Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch: Interpretations of China’s Policies, Laws and Regulations (April 2026) (Issue 20)

Editor’s note: As time moves on, new rules continue to emerge. This month, various laws, regulations and governance policies took effect one after another, extending into numerous fields including social governance, public safety, talent recruitment, market operations and labor protection. While institutional improvements and the expansion of governance dimensions may appear to be continuing, in reality most measures remain superficial and stop at a cursory treatment, unable to resolve deep-rooted problems.

In the field of public safety, behavioral red lines are being drawn more strictly and punishments intensified, using rigid constraints to regulate individual words and actions, clean up disorder in public spaces and preserve the basic order of social operations. By contrast, reforms in the areas of people’s livelihoods and employment remain extremely conservative, with adjustments negligible. Outdated and rigid employment mechanisms have not been thoroughly reformed; stereotyped restrictions continue to constrain the free movement of talent; the single-minded standards of valuing only scores and examinations remain deeply entrenched; and the longstanding problems of emphasizing paper-based assessments while neglecting practical ability persist. These problems both bury high-quality talent and conceal risks to various industries.

Amid the rapid expansion of the platform economy, problems including disorderly exploitation by capital, invisible algorithmic coercion and the compression of workers’ rights have long become deeply entrenched. Related protection policies have arrived belatedly, while the means of constraint are weak and restrained, making only local repairs and unwilling to touch the deeper distribution of interests, leaving them unable to change the survival predicament of disadvantaged groups at its roots.

Many current governance measures have consistently followed a reform logic of avoiding the difficult issues and dealing with the easy ones. They emphasize control over rights, form over effectiveness, and stability maintenance over innovation, habitually using fragmented repairs to conceal structural contradictions and superficial easing to defuse real demands. Articles are continually revised and documents issued at every level, but without rigid enforcement and deep reform, even the best institutional design will ultimately be reduced to words on paper.

Healthy social governance has never meant simply tightening constraints and piling up rules; it means daring to confront real pain points, breaking down outdated barriers, balancing the rights and interests of all sides, and respecting individual dignity. Only by breaking out of conservative and rigid governance thinking, abandoning perfunctory reform, and using genuine reform to resolve genuine problems can policies take root and good laws and governance respond to the demands of the times.

Contents of this issue

I. Three departments issue announcement on 2026 special campaign for personal information protection

II. State Council promulgates the State Council Provisions on Industrial and Supply Chain Security

III. National Data Administration releases draft Guidelines for Data Property Rights Registration (Trial) for public comment

IV. Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issue Interpretation (II) on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Embezzlement and Bribery

V. New SPC-SPP rules criminalizing “air-rage” behavior formally take effect

VI. New rules jointly issued by three departments to crack down on big-data price discrimination formally take effect

VII. SPC and SPP issue judicial interpretation on embezzlement and bribery cases, raising the threshold for the crime of possessing a huge amount of property from unexplained sources

VIII. Two departments jointly deploy 2026 recruitment of teachers for primary and secondary schools and kindergartens

IX. General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and State Council jointly issue opinions on strengthening services and management for new forms of employment

I. Three departments issue announcement on 2026 special campaign for personal information protection

On April 2, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the Announcement on Conducting a Series of Special Campaigns for Personal Information Protection in 2026, deploying key personal information protection work for the year. The campaign focuses on seven major areas, including unlawful collection of information by apps and SDKs, disorder in internet advertising, illegal and noncompliant conduct in the fields of education, transportation, health care and finance, and the crackdown on personal-information-related crimes. It will focus on addressing problems strongly reflected by the public, including difficulties canceling apps, authorization beyond the necessary scope, compulsory collection of mobile phone numbers, disclosure of medical records, and financial platforms demanding access to contact lists. The three departments made clear that they will urge noncompliant entities to rectify violations, deal strictly with serious cases and entities refusing to rectify violations in accordance with the law, dynamically adjust governance priorities, and effectively enhance the public’s sense of privacy security. (For details, see: https://www.cac.gov.cn/2026-04/02/c_1776867645836849.htm）

Analysis: Measured against the core benchmark of human-rights protection, this special campaign for personal information protection is merely a passive and perfunctory response after citizens’ privacy rights have long been ignored in the digital age. Though it appears to be a sweeping campaign to rectify disorder, in reality it only scratches the surface and has fundamentally failed to shoulder responsibility for protecting citizens’ basic digital human rights. Its formalistic character and deep-seated shortcomings have long been fully exposed.

