China (Includes Hong Kong and Macau)

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2001
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
March 4, 2002

(Note: Also see the report for Hong Kong and the report for Macau.)

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the paramount source of power. At the national and regional levels, Party members hold almost all top Government, police, and military positions. Ultimate authority rests with members of the Politburo. Leaders stress the need to maintain stability and social order and are committed to perpetuating the rule of the CCP and its hierarchy. Citizens lack both the freedom peacefully to express opposition to the Party-led political system and the right to change their national leaders or form of government. Socialism continues to provide the theoretical underpinning of national politics, but Marxist ideology has given way to economic pragmatism and economic decentralization has increased the authority of local officials. The Party's authority rests primarily on the Government's ability to maintain social stability, appeals to nationalism and patriotism, Party control of personnel, media, and the security apparatus, and the continued improvement in the living standards of most of the country's citizens. The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary; however, in practice, the Government and the CCP, at both the central and local levels, frequently interfere in the judicial process, and the Party and the Government direct verdicts in many high-profile political cases.

The security apparatus is made up of the Ministries of State Security and Public Security, the People's Armed Police, the People's Liberation Army, and the state judicial, procuratorial, and penal systems. Security policy and personnel were responsible for numerous human rights abuses.

The country's transition from a centrally planned to a market-based economy continues. Though state-owned industry remains dominant in key sectors, the Government has privatized many small and medium state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and allowed private entrepreneurs increasing scope for economic activity. A 1999 constitutional amendment officially recognized the role of the private sector in the economy, and private firms now contribute 30 to 40 percent of yearly gross domestic product (GDP) growth. On July 1, in a move criticized by hard-line Communists, CCP Secretary General Jiang Zemin indicated that the Chinese Communist Party should be open to individuals, including entrepreneurs, regardless of their wealth. The country has large industrial and agricultural sectors and is a leading producer of coal, steel, textiles, and grains. Major exports include electronic goods, toys, apparel, and plastics. The country completed all of the preconditions for accession to the World Trade Organization during the year. Trade and foreign investment are helping to modernize an already rapidly growing economy. The official GDP growth rate through the first half of the year was 7.3 percent; the population is approximately 1.3 billion.

The economy faces many challenges, including reform of SOEs and the banking system, growing unemployment and underemployment, the need to construct an effective social safety net, and regional economic disparities. In recent years, between 80 and 130 million persons voluntarily have left rural areas to search for better jobs and living conditions in the cities (the so-called "floating population"), where they do not enjoy the same economic and social benefits as urban residents. In the industrial sector, downsizing in SOEs continued, bringing the number of jobless urban workers to an estimated 15 million in an urban workforce of roughly 200 million. Industrial workers throughout the country continued to organize sporadically to protest layoffs and to demand payment of overdue wages and benefits. Income gaps between coastal and interior regions, and between urban and rural areas, continued to widen. Urban per capita income in 2000 was $759 (6280 RMB) and grew by 6.4 percent over the previous year. Rural per capita income was $278 (2300 RMB), an official growth rate of 4 percent. However, rising urban living standards, greater independence for entrepreneurs, and the expansion of the nonstate sector have increased workers' employment options and have significantly reduced state control over citizens' daily lives. The total number of citizens living in absolute poverty continues to decline. According to official statistics, 30 million persons live in poverty; the World Bank, using different criteria, estimates the number at 100-150 million persons.

The Government's human rights record throughout the year remained poor and the Government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses. Authorities still were quick to suppress any person or group, whether religious, political, or social, that they perceived to be a threat to government power, or to national stability, and citizens who sought to express openly dissenting political and religious views continued to live in an environment filled with repression. Overall, government respect for religious freedom remained poor and crackdowns against unregistered groups, including underground Protestant and Catholic groups, Muslim Uighurs, and Tibetan Buddhists continued. Several leaders of the unregistered South China Church were arrested in July and subsequently sentenced to death; some of those sentences were suspended and some were appealed. Also in July, authorities arrested Hong Kong businessman Li Guangqiang and charged him with smuggling for bringing Bibles into the country. Abuses included instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention, and denial of due process. Conditions at most prisons remained harsh. In many cases, particularly in sensitive political cases, the judicial system denies criminal defendants basic legal safeguards and due process because authorities attach higher priority to maintaining public order and suppressing political opposition than to enforcing legal norms or protecting individual rights. The Government infringed on citizens' privacy rights. The Government continued to implement its sometimes coercive policy to restrict the number of children a family may have. The Government maintained tight restrictions on freedom of speech and of the press and continued its efforts to control and monitor the Internet; self-censorship by journalists continued. The Government severely restricted freedom of assembly and continued to restrict freedom of association. The Government continued to restrict freedom of religion and intensified controls on some unregistered churches. The Government continued to restrict freedom of movement. Citizens do not have the right peacefully to change their Government. The Government does not permit independent domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) to monitor publicly human rights conditions. Violence against women (including imposition of a sometimes coercive birth control policy, including instances of forced abortion and forced sterilization); prostitution; discrimination against women; abuse of children; and discrimination against persons with disabilities and minorities are all problems. Particularly serious human rights abuses persisted in Tibet and in Xinjiang, where security tightened. The Government continued to restrict tightly worker rights, and forced labor in prison facilities remained a serious problem. Child labor exists and continues in rural areas as adult workers leave for better employment opportunities in urban areas. Trafficking in persons is a serious problem.

Arbitrary arrest and detention also remained serious problems. Because the Government tightly controls information, it is not possible accurately to determine the total number of persons subjected to new or continued arbitrary arrest or detention. According to international press reports, over 200,000 persons are serving sentences, not subject to judicial review, in reeducation-through-labor camps. Many thousands more remain incarcerated in prisons. The Government denied that it holds any political or religious prisoners, and asserted that authorities detained persons not for their political or religious views, but because they violated the law. However, the authorities continued to detain citizens for political and religious reasons. During the year, the Government used laws on subversion and endangering state security to threaten, arrest and imprison a wide range of political, religious, and labor activists and dissidents, including former Government officials, NGO organizers, activists for artistic freedom, and independent advocates for legal reform that directly and publicly opposed the Government and the CCP. After 2 years of intense repression marked by propaganda campaigns, beatings, and imprisonment, thousands of organizers and adherents of the banned Falun Gong (FLG) movement were in reeducation-through-labor camps or in prison, most without benefit of formal judicial process. Various sources reported that over 200 Falun Gong practitioners died in detention as a result of torture or mistreatment.

In 2000 officials stated that there were approximately 1,300 individuals in prisons serving sentences under the Law Against Counterrevolutionary Activity, a crime that no longer exists; many of these persons were imprisoned for the non-violent expression of their political views. According to Amnesty International (AI) 211 persons remain in prison for their activities during the June 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations. Since December 1998, at least 30 leaders of the China Democracy Party (CDP) have been given long prison sentences on subversion charges.

The authorities released a few political prisoners before their terms were over, notably Zhang Jie, Han Lifa, Guo Haifeng, Cao Maobing, and Ma Zhe. Others, such as CDP activist Zhou Yongjun, who was released in March, were released after completing their sentences. At year's end several thousand political prisoners--including Bishop An Shuxin, Cai Guihua, Han Chunsheng, Li Bifeng, Liu Jingsheng, Qin Yongmin, Shen Liangqing, Zha Jianguo, Wang Youcai, Xu Guoxing, Fang Jue, Xu Wenli, Zhang Lin, Zhang Shanguang, Zhao Changqing, Abbot Chadrel Rinpoche, Jigme Sangpo, and Ngawang Sangdrol (see Tibet addendum)--remained imprisoned or under other forms of detention for the peaceful expression of their political, social, or religious views. Some of those who completed their sentences and were released from prison were kept under surveillance and prevented from taking employment or otherwise resuming normal lives. Authorities also harassed and monitored the activities of dissident's relatives.

In April the Government began a national "strike-hard" campaign against crime. However, the campaign also has targeted some dissidents, separatists, and underground church members. The campaign has been vigorously carried out in Xinjiang, where those deemed to be "splittists" by the Government are targeted. The "strike-hard" campaign has been characterized by roundups of suspects and mass sentencing rallies. By the third quarter of the year, domestic press stories indicated that over 2,000 persons had been executed as part of the campaign. The Government regarded the number of death sentences it carried out as a state secret.

Unapproved religious groups, including Protestant and Catholic groups and members of nontraditional religious groups, continued to experience varying degrees of official interference, harassment, and repression. The Government continued to enforce regulations requiring all places of religious activity to register with the Government or come under the supervision of official, "patriotic" religious organizations. In some areas, authorities guided by national policy made strong efforts to control the activities of unapproved Catholic and Protestant churches; religious services were broken up and church leaders or adherents were harassed, and, at times, fined, detained, beaten, and tortured. At year's end, some religious adherents remained in prison because of their religious activities. In some regions with high concentrations of Catholics, relations between the Government and the underground church loyal to the Vatican remained tense. Relations varied greatly, with parishioners worshipping together in some districts and deep rifts in the Catholic community in other areas. In other regions, registered and unregistered churches were treated similarly by the authorities and reported little or no day-to-day interference in their activities. The human rights situation in Tibet remained poor, as the Government continued its campaign to reeducate monks and nuns with sympathies to the Dalai Lama. However, the enforcement of tight restrictions imposed on Tibetan Buddhists in the Tibet Autonomous Region in 2000 eased during the year. Local authorities forcibly relocated thousands of Tibetan Buddhist nuns and monks from the Serthar Tibetan Buddhist Institute in western Sichuan Province.

The Government strictly regulates the establishment and management of publications, controls the broadcast media, censors foreign television broadcasts, and at times jams radio signals from abroad. During the year, several publications were shut down or disciplined for publishing material deemed objectionable by the Government, and journalists, authors, and researchers were harassed, detained, and arrested by the authorities; several were fired. Nonetheless, journalists exposed a number of coverups and instances of official corruption during the year. The Government loosened up controls over cable TV, allowing subscribers in a number of cities to have uncensored access to foreign news programming. Despite the continued expansion of the Internet in the country, the Government maintained its efforts to monitor and control content on the Internet. Several new regulations regarding the Internet were issued, and many Web sites, including politically sensitive Web sites and foreign news Web sites, were shut down or blocked by the authorities.

The judiciary is not independent. During the year, the Government took steps to correct systemic weaknesses in judicial procedures and to make the system more accountable to public scrutiny; however, new regulations and policies passed in the past few years have not brought the country's criminal procedures into compliance with international standards, and the law routinely is violated in the cases of political dissidents and religious leaders and adherents. Nonetheless, the percentage of persons acquitted in criminal trials continued to grow and the Government took measures to make legal representation more affordable for the poor. The Government also remained open to U.N. organizations, Western governmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations that assist in reforming its judiciary. Some lawyers, law professors, and jurists continued publicly to press for a transparent system of discovery, abolition of coerced confessions, a presumption of innocence, an independent judiciary, the right to remain silent, and improved administrative laws giving citizens recourse against unlawful acts by the Government.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:

a. Arbitrary and Unlawful Deprivation of Life

The official press reported a number of extrajudicial killings, but no nationwide statistics were available. During the year, deaths in custody due to police use of torture to coerce confessions from criminal suspects continued to be a problem. According to a number of credible sources, scores of FLG adherents died while in police custody (see Section 2.c.). FLG adherent Zhang Shengfan was dragged from his home by local authorities in Shuangcheng City, Heilongjiang province in June. Three days later, he was declared dead at a local hospital. His family was not allowed to view the body, order an autopsy, or bury his remains. Local officials disposed of the body in an undisclosed location. Reliable reports from Western journalists allege that local officials in Shandong's Weifang City were responsible for beating to death FLG adherents at the rate of about one per month.

