnic minorities, and Wack’s own “brutal” realization that working in Xinjiang wouldn’t be the escape from China’s politics he had craved.

Hong Kong’s National Security Law Made Amnesty International’s Departure All But Inevitable

William Nee — Monday, December 6, 2021 - 11:33am

The human rights violations being committed now under the National Security Law only demonstrate China’s decision to drift further away from compliance with international human rights law. Rather, the NSL’s claim to global jurisdiction signals an increased willingness to engage in counterattacks against critics and to undermine the international human rights system. Amnesty’s departure from Hong Kong will have fall-out far beyond the mere absence of the group on the ground. In the fragile, increasingly imperiled ecosystem of the territory’s civil society, each time a group collapses it adds strain on the groups that remain. Of course, people within Amnesty were aware of this stark reality, and I’m sure made their decision with a heavy heart.

List of De-Registered Representative Offices

Tuesday, November 30, 2021 - 5:12pm

This is a list of foreign NGOs which have de-registered a representative office in China after successfully registering under the 2017 Foreign NGO Law. The list, based on information available on the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) website, includes information about the work the organizations had been conducting in China.

What Future for International NGOs in China?

Katherine Wilhelm, Shawn Shieh & more — Wednesday, November 24, 2021 - 10:15am

Nearly five years have passed since China implemented its Foreign NGO Law, imposing a host of new restrictions on the activities of international non-profit groups. What kind of responsibility do non-government organizations bear for sustaining international exchange with China at a time when many governments are finding relations with Beijing increasingly contentious? Are the increased administrative burdens the Foreign NGO law imposes worth the benefits of remaining in China? How much should organizations compromise their missions to keep operations in China alive

When Will China Get off Coal?

Lauri Myllyvirta, Alex Wang & more — Monday, November 8, 2021 - 3:48pm

As China looks to meet its energy demands, there has been a rush for coal, with prices hitting record highs in October. Despite pledges by Beijing to pull back from fossil fuels, the power crisis has exposed shortfalls in the country’s ability to meet its manufacturing needs. Can China ever hope to meet its energy needs without relying on dangerous fossil fuels? What are the implications for the global effort to combat climate change?

Visually Understanding the Data on Foreign NGO Representative Offices and Temporary Activities

Jessica Batke & Shen Lu — Saturday, November 6, 2021 - 10:26am

The China NGO Project has created the following visualizations based on data available on the Ministry of Public Security website, as well as on our own research. To analyze foreign NGO representative offices, we looked at organizations’ countries/regions of origin, province and date of registration, fields of work, and number of representative offices per organization.

The CCP’s Culture of Fear

Perry Link — Thursday, October 21, 2021 - 12:00am

One way to measure China’s urge to transform itself is to note how often the word new has been used by Chinese leaders. In 1902, the concept of the “new citizen” took hold in Liang Qichao’s New Citizen Journal. 20 years later, the May Fourth Movement came to be known as the New Culture Movement. In 1934, Chiang Kai-shek launched his New Life Movement. The Communist takeover in 1949 was the advent of New China, and the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s touted a “new socialist man.” After Mao Zedong died in 1976, the next few years were called “the new period.” Today, Xi Jinping’s watchword is “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.” It is important to note that new in these cases never refers to the same thing; each is a new new.

Tightening Up

Xibai Xu, Jude Blanchette & more — Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - 4:16pm

In what many observers have termed a “regulatory crackdown,” a wave of new legal restrictions and bans on business, technology, and entertainment has broken across China over the past several months, with what appears to be escalating velocity and force. Their rapid enactment has led many analysts—including those connected to the Chinese state—to view them as part of a single campaign. What is the best way to understand the connections among these new strictures? How do they relate to Xi Jinping’s leadership, how should they be understood to relate to governance goals in China more broadly, and to what extent will they succeed in achieving their intended ends?

ChinaFile Presents: In the Camps—China’s High-Tech Penal Colony

Darren Byler, Susan Jakes & more — Friday, October 15, 2021 - 12:42pm

Darren Byler joined ChinaFile’s Susan Jakes and Jessica Batke to discuss his new book, In the Camps: China’s High-Tech Penal Colony. Evidence has mounted in recent years that China’s government has incarcerated more than one million Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minorities in a network of detention facilities across Xinjiang, while subjecting millions of others in the region to severe religious and cultural repression and an unprecedented level of technologically enhanced surveillance. Byler examines thousands of government documents and many hours of interviews with both detainees and camp workers. Their stories describe a surveillance that overwhelms the lives of Xinjiang’s residents, pushing Byler to examine how technological tools are being adapted to create forms of intrusive and often oppressive control of vulnerable people around the world.

