The guilty verdict marks the latest blow to civil society in China, where budding social movements are being crushed before they can blossom.
The crime of “subversion of state power” is widely recognized by human rights groups It has been used as a catch-all term that can be used against anyone perceived to be critical of the state as a means to suppress dissent in China. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, the Chinese Communist Party has become increasingly intolerant of organized groups it sees as questioning the party’s authority, from groups promoting LGBTQ+ awareness to groups advocating for greater rights for women and people with disabilities.
Security was tight ahead of the verdict and reporters were not allowed inside the courtroom. Calls to the court went unanswered. Supporters said both defendants deny any wrongdoing and that Huang plans to appeal the verdict.
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“Everything I do is not to incite the overthrow of state power, but because I want social conditions to improve and the country to become better,” Huang said at the end of his trial last September.
Who are Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing?
Huang, 35, is an independent journalist who played a key role in launching China’s #metoo movement in 2018 by writing about her own experience with sexual harassment and encouraging others to speak out. She conducted a survey of female journalists and found that more than 80% of the 255 respondents had been sexually harassed. Huang subsequently supported a graduate student who went public with her accusations against her doctoral supervisor. Huang participated in and wrote about the large-scale anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019, which led to her arrest.
Mr Wang, 40, was a friend of Ms Huang and a prominent supporter of China’s #MeToo movement, which they refer to together as “Xuebing”.
Wang is primarily known as a labour activist and advocate for the disabled, and has long been a champion for the rights of people with disabilities and the rights of workers with occupational diseases.
Before their arrest, the two had gathered friends and acquaintances to discuss issues frowned upon by Chinese censors, including being LGBTQ, working in the nonprofit sector and mental health care.
What case did the government have against them?
Huang and Wang were detained in September 2021 and formally arrested and charged a month later. According to a Chinese human rights group, they were held for 47 days without access to a lawyer and were then asked to hire a court-appointed lawyer.
Chinese authorities accused Huang and Wang of using public documents and private activities to incite “the subversion of the socialist system by spreading rumors and slander”. Prosecutors described Huang as the leader of an unnamed “overseas organisation” and said he supported a “non-violent movement” that challenged state power.
Wang is accused of participating in online groups such as the “64th Massacre Memorial,” which commemorates the military’s bloody crackdown on student-led protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The pair’s private gatherings are said to have “fueled participants’ dissatisfaction with Chinese state power.”
Friends say the allegations against the pair are fabricated and a misrepresentation of what they were trying to accomplish with their activities.
One friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said the indictment exaggerates certain actions — for example, Wang is accused of joining groups that he merely “liked” on Facebook.
“Anyone can like a public group, but they allege his actions were intended to incite the subversion of state power,” the official said. “Anyone involved in organizing or nurturing a potential social network critical of the government will be a target for crackdown.”
Advocates say Huang’s health has deteriorated significantly during his detention: Rights groups including Amnesty International say he was often sleep-deprived during midnight interrogations and lost a lot of weight.
What do these texts tell us about Chinese civil society?
In addition to crushing long-disputed groups such as human rights lawyers and pro-democracy activists, the Chinese government is also pressuring groups whose causes appear, on the surface, to pose less of a threat to state power.
Pro-freedom advocates say the cases of Huang and Wang show how China’s powerful security agencies monitor a wide range of social activists and intrude into their private lives, as part of a broader crackdown on religious freedom, artists, journalists, environmental activists and other groups.
Yaqiu Wang, director of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan studies at Freedom House, a Washington think tank that monitors the health of democracies, said the guilty verdict showed China’s leaders’ “relentless hostility to all peaceful activism and community building.”
“The ultimate goal of these false prosecutions is to destroy what is left of civil society, so that Chinese people will exist only as isolated individuals with no agency, no thoughts of their own and no ability to resist state control,” Wang said.
The feminism that Huang embodies is the kind of thing Beijing has tried to stifle in recent years through persecuting other feminist activists, censoring feminist content online and shutting down feminist groups.
“Feminism itself will continue to be seen as subversive because one of its central demands is women’s freedom to control their own bodies and lives,” said Rita Hong Fincher, author of “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China.”
She added that because Huang is one of the most prominent pioneering activists of China’s #MeToo movement, “the harsh sentence is likely intended as a warning to other activists.”
What was the reaction?
The case was censored in China, so there has been no public reaction there. Ahead of the verdict, supporters tried to post information about the trial and verdict on the Chinese discussion forum Douban and messaging app WeChat, but their posts were blocked once they were made public.
Human rights groups condemned the sentence as unfair.
“In fact, they have committed no crime,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s China director. “Instead, the Chinese government has invented an excuse to portray their activities as a threat.”
In a statement, Reporters Without Borders said Huang was serving the public interest as a journalist, and called on the international community to pressure Chinese authorities to secure his release and the release of 118 other journalists and press freedom activists detained in China.
Christian Shepherd and Pei-Lin Wu contributed to this report.
