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Articles by Thomas Kellogg
The securitisation of disaster response in Hong Kong and the apartment complex fire
On November 26, 2025, tragedy struck Hong Kong. Several high-rise apartment buildings in the Wang Fuk Court housing complex in the Tai Po district were struck by fire. More than 160 people were killed in the inferno, making it the most deadly in Hong Kong in decades. More than 2,600 individuals lost their homes, most of whom have lost virtually all their possessions. The fire began on a lower level in one building and spread quickly.
Remembering Jerome A. Cohen
Realism and optimism can sometimes push us in opposite directions: Too often, a hard look at the world shows points to the limits of what can be done. The optimist, on the other hand, may overlook the present’s grim intractability in order to preserve hope for the future. Jerry was one of the rare people who was both clear-eyed about the current state of play in China, and also unfailingly optimistic about reforms to be implemented, activists to be released, better roads to be taken.
The Secret Life of Student Democracy
Reviewed: Everyday Democracy: Civil Society, Youth, and the Struggle Against Authoritarian Culture in China, Anthony Spires (Columbia University Press, December 2024). A People’s Daily article, published to coincide with World Volunteer Day on December 5, 2024, crowed that volunteerism has become a powerful force behind China’s modernization. The numbers, as always, stagger.
Chinese Activists Are in Shock over Cuts to U.S. Human Rights Programs
On April 22, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a wide-ranging reorganization of the State Department. Though the details of the restructuring have yet to be published, it seems clear that human rights will be downgraded, and a number of staff positions related to human rights and other key thematic concerns will be cut.
Three Years in, Hong Kong’s National Security Law Has Entrenched a New Status Quo
On March 20, 2023, a Hong Kong court sentenced three people to prison for sedition. Police had arrested them in January, during and after a raid on a book fair in Mong Kok, for the purported crime of selling self-published books about the city’s 2019 protest movement. All three—Alan Keung Ka-wai, 31, Alex Lee Lung-yin, 52, and his wife, Cannis Chan Sheung-yan, 48—pleaded guilty, received sentences of between five and ten months and pledged to refrain from such acts in future.
What Covid-19 Reveals about How Xi Jinping Runs China
In the closing weeks of 2022, cities across China were rocked by the largest nationwide protests in decades. Thousands of Chinese citizens took to the streets, shouting slogans and holding up blank pieces of paper in an unsubtle critique of government censorship.
In Hong Kong, Another Blow to the Rule of Law
The Hong Kong government has delivered yet another blow to human rights and the rule of law. On May 10, the Legislative Council amended the Legal Practitioners Ordinance (LPO) to give the Hong Kong government the authority to bar overseas lawyers from participating in national security cases.
In Hong Kong, Another Blow to the Rule of Law
The Hong Kong government has delivered yet another blow to human rights and the rule of law. On May 10, the Legislative Council amended the Legal Practitioners Ordinance (LPO) to give the Hong Kong government the authority to bar overseas lawyers from participating in national security cases.
In Hong Kong, Another Blow to the Rule of Law
The Hong Kong government has delivered yet another blow to human rights and the rule of law. On May 10, the Legislative Council amended the Legal Practitioners Ordinance (LPO) to give the Hong Kong government the authority to bar overseas lawyers from participating in national security cases.
Arrest Data Show National Security Law Has Dealt a Hard Blow to Free Expression in Hong Kong
On December 29, 2021, two hundred national security police officers raided a newspaper headquarters and arrested several individuals at various locations across Hong Kong. The exceptional number of police officers involved suggested those arrested were violent criminals, requiring extra force to apprehend. But the individuals in question were not international drug smugglers or terrorists. Rather, they were journalists and board members of Stand News, one of the city’s leading news websites.
Article: Verdicts from China’s Courts Used to Be Accessible Online. Now They’re Disappearing.
As reported by China File by Luo Jiajun, Thomas Kellogg February 1, 2022 Judicial transparency in China has taken a significant step backward in recent months. Beginning at least a year ago, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has considerably scaled back the number of cases available on its China Judgments Online (CJO) web portal, an Internet platform that is the leading database for judicial decisions from courts across the country.
Verdicts from China’s Courts Used to Be Accessible Online. Now They’re Disappearing.
Judicial transparency in China has taken a significant step backward in recent months. Beginning at least a year ago, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has considerably scaled back the number of cases available on its China Judgments Online (CJO) web portal, an Internet platform that is the leading database for judicial decisions from courts across the country.
