In August 2023, the quarrel-picking, trouble-provoking, murderous and totalitarian regime of China detained 62-year-old writer Zhou Yuanzhi for reasons unknown—or at least unstated. But the regime regards criticism of any aspect of its conduct and policies as a form of criminality, and Zhou is a critic.
The political commentator has gotten into hot water with the government before. In May 2008, a few years before the ascendancy of Xi Jinping, Zhou was “briefly detained…during the crackdown on civil society in the leadup to the Beijing Summer Olympics,” reports Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF, August 31, 2023).
In the Xi era, he spent a much longer time behind bars, from November 2017 to May 2022, having been found guilty of “unlawful assembly,” “defamation,” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” the kind of “blurry charges” that are “frequently used as a weapon against journalists,” RSF notes.
On September 11, 2023, RSF updated its August story to tell readers that Zhou had been released after 15 days. So it could have been worse; and, unfortunately, it may end up being worse.
Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which describes Zhou as “known for his commentaries critical of the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership,” provides details of how he was treated in 2017.
After Zhou was initially detained in November 2017, he was issued a 15-day administrative detention but then criminally detained after completing that punishment. Zhou’s prison term was calculated based on conviction for three separate crimes; the court issued a two-year punishment for “organizing illegal gatherings,” three years for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and 18 months for “libel,” due to his social media posts.
Zhou’s first-instance trial took place without authorities giving sufficient notice to his family or defense attorney, leaving Zhou to speak to his own defense in court. Prior to the trial, two lawyers had dropped Zhou’s case after being pressured by authorities, and Zhou received his first lawyer visit only on August 1, 2018, after he had been in custody for nearly nine months. Lawyer Liu Zhengqing, who had been representing Zhou at the time of his trial, had his law license revoked, and was never even allowed to visit his client.
In December 2021, RSF published a report on Xi’s sustained assault on journalism and journalists, The Great Leap Backwards of Journalism in China. RSF summarizes the ten key points of the report:
Journalists forced to be the Party’s mouthpiece. . . . The world’s biggest captor [imprisoner] of journalists. . . . Foreign correspondents unwelcome…. COVID-19 as an excuse for increased repression. . . . Media blockade in Xinjiang. . . . Proliferation of the “Red Lines” [subjects that are off-limits]. . . . Hong Kong journalists endangered by the National Security Law. . . . Carrie Lam as a puppet of the Beijing regime. . . . CGTN [a state-owned broadcaster] continues to spread propaganda around the world. . . . Embassies used as a tool against freedom of information. . . .
In light of the sweeping attack on his profession and the history of sequels to other 15-day detentions in China, Zhou Yuanzhi isn’t exactly out of jeopardy. No one in China is.
