Staff profile

Yuanxi obtained her Bachelors degree in law from Shanxi University, China, in 2012. Prior to starting postgraduate studies, she worked as a newspaper journalist and legal specialist in China. She received her LLM degree from Durham Law School in January 2020, where she received a distinction on her dissertation entitled ‘Exploring Formal and Informal Sources of Law in China: A Study of Self-Defence Cases’. Yuanxi is currently a PhD student in the law school and is supervised by Dr Andy Hayward and Professor Helen Fenwick. She is also a member of the Human Rights Centre and Centre for Chinese Law and Policy.

Current Research

Yuanxi’s current research explores the freedom of marriage in China. Her work analyses a ubiquitous phenomenon of ‘cui hun’ (pressuring someone to get married) which is a controversial issue in China and one that can have a significant detrimental impact on individuals, especially in relation to their mental health. At present, the current law in this area focuses exclusively on physical pressure to marry and neglects psychological coercion that can destroy the reality of consent. The purpose of her research is to better understand this phenomenon and make recommendations for reform that would enable greater acknowledgement of emotional or psychological pressure.