Human Rights In China Research Articles

Rights in China: Myths, Abuses, and Politics

This article presents a sociological perspective on understanding rights in China, examining the interplay between multiple myths of rights, rights abuses, and the politics of rights within various social and physical spaces. It highlights competing myths of rights held by the state, ordinary citizens, rights activists, and legal professionals. The article examines how rights abuses contribute to rights consciousness and mobilization across different human rights domains in a repressive political context. By analyzing the politics of rights in interconnected spaces, such as the street, the legal system, the global arena, and cyberspace, it emphasizes the importance of continuous engagement between domestic and overseas actors in shaping China's human rights future. The article encourages social science researchers to thoroughly examine the myths, abuses, and politics of rights before making normative judgments about China's human rights conditions.

EU-China Economic Relations in the Early 21st Century

The European Union (EU) and China are two of the most influential and complex economies globally. The current state of their relationship is marked by a growing trade deficit for the EU with China, along with increasing Chinese investments in Europe's energy, technology, and infrastructure sectors. The EU has expressed dissatisfaction with China's treatment of foreign investors, limited market access for European companies, and government subsidization of domestic companies. Additionally, the EU has raised concerns about China's human rights record and its policies in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. The partnership is expected to remain a key focus for the EU's economic outlook as both sides balance economic potential with geopolitical and security considerations. This report aims to identify and explain the primary issues, key areas for improvement, and mutual interests between the EU and China, while also proposing potential solutions to enhance their economic and trade relations. Informative articles, relevant papers, textbooks, and other sources support the discussion. Although the analysis is subjective, a quantitative methodology is also employed. The discussion presents a common interface and provides recommendations for enhancing financial relations, increasing exchange, financial and security relations, participating in and benefiting from two-way engagement, and enhancing EU-China relations.

‘Once and For All’: The Fourth UN World Conference on Women and the Institutionalisation of Women's Human Rights in American Foreign Policy

AbstractThough the slogan predates the Fourth UN World Conference on Women, ‘women's rights are human rights’ has become inextricably linked to US First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's keynote address at the 1995 Conference in Beijing. The speech turned a line socialised by transnational feminist organisers into a State Department mantra with long‐lasting policy ripples still felt today. This article uses new sources from the Office of the First Lady to examine the intra‐departmental dynamics, policy architecture and domestic political considerations that shaped the content of the speech and the Clinton Administration's conception of women's rights as human rights. Early documents show that a focus on human rights was not inevitable, as other policy areas were better developed with more public support. But fear of rollback from previous international standards, external pressures from civil society, a desire to link foreign policy with domestic political aims and ultimately a strong backlash to American participation at the Conference on the basis of China's human rights record all elevated women's human rights as a US delegation priority.

Rethinking the Factors Affecting the Prohibition and Prevention of Torture in China—A Qualitative Comparative Analysis

As China continues to intensify its judicial reform efforts, there are multiple factors that influence the prohibition and prevention of torture in China. This issue leads to the main research question of the article: what factors influence the protection of human rights in China to achieve the prohibition and prevention of torture? This paper uses fuzzy set (fs)/qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to explore how the configurations of multiple factors influence the establishment of a strong human rights protection system, to achieve effective torture prevention and prohibition in China. This article will focus on the cases of torture that have been made public (1998–2021). When considering how to build a strong human rights protection system to achieve the prohibition and prevention of torture, it is necessary to identify the most effective combination of cooperation with international monitoring bodies, transparency, legislation and judicial practice, attention allocation on torture cases and independent monitoring bodies for torture prevention. The analysis concludes that: (1) there are three ways of configuration to establish effective torture prevention and prohibition, (2) active engagement with international monitoring bodies is key to establishing a high level of human rights protection, particularly concerning China’s current mechanisms, and (3) the three types of configurations also provide solutions for future policy and decision-makers in China. This study contributes to demonstrates the benefits of fs/QCA in testing the complementarity of judicial practice and provides conceptual and empirical evidence for previously understudied factors.

A Call for Self-criticism in Defending Values: From Human Rights in China to the War in Ukraine

From the beginning of the Russian invasion, Western countries have rallied behind Ukraine and the war narrative of defending democracy against authoritarianism. Nevertheless, this binary narrative has been of limited appeal to developing countries and authors have discussed how the revival of great power competition around this narrative risks reinforcing the democratic decline. Considering these limitations, how can the academic community work to counteract a return to the kind of binary thinking that has been reanimated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine? To answer this question, I draw a parallel between responses to the war in Ukraine and how Western countries are handling the issue of human rights in China, including the emergence of a binary narrative that pits Chinese against Western visions of these rights. I argue that Western countries’ lack of self-reflectivity in defending values has hindered a genuine engagement with their own weaknesses. These weaknesses have thus been exploited by authoritarian countries. As democracy - like human rights - has been invoked as much to question oppression as to legitimate the status quo and economic interests, there is a need for scholars to scientifically engage with the geopolitical motives for defending values. We should not shy away from such research because of fears of instrumentalisation by authoritarian countries, as self-criticism will help rebuild the legitimacy and credibility that democracies increasingly lack.

Exacerbation of trade and economic relations between the United States and China at the present stage

The coming to power in the United States of the democratic administration of D. Biden did not lead to a change in the strategic course of the United States in relation to the PRC, which is considered as the only and main geopolitical competitor