China’s extraordinary economic transformation and rise to global economic superpower has too often obscured a troubling human rights record.

We spoke to Yaqiu Wang, a Chinese human rights and democracy researcher and advocate. Yaqiu has worked for Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and held academic positions at the University of Chicago and, most recently, the University of Pennsylvania.

What follows is one of the world’s most respected human rights advocates detailing the breadth of the Chinese government’s human rights violations at home and abroad, the mix of ideological and practical drivers of those actions, and how the global erosion of democratic norms has emboldened the Chinese Communist Party.

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