HRIC Weekly Brief
August 5, 2025
Top News 头条
This week, mass protests erupted in Jiangyou, Sichuan, after a brutal school bullying case reportedly implicated local police in a cover-up. After police forcibly dispersed a protest in support of the victim’s family, protestors continued to take to the streets to demonstrate their displeasure with the authorities, singing the national anthem in solidarity. They were met with brutal crowd-control methods including beating and pepper spray, leaving some protestors bloody. Police also launched “sweeping operations” at various public venues across Jiangyou to check citizens’ phones and IDs. These events were initially reported on social media, but videos on Chinese platforms were quickly deleted as the authorities attempt to censor the topic. However, independent news accounts such as “Yesterday” and “Teacher Li” stepped in to preserve and share the videos coming out of Sichuan, while HRIC’s post summarizing the events gained 1.3 million impressions in only 24 hours. These numbers highlight the recent loss of several Asia-focused media platforms such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, which had filled a need for rapid reporting on events such as mass protests. To view the footage in approximate chronological order, see Yesterday’s documentary video on the protests.
Last week also brought the first known arrest under Macau's national security law, when former pro-democracy lawmaker Au Kam San was detained and accused of "collusion" with overseas organizations. Several days prior, Au had publicly criticized Macau's "patriots only" election policy. The arrest of Au marks the first application of the National Security Law in the Macau Special Administrative Region since its adoption in 2009. Unlike Hong Kong, the democratic opposition in Macau has always existed on the fringes amid tight Chinese control. The European Union has condemned Au’s arrest, saying that it “adds to the existing concerns about the erosion of political pluralism and freedom of speech” in Macau.
Law & Policy 法律与政策
NPC Calendar: August 2025: The 14th National People’s Congress Standing Committee will convene for its seventeenth session in late August. Meanwhile, the Council of Chairpersons is expected to meet in mid-August to decide on the agenda and dates of the session.
"Invisible Legislators" at the Legislative Affairs Commission of China's National Legislature: The Legislative Affairs Commission (LAC), a “working body” of the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee, is a bureaucratic, closed-door organization that does not officially carry legal authority. Yet, recent changes to the “recording and review” process have given the LAC the authority to issue guiding opinions on law that have been followed by the courts. Here, Changhao Wei and Taige Hu provide an updated analysis on the role of the LAC.
Cyber Security & Digital Rights 网络安全与数字权利
How China Sees AI Safety: Despite a growing sense that China’s AI safety standards are merging with the international consensus, the reality is that China’s AI safety standards focus on the CCP’s political needs rather than internationally prioritized risks such as suicidality or radicalization. Sample safety questions issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China this year “include tests for awareness that advocating for human rights can be a threat to state power, that the democratization process in Taiwan is ‘undermining national unity,’ that academic research or public artwork could be a form of ‘terrorism and extremism,’ and that negative international public opinion on China can be a national security risk.”
Chinese digital propaganda in Central America: A new report by the Central American think tank Expediente Abierto and the Latin American digital research media outlet ProBox, aims to identify the most influential pro-China narratives in the digital environments of Panama, El Salvador, and Costa Rica, and to map the key actors involved in their dissemination and amplification.
Diaspora Community & Transnational Repression 海外社群和跨国镇压
Hong Kong democracy campaigner accuses UK police of asking her to ‘self-censor’: UK police told Hong Kong activist in exile Carmen Lau to sign a document agreeing to self-censor and stop attending public events after she was targeted by a transnational repression letter campaign, thus silencing the victim rather than protecting her right to speech.
UK academics studying topics sensitive to China face harassment, survey finds: A survey of China scholars in the UK found that academics working on “sensitive” subjects face pressure from administrators and funders and harassment from colleagues and strangers. “One academic said they had faced pressure to remove teaching elements that could offend nationalist Chinese students and had been asked by funders whether planned research would offend the Chinese government. The same academic said their university’s recruitment team had received threats from the Chinese government in relation to their sensitive research.”
Related: China-backed centres at UK universities under threat from new free speech laws: New rules in the UK forbid universities from allowing foreign states to vet employees, such as by imposing an ideological test, as is typically used by Confucius Institutes.
Hong Kong cancels passports and bans financial support for 16 overseas activists: The activists had already been targeted by bounties on suspicion of endangering national security.
Hackers, secret cables and security fears: The explosive fight over China's new embassy in the UK: Concerns around plans for the new “mega-embassy” include that the Royal Mint Court site could be used to detain political opponents, as a base for transnational repression campaigns, or to tap into fiber optic cables carrying sensitive data for London financial firms.
