List of countries by incarceration rate
China. The rate of 118 is for sentenced prisoners in 2015 in Ministry of Justice prisons only. World Prison Brief: "1,649,804 [prisoners] at mid-2015 (via Asian and Pacific Conference of Correctional Administrators - sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only, excluding pre-trial detainees and those held in administrative detention). The Deputy Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate reported in 2009 that, in addition to the sentenced prisoners, more than 650,000 were held in detention centres In China. If this was still correct in mid-2015 the total prison population in China was at least 2,300,000. ... 118 [rate] based on an estimated national population of 1.4 billion at mid-2015 (from United Nations figures) – sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only. (A total prison population of 2,300,000 would raise the prison population rate to 164 per 100,000.)" See also: Re-education through labor and Laogai.
Open Letter asking Xi Jinping to Resign
Chinese media is heavily regulated; government censors often remove content on websites and social media. By 2015, China had 49 reporters behind bars, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists; Freedom House had ranked the country as the world's worst abuser of internet freedom. In February 2016, Xi Jinping visited state media outlets in a tour widely seen as an attempt to further bring journalists to heel and to stamp out freedom of expression. Early 2016 saw a spate of publicized censorship incidents and a crackdown on journalists, lawyers, and dissidents.