There continued to be numerous executions carried out after summary trials. Such trials often took place under circumstances where the lack of due process or a meaningful appeal bordered on extrajudicial killing. As part of the nationwide "strike hard" campaign, more than 2,000 executions were carried out after summary trials. The Government regarded the number of death sentences it carried out as a state secret. According to domestic press reports, on April 11 in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, 23 suspects were sentenced to death in front of 5,000 spectators. Seven of the condemned were immediately taken to an execution ground where they were shot.

b. Disappearance

There were no new reports of disappearances. However, the Government has not provided a comprehensive, credible accounting of all those missing or detained in connection with the suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations.

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The law prohibits torture; however, police and other elements of the security apparatus employ torture and degrading treatment in dealing with some detainees and prisoners. Human rights monitors reported a number of unconfirmed but credible cases of torture. The Prison Law prohibits prison guards extorting confessions by torture, insulting prisoners' dignity, and beating or encouraging others to beat prisoners. Senior officials acknowledge that torture and coerced confessions are chronic problems, but have not taken sufficient measures to end these practices. Former detainees and the press reported credibly that officials used electric shocks, prolonged periods of solitary confinement, incommunicado detention, beatings, shackles, and other forms of abuse. According to credible reports, Huang Qi was bound hand and foot and beaten by police in Chengdu while they tried to force him to confess to subversion. He lost several teeth and remains in poor health. Huang was the operator of an Internet site that posted information about missing persons, including students who disappeared in June 1989 in Tiananmen Square. There were numerous credible reports of abuse of FLG practitioners by the police and other security personnel, including police involvement in beatings, detention under extremely harsh conditions, and torture. Persons detained pending trial were particularly at risk during pretrial detention due to systemic weaknesses in the legal system or lack of implementation of the revised Criminal Procedure Law. Reports of torture increase during periodic "strike hard" campaigns in which police are encouraged to achieve quick results against crime, and such reports increased during the current "strike-hard" campaign, which began in April.

During the year, deaths in custody due to police use of torture to coerce confessions from criminal suspects continued to be a problem. According to press reports a 38-year-old handicapped factory worker from Shuangcheng, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, was dragged from his home and died in custody after being beaten by police. His family allegedly was not allowed to view the body or have an autopsy performed. The location of his remains is unknown (see Section 1.a.).

In June the influential magazine Outlook Weekly reported that police and investigators still routinely used torture to extract confessions. To curb the practice, the magazine called for the right to remain silent; the right for suspects to give direct testimony in their own trials; and the right for a defense attorney to be present during police questioning. In September 2000, the National People's Congress (NPC) carried out an independent study of the use of torture in Tianjin, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, Hebei, and Shaanxi between 1997 and 1999. The group discovered 221 cases of confessions coerced by torture, which had resulted in the deaths of 21 criminal suspects. Commenting on the study group's findings in December 2000, Hou Zongbin, chairman of the NPC's Judicial Affairs Committee, stated that while the 1997 Criminal Procedure Law had brought reforms to the criminal justice system, torture remained a systemic problem. During the year, officials in Liaoning Province began a pilot program instituting the right to remain silent in criminal trials as a way to combat torture.

There were many reports of persons, especially FLG adherents, sentenced to mental hospitals for expressing either their political or religious beliefs.

There were reports during the year that police sometimes used excessive force to break up demonstrations. Police also beat persons being arrested and persons in detention. Eyewitnesses have reported frequent abuse of FLG protesters as they were being detained.

Conditions in penal institutions for both political prisoners and common criminals generally are harsh and frequently degrading. Forced labor is common. Conditions in administrative detention facilities (including reeducation-through-labor camps and custody and repatriation centers) are similar to those in prisons. Prisoners and detainees often are kept in overcrowded conditions with poor sanitation, and their food often is inadequate and of poor quality. Many detainees reportedly rely on supplemental food and medicines provided by relatives; however, some prominent dissidents reportedly are not allowed to receive supplemental food or medicine from relatives. According to released political prisoners, it is standard practice for political prisoners to be segregated from each other and placed with common criminals. There are credible reports that common criminals have beaten political prisoners at the instigation of guards. Guards in custody and repatriation centers reportedly rely on "cell bosses" to maintain order; these individuals frequently beat other detainees and sometimes steal their possessions. The treatment of some prominent political prisoners, whose cases regularly are raised with authorities, sometimes improves. The 1994 Prison Law was designed, in part, to improve treatment of detainees and increase respect for their legal rights. The Government's stated goal is to convert one-half of the nation's prisons and reeducation-through-labor camps into "modernized, civilized" facilities by the year 2010. According to credible sources, persons held in these "model" prisons receive better treatment than those held in other prison facilities.

Adequate, timely medical care for prisoners continues to be a serious problem, despite official assurances that prisoners have the right to prompt medical treatment if they become ill. Credible reports indicate that as part of the "strike hard" campaign, jails have tightened access to medical parole. For example, reports indicate that 57 inmates died at Liaoning's Province's Tieling prison during the year compared to ten deaths in 2000. Seventy inmates had been released from Tieling on medical grounds in 2000, but only two were released during the year. Nutritional and health conditions can be grim. At year's end, political prisoners who reportedly had difficulties in obtaining medical treatment, despite repeated appeals on their behalf by their families and the international community, included: Xu Wenli, Gao Hongmin, Qin Yongmin, Wang Youcai, Chen Lantao, Chen Meng, Fang Jue, Hu Shigen, Kang Yuchun, Liu Jingsheng, Rebiya Kadeer, Jigme Sangpo, Ngawang Sangdrol, Wang Guoqi, and Zhang Shanguang. Ngawang Choephel was incarcerated in a facility near Chengdu in Sichuan Province throughout the year. According to government officials, he suffered from a variety of ailments, including digestive, urinary, kidney, and liver problems. Zhang Shanguang, who is serving a 10-year sentence for disclosing news of labor demonstrations to Radio Free Asia, is suffering from serious tuberculosis. Fang Jue suffers from leg and back problems; Xu Wenli has suffered from hepatitis. Hua Di, a Stanford researcher, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of revealing secrets of the country's missile program. He is suffering from cancer and was denied release on medical parole in April. Prison officials in Xinjiang have not allowed family members of businesswoman and prominent Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer to bring her medicine for heart disease since her arrest in August 1999. She is said to be in poor health, suffering from painful feet, blurred vision, and impaired hearing. There also are allegations that she has been abused physically. Officials reportedly have denied repeated requests for her to be hospitalized.

Forced labor in prisons and reeducation-through-labor camps is common. At one camp in the western part of the country, inmates are forced to work up to 16 hours per day breaking rocks or making bricks, according to credible reports. There were several deaths from overwork, poor medical care, and beatings by guards in 2000.

The Government does not permit independent monitoring of prisons or reeducation-through-labor camps, and prisoners remain largely inaccessible to international human rights organizations. However, foreign delegations have been allowed to visit "model" prisons. The Government continued its unofficial dialog on human rights and prisoner issues with a foreign-based human rights group. During the year, officials accepted lists from this group of several hundred names of political detainees, and provided detailed information on more than 50 cases, including several who were released prior to the completion of their sentences. The group's executive director visited the Tianjin Prison, a model facility, and Beijing Number Two Prison, a maximum security prison that holds most persons convicted of political offenses in Beijing. Talks with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on an agreement for ICRC access to prisons remained stalled.

d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

Arbitrary arrest and detention remain serious problems. The law permits the authorities in some circumstances to detain persons without arresting or charging them, and persons may be sentenced administratively to up to 3 years in reeducation-through-labor camps and other similar facilities without a trial. Because the Government tightly controls information, it is impossible to determine accurately the total number of persons subjected to new or continued arbitrary arrest or detention. Official government statistics report that in 1997 there were 230,000 persons in reeducation-through-labor camps. According to a March article by the official news agency, there are 300 reeducation-through-labor camps that have held over 3.5 million prisoners since 1957. It has been estimated that as many as 1.7 million persons per year were detained in a form of administrative detention known as custody and repatriation before 1996; the number of persons subject to this form of detention reportedly has grown since that time. According to reliable reports, the Government confined some FLG adherents, and some political, religious, and labor activists and dissidents to psychiatric hospitals; and has forced some to take drugs or submit to electric shock treatments. Another labor dissident, Wang Miaogen from Shanghai, who disappeared in 1999, is believed to be held in a psychiatric hospital. Although the crime of being a "counterrevolutionary" was removed from the criminal code in 1997, Western NGO's estimate as many as 1,300 persons remain in prison for the crime, and another 600 are serving sentences under the State Security Law, which covers the same crimes as the repealed section on "counterrevolution."

Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law abolished an often-criticized form of pretrial detention known as "shelter and investigation" that allowed police to detain suspects for extended periods without charge. Nonetheless, in some cases, police still unilaterally can detain a person for up to 37 days before releasing him or formally placing him under arrest. Once a suspect is arrested, the revised law allows police and prosecutors to detain him for months before trial while a case is being "further investigated." Few suspects are released on bail pending trial. Under the Criminal Procedure Law, detained criminal suspects, defendants, their legal representatives, and close relatives are entitled to apply for a guarantor to enable the suspect or defendant to await trial out of custody. In practice, officials usually do not agree. The Criminal Procedure Law also stipulates that authorities must notify a detainee's family or work unit of his detention within 24 hours. However, in practice, timely notification remains a serious problem, especially in sensitive political cases. Under a sweeping exception, officials need not provide notification if it would "hinder the investigation" of a case. Police continue to hold individuals without granting access to family or a lawyer, and trials continue to be conducted in secret.

A major flaw of the Criminal Procedure Law is that it does not address the reeducation-through-labor system. Defendants legally are entitled to challenge reeducation-through-labor sentences under the Administrative Litigation Law. Persons can gain a reduction in, or suspension of, their sentences after appeal; appeals usually are not successful, however, because of problems such as short appeal times and inadequate legal counsel, which weaken the effectiveness of the law in preventing or reversing arbitrary decisions. There have been cases of individuals successfully appealing their reeducation sentences through the courts, though the exact number of such cases is unknown.

The Criminal Procedure Law also does not address custody and repatriation, which allows the authorities to detain persons administratively without trial to "protect urban social order." Persons who may be detained under this provision include the homeless, the unemployed, petty criminals, and those without permission to live or work in urban areas; such persons may be returned to the locality in which they are registered. If the location to which they are to be repatriated cannot be determined, or if they cannot be repatriated for financial reasons, such persons may be sent to "resettlement farms." Those unable to work may be sent to "welfare centers." Until they are repatriated, those detained may be held in custody and repatriation centers, and may be required to pay for the cost of their detention and repatriation by working while in detention. Relatives and friends of detainees in these centers reportedly often are able to secure a detainee's release through the payment of a fee. Provincial regulations on custody and repatriation in some cases have expanded the categories of persons who may be detained. In Beijing, for example, those who may be detained specifically include the mentally ill and mentally disabled, and "those who should be taken into custody according to Government regulations." Many other persons are detained in similar forms of administrative detention, known as custody and education (for prostitutes and their clients) and custody and training (for minors who have committed crimes). Persons reportedly may be detained for long periods under these provisions, particularly if they cannot afford to pay for their release.

