Country conditions
As outlined in the section on the legal framework surrounding extraditions, the UN Committee Against Torture’s General Comment No. 4, para. 29, lays out the conditions States should consider for the purpose of extradition (among other issues). Following are these conditions, summarized in plain language, with supporting documentation regarding China’s record on each:
The Constitution of the PRC (Section 8, Article 130) and Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC (Articles 163, 168) outline the right to a public hearing, but in practice public access to court hearings and proceedings are routinely denied in China. The PRC has made a push to have court proceedings broadcast online, but in reality, judgements and overall judicial transparency has decreased markedly in the past six years.
International bodies and government reports
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Concluding observations on the third periodic report of China, including Hong Kong, China, and Macao, China. 22 March 2023. Source.
Civil society, academic, and media reports
“How could this verdict be ‘legal’? The role of China’s courts in targeting human rights defenders,” by Amnesty International, 2025.
“China’s justice system 2024 grows more opaque” by Safeguard Defenders, 25 March 2025.
China’s Missing Verdicts, a study of Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location, by Safeguard Defenders, 22 June 2022. Source.
The Party is above all, including the judiciary. In Xi Jinping’s own words: “Leadership by the CPC [Communist Party of China] is the most fundamental guarantee for socialist rule of law. In absolutely no way does the rule of law amount to weakening the leadership of the CPC. Instead, it is meant to strengthen and improve its leadership, constantly enhance its capacity and performance in law-based governance, and bolster its position as the governing party. We must ensure the Party's leadership over legislation, its guarantee of law enforcement, its support for judicial justice, and its exemplary role in abiding by the law… Under no circumstance should we imitate the models and practices of other countries or adopt the Western models of ‘constitutionalism,’ ‘separation of powers,’ and ‘judicial independence’.” [Xi Jinping The Governance of China III, Advance the Rule of Law Under Chinese Socialism, 24 August 2018
Chinese Communist Party’s own guidance on CCP rule over courts:
中国共产党中央全面依法治国委员会简介, Chinese Communist Party Comprehensive Law-Based Governance Xinhua, Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law guides law-based governance in China, 10 December 2020.
Qiushi, 中共中央印发《中国共产党政法工作条例》(Regulation on the Communist Party of China’s Political-Legal Work), January 18, 2019.
Supervision Law of the People’s Republic of China (2018).
China Daily, CPC must lead in political, legal area, Xi says, 23 January 2018.
CGTN’s Closer to China, China’s new governance: The National Supervisory Commission, 18 March 2018.
Xi Jinping The Governance of China III, Advance the Rule of Law Under Chinese Socialism, 24 August 2018.
Document 9: A ChinaFile Translation: How Much Is a Hardline Party Directive Shaping China’s Current Political Climate? 8 November 2013.
Information Office of the State Council, The Socialist System of Laws with Chinese Characteristics, October 2011. Source.
International bodies and government reports
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Concluding observations on the third periodic report of China, including Hong Kong, China, and Macao, China. 22 March 2023.
UN Committee Against Torture, Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of China (CAT/C/CHN/CO/5), 2 February 2016.
Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government Communication 2019/20:18 - Approach to matters relating to China, September 2019.
Civil society, academic, and media reports
Reforms Under Xi Jinping: Fewer illegitimate influences, more Communist Party control, by Xin He in US-Asia Law Institute Perspectives, Volume 1, Number 17, Judicial 18 March 2021.
For oversight and Party-Commission structure, see: China Organization Network edited by Nguyen Yu Xiu, Party Central Committee Structure, 17 June 2021.
The CCP’s Domestic Security Taskmaster: The Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, by Minxin Pei in the China Leadership Monitor, 1 September 2021.
Since 2012, the Ministry of Justice has required lawyers to pledge their loyalty to the CCP when registering or during the annual renewal of their lawyers’ licenses. The oath includes:
I promise to faithfully fulfill the sacred mission of socialism with Chinese characteristics ... loyalty to the motherland, its people, and uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
Many lawyers in China have expressed that this puts the Party above their clients.
PRC sources about lawyer loyalty to the CCP
The All-China Lawyers Association website describes its main purpose: “to adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China… resolutely safeguard the core position of General Secretary Xi Jinping in the Party Central Committee and the entire Party…” (Source)
In its Articles of Association, Article 4, the All-China Lawyers Association states the Party is above all else: “This association adheres to the overall leadership of the Communist Party of China. According to the provisions of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China, the organization of the Communist Party of China is established to carry out the activities of the Party and provide necessary conditions for the activities of the Party organization.” (Source)
International bodies and government reports
UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, Letter to China. 14 February 2024.
Civil society, academic, and media reports
“Disbarred Chinese Rights Lawyers 'Have No Regrets' After Losing Licenses,” Radio Free Asia,15 February 2021.
“China: Free Rights Lawyers, Reinstate Law Licenses,” by Human Rights Watch, 5 July 2018.
“China orders lawyers to pledge allegiance to Communist Party,” Reuters, 21 March 2012.
A detainee’s right to legal counsel and a defender’s right to meet with their client in China are covered by Articles 33 to 40 in the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC. However, there is no legal right to immediate access to a lawyer. Such access is guaranteed by law only after 48 hours and after the first initial interrogation (Article 34 CPL). Further, access to legal counsel is only mandatory for defendants facing life imprisonment or the death penalty (Article 35 CPL) and access to legal counsel can be denied to those facing national security charges, terrorism, or large-scale bribery (Article 39 CPL).