The Man Behind Xi Jinping’s Foreign Policy

Peter Martin — Wednesday, October 6, 2021 - 10:42am

The daunting task of keeping up with Xi Jinping’s foreign policy ambitions fell to Wang Yi. Born in Beijing in 1953, the same year as Xi, Wang also spent a good chunk of his adolescence as a “sent down” youth during the Cultural Revolution, when he spent eight years laboring on a farm in the northeast. Always a harder worker than others, Wang taught himself literature and history, a former classmate told the Christian Science Monitor. He was “quite open minded. He did not just accept what he was told,” the classmate remembered.

Chinese Medicine in the Covid Wards

Ian Johnson — Monday, October 4, 2021 - 12:00am

In mid-February 2020, during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, Liu Lihong, a slight man with a wispy beard, made his way into Hankou Hospital No. 8 in Wuhan. Dressed in an all-white infectious disease suit, the only equipment he carried was a small box of acupuncture needles.

How Could the U.S. Deter Military Conflict in the Taiwan Strait?

Daniel R. Russel, Shelley Rigger & more — Tuesday, September 28, 2021 - 11:07am

Last week, China flew 24 warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. One of the largest incursions in recent years, the People’s Liberation Army flyover came a day after Taipei applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Beijing, which applied to the trade pact a week earlier, has opposed Taiwan’s bid. In response, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement branding China an “arch criminal” bent on increasing hostilities across the strait.

‘China’s Search for a Modern Identity Has Entered a New and Perilous Phase’

Roger Garside — Thursday, September 23, 2021 - 4:01pm

In 1980, writing the last paragraph of the last chapter of Coming Alive: China After Mao, I declared that China was moving “from totalitarian tyranny to a system more humane, part of a struggle by this nation to free itself from a straitjacket woven of feudalism, Marxism-Leninism, and twentieth-century technology.” In 2020, 40 years later, in China Coup: The Great Leap to Freedom, I describe a China firmly in the grip of totalitarian tyranny. In the years between, there were periods of loosening. But since Xi Jinping assumed the leadership of the Communist Party in 2012, he has progressively tightened the drawstrings the Party first imposed on China in 1949, cinching them closed with the technology of the 21st century.

A Farewell to My Students

Xu Zhangrun & Geremie R. Barmé — Thursday, September 9, 2021 - 10:04am

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, freewheeling discussion and debate, and convivial social drinking. Under Xu’s aegis, members of the salon published numerous edited volumes on topics related to law, history, philosophy, and politics.

How Much Does Beijing Control the Ethnic Makeup of Tibet?

Andrew M. Fischer — Thursday, September 2, 2021 - 2:50pm

The idea of swamping, which the Dalai Lama himself elaborated in 2008, holds that China’s government has been seeking to solve its problems in Tibet and other “ethnic minority” areas such as Xinjiang by turning local indigenous ethnic groups (such as Tibetans or Uyghurs) into minorities in their own land through a coordinated program of Han Chinese in-migration, like settler colonialism in the Americas or Australasia. China’s 2020 National Population Census allows us to assess the concerns about ethnic population shares.

What Does the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan Mean for China?

Laurel Miller, Amanda Hsiao & more — Thursday, August 26, 2021 - 10:54am

As China seeks to balance security concerns and financial considerations, a nation that has long espoused the principle of noninterference may find its foreign policy tested in coming months. What will be the challenges and opportunities for China in Afghanistan? What will the U.S. withdrawal mean for China’s role in the region and globally?

Homage to Richard Nixon

Zha Jianying — Thursday, August 19, 2021 - 11:19am

This short story was written 20 years ago but never published. It is the first piece of original fiction to appear on ChinaFile since our launch in 2013. In a postscript, author Zha Jianying explains that when she unearthed the story earlier this year, she felt it resonated with the current moment in U.S.-China relations.

EURICS Analysis on Foreign NGOs’ COVID Relief Efforts

Wednesday, August 18, 2021 - 4:32pm

In an article for The European Institute for Chinese Studies (EURICS), University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Law and Public Affairs Mark Sidel assesses how the Foreign NGO Law framework functioned during the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking at donations made through both the representative office and temporary activity mechanisms, Sidel concludes that the structures set in place over the last four years held up under crisis conditions and allowed international funding to flow in for COVID-related causes.

