Eva Pils

Rights Activism in China: The Case of Lawyer Gao Zhisheng

In late 2005, a Chinese lawyer named Gao Zhisheng decided to address a particularly “sensitive” political issue in a particularly provocative way. He published an online call, addressed to China’s leadership, to stop the torture of Falungong practitioners, substantiating his appeal by detailed descriptions of individual cases of torture, which he claimed to have received from the tortured victims themselves (Gao 2005a). Within days, his Beijing law firm’s license to practice was suspended and he was put under surveillance by the secret police. However, these were not the only consequences. Following his public call for a hunger strike to oppose state violence, launched a few months later, he was also subjected to vehement criticism by other Chinese lawyers and rights activists, who advised, implored, or even angrily demanded of him to stop. At one point, he narrowly escaped being imprisoned in a yaodong cave by his own brothers in his home village in the province of Shaanxi.

Contending Conceptions of Ownership in Urbanizing China

This paper explores divergent conceptions of ownership and property rights pertaining to land and buildings that are articulated in the context of protests against property development in the context of China’s urbanisation. The effects of urban development, demolition and eviction on tens of millions of Chinese citizens have been profound. Faced with a government decision to ‘develop’ their area that leaves them no real choice, not all rural or urban residents actually oppose this decision. But, often, some residents protest and resist, in recent years in increasingly creative, dramatic and sometimes tragic ways. In this context, two radically opposed conceptions of ownership have emerged. If State and popular views of ownership and property rights continue to diverge, the enforcement of the current legal rules reflecting the State’s view of land ownership and property rights may become unsustainable.

From Nonperson to Public Intellectual: The Life and Works of Yu Jianrong

This special issue focuses on the multifaceted scholar and public intellectual Yu Jianrong. Yu is a sociologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), an accomplished scholar on Chinas social problems, a public intellectual vocal in some of the countrys most heated debates, and a blogger with 1.5 million followers on the countrys most popular social media platform, Sina Weibo. His impact as a public intellectual has also been noticed abroad, and in 2012, Foreign Policy included him on their list of the worlds most influential intellectuals.

The Impact of Brexit on Relations with Russia and China

This paper considers the likely impact of Brexit on the relations between the United Kingdom and two significant states on the world stage: Russia, which is physically the largest, and heir to one of the Cold War superpowers, and China, which is the most populous, and which some think may be the next superpower. In discussing this impact, we also address how Brexit affects the EU’s relationship with Russia and China. This question can be conveniently considered from three different (though interacting) perspectives. First, what impact will the change in Britain’s EU status have on individual Russian/Chinese or UK citizens wishing to travel to, invest in or trade with the other state? Secondly, what change is likely between Russia/China and Britain on a state-to-state level? Finally, both the UK and Russia/China belong to some important international organisations; will Britain leaving the EU impact on its place in these other organisations in relation to Russia or China?

The Party’s Turn to Public Repression: An Analysis of the ‘709’ Crackdown on Human Rights Lawyers in China

The intensified and more public repression of civil society in China is part of a global shift toward deepened and technologically smarter dictatorship. This article uses the example of the ‘709’ government campaign against Chinese human rights lawyers to discuss this shift. It argues that the Party-State adopted more public and sophisticated forms of repression in reaction to smarter forms and techniques of human rights advocacy. In contrast to liberal legal advocacy, however, the Party-State’s authoritarian (or neo-totalitarian) propaganda is not bounded by rational argument. It can more fully exploit the potential of the political emotions it creates. Along with other forms of public repression, the crackdown indicates a rise of anti-liberal and anti-rationalist conceptions of law and governance and a return to the romanticisation of power.

Yu Jianrong: From Concerned Scholar to Advocate for the Marginalized

In this second issue on the scholar and public intellectual Yu Jianrong, we address some of the topics that have been at the core of his academic work and where his research and views have helped shaped awareness of these issues among the general public and the academic community. We focus on the rural-urban divide, land issues (including land confiscations and property demolitions), the letters and visits system, and social unrest and the so-called stability issue. To highlight the public intellectual dimension of Yus work, we have selected some of his articles from traditional media; speeches that he has made and that have been circulated on the Internet; public debates with officials, scholars, and foreigners; and interactions with netizens on Sina Weibo.

'Disappearing' China's Human Rights Lawyers

This chapter discusses the techniques used by the state to control Chinese human rights lawyers, in particular those working in criminal defence. It argues that in assessing criminal justice and other centrally important law reform projects designed to establish rule of law in China, we must pay adequate attention to what is happening outside the bureaucratic and institutional frameworks of such reform projects. It is very important to conduct empirical research that captures what the broader everyday system does; how, for instance, it is affected by new rules against coerced confessions. But we should also study the measures adopted by the police and other authorities against human rights lawyers. These lawyers’ main goals – albeit not necessarily their methods - are similar to the ones the officially endorsed reform measures purport to realize. Both officially endorsed reform projects and human rights lawyers appear committed to achieving better protection of the rights of the accused and other participants in the criminal process, reducing wrongful convictions, eradicating torture, and so on. As measures against human rights lawyers are taken by the very authorities in charge of the criminal justice system, these measures must be part of the system under our observation.