The right to personal information is by no means an ordinary civil right and interest; it is a core human right concerning citizens’ personal dignity, personal freedom and privacy security, and a bottom-line right on which citizens rely in a digital society. For a long time, citizens’ personal information has become “Tang Monk’s flesh”—something all parties can seize at will. Platforms have forcibly demanded rights, over-collected data and illegally resold it; information leaks have repeatedly occurred in livelihood-related fields such as education, health care and finance. Citizens’ right to informational self-determination has been completely hollowed out, personal dignity has been wantonly trampled through pervasive information-rights violations, the greed of capital’s pursuit of profit has breached the bottom line of rights, and the long-term absence of regulation has further enabled such violations to intensify. Citizens’ digital human rights have long been in a precarious position.

This campaign appears to target pain points and launch an all-out effort, but in reality it consistently avoids core issues and shows no determination to address the roots of the problem. It relies entirely on campaign-style, periodic administrative rectification, without building a rigid legal barrier for citizens’ information human rights, clarifying the boundaries between power and rights, resolving the fatal difficulties individuals face in defending their rights—difficulty presenting evidence, high costs and minimal compensation—or imposing fundamental constraints on long-negligent regulators and capital platforms that violate rights at will. The so-called rectification is merely superficial work that treats symptoms rather than causes. Once the spotlight passes, violations will inevitably return, citizens will remain the weaker side under information violations, and human-rights protection will be reduced to an empty slogan.

This seemingly beneficial governance campaign is essentially a perfunctory response to citizens’ demands for human rights. It has neither broken the barriers of interest between capital and regulators nor established a long-term, law-based human-rights protection system. The so-called protection of rights is ultimately merely a formalistic exercise and is far from genuinely safeguarding citizens’ digital identities and basic dignity.

II. State Council promulgates the State Council Provisions on Industrial and Supply Chain Security

On April 7, the State Council promulgated the State Council Provisions on Industrial and Supply Chain Security, which took effect on the date of promulgation. The 18-article provisions are guided by the holistic approach to national security, coordinate development and security as well as domestic and international considerations, and aim to prevent risks, enhance resilience and safeguard national economic security. The document establishes a working mechanism featuring overall state coordination, interdepartmental collaboration and local responsibility; strengthens safeguards in key areas; and establishes a full-chain system covering information sharing, risk monitoring and early warning, risk prevention, and emergency response. It supports breakthroughs in core technologies, encourages diversified supply and international cooperation, and guides the rational distribution and digital upgrading of industrial and supply chains. In response to external containment and suppression, the provisions establish security-investigation and countermeasure clauses, allowing trade restrictions, investment controls and inclusion on countermeasure lists to be imposed on foreign entities that harm the security of China’s industrial and supply chains. They also strictly prohibit the unlawful collection of information inside or outside China and make clear that domestic entities and individuals must implement countermeasure decisions; violators will be held legally accountable. (For details, see:

https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/2026/issue_12686/202604/content_7066322.html）

Analysis: In the logic of modern rule of law, the bottom line of economic security should be to guarantee rights and safeguard freedom. Yet the entire new regulation centers on control and uses constraint as its means, infinitely broadening the meaning of “security” and allowing the reach of public power to penetrate deeply into market operations, commercial conduct and even individual choices. In essence, it uses the narrative of collective security to continuously compress the legitimate rights and interests of individuals and the market.

