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A logo used by the APAT. Image credit: 時事能見度 YouTube page |
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Members of San Francisco’s Chinese community participating in the "May 1st National Resonance" event in front of the Chinese Consulate. Image credit: CK via RFA |
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A logo used by the APAT. Image credit: 時事能見度 YouTube page |
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Members of San Francisco’s Chinese community participating in the "May 1st National Resonance" event in front of the Chinese Consulate. Image credit: CK via RFA |
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A screenshot from a video about the “All People Act Together” campaign. Image credit: 一平論政 Youtube page |
“All People Act Together” (APAT), or quanmin gongzhen (全民共振), is a social media campaign launched in early 2018 by Chinese dissidents overseas. The campaign calls on rights defenders to collectively seek redress and make their voices heard by staging street protests across Chinese cities on occasions of special historical, social, or political importance such as International Workers’ Day (May 1), the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (July 1), and National Day (October 1).
Proponents of APAT believe that resistance movements can “reverberate” or “resonate” around the country and overwhelm the stability maintenance regime if the outbreaks are simultaneous and sustained. They predict CCP’s eventual demise when it runs short of resources to keep up its increasingly expensive operations.
The CCP’s zeal in crushing dissent to maintain stability has created a domestic security system so costly that it is sapping funds required elsewhere to support the country’s economic health. APAT emerged against the backdrop of China’s spending on internal security, which has exceeded the national defense budget since 2010. The rise in spending on domestic security is most evident in western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, but a sizable portion is spent in Han-majority regions keeping potential troublemakers in residential surveillance, running “black jails,” or forcing dissenters to “travel” elsewhere — all part of the longstanding scheme designed to muzzle protestors during sensitive occasions.
Part I of this post focuses on APAT’s reach and cases in which supporters were charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble (PQPT).” Part II will look at cases involving charges of disrupting public services and preparing for a terrorist activity.
The nature of APAT is similar to the online calls for the 2011 Tunisia-inspired “Jasmine Revolution” manifested in the form of “strolling” protests around McDonald’s on Wangfujing shopping streets and spots in other cities. Chinese state media have been largely silent on the planned protests, but social media accounts recounted major shows of police force to disperse small crowds of seemingly curious onlookers that had gathered in Beijing and Shanghai.
APAT appears to have limited reach in China. No visible protests linked to APAT have been reported. However, prominent dissidents including Hu Jia were reportedly warned by police not to take part in or publicly discuss APAT. There was scant media coverage and the fate of those who openly espouse APAT in China has gone largely unnoticed. Dui Hua’s Political Prisoner Database has information on six individuals who were given coercive measures for heeding the calls of APAT. Of them, four received prison sentences for a variety of crimes ranging from PQPT and disrupting public services to preparing for terrorist activities.
Picking Quarrels & Provoking Trouble
Xue Renyi, an advocate of Greenleaf Action, who was arrested on May 1, 2018 for walking in Jiefangbei Square in Chongqing while wearing a green leaf. Image credit: Twitter via RFA |
The first APAT supporter known to have been imprisoned is Xue Renyi (薛仁义). He was taken into custody on May 1, 2018 after posting a photograph of himself “strolling” in Chongqing People’s Liberation Monument Square while carrying a green leaf in his shirt pocket. Some other people were seized on the same day; they were warned off speaking out online or giving interviews with foreign media after being released from custody.
Xue is the founder of Green Leaf Action, an environmental group which promoted food safety, clean air, and clean water. The group stood accused by police of being “controlled” and “manipulated” by foreign forces. Xue’s three-year sentence became known to the outside world only when his fiancée received his letter from prison one year after he was detained. Xue completed his sentence for PQPT in Dianjiang Prison without receiving a sentence reduction. He was released on April 30, 2021.
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Gao Zhigang’s case materials and ID card. Image credit: Provided by Geng Guanjun via RFA |
In a separate case, Gao Zhigang (高志刚) was sentenced to 10 months in prison for PQPT in 2020 even without showing up at any APAT protest spot. Gao was accused of forwarding a video which called on people to join a rally in Taiyuan’s Wuyi Square on the 2019 National Day. Additionally, Gao sent the video to an “overseas democracy activist” known by the name of Geng Guanjun (耿冠军). Geng fled to the United States in 2018 and has been a target of attack by patriotic internet users for his “reactionary” views and anti-China remarks. After completing his sentence in August 2020, Gao spoke to Radio Free Asia claiming that he never expected the conviction would be based entirely on his private conversations from his social media account which he had deleted prior to his detainment in October 2019.
