This is part of a series article named The Significance of Xu Zhiyong
What Zhiyong Accomplished
I am not a dedicated investagive journalist (and I don’t have the skills), so I won’t bother to list the accomplishment of Zhi Yong and his Open Constitution Initiative. Let me just provide several links to public media so you can read and get some idea.
It is really rare that People’s Daily website published a sympathic article (quoting Global Times): Baby milk powder victims lose legal proxy
New York Times report on the issue
Arrest in China Rattles Backers of Legal Rights
Most of the work are related to the civil right of the disadvantaged groups in China.
The Nature of Xu Zhiyong’s Work
The principle under which Zhiyong and Gongmeng (The Open Consitution Initiative) operate is, to follow the current legal framework. This is very different approach from others, and the approach I believe is the most practical one.
In the current China, there are tension from many corners of this society. It is hard to generalize and over-simplify it to be the rich vs the poor, the employers vs employees, or the city vs villages. The real situation is much more complicated than that.
There are many people complaining (including myself sometimes), and some people want to do dramatic changes to the system inside or outside the system. What Xu Zhiyong did was very different from other approach. He insist that many problems can be solved at the CURRENT legal framework.
People’s Congress
One symbolic example is, Zhiyong run for a seat in People’s Congress in Beijing. I opened my eyes so widely when I heard about it. “How can it be possible?” I asked.
Read more at a seperate entry here: Zhiyong and People’s Congress
NGO as a Company
Another thing that Zhiyong did was to register his organization as a for-profit limited company. Well. This is the only practical way to hand it.
Read more about this at a seperate entry here: NGO as a Company in China.