Leftist Subversion: The Genuine Communist Party of China
Dui Hua’s research into court websites uncovered additional information about the “Genuine Communist Party of China 中国真共产党.” In 2014, its founder Chen Jianmin (陈剑敏) was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment for subversion by Suqian Intermediate People’s Court. He is scheduled for release from prison in Jiangsu in 2024.
Chen, born in 1962, is also known by his internet nickname Zhou Qun (周群). He openly called for the overthrow of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and condemned Chinese leaders from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping as “fake communists” and “capitalist bureaucrats.” After founding the party in 2010, he ran a website to promote his vision of pre-reform era socialism which he calls the “Zhou Qun Thought.” The website allegedly had 800 registered users, most of whom were utopian leftists.
Although the judgment of this subversion case has not been posted online, Chen’s sentencing information was briefly mentioned in another criminal case involving another party member Wu Yong (吴勇). Wu administered the website and continued to promote the “Zhou Qun Thought” following Chen’s imprisonment in 2014. He claimed to hold all CCP persecutors to account on charges of “counterrevolution.” Additionally, Wu was accused of disseminating “political rumors” and “insults” about CCP leaders online. On August 3, 2020, a local court in Hubei found Wu guilty of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and sentenced him to 14 months in prison. He completed his prison sentence on December 9, 2020, four months after he was sentenced.
Similar efforts to organize underground opposition parties have landed many other leftist supporters in jail. See Leftist Dissent Under Xi: The Old Leftists, Part II for more information.
Delayed justice for rights defender
Li Yuhan (李昱函), a lawyer from Beijing and a vocal rights defender, would have spent three and a half years at the Shenyang Number One Detention Center at the time of this publication.
Li was first detained on October 9, 2017 for picking quarrels and provoking troubles, then indicted with an additional charge of fraud in March 2018. Li’s hearing was cancelled in June 2019, but no new hearing has been scheduled or reported. She has been left in legal limbo for more than three years.
Li was the defense lawyer for Wang Yu after Wang was swept up on a subversion charge during the “709 crackdown” on rights lawyers in 2015. Wang was later released on bail in June 2016. Li, who is also a vocal activist for rights defenders and their families outside of the court house, had been petitioning to the Shenyang Letters and Visits Office over harassment and assault by the Heping District Police Sub-bureau.
Picking quarrels and provoking troubles, one of the many “pocket crimes,” has routinely been deployed as a tool to harass and silent rights defenders and dissidents. The vaguely defined crime permits the police to “detain first” then “to investigate and build the case” while placing people in custody, often denying their legal rights such as access to legal consul under the pretense that the cases are “sensitive.”
Along with the international community, Dui Hua has repeatedly raised Li’s name to Chinese officials through direct and indirect channels. Given Li’s age and reported poor health, her situation raises grave concerns.