Yaxue Cao, May 28, 2023 Following the Blank Paper protests last November, I realized that I had been caught off-guard by contemporary Chinese youth, especially those born after 1990 and 2000. I didn’t know what kind of people they were, and I had subconsciously written them off from the realm of dissent, assuming that they belonged to a gener [...] Keep reading »

Ding Jiaxi, April 9, 2023 After a decade-long successful career as a successful commercial lawyer in Beijing, Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜) joined the New Citizens Movement in 2011 led by legal scholar Xu Zhiyong (许志永). The citizen movement chiefly concerned itself with calling upon Chinese to become true citizens, exercising their rights and should [...] Keep reading »

Jiang Xue, February 18, 2023 Based on the information we have been able to gather so far about the protesters in Liangmaqiao (亮马桥), Beijing, on November 27, 2022, it seems that the Chinese police have set their eyes mostly on two groups of people: a circle of young women and a small community of DJ bar owners and musicians. We’ve since lear [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, January 13, 2023 The article was first published by the Uyghur Human Rights Project. A Chinese version is also available.   I wrote down the title the way I pop in two pills to ease the rising blood pressure in my skull. There is no conversation, as Ilham Tohti, the former economics professor at Minzu University in Beijing, recipien [...] Keep reading »

Jiang Xue, January 3, 2023 In Beijing, at least 11 young people have been detained in connection with the “Blank Paper” (白纸抗议) protests, of whom two are confirmed to be journalists, another two musicians, an editor, a curator, and a white-collar employee at a foreign company. The identities of the rest are still unclear. — The Editors [...] Keep reading »

China Change, October 19, 2022 ‘One man’s anger shakes the earth and moves mountains’   It’s too early to evaluate the full impact of the extraordinary one-man protest staged by Peng Zaizhou (彭载舟), real name Peng Lifa (彭立发), on Sitong Overpass (四通桥) on October 13, 2022 in Beijing. But this much we already know: h [...] Keep reading »

Liang Xiaojun, January 6, 2022 Liang Xiaojun has practiced law in Beijing for twenty years, devoting the last twelve years of his career to human rights cases. He is the director of Beijing Daoheng Law Firm. On December 16, 2021, the Beijing Municipal Justice Bureau issued an administrative penalty decision to permanently revoke his license, citing [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, December 7, 2021 I want to thank ChinaAid for recognizing Zhang Zhan and for allowing me to say a few words in her absence. It’s an honor, and it is also deeply sad that Zhang Zhan is dying in prison as we speak. On February 1, 2020, Zhang Zhan boarded a high-speed train from Shanghai to Chongqing. She got off part way in Wuhan, the ep [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, December 1, 2021 I At 10:07 pm on November 2nd, Peng Shuai, the 35-year-old Chinese tennis star, posted an unbroken paragraph of 1,900 words on her Weibo account revealing her relationship with Zhang Gaoli, former member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and Vice Premier. It was a tumultuous eruption of anger, sham [...] Keep reading »