About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


1 [1] (February 24, 2026)

handle is hein.crs/govetkc0001 and id is 1 raw text is: China Primer: Human Rights Over ew The People's Republic of China (PRC or China)'s party- state is an authoritarian regime that has become increasingly repressive in recent years, according to the nongovernmental human rights organization Freedom House. Some analysts argue China has moved in a totalitarian direction. The party-state is dominated by Xi Jinping, who became Communist Party of China (CPC) General Secretary in 2012 and began a norm-breaking third five-year term in 2022. Xi has attempted to enforce greater ideological and cultural conformity and tighter control over society, aided by digital technologies. 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. Amid apparent deepening repression in China, U.S. policymakers have implemented measures intended to deter PRC human rights abuses, prevent U.S. complicity in such abuses, and/or hold perpetrators accountable. Since 2020, U.S. actions have focused, in particular, on responding to reports of mass detentions and forced labor of ethnic Uyghur and other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and elsewhere in China. The U.S. Department of State first assessed in January 2021 that PRC policies and practices in the XUAR constitute crimes against humanity and genocide, and reaffirmed this assessment most recently in its annual human rights reports covering 2024 (the department has not yet released human rights reports covering 2025). In the PRC's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), measures adopted by both central PRC and local HKSAR authorities have eroded Hong Kong residents' civil rights and stifled the city's civic culture and media. See CRS In Focus IF12070, China Primer: Hong Kong. Selected Human ihts ssues Under Xi's leadership, China has further restricted and suppressed civil society, religious and ethnic minority groups, human rights defenders, speech, and media. The party-state has closed much of the space that previously had existed for limited social activism. The PRC oversees one of the most extensive internet censorship systems in the world, which blocks major foreign news and social media sites, censors domestic social media platforms, and bans foreign messaging apps. According to the U.S. Department of State, arbitrary arrest, detention, and enforced disappearance are systemic in China, and police target religious leaders and adherents, rights lawyers and activists, independent journalists, and dissidents and their family members. As of March 2025, the nonprofit Dui Hua Foundation identified 7,157 active cases of political prisoners in China. Updated February 24, 2026 Civ and Po t cal Rights The PRC constitution provides for many civil and political rights, including the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, and demonstration. Other provisions in China's constitution and laws, however, circumscribe or place conditions on these freedoms, and the state routinely restricts these freedoms in practice. Popular protests in China are common and often focused on local and/or economic grievances. China Dissent Monitor, a Freedom House initiative that tracks protest activities in China, identified 5,014 instances of dissent in 2025. Protests in China generally are quashed before becoming widespread, highly publicized demonstrations. One exception was in 2022, when people across the country protested COVID-19 lockdown conditions and the government's suppression of information and speech. Following the protests, the CPC cracked down on the budding protest movement, but also moved quickly to end lockdown measures. Rights of Relgious and Ethnic Minorities The Department of State 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, as amended). In 2016, Xi 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 mandated, for example, that schools and other institutions use Mandarin rather than minority languages. Since 2018, regulations have required religious organizations to obtain government permission for nearly every aspect of their operations, submit to greater state supervision, and register clergy in a national database. The government enacted regulations in 2022 to restrict internet use and online worship among religious groups. The government has continued to arrest and to persecute practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual exercise. Tibetans: Human rights issues in Tibetan areas of China include religious and political repression, forced assimilation, and the incarceration of hundreds of political prisoners. Since 2018, the PRC government has required Tibetan monks and nuns to undergo education in CPC ideology and demonstrate political reliability. Authorities have arbitrarily detained and imprisoned hundreds of Tibetan writers, intellectuals, and cultural figures on broad charges of separatism. PRC assimilation policies in Tibetan areas have included resettling and urbanizing nomads and farmers, policies that include elements of forced labor, according to some reports.