Overseas NGOs and Foundations and COVID in China

Mark Sidel — Wednesday, August 18, 2021 - 4:22pm

The COVID crisis that enveloped Wuhan, Hubei province, and some other parts of China in late 2019 and early 2020 might, in another era, have encouraged China to temporarily relax constraints on international aid and engagement. In the current Chinese political environment, such relaxation of constraints wasn’t going to happen. China accepted some overseas aid at the beginning of the COVID crisis, but almost entirely on the restrictive political and legal terms laid down in the Overseas NGO Law and framework enacted in 2016.

Xi’s China, the Handiwork of an Autocratic Roué

Xu Zhangrun & Geremie R. Barmé — Monday, August 9, 2021 - 12:00am

At this crucial juncture, China’s political, business, and academic elites revealed a core of craven self-interest and vacuous hypocrisy. The display was even further evidence of the degraded state of our nation’s public life, one that has long been characterized by brazen political opportunism, systemic corruption, and the celebration of populist thuggery.

Will Beijing Invade Taiwan?

Susan Thornton, Scott Swift & more — Friday, July 30, 2021 - 10:51am

What, precisely, are Beijing’s plans for Taiwan? In recent years, there has been no small amount of saber rattling, with aggressive naval drills, aerial incursions, and warnings that force would be used for reunification if necessary. But given the steep domestic and international costs of war, how likely is it that Beijing will attempt to force reunification militarily? Will the People’s Republic of China wage war on Taiwan?

Making Sense of Support for Donald Trump in China

He Weifang — Tuesday, July 20, 2021 - 11:12am

As the dust finally settled on the U.S. presidential election that shook the world, Biden was sworn in as president, and Trump, who tried everything to cling to a second term, slunk out of the capital city of Washington, D.C. in disgrace. Looking back at the debates and rifts on the Internet over this period of time, it is a bit hard to know where to begin.

How Should the U.S. Approach Climate Diplomacy with China?

Isabel Hilton, Scott Moore & more — Monday, July 12, 2021 - 11:38am

As China continues to emerge as a superpower and move forward with its colossal Belt and Road Initiative amid the climate crisis, American climate engagement with China is more critical than ever. What would an effective climate diplomacy for the U.S. and China look like?

Why China Is Going After Its Tech Giants

Charles Mok — Saturday, July 10, 2021 - 8:22am

Just days after its lucrative listing on the New York Stock Exchange, China ride-hailing giant Didi Global was hit with another round of sanctions by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). On July 4, the country’s Internet regulator ordered the removal of its mobile app from Chinese app stores. This came two days after the same regulator opened an investigation into the company, suspending it from adding new users. The app, alleged CAC, “has serious violations of laws and regulations pertaining to the collection of personal information.”

How Will the EU Navigate U.S.-China Tensions?

Paul Haenle, Rosa Balfour & more — Thursday, June 24, 2021 - 5:45pm

Over the past few years, Europe and the United States have each approached China’s rise differently. Washington has moved to reduce its economic reliance on Beijing while castigating its increasingly assertive global stance. Brussels, on the other hand, has tried to insulate its business ties with China from its concerns about Chinese policies and ambitions. Europe and China jointly proposed the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), while German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emanuel Macron strove to keep the continent’s relations with Beijing on solid footing. Recently, however, it appears as though Europe has shifted course to align elements of its China strategy more closely with those of the United States. The CAI has been shelved, and France and Germany have announced plans to play a larger role in the South China Sea disputes. How will Europe manage its relationship with Beijing going forward? And how should Europe deal with worsening U.S.-China relations?

Will I Return to China?

Scott Kennedy, Tracy Wen Liu & more — Monday, June 21, 2021 - 11:33am

ChinaFile sent a short questionnaire to several hundred ChinaFile contributors to get a sense of their feelings about traveling to China once COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease. Media reports at the time had suggested, anecdotally, that foreigners with longstanding professional ties to China felt reluctant to visit, in part owing to the passage of Hong Kong’s National Security Law, fear of detention, the recent trials for espionage of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, as well as the harassment of BBC correspondent John Sudworth. We asked respondents how likely they were to travel to China once COVID restrictions were lifted. We provided five choices: “Definitely Will Visit,” “Probably Will Visit,” “Unsure,” “Probably Won’t Visit,” and “Definitely Won’t Visit” and asked them to choose one response and then to elaborate on their choice if they wished. We received 121 responses, and while they do not constitute a scientific survey, they nevertheless suggest a significant shift in attitudes among a group of prominent figures in the China field.