According to researchers, the country has 20 "ankang" institutions, directly administered by the Ministry of Public Security, in which dissidents and activists are housed with mentally ill patients. The regulations for committing a person into an ankang facility are not clear. Credible reports indicate a number of political or trade union dissidents, "underground" religious believers, and FLG adherents are incarcerated in such facilities. Wang Wanxing, who protested in Tiananmen Square in 1992, continued to be held in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Beijing (see Section 1.c.). In late 2000, labor activist Cao Maobing was detained and admitted against his will to a psychiatric hospital in Yanchong, Jiangsu province, where he reportedly also was forced to take medication against his will (see Section 6.a.). However, Cao was released in July. According to reliable reports, the Government confined hundreds of FLG adherents to psychiatric hospitals.

The campaign against the China Democracy Party, a would-be opposition party that began in 1998, continued during the year. Scores of CDP leaders, activists, and members have been arrested, detained, or confined as a result of this campaign. Since December 1998, at least 30 core leaders of the CDP have been given severe punishments on subversion charges. In what some experts have described as an attempt by authorities to tarnish the public image of the democracy movement, officials have accused a number of democracy activists of soliciting prostitutes, distributing pornographic videos, petty theft, or other crimes unrelated to their political activities. In March the vice-chairman of the CDP's Hubei province branch, Lu Xiaolan, was detained as he tried to organize a CDP meeting in Wuhan. In late December 2000, Shanghai-based Cai Guihua and Fu Shenping chose to go into exile after being harassed by the police. The two each had served more than 1 year in prison for supporting the CDP in Shanghai. In December 2000, CDP activists Wang Zechen and Wang Wenjiang reportedly were sentenced in Anshan to 6 years and 4 years in prison, respectively, on charges of subverting state power. The two were arrested in June 1999.

The authorities also used laws on subversion, endangering state security, and common crimes to arrest and imprison a wide range of political dissidents, activists, and others. After being released from prison in June, 2000, Li Wangyang was rearrested on subversion charges in May, and sentenced to 10 years in prison in September for "incitement to subvert state power" after demanding the authorities pay for back, heart, and lung ailments he contracted while in prison. Li had served 11 years in prison for his role in presiding over the Shaoyang Workers Autonomous Federation, a Tiananmen-era free trade union. Six other persons were detained in the incident, including Li's sister, who was sentenced to 3 years in a labor camp for helping Li publicize his demands. In September 2000, a court in Hebei sentenced the cofounder of the environmental NGO China Development Union, Qi Yanchen, to 4 years in prison for subversion for writing that the Government would have to introduce political reform in order to avoid widespread unrest. The article at issue appeared in the prodemocracy e-mail newsletter VIP Preference (see Sections 1.f. and 2.a.).

Police sometimes detained relatives of dissidents (see Section 1.f.).

Persons critical of official corruption or malfeasance also frequently were threatened, detained, or imprisoned.

In January, Supreme People's Court President Xiao Yang stated that political dissent and outlawed religions would be among the top targets of a stepped-up crackdown by authorities during the year. In April the Government began a national "strike-hard" campaign against "violent and organized" crime. However according to press reports, the campaign also has targeted some dissidents, separatists, and underground church members. Local police reportedly were ordered to increase the number of arrests and judges were instructed to accelerate legal processing and sentencing. The campaign has been characterized by large-scale sentencing rallies and parades of condemned prisoners through the streets of major cities, followed by public executions. For example, in April local newspapers in Sichuan province reported that over 3000 criminals were sentenced publicly in 123 rallies held across the province. Of those more than 900 were "severely punished," a category that includes the death sentence and lengthy prison terms (see Section 1.d.). By the third quarter of the year, press stories indicated that over 2,000 persons had been executed as part of the campaign. The Government regarded the number of death sentences it carried out as a state secret.

Minority activists continued to be targets of the police. As part of the nationwide "strike hard" campaign, "splittists" or separatists, have been singled out. Xinjiang official Abulahat Abkurixit told the Xinjiang Legal newspaper in April that authorities in Xinjiang would use the "strike hard" campaign to strike at Muslim separatists and illegal religious activities. As part of the campaign, local courts in Xinjiang have meted out death sentences or long prison terms to a number of persons accused of separatist activity. In early 2000 a court sentenced Uighur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer to 8 years in prison for passing "state intelligence" information to foreigners. The "state intelligence" she was accused of attempting to pass consisted of newspaper articles published in the official press and a list of individuals whose cases had been handled by judicial organs. Police arrested Kadeer, her son, and her secretary while they were on their way to meet a visiting foreign delegation in August 1999.

Journalists also were detained or threatened during the year, often for reporting on subjects that met with the Government's or the local authorities' disapproval (see Section 2.a.). In July 2000 Zhuhai police arrested five journalists, including two from Hong Kong and two from Macau, who were attempting to report on peasant protests against a land redevelopment scheme; local police arrested Ma Xiaoming, a Shaanxi television station reporter who had reported on a case involving 12,000 peasants who brought a lawsuit against their township government.

Local authorities used the Government's anticult campaign to detain and arrest large numbers of religious practitioners. For example, in December 2000, four members of the Zhong Gong qigong group were charged by Nanjing authorities with "inciting subversion of the state's political power" and sentenced to between 2 and 41/2 years in prison.

The State Compensation Law provides a legal basis for citizens to recover damages for illegal detentions. Although many citizens remain unaware of this law, there is evidence that it is having a growing, if still limited, impact. Throughout the year, the official press published numerous articles to raise public awareness of recent laws meant to enhance the protection of citizens' rights, including the Criminal Procedure Law, the State Compensation Law, the Administrative Procedure Law, and others. Many citizens have used the State Compensation Law during the year to sue for damages.

There were no reports that the Government exiled citizens. The Government continued to refuse reentry to citizens who were dissidents and activists. The Government's refusal to permit some former reeducation-through-labor camp inmates to return to their homes constitutes a form of internal exile.

e. Denial of Fair Public Trial

The Constitution states that the courts shall, in accordance with the law, exercise judicial power independently; however, in practice, the judiciary receives policy guidance from both the Government and the Communist Party, whose leaders use a variety of means to direct courts on verdicts and sentences in sensitive cases. At both the central and local levels, the Government and the CCP frequently interfere in the judicial system and dictate court decisions. Corruption and conflicts of interest also affect judicial decisionmaking. Judges are appointed by the People's Congresses at the corresponding level of the judicial structure, which can result in local politicians exerting undue influence over the judges they appoint. State-run media have published numerous articles calling for an end to such "local protectionism" and for the development of a judiciary independent of interference by officials.

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) stands at the apex of the court system, followed in descending order by the higher, intermediate, and basic people's courts. There are special courts for handling military, maritime, and railway transport cases.

Corruption and inefficiency in the judicial system are endemic. In 2000 the SPC issued new regulations tightening conflict of interest guidelines for judges. Judges who violate prohibitions against accepting money or other gifts from litigants or who meet privately with litigants may be found guilty of malpractice under the new regulations. Under these regulations, 6,759 judges recused themselves from cases during 2000. Other regulations banned former judges from trying cases in their old courtrooms. Likewise, the Procuratorate announced 10 new rules designed to minimize corruption in and to foster cost-consciousness among the procuratorates. It also announced that it would select candidates for some 7,200 vacancies through a system of national examinations. In an attempt to reduce pretrial corruption, early in 2000 Beijing courts set up a new office to handle pretrial procedures previously handled by judges. Under the new system, parties have more difficulty influencing judges because they would no longer have advance notice of who the judge in a given case is to be. The SPC also implemented a self-examination and responsibility system to hold presidents of higher people's courts responsible for the actions of their subordinates. During the year, the SPC punished 1,292 judges for violating Party or administrative regulations, while 46 were prosecuted for violating the law. The Supreme People's Procuratorate punished 494 officers during the year, 54 of which were criminally responsible for malfeasance. Five provincial-level Procurators were summoned to Beijing to account for wrongdoing. The SPC found 17,931 government officials guilty of corruption or of accepting bribes during the year. During 2000, 1,450 court employees were punished for misconduct. The People's Supreme Court, Procuratorate, and the MOJ jointly released a notice on December 31, stipulating that only those who pass an exam and obtain a "Certificate of Legal Profession" may serve as a judge or a prosecutor, and may apply for a lawyer's license. The regulation is to enter into force on January 1, 2002.

The Government also took steps to correct systemic weaknesses in the judicial system and to make it more transparent and accountable to public scrutiny. The law requires that all trials be held in public; however, in practice, many trials are not. In 1999 the Supreme People's Court issued regulations requiring all trials to be open to the public, except for those involving state secrets, personal privacy, or minors; divorce cases in which both parties request a closed trial; and cases involving commercial secrets. Several courts reportedly opened their proceedings to the public. Under the new regulations, "foreigners with valid identification" are to be allowed the same access to trials as citizens. The legal exception for cases involving state secrets, privacy, and minors has been used to keep politically sensitive proceedings closed to the public and closed even to family members in some cases. During the year, foreign diplomats and journalists sought permission to attend a number of trials only to have court officials reclassify them as "state secrets" cases, thus rendering them closed to the public.

Since 1998 many trials have been broadcast, and court proceedings have become a regular television feature. In 2000 courts in Shanghai became the first to publish verdicts on the Internet. According to official statistics, the courts nationwide heard 539,000 criminal cases in 1999, an increase of 12.27 percent over 1998, and sentenced more than 600,000 offenders, up 14.02 percent from 1999. However, although convictions were up 6.21 percent in 2000, acquittals were up over 12 percent in 2000 as compared to 1999. The SPC released statistics showing that judicial entities at all levels throughout the country acquitted 6,617 defendants in 2000 due either to lack of evidence or by concluding the charges filed did not constitute a crime (up from 5,878 persons in 1999).

Police and prosecutorial officials often ignore the due process provisions of the law and of the Constitution. For example, police and prosecutors can subject prisoners to severe psychological pressure to confess, and coerced confessions frequently are introduced as evidence. In March 2000, the top prosecutor, Procurator General Han Zhubin, admitted that abuses such as using torture to extort confessions, extorting favors from suspects, and nepotism remained serious problems. In 1999 Han's office received 812,821 complaints; 342,017 were related to prosecutors. In 2000, the last year for which statistics are available, authorities arrested 715,833 criminal suspects and prosecuted 708,836. Courts sentenced more than 640,000 persons. The Criminal Procedure Law forbids the use of torture to obtain confessions, but one weakness of the law is that it does not expressly bar the introduction of coerced confessions as evidence. Traditionally, defendants who failed to show the correct attitude by confessing their crimes received harsher sentences. The conviction rate in criminal cases approaches 90 percent, and trials generally are little more than sentencing hearings. In practice, criminal defendants only are assigned an attorney once a case has been brought to court; some observers have noted that at this point, it is too late for an attorney to assist a client in a meaningful way, since the verdict often has been decided already. The best that a defense attorney generally can do for a client is to get a sentence mitigated. In most politically sensitive trials, the courts handed down guilty verdicts immediately following proceedings that rarely lasted more than several hours. There is an appeals process, but appeals rarely reverse verdicts.

