What does it mean to be a Chinese human rights advocate in 2026?
Yaqiu Wang has worked at Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to Protect Journalists, and is currently a fellow at the University of Chicago. She watched DOGE cuts gut reporting on political prisoners, refugee assistance networks, and labor rights work abroad, and argued in ChinaFile that the human rights community must urgently diversify away from U.S. government money.
ChinaFile’s Jeremy Goldkorn recently chatted with Wang about the future of human rights work in China and how it will be funded, politics in the Chinese diaspora, women’s rights progress in China that is not captured by indicators, and how the internet and AI are challenging our notions of free speech. Wang exemplifies how being a Chinese person of conscience right now means navigating between two forces that both want to define you—and finding agency in refusing both definitions.
Below is an excerpt from the interview, edited for clarity.