The right to subsistence and the right to development are the most basic human rights. A healthy industrial and supply chain should be maintained through fair competition, free circulation and open cooperation, guaranteeing enterprises’ autonomy in operations, stable employment for the public and the free movement of goods. But these provisions unilaterally strengthen administrative coordination, comprehensive control and emergency intervention, leaving the boundaries of power unclear and expanding discretionary space without limit. Once the concept of security is interpreted arbitrarily, normal cross-border trade, commercial cooperation and industry planning may at any time be intervened in, restricted or halted, while enterprises’ property rights and autonomy in operation become sacrifices to macro-level control.

The provisions rigidly require all market entities and ordinary citizens to unconditionally obey various control and deployment arrangements as well as external countermeasures. They emphasize only one-way obligations and compulsory obedience, while saying nothing about rights remedies, procedural checks and balances or compensation for losses. They focus only on management and not protection, speak only of the broader picture and not individuals. Faced with compulsory administrative measures, individuals and enterprises have no room to defend themselves, and channels for seeking redress exist in name only.

More alarming is that, in the name of industrial and supply chain security, comprehensive risk investigations, information controls and behavioral restrictions may be conducted at will, gradually forming a governance inertia in which “security overrides everything.” When control becomes normalized, freedom becomes a scarce commodity; when power is not subject to rigid constraints, everyone’s right to development, property rights and freedom to operate will at any time be exposed to uncertain risks.

Genuine industrial and supply chain security cannot be maintained through layer upon layer of control and step-by-step barriers. Rigid controls that disregard human-rights boundaries and weaken legal constraints may appear to build a strong line of defense in the short term, but in the long term they will only stifle economic vitality and suppress the drive for innovation, ultimately departing from the foundation of people’s livelihoods and running counter to sound governance.

III. National Data Administration releases draft Guidelines for Data Property Rights Registration (Trial) for public comment

On April 3, the National Data Administration released the draft Guidelines for Data Property Rights Registration (Trial) for public comment. Comments are being solicited until April 19. The draft aims to establish a nationally unified data property-rights registration system and foster an integrated data market. It divides data property rights into rights of holding, use and operation, and applies to the registration of data resources and data products within China. It specifies that original public data generated by party and government organs in the performance of their duties will not be registered, while products formed through authorized operations may be registered. Registration will follow a closed-loop process of application, acceptance, review, public announcement, objection, evidence preservation and certificate issuance, with a focus on reviewing data descriptions, legality of sources and ownership of rights. Data that is illegal, classified or unclear in ownership will not be registered. (For details, see:

https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1861458013303291086&wfr=spider&for=pc）

Analysis: Viewed through the benchmark of citizens’ basic human rights, these data property-rights registration guidelines appear to represent an institutional breakthrough in the marketization of data factors, but in reality they constitute a thorough seizure of rights favoring public power and capital. They completely hollow out ordinary citizens’ personal-information rights and interests, making the imbalance of human rights in the digital age increasingly glaring.

Personal data are an extension of citizens’ personal dignity and right to privacy, and an inalienable basic right. Every consumption trail, social trace and piece of behavioral data is rooted in an individual’s real activities; citizens should properly be the ultimate rights holders of their own data. Yet these guidelines completely disregard the source of those rights and place data property rights firmly in the hands of institutions and enterprises, saying nothing about citizens’ rights to benefit from, veto or ultimately dispose of their personal data. Massive amounts of information originating from citizens are processed, assigned rights, circulated and monetized, while individuals can only passively accept the result. Even their most basic rights to know and to speak are deprived, leaving the right to informational self-determination as empty rhetoric.

The institutional design is even more blatantly tilted toward capital and power. Registration institutions face entry thresholds often reaching hundreds of millions, directly excluding ordinary people and small and medium-sized entities from the data market and building data barriers monopolized by capital and power. The so-called compliance review is merely a superficial formal process; it cannot curb platforms and institutions from using the name of lawful registration to engage in illegal collection and abuse of personal information, nor does it provide citizens with any effective channel for remedies against rights violations.

