Chinese courts prosecuted 8.3 million people in the five years to 2022, a 12% increase on the previous period. There was also a nearly 20% increase in the number of protests against court rulings. The figures released by the supreme people’s procuratorate (SPP) in March give a glimpse of how China’s notoriously opaque justice system has operated in recent years, amid a tightening domestic security environment. Zhang Jun, the outgoing director of the SPP, said prosecutions for violent crimes decreased by 31.7%, while prosecutions for internet-based crimes, such as gambling, fraud and the dissemination of obscene materials, increased by 43.3%….