NSL Verdict a Major Blow to Free Speech in Hong Kong
Human rights have taken another major step backward in Hong Kong. On Nov. 11, activist Ma Chun-man, 31, was sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in prison for inciting secession under Hong Kong’s draconian new National Security Law. Ma is only the second person to be convicted of a NSL crime. But withat least 84Hong Kongers awaiting trial on a range of NSL charges, he almost certainly won’t be the last.
NSL Verdict a Major Blow to Free Speech in Hong Kong
Published by The Lawfare Institute in Cooperation With Human rights have taken another major step backward in Hong Kong. On Nov. 11, activist Ma Chun-man, 31, was sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in prison for inciting secession under Hong Kong’s draconian new National Security Law. Ma is only the second person to be convicted of a NSL crime. But withat least 84Hong Kongers awaiting trial on a range of NSL charges, he almost certainly won’t be the last.
The National Security Law Makes Hong Kong Business Riskier Than Ever
Since taking office in January, the Biden administration has taken a series of steps to signal a firm line on China, while at the same time making clear to Beijing that there is room to collaborate on key issues such as climate change and global health.
Hong Kong’s National Security Law and the Right to a Fair Trial: Mission Impossible?
Authors’ note: the authors wish to acknowledge the research assistance and collaboration of a scholar from the PRC, who decided to not to write under her name due to political security concerns. China’s newly implemented National Security Law (NSL) has observers asking one question: Will NSL defendants get a fair trial? With more than 50 individuals facing serious criminal charges, it’s an important question both for those accused and for the future of Hong Kong’s legal system.
Hong Kong’s National Security Law and the Right to a Fair Trial: Mission Impossible?
Published by The Lawfare Institute in Cooperation With Authors’ note: the authors wish to acknowledge the research assistance and collaboration of a scholar from the PRC, who decided to not to write under her name due to political security concerns. China’s newly implemented National Security Law (NSL) has observers asking one question: Will NSL defendants get a fair trial?
Death by a Thousand Cuts: Chipping Away at Due Process Rights in HK NSL Cases
Tong Ying-kit is virtually unknown outside of Hong Kong, but his case may mark an ominous turning point for human rights and rule of law in the former British colony. A High Court judge ruled on May 20 that Tong was not entitled to a jury trial in his pending National Security Law (NSL) terrorism case; instead, his case would be handled by a three-judge panel.
Death by a Thousand Cuts: Chipping Away at Due Process Rights in HK NSL Cases
Tong Ying-kit is virtually unknown outside of Hong Kong, but his case may mark an ominous turning point for human rights and rule of law in the former British colony. A High Court judge ruled on May 20 that Tong was not entitled to a jury trial in his pending National Security Law (NSL) terrorism case; instead, his case would be handled by a three-judge panel.
New Data Show Hong Kong’s National Security Arrests Follow a Pattern
When a new National Security Law for Hong Kong went into effect on June 30, 2020, some observers believed it might serve more as a latent threat than an active tool. Many hoped both the Hong Kong government and Beijing might see the enactment of the law itself as a sufficient deterrent, a signal of Beijing’s resolve to turn the page on the widespread public protests in 2019. Any hopes for restraint have, thus far, been dashed.
Reports
Shazeda Ahmed & Bertram Lang Mercator Institute for China Studies The “Social Credit System” is designed to monitor and rate citizens and companies in China and to guide their behavior. “It is a wide-reaching project that touches on almost all aspects of everyday life,” the authors Mareike Ohlberg, Bertram Lang,...
The Death of Constitutional Litigation in China?
On December 18, 2008, with little fanfare, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) withdrew its 2001 interpretation in the Qi Yuling case. The interpretation was one of 27 interpretations invalidated by the SPC on that date. The Qi Yuling interpretation was “no longer applied,” according to the Court’s terse explanation, and was therefore withdrawn. Known variously as “China’s first constitutional case” and as “China’s Marbury v.
NPCSC: The Vanguard of China’s Constitution?
The opening line was short but dramatic: “With Rule of Law Day fast approaching, we renew our call: abolish the reeducation through labor system.” So wrote a group of nearly seventy prominent scholars, lawyers, activists and public intellectuals in a constitutional review proposal issued in November 2007.
The Future of China Studies in the U.S.
Two developments raise new challenges for teaching China-related courses: passage of the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL), and the COVID-induced switch to remote teaching. The NSL potentially criminalizes words/actions regarded by Chinese authorities as supporting or advocating secession, terrorism, subversion, or collusion with foreign countries—regardless of an individual’s location or citizenship.
Is Hong Kong about to Get Its Own Foreign NGO Law in the Name of ‘National Security’?