When data-rights confirmation completely abandons the source of rights, and institutions serve only the needs of data monetization and control, the so-called property-rights standards become a fig leaf for completely commodifying and instrumentalizing citizens’ personal information. They further intensify the exploitation of rights in the digital age, reduce citizens amid the flood of data to victims of rights and interests with no voice, and completely depart from the basic bottom line of human-rights protection.

IV. Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issue Interpretation (II) on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Embezzlement and Bribery

On April 10, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued the Interpretation (II) on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Embezzlement and Bribery. The new rules will formally take effect on May 1. The judicial interpretation focuses on difficult issues in current judicial practice in the fight against corruption, refining the standards for determining such crimes as bribery by entities, influence peddling, introducing bribery and possession of a huge amount of property from unexplained sources, while improving rules for determining new forms of hidden corruption, bribery involving anticipated benefits and the valuation of special property. It also unifies adjudication standards for occupational crimes in the business sector, sentencing conduct such as bribery of non-state personnel, occupational embezzlement and misappropriation of funds by reference to the standards for corruption cases involving public officials, and implements equal judicial protection for all types of market entities. The document further standardizes the conditions for applying rules on returning illicit gains and accepting punishment, strengthens the comprehensive recovery of illegal proceeds involved in cases, narrows the space for corruption profits, unifies judicial standards across regions, fills legal gaps in corruption governance, and continues to tighten the rule-of-law defenses for strictly punishing embezzlement and bribery crimes. (For details, see:

https://www.spp.gov.cn/xwfbh/wsfbt/202604/t20260410_725586.shtml?theme=dark#1）

Analysis: Viewed from the perspective of human-rights-based rule of law, beneath the appearance of strict punishment for occupational crimes, this anti-corruption judicial interpretation continues the established logic of emphasizing punishment over checks and balances and control over rights. While strengthening the deterrent effect against corruption, it does not remedy the deeper shortcomings in supervision of public power and protection of human rights.

The fight against corruption itself accords with demands for social fairness. Curbing power corruption and cracking down on the transfer of benefits are essential to safeguarding ordinary people’s rights to subsistence and development and their right to social equality. Abuse of power and corrupt conduct can wantonly seize public resources, squeeze public welfare, undermine a fair social order and trample on citizens’ basic right to enjoy public services equally. Strictly refining standards for conviction and sentencing in corruption cases, tightening the boundaries for identifying hidden corruption and new forms of bribery, and comprehensively recovering illegal proceeds can narrow the space for rent-seeking, curb the distortion of public office power and objectively hold the line protecting public social interests.

But the judicial interpretation remains confined to the single dimension of ex post punishment and has an obvious shortcoming in the balance of rights. Its provisions fully strengthen judicial punishment, continually expand the scope of accountability and tighten sentencing standards, yet avoid the core institutional problem: the lack of source-level constraints and transparent supervision over the operation of public power. They focus only on harsh punishment of corrupt individuals, without using institutional design to constrain the boundaries of public power. The reality of concentrated power and weakened supervision remains unchanged, making it impossible to eliminate at its roots the soil in which abuse of power grows.

At the same time, the rules place excessive emphasis on accountability and recovery while saying little about procedural human-rights protections during case handling. In investigations of occupational crimes, the rights of suspects to defense, property and personal freedom can easily be weakened, while channels for remedies are narrow. Once judicial discretion is improperly exercised, rights violations can easily result. Pursuing only the deterrent effect of anti-corruption efforts while neglecting the protection of individuals’ lawful rights violates the basic principle of balance between rule of law and human rights.

Upgrading anti-corruption rules in a way that treats symptoms but not causes is ultimately merely passive repair. A model of harsh punishment detached from checks and balances on power, transparent supervision and human-rights protection can only suppress the appearance of corruption in the short term. It cannot build a lasting clean-governance ecosystem or genuinely achieve a sound balance between public power and citizens’ rights.

