China Change, April 30, 2023 It’s the season for spring planting in China, starting from the south and moving up to the north. However, agricultural policies implemented by the Communist Party authorities in recent years are wreaking havoc in rural communities nationwide this spring, drawing the attention and unease of many Chinese commentators a [...] Keep reading »

Xu Zhiyong, April 9, 2023 Dr. Xu Zhiyong (许志永) is no stranger to those who have followed the emergence of civil society in China in the early 2000s to its being silenced by the continuous suppression, more severe under Xi Jinping. Xu Zhiyong’s career began from providing legal assistance along with a team of rights lawyers to disadvantaged [...] 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 »

China Change, April 7, 2023 Since the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) started to publish the country’s monthly unemployment rate in January 2018, the unemployment rate for young urban workers aged 16-24 (including migrant workers living in urban areas) over the past five years has increased from 11% in January 2018 to 19.9% in July 2 [...] Keep reading »

China Change, April 3, 2023 Last week, China’s Ministry of Public Security released the “Three-Year Action Plan for Strengthening Public Security Police Stations in the New Era (2023–2025).” This comes as a continuation of a similar three-year action plan (2020–2022) released in 2020. China is continuing to strengthen its long-standin [...] 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 »

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 »

China Change, October 13, 2022 Based on information online that we have gathered so far, the man is Peng Lifa (彭立发), known online as Peng Zaizhou (彭载舟), who displayed two large banners demanding the removal of Xi Jinping on Sitong Overpass (四通桥) on the Third Ring Road, north section, in Beijing Haidian District around 2 pm Beijing [...] Keep reading »

June 16, 2022 The sixth annual China Human Rights Lawyers Day will be held virtually on July 9, 2022, at 9 a.m. EST (U.S.). In 2017, human rights organizations in the U.S., Taiwan, and Hong Kong established July 9th as the China Human Rights Lawyers day to commemorate the mass arrests, detention, and torture of human rights lawyers in mainland Chin [...] Keep reading »