On May 28, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) issued a much-anticipated Decision on preservation of national security in Hong Kong. The key paragraph in the short document authorized the NPC’s Standing Committee to “draft laws related to . . .
Violence by Hong Kong Protesters Won’t Advance Their Cause
Like many international observers who have closely followed recent events in Hong Kong, I have watched with growing concern as violence has intensified. I have been deeply dismayed to see escalating police violence, which has fundamentally damaged the reputation of a police force once known as among Asia’s best. The police are entrusted with enormous power—in effect, the power to engage in state-sanctioned violence, if necessary, in order to maintain public order.
China’s Government Wants You to Think All Mainlanders View Hong Kong the Same Way. They Don’t.
Are mainland Chinese, especially tech-savvy millennials, overwhelmingly hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent towards the protests that have engulfed Hong Kong over the past three months? Both the Chinese government and the international media seem to think so. They flood the Internet with messages calling protesters in Hong Kong “useless youth.” They send obscene messages and death threats to supporters of the Hong Kong demonstrations.
Beijing’s Paranoia Sees the CIA Under Every Rock
Argument Chinese propagandists are throwing around wild allegations in Hong Kong—but the leadership may really believe them. A policeman secures Terminal 1 after a scuffle with pro-democracy protestors at Hong Kong's International Airport on August 13, 2019. Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images I’ve never met U.S. diplomat Julie Eadeh, but I have some sympathy for her.
Will Hong Kong Unravel?
No matter how the anti-extradition protests end, Hong Kong will be radically different. Many taboos that formerly constrained protesters’ actions have been broken. During the 2014 Umbrella Movement, some protesters tried to storm the National Day flag-raising ceremony in Golden Bauhinia Square on October 1, but many more protesters thought such action could trigger a furious response from Beijing, including an intervention by the People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A.).
China’s Dissidents Can’t Leave
In early July, the New York Times broke the news that the Chinese government has stepped up its use of exit bans against U.S. citizens. As trade tensions between the United States and China have escalated, Chinese officials have increasingly targeted American businesspeople, especially those of Chinese descent, subjecting them to various forms of harassment, including refusing to allow them to leave the country.
Hong Kong’s Proposed Extradition Law and International Human Rights: Legalized Kidnapping?
In a growing number of cases over the past few years, China has used state-sponsored kidnapping as a means of delivering rough justice to individuals abroad. Both Chinese citizens and foreign nationals have been forcibly repatriated back to China, many to disappear into long-term incommunicado detention for months or even years at a time.
Hong Kong’s Proposed Extradition Law and International Human Rights: Legalized Kidnapping?
In a growing number of cases over the past few years, China has used state-sponsored kidnapping as a means of delivering rough justice to individuals abroad. Both Chinese citizens and foreign nationals have been forcibly repatriated back to China, many to disappear into long-term incommunicado detention for months or even years at a time.
No Exit: China’s Growing Use of Exit Bans Violates International Law
In November last year, the New York Times broke the sad story of Victor and Cynthia Liu, American citizens who entered China in June 2018, and have since been barred from leaving the country. Although they have not been detained, they are being blocked from leaving China under a so-called “exit ban,” a tool increasingly used by Chinese authorities to increase leverage over individuals accused of wrongdoing, or who merely have found themselves on the wrong side of a business dispute.
No Exit: China’s Growing Use of Exit Bans Violates International Law
In November last year, the New York Times broke the sad story of Victor and Cynthia Liu, American citizens who entered China in June 2018, and have since been barred from leaving the country. Although they have not been detained, they are being blocked from leaving China under a so-called “exit ban,” a tool increasingly used by Chinese authorities to increase leverage over individuals accused of wrongdoing, or who merely have found themselves on the wrong side of a business dispute.
Bo Xilai: The Last of a Nefarious Trio to Fall
WANG LIJUN, a nationally-known police chief celebrated for his bare-knuckle tactics, is a very vain man. The former police chief and deputy mayor of Chongqing, a Chinese mega-city of more than 32 million, Wang had a staff of 20 whose sole job was to record, for propaganda purposes, “his most moving and breathtaking moments.” He had his speeches compiled in a book, and circulated it to his police force for close study.
Opinion | China and Russia’s game of distortion
Thomas E. Kellogg is the executive director of the Georgetown Center for Asian Law. On Tuesday, top Trump administration intelligence officials testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the Russian government is continuing in its efforts to interfere in American elections and will likely target the 2018 Congressional mid-terms.