V. New SPC-SPP rules criminalizing “air-rage” behavior formally take effect

On April 9, the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases Endangering the Safety of Civil Aviation, jointly issued by the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, formally took effect, marking the comprehensive inclusion of “air-rage” conduct within the scope of criminal liability. The judicial interpretation contains seven articles and identifies six types of “air-rage” conduct as criminal offenses, including occupying a seat and refusing to give it up, abusing or assaulting crew members, fighting in the cabin, illegally opening an emergency cabin door, damaging equipment on board, and fabricating or disseminating false terrorist information. The new rules refine standards for conviction and sentencing. Serious conduct such as opening a cabin door without authorization during flight or taxiing may be punished as a crime endangering public security; the maximum sentence for serious circumstances is three years’ imprisonment. Previously, “air-rage” conduct was mostly dealt with through public-security penalties, with relatively weak punishment. Following implementation of the new rules, administrative punishment has been upgraded to criminal liability, the boundary between crime and non-crime has been clarified, legal protection for aviation safety strengthened, and public order and safety at 10,000 meters above the ground fully safeguarded. (For details, see:

https://www.spp.gov.cn/xwfbh/wsfbt/202604/t20260408_725512.shtml#1）

Analysis: The criminalization of air-rage conduct tightens controls on air travel in the name of public safety. While it appears to rectify a small number of extreme disturbances and maintain public order in the cabin, in reality it continuously compresses ordinary citizens’ legitimate rights under the banner of security, uses criminal law to intervene excessively in everyday livelihood situations, and displays a governance inertia of emphasizing control over human rights and punishment over mediation.

Safeguarding civil-aviation flight safety and protecting the lives and health of crew and passengers are the bottom line of public governance. Reasonably restricting excessively aggressive and illegal conduct is unobjectionable and is also necessary to protect the collective human rights of the public. But the new rules substantially broaden the boundaries of criminal liability, bringing many everyday disputes, emotional arguments and ordinary frictions within the scope of criminal-law enforcement. Sentencing standards are generalized and the criteria for determination highly elastic, making the abuse of punishment highly likely. A single instance of excessive individual words or conduct, a verbal dispute or inappropriate expression of a demand may be arbitrarily characterized as disrupting flight safety, readily triggering criminal liability and turning criminal law into a tool of routine control.

The rules unilaterally favor aviation operators and management systems, tightening passengers’ obligations on one side while avoiding any discussion of airlines’ service deficiencies, rough procedures and disregard for rights and interests. When flights are delayed without cause, passenger flows unreasonably restricted, services absent and channels for defending rights unavailable, passengers lack proper avenues for reasonable complaints and emotional expression. Their demands are ignored for long periods, tensions accumulate, and they are instead required to bear criminal consequences for systemic service deficiencies, creating a severe imbalance between rights and obligations.

More alarming is that public safety is being generalized without limit, while individuals’ freedom of speech, right to reasonably defend their rights and right to express their personality are continually suppressed. Inside the cabin, citizens’ conduct and speech are subjected to comprehensive and stringent restrictions, while law-enforcement and adjudicatory discretion is excessive. Once an ordinary person disagrees with the crew, they can easily fall into a passive situation of being held accountable.

Relying solely on severe punishment to suppress conflicts, without addressing their root causes through improved services, balanced rights and interests, and dispute mediation, will only create more suppression of rights. Exchanging individuals’ legitimate rights for superficial order is not what modern rule of law and human-rights civilization should look like. Under harsh controls, the public’s freedom of movement and personal rights will only continue to yield and shrink.

