Comparing Chinese citizenship rights with the East and West

Abstract

This chapter provides a broad survey of citizenship rights to see how China compares with the West and some countries in the Far East. This comparison assesses citizenship theory as it might apply to China, and then assesses a number of measures of rights. First, Chinese citizenship is based on more of a communitarian model than a liberal or social democratic approach mainly due to Confucianism. Despite considerable improvement in citizenship rights, China’s reliance on a more communitarian citizenship theory tends to emphasize obligations over rights. Second, using Freedom House, Fraser Institute and other data, this chapter makes cross-national comparisons between China and Western countries and East Asian countries or regions. The chapter argues that citizenship rights for Chinese citizens have improved for many legal and social rights but not so much for political rights. However, all of these rights in China are much lower than in the West and much of East Asia, though in a few instances the levels are quite similar to Russia.