The Strange and Sad Case of Gui Minhai
One of China’s strangest human rights cases got even stranger last week: on Saturday, January 20, former Hong Kong-based publisher Gui Minhai was forcibly removed from a train to Beijing. Gui, a Swedish citizen, had been traveling with Swedish diplomatic officials, and was scheduled to visit with a doctor at the Swedish embassy after his arrival in Beijing. Instead, Gui, who was kidnapped from his apartment in Pattaya, Thailand in October 2015, has been disappeared for a second time.
China’s Grim Christmas Ritual: Imprisoning Dissidents
It has become a grim holiday ritual of sorts. More often than not over the past decade, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used the Christmas holiday to hand down harsh verdicts against top dissidents. Beijing knows that many Western diplomats, journalists, and NGO activists are away on holiday in the days immediately before and just after December 25, which makes the holiday the perfect time to hand down harsh sentences against activists and lawyers who have crossed the line.
China is Getting Better at Undermining Global Human Rights
Published by The Lawfare Institute in Cooperation With On Lawfare's feed at Foreign Policy, I wrote about how China has aggressively undermined key U.N. human rights mechanisms and how the Trump administration is enabling China's efforts.
China Is Getting Better at Undermining Global Human Rights
China Is Getting Better at Undermining Global Human Rights Since taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump has managed to repeatedly steer the national conversation in all sorts of directions, from the merits of NFL protests to still-unproven allegations that his presidential campaign was wiretapped by the FBI. The national dialogue often lurches from one subject to another, which means that certain key issues are often more or less ignored.
Xi Jinping Is About to Face a Constitutional Crisis
In China, the first weeks of September are the calm before the storm. The People’s Republic is about to enter the peak of its political calendar. The Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Congress, one of the quinquennial meetings that determine the nation’s future leadership, has been set for October 18, kept deliberately obscure until the last minute as usual.
The China-India Border Standoff: What Does Beijing Want?
After 10 weeks, the latest chapter in the long-running China-India-Bhutan border dispute has come to an end. On Monday, India and China agreed to remove their troops from a disputed region called the Doklam Plateau, claimed by both China and Bhutan.
Liu Xiaobo: The Man Who Stayed
In 1898, some of China’s most brilliant minds allied themselves with the Emperor Guangxu, a young ruler who was trying to assert himself by forcing through reforms to open up China’s political, economic, and educational systems. But opponents quickly struck back, deposing the emperor and causing his advisors to flee for their lives. One, however, stayed put. He was Tan Sitong, a young scholar from a far-off corner of the empire.
How to Fix China’s Crooked Congress
Nearly four years into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, Chinese citizens could be forgiven if their eyes glaze over at the news of yet another high official’s fall from grace. But even the most jaded likely could not ignore the revelations disclosed on September 13: meeting in an extremely rare special session, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress dismissed 45 of the 2,987 members of the full National People’s Congress (NPC).
How to Fix China’s Crooked Congress
Nearly four years into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, Chinese citizens could be forgiven if their eyes glaze over at the news of yet another high official’s fall from grace. But even the most jaded likely could not ignore the revelations disclosed on September 13: meeting in an extremely rare special session, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress dismissed 45 of the 2,987 members of the full National People’s Congress (NPC).
The South China Sea Ruling: China’s International Law Dilemma
Perhaps for the first time ever, the somewhat obscure UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is making global headlines. On July 12, The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) issued a ruling on a case brought by the Philippines, holding that China’s expansive claims to much of the South China Sea were not valid under international law.
China and the End of Reform
Is the Chinese Communist Party putting an end to the decades-long process of China’s opening to the outside world? Is the era of liberal reform over? Consider the latest piece of evidence: on April 28, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress passed the long-awaited Foreign NGO Management Law.
How Should Global Stakeholders Respond to China’s New NGO Management Law?
Last week, China passed a new law that gives broad powers to China’s police in regulating and surveilling the activities of foreign NGOs in China. The law would require foreign groups including foundations, charities, advocacy organizations, and academic exchange programs to register with the Public Security Bureau, as well as submit to a host of provisions regulating the groups’ finances, hiring practices, and activities. How should stakeholders around the world respond to the law? — The Editors
A New Book Praises China’s Governance Model, But Overlooks Its Politics
On August 12, China once again met with man-made tragedy. Massive explosions at a chemical storage warehouse in Tianjin took the lives of 173 people and injured nearly 700, some of them seriously. The owner of the warehouse that blew up, Rui Hai International Logistics, immediately came under intense scrutiny: how could the company allow such a thing to happen?
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