VI. New rules jointly issued by three departments to crack down on big-data price discrimination formally take effect

On December 9, 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Cyberspace Administration of China jointly issued the Rules on Internet Platform Pricing Conduct, specifying that they would formally take effect on April 10, 2026, for a five-year validity period. This is the country’s first specialized regulation to systematically regulate platform algorithmic pricing and comprehensively prohibit “big-data price discrimination.” The new rules clearly define and strictly prohibit e-commerce, transportation, food-delivery, tourism, membership-service and other platforms from using user profiles, consumption data and algorithmic models to apply differential pricing to the same product or service under equivalent trading conditions. They specifically prohibit price-discrimination practices such as charging existing customers more than new customers, hidden membership markups and price differences based on device models. The new rules establish the principle of “reversal of the burden of proof”: after consumers provide preliminary evidence, platforms must prove their innocence; serious violations may result in fines of up to 5 million yuan. The implementation of the new rules directly targets the longstanding problem of algorithmic black-box operations and aims to break down information barriers, protect consumers’ rights to know and to fair transactions, and purify the digital consumption environment. (For details, see: https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1862077714922624000&wfr=spider&for=pc）

Analysis: The introduction of new rules to rectify big-data price discrimination appears to be a corrective measure safeguarding consumer rights, but in reality it remains only superficial governance and does not genuinely address the core problem of human rights being harmed in the digital age.

In the digital environment, private data such as individuals’ consumption trails, spending capacity, usage habits and geographic information fall within the important scope of citizens’ personal rights and informational autonomy. Yet various internet platforms have long collected and aggregated user information without boundaries or restraint, using algorithmic barriers to form information monopolies and exploiting data disparities to impose person-based pricing, markups on existing customers and membership surcharges. In essence, this uses technological advantages to trample on citizens’ rights to fair transactions and property, as well as their personal dignity. Platforms hold control over user data, treating consumers’ trust and long-term use as bargaining chips for extraction, creating naked algorithmic bullying and an unequal distribution of rights, and routinely eroding ordinary people’s basic rights and interests.

The new rules expressly prohibit price discrimination and strengthen penalties. Though they appear to constrain platform abuses, they merely plug leaks passively and treat symptoms rather than causes. The rules restrict only differential pricing and do not fundamentally define ownership of personal data or constrain platforms’ privilege to collect and privately abuse user information without order. Users still cannot independently control the flow of their personal data or refuse to be bound to algorithmic profiling. Faced with platforms’ enormous technological and capital advantages, individuals remain weak in defending their rights, and the difficulties of cumbersome evidence-gathering and high costs have not truly been resolved.

The deeper problem is that the logic of governance remains centered on controlling disorder in the industry rather than protecting digital human rights. Platforms are merely required to regulate pricing, while disorderly data collection and opaque algorithmic black boxes are tolerated, allowing capital to use technological privilege to rise above individual rights. As long as the data monopoly remains unchanged and control over personal information continues to be absent, eliminating big-data price discrimination will not prevent other forms of algorithmic exploitation and rights violations from emerging.

Regulation that does not treat citizens’ digital rights as its bottom line is ultimately only short-term balancing. Only by breaking data hegemony and returning autonomy over personal information to individuals can genuine fairness in consumption be achieved and the most basic human-rights boundaries of the digital age protected.

VII. SPC and SPP issue judicial interpretation on embezzlement and bribery cases, raising the threshold for the crime of possessing a huge amount of property from unexplained sources

On April 10, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued the Interpretation (II) on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Embezzlement and Bribery. Article 5 of the interpretation specifies that where the property and expenditures of a state functionary clearly exceed lawful income and the source cannot be explained, a difference of 3 million yuan or more but less than 10 million yuan, and 10 million yuan or more, shall respectively be determined as a “huge difference” and an “especially huge difference.”

Previously, the threshold for filing and prosecuting the crime of possessing a huge amount of property from unexplained sources was 300,000 yuan. This adjustment raises the threshold for criminal liability tenfold, to 3 million yuan. The judicial interpretation will take effect on May 1, 2026, and aims to refine the standards for applying the law to embezzlement and bribery crimes, optimize the allocation of anti-corruption resources and concentrate efforts on investigating major corruption cases. (For details, see:

https://www.xinhuanet.com/20260410/1e59fd2b92214464a407d612d284f4bd/c.html）

Analysis: The judicial interpretation on embezzlement and bribery substantially raises the threshold for the crime of possessing a huge amount of property from unexplained sources. While it appears to correspond to current levels of economic development and has a degree of superficial rationality, it in reality conceals a tilt in position and double standards in the rules, exposing deep-seated defects at the legislative level.