How Has the U.S.-China Relationship Changed under Biden?

Paul Haenle & Kate Magill — Thursday, June 3, 2021 - 11:35am

As President Biden wraps up his first 100 days in office, there remain significant questions surrounding the future of U.S.-China ties. How has the bilateral relationship changed? Will the Biden administration maintain the Trump administration’s policy of strategic competition? How has Beijing responded so far? On this joint episode of the China in the World podcast and AmCham Shanghai’s China Voices podcast, Paul Haenle joined Kate Magill to discuss the state of U.S.-China relations after Biden’s first 100 days.

China-Russia Relations at the Dawn of the Biden Era

Paul Haenle, Andrew S. Weiss & more — Tuesday, June 1, 2021 - 9:50am

While U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia relations have steadily deteriorated, China-Russia cooperation has continued to strengthen. Although both nations have found a common adversary in the United States, any divergence of Russian or Chinese interests could create roadblocks to the two countries’ warming relations. Given China’s increasing economic and political clout, how will Russia manage the relationship in a way that concurrently maintains cooperation with China and protects its own national interests? Will China continue to view Russia as a security and economic partner? And how does the United States view and approach strong China-Russia ties?

How Should the U.S. Respond to China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy?

Elsa Kania, Tai Ming Cheung & more — Saturday, May 22, 2021 - 8:43am

During Donald Trump’s presidency, the term “military-civil fusion” (MCF) came to feature prominently in U.S. officials’ characterizations of their concerns about China. While efforts to integrate China’s civilian and defense economies have been a goal of China’s leaders for decades, Xi Jinping has elevated MCF as a priority and has expanded, intensified, and accelerated the effort across multiple domains, including to concentrate on more integrated development of emerging technologies. This strategy is regarded as critical to China’s capacity to succeed in a confrontation of systems.

The Protest Families of Pro-Democracy Hong Kong

Lavender Au — Saturday, May 22, 2021 - 12:00am

They met at a crossroads in October 2019. That day, Hong Kong’s people came out in their tens of thousands, to protest the proposed Extradition Bill, which would allow the territory to detain and transfer citizens to mainland China. Hoikei was there in the city’s southern Kowloon district of Yau Ma Tei by herself (she asked me to use a pseudonym to protect her from possible arrest or other official reprisal). A petite figure in a black T-shirt and balaclava, she was carrying an umbrella—not for rain, but to shield her face from surveillance cameras. This was the protesters’ uniform.

A Letter to My Editors and to China’s Censors

Xu Zhangrun & Geremie R. Barmé — Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - 10:28am

Xu Zhangrun, perhaps China’s most famous dissident legal scholar, released a letter addressed not only to China’s censors but also to the editors and publishers with whom he had worked for decades. That essay, translated below, is Letter Eight in his ‘Ten Letters from a Year of Plague,’ a collection that, read as a whole, is an account of the persecution he has suffered since he published a fierce point-by-point appraisal of the Xi Jinping era and warned of the calamities that lay ahead. The letters also comprise an agonized farewell both to his former life and to China’s short-lived era of progressive reform.

Ahead of Its Centennial, the Chinese Communist Party Frets Over Unsanctioned Takes on Its History

Hans van de Ven — Friday, May 14, 2021 - 10:47am

On July 1, the Chinese Communist Party will commemorate its founding in Shanghai one hundred years ago. Unsurprisingly, Beijing is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that nothing untoward takes place in the run-up to the great day. On April 9, the Reporting Center for Illegal and Unhealthy Information, a division of the Cyberspace Administration, which oversees and regulates China’s Internet, announced that it had launched a new facility on its portal to fight “historical nihilism.” Chinese citizens concerned about online posts that “distort the history of the Party [or] of New China,” “attack the Party’s leadership or ideology,” or “slander heroic martyrs”—as China’s current leaders deploy the term—would now enjoy a convenient way to “enthusiastically report harmful information [and] work together to maintain a healthy network ecology.” The Center would also provide a phone hotline and a web address for the reporting of such historical nihilism.

Police Issue Administrative Warning to Australian NGO, Global Times Reports

Thursday, May 13, 2021 - 2:52pm

According to the Global Times, local public security officials in Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province issued an administrative warning to Australia-based non-profit Nying-Jey Projects in April for operating in the area without permission. It is not clear from the wording of the Global Times article whether police censured the NGO for failing to register a representative office or for failing to file for a temporary activity.

What Should China Do about Its Aging Population?

