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![handle is hein.crs/govejqg0001 and id is 1 raw text is: China Primer: Human Rights
The U.S. Department of State describes the People's
Republic of China (PRC, or China) as an authoritarian
state in which the Communist Party of China [CPC] is the
paramount authority. Some analysts argue China has been
moving in a totalitarian direction, as it is characterized by a
leadership that is dominated by one person, CPC General
Secretary Xi Jinping, increasing enforcement of ideological
conformity, and greater party-state control over society
enhanced by the use of digital technologies. In October
2022, the 20t Central Committee of the CPC selected Xi to
serve a norm-breaking tird five-year term.
The U.S. government employs various policy tools to
support human rights in China, and has increasingly
imposed relevant visa, economic, and trade-related
sanctions and restrictions, particularly in response to reports
of mass detentions and forced labor of ethnic Uyghur and
other Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
(XUAR). Recent legislation includes the Uyghur Forced
Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA; P.L. 117-78), which
restricts XUAR-related imports. The United States and
some other countries have condemned China's policies and
actions in Xinjiang, stating that they constitute crimes
against humanity and genocide.
Sporadic protests related to Xi Jinping's stringent
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVJD-19) policies emerged in
the Spring of 2022. For several days beginning on
November 26, 2022, Chinese university students and others
participated in demonstrations in Shanghai, Beijing, and
over a dozen other cities in China. The gatherings
apparently were triggered by a deadly apartment fire in
Urumqi, Xinjiang that demonstrators blamed on zero-
COVID measures, including the blocking of entrances and
exits of residential buildings. Many participants demanded
the government loosen COVJD-19 controls, while some
articulated broader political demands around issues such as
free expression and democracy.
The demonstrations were highly unusual in China for being
national in character and scope, directly challenging the
CPC and top leaders, and galvanizing a relatively broad
swath of society. Some observers compared them to the
1989 democracy movement, which ended in a violent
military crackdown. The government detained some
protesters, deployed police patrols, checked people's
phones for politically-related content and unapproved apps,
and censored social media except for commentary critical
of the demonstrations. The CPC vowed to resolutely crack
down on infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile
forces, while various cities began to loosen COVJD-19
control measures.
December 6, 2022
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Under Xi's leadership, China has further restricted and
suppressed civil society, religious groups, human rights
defenders, speech, the press, and academic discourse. The
party-state has closed much of the space that had previously
existed for limited social activism. The PRC oversees one
of the most extensive and stringent internet censorship
systems in the world, which includes blocking major
foreign news and social media sites, censoring domestic
social media platforms, and banning foreign messaging
apps. A locally-produced online video (Voices of April)
depicting the 2022 COVJD-19 lockdown in Shanghai
circulated widely before authorities blocked it.
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public security officers broad administrative detention
powers and the ability to detain individuals for extended
periods without formal arrest or criminal charges and
police target religious leaders, rights lawyers and activists,
independent journalists, and former political prisoners and
their family members for arbitrary detention or arrest. The
nonprofit Dui Hua Foundation compiled a list of over 7,600
cases of political and religious prisoners in China in 2022.
PRC leaders long have asserted that human rights standards
vary by country, that economic development is a key
human right, and that a country's human rights policies are
an internal affair.
Rehiou and EtncFioit olce
In 2016, Xi Jinping launched a policy known as
Sinicization, by which China's religious and ethnic
minorities are required to assimilate or conform to
majority Han Chinese culture as defined by the CPC and
adhere to core socialist values. The PRC government has
implemented policies in Tibetan areas, Xinjiang, and Inner
Mongolia requiring that nearly all primary school courses
be taught in Mandarin rather than in minority languages.
Since 2018, new regulations require religious organizations
to obtain government permission for nearly every aspect of
their operations, submit to greater state supervision, and
register all clergy in a national database. The government
has continued to pressure unofficial Christian congregations
to register wit the state and to persecute practitioners of
the Falun Gong spiritual exercise. The State Department
has consistently designated China as a Country of
Particular Concern for particularly severe violations of
religious freedom under the International Religious
Freedom Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-292).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/govejqg0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)