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1 1 (January 13, 2021)

handle is hein.crs/govebrl0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service Inforrning the legislative debate since 1914 Updated January 13, 2021 Human Rights in China Over thirty years after the June 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Communist Party of China (CCP) remains firmly in power. The U.S. Department of State describes the People's Republic of China (PRC) as an authoritarian state. PRC leaders have maintained political control through a mix of repression and responsiveness to some public preferences, delivering economic prosperity to many citizens, co-opting the middle and educated classes, and stoking nationalism to bolster CCP legitimacy. The party is particularly vigilant against unsanctioned collective activity among sensitive groups, such as religious groups and ethnic minorities, labor organizations, political dissidents, and human rights activists. The U.S. government employs various policy tools to support human rights in China (see Selected U.S. Policy Tools below). Since 2019, the United States has imposed visa, economic, and trade-related sanctions and restrictions on some PRC officials and entities, particularly in response to reports of mass detentions and forced labor of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province. These measures have been implemented pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930, Export Administration Regulations, and other authorities. Trends Since consolidating power as CCP General Secretary and State President in 2013, Xi Jinping has accelerated the party's reassertion of control over society that began toward the end of the leadership term of his predecessor, Hu Jintao. In 2015, the government detained more than 250 human rights lawyers and activists. Authorities charged and convicted more than a dozen of them of disturbing social order, subversion, and other crimes, and continue to harass and silence a shrinking number of rights lawyers and activists. Since 2017, the PRC government has enacted laws and policies that enhance the legal authority of the state to counter potential ideological, social, political, and security challenges, including the Law on Overseas Nongovernmental Organizations, the Cybersecurity Law, and the National Intelligence Law. In 2018, Xi backed a constitutional amendment removing the previous limit of two five-year-terms for the presidency, clearing the way for him potentially to stay in power indefinitely. PRC methods of social and political control are evolving to include sophisticated technologies. The government is developing a social credit system that aggregates data on individuals' credit scores, consumer behavior, internet use, and criminal records, and scores citizens' trustworthiness. China has deployed tens of millions of surveillance cameras, as well as facial, voice, iris, and gait recognition equipment, to reduce crime generally as well as to track the movements of politically sensitive groups. Restrictions on Free Speech Since 2013, China has dropped four places, to 177 out of 180 countries, on Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index. The nongovernmental organization Freedom House has found China to have the worst conditions in the world for internet freedom for six consecutive years. The PRC government oversees one of the most extensive and sophisticated internet censorship systems in the world, including expansive censorship of domestic platforms and the blocking of over 20% of the world's most trafficked foreign websites. State authorities and private companies also monitor and regulate social media use in order to prevent sensitive topics and information from being discussed and disseminated. The COVID-19 outbreak centered in Wuhan, China, in December 2019-March 2020, highlighted the extent and the costs of the lack of freedom of speech in China. After an initial burst of online reporting by ordinary citizens about events in Wuhan, including criticism of government actions and its silencing of whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang, censors began to block social media posts about the coronavirus. Authorities detained several citizen journalists for posting unauthorized reports or sensitive commentary, and in December 2020, a Shanghai court sentenced former lawyer Zhang Zhan to four years in prison for crimes related to her videos and social media posts about the coronavirus and lockdown in Wuhan. Arbitrary Arrest The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a human rights organization, lists roughly two-dozen high profile cases of arbitrary arrest of political dissidents and rights defenders and activists since the beginning of 2019. The Dui Hua Foundation, a nonprofit organization, has compiled information on over 7,500 political and religious prisoners in China as of September 2020 (not including Uyghurs detained in reeducation facilities in Xinjiang). Religious and Ethnic Minority Policies In 2016, Xi Jinping launched a policy known as Sinicization, by which China's religious practitioners and ethnic minorities are required to assimilate or conform to tps://crsreports.congress.qo

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