Date Written: October 10, 2021
Abstract
Political policing in China has evolved and, increasingly, commentators have documented the systemic use of “soft repression”, which is preventive and preemptive in nature, characterized by surveillance, early intervention and political persuasion. The process is informal and interactive in which the Chinese political policing systems bring government pressure and other non-state forces to bear on target groups and individuals to achieve compliance. Subtle intimidation, consent under duress, relational repression, voluntary detention, all hallmarks of China’s political policing, have worked to constrain legitimate advocacy without frequently resorting to direct violence or blatant violence of legal rules. The process is referred to as coercive political persuasion (CPP) because at the heart of the process is the persistent efforts on the part of national security police to bring changes in ideological positions and political activities on the part of specific individuals in particular communities through a wide range of formal and informal and, legal and extra-legal means with varying degrees of coercion. Using the interaction between police and human rights lawyers and activists who have been at the receiving end of the state repression in the past two decades, as a case study, this chapter aims to shed light on a neglected aspect of political policing in China by offering an integrated conceptual framework for understanding CPP in China.
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