As China hurtles towards a market economy its people are openly debating social and economic issues at a level that's unprecedented in the Chinese Communist Party's 55-year rule. Civil society is developing as NGOs become an established part of the social fabric.

But those who are stepping into this new found political space are acutely aware of its limits. People who challenge the supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party still risk losing their careers, reputations and enduring long periods of detention.

From inside China, the NI turns up the volume on the voices that are now being heard in public as well as those that the Communist Party continues to suppress.