The lack of due process is particularly egregious in death penalty cases. There are 65 capital offenses. They include financial crimes such as counterfeiting currency, embezzlement, and corruption. Persons may be sentenced to death for other property crimes as well. A higher court nominally reviews all death sentences, but the time between arrest and execution is often days and sometimes less, and reviews consistently result in the confirmation of sentences. Minors and pregnant women are expressly exempt from the death sentence, and only those theft cases involving banks or museums warrant capital punishment. The "strike hard" campaign, begun in April, has been characterized by mass arrests, lack of due process and summary public executions. Since the campaign began, press stories indicate that over 2,000 persons have been executed as part of the campaign (see Section 1.d.).

The revised Criminal Procedure Law gives most suspects the right to seek legal counsel shortly after their initial detention and interrogation. However, police often use loopholes in the law to circumvent a defendant's right to counsel, and political activists in particular still have significant problems obtaining competent legal representation of their own choosing. In some cases, defendants and lawyers in politically sensitive cases reportedly have not been allowed to speak during trials. Criminal defense lawyers frequently have little access to their clients or to evidence to be used during the trial. In December 2000, Hou Zongbin, chairman of the NPC's Judicial Affairs Committee, made special mention of the difficulties defense lawyers faced in meeting with their clients, accessing court files or having judges hear their petitions. The amended law also falls short of international standards in other respects. For example, it has insufficient safeguards against the use of evidence gathered through illegal means such as torture. Its appeals process fails to provide sufficient avenue for review, and there are inadequate remedies for violations of defendants' rights. The police still unilaterally can detain a person for up to 37 days before releasing him or formally placing him under arrest. Once a suspect is arrested, the revised law allows police and prosecutors to detain him for months before trial while a case is being "further investigated." Few suspects are released on bail pending trial. Also, in "state secrets" cases, the revised Criminal Procedure Law authorizes officials to deny suspects access to a lawyer while their cases are being investigated. The definition of state secrets is broad, vague, and subject to independent interpretation by police, prosecutors, and judges, throughout the different stages in a criminal case. Uncertainty regarding the scope and application of this statute has created concern about a detainee's right to legal assistance.

The revised Criminal Procedure Law also does not address certain shortcomings in the legal system. Under the law, there is no right to remain silent, no presumption of innocence, no right against double jeopardy, and no law of evidence. The mechanism that allows defendants to confront their accusers is inadequate; according to one expert, only 1 percent to 5 percent of trials involve witnesses.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that implementation of the Criminal Procedure Law remains uneven and far from complete, especially in politically sensitive cases. Differing interpretations of the law taken by different judicial and police departments have contributed to contradictory and incomplete implementation. The Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Justice, and the Legal Work Committee of the National People's Congress have issued supplementary implementing regulations to address some of these weaknesses. During the year, the Government continued its efforts to educate lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and especially the public on the provisions of this and other laws.

Defendants frequently have found it difficult to find an attorney willing to handle sensitive political cases. Government-employed lawyers still depend on official work units for employment, housing, and other benefits, and therefore many may be reluctant to represent politically sensitive defendants. In January 1999, dissident Wang Ce was tried and defended himself, reportedly because lawyers recommended by the court refused to take his case. In February 2000, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison. There were no new reports of the Government revoking the licenses of lawyers representing political defendants, as it sometimes has done in the past.

Lawyers who try to defend their clients aggressively continue to have problems with police and prosecutors, leading to complaints and threats of harassment by law enforcement officials. Lawyers' professional associations have called for better protection of lawyers and their legitimate role in the adversarial process.

Nevertheless, there are signs that members of the public are beginning to use the court system and the new legal remedies available to them to protect their rights and seek redress for a variety of Government abuses. A growing number of persons are using legal recourse against government malfeasance. The Beijing Higher People's Court released statistics in April 2000 stating that when citizens sued the Government, citizen plaintiffs won in 23 percent of cases (832 of 3,632) between 1990-1999. In addition, a large percentage of such cases are settled out of court. The term "administrative omission" refers to cases where Government organizations do not respond or delay response to applications lodged by citizens. According to statistics by the SPC, the number of administrative omission lawsuits filed by individuals against Government organizations rose 7.6 times between 1990 and 1998. Urban citizens also are serving as watchdogs against corruption. In 2000, the Beijing Discipline Inspection Commission received 19,333 letters alleging corruption. Due to those letters, officials filed corruption charges in 599 cases and punished 1,044 officials. However, while some plaintiffs successfully have filed suit against the Government, decisions of any kind in favor of dissidents remain rare. In particular, appeals of prison sentences by dissidents rarely are granted.

In 2000, 3,789 criminal convictions or sentences were overturned upon appeal. That same year, the Supreme People's Court announced provisions to enable the poor to afford litigation, and announced that officials postponed, reduced or waived court fees in over 237,000 cases involving the poor, elderly or persons with disabilities. To promote transparency, Shenzhen courts instituted a pilot program requiring judges to write out the reasoning behind their verdicts. An appeals judge could then review a verdict and levy fines against judges making decisions based on faulty legal reasoning.

In recent years, credible reports have alleged that organs from some executed prisoners were removed and sold. Officials have confirmed that executed prisoners are among the sources of organs for transplant but maintain that consent is required from prisoners or their relatives in advance of the procedure. There is no national law governing organ donations, but a Ministry of Health directive explicitly states that buying and selling human organs and tissues is not allowed. In June 2000, Wang Guoqi, a former employee of the Paramilitary Police General Division Hospital in Tianjin, testified before the U.S. Congress that he had harvested skin and corneas from more that 100 executed prisoners. Wang testified that he had become disturbed by the practice after taking part in the removal of skin from a still-living prisoner in 1995. The authorities stated that Wang fabricated the story in order to seek political asylum in the United States. The courts traditionally issue several death sentences before the annual lunar New Year holiday and other holidays. According to Hong Kong press reports, these executions have increased the demand for organs from executed prisoners. In 2000 more than 40 wealthy individuals in need of transplants reportedly traveled to a hospital in Guangzhou and paid up to $300,000 (2.5 million RMB) each for livers harvested from executed criminals. There are no reliable statistics on how many organ transplants occur each year using organs from executed prisoners, but, according to press reports, hundreds of persons from foreign countries, particularly Asian countries, who are unable to obtain transplants at home travel to the country each year for organ transplants. Recipients report paying various amounts for the transplants, and some have reported that treatment may be terminated or delayed for a lack of funds or a delay in payment.

In recent years, the Ministry of Justice drafted regulations to standardize professional performance, lawyer-client relations, and the administration of lawyers and law firms. The regulations also granted lawyers formal permission to establish law firms, set educational requirements for legal practitioners, encouraged free legal services for the general public, and provided for the disciplining of lawyers. Government officials state that there are insufficient lawyers to meet the country's growing needs. Lawyers are organizing private law firms that are self-regulating and do not have their personnel or budgets determined directly by the State. More than 60 legal aid organizations (many of which handle both criminal and civil cases, including those stemming from disputes over compensation to workers) have been established around the country, and the Ministry of Justice has established a nationwide legal services hot line. Beijing and other city police departments have set up hotlines for citizens to complain about police misconduct. In March, Beijing authorities claimed that their hot line received nearly 120 calls per day.

Neither prosecutors nor judges are required to have law degrees or legal experience, and qualification standards traditionally have been low. Many are not well versed in the law.

While defending his annual report to the NPC in March, People's Supreme Court President Xiao Yang came under fire from delegates for the slow pace of judicial reform. One delegate pointed out that only approximately 9 percent of judicial professionals had a college education. Another delegate complained that lack of respect for human rights in the legal system was a growing problem. Notably, the NPC only gave a 74.4 percent approval rating to the Supreme Court's annual report and a 71.2 percent rating to the Procuratorate.

The SPC's and Supreme People's Procuratorate's reports to the NPC in March acknowledged that the political and professional quality of judicial staff was not high. SPC President Xiao Yang admitted that higher courts were not doing enough to fight corruption or to fire incompetent judges. Xiao stressed that the courts must not only fight corruption in society at large, but also corruption within the courts. In his report, Xiao promised to work to make trial court procedures simpler and more efficient. During the year, the Government continued a campaign to correct systemic weaknesses in the judicial system and make it more accountable to public scrutiny. Xiao noted that, in an effort to identify judges of high quality, the Government had introduced a chief justice system in over 50 percent of local courts. The authorities undertook other efforts to improve the training and professionalism of judges and lawyers.

After July 2000, in a effort to distance judges from prosecutors, judges in Beijing shed their military style uniforms, including epaulets and caps, in favor of robes or suits. The NPC also approved separate draft amendments to the 1995 laws on judges and prosecutors in July 2000. One amendment requires judicial or prosecutorial appointees to be law school graduates who have practiced law for at least 2 years, or postgraduates who have practiced law for at least 1 year. Another requires heads of courts and procuratorates, members of judicial committees of courts and procuratorates, and heads of judicial panels to have passed relevant examinations.

During the year, some lawyers, law professors, and jurists continued publicly to press for legal reform. Major newspapers and legal journals called for the introduction of a British or American system of discovery, the abolition of coerced confessions, a legal presumption of innocence, an independent judiciary, and improved administrative laws. Western scholars and journalists also wrote a series of articles critical of shortcomings in the justice system. Specific criticisms include the use of administrative detention in psychiatric facilities to house political or religious dissidents, absence of legal provisions specifically guaranteeing a suspect's right to remain silent, coerced confessions, torture, the presumption of guilt and the right to legal counsel during interrogation.

Government officials denied that there were any political prisoners, asserting that authorities detained persons not for their political or religious views, but because they violated the law. However, the authorities continued to detain citizens for political and religious reasons. It is estimated that thousands of political prisoners remain incarcerated, some in prisons and others in labor camps.

The 1997 Criminal Law replaced "counterrevolutionary" offenses, which, in the past, often had been used against the Government's political opponents, with loosely defined provisions barring "crimes endangering state security." In 2000 officials stated that there were 1,300 individuals in prisons serving sentences under the Counterrevolutionary Law. Persons detained for such offenses included Hu Shigen, Kang Yuchun, Yu Zhijian, Zhang Jingsheng, and Sun Xiongying. Several foreign governments urged the Government to review the cases of those charged with counterrevolution, since the crime was no longer on the books, and release those who had been jailed for nonviolent offenses under the old statute. Officials have indicated that a case-by-case review of appeals filed by individual prisoners is possible under the law, and there is one known case of a successful appeal. However, the Government indicated that it would neither initiate a comprehensive review of cases nor grant a general amnesty, arguing that there is no law on retroactive decriminalization. Those charged with counterrevolutionary crimes, including those who committed nonviolent acts, continue to serve their sentences.

Amnesty International has identified 211 persons who remain imprisoned or on medical parole for their participation in the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations; other NGO's estimate that as many as 2,000 persons remain in prison for their actions at that time.

