A China More Just: My Fight as a Rights Lawyer in the World's Largest Communist State by Gao Zhisheng

Paperback:  Attorney.  Activist.  Fearless.  Faithful.

The story of one man who has taken on the world’s largest authoritarian regime and, in the eyes of many, won.

Born and raised in a cave with only the stars to tell time, Gao Zhisheng rose from poverty to become China’s most important lawyer.  He has courageously sought justice for vulnerable groups such as the poor, the disabled, and the persecuted.  Yet Gao’s fortitude has drawn the ire of Communist authorities.

Today, physical threat and police surveillance are a constant reality for both Gao and his family.  Undeterred, he has responded in the nonviolent tradition of Gandhi by launching nationwide hunger strikes to intensify the call for justice and human rights in China.  His undaunted resolve and generous spirit have won the hearts of millions.  Whispers can be heard in China’s streets, “Will Gao Zhisheng become the next president?”

Part memoir, part social commentary, part call to action, A China More Just (2007) is a penetrating account of contemporary China through the life of one attorney.  Its selection of writings takes readers from a village in rural China to urban courtrooms, mountainside torture chambers, and the halls of a reluctant government.

A China More Just is at once witty and raw, touching and wrenching, sober and playful.

About the author:  Gao Zhisheng rose from utter poverty to become one of China’s most acclaimed lawyers and a leading advocate for the oppressed.  He is one of the most unyielding and iconic advocates for justice in China having been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize (2008 and 2010).  Life took a most unlikely turn in 1991 when Gao happened to learn, while selling vegetables by the roadside, that the country was looking to train new lawyers.  Though possessed only a middle-school education, Gao taught himself law and passed the national bar examination in 1995.  Gao made headlines in 1999 by winning the largest medical malpractice lawsuit in Chinese history.  His commitment to defending his clients is influenced by his Christian beliefs and their tenets on morality and compassion.  In 2001, China’s Ministry of Justice named him one of the nation’s top-ten attorneys.

As of 8 January 2015, Gao, 52, is currently under 24-hour surveillance by state security police at the home of his wife's parents in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where he was released from a three-year jail term for "incitement to subvert state power" in August.  Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia said Gao had barely been able to speak an entire sentence when he was first released from Xinjiang's Shaya Prison, where he had been held for lengthy periods in solitary confinement and tortured.