1990: Xu Zhinyong started his legal studies at Lanzhou University, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Law

1995: He returned to Lanzhou University for a Master’s degree in law. He never received the degree, possibily owning to the these he submitted containing critical views.

1999-2002: Despite not receiving his Masters, Xu completed a Doctorate in Law at Peking University Law School. During his time there, he was an active advocate for educational equality for people with different household registration (“hukou”).

2002: Xu Zhinyong started his teaching career at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Later this year, he was elected as a People's Representative for Beijing's Haidian District, a position to which he was re-elected in 2006.

2003: Xu Zhiyong gained public attention after protesting against the death of Sun Zhigang in Guangzhou. He co-founded the public interest organisation "Sunshine Constitutionalism" in 2003 with legal scholars like Teng Biao and others. In 2004, he and other legal scholars drafted recommendations for amending China's constitutional human rights protections.

2005-2007: "Sunshine Constitutionalism" faced registration issues in Beijing and was renamed "Beijing Gong Meng Consultancy Limited Company" (also more simply known as "Gong Meng") in 2005. In order to prepare a report on petitioning in China, Xu lived in the "Petition Village" in Beijing for two months and visited centres detaining people who had attempted to petition, during which he was beaten and assaulted by unknown individuals. In 2006, Xu led the study on the educational rights of the children of new urban migrants. In 2007, Xu led the study on the domestication of the ICCPR. During 2005, Xu was also a visiting scholar at Yale University's China Law Research Centre.

2008-2009: In 2008, Xu and Gong Meng supported human rights lawyers in Beijing and pushed for democratic elections within the Beijing Lawyers Association but failed, as the Beijing Lawyers Association amended its organisational procedures. In July 2009, Gong Meng was disbanded by the Chinese government, and Xu was detained on charges of tax evasion. The formal arrest of Xu was later approved in August 2009, but Xu was subsequently released on bail. In the same year, Xu's teaching credentials were stripped.

2010-2012: Gong Meng was renamed "Gong Min" (meaning Citizen) in 2010 and continued to engage in advocacy on public welfare and civil rights. In 2011, Xu participated in grassroots elections for People's Representatives in Beijing's Haidian District but faced obstructions from the authorities. After Xi Jinping's election as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012, Xu published an open letter titled "A Citizen's Thought on the Fate of the Country" to Xi. Xu was detained by Beijing national security personnel in the same month, November 2012.

2013: In April 2013, at the invitation of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Teng Biao, Xu attempted to go to Hong Kong to participate in a seminar about the 10th anniversary of the Sun Zhigang case. He was detained by officials at the border and was under home arrest thereafter. In July 2013, he was criminally detained for "gathering a crowd to disturb public order." He was formally arrested in August 2013, triggering widespread protest.

2014-2017: Xu was sentenced to four years in prison for "disrupting public order" in 2014. He served his sentence in Tianjin's Liulin Prison and was released in 2017.

2019-2020: In 2019, Xu published an online initiative asking members of the public to participate in the 2021 district and county People's Representatives elections as a practice for democratic election and also to promote democracy by allowing members of the public to govern themselves. In January 2020, Xu published an open letter to Xi Jinping, asking him to step down. He was arrested in Guangzhou City in February 2020. Xu was formally arrested in June 2020 and was charged with inciting subversion of state power.