China S Compliance In Global Affairs

An extensively researched study of Chinese participation in international organisations, this book argues that the record of China's international behaviour since the 1970s indicates the long-term effectiveness of the multilateral system.

This book stands as a rebuke to any who would attempt to forward simplistic interpretations of China's rise. In place of parsimonious arguments, or an endorsement of any singular set of images (whether pacific or confrontational), it repeatedly calls attention to the remarkable complexity of China's emerging international profile. More specifically, the leading Chinese and American scholars working in the fields of Chinese foreign policy, international political economy, and national security, who contributed to this volume argue that while China appears to be entering a new era in its relationship with the outside world, such a development encompasses disparate, even contradictory, policies, and, as a result, there is a great deal of fluidity within China's place in world politics.

"The rise of China has thrown open many important and interesting questions: Will a strong China behave responsibly in world affairs, complying with the rules and norms of the "international community"? Or will it defy "universal standards", and fight instead for its own interests and those of the developing world, thereby challenging the global order dominated by the West?" "The first of its kind to gauge in a comprehensive manner China's responsibility in world affairs, this book scrutinizes China's compliance with international rules and norms, embodied in the treaties that it has signed or ratified, especially in the areas of trade, arms control and non-proliferation, protection of the environment, and human rights." "The book also examines Sino-US relations, as the US closely monitors China's compliance in world affairs. It is that behavior which is largely determining the relative emphasis put on engagement with or containment of China by the West, and by the US in particular."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond Compliance argues that the record of China's international behavior since the 1970s indicates the long-term effectiveness of the multilateral system. Through its analysis of China's interaction with leading international organizations--such as the Conference on Disarmament, the IMF, and the United Nations Environmental Programme--it concludes that engagement with the multilateral system is the key to the gradual socialization of "rogue" states. Contrasting the People's Republic of China's post-1949 alienation from the international community with its increasing compliance since it entered the United Nations in 1971 with the rules of leading international institutions, Kent explains China's changing attitude toward international institutions in terms of the most appropriate theories of state compliance. At the same time, she argues that compliance theories on their own are not sufficient to explain the complex interaction between states and the international system and develops a broader theory to encompass China's behavior.

Selected by Choice magazine as a Outstanding Academic Book for 2000 Nelson Mandela once said, "Human rights have become the focal point of international relations." This has certainly become true in American relations with the People's Republic of China. Ann Kent's book documents China's compliance with the norms and rules of international treaties, and serves as a case study of the effectiveness of the international human rights regime, that network of international consensual agreements concerning acceptable treatment of individuals at the hands of nation-states. Since the early 1980s, and particularly since 1989, by means of vigorous monitoring and the strict maintenance of standards, United Nations human rights organizations have encouraged China to move away from its insistence on the principle of noninterference, to take part in resolutions critical of human rights conditions in other nations, and to accept the applicability to itself of human rights norms and UN procedures. Even though China has continued to suppress political dissidents at home, and appears at times resolutely defiant of outside pressure to reform, Ann Kent argues that it has gradually begun to implement some international human rights standards.

While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.

At the end of the Second World War, a growing concern that Canadians' civil liberties were not adequately protected, coupled with the international revival of the concept of universal human rights, led to a long public campaign to adopt a national bill of rights. While these initial efforts had been only partially successful by the 1960s, they laid the foundation for the radical change in Canadian human rights achieved by Pierre Elliott Trudeau in the 1980s. In Toward the Charter Christopher MacLennan explores the origins of this dramatic revolution in Canadian human rights, from its beginnings in the Great Depression to the critical developments of the 1960s. Drawing heavily on the experiences of a diverse range of human rights advocates, the author provides a detailed account of the various efforts to resist the abuse of civil liberties at the hands of the federal government and provincial legislatures and the resulting campaign for a national bill of rights. The important roles played by parliamentarians such as John Diefenbaker and academics such as F.R. Scott are placed alongside those of trade unionists, women, and a long list of individuals representing Canada's multicultural groups to reveal the diversity of the bill of rights movement. At the same time MacLennan weaves Canadian-made arguments for a bill of rights with ideas from the international human rights movement led by the United Nations to show that the Canadian experience can only be understood within a wider, global context.