The Government released several political prisoners early. Tiananmen activist Zhang Jie was released from a prison in Weifang City, Shandong in January. A founding member of the CDP, Han Lifa, was released from a labor camp in July, as was the poet Ma Zhe, who was released after serving 31/2 years in a Guizhou Province jail. Guo Haifeng, a former leader of the 1989 Tiananmen movement, was released 6 months early in March. In July labor activist Cao Maobing was released from a psychiatric facility where he had been held for 7 months. Dissident Zhou Yongjun was released in March.

However, many others, including Chadrel Rinpoche, Fan Zhongliang, Han Chunsheng, Li Bifeng, Jigme Sangpo, Ngawang Sangdrol, Qin Yongmin, Shen Liangqing, Zha Jianguo, Wang Youcai, Xu Guoxing, Xu Wenli, Zhang Lin, Zhang Shanguang, Zhao Changqing, and Fang Jue remained imprisoned or under other forms of detention during the year. Political prisoners generally benefit from parole and sentence reduction at significantly lower rates than ordinary prisoners do. In addition, authorities summarily tried and sentenced political dissidents to long prison terms.

Criminal punishments can include "deprivation of political rights" for a fixed period after release from prison, during which the individual is denied rights of free speech and association. Former prisoners also can find their status in society, ability to find employment, freedom to travel, and access to residence permits and social services severely restricted. Economic reforms and social changes have ameliorated these problems for nonpolitical prisoners in recent years. However, former political prisoners and their families still frequently are subjected to police surveillance, telephone wiretaps, searches, and other forms of harassment, and may encounter difficulty in obtaining or keeping employment and housing.

f. Arbitrary Interference With Privacy, Family, Home, Correspondence

The Constitution states that the "freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens are protected by law." Despite legal protections, authorities often do not respect the privacy of citizens in practice. Although the law requires warrants before law enforcement officials can search premises, this provision frequently has been ignored; moreover, the Public Security Bureau and the Procuratorate can issue search warrants on their own authority. Authorities monitor telephone conversations, facsimile transmissions, e-mail, and Internet communications. Authorities also open and censor domestic and international mail. The security services routinely monitor and enter the residences and offices of persons dealing with foreigners to gain access to computers, telephones, and fax machines. Government security organs monitor and sometimes restrict contact between foreigners and citizens. All major hotels have a sizable internal security presence.

In urban areas, many persons still depend on Government-linked work units for housing, healthcare, permission to have a child, approval to apply for a passport, and other aspects of ordinary life. However, the work unit and the neighborhood committee, which originally were charged with monitoring activities and attitudes, have become less important as means of social or political control, and government interference in daily personal and family life continues to decline for the average citizen.

Some dissidents are under heavy surveillance and routinely have their telephone calls with foreign journalists and diplomats monitored. The authorities blocked some dissidents from meeting with foreigners during politically sensitive periods. Police ordered several dissidents not to meet with foreign journalists or foreign diplomats during the period it was announced that Beijing would host the 2008 Summer Olympics or during the visit of a high-level foreign official in July.

Government harassment prevents activists from obtaining and keeping steady employment. In 2000 the Government prevented Ding Zilin, an organizer of relatives of the victims of the Tiananmen massacre, from meeting the widow of a prominent foreign author, and the Government continued to freeze bank accounts kept by Ding Zilin and others containing funds to help families of the Tiananmen Square massacre victims. The authorities also confiscated money intended to help dissidents and their families. Dissidents have reported harassment by the authorities. Dissidents in Shanghai have been warned not to meet with certain persons, talk to reporters, or write or fax articles. Such harassment appears to be common among Tiananmen-era activists.

Authorities also harassed and monitored the activities of relatives of dissidents. Security personnel kept close watch on relatives of prominent dissidents, especially during sensitive periods. For example, security personnel followed the wife of Xu Wenli to meetings with foreign reporters and diplomats on numerous occasions. Dissidents and their family members routinely are warned not to speak with the foreign press. Police sometimes detained the relatives of dissidents (see Sections 1.d. and 2.a.)

Official poverty alleviation programs and major state projects--such as the Three Gorges Dam and environmental or reforestation projects--included forced relocation of persons.

The Government continued to implement comprehensive and sometimes coercive family planning policies. The State Family Planning Commission (SFPC), with a staff of 400,000, formulates and implements policies with assistance from the Family Planning Association, which has 83 million members working part-time at 1 million branches nationwide. A strict one-child policy (or two-child policy for couples with no siblings) applies in the cities, but not in most rural areas, where 70 percent of citizens live. For enforcement, birth control policies depend heavily on severe economic penalties (called "social compensation fees") for over-quota children. These fines are assessed at widely varying levels, depending on the circumstances of the parents. Most demographers estimate fertility at 2.0 to 2.3 births per woman (although the official figure is 1.8), indicating that the "one-child policy" is not applied uniformly.

Couples in urban areas are affected most severely by family planning regulations, seldom receiving permission to have more than one child, although urban couples who themselves were only children may have two children. Fines for over-quota children can be extremely high, equaling several years' wages for an average worker. At the same time, economic development and other factors such as small houses, both parents working full-time, and high education expenses have reached a level where couples in major urban centers often voluntarily forego having children or limit their families to one child. There were indications that, due to the success of the one-child policy in urban areas, the Government was beginning to relax its policies in the cities. In order to delay childbearing, the Marriage Law sets the minimum age at marriage for women at 20 years, and for men at 22 years; marrying 2 or more years later is encouraged. It is illegal for unmarried women to bear children.

Outside the cities, exceptions to the one-child policy are becoming the norm. The average number of children per family in rural areas is slightly over two. Couples in rural areas generally are allowed to have a second child if the first is a girl, an exception that takes into account both the demands of farm labor and the traditional preference for boys. Families whose first child is disabled also are allowed to have another child. Ethnic minorities, such as Muslim Uighurs and Tibetans, are subject to significantly less stringent population controls and in some rural areas they are permitted to have as many as four children. In remote areas, there are no effective limits, but government employees and Party members are encouraged to have only one child.

Population control policy relies on education, propaganda, and economic incentives, as well as on more coercive measures, including psychological pressure and economic penalties. The national family planning policy is implemented through provincial and local regulations. According to local regulations in at least one province, women who do not qualify for a Family Planning Certificate that allows them to have a child must use an intrauterine device (IUD) or implant. The regulations further require that women who use an IUD undergo quarterly exams to ensure that it remains properly in place. Rewards for couples who adhere to family planning policies include monthly stipends and preferential medical and educational benefits.

Disciplinary measures against those who violate policies can include fines of up to three times a couple's annual salary, withholding of social services, higher tuition costs when the child goes to school, demotion, and other administrative punishments, including in some cases the loss of employment. Government employees are particularly vulnerable to loss of employment when they have a child without permission. Fines for giving birth without authorization vary, but they can be a formidable disincentive. In many provinces, penalties for excess births in an area also can be levied against local officials and the mother's work unit, thus creating multiple sources of pressure. In Guizhou, for example, regulations state that officials in an area in which birth targets are not met cannot be promoted in that year. All workers at a factory or other work unit might lose a bonus if one worker has a child without permission. Unpaid fines sometimes have resulted in confiscation or destruction of homes and personal property by local authorities.

In June 1999 Anhui province promulgated amended family planning rules that stated that each couple "is encouraged" to have only one child, that second births are "strictly controlled," and that "unplanned births are forbidden." Women of childbearing age are required periodically to undergo pregnancy tests, and couples are required to "practice effective contraceptive measures." Couples already having a child are required to adopt long-term birth control measures. In the cases of families that already have two children, one of the parents "is encouraged to undergo sterilization." According to a credible report, the number of couples undergoing sterilization procedures after giving birth to two children increased significantly in at least one inland province. In addition the rules state that "unplanned pregnancies must be aborted immediately."

Over the past few years, authorities have initiated experiments to relax family planning targets in several counties and have announced plans to expand this relaxation. The Government reportedly encourages local officials to initiate and fund their own projects on family planning.

Penalties for violations of family planning regulations have led to widespread underreporting of rural births, making population statistics unreliable. Local officials, caught between pressures from superiors (usually provincial-level leaders) to show declining birth rates, and from local citizens to allow them to have more than one child, frequently make false reports.

Central Government policy formally prohibits the use of force to compel persons to submit to abortion or sterilization; however, intense pressure to meet family planning targets set by the Government has resulted in documented instances in which local family planning officials have used coercion, including forced abortion and sterilization, to meet Government goals. During an unauthorized pregnancy, a woman often is paid multiple visits by family planning workers and pressured to terminate the pregnancy. Senior officials have stated repeatedly that the Government "made it a principle to ban coercion at any level." Senior officials acknowledge that problems persist and insist on the Government's determination to address such problems. The SFPC has issued circulars nationwide prohibiting family planning officials from coercing women to undergo abortions or sterilization against their will. In August 2000 SFPC officials publicly criticized local officials in Huaiji, Guangdong Province, for "periodic campaigns" in which the local government organized women of childbearing age to be sterilized or have intrauterine devices inserted. Under the State Compensation Law, citizens also can sue officials who exceed their authority in implementing family planning policy, and in a few instances, individuals have exercised this right.

Corruption related to family planning fines is a widespread problem. SFPC officials reported that they responded to over 10,000 complaints against local officials during the year. They also have reported serious sanctions imposed on numerous officials during the year.

In late 1998, the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) launched a 4-year pilot project in 32 counties. Under this program, local officials must address family planning and reproductive health issues solely through the use of voluntary measures, emphasizing education, improved reproductive health services, and economic development. The SFPC worked closely with the UNFPA to prepare informational materials and to provide training for officials and the general public in the project counties. In all the project counties, the local governments have informed the general public about the UNFPA program and have eliminated the system of overall countywide birth and population targets that tends to generate coercive enforcement. Economic fines assessed on individual families for over-quota children, however, remain. Central authorities have welcomed foreign delegations to inspect the UNFPA project counties, and foreign diplomats visited several counties during the year. Thanks to the shift in SFPC priorities, UNFPA reports that the number of women countrywide who make their own contraceptive choices rose from 53 percent in 1998 to 83 percent in 2000.

Regulations forbid the termination of pregnancies based on the sex of the fetus, but because of the traditional preference for male children, particularly in rural areas, many families have used ultrasound to identify female fetuses and terminate pregnancies (see Section 5). The use of ultrasound for this purpose is prohibited specifically by the Maternal and Child Health Care Law, which mandates punishment of medical practitioners who violate the provision. According to the SFPC, a handful of doctors have been charged under this law. After operating for 7 years, an illegal sex determination clinic was exposed in 2000 when an outraged citizen called the Liaoyang City mayor's hot line. Government statistics put the national ratio of male to female births at 114 to 100; the World Health Organization estimates the ratio to be 117 to 100. The statistical norm is 106 male births to 100 female births. According to demographers in the country, currently there may be as many as 100 million more men than women. These skewed statistics reflect both the underreporting of female births so that parents can keep trying to conceive a boy, and the abuse of sonograms leading to the termination of pregnancies based on the sex of the fetus. Female infanticide, abandonment, or the neglect of baby girls that results in lower female survival rates are also factors (see Section 5). The state-run media is paying increasing attention to unbalanced birth ratios, and the societal problems, such as localized shortages of marriageable women and trafficking in women, which they cause (see Section 6.f.). In the cities, the traditional preference for sons is changing; in the rural areas the preference remains strong.

