In November 2013, the Communist Party of China issued the Decision on Certain Major Issues in Comprehensively Deepening Reform. In October 2014, the Party issued a further set of implementing measures, in the form of Decision concerning Certain Major Issues in Comprehensively Moving Forward Ruling the Country according to Law. These two decisions effectively re-launched legal reforms after ten years of gradual regression under the Hu–Wen leadership (2002–2012). Although these decisions were short of inspiration and expectations for political and constitutional reforms, they initially received some cautious support from legal circles as they contained many measures that were significant for improving the actual operation of the law and the legal system in China. However, it did not take very long for many scholars to see dark clouds on the horizon: legal reform would be a very strictly controlled process, oriented towards consolidating Party leadership in all spheres of the state. Increasingly, the official rejection of constitutionalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and judicial independence is no longer rhetoric, but firm, explicit and without any qualification. The demand for direct and absolute Party leadership, strict control over political ideologies and safeguards for the Party core leadership makes it abundantly clear that Xi's “new era” is not going to be an era of liberalism nor of constitutionalism, however they are understood.

So, where are China's legal and political reforms going? And, as China is mostly likely to be an illiberal society, how do lawyers fight for basic freedoms in China? These are the questions that are being asked on a daily basis among scholars of Chinese law, in and outside China, and these are the two fundamental questions that the authors of the book under review ask and attempt to answer (xi).

Criminal Defense in China: The Politics of Lawyers at Work is, however, not a comprehensive study of Chinese law and its reform, nor indeed a comprehensive study of the criminal justice system. It is a socio-legal study of a particular actor (the criminal defence lawyer) and a particular institution (the criminal procedure law). Within this specific area of research, the book focuses on difficulties criminal defence lawyers face in their daily work, especially in politically sensitive cases.

Sida Liu and Terence Halliday's book is a solid evidence-based and theoretically guided empirical study. It attempts to establish an analytical framework of political and professional mobilization among four ideal types of lawyers (p. 6). It relies on some 300 interviews the authors or their research assistants conducted in China over a ten-year period (2005–2015), backed up by analysis of data from media outlets, internet discussion forums, Chinese Weibo and WeChat (p. 2).

Equipped with their analytical framework and sources of empirical data, the authors then proceed to analyse the following issues in the following six chapters: an historical account of the reform of the criminal procedural law; the so-called “three difficulties” in criminal defence (difficulties in meeting suspects, collecting evidence and accessing case files, p. 44) and the “Big Stick 306” (a loosely defined provision on lawyer perjury, p. 44); Chinese lawyers’ survival strategy in a tightly controlled society; the courage and motivation of the activist lawyers; the now well-known trial of Li Zhuang; and the online networking domestically and internationally for solidarity and support among lawyers, but especially for high-profile activist lawyers. Conclusions are presented in the last chapter (chapter eight). In analysing these issues, there is a presumption that readers already have some basic understanding of the Chinese criminal justice system, its politico-legal setting, its main players and their inter-relationship, and its institutional setting. Thus the book is best suited for scholars and students of Chinese law.

On the whole, Liu and Halliday have successfully presented an analytical framework for understanding professional and political mobilization in China. I found the “four ideal types” classification of Chinese defence lawyers particularly useful in understanding Chinese lawyers in action. Law books are often known for being boring, but the present book is in fact very interesting; case facts and data are presented through story-telling rather than through strict legal presentation. In a country as big as China anyone can easily challenge the validity of conclusions derived from limited interviews and other limited empirical data, but I actually found the conclusions convincing. In fact, I found the book a very valuable addition to the existing scholarship on Chinese law. The authors ought to be congratulated for presenting a detailed and objective account of the professional life of the daring lawyers working in China.