Case
Xu Zhiyong And Ding Jiaxi: How Civil Society Was Securitized
A case study of how meetings, advocacy, public responsibility, and constitutional discussion were recoded as subversion.
Contents
Xu Zhiyong And Ding Jiaxi: How Civil Society Was Securitized: pressure relay
The case is not one isolated act; it is a relay between naming, institutions, relationships, and public memory.
Case Mechanism Matrix
Use this matrix to see how concrete facts become a repeatable method.
| Layer | What Happens | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| Rights | Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi touched freedom of association, peaceful assembly, civic advocacy, constitutional discussion, and participation in public life. | Secret Trials: State Secrets, Public Access, and Defense Limits |
| Label | They were labeled as subverting state power, which means the state treated horizontal civic connection itself as political threat. | From Rights Defense To Stability Maintenance: How A Civic Claim Is Taken Over |
| Institutions | Meetings and advocacy were monitored and recorded. Security organs interpreted loose civic networks as organized risk. Closed trials and heavy sentences converted public discussion into national-security cases. Family speech and international attention were further managed. | Forced Disappearance: Why Power Makes A Person Temporarily Vanish |
| Relationships | Families had to make procedural problems visible while facing harassment, monitoring, and cross-border pressure. | Transnational Repression: How The CCP Exports Fear Overseas |
On December 7 and 8, 2019, about twenty lawyers and civic activists met privately in Xiamen. They discussed the condition of civil society, current affairs, and China's political future. Police began detaining participants across several provinces within weeks. Ding Jiaxi was taken on December 26. Xu Zhiyong hid for a time, published an essay criticizing Xi Jinping after the coronavirus outbreak, and was arrested at a friend's home in Guangzhou on February 15, 2020. [2][3]
Authorities placed both men under residential surveillance at a designated location, cutting them off from family and lawyers. Information received by UN experts alleged that Ding was interrogated for about twenty-one hours a day over several days while fastened to a chair and deprived of sleep. Xu was also tied to a chair for long interrogations. In June 2022, each man faced a one-day closed trial, and lawyers had to sign confidentiality agreements. A Shandong court sentenced Xu to fourteen years and Ding to twelve years for subversion of state power in April 2023. [1][2]
The New Citizens Movement turned rights into public action
Xu and Ding were important participants in the New Citizens Movement. This loose network promoted disclosure of officials' assets and equal education for the children of migrant workers. It also encouraged citizens to take public responsibility through open and peaceful action. Participants held local dinners, discussed constitutional government and rule of law, and supported individual rights cases.
The work moved rights from legal text into real relationships. Parents pressed for school access together. Citizens demanded financial disclosure from officials, while lawyers and activists referred cases to one another. An administrative problem faced by one person could become a public issue pursued by many. Participants built durable connections outside Party organizations, which made continued control more difficult for the CCP.
Xu and Ding had already served prison terms in 2014 over New Citizens Movement activities. They resumed civic work after release. The CCP used the heavier crime of subversion in the second prosecution and increased the punishment from several years to more than a decade. Maintaining the network over time had become an attack on one-party rule in the official case.
Prosecutors reconstructed the Xiamen meeting as subversion
The Xiamen participants ate together, exchanged reports from their cities, and discussed China's future. Prosecutors later assembled the meeting, nationwide contacts, online groups, and movement writings into a subversion case that identified Xu and Ding as organizers.
Prosecutors converted loose relationships into a hierarchical organization. A meeting became planning, a group chat became infrastructure, and essays became a political program. Participants did not need to control state institutions or carry out violence. Continued discussion of political reform and sustained contact could be assembled into a subversive network.
The police operation helped create its own account of organization. Officers summoned, detained, or threatened numerous participants and gathered information about their relationships and conversations. Security agencies broke the network apart and then used material collected during that process to establish that the network had organized form.
Secret residential surveillance created an interrogation black box
Residential surveillance at a designated location allowed police to hold the men for long periods at secret sites. Families did not know the precise location, lawyers could not intervene promptly, and no outside institution inspected the interrogations. Allegations that Xu and Ding were tortured arose from this period of isolation.
Long interrogation, sleep deprivation, and restraint in an interrogation chair can break physical and mental resistance. Ding asked the court to exclude statements he said had been obtained through torture, but the court refused. Closed trials kept the public from examining how confessions were produced or whether prosecution evidence had independent support. Confidentiality requirements further restricted lawyers from describing the procedure.
The CCP controlled every route by which information about the case could leave the system. Police controlled the location and interrogation record, prosecutors selected the material, and courts invoked state secrets to close proceedings. Families reportedly struggled even to obtain complete judgments. The sentences became public while the evidence supporting them remained concealed.
Long sentences also punished families and supporters
Ding's wife, Luo Shengchun, publicly documented the case from abroad and contacted governments and human-rights bodies. Her advocacy kept the secret detention and torture allegations from disappearing completely into the official account. Xu's partner Li Qiaochu also publicized their mistreatment and was later detained and convicted of inciting subversion.
Security authorities treated support relationships as another target. A relative who sought detention information, relayed a lawyer's account, or contacted an international organization could be accused of interfering or expanding the case. Family members abroad were harder to arrest directly, while relatives and friends inside China faced monitoring, questioning, and travel controls.
Fourteen and twelve years in prison also interrupted the transfer of experience between generations of activists. Younger citizens lost access to people who had organized education equality campaigns, asset disclosure, and legal support. Existing participants had to weigh whether a private meeting could bring more than a decade in prison. Long sentences removed experienced connectors and made new relationships costly to form.
The CCP criminalized civic responsibility
Xu and Ding argued that citizens should take responsibility for public affairs and require government to answer to the constitution, law, and social oversight. That activity limits arbitrary official power and lets people cooperate outside Party organizations. Citizens begin acting as members of a political community instead of managed subjects.
The CCP prosecuted a peaceful meeting under the same grave offense used for attempts to overthrow state power. Secret residential surveillance subdued the defendants, closed trials hid the evidence, and long sentences destroyed the network. The prosecution turned peaceful association into a grave crime and defended the Chinese Communist Party's monopoly over political organization.
Sources: Human Rights Watch on Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi[2], Amnesty International on Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi[3], UN Special Procedures communication on the torture allegations and closed trials[1].
Related reading: secret trials, rights-to-stability chain, forced disappearance, transnational repression.
Sources
UN Special Procedures Communication on Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxiun-recordLive
Human Rights Watch on Xu Zhiyong and Ding JiaxiLive
Amnesty International on Xu Zhiyong and Ding JiaxiRestricted
Amnesty International China annual human-rights reportRestricted
OHCHR assessment of human-rights concerns in XinjiangRestricted
U.S. State Department human-rights report on ChinaLive