Five Ways China Has Become More Repressive

Time.com reports,

Respect for human-rights and rule of law have deteriorated markedly during the term of Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a new U.S. government report.  The report blames an ideological tightening within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a slowing economy brings the legitimacy of its rule into focus.

The almost 80,000-word bipartisan U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) 2016 report, released Thursday (October 6, 2016) morning, raises long-festering issues.

The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China notes a broad corrosion of freedoms. It points out the reinforcement of the supremacy of the CCP under Xi’s leadership.  It notes the deleterious consequences for civil society, media freedom, labor rights and judicial due process.

“Xi has overseen a deterioration in human-rights and rule of law conditions in China marked by greater consolidation of his own power — leading some analysts to draw comparisons to Mao Zedong — through forced ideological conformity and the systematic persecution of human rights lawyers and defenders,” says the CECC report.

Here are five areas the CECC deems to be of particular concern.

1. Rule of Law: China is using the law as a means to expand control over Chinese society while disregarding the law when it does not accommodate Party imperatives or advance Party objectives.”

2. Civil Society:  The party is “determined to clamp down on any civil society that they deem to be a threat,” says William Nee, Hong Kong researcher for Amnesty International. “But what they consider to be a threat is really open to interpretation.”

3. Labor Rights: As China’s economic growth slows, labor protests are increasing, especially in the construction and manufacturing industries.  In reply, the government has cracked down on labor advocacy.

4. Media: The Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index has ranked China 176 out of 180 countries.  The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks China as “the world’s worst jailer of the press” for the second year in a row.

5. Nationalism:  Increasingly, CCP directives exhibit a nationalist bent. There has been a clampdown on religious organizations deemed to be not under state control. An estimated 1,500 crosses from the steeples of churches have been removed, even though the churches were state-sanctioned. Some 20 churches have been completely demolished.

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Source:  Charlie Campbell, Time.com.  
Be sure to watch the video: China's Most Powerful Man: Xi Jinping attached to this article.