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Updated September 20, 2023
China Primer: Human Rights
Overview
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 20th Central Committee of the CPC selected Xi to
serve a norm-breaking, third, 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 Muslim minority residents in the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region (XUAR). Notable legislation includes
the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA; P.L.
117-78), which restricts XUAR-related imports. The United
States and some other governments have condemned
China's policies and actions in Xinjiang, stating that they
constitute crimes against humanity and genocide.
2022 Anti-Government Protests
For several days in November 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 COVID-19
controls. Some articulated broader political demands
around issues such as free expression and democracy. The
CPC vowed to resolutely crack down on infiltration and
sabotage activities by hostile forces. The party-state
suppressed the expanding protest movement by deploying
police patrols in major cities, detaining and interrogating
some participants (possibly with the aid of cell phone
location data and facial recognition cameras), spot-checking
people's phones for politically-related content and
unapproved apps, and censoring social media. The
government abandoned strict COVID-19 policies less than
two weeks after the protests began.
Selected Human Rights Issues
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 scinl nactivism The PRC oversees one
of the most extensive 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.
Accoramg to mne iuepartment 01 mate, [rxu iaw grants
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 and adherents, rights lawyers
and activists, independent journalists, and former political
prisoners and their family members for arbitrary detention
or arrest. The nonprofit Dui Hua Foundation has compiled a
list of over 7,500 cases of political and religious prisoners
in China. 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.
Religious and Ethnic Minority Polkcies
In 2016, Xi Jinping launched a policy known as
Sinicization, by which the CPC requires religious and
ethnic minorities 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 mandating 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
enacted regulations in 2022 that restrict internet use by
religious groups and online worship among unregistered
churches. The government has continued to arrest 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).
Since 2018, the PRC government has required Tibetan
monks and nuns to undergo education in CPC ideology and
to demonstrate political reliability. PRC authorities have
intensified inspections of Tibetans' mobile phones and
homes for pictures of the Dalai Lama, which are forbidden.
Some reports suggest that a growing percentage of Tibetan
political detainees are ordinary religious believers rather
than leaders. The government has resettled many Tibetan](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/govemxj0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)