China tightens grip on civil society amid escalating crackdowns: Report

Naypyidaw, Jan 9 (LatestNewsX) Despite repeated warnings from International organisations, the space for civil society in China is shrinking rapidly, while opportunities for resistance or redress are disappearing. The latest crackdowns by Chinese authorities depict a state increasingly intolerant of autonomy in any form, with society living under growing fear, silence, and coerced conformity, a report said on Friday.

“Fresh crackdowns sweeping across China are reigniting global alarm, as human rights groups warn that civil liberties inside the country are shrinking to levels unseen in years. From labour activists and student protesters to lawyers, religious believers, and online commentators, an ever-widening range of citizens is finding itself caught in a tightening web of surveillance, arbitrary detention, and opaque legal punishment under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” a report in Myanmar media outlet ‘Mizzima News’ detailed.

“What is emerging is not a series of isolated incidents, but a systemic pattern of repression that has become increasingly normalised—and increasingly hidden—from public view,” it added.

Citing rights advocates, the report said that the human rights situation in China has worsened significantly, marked by the frequent denial of due process and the use of ambiguous criminal charges to suppress dissent.

“The recent upholding of a three-year prison sentence against labour-rights advocate Xing Wangli in Henan province is emblematic. Convicted of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble,’ a catch-all charge frequently deployed against critics of the state, Xing was transferred to prison shortly after the verdict. According to his family, he was held incommunicado throughout his detention, denied contact with lawyers and relatives,” it mentioned.

“This was not his first imprisonment; Xing has now spent more than a decade behind bars across multiple sentences, underscoring what rights groups describe as a deliberate pattern of repeat targeting rather than legitimate law enforcement,” it further said.

According to the ‘Mizzima News’ report, the reach of CCP pressure extends beyond borders as Xing’s son, in New Zealand, highlighted how the intimidation overseas underscores its transnational efforts to silence dissent

“The message is unmistakable: political activism, even when peaceful or legally framed, carries lifelong consequences,” it noted.

The report stressed that human rights lawyers, once considered a fragile line of defence within China’s legal system, are under growing pressure, and the profession remains under siege nearly a decade after the mass detention of lawyers in the 2015 “709 crackdown.”

“Activists, students, lawyers, believers, and online users are all subject to the same underlying logic: loyalty to the party supersedes individual rights, and any challenge — however mild or symbolic — can be recast as a threat to stability,” it stressed.

scor/as