November 2025: What the Controversy Over Sealing Petty-Offense Records Says About Public Engagement by China’s Legislature
Netizens’ accusations of procedural improprieties lack merit, but the controversy exposes flaws in the legislature’s mechanisms for consulting and informing the public
Welcome back to NPC Observer Monthly, a newsletter about China’s national legislature: the National People’s Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee (NPCSC).
I had originally planned to skip this issue as there was little1 NPC-related news in November, until an online firestorm broke out in the final days of the month that very much implicates the legislature.
As China’s revised Public Security Administration Punishments Law (PSAPL) [治安管理处罚法]—which I covered in depth here and here—will take effect on New Year’s Day, official social media accounts have recently begun publicizing the law. On Douyin, the account of a drug rehab center highlighted Article 136 of the revised PSAPL—which newly requires the police to seal the records of all PSAPL violations—and specifically noted that drug offenses would be covered. After another official account insinuated in the comments that Article 136 was aimed at shielding the drug-abusing rich and powerful from public exposure, the new policy quickly went viral across multiple platforms and caused an enormous uproar.
Today, in a commentary for The Diplomat, my coauthor and I respond to—and reject—online accusations of improprieties in the legislative process, though we argue the controversy does expose other flaws that have escaped attention. Here’s a short excerpt from the introductory section laying out the backlash and our response:
Besides predominantly substantive criticisms of Article 136, social media users also objected to how it was adopted in the first place. They targeted leading legal professionals who had written or spoken in support of sealing PSAPL records, particularly Professors Zhao Hong and Lao Dongyan. Some netizens accused academics of pushing their insidious agenda into law by exerting outsized influence over the legislative process. The topic “controversy over Professor Zhao Hong’s bill to seal drug records” (赵宏教授吸毒史封存法案争议) even briefly trended on Weibo before censors took it down.
Relatedly, others criticized the absence of consultation on the draft in which Article 136 first appeared in its final form, implying procedural manipulation by bad actors inside or outside the legislature.
The first charge amounts to a conspiracy theory. The second correctly notes the lack of consultation on that particular draft, but the NPCSC acted by the book (such as it is) in this case and did nothing untoward. In our view, the controversy over Article 136 nevertheless exposed a more alarming problem: The Chinese legislature’s public engagement mechanisms—meant to both inform and consult the public about its legislative activities—may not be functioning effectively.
We then briefly trace the PSAPL’s revision process and address the two procedural criticisms in more detail, before turning to our main argument: that the NPCSC’s public-engagement mechanisms may be malfunctioning, thus “limiting its ability to accurately gauge public opinion and inform the Chinese people about its work.” Lastly, we recommend several ways for the NPCSC to improve public engagement and close the article with the following:
The Chinese legislature should recognize that public engagement can strengthen its institutional legitimacy, improve the quality of laws, and generate popular support for them. It should strive to ensure that such engagement is broad-based and effective, especially because it lacks meaningful electoral accountability. Otherwise, as a Chinese scholar has warned, when formal channels for public participation prove ineffective, public sentiment tends to surface in more disruptive ways.
Let the controversy over Article 136 be a cautionary tale.
We hope you’ll read the piece in full here.2
On Monday, December 15, the NPCSC announced that it will next meet from December 22 to 27, with a packed agenda. I have previewed it here.
That’s all for this quick issue. Thanks for reading! As is tradition, I’ll cross-post our year-end review on December 31. Until then!
On November 1, the Public Health Emergency Response Law [突发公共卫生事件应对法] and the Law on Publicity and Education on the Rule of Law [法治宣传教育法] (both adopted on Sept. 12, 2025) took effect. The NPCSC also sought public comment on 4 bills through November 26.