China toughens national security 10 years after ‘709’ crackdown
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By KENJI KAWASE
Originally published by NIKKEI Asia on July 9, 2025
Widespread repression of human rights lawyers extends to further restraints
TOKYO — In the decade since China’s widespread crackdown on human rights lawyers and advocates, Beijing has enhanced the national security apparatus to further suppress civil society.
“No Chinese authorities have been held accountable for grave rights abuses against lawyers and human rights defenders, emboldening the government to commit increasingly widespread and systematic human rights violations,” read a joint statement from 31 organizations defending human rights, including Amnesty International, Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders and Lawyers for Lawyers.
The statement was released Monday ahead of the 10th anniversary of the crackdown across China that began on July 9, 2015.
That day, now dubbed the “709” crackdown by rights groups, saw the detention of over 300 lawyers across mainland China, followed by a series of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions.
The joint statement called on “concerned governments and the United Nations [to] establish an independent, international investigation into Beijing’s persecution of civil society.”
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based nonprofit think tank, describes the clampdown as “an important turning point for the rule of law in China, as well as the country’s evolving political system and its development path. Ten years later, the events of 709 continue to shape Chinese society, politics, and legal institutions.”
Many of the detained lawyers and advocates were handed heavy sentences under various “national security” charges.
Lawyer Zhou Shifeng, then the head of the Beijing Fengrui law firm, was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of “subversion of state power.” He was a central figure in the weiquan yundong, or rights defense movement, which sprouted in the 2000s as lawyers, intellectuals, activists and journalists began challenging state authority through legal channels.
As the Chinese Constitution enshrines various rights and freedoms on paper, the movement aimed to use these legal guarantees as tools to protect citizens from forced land and property seizures, arbitrary detentions, environmental damage and other abuses. Their efforts achieved partial success.
Zhou’s firm, which was shut down in 2018, was known for defending a number of sensitive human rights cases, including those victims of the melamine-tainted infant formula scandal, Falun Gong practitioners, and dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who now lives in Europe.
On top of official arrests and sentencing, authorities have employed other methods of repression, such as secret detentions under the “residential surveillance at a designated location” (RSDL) system, which has been widely used by the police.
A report published by a group of U.N. human rights experts in March 2020 officially acknowledged RSDL as “a form of enforced disappearance.” The system is used by the Chinese authorities to “circumvent ordinary processes provided for by the criminal law and detain individuals in an undisclosed location for up to six months, without trial or access to a lawyer. This puts individuals at heightened risk of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” the report said.
The crackdown has not only targeted lawyers and advocates but has also affected their family members and associates, amounting to what rights group call “collective punishment.”
According to Monday’s joint statement, in addition to serving prison sentences, many individuals “still face daily police surveillance, harassment leading to loss of housing and employment, restrictions on children accessing education, and exit bans that prevent them from leaving the country.”
“The impact of ‘709’ on me is everywhere,” a wife of a lawyer detained in the crackdown is quoted as saying in the joint statement. “There are high-definition cameras installed outside the entrance of our unit. I cannot get a job and lost my part-time job after national security police spoke to my employer. We were driven away from our rental home after police told the neighbors we are ‘traitors.'”
Under President Xi Jinping, China has firmly prioritized national security, using it to justify an intensified crackdown on civil society since he assumed leadership of the Communist Party in the fall of 2012.
In April 2014, Xi introduced the concept of a “holistic approach to national security” that extended beyond the three traditional pillars: political, military and homeland. Brought under the umbrella of national security were 17 additional “non-traditional factors,” such as the economy, finance, culture, science and technology.
The importance of national security was further elevated in October 2022, when it was included as an independent section in Xi’s report as general secretary at the Communist Party Congress, the first time this had occurred at the gathering held every five years.
“National security is the bedrock of national rejuvenation, and social stability is a prerequisite for building a strong and prosperous China,” Xi declared. He stressed the need to “resolutely pursue” the holistic approach to national security and to “promote national security in all areas and stages of the work of the Party and the country, so as to ensure national security and social stability.”
While cracking down on human rights lawyers and advocates, Beijing has broadened the scope of repression over the last decade to include allegations of abuses against Uyghur minorities. In its August 2022 report, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded that “serious human rights violations” have been committed.
The attack on various freedoms in Hong Kong since the imposition of the national security law in June 2020 has effectively terminated activities there supporting fair treatment for mainland lawyers. Many Hong Kong lawyers involved as rights defenders, such as Albert Ho Chun-yan and Chow Hang-tung, had also been rounded up and imprisoned ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 709 crackdown.
“The Chinese government under Xi Jinping has sought to eradicate the influence of lawyers who defend people’s rights while compelling the rest of the legal profession to serve the Chinese Communist Party’s political agenda,” said Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch. The U.S.-based rights advocacy group highlights that the Chinese authorities have been pressuring the legal community to show “absolute loyalty” to the CCP, requiring law firms to establish party cells and adhere to party leadership.
For China’s government, it has marked a different 10th anniversary. Its national security law was enacted on July 1, 2015, just days before the 709 crackdown.
Liu Haixing, deputy head in charge of daily operations at the Central National Security Committee Office, praised the legislation for “opening a brand-new chapter” in the country’s national security legislative framework. In an article published in the People’s Daily on July 1, he hailed the fact that China now has over 40 laws and 60 administrative regulations specifically addressing national security, along with over 200 other laws and regulations containing national security provisions.