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Changle government building. Image credit: Google images |
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Fuzhou Changle International Airport. Chan flew here from Hong Kong before turning himself in, six years after his alleged crime. Image credit: Fuzhou Changle International Airport |
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On October 13, 2014, protestors camp out in the streets of Hong Kong as part of the Occupy Central movement. Image credit: L-BBE / CC BY 3.0 |
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Map showing the route (in green) from Kunming to Jinghong, from where Cho intended to travel to Mongla. Source: Gaode Map |
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A Chinese propaganda poster denouncing extremism. In 2018, the poster went viral after a social media user noticed that one of the poster’s images condemning Islamic facial hair featured actor Keanu Reeves, who does not identify as Muslim. Image credit: Reddit via Taiwan News |
Although ethnic minorities make up the majority of the extremism cases, there is a dearth of publicly available information about them, particularly those of the Islamic faith. Court judgments and judicial decisions like this in Xinjiang are deemed to be highly sensitive; they were almost never posted online even before the purge on China Judgements Online started in June 2021. Overseas news media sources have reported on a few cases, but it is impossible to grasp the whole picture due to the tight control on information flows in the region. In most cases, media reports did not explicitly state which specific extremism crimes were invoked.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) is among the overseas news media groups which have occasionally covered extremism cases over the years. In September 2017, a Uyghur woman named Horigul Nasir was reportedly sentenced to 10 years in prison in Kashgar, presumably for extremism because she allegedly told one of her friends that not wearing a headscarf is sinful. The allegation, however, has been disputed by her brother, who claimed that his sister does not even wear a headscarf or pray five times a day.
In another case also reported by RFA, a Uyghur businessman named Ekber Imin is serving a 25-year prison sentence for an unspecified extremism crime alongside two of his brothers. They were reportedly convicted for having foreign contacts and spreading extremism by incorporating ethnic and religious elements in the buildings they developed.
In March 2022, RFA reported that Abdureshid Obul died in 2020 while serving his eight-year prison sentence for an extremism crime. The Uyghur farmer was reportedly jailed for having a fourth child and relocating his pregnant wife to avoid a forced abortion. Ethnic minority families living in rural areas are limited to two children. Authorities considered Abdureshid’s violation of the family planning policy to be an act of extremism.
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(Top) Horigul Nasir’s identification card. (Bottom) A photo of Ekber Imin’s passport page. Image credits: RFA listeners via RFA |
It would be a mistake to assume that only Uyghurs are singled out for excessive criminal punishment. An ethnic Dongxiang surnamed Chen received a 10-year prison sentence for Article 120(3) with a deprivation of political rights sentence of three years in Nilka County in July 2018. As with almost all other cases of a similar nature, there is no information about the acts that led to his harsh prison sentence.
Two Rare Judgments
Despite being unable to find an extremism judgment in Xinjiang, where the majority of extremism cases are tried and heavy sentences are meted out, Dui Hua found two rare judgments in other provinces. Dongxiang are among the Muslim communities who have faced restrictions in and outside of Xinjiang, but very little information is known about the crackdown on this ethnic group. The case of Ma Yinglong (马英龙) in Beijing indicates that besides growing beards, conducting regular prayer or unauthorized religious classes, or fasting for Ramadan, Islamic booksellers are another target of China’s crackdown on extremism.
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A picture of the opening ceremony of a Xinjiang re-education camp, posted online by the government in Korla, Xinjiang in June 2018. The partially obscured sign on the left reads “Transformation Through Education Center” (教育转化中心 jiàoyù zhuǎnhuà zhōngxīn). Image credit Korla government via SupChina |
Ma is a native from Xinjiang’s Yining County. He was convicted of Article 120(3) and sentenced to 13 months in prison by Beijing’s Haidian District People’s Court in September 2017. The crime stemmed from him running an Islamic bookstore which sold books about Islam and related topics. Additionally, he administered his IslamBook.net website, which offered a number of Islamic religious items including Malaysian-made hijabs and other clothing, Islamic arts and crafts, and halal food items, according to reporting from unofficial news media sources.
The court judgment focused on one title he sold: Milestones: Ma'alim Fi'l Tariq. This book was written by Egyptian Islamic author Sayyid Qutb, who calls for the re-creation of the Muslim world on strictly Quranic grounds to counter western influence. Qutb is seen by some observers as one of the formative, leading theorists of violent jihad. Unbeknownst to Ma, the Chinese version of this book had been classified in China as an illegal publication about terrorism and extremism. Ma stated in his defense that he had not read the book; he only procured a total of six copies of Milestones at the request of his customers. The court rejected Ma’s defense because “he should have known about the extremely harmful nature of the book” considering he had many years of experience selling Islamic books.
In another case, Dui Hua found that Uyghur businessman Erkin Balat was sentenced to 22 months in prison for Article 120(6) in Shandong. Erkin moved to Qufu from Xinjiang to start his jade business in 2007. In early 2017, he was found in possession of 50 Uyghur-language books, one Uyghur-Arabic dictionary and one Arabic-language Quran, which became evidence of him possessing articles to promote extremism. Some of the Uyghur titles touched on topics such as the history of Islam. Other evidence included two Japanese sabres and one Arabian scimitar he displayed in one of his shops. Erkin completed his prison sentence on March 8, 2021.
