Labour rights activist and Tiananmen protester Han Dongfang founded the China Labour Bulletin, which announced it's ceasing operations.LAM YIK/Reuters
A Hong Kong-based labour-rights group has become the latest civil society organization to stop operations in the territory amid an ongoing national security crackdown.
Founded in 1994 by Han Dongfang – a former leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests – China Labour Bulletin began life as a newsletter, but soon grew to offer legal support and advocate on behalf of Chinese workers as the country’s economy boomed and it became the factory of the world.
In a statement, CLB said that as of this week, “due to financial difficulties and debt issues, the company can no longer maintain operations and has decided to dissolve and initiate the relevant procedures.”
Since the passage of national security legislation in 2020, many Hong Kong civil society groups have stopped operating or moved overseas. A ban on “foreign collusion” has made remaining NGOs exceptionally cautious about accepting donations from international organizations or funds, once a key source of support.
On its website, CLB said it operated as a non-profit limited company in Hong Kong, partly supported by Friends of China Labour Bulletin (FCLB), a U.S.-registered public charity “set up to facilitate fundraising in the United States and provide an additional layer of oversight.”
CLB described its mission as “supporting the workers’ movement in China,” and for decades has been a thorn in the side of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). The country’s only legally mandated trade union, ACFTU has long been accused of prioritizing the needs of employers – particularly large state-owned enterprises – over those of its members.
“When we call, we say, ‘The law says this,’” Mr. Han told The New York Times last year. “In some cases they would say, ‘If you really follow the law, all the factories in China should be closed.’”
With scant ability to hold bosses to account for unpaid wages or poor conditions, worker protests and wildcat strikes are very common in China – there were more than 1,500 such incidents recorded in 2024 – and CLB has for decades maintained a database of such unrest, a vital tool for journalists and researchers.
“CLB has been the single most important source of information on China’s labour issues for three decades, and its closure is a huge loss for scholars, activists and policy makers,” said Eli Friedman, a professor of global labour and work at Cornell University. “Despite what the government might think, implementing an information blackout on labour conflict and rights violations will not make the problem go away.”
Put on a “most wanted” list of protest leaders following the June 4 massacre of demonstrators around Tiananmen Square, Mr. Han was jailed for two years before being expelled to Hong Kong in 1993, then still a British colony.
Mr. Han speaks on a radio show at his Hong Kong studio in 2004.Kin Cheung/Reuters
He continued operating after Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to Chinese rule, and even as other groups shut up shop or went into exile after the 2020 crackdown, Mr. Han remained defiant, adamant CLB was operating within the law and only advocating on behalf of rights guaranteed by China’s own constitution.
“I’m sure that the Chinese state security turned this organization’s records upside down and inside out 50 times,” he said in The New York Times interview. “And Hong Kong’s national security police, too.”
While the exact circumstances of CLB’s decision to disband are unclear, many civil society groups have faced major funding shortfalls, with international donations largely cut off and many Hong Kong residents cautious of being linked to groups that might one day be deemed illegal.
Behind-the-scenes pressure has also taken a toll: In February, the Democratic Party, a leading opposition force dating back to the British colonial era, announced plans to disband, with senior figures saying they were told to do so by Chinese officials ahead of legislative elections this December.
Despite Hong Kong having not experienced any major unrest since 2020, the authorities remain on high alert, and have moved in recent weeks to strengthen the power of local and national security agencies. Last month, new legislation was passed criminalizing “disclosing to any other person any information” related to a national security investigation, a move that raised concerns over how it could limit press coverage of the ongoing crackdown.
On Thursday, Hong Kong police said they had worked with Beijing’s Office for Safeguarding National Security to investigate “six persons and an organization” suspected of “collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security,” in the first known joint operation between the two entities. None of the suspects were identified.