Ou Hongyi, a 17-year-old schoolgirl in Guilin, China, has been told that if she does not stop partaking in climate change activism, she will be unable to resume her studies. Ou is currently the face of a growing minority of Chinese youth advocating for drastic environmental action. She suspended her studies in December 2018 after she was told she was unsuitable for her school’s international programme, electing instead to self-study. However, she has since decided to attend school, in line with her parents’ wishes and hopes to pursue higher education at Harvard.  

She claims her parents have been urged by education authorities to stop her activism. Authorities continue to assert that she will not be accepted into school if she continues being an activist. Yet her parents have refused to force her to give up her beliefs, although they say they will not allow her activism to ‘derail’ her future. 

In May 2019, Ou conducted a climate strike akin to those initiated by Greta Thunberg and widespread in the West. She was stopped by the authorities, as she did not have a permit. However, she refused to stop her activism, as climate change is not yet a wide concern within China. In fact, Ou reported that while she was conducting the strike, though she received some support, 'most people could hardly understand'.

THE CHINESE APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE 

The majority of people did not understand Ou’s plight as according to her ‘people in China don’t know the situation and think that the Chinese government is doing a lot.’ Certainly, China is taking action to reduce its carbon emissions, though according to Jan Ivar Korsbakken from the Centre for International Climate Research in Norway, ‘it will not be so easy to say farewell quickly.’ 

Over the past few years, China has become the largest investor in domestic renewable energy and is expected to meet its Paris Agreement pledge of peaking carbon emissions at or before 2030. It is making strides towards tackling climate change, but as the world’s leading carbon emitter in 2018 – and with emissions on the rise - many think that the superpower is not doing enough. 

CHINA HAS HISTORICALLY SUPRESSED ACTIVISM

Ou stated that ‘even if people want… change… they think activism in China will fail and the cost is too [high].’ A brief look into China’s history with activism shows her assessment is fair. Though under the Constitution, citizens enjoy freedom of speech and assembly, these rights are not upheld in practice. The Tiananmen Massacre, which is still not acknowledged by the authorities, is one such example of the censorship and suppression of dissent that is still in place.

In fact, Paragraph 2 of Article 105 of the 1997 revision of the People’s Republic of China’s Penal Code criminalises 'inciting subversion of state power'. In 2015, this provision was used to legitimise the arrest of over 200 activists in the ‘709 crackdown’. Among these was Wu Gan, a rights activist and lawyer who received eight years imprisonment. He defended victims of the State, including a victim of rape by a Communist Party Official, who killed her assailant by stabbing him with a fruit knife.

This demonstrates that even if awareness is raised about climate change and China’s role in it, for many, activism simply will not be worth the risk. For now, the right to demonstrate remains a right in name only, unprotected by the government. However, Ou Hongyi and a growing number of youths remain hopeful that they will make a difference.

Natalya is a third year Law student at the University of Manchester. Her goal after university is to become a solicitor, where she hopes to continue helping to bring human rights issues to light. While at university, she is working with the Innocence Project to appeal miscarriages of justice and will be working with the Legal Advice Centre in the coming year.

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