Wang Feng, Karen Thornber & more — Thursday, May 6, 2021 - 11:12am

Though it has yet to be released, China’s latest ten-year census is certain to confirm what demographers have warned of for years: A labor crisis looms as the fertility rate remains low and the country ages at a dangerous speed. Five years after the country reversed its one-child policy to allow—and encourage—couples to to have two children, there is little to suggest it has had the intended effect. While the fertility rate increased slightly the year after the new policy went into effect, it has declined ever since and remains below replacement rate. Economic constraints, insufficient workplace and government support for parents (particularly mothers), and, likely, decades of messaging extolling the benefits of raising a single child have kept birth rates stubbornly low. At the same time, health advances have China’s elderly living longer than ever. In 2000, those 65 and older made up 7 percent of the population; by 2019, that figure had reached 12.57 percent. This demographic imbalance will have major implications for the country’s labor force, along with its ability to grow its economy.

New Data Show Hong Kong’s National Security Arrests Follow a Pattern

Lydia Wong & Thomas Kellogg — Monday, May 3, 2021 - 8:44am

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 terrorism, their primary crime appears to be peaceful criticism of the government. A closer look at the arrests under the NSL or conducted by the newly-created National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police paints a clearer picture of how authorities in Hong Kong have implemented the new law, and what they might hope to achieve.

The Right Way to Bring Chinese STEM Talent Back to the U.S.

Evan Burke — Tuesday, April 27, 2021 - 10:49am

The Trump administration deployed a raft of restrictions on international students and workers, many of which directly targeted or disproportionally impacted Chinese STEM talent. While some measures had a basis in legitimate concerns like illicit technology transfer, they were often far broader than necessary, contributing to a more difficult environment for Chinese nationals in the U.S. and unduly harming U.S. companies and universities that rely on Chinese talent. To preserve American technology leadership—and soft power diplomacy—Biden should scrap much of the Trump administration’s agenda and create a more balanced approach to managing the STEM talent pipeline from China.

‘I Stand the Law’s Good Servant, but the People’s First’

Margaret Ng — Friday, April 23, 2021 - 10:38am

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-long fight for democracy and the rule of law in Hong Kong. As Ng noted, she had been part of an abortive effort more than two decades earlier to reform the very law—the colonial-era Public Order Ordinance—that the Hong Kong government used to successfully prosecute her.

Will Protests against China Push Beijing to Intervene in Myanmar?

Abby Seiff — Thursday, April 1, 2021 - 3:30pm

Angry with the results of the November election, which saw a landslide win for the ruling National League for Democracy party, Myanmar’s military claimed electoral fraud. On February 1, they seized power from the civilian government, rounding up longtime NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the rest of the country’s civilian leadership and unleashing an increasingly violent force against the public. Hundreds of thousands have since taken to the streets, and the military has arrested thousands and killed more than 500. Almost from the start, protests against the coup have targeted not just the Tatmadaw, but neighboring China.

Shielding Corporate Interests, Europe Leaves NGOs Working in China by the Wayside

Bertram Lang — Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - 11:30am

In late December 2020, at the end of a very turbulent year in Europe-China relations, and after more than seven years of often strenuous negotiations, the European Union (EU) and China agreed on the terms of a “Comprehensive Agreement on Investment.” The European Commission and heads of state and government inked the deal despite vocal warnings from experts across Europe to allow time for further deliberation. Debates over the CAI, however, thus far have ignored the implications for non-profits, entities making public rather than private interest investments. This includes organizations working on climate crisis mitigation and sustainable development, both areas in which the EU has pledged to strengthen cooperation with China and has signaled the importance of civil society actors.

Abandoning Criticism of China’s Government Isn’t the Right Way to End Anti-Asian Racism in the U.S.

Ho-fung Hung — Thursday, March 25, 2021 - 4:14pm

The recent surge of anti-Asian violence across the U.S., culminating in the tragedy of the Atlanta shooting, reminds us that the mainstream (mis)representation of Asian Americans as a model minority never spares us from racist hatred and the perception of Asians as a “yellow peril.” What complicates the matter is that the Chinese government, having dug its heels into an intensifying rivalry with the U.S., is not missing any chance to bring up racism to delegitimize America’s democracy and highlight its hypocrisy.