It cannot be denied that, with rising prices and social and economic transformation, the old monetary standard has long become detached from reality. In the past, 300,000 yuan could be considered a huge sum; in today’s economic environment, it can no longer be regarded as a large asset. From the standpoint of objective reality, there is some justification for moderately raising the standard.

But the core problem is that lawmakers are mostly situated within institutional circles and themselves wield public power, with complex asset structures and income channels. Unilaterally raising the threshold for criminal liability to 3 million yuan is essentially a preemptive self-protection measure by the power elite, loosening restrictions for themselves and similar groups and reserving room to evade criminal accountability. It is a typical case of self-interested legislation and protecting one’s own group.

The greatest fracture in the rule of law lies in blatant double standards. For economic crimes alike, the thresholds for filing and sentencing in crimes such as theft and fraud targeting ordinary people have remained rigid and unchanged for years. Ordinary people who steal 3,000 yuan still face criminal punishment, and the scale of punishment remains highly repressive, never being adjusted in step with economic development. By contrast, public officials whose assets from unexplained sources reach 3 million yuan only then cross the criminal threshold; the imbalance between rights and responsibilities and the inversion of sentencing standards are plain to see.

On one side, the standards for controlling the gray wealth of public power are loosened; on the other, minor economic violations by people at the bottom are harshly suppressed. The scales of the law are clearly tilted toward privileged groups. Selectively optimizing the standards for convicting official corruption while ignoring the outdated and harsh provisions applicable to ordinary people completely departs from the basic principle of equality before the law.

This differentiated legislation continually tears apart social fairness and exhausts public confidence in the judiciary. When rules become tools for a few people to avoid risk and law enforcement loses a uniform standard, so-called fairness under the rule of law becomes meaningless. It will also continue to intensify class conflict and erode the public’s most basic right to fairness and the bottom line of human rights.

I will rewrite a 200–300-word brief on teacher recruitment in accordance with the requirements for accurate dates and standardized titles, with precise content, complete elements and orderly formatting.

VIII. Two departments jointly deploy 2026 recruitment of teachers for primary and secondary schools and kindergartens

On April 22, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Education jointly issued a notice formally deploying the 2026 nationwide open recruitment of teachers for primary and secondary schools and kindergartens. The recruitment notice specifies that age restrictions will be optimized: the basic application age for teacher recruitment will be relaxed to 38 or younger, inclusive. For doctoral graduates, demobilized military personnel and teachers of urgently needed and in-demand subjects in difficult and remote areas, the age limit may be further relaxed to 40, broadening channels for talented applicants. The notice emphasizes that localities should base staffing on actual education-development needs and rationally allocate teaching resources, focusing on filling teacher shortages in rural, remote and other areas; uphold teacher ethics and conduct as the primary standard; eliminate unreasonable restrictions based on graduating institutions and forms of educational qualifications; and ensure recruitment is fair and impartial. It also requires localities to standardize recruitment procedures, accelerate progress, promptly complete the hiring of teachers, strengthen primary-level teaching staff and promote balanced development of educational resources. (For details, see:

http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/202604/t20260422_1434524.html）

Analysis: The two ministries’ relaxation of the teacher-recruitment age limit to 38 appears to be a small step toward breaking age restrictions, but in reality it is superficial and treats symptoms rather than causes. The core defects have not been eliminated in the slightest; in essence, rigid rules and regulations are still being used to constrain the movement of talent.

In a normal talent system and a mature education system, teaching should not be locked to age. As long as a person has sound professional ethics, solid knowledge, a passion for education and the ability to nurture students, it is entirely reasonable and compliant for them to enter teaching from another field at age 50 or 60. Regardless of whether they previously worked in business or government, anyone with teaching ability and the qualities needed to educate others should have the opportunity to change careers and teach. Talent should be free to move across fields in both directions: teachers should be able to move into administration, and working professionals should be able to step onto the teaching platform. This is what a healthy social ecosystem for talent looks like.

