Hooliganism (流氓罪, liumang zui)

Liumang zui — usually translated “hooliganism” — was an offense in China’s 1979 Criminal Law. After listing conduct like group brawling and public disturbance, the article ended with the open-ended phrase “other hooligan activities.” That elastic wording made it the textbook example of a koudai zui, a “pocket crime” into which almost anything could be stuffed. In practice, sex between men was sometimes prosecuted under “other hooligan activities,” even though the law never mentioned homosexuality by name.

The comprehensively revised Criminal Law of 1997 abolished hooliganism, splitting it into narrower, clearly defined offenses — none of which cover consensual same-sex acts. This repeal is what people mean by the decriminalization of same-sex acts in mainland China.

Register note: a historical legal term, used only when discussing pre-1997 legal history. In everyday Chinese, liumang survives as an insult (“creep,” “pervert”), but it no longer names any crime.

Common misreading: calling hooliganism “China’s anti-gay law.” It was a catch-all applied to a wide range of conduct; same-sex acts were only one thing occasionally swept into it. But don’t over-correct either — while it existed, that very vagueness posed a real legal risk for gay people. And the claim that “homosexuality is illegal in China today” is simply false; see the myth-busting page.