Free China

News Summary

PRC authorities in mainland China adopted significant revisions to two laws in late August concerning national-defense mobilization and the legal profession.

On August 28, the Standing Committee of the PRC National People’s Congress adopted a revised National Defense Mobilization Law, effective October 1, 2026. The revision contains 14 chapters and 82 articles covering mobilization planning, reserve personnel, strategic materials, military research and production, civilian-resource requisition and compensation, information management, special measures and legal responsibility.

The law expressly provides that national-defense mobilization work shall adhere to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership. It also establishes mechanisms for collecting mobilization-related data and integrating mobilization preparations into economic and social development planning.

Once mobilization has been ordered, the law permits special measures affecting sectors including finance, transportation, telecommunications, publishing, broadcasting, information networks, energy, healthcare, food supply and commerce. It also permits restrictions on activities and movement under specified circumstances. The law states that such measures should be necessary and reasonable and terminated when no longer necessary.

At the same August 28 session, the NPC Standing Committee amended the Lawyers Law. Those amendments took effect September 1.

The revised law now expressly states that lawyers’ work shall adhere to CCP leadership. It requires law firms to establish CCP organizations under applicable Party rules and provide necessary conditions for Party activities. It also makes support for CCP leadership and the PRC’s “socialist rule of law” statutory qualifications for becoming a lawyer.

The legislation also contains provisions intended to protect lawyers’ practice rights and expand criminal-defense coverage. Those provisions should be considered alongside the new political requirements rather than omitted from an assessment of the legislation.

Why It Matters

For the Free China Movement (FCM), these two measures raise different but related questions about the institutional relationship between political power, national security and law in mainland China.

A government may legitimately maintain laws governing national-defense mobilization. Democratic constitutional governments also possess emergency powers. The fundamental issue is who controls those powers, under what conditions they may be exercised, and whether citizens have meaningful independent legal remedies when the state exceeds them.

The revised mobilization law provides for civilian-resource requisition and compensation while also establishing potentially extensive authorities once mobilization is activated. Its special-measures provisions can reach communications, transportation, finance, information networks, food and other important aspects of civilian society.

The Lawyers Law raises a different constitutional issue. Lawyers sometimes must defend individuals whose interests are directly opposed to those of the government. The independence of that professional function is particularly important in criminal, political, human-rights and national-security cases.

Making support for the ruling CCP a statutory professional qualification therefore deserves scrutiny when evaluating whether lawyers can exercise genuinely independent professional judgment.

FCM Editorial Analysis

The developments illustrate an important distinction between rule by law and constitutional rule of law in occupied mainland China.

A government can enact increasingly detailed laws governing its own exercise of power without necessarily establishing independent constitutional restraints upon that power.

National-defense mobilization may be necessary when a country confronts a genuine military emergency. But extraordinary authority should be subject to clearly defined triggering conditions, proportionality, time limits, legislative accountability, judicial review, compensation and effective remedies.

The 2026 mobilization law itself contains some limitations—including requirements concerning necessity, reasonableness, termination of unnecessary special measures, compensation and liability for abuses. Those protections matter.

The constitutional question, however, extends further: Can institutions independent of the CCP meaningfully enforce those limitations against the authorities exercising mobilization power?

The Lawyers Law presents the same institutional problem from another direction.

A lawyer does not need to agree with a client’s beliefs or conduct to defend that person’s legal rights. Nor should representation of a person accused by the government depend upon the lawyer demonstrating political loyalty to the ruling party.

FCM therefore believes that a future democratic constitutional order for mainland China should guarantee an independent legal profession, independent courts and enforceable rights of counsel.

National security and individual liberty should not be treated as mutually exclusive. A future Third Republic should possess the lawful capacity to defend the country while placing extraordinary state powers under constitutional restraints, independent judicial review and democratic civilian oversight.

Strong national defense and constitutional liberty can—and must—coexist.

Sources

• Revised National Defense Mobilization Law — official text / Beijing national-defense mobilization authority
• Ministry of Justice explanation of the revised Lawyers Law

Editorial note: FCM does not use the social-media phrase “eight evil laws” as a factual description. This article focuses on the two enacted measures whose primary legal texts and constitutional implications are sufficiently clear.