Human Rights Defenders & Civil Society 人权捍卫者与公民社会
INTERSECTIONS | July 31, 2025: The stories in this edition take a closer look at the troubling issue of online harassment aimed at women in China, particularly through the spreading of sexual rumors and the creation of groups on private messaging apps sharing non-consensual intimate images of Chinese women.
Related: Anger grows in China over reports of online groups sharing explicit photos of women: Chinese law punishes the dissemination of secretly filmed material as an obscenity offence rather than a violation of women’s rights. As noted by many commenters, the penalty for taking pictures of someone without their consent is only up to 10 days’ detention and a 500 yuan fine.
Man found guilty of desecrating Chinese, Hong Kong flags seeks to overturn conviction at city’s apex court: Wong Chun-lok was alleged to have publicly and intentionally desecrated a national flag and four Hong Kong flags on October 1, 2022. Hong Kong amended the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance in September 2021, which outlaws the desecration of the Chinese national flag and national emblem on the internet.
Hong Kong university student found guilty of insulting national anthem during World Cup qualifier: Lau Pun-hei had turned his back to the pitch while the Chinese national anthem, “March of the Volunteers,” played ahead of the match at Hong Kong Stadium on June 6, 2024. Hong Kong passed the National Anthem Ordinance in 2020, which criminalizes “insulting behavior” towards the anthem.
Pink Dot – Hong Kong’s largest LGBTQ event – cancelled after organiser denied West Kowloon venue: No explanation was given as to why the venue could not be rented. The October event would have been the 11th year that Pink Dot was held in Hong Kong.
‘We are not idealists’: Hong Kong activists face tough compromise over LGBTQ rights blueprint: Hong Kong’s LGBTQ community has reluctantly rallied behind a government plan to expand rights for some same-sex couples, which only covers those whose unions are registered abroad. LGBTQ Hong Kongers will still be unable to marry, adopt children, or access some spousal entitlements such as prison visits.
China’s Reach & Internal Control 中国: 内控与外扩
No Passports, No Study Abroad: China Limits Public Employees’ Travel: In order to enforce “political discipline,” many government employees—a huge category of workers, including kindergarten teachers, nurses, professors, and construction contractors—have been banned from traveling outside China without prior approval, with some even required to hand in their travel documents. In some areas, local authorities have imposed further limits on movement, such as a ban on gathering in groups of more than three.
Construction on Tibetan Megadam Fuels Ecological and Social Concerns: Construction on the Tibetan megadam along Yarlung Tsangpo River in southeastern Tibet, which would be the world’s largest hydropower dam, has now begun. In addition, there are reports that teams have been deployed to carry out “ideological work” among Tibetan villages that will be displaced as a result of additional planned dams.
Hong Kong public universities sign new accountability agreement requiring alignment with Xi’s remarks: According to the new agreement, Hong Kong universities “should also strive to follow the advice and guidance of the Central Government on the future of Hong Kong, particularly in light of the ‘four musts’ and ‘four proposals,’ and observe President Xi Jinping’s remark on creating strong impetus for Hong Kong’s growth and nurturing young talents for Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity.”
International Responses 国际反应
UK to ‘never allow’ political extradition of Hongkongers after alarm over law changes: Dan Harvis, security minister of the UK, said the country would “never” allow Hongkongers to be extradited for political reasons, after activists raised the alarm over changes to the Extradition Act that would remove Hong Kong from the Act in favor of cooperating with Hong Kong on a “case-by-case ad hoc basis.”
U.S. bill targets Chinese repression of Uyghurs: The measure, part of a set of bills, would expand sanctions under a previous law to include actions like forced family separations and organ harvesting. It would also deny entry to the U.S. for people found to have participated in forced abortions or sterilizations.
Chinese woman becomes third person charged under Australia’s foreign interference laws: The woman, also an Australian permanent resident, was charged in a Canberra court with covertly gathering information about a local branch of the Buddhist association Guan Yin Citta on behalf of the Public Security Bureau of China.
Current Events 热点新闻
Chinese official makes rare admission of failings over deadly Beijing floods: The comments of Yu Weiguo, a Communist party secretary for Miyun, are a rare admission of weaknesses in the authorities’ preparedness for extreme weather events, which are becoming more common.
Related: After the flood: Beijing residents left to count the cost with little state support. Beijing residents received text messages from the local authorities warning them about the risks of landslides and flash floods but the advice was not specific, and others in Miyun said they did not receive or notice the warnings.