Same Acts, Different Outcomes![]() |
Screenshot from a 2019 CGTN program titled Fighting Terrorism in Xinjiang. Image credit: CGTN |
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Screenshot from a 2019 CGTN program titled Fighting Terrorism in Xinjiang. Image credit: CGTN |
Extremism, officially defined in Chinese law as the “ideological basis of terrorism”, or more broadly, “inciting hatred, discrimination or agitating violence through distorting religious doctrines or other means, has long been integral to China’s security policy against the “three evil forces” (i.e terrorism, splittism, and religious extremism). However, it was not a precisely defined legal term until the following provisions were added in 2015 under Article 120 of the Criminal Law, “organizing, leading, and actively participating in a terrorist organization:”
Reporting by overseas news media sources suggests that the four new crimes are most typically invoked against Uyghurs. The crimes have been criticized by United Nations’ special rapporteurs and working groups for being overly vague with no basis in binding international legal standards. Human rights groups have also said that many of the extremism arrests are made without evidentiary basis and authorities frequently fail to respect the due process rights of detainees.
This is the first installment in a two-part series which discusses Dui Hua’s observations on extremism, with a focus on Article 120(3) and (6). Part I discusses the extent of the crimes’ application and sentencing trends, drawing on the 2016 statistics released by the Supreme People’s Court. Individuals charged with and convicted of extremism crimes are not exclusively members of ethnic minority groups, despite their accounting for most of the cases. Extremism cases are selectively published in Chinese government sources. Those involving Han are notably well documented, and only rarely do they receive lengthy prison sentences. Part II focuses on cases involving Muslim minorities. Hefty punishments appear commonplace in Xinjiang, but information on prisoners pre- and post-sentencing is extremely limited.
Court Statistics One Year After Expansion
According to the 12-volume Records of People’s Courts Historical Judicial Statistics: 1949-2016, China tried 1,403 extremism cases involving 2,463 defendants in 2016. Of them, 2,031, or 82 percent, were ethnic minorities. Additionally, 85 percent of the defendants were farmers. As Xinjiang has been cast as a key battlefield in the fight against extremism, it would be natural to assume that the charges are predominantly leveled against Muslim minorities.
Table 1. Court statistics on extremism crimes for 2016
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Source: Records of People’s Courts Historical Judicial Statistics: 1949-2016 |
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A screenshot of a 2015 tweet from Mashable on Chinese-language ISIS propaganda. Image credit: Mashable Twitter account |
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(Clockwise top left) Journalist Zhang Baocheng; Huang Yunmin, known for helping petitioners; Zhao Waikei, Xuncheng Reformed Church leader. Image credits: Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch via RFA; Asia News; WeChat via ChinaAid |
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An open letter from the daughters of Pastor Gong Shengliang to then-President George W. Bush. The letter includes a picture of the Gong family (Gong Shengliang seated bottom left). Image credit: Boxun News |
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Reporting on Gong Shengliang’s two-year reprieve from the death penalty: (left) A reprinted Baltimore Sun article from 2002 on Gong; (right) a BBC article mentioning Gong’s case from November 9, 2004. Image credits: The Tech; BBC News |
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A screenshot of a search on Kaiwind.com showing reports on South China Church, including alleged abuses. Image credit: Kaiwind.com |
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(Left) The cover of a 1995 translation of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, said to be required reading for South China Church members; (right) the first page of the book’s first printing, from 1536. Image credits: The Book Depository; Public domain |
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A post on Gallup News’ Twitter account releasing their study on threats to the United States. Image credit: Gallup News Twitter account |
In Gallup’s latest annual World Affairs poll, conducted from February 1-17, the American public’s opinion of China remains at a historic low. The poll, conducted partly during the 2022 Winter Olympics, found that 79 percent of respondents have an unfavorable view of China, with 41 percent answering “very unfavorable.” Only 20 percent of respondents have a “favorable” view of China. The numbers remain largely unchanged from the 2021 poll.
China’s favorability rating is at its lowest since Gallup started to poll American attitudes towards the country in 1979. An on-going trade imbalance, the COVID-19 pandemic, and alleged human rights violations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang likely all contributed to unfavorable opinions. In a 2020 poll by the Pew Research Center, 82 percent viewed China’s human rights policies as a serious problem.
The Gallup poll also found that Americans view China as a “critical” threat to US security. While more respondents identified terrorism (including cyber, international, and domestic) and the development of nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea as critical threats, anxiety over China’s military power outranked the spread of infectious diseases and climate change in perceptions of being a critical threat. When given a list of possible threats to US interests, 67 percent said that China’s military power is a “critical” threat and 29 percent ranked it as “important;” only 4 percent characterized it as “unimportant.” The concern reached a historic high and even outstripped worries over military threat from Russia. The threat of China’s economic power is also considered “critical” by 57 percent of respondents and “important” by 34 percent. However, concern over China’s economic power fell from 63 percent in 2021.
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From Gallup’s February 1-17 survey, Americans’ favorability of China from 1979-2022. The poll was conducted from February 1-17 via telephone interviews with 1,008 adults and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points. Image credit: Gallup [PDF, 873 KB] |
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A different time: in 2017, Gallup polling found US attitudes to China to be at their highest point. Image credit: CGTN Twitter account |