The New Citizens Movement is a Chinese civic movement associated most prominently with legal scholar and activist Xu Zhiyong. Human Rights Watch dates its establishment to May 2012 and describes it as promoting civic values including equality, justice, freedom and rule of law.
Origins and ideas
Xu Zhiyong published an essay titled “New Citizens Movement” on May 29, 2012. In that essay, he described a movement centered on citizenship, constitutional governance, social justice, civic responsibility and peaceful public participation. The essay circulated online and was subsequently translated and republished outside mainland China.
Activities
Participants associated with the movement organized small public actions and informal gatherings. Documented campaigns included calls for public disclosure of officials’ assets, equal access to education for migrant children, and citizen dinners or meetings where participants discussed public affairs and civil society.
Government response and prosecutions
Beginning in 2013, Chinese authorities detained and prosecuted a number of people associated with the movement. Xu Zhiyong was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014 after being convicted of gathering a crowd to disturb public order. Ding Jiaxi and other participants were also prosecuted during that period.
After later civic gatherings, Xu and Ding were detained again. In April 2023, a court in Shandong sentenced Xu to 14 years and Ding to 12 years after convicting them of subversion of state power. Human Rights Watch criticized the proceedings and called for the convictions to be quashed; Chinese authorities treated the activities as criminal offenses under PRC law.
Key people
- Xu Zhiyong — legal scholar, co-founder of the Open Constitution Initiative/Gongmeng and a central figure in the New Citizens Movement.
- Ding Jiaxi — lawyer and movement participant who played important roles in both Gongmeng and the New Citizens Movement.
Historical significance
The movement is part of the broader post-2000s development of rights-defense, legal-reform and citizen-activism networks in mainland China. Its history links legal advocacy, anti-corruption transparency campaigns, education-equality activism and debates about constitutional governance.
Sources
- Human Rights Watch, “China: Drop Charges Against Prominent Activist,” December 25, 2013
- Human Rights Watch, “China: First Trial of Anti-Corruption Activists,” October 24, 2013
- Congressional-Executive Commission on China, “Xi’s Anticorruption Drive: Trials for Transparency Advocates, New Rules for Officials,” February 21, 2014
- Human Rights Watch, “China: Quash Convictions of Prominent Rights Lawyers,” April 10, 2023
- Xu Zhiyong, “The New Citizens Movement in China,” English translation published by China Change, July 11, 2012