International bodies and government reports
UN Committee Against Torture, Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of China (CAT/C/CHN/CO/5), 2 February 2016. Source.
Civil society, academic, and media reports
Access Denied: China’s Legal Blockade, by Safeguard Defenders, 2021. Source.
Access Denied: China’s Vanishing Suspects, by Safeguard Defenders, 2020. Source.
The presumption of innocence in China's legal system is largely a principle on paper, not in practice. Various research highlights systemic issues that undermine this right, such as China's extremely high conviction rate (over 99.96% in public prosecutions). Once a reaches trial, conviction is virtually guaranteed.
International bodies and government reports
OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China, 31 August 2022. Pg 18.
Civil society, academic, and media reports
China’s Judiciary 2022, by Safeguard Defenders, July 2023.
China’s criminal justice system in the age of COVID, by Safeguard Defenders, 2022.
The Construction of Guilt in China An Empirical Account of Routine Chinese Injustice, by Grace (Yu) Mou, Bloomsbury Publishing 2020.
Presumed Guilty: A briefing on data concerning arrests, prosecutions, and trials in China 2013-2020, by Safeguard Defenders, 2020.
Scripted and Staged, Behind the scenes of China's forced TV confessions, by Safeguard Defenders, 2018.
The U.S. Department of State 2024 Report on Human Practices in China sums up the current situation of torture in the PRC:
The law prohibited the physical abuse and mistreatment of detainees and forbade prison guards from coercing confessions, insulting prisoners’ dignity, and beating or encouraging others to beat prisoners. There were credible reports that authorities routinely ignored prohibitions against torture, especially in politically sensitive cases.
Former prisoners and detainees reported they were beaten, raped, subjected to electric shock, forced to sit on stools for hours on end, hung by the wrists, deprived of sleep, force-fed, forced to take medication against their will, and otherwise subjected to physical and psychological abuse. Although prison authorities abused ordinary prisoners, they reportedly singled out political and religious dissidents for particularly harsh treatment.
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: China (Includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet).
Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 2024 Annual Report, p. 103.
UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Concluding observations on the combined second and third periodic reports of China. 10 October 2022. Pp. 7, 14.
OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China, 31 August 2022. Pp. 23-24.
UN News, Morocco’s extradition of Uyghur asylum seeker to China could lead to serious rights violations, argue UN experts, 16 December 2021.
UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, The Darkness Deepens, the crackdown on human rights in China 2016-2020.
Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, DFAT Country Information Report People’s Republic of China, 3 October 2019.
“Revised Prison Law fails to address systemic human rights concerns in Chinese prisons,” Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, 10 October 2025.
UN experts urge China to end repression of Uyghur and cultural expression of minorities. 01 October 2025.
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Concluding observations on the third periodic report of China, including Hong Kong, China, and Macao, China. 22 March 2023.
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “China: UN experts gravely concerned by enforced disappearance of three human rights defenders,” 23 March 2020.
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN human rights experts urge Spain to halt extraditions to China fearing risk of torture or death penalty, 18 May 2018.
UK Parliament, Chinese Execution of Lobsang Dhondup and Further Persecution of Tibetans, 5 February 2003. Source.
“What China’s report to the United Nations tells us about transparency and the death penalty,” World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, 28 June 2024.
Annual Report 2024, Dui Hua Foundation, 2024.
Briefing Paper: UN experts' documentation of Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL) in China, International Service for Human Rights, 15 August 2024.
“Deaths in China’s RSDL System Spark Domestic Calls for Reform,” by Safeguard Defenders, 3 September 2024.
Locked Up: Inside China’s RSDL Secret Jails, by Safeguard Defenders, 2021. Source.
“Use of Death Penalty in China: Sentencing,” The Rights Practice. October 2021. Source.
The People's Republic of the Disappeared (2nd edition), by Michael Caster, 30 October 2019. Source.
China frequently operates measures of collective punishment on relatives of alleged fugitives. In fact, documentation shows a growing series of official regulations targeting family members, including children, of human rights defenders in China. Family members targeted for collective punishment often suffer loss of Freedom (including disappearance, detention, prison, psychiatric detention), home eviction, being kicked out of school, exit bans, loss of a job or welfare payments, and even physical violence.
Forced labor in China takes several forms, most prominently the state-imposed labor transfer and re-education programs targeting Uyghurs in Xinjiang and Tibetans in Tibet, where people are coerced into factory and farm work under surveillance and threat of detention. But other types of forced labor include prison labor and trafficking. China denies the allegations, asserting all employment is voluntary, though the UN and ILO continue to identify serious and systemic coercion risks.
UK Country policy and information note: China: modern slavery October 2024 (accessible). Updated 23 July 2025.
U.S. Department of State 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report.
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Concluding observations on the third periodic report of China, including Hong Kong, China, and Macao, China. 22 March 2023.
Human Rights Council Fifty-first session: “Contemporary forms of slavery affecting persons belonging to ethnic, religious and linguistic minority communities Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, Tomoya Obokata.” 12 September–7 October 2022. Pg. 8.
“Supply chains: the dirty secret of China’s prisons,” by Yuan Yang in the Financial Times, 30 August 2018.