By contrast, the current teacher-recruitment system relies excessively on age thresholds and written-test scores, making its evaluation criteria extremely distorted. The doctrines of valuing only age and only examinations prevail, blocking large numbers of older people with rich experience and outstanding abilities. Many people are good at test-taking and drilling practice questions, passing written examinations at every stage, but are weak at managing actual classrooms, give dull and tedious lessons and lack any ability to educate. Entering the teaching profession through examinations ultimately only misleads students.

What should be eliminated in genuinely optimizing the teaching workforce are people with inadequate teaching ability or deficient ethics, not middle-aged practitioners who are excluded in a one-size-fits-all manner based on age. Merely relaxing the age limit by a few years, without abolishing unreasonable age restrictions, reforming the examination-oriented recruitment model and establishing assessment standards centered on practical teaching and comprehensive competence, amounts to nothing more than perfunctory reform.

Clinging to outdated employment barriers, restricting the free movement of talent and using rigid rules to select practitioners ignores the essential needs of the education sector. This policy adjustment, which changes the form but not the substance, cannot conceal the rigidity and backwardness of the employment mechanism. Genuine employment fairness and sound educational development remain a long way off.

IX. General Offices of the CPC Central Committee and State Council jointly issue opinions on strengthening services and management for new forms of employment

On April 28, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Rights and Interests of Workers in New Forms of Employment, focusing on the 240 million flexible workers including food-delivery couriers, ride-hailing drivers, couriers and livestreaming workers, and for the first time incorporating algorithmic governance into the scope of human-rights protection. The new rules require platforms to compulsorily file algorithmic rules and prohibit them from using big data to exploit, discriminate against or punish workers. Algorithmic adjustments must be announced in advance, while workers’ rights to know and choose must be protected. The rules also clearly establish five core bottom lines for rights and interests: labor remuneration, rest and leave, occupational safety, social insurance and protection against occupational injuries. “Involution-style” high-intensity exploitation is strictly prohibited, building a systematic human-rights protection barrier for flexible workers. (For details, see: https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202604/content_7066997.htm）

Analysis: The issuance of this top-level document appears to address gaps in protection for flexible workers, but in reality it is a forceful correction of platforms’ long-standing, disorderly exploitation of workers, directly targeting the sharpest human-rights and fairness problems in today’s employment ecosystem.

For a long time, the vast numbers of flexible workers such as food-delivery couriers, ride-hailing drivers and couriers have remained in a gray area of rules. Platforms have used black-box algorithms to control everything, binding workers layer by layer through late-delivery fines, high-intensity order assignments and unreasonable point deductions; they have used data-driven involution to force workers to overextend their time and health. With no reasonable rest, little social-insurance protection and no voice whatsoever, workers have become tools on an algorithmic assembly line, while their basic labor rights have long been ignored.

Previous constraints in this area were mostly verbal advocacy, lacking binding force. With profit above all else, platforms arbitrarily compressed employment costs, while discrimination, exploitation and disguised forms of coercion became unwritten industry rules. The new rules now clearly constrain algorithmic abuses, halt big-data control and excessive exploitation, return the rights to rest, remuneration and information to workers, and break the monopoly in which platforms unilaterally impose霸王 rules.

But it is also necessary to recognize clearly that implementation is the key. If subsequent regulation becomes merely formal and enforcement lax and weak, even the best provisions will become empty words. To genuinely protect the basic human rights of workers at the bottom, a single opinion document is not enough; it also requires routine strict inspections and severe accountability, cutting the chains of interest behind platforms’ disorderly expansion, ensuring that the dignity of labor no longer gives way to capital-driven involution, and allowing every form of flexible labor to receive the most basic fairness and respect.