March 19, 2020 Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜) was reluctant when I asked for an interview. It was in the fall of 2017, a year after he was released from prison as a leader of the New Citizens Movement. He was visiting his wife and two daughters in Alfred, a village of 5,000 souls in Upstate New York, and would go back to China in a few days. He didn’t wa [...] Keep reading »

By Li Xiangyu (李想俣), Li Mingzi (李明子), Peng Danni (彭丹妮), and Du Wei (杜玮), in the February 10 issue of China News Weekly Out of mountains of reports about the coronavirus epidemic, we at China Change have taken a keen interest in two areas: the origins of the virus, and the decision making process. The cover story of China News [...] Keep reading »

Yaxue Cao, January 27, 2020 Last month, on December 7 and 8, around 20 Chinese men and women from around the country gathered in the southeastern city of Xiamen. Among them were lawyers and those of other professions. They met in a private home, discussing current events and policy, public affairs, and China’s political trajectory. They shared th [...] Keep reading »

The China Human Rights Lawyers Group, January 1, 2020 One hundred years ago, when the New Culture Movement sang the praises of democracy” and science, nobody could have imagined that a century later, in the China of today, democracy has failed to flourish, while science has become a powerful tool aiding a totalitarian dictatorship. Seventy years [...] Keep reading »

China Change, December 4, 2019 On November 21, the Guangzhou Lawyers Association gathered a meeting of all law firm directors, and disseminated the following orders issued “from higher authorities.” These law firm directors were required to then pass on the following points to all the lawyers they employ. From that day [Nov 21] through December [...] Keep reading »

Xu Yan, November 29, 2019 To the respected international lawyers participating in the Global Lawyers Forum: Greetings!  My name is Xu Yan (许艳), and I am the wife of Yu Wensheng (余文生), a Chinese human rights lawyer. When I learned that China will be hosting the Global Lawyers Forum in Guangzhou, on December 9-10, as a Chinese citizen [...] Keep reading »

Peter Humphrey, September 30, 2019 Bogged down by a trade war with America, unrest in Hong Kong, a slowing economy and a surge of ill will across the planet, the People’s Republic of China is approaching its 70th anniversary on the back foot, and keen to stir some favourable sentiment. At home, in the run-up to the celebrations, its ruler Xi Jinp [...] Keep reading »

July 9, 2019 The world was shocked by the mass detention of Chinese human right lawyers on July 9, 2015 –– in what became known as the “709 Incident.” Following the secret sentencing of “709” lawyer Wang Quanzhang (王全璋), who was tried for the crime of “subversion of state power,” people thought that the “709 Incident,” at [...] Keep reading »

In 2008, encouraged by a sense that China was opening up to more democratic norms, a group of lawyers in Beijing sought to directly elect the Beijing Lawyers Association. In this film, nine participating lawyers tell this story of struggle and persecution. [...] Keep reading »