Hong Kong’s Economic Future

Ho-fung Hung, Flora Huang & more — Thursday, March 11, 2021 - 1:12pm

If conventional wisdom held that China would never risk Hong Kong’s market, that was predicated on a specter of a foreign financial exodus. When the national security law was promulgated, experts warned of an international withdrawal and an end to Hong Kong’s status as a global financial capital. Thus far, that seems not to have come to pass. Hong Kong’s economy shrank a record 6 percent last year, due to the pandemic, but is forecast to recover significantly by the end of 2021. Even as the political restrictions are growing tighter, Hong Kong—with its successful COVID-19 response and strong export markets—looks to be on an economic upswing. Is it? What are key factors shaping the city’s economic future?

Will China Be a Global Vaccine Leader?

Deborah Seligsohn, Jenny Lei Ravelo & more — Friday, February 12, 2021 - 11:25am

Beijing stands to reap major rewards by becoming the supplier of choice—or necessity—throughout low- and middle-income countries. China has expanded its international aid efforts in recent years and stressed its commitment to “south-south” cooperation. Winning the vaccine race would be a diplomatic boon. Public concern over the vaccines, however, may pose a roadblock to achieving inoculation targets.

Running on Empty

Dong Lin & Summer Sun — Thursday, February 4, 2021 - 9:54am

Dong told me he photographed Beijing last year for the simple reason of wanting to bear witness. Now, he hopes his photos can serve as a memorial to the immense distress and loss, a situation created by its own government’s compulsion for secrecy and positive images. In his photographs, we see people grappling with an absence of reliable information, responding with desperation, but also resolve and ingenuity.

Hong Kong’s National Security Law

Lydia Wong & Thomas Kellogg — Monday, February 1, 2021 - 12:00am

The National Security Law (NSL) constitutes one of the greatest threats to human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover. This report analyzes the key elements of the NSL, and attempts to gauge the new law’s impact on human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong. The report also analyzes the first six months of implementation of the new law, seeking to understand how the law is being used, who is being targeted, and which behaviors are being criminalized. The report is based on interviews with Hong Kong actors from various backgrounds, and also a wide-ranging review of the public record, including press reports, court documents, and other publicly-available sources.

A Look Back at Foreign NGOs in China in 2020

Monday, January 25, 2021 - 11:44am

2020 saw something of a lull in foreign NGO activity in China. According to Ministry of Public Security data, fewer foreign NGOs registered new representative offices or initiated temporary activities than they had in the previous two years. Of course, in a year where China and the rest of the international community had to contend with successive waves of a global pandemic, it is not surprising that foreign NGO activity in the PRC decreased. What remains unknown is how much of the dip in activity is attributable to the pandemic and how much to an increasingly rancorous international environment, or to tightening political controls within the PRC itself.

In Xinjiang, Rare Protests Came Amid Lockdown

Tracy Wen Liu — Friday, January 22, 2021 - 10:56am

Six months after China rolled out its first coronavirus lockdown in Wuhan in late January 2020, Urumqi was placed under quarantine. The first lockdown specifically targeting the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, rather than the region as a whole, which began July 18, was not unique; lockdowns of infected cities have been a key tool to controlling outbreaks in China since the coronavirus began spreading. But in a region subject to strict control, the Urumqi lockdown was China’s strongest lockdown yet. And it proved an unusual catalyst for public backlash by the Han majority against the country’s most notorious surveillance regime.

Four Principles to Guide U.S. Policy Toward China

Paul Haenle & Ali Wyne — Wednesday, January 13, 2021 - 9:33am

As the U.S.-China relationship becomes more competitive, how should the Biden administration approach ties with Beijing? What concepts should guide Washington’s China policy? In part one of this two-part podcast, Paul Haenle speaks with Ali Wyne, senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s Global Macro practice, about four principles the administration should follow to formulate a sustainable U.S. strategy toward China.

Seeing the CCP Clearly

Perry Link — Wednesday, January 13, 2021 - 12:00am

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 form or another into the Biden years.

Precarious Progress

Darius Longarino — Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - 1:59pm

Whether state decisionmakers in the coming years and decades will pursue policies to protect the equal rights for LGBT people will come down to a mix of ideology, pragmatism, and public pressure. LGBT advocates are striving to turn that calculus in their favor, and, facing the long and rough road ahead, remain hopeful.

China’s First Big #MeToo Case Tests the Party

Lavender Au — Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - 12:00am

In November, a court at last notified Zhou Xiaoxuan, known more commonly by her nickname, Xianzi, that it would try her case, a civil lawsuit filed in 2018 against television host Zhu Jun, who she alleges sexually harassed her. But when the trial finally opened, on December 2, Zhu was not there. She had asked the court to summon him; it had neglected to do so.