Yaxue Cao, October 30, 2025 Zion Church Under Attack On the evening of Saturday, October 10, in Beihai, Guangxi (广西北海), more than twenty police officers stormed into the home of Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日, Ezra Jin), the head pastor of Zion Church (锡安教会), just after he and his elderly mother-in-law had finished dinner. One officer [...] Keep reading »

Li Fangping, August 21, 2025 It’s been seven decades since the promulgation of Communist China’s first Constitution in 1954. To evaluate the journey of its rule of law, the successes and failures, I’m going to divide my analysis into four periods. I. The CCP’s founding leaders never meant to honor PRC’s first Constitution The [...] Keep reading »

China Change, August 7, 2025 The year 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of the “709” crackdown. A full decade has passed since the mass arrest of lawyers that shocked both China and the world, and this persecution has not ended. Over the past year, several more lawyers have been arrested, sentenced, or placed in administrative detention. [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, July 29, 2025 I. At 10 a.m. Beijing time on July 30, 2025, after 1,296 days in detention, lawyer Xie Yang (谢阳) is  finally standing trial at the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court. He is charged with “inciting subversion of state power.” This is the second time Xie Yang has been imprisoned since the internationally known [...] Keep reading »

Chen Guiqiu, ex-wife of Xie Yang, July 28, 2025 Human rights lawyer Xie Yang (谢阳) was arrested in January 2022, shortly after displaying a banner in support of an elementary school teacher in his province who had been arbitrarily detained in a mental hospital for online expression. As of today, he has been held for 1,295 days without trial. His [...] Keep reading »

China Change, July 25, 2025 (Email subscribers may have to view in browser to see the embedded YouTube link.) This documentary offers, for the first time, an authoritative overall account and analysis of the 709 Crackdown on human rights lawyers in China that began ten years ago in 2015, covering all aspects of the incident: arrests, smear campaign [...] Keep reading »

Li Heping, July 24, 2025 “The 709 crackdown was already one of the greatest injustices of our time. If I am now framed by these traffic police, I might as well smash my head against the wall and die right here.” — Li Heping, 709 lawyer Part One: A Five-hour Wrangling With Luhe Traffic Police Brigade from July 11, 2025, 11:00 p.m. to July [...] Keep reading »

July 1, 2025 Ten years ago, beginning on July 9th, the Chinese authorities launched a large-scale crackdown on human rights lawyers and rights defenders, arresting over 20 lawyers and their associates, placing them under the notorious “Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location” where they were subjected to physical and psychological tor [...] Keep reading »

Xu Zhiyong, translated by Andréa Worden, December 4, 2024 Note From the Editor Born in 1973, Dr. Xu Zhiyong (许志永) is a legal scholar, pioneer of China’s rights defense movement, and a founder of the New Citizens Movement. On April 10, 2023, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of “subverting state power.” Before this, he h [...] Keep reading »