Legal rights activist Zhai Yanmin found guilty of subverting the Chinese state

Beijing: In the first conviction seen since a sweeping year-long crackdown against legal rights advocates in China, a court in the northern city of Tianjin has found human rights advocate Zhai Yanmin guilty of subverting state power.

In court proceedings laced with attacks on so-called "foreign hostile forces" including overseas media outlets, court prosecutors labelled the 55-year-old as a paid protest organiser who conspired with colleagues and unspecified foreign organisations to "hype" human rights cases with a view to "systematically undermine state power" while obtaining financial benefit and personal fame.

Zhai, one of four lawyers and rights advocates expected to stand trial in Tianjin this week, pleaded guilty to his charges and was sentenced to three years' jail, with a four-year suspension.

Dressed in a crumpled white business shirt, and reading from a prepared, hand-written statement, an emotional Zhai told the court he had "let his country down" but had now repented and was willing to "wipe his eyes clean, to see 'foreign hostile forces' and others with ulterior motives" for what they were.

"No matter what sentence I receive, I will accept it, and will not appeal," Zhai said in video footage of his closing statements carried on state-run Chinese news outlets.

"I deeply thank the party and government for rescuing me," he said, adding that he will "resolutely decline" accepting interviews from "foreign, hostile media" in future.

Zhai's heavily stage-managed trial on Tuesday goes to the heart of the Communist Party's sweeping crackdown on lawyers and legal activists which has seen more than 300 in the legal community detained, questioned or harassed since July last year – prompting condemnation from international rights groups and foreign governments, including Australia. At least 16 are still being held by authorities, awaiting trial.

Since his rise to power in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been intolerant of dissent in any form and suspicious of foreign influence, with the Communist Party's so-called Document No.9 warning cadres against the dangers of allowing concepts such as universal rights and democracy to spread in mainland China.

Zhai's trial comes a day after prominent rights lawyer Wang Yu re-emerged after more than a year in detention, giving interviews to a select group of local and pro-mainland Hong Kong media outlets where she also recanted her previous human rights work and said her former colleagues at Beijing law firm Fengrui conspired to "attack and smear" the Chinese government.

In the video interviews released on Monday, Ms Wang said she rejected being awarded the prestigious Ludovic Trarieux Human Rights Prize as well as another honour from the American Bar Association.

"This award in my opinion is their way of using me to attack and smear the Chinese government," she said. "I am Chinese. I only accept awards from the Chinese leadership."

Having devoted much of her career advancing the cause of human rights in China, she told reporters that she now realised she had been used and manipulated by unspecified foreign organisations who wanted to disseminate "Western universal values" in China while "attacking and smearing the Chinese government" to the extent of fomenting a potential "colour revolution".

Ms Wang said she was in good health and was well looked after in jail, which demonstrated the "civility and humanity of China's rule of law", prompting suspicion from her supporters that it was another rehearsed, coerced televised confession.

Similar to Ms Wang, Zhai had previously appeared in June last year with a repentant televised confession on state broadcaster CCTV. One of the cases the group of rights activists are accused of "hyping" is the police shooting of Xu Chunhe in May last year.

The verdict in Zhai's case was handed down just hours after the commencement of the trial on Tuesday, raising further questions of procedural fairness in a case already shrouded in official secrecy and with Zhai unable to appoint his own lawyer. His family, who have been unable to contact him for the past year, was not informed of the trial in advance.

"It's an unfair trial almost by every way you can look at it," said William Nee, China researcher for Amnesty International. "Whether from the procedural irregularities, to the lack of legal access, to the fact that he was forced to give a television confession before the trial."