Mainstreaming human rights

Abstract

The massacre at Tiananmen Square was the climax of a momentous human rights drama that had been building for years in China. But the U.S. media had rarely mentioned human rights violations in China since the Democracy Wall Movement was crushed in 1979 and its leaders were thrown in jail. Shortly after the suppression of that movement, Deng Xiaoping introduced economic and legal reforms. “A wave of euphoria swept through U.S. government and press circles,” recalled Roberta Cohen, a Carter human rights aide. The enthusiasm for free market initiatives and other reforms became the new rationale for turning a blind eye to the continuing repression in China,” such as the between two and five million people who languished in Chinese labor camps as of 1987. U.S. media remained tight‐lipped when Reagan approved sales of police equipment to China's internal security force, expanded military ties, and encouraged loans and investment, despite serious human rights abuses by the Chinese government. The brutalization of...