The legal expert says that without democracy and the rule of law, China will remain ensnared in a cycle of repression and violence.
Now living in New York, Chinese human rights lawyer Zhang Ren practiced law for more than three decades in Beijing. After years of firsthand experience, he has begun speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), calling its legal system a “scam.”
“China needs democracy and rule of law,” Zhang told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times on Sept. 18.
“Under the current [political] system, the law is essentially a scam.”
Zhang began his legal studies in 1987 at Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing city. He was part of China’s first generation of formally trained legal professionals following the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).
Then-CCP leader Mao Zedong launched the violent mass political movement to consolidate his power and eradicate traditional Chinese culture and Western ideals of democracy and freedom. Officials, intellectuals, professionals, and other innocent people were subjected to public humiliation parades and beatings. Historians estimate that as many as 2 million people died unnatural deaths during the Cultural Revolution.
Just before Zhang graduated, student-led pro-democracy protests erupted in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Zhang joined demonstrations in Chongqing and later in Hangzhou while visiting his fiancée.
After graduating, Zhang was offered a position at the Zhejiang Provincial Procuratorate, but he declined the job. His experiences during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre led him to decide against working for institutions affiliated with the CCP. Instead, he chose to practice law independently, believing that this path would allow him to advocate for ordinary people and pursue justice.
“If a lawyer only sees the job as a way to make money, he might as well go into business,“ Zhang said. ”A lawyer must shoulder moral responsibility.”
A Legal System in Reverse
Over the past three decades, Zhang has practiced in the fields of criminal, civil, administrative, and corporate law. In recent years, he specialized in human rights defense, which had placed him on the CCP’s blacklist and resulted in withheld wages and income. His cases taught him that when ordinary Chinese people challenge the regime, due process is nonexistent.
