China Scores 9 out of 100 in 2025 World Freedom Report

China scored 9 out of 100 and was rated “not free” in the Freedom in the World 2025 report by the Washington-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) Freedom House, which ranked 195 countries and 13 territories on political rights and civil liberties for 2024.

Political rights and civil liberties account for 40 and 60 points, respectively. China’s political rights were rated at minus 2 points, while its civil liberties received 11 points, for a total score of 9. China’s score has remained unchanged since 2021.

Freedom House’s report summary said that “China’s authoritarian regime has become increasingly repressive in recent years. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to tighten control over all aspects of life and governance, including the state bureaucracy, the media, online speech, religious practice, universities, businesses, and civil society associations.”

In the Freedom House’s transnational repression report released in mid-February, China remained a major perpetrator of transnational repression in 2024. The Chinese regime has also been the “most prolific perpetrator” of transnational repression over the past decade, according to the NGO.

Chinese communist regime-controlled Hong Kong scored 40 points and was listed as a “partly free” territory. Taiwan (Republic of China) continued to be rated “free” with 94 points.

Hong Kong earned 9 points in political rights and 31 points in civil liberties, for a total score of 40 points. It dropped a point from last year to reach a new low of 40, down from 61 in 2017.

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The report summary for Hong Kong noted that since the implementation of the CCP’s national security law (NSL) in 2020, freedom in the territory that “traditionally enjoyed substantial civil liberties and the rule of law under their local constitution,” has been rapidly deteriorating on many fronts.

“The territory’s most prominent prodemocracy figures have been arrested under its provisions, and NSL charges or the threat of charges have resulted in the closure of political parties, major independent news outlets, peaceful nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and unions,” the summary reads.

Tibet under the CCP’s rule scored 0 points and continued to be listed as a “not free” territory. Specifically, Tibet received minus 2 points for “political rights” and 2 points for “civil liberties.”

Freedom House noted that “Tibet is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government based in Beijing, with local decision-making power concentrated in the hands of Chinese party officials. Residents of both Han Chinese and Tibetan ethnicity are denied fundamental rights, and authorities are especially rigorous in suppressing any signs of dissent among Tibetans.”

The report did not separately assess freedom in Xinjiang, the Uyghur region ruled by the CCP.

“If adding the factors of transnational repression and Tibet, mainland China’s freedom score would be even lower,” Lai Jianping, a former Beijing lawyer and president of the Canada-based Federation for a Democratic China, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 27.

Sun Kuo-hsiang, a professor of international affairs and business at Nanhua University in Taiwan, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 27 that the Freedom House’s report is credible, as “it truthfully reflects the control model of China’s current political system, legal environment, and social system.”

He said that the main reason for the lack of freedom is the political system in mainland China, which is a totalitarian model. “From the perspective of democratic standards, there are no elections, no multi-party competition, and citizens have no real right to participate in politics,” Sun said.

Chinese paramilitary police (in green uniforms) secure an exit as Tibetan monks (C) walk out from a stadium at the end of a local government-sponsored festival in Yushu, in China's northwestern Qinghai Province, on July 25, 2016. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images

In the short term, the situation in China will get worse, he said. “With China’s expanding of its influence, especially in the global south [developing countries], those countries are facing the same situation,” he warned.

The CCP’s attitude toward overseas dissidents will not change either, Sun added. “It will only intensify overseas surveillance, cyber attacks, espionage, and other transnational repression activities to suppress them.”

In the long run, the CCP’s transnational repression may backfire on China’s global influence, it may “weaken China’s soft power, and cause more countries to take precautionary measures against China,” Sun said.

Sun suggested Western countries strengthen their precautions against the CCP’s export of its totalitarianism and transnational repression by “restricting the CCP setting up institutions in their countries, or paying special attention to the institutions established by the CCP, providing political asylum to Chinese people, and legislating to protect dissidents.”

Lai said that everyone who has lived in China can relate to the political life reflected in the freedom index. “We are all experiencing this regime’s evil actions every day.”

He said that Freedom House is an independent and objective evaluation organization, and it has a complete set of scientific assessment methods, “so its conclusions are credible.”

Lai said that the Chinese regime’s score in the Freedom House report is consistent with a 2022 survey by scholars and professionals in China’s business circles.

A man holds a Taiwanese flag during a flag-raising ceremony to mark the 108th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China, in Tuen Mun District in Hong Kong on October 10, 2019. Philip Fong/AFP via Getty Images

The NGO said its project, China Dissent Monitor, a public database monitoring Chinese protests by researchers in Taipei, was forced to suspend all research due to the funding freeze.

Lai said that the Freedom House reports are important in exposing authoritarianism and human rights abuse around the world, especially in China.

“If the reports were done by U.S. government agencies, the CCP would easily deny it and say that the U.S. government is trying to overthrow its regime and interfere in China’s internal affairs. But these reports are done by this NGO that uses independent, objective, and fair standards to evaluate every country,” he said. “Then, it’s not easy for the CCP or authoritarian rulers to make arbitrary accusations or to deny.”

The U.S. Capitol on Jan. 2, 2020. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

It is difficult for these NGOs to obtain financial support from society or the private sector, Lai said. Meanwhile, they need staff to do these projects, and their work incurs costs.

“This is a moral thing, it is to spend little money to achieve great things,” Lai said of the importance of funding NGOs like Freedom House.

“As they make up for the many fields that government agencies or international organizations can’t cover, such as many research fields, public opinion, and evaluations of various fields. These NGOs have a real role to fill in the gaps. They are a necessary source of information for the entire international community.”

Luo Ya and Reuters contributed to this report.