Human Rights In China And U S Policy

This title was first published in 2002: Utilizing the case of the 1994 US decision to delink China’s human rights record from most favoured nation status, Susan C. Morris addresses the critical issues where commercialism and human rights converge. This insightful addition to the literature on US foreign policy on human rights draws on both political and economic theory, touching upon the relationships between labour conditions and production, business and freedom of association, management and bargaining and ultimately the relationship between economics and human justice. Empirically, the work draws on US Congressional proceedings and debates throughout the decade of the 1990s. Although the trade and human rights debate has long been ingrained in the rhetoric of scholars, the research approaches the issue within the context of communism’s last major threshold, making it a valuable contribution to the field of international relations.

This report examines human rights conditions in China, including the 2011 crackdown on rights activists and dissent; ongoing human rights abuses; recent PRC efforts to protect human rights; and the development of civil society. Ongoing human rights problems in China include the excessive use of violence by public security forces, unlawful detention, torture of detainees, arbitrary use of state security laws against political dissidents, coercive family planning policies, state control of information, and religious and ethnic persecution. Tibetans, Uighur Muslims, and Falun Gong adherents have been singled out for especially harsh treatment. For additional, comprehensive information about human rights conditions in China, see the Congressional- Executive Commission on China, Annual Report 2010, and the U.S. Department of State, 2010 Human Rights Report: China.

In the past two decades, human rights has been a principal area of U.S. concern regarding the People's Republic of China (PRC), along with security and bilateral trade. Some U.S. leaders argue that U.S. policies of engagement with China, particularly since granting the PRC normal trade relations status in 2000, have helped to accelerate economic and social change and build social and legal foundations for human rights progress in the PRC. Others contend that U.S. engagement has failed not only to produce meaningful political reform but also to set any real change in motion. This book analyses China's mixed human rights record of the past several years -- major human rights problems, new human rights legislation, and the development of civil society, legal awareness, and social activism.

This report examines selected human rights issues in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and policy options for Congress. U.S. concern over human rights in China has been a central issue in U.S.-China relations, particularly since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. In recent years, human rights conditions in China have deteriorated, while bilateral tensions related to trade and security have increased, possibly creating both constraints and opportunities for U.S. policy on human rights.

Human rights conditions in the People's Republic of China (PRC) remain a central issue in U.S.-China ties. Different perceptions of human rights are an underlying source of mutual misunderstanding and mistrust. Frictions on human rights issues affect other issues in the bilateral relationship, including those related to economics and security. China's weak rule of law and restrictions on information affect U.S. companies doing business in the PRC. People-to-people exchanges, particularly educational and academic ones, are often hampered by periodic Chinese government campaigns against "Western values." For many U.S. policymakers, human rights conditions in China represent a test of the success of overall U.S. policy toward the PRC. Some analysts contend that the U.S. policy of cultivating diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties with China has failed to promote meaningful political reform, and that without fundamental progress in this area, mutual trust and cooperation in other areas will remain difficult to achieve. The U.S. government has employed an array of efforts and tactics aimed at promoting democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in China, although their effects have been felt primarily along the margins of the PRC political system. Many analysts have observed that China's leaders have become less responsive to international pressure on human rights in recent years. This book examines human rights issues in the People's Republic of China (PRC), including ongoing rights abuses, and legal developments.

Few issues in the relations between China and the West invoke as much passion as human rights. At stake, however, are much more than moral concerns and hurt national feelings. To Washington, the undemocratic nature of the Chinese government makes it ultimately suspect on all issues. To Beijing, the human rights pressure exerted by the West on China seems designed to compromise its legitimacy. As China's economic power grows and its influence on the politics of developing countries continues, an understanding of the place of human rights in China's foreign relations is crucial to the implementation of an effective international human rights agenda. In Human Rights in Chinese Foreign Relations, Ming Wan examines China's relations with the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and the United Nations human rights institutions. Wan shows that, after a decade of persistent external pressure to reform its practices, China still plays human rights diplomacy as traditional power politics and deflects pressure by mobilizing its propaganda machine to neutralize Western criticism, by making compromises that do not threaten core interests, and by offering commercial incentives to important nations to help prevent a unified Western front. Furthermore, at the UN, China has largely succeeded in rallying developing nation members to defeat Western efforts at censure. In turn, it is apparent to Wan that, while the idea of human rights matters in Western policy, it has seldom prevailed over economic considerations or concerns about national security. Western governments have not committed as many policy resources to pressuring Beijing on human rights as to other issues, and the differing degrees of commitment to human rights-related foreign policy explain why Japan, Western Europe, and the United States, in that order, have gradually retreated from confronting China on human rights issues.