The Maternal and Child Health Care Law requires premarital and prenatal examinations to determine whether couples have acute infectious diseases or certain mental illnesses (not including mental retardation), or are at risk for passing on debilitating genetic diseases. The Ministry of Health implements the law, which recommends abortion or sterilization in some cases, based on medical advice. The law also provides for obtaining a second opinion and states that patients or their guardians must give written consent to such procedures. At least five provincial governments have implemented local regulations seeking to prevent persons with severe mental disabilities from having children. In August 1998, the Government issued an "explanation" to provincial governments clarifying that no sterilization of persons with genetic conditions could be performed without their signed consent. In practice, most areas still do not have the capacity accurately to determine the likelihood of passing on hard to detect debilitating genetic diseases.

During the year, the China Psychiatric Association ceased listing homosexuality as a mental illness. Many gays and lesbians saw the move as a sign of increased government tolerance. Nonetheless, most gatherings of gays and lesbians still take place clandestinely.

Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

a. Freedom of Speech and Press

The Constitution states that freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental rights to be enjoyed by all citizens; however, the Government restricts these rights in practice. During the year, the Government maintained tight restrictions on freedom of speech and the press. The Government interprets the Communist Party's "leading role"--as mandated in the preamble to the Constitution--as circumscribing these rights. The Government strictly regulates the establishment and management of publications. The Government does not permit citizens to publish or broadcast criticisms of senior leaders or opinions that directly challenge Communist Party rule. The Party and Government continue to control many--and, on occasion, all--print and broadcast media tightly, and use them to propagate the current ideological line. According to official statistics, in 1998 the country had 2,053 newspapers, 7,999 magazines and trade publications, and published 7.24 billion copies of books representing 7,999 titles. All media employees are under explicit, public orders to follow CCP directives, and "guide public opinion," as directed by political authorities. Both formal and informal guidelines continue to require journalists to avoid coverage of many politically sensitive topics. The State Security Law forbids journalists from divulging "state secrets." These public orders, guidelines, and statutes greatly restrict the freedom of broadcast journalists and newspapers to report the news, and lead to a high degree of self-censorship. The Government's harsh propaganda campaign against the FLG intensified after the January self-immolation of four FLG adherents, but had abated by the end of the year. There were also intermittent propaganda campaigns against superstition.

Some dissidents remained active and continued to speak out despite the Government's restrictions on freedom of speech. In January 119 dissidents sent an open letter urging the Government to release jailed colleagues ahead of the Lunar New Year festival, stating that it would help Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. Lin Mu, the former secretary of former reform-minded Communist Party boss Hu Yaobang, organized the letter campaign. Prominent activists including Zhou Guoqiang, Wang Donghai, Chen Longde, and Leng Wanbao signed the letter. In July Wang Hongxue of Bengbu, Anhui Province issued an open letter demanding that the authorities fulfill their commitment to the International Olympic Committee about improving human rights by reversing the verdict on the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. In September 500 intellectuals signed an open letter calling for greater press freedom and reform of the education system to curb nationalism. However, the Government continued to threaten, arrest and imprison persons exercising free speech. For example, in February Shan Chengfeng, wife of Chinese Democratic Party co-founder Wu Yilong, was sentenced to two years reeducation-through-labor for urging the International Olympic Committee to exert pressure to release a number of CDP prisoners.

Although there are a few privately owned print publications, all media stories must be vetted by the authorities before publication. There are no privately owned television or radio stations, and all programming must be approved by the Government. Commercial program producers are seeking to expand the limits of broadcast content.

As in the past, during the year, journalists and editors who exposed corruption scandals frequently faced problems with the authorities, and the Government continued to close down publications and punish journalists for printing material deemed too sensitive. Newspaper editors may be suspended and sent to the Propaganda Bureau for "rectification," after which they generally can return to work in the publishing industry. President Jiang indicated the ban on new permits for magazines and publishing houses would remain in place and that authorities would place tighter controls on freelance contributors to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, as well as freelance production houses for television units. At year's end, these controls had not been implemented.

With the Government's consent and even open support, the press continued to publish stories related to citizens' rights, legal reform, official corruption, and official misconduct and gross abuses, particularly by law enforcement officials. However, newspapers cannot report on corruption without government and Party approval, and publishers published such material at their own risk. In December 2000, Jiang Weiping, a reporter for the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Pao newspaper, was detained for writing stories alleging that authorities had covered up several embezzlement schemes in Liaoning Province. In June authorities announced Jiang would be tried for leaking state secrets. In July Yao Xiaohong, director of the news department of the Dushi newspaper in Jiangxi province, was fired for reporting that local officials had removed the kidneys from an executed convict without his prior consent.

In recent years, journalists were harassed, detained, and threatened often for reporting on subjects that met with the Government's or local authorities' disapproval, including corruption. However, during the year, the authorities appeared to target editors, rather than journalists, for punishment when articles upset Party officials. In May Central Committee Propaganda Department officials severely criticized the editorial staff of Guangzhou's widely read newspaper, Southern Weekend, and forced its management to fire two senior editors for publishing exposes of corruption. Some believe that the actions against Southern Weekend were taken in response to complaints from provincial Party propaganda chiefs in other parts of the country angered by corruption exposes in their provinces. Southern Weekend's investigative reporting and critical editorials have resulted in several actions against it by the authorities in the past. In July, reportedly in response to publishing criticisms of CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin's plans to allow entrepreneurs into the Communist Party, the Central Party Propaganda Department suspended publication of the leftist journals Pursuit of Truth and Mainstay.

During the year numerous journalists received prison sentences for reporting on subjects deemed sensitive by the Government. Freelance journalist Zhu Ruixiang was arrested on May 9 and charged with subversion after distributing articles over the Internet. On September 11, he was sentenced to three years in prison. Liu Haofeng was sentenced to re-education through labor on May 16 for having published policy papers critical of the regime's treatment of the China Democracy Party. Wang Jinbo was sentenced to four years in prison in December for having e-mailed articles to overseas publications advocating a review of verdicts issued in the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

The Government confiscated the November 24 edition of the magazine Securities Market Weekly. That edition carried a short article about the influence of National People's Congress Chairman Li Peng's wife and son in the power generation sector of the PRC economy.

Nonetheless, during the year, the press did report aggressively on a number of events, which in some cases resulted in government officials taking action. For example, press coverage of a March 6 explosion at a rural school that killed dozens of students and teachers in south central Jiangxi province appeared to cause the central authorities to change their initial version of events (see Section 6.d.). The media also reported on the Nandan tin mine disaster in Guangxi in July, which killed 300 persons. Quick and accurate reporting by the media led to the arrest in August of 15 persons who had tried to cover up the disaster. On August 27, the official Party newspaper, The People's Daily, defended the watchdog function of the media and lauded reporters for their investigative work in a number of cases, particularly the Nandan incident. The newspaper stated that the journalists' coverage of Nandan enabled officials to respond and to investigate the coverup.

Government restrictions on the press and the free flow of information, however, prevented accurate reporting on the spread of HIV/AIDS and the role of blood collection procedures in the spread of the disease in rural areas.

During the year, propaganda authorities seemed to pay less attention to aggressive reporting on economic topics. In August the magazine Business and Finance Review exposed a well-connected, Ningxia-based company that illegally had manipulated its stock price and cheated its investors. The magazine ran the story despite reported complaints by propaganda officials. Newspapers and magazines appeared to be increasingly bold in their economic reporting--particularly on finance and real estate issues. Experts attributed the growing aggressiveness to market forces, especially increasing competition from other newspapers, domestic satellite television channels, and the Internet.

For several years, journalists openly have called for legislators to enact a press law to grant them press freedom protection. In May 2000, the legal affairs bureau of Anhui Province issued a regulation banning government departments from refusing press interviews. A division chief at the Beijing High People's Court indicated in a December 2000 press interview that the Supreme People's Court might be pressed to issue judicial explanations of constitutional press safeguards to local law enforcement officials as a means to expand press freedoms and protect journalists.

The Government kept tight control over the foreign press during the year and continued efforts to prevent foreign media "interference" in internal affairs.

The publishing industry consists of three kinds of book businesses: Roughly 500 Government-sanctioned publishing houses, smaller independent publishers that cooperate with official publishing houses to put out more daring publications, and an underground press. The government-approved publishing houses are the only organizations legally permitted to print books. The Government exerts control by issuing a limited number of publishing licenses, which are required for each edition of any book. A Party member at each publishing house monitors the content of the house's publications and uses the allocation of promotions, cars, travel, and other perks to encourage editors to exercise "proper" judgment about publications. Overt intervention by the State Publications Administration and Party Propaganda Bureau is strictly post-publication. Independent publishers take advantage of a loophole in the law to sign contracts with Government publishing houses to publish politically sensitive works. These works generally are not subjected to the same multilayered review process as official publications of the publishing houses.

Underground printing houses, which are growing in number, publish the books that are the most popular with the public. These underground printing houses have been targets of campaigns to stop all illegal publications (including pornography and pirated computer software and audiovisual products), which has had the effect of restricting the availability of politically sensitive books.

The PEN American Center reported that during 2000 there was a tightening of the publishing rules. There also were reports that 15 publishing houses were closed in 2000.

Customs officials have seized shipments of Bibles that were not authorized by the Government. The authorities continued to jam, with varying degrees of success, Chinese- and Tibetan-language broadcasts of the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA). English-language broadcasts on VOA generally are not jammed, unless they immediately follow Chinese-language broadcasts, in which case portions of English-language broadcasts may be jammed. Government jamming of RFA is more frequent and effective. In the absence of an independent press, overseas broadcasts such as VOA, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), RFA, and Radio France International have a significant audience, including activists, ordinary citizens, and even government officials.

Television news programs continued attempts to expand the number of topics that openly can be discussed. The nightly news program, Focal Point, frequently ran exposes on corruption or socially relevant stories that resulted in the authorities investigating wrongdoing. On December 20, 2000, Hunan Star TV's talk show, Take it Easy, became the first program in to air a program talking frankly about homosexual life. Plans to rebroadcast the program in during the year were canceled, allegedly due to pressure from the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television.

In August some local cable television networks began providing uncensored foreign news programming, including programs from CNN and European news services, to cable television customers for a fee. Prior to this, only major hotels and residence compounds for foreigners could legally show uncensored TV news from outside of the country.

The Government continued to encourage the expansion of the Internet; however, it also continued to place restrictions on information available on the Internet. According to a China Network Information Center survey released in January, 22.5 million persons used the Internet at that time. By the end of 2000, 892,000 computers were linked to the Internet. While only a very tiny fraction of all citizens use it, many of the country's intellectuals and opinion leaders now routinely use the Internet. Officials consider the Internet to be a key element of the nation's economic development strategy. The authorities appear to understand that the country needs the economic benefits the Internet brings, but fear the political ramifications of the free flow of information.

