On 11 June, Foxconn employees posted an open letter at the company’s facility in Longhua, Shenzhen, to express their discontent with the redevelopment of surrounding urban villages. They alleged that this redevelopment would double or even triple rents, making housing completely unaffordable for them. Residents of Shenzhen’s urban villages—mostly migrant workers—have recently been notified by […]

Repression of human rights practitioners continues unabated in China. In the past few months, foreign media have widely reported on the situation of Liu Xia, the widow of late Chinese dissident and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo. Without having been formally accused of any offence, Liu was placed under house arrest in October 2010. While earlier […]

Rage Comic, a popular online cartoon and video platform, has fallen prey to China’s recently passed Law on the Protection of Heroes and Martyrs. Taking effect on 1 May 2018, the Law requires all of Chinese society to respect heroes and martyrs of the Communist Party, and subjects anyone who fails to do so to […]

In April, the National Bureau of Statistics released its latest annual report on Chinese migrant workers. According to this document, in 2017 China had a total of 286.52 million migrant workers, an increase of 4.81 million or 1.7 percent from the previous year. At the same time the migrant population is clearly aging: for the […]

Since the passing of the National Security Law back in 2015, the Chinese government has declared 15 April as ‘National Security Education Day’, i.e. a day for raising public awareness of national security issues. In 2017, the authorities promised informants who reported on spies rewards ranging from 10,000 to 500,000 yuan. According to local media, […]

The second quarter of 2018 has brought renewed scrutiny of gender issues in China. Chinese women still face perilous conditions in society and the workplace, often falling victim to sexual harassment and discrimination of various kinds. The #MeToo campaign that swept Peking University (PKU) in April this year well exemplifies female vulnerability to sexual harassment […]

On 11 March, during the annual Two Sessions (lianghui), the National People’s Congress passed a number of historical constitutional amendments with 1,958 votes in favour, two against, and three abstentions. Among the 21 changes to the Constitution, the most controversial revision was the removal of term limits for the posts of President and Vice-President, which […]

On 7 December 2017, about three hundred participants from over fifty mostly developing countries gathered in Beijing for the ‘South-South Human Rights Forum’. In his opening address, President Xi Jinping reiterated that ‘human rights must and can only be promoted in light of specific national conditions and people’s needs.’ The initiative took place after another […]

On 6 December, the State Council released the Implementation Rules for the Counterespionage Law that had come into force earlier in November 2014. The new Rules significantly enhance the powers of the State Security, which had already gained significant clout under the original legislation. In particular, Article 8 grants the State Security the power to […]

On 21 November, Foxconn came once again under the spotlight following a media investigation into its forced use of seasonal student interns. The Financial Times uncovered that three thousand high school students from the local Urban Rail Transit School had been forced to work eleven-hour shifts at the company’s plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, to […]