China Opens First Rewrite of Its Criminal Procedure Law Since 2018 With 55-Article Draft

Photo: N509FZ, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (file photo, 2023). A west office building of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate in Beijing.

China’s top legislature began reviewing a 55-article China Criminal Procedure Law amendment on Monday, Nov. 2, the first rewrite of the rules on arrest, detention, defense lawyers and trials since 2018. The draft went to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for a first reading at a session in Beijing that runs through Friday. Chinese state media say it strengthens the presumption of innocence and curbs overlong detention, but the full text has not been made public.

State news agency Xinhua reported the submission and said the law, adopted in 1979, was previously amended in 1996, 2012 and 2018. ✓Claim by Xinhua (Chinese state media); confirmed by 21st Century Business Herald The commercial newspaper 21st Century Business Herald also reported the submission on Monday and called it the law’s fourth revision.

What state media say the draft changes

According to a longer Xinhua summary in Chinese, the draft “improves the provisions on the principle of presumption of innocence,” adds general rules on when police can use “compulsory measures” such as detention, improves prosecutors’ review of arrest approvals and of whether continued custody is necessary, and aims to “prevent overlong detention” (TBR translations). It also strengthens the defense rights of suspects and defendants, adds protections for on-duty legal-aid lawyers and defense lawyers, and expands the plea-leniency system. Other sections cover the seizure and freezing of assets, juvenile cases and cases involving foreigners. !Unverified claim, Xinhua (Chinese state media)

English-language China Daily said the draft lets victims or their close relatives seek legal aid if they have not hired a lawyer “for specific reasons,” requires authorities to keep lawyers informed “at each stage and key points of case proceedings,” and “includes provisions to ensure fair treatment for foreign suspects and defendants.” !Unverified claim, China Daily (Chinese state media) It said juvenile victims and witnesses should be questioned in a single session where possible, to spare them repeated interviews.

China Daily also described a requirement that detention centers arrange lawyer meetings within 48 hours of a request. That rule is not new. Article 39 of the current 2018 law already says a meeting must be arranged “no later than 48 hours” after a defense lawyer asks, and in national-security and terrorism cases it lets investigators withhold permission for meetings during the investigation. Whether the draft changes that exception is not known until the text is released.

The open question: residential surveillance

None of the official summaries mention “residential surveillance at a designated location,” known as RSDL. The measure lets police hold a suspect outside the regular jail system before formal arrest. Under Article 75 of the current law, surveillance normally takes place at the suspect’s home, but police can move it to a designated place when the suspect has no fixed home or, in national-security and terrorism cases, when home surveillance “may obstruct the investigation” and a higher-level police office approves. Families must be told within 24 hours unless that is impossible.

Singapore’s Lianhe Zaobao reported on Oct. 30 that whether to keep or scrap RSDL has become the main debate among Chinese legal scholars. It quoted Peking University law professor Chen Yongsheng as telling a September forum that some local police had turned RSDL into a new way to extract confessions through torture, and that the media had exposed “at least 10” such cases. Chen said he had heard of a version of the amendment that would limit RSDL to national-security and terrorism crimes, and added, “Merely limiting the scope of application is not enough” (TBR translation). That account is secondhand, and nothing released on Monday confirms what the draft does with RSDL.

Rules quietly tightened in 2025

China issued new guidelines in 2025 on how RSDL is supervised, approved and carried out, with no official announcement, after which a leaked copy circulated online, the South China Morning Post reported. Safeguard Defenders, a human rights group that campaigns against the practice, said in an April 2026 analysis that the rules cut the initial RSDL term from six months to two, with extensions requiring approval, and require round-the-clock video recording of detainees. The group questioned whether the changes would alter how the system is used.

Why it matters to Americans

The review comes two weeks after the U.S. State Department added a “wrongful detention” warning to its China travel advisory. On Oct. 19, the department added the “D” risk indicator while keeping the advisory at Level 2, “Exercise Increased Caution,” citing “arbitrary enforcement of local laws, the use of exit bans without a fair and transparent process under the law, and the risk of wrongful detention,” according to the South China Morning Post. Neither government has linked the advisory to the draft law. The Trump administration has not commented on the amendment.

Corruption law and other bills at the same session

Lawmakers at the same session are also reviewing a draft Anti-Cross-Border Corruption Law, along with bills on public-interest lawsuits brought by prosecutors, Antarctic activities and environmental protection, water, state-owned assets and financial regulation, according to the session agenda reported by Lianhe Zaobao. The party’s own new discipline rules, which TBR covered on Sunday, target officials’ family wealth. The NPC usually posts first-reading drafts for public comment after a session closes, which would show for the first time what the Criminal Procedure Law amendment actually says. More regional coverage is on TBR’s Asia-Pacific page.

Sources

• Xinhua: China mulls amendments to Criminal Procedure Law to better protect rights
• Xinhua (Chinese): draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law
• 21st Century Business Herald: Criminal Procedure Law’s fourth revision
• Lianhe Zaobao: NPC to review Criminal Procedure Law; RSDL debate
• Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC (2018 text, hosted by the Ministry of Finance)
• South China Morning Post: US adds wrongful detention warning for Americans travelling to China

Additional sources

• China Daily: Draft amendment seeks to strengthen protection of rights in criminal proceedings
• South China Morning Post: China quietly curbs abuse of detention procedure
• Safeguard Defenders: China reforms its secret RSDL jails, but will anything change?