The Ministry of Information Industry (MII) regulates access to the Internet while the Ministries of Public and State Security (MPS and MSS) monitor its use. In late 2000, the Government issued regulations governing ownership, content and other aspects of Internet use, including who can own Internet businesses, what can be published on the Internet, and who has oversight over Internet businesses. The regulations reportedly require Internet content providers to keep files of what they post and who reads it for 60 days. Other regulations were set up punishing persons who store, process, or retrieve information deemed to be "state secrets" from international computer networks. In October 2000, a regulation went into effect banning the dissemination of any information that might harm unification of the country, endanger national security, or subvert the government. Promoting "evil cults" was banned as was providing information that "disturbs social order or undermines social stability." One new regulation, covering chat rooms, requires all service providers to monitor content and restrict controversial topics. Internet cafes are required to monitor, keep identifying information, and report on customers using the terminals; they also are required to monitor and limit access to information that is prohibited by law or regulation. Another regulation requires Internet cafe patrons to register with "software managers" and produce a valid ID card to log on. Throughout the country, diplomats have observed that most Internet cafe users ignore these regulations. Enforcement of some regulations generally wanes after a few months. There have been reports that the Government has specially trained police units to monitor and increase control of Internet content and access.

The authorities block access to Web sites they find offensive. Authorities have at times blocked politically sensitive Web sites, including those of dissident groups and some major foreign news organizations, such as the VOA, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the BBC. E-mail and e-mail publications are more difficult to block, although the Government attempts to do so by, at times, blocking all e-mail from overseas Internet service providers used by dissident groups, and by filtering and tracking individual e-mail accounts. Overseas dissident publications respond to attempts by authorities to block their sites by constantly shifting their e-mail origination address. Citizens who supply large numbers of e-mail addresses to organizations abroad have been prosecuted. The authorities do not consider persons who receive dissident e-mail publications responsible for having gotten onto a mailing list, but forwarding those messages to others is illegal.

Although knowledgeable Internet users can find a great deal of sensitive material, government net censorship intimidates many Web content providers into censoring themselves. Content on some bulletin boards has been removed. Internet entrepreneurs have complained that Government regulations controlling the Internet were so broadly written that MSS officials could find any Web page operator or e-commerce merchant guilty of violating regulations. Although there are frequent reports about crackdowns on Internet cafes in the country, diplomats observe that the number and geographic distribution of cafes continues to grow rapidly.

In April Guo Qinghai of Cangzhou City outside Beijing became the first person convicted under new laws on the Internet when he was given a 4 year sentence for posting pro-democracy material. Also in April, Beijing-based Yang Zili was detained by security officers for allegedly helping dissidents get past government firewalls and set up e-mail accounts that could not be tapped. That same month, Wang Sen was detained in Dachuan, Sichuan Province for posting articles alleging the resale of Red Cross-donated tuberculosis medicine. In May Wang Jinbo was arrested in Junan, Shandong Province, for posting Internet articles "defaming" the police. In June police detained Li Hongmin in Hunan province for distributing copies of the Tiananmen Papers over the Internet. In August Chengdu-based Internet activist Huang Qi was tried secretly and found guilty of "subverting state power." Huang had operated a site exposing corrupt practices and criticizing the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre. At year's end he had not been sentenced.

Writers who have difficulty getting published sometimes circulate their work by e-mail or on Web sites. Some Web sites, such as the "Marxist Liberal Left Wing Ideology Web site" and the People's Daily "Strong Country Forum," regularly post surprisingly frank critiques of society, the Party, and the Government.

The Government does not fully respect academic freedom and continues to impose ideological controls on political discourse at colleges, universities, and research institutes. Scholars and researchers report varying degrees of control regarding the issues that they may examine and the conclusions that they may draw. Censorship of written material comes at the time of publication, or when intellectuals and scholars, anticipating that books or papers on political topics would be deemed too sensitive to be published, exercise self-censorship. In areas such as economic policy or legal reform, there was far greater official tolerance for comment and debate.

The Government continues to use political attitudes as criteria for selecting persons for Government-sponsored study abroad, but does not impose such restrictions on privately sponsored students (who constitute the majority of students who study abroad).

Foreign-based researchers working in the country, such as Qin Guangguang, also have been subject to sanctions from the authorities when their work crosses ill-defined boundaries and arbitrarily is determined to be a crime. Other foreign-resident Chinese national scholars were detained in previous years. These detentions created a chilling effect on other Chinese researchers, whether resident in the country or abroad. There also was concern that collaborative research with foreigners may become more difficult.

b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

The Constitution provides for freedom of peaceful assembly; however, the Government severely restricts this right in practice. The Constitution stipulates that such activities may not challenge "Party leadership" or infringe upon the "interests of the State." Protests against the political system or national leaders are prohibited. Authorities deny permits and quickly move to suppress demonstrations involving expression of dissenting political views.

At times police used excessive force against demonstrators. Demonstrations with political or social themes were often broken up quickly and violently. The most widely publicized demonstrations in recent years were those of the FLG spiritual movement. For the past 3 years, the Government has waged a severe political, propaganda, and police campaign against the FLG movement. Since the Government banned the FLG in 1999, the mere belief in the discipline (and since January, even without any public manifestation of its tenets) has been sufficient grounds for practitioners to receive punishments ranging from loss of employment to imprisonment. In some cases, practitioners in custody have suffered torture and death. Several hundred practitioners have been tried and convicted of crimes--including that of "using a heretical cult to disturb social order." However, the great majority of practitioners have been punished without a trial. In the wake of a series of large protests on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the Government stepped up the use of the reeducation-through-labor system to sentence practitioners administratively to up to 3 years in detention.

Many thousands of FLG practitioners have been detained in reeducation-through-labor camps; many more have been confined to psychiatric hospitals. During the year, facilities were established specifically to "rehabilitate" practitioners who refuse to recant their belief voluntarily (see Section 2.c.).

The tactic used most frequently by the central government against FLG, however, has been to make local officials, family members, and employers of known practitioners responsible for preventing FLG activities by individuals. In many cases, practitioners are subject to close scrutiny by local security personnel and their personal mobility is tightly restricted, particularly on days when the Government believes public protests are likely. Directives to prevent FLG protests at all costs has resulted in many egregious abuses.

In many cases, the authorities dealt with economic demonstrations leniently (see Section 6.a.), but some economic demonstrations were dispersed with the use of force. While the exact number of demonstrations is difficult to quantify, the Government stated that the number of demonstrations nationwide continued to grow. According to the most recently available Public Security Ministry Report, in 1999 more than 100,000 demonstrations took place, up from 60,000 in 1998. Some of these demonstrations included thousands of protesters. Authorities handled many of the protests with restraint, especially those concerned with economic issues. The frequency of most types of demonstrations increased during the year; however, the number of FLG demonstrations decreased (see Section 2.c.).

The Constitution provides for freedom of association; however, the Government restricts this right in practice. Communist Party policy and government regulations require that all professional, social, and economic organizations officially register with, and be approved by, the Government. Ostensibly aimed at restricting secret societies and criminal gangs, these regulations also prevent the formation of truly autonomous political, human rights, religious, environmental, labor, and youth organizations that directly challenge government authority. Since November 1999, all concerts, sports events, exercise classes or other meetings of more than 200 persons must be approved by Public Security authorities.

There are no laws or regulations that specifically govern the formation of political parties. The Government moved decisively, using detentions and prison terms, to eliminate the China Democracy Party, which activists around the country had tried since 1998 to organize into the country's first opposition political party.

According to 1998 Government statistics, the latest such figures available, there were 1,500 national-level, quasi-nongovernmental organizations, 165,000 social organizations and 700,000 nonprofit organizations registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Although these organizations all came under some degree of Government control, they were able to develop their own agendas. Many had support from foreign secular and religious NGO's. Some sought advocacy roles in less controversial public interest areas such as women's issues, the environment, and consumer rights. Regulations stipulate local-level NGO's must have an official office and at least $3,600 (30,000 RMB) in funds. National-level groups must have at least $12,000 (100,000 RMB). Applications must be vetted by the Government, which has 2 months in which to grant approval. Once established, groups are required to submit to regular oversight and "obey the Constitution, laws, and national policies." They must not "damage national unity, or upset ethnic harmony." Violators (groups that disobey guidelines or unregistered groups that continue to operate) may face administrative punishment or criminal charges. It is difficult to estimate how many groups may have been discouraged from organizing NGO's because of these regulations. However, preexisting groups report little or no additional interference by the Government since the new regulations came into effect.

c. Freedom of Religion

The Constitution provides for freedom of religious belief and the freedom not to believe; however, the Government seeks to restrict religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and to control the growth and scope of the activity of religious groups. There are five officially recognized religions--Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. For each faith, there is a government-affiliated association to monitor and supervise its activities. Membership in religions is growing rapidly; however, while the Government generally does not seek to suppress this growth outright, it tries to control and regulate religious groups to prevent the rise of groups or sources of authority outside the control of the Government and the Communist Party. The Criminal Law states that government officials who deprive citizens of religious freedom may, in serious cases, be sentenced to up to 2 years in prison. There are no known cases of persons being punished under this statute.

Overall, government respect for religious freedom remained poor and crackdowns against unregistered groups, including underground Protestant and Catholic groups, Muslim Uighurs, and Tibetan Buddhists continued. The Government intensified its repression of groups that it determined to be "cults," and of the FLG in particular. Various sources report that thousands of FLG adherents have been arrested, detained, and imprisoned, and that approximately 200 or more FLG adherents have died in detention since 1999; many of their bodies reportedly bore signs of severe beatings or torture or were cremated before relatives could examine them. The atmosphere created by the nationwide campaign against FLG had a spillover effect on unregistered churches, temples, and mosques in many parts of the country. Separately, under the guise of urban renewal and cracking down on unregistered places of worship, authorities in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province razed an unknown number of churches and temples in late 2000. However, official repression of underground Catholic and Protestant groups in Guangdong and Fujian provinces eased somewhat.

In general unregistered religious groups continued to experience varying degrees of official interference, harassment, and repression. Some unregistered religious groups, including Protestant and Catholic groups, were subjected to increased restrictions, including, in some cases, intimidation, harassment, and detention; however, the degree of restrictions varied significantly from region to region. In some localities, authorities forced "underground" churches, temples and mosques to close. Regulations restricting Muslims' religious activity, teaching, and places of worship continued to be tight in Xinjiang.

The State reserves to itself the right to register and thus to allow to operate particular religious groups and spiritual movements. The State Council's Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) is responsible for monitoring and judging the legitimacy of religious activity. The RAB and the CCP's United Front Work Department (UFWD), both of which are staffed by officials who are rarely, if ever, religious adherents, provide policy "guidance and supervision" over implementation of government regulations on religious activity, including the role of foreigners in religious activity.

Offenses related to membership in unapproved religious groups are classified as crimes of disturbing the social order. According to the Law Yearbook of China, arrests for "Disturbing the Social Order" increased dramatically in 1999 over 1998. In 1998, 76,500 persons were arrested; in 1999, over 90,000 persons were arrested. Most experts agree the increase primarily was due to the Government's crackdown, begun in mid-1999, on qigong groups like the FLG, evangelical Christian groups, localized Buddhist groups such as the Society of Disciples (Mentu Hui) and the Guanyin Famin, Protestant house churches, and the underground Roman Catholic Church.

