Yang Bin, November 12, 2026 Looking back, the decade or so around the beginning of the 21st century could be considered something of an “enlightened” period. It was an era when Xu Zhiyong (许志永) and his friends enjoyed a tiny bit of space for their voices and activities, the era that most Chinese people recall as the closest this country ever came to a “civil society,” and even an era within the dictatorial  government system where “certain topics could be discussed internally.” At the time, I was working as a prosecutor in Guangzhou, but it was also around then that I began forging a different path in life, hoping to bid farewell to the red epaulets, peaked caps, and uniforms — reminiscent of those worn […]