The Government has restored or replaced churches, temples, mosques, and monasteries damaged or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and allowed the reopening of some seminaries. Implementation of this policy has varied from locality to locality. However, there are far fewer temples, churches, or mosques than existed 50 years ago, despite the recent increase in number of religious believers. The difficulty in registering new places of worship has led to crowding in existing places of worship in some areas. Some observers cite the lack of adequate meeting space in registered churches to explain the rapid rise in attendance at house churches and "underground" churches. However, the Government continued and in some areas intensified a national campaign to enforce State Council regulations and provincial regulations that require all places of worship to register with either government religious affairs bureaus or to come under the supervision of official "patriotic" religious organizations, affiliated with either the Catholic Patriotic Association or the (Protestant) Three-Self Patriotic Movement/Chinese Christian Council to operate legally. There are six requirements for the registration of venues for religious activity: Possession of a meeting place; citizens who are religious believers and who regularly take part in religious activity; qualified leaders and an organized governing board; a minimum number of followers; a set of operating rules; and a legal source of income. There are reports that despite the rapidly growing religious population, it is difficult for new places of worship to register, even among the five officially recognized faiths.

Some groups registered voluntarily, some registered under pressure, some shunned officials in an attempt to avoid registration, and authorities refused to register others. Some unofficial groups claimed that authorities often refused them registration without explanation. The Government contends that these refusals were mainly the result of failure to meet requirements concerning facilities and meeting spaces. Many religious groups have been reluctant to comply with the regulations out of principled opposition to state control of religion or due to fear of adverse consequences if they reveal, as required, the names and addresses of church leaders and members. In some areas, efforts to register unauthorized groups were carried out by religious leaders and civil affairs officials. In other regions, police and RAB officials performed registration procedures concurrently with other law enforcement actions. Police closed scores of "underground" mosques, temples, seminaries, Catholic churches, and Protestant "house churches," including many with significant memberships, properties, financial resources, and networks. Some were destroyed; others were confiscated by authorities for other uses. Leaders of unauthorized groups often were the targets of harassment, interrogations, detention, and physical abuse.

In some areas there were reports of harassment of churches by local RAB officials which is attributed, at least in part, to financial issues. For example, although regulations require local authorities to provide land to church groups, some local officials may try to avoid doing so by denying registration, thus avoiding the requirement to provide land. Official churches also may face harassment if local authorities wish to acquire the land on which a church is located. In addition to refusing to register churches, there also are reports that RAB officials have requested illegal "donations" from churches in their jurisdictions as a means of raising extra revenue.

There is significant variation in how the authorities deal with unregistered religious groups, and the intensity of scrutiny on "house churches" or unregistered churches varied from region to region. In certain regions, government supervision of religious activity was minimal, and registered and unregistered churches were treated similarly by authorities, existing openly side by side. Coexistence and cooperation between official and unofficial churches in such areas, both Catholic and Protestant, is close enough to blur the line between the two. In these areas, many congregants worship in both types of churches. However, in some areas relations between the two churches remained hostile. In other regions, particularly where considerable unofficial and official religious activity takes place, such as in Zhejiang, Guangxi, Shanghai, and Chongqing, local regulations call for strict government oversight of religion and authorities have cracked down on unregistered churches and their members. During the year, some unregistered religious groups were subjected to increased restrictions, and, in some cases, intimidation, harassment, and detention. The situation in the southern province of Guangdong improved somewhat during the year, after a crackdown on house churches there in early 2000. Repression of underground Catholics in the southeastern province of Fujian, a major concern in 2000, subsided over the course of the year. However, underground Protestant and Catholic contacts in the northern and central parts of the country, especially in Beijing, Henan, Hebei, Shaanxi, and Shanxi, reported an increase in efforts to force them to register. Throughout the year, the Government moved swiftly against houses of worship outside its control that grew too large or espoused beliefs that it considered threatening to "state security."

The law does not prohibit religious believers from holding public office; however, most influential positions in government are reserved for Party members, and Communist Party officials state that Party membership and religious belief are incompatible. This has a disproportionate effect in such minority-inhabited areas as Xinjiang and Tibet. Party membership also is required for almost all high-level positions in government and in state-owned businesses and organizations. The Communist Party reportedly has issued circulars ordering Party members not to adhere to religious beliefs, and to remind Party cadres that religion was incompatible with Party membership, a theme reflected in authoritative media. The "Routine Service Regulations" of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) state explicitly that servicemen "may not take part in religious or superstitious activities." Party and PLA military personnel were expelled for adhering to the Falun Gong movement. On December 13, all seven members of the Politburo attended a Party Work Conference on religion. President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji gave speeches at the conference that likely will be the basis for future policy directives. In their speeches, the leaders praised the social work being done by numerous religious institutions and urged "mainstream" religious groups that are presently "underground" to register with the RAB. At the same time, the leaders called for stepped-up measures to eliminate non-mainstream religious groups. Despite official regulations encouraging officials to be atheists, in some localities as many as 20 to 25 percent of Communist Party officials engage in some kind of religious activity. Most officials who practice a religion are Buddhist or practice a folk religion. Religious figures, who are not members of the CCP, are included in national and local government organizations, usually to represent their constituency on cultural and educational matters. The National People's Congress includes several religious leaders, including Pagbalha Geleg Namgyai, a Tibetan reincarnated lama who is a vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC. Religious groups also are represented in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a forum for "multiparty" cooperation and consultation led by the Chinese Communist Party, which advises the Government on policy.

The authorities permit officially sanctioned religious organizations to maintain international contacts that do not involve "foreign control." What constitutes "control" is not defined. Regulations enacted in 1994, and expanded in September 2000, codified many existing rules involving foreigners, including a ban on proselytizing by foreigners. For the most part, authorities allow foreign nationals to preach to foreigners in approved, registered places of worship, bring in religious materials for personal use, and preach to citizens at churches, mosques, and temples at the invitation of registered religious organizations. Collective religious activities of foreigners also are required to take place at officially registered places of worship or approved temporary locations. Foreigners legally are barred from conducting missionary activities, but foreign Christians currently teaching English and other subjects on college campuses openly profess their faith with minimum interference from authorities as long as their proselytizing is low key. Many Christian groups throughout the country have developed close ties with local officials, in some cases running schools to help educate children who otherwise would receive a substandard education and operating homes for the care of the aged. Likewise, Buddhist-run private schools and orphanages in the central part of the country not only educate children, but also offer professional training courses to teenagers and young adults.

Official religious organizations administer local religious schools, seminaries, and institutes to train imams, Islamic scholars, and Buddhist monks. Students who attend these institutes must demonstrate "political reliability," and all graduates must pass an examination on their theological and political knowledge to qualify for the clergy. The Government permitted limited numbers of Catholic and Protestant seminarians, Muslim clerics, and Buddhist clergy to go abroad for additional religious studies. In most cases, funding for these training programs is provided by foreign organizations. Both official and unofficial Christian churches have problems training adequate numbers of clergy to meet the needs of their growing congregations. The shortfall is most severe for persons between the ages of 35 and 65. No priests or other clergy in the official churches were ordained between 1955 and 1985. Due to government prohibitions, unofficial churches have particularly significant problems training clergy or sending students to study overseas, and many clergy receive only limited and inadequate preparation. Members of the underground Catholic Church, especially clergy wishing to further their studies abroad, found it difficult to obtain passports and other necessary travel documents (see Section 2.d.).

The widespread traditional folk religions (worship of local gods, heroes, and ancestors) have been revived in recent years and were tolerated to varying degrees as a loose affiliate of Taoism, or as an ethnic minority cultural practice. However, at the same time, folk religions have been labeled as "feudal superstition," and sometimes were repressed. Local authorities have destroyed thousands of local shrines.

Buddhists make up the largest body of organized religious believers. Tibetan Buddhists in some areas outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) appear to have growing freedom to practice their faith; however, restrictions remain, especially at those monasteries with close ties to foreign organizations. Monks who study abroad often were prevented from returning to their home monasteries outside of the TAR. There continue to be reports of monks and nuns outside of the TAR who have left monasteries and nunneries to avoid the patriotic education campaigns, which force them to choose between signing oaths with political content or possibly suffering serious consequences. Diplomats have seen pictures of a number of Tibetan religious figures, including the Dalai Lama, openly displayed in parts of Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu provinces. Likewise, abbots and monks in those predominantly Tibetan areas outside the TAR report they have greater freedom to worship and conduct religious training than their coreligionists within the TAR. However, beginning in June, the Government began to expel thousands of Tibetan nuns, monks, and students from the Serthar Tibetan Buddhist Institute (also known as the Larung Gar Monastic encampment) located in the Ganze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province. The Government maintained that the facility, which housed the largest concentration of monks and nuns in the country, was reduced in size for sanitation and hygiene reasons. Authorities demolished hundreds of residential structures. Foreign observers believed that the authorities moved against the Institute because of its size and the influence of its charismatic founder, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok. At year's end, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok had not returned to the Institute. (A discussion of government restrictions on Tibetan Buddhism in the TAR can be found in the Tibet annex to this report.)

In the past, official tolerance for religions considered traditionally Chinese, such as Buddhism and Taoism, has been greater than that for Christianity. However, as these non-Western faiths have grown rapidly in recent years, there are signs of greater government concern and new restrictions, especially on syncretic sects.

Regulations restricting Muslims' religious activity, teaching, the religious education of youths under the age of 18, and places of worship continued to be tight in Xinjiang, and the Government dealt harshly with Muslims who engaged in political speech and activities that the authorities deemed separatist. Regional-level Communist Party and government officials repeatedly called for stronger management of religious affairs and for the separation of religion from administrative matters. In 2000 the authorities began conducting monthly political study sessions for religious personnel. In addition they required every mosque to record the numbers and names of those attending each day's activities. The official Xinjiang Daily reported that Yining county early in 2000 reviewed the activities of 420 mosques and implemented a system of linking ethnic cadres to mosques in order to improve vigilance against "illegal religious activities." The authorities also initiated a campaign to discourage overt religious attire such as veils and to discourage religious marriage ceremonies. There were numerous official media reports that the authorities confiscated "illegal religious publications" in Xinjiang. According to a July 2000 report of the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, for the last several years, the Xinjiang People's Publication House, has been the only publisher allowed to print Muslim literature in Xinjiang.

In some areas where ethnic unrest has occurred, particularly among Central Asian Muslims (and especially the Uighurs) in Xinjiang, officials continue to restrict the building of mosques. However, in other areas, particularly in areas traditionally populated by the non-Central Asian Hui ethnic group, there is substantial religious building construction and renovation. Local officials told foreign diplomats that beginning in September, all courses at the Xinjiang Communist Party School were to be conducted in Chinese rather than in the Uighur language. Other officials confirmed that also beginning in September, teachers at Urumqi's Xinjiang University would have to be able to teach classes in Mandarin, in addition to any other language they understood.

The Government permits, and in some cases subsidizes, Muslim citizens who make the hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca. According to the China Islamic Association, 2,000 Muslims took part in the Hajj as members of official delegations. According to some reports, the major limiting factors for participation in the Hajj were the cost and controls on passport issuance. Other Muslims make the trip to Mecca via neighboring countries, especially Pakistan, and may not be counted in government statistics.

The Government takes some steps designed to show respect for the country's Muslims, such as offering congratulations on major Islamic holidays. However, government sensitivity to concerns of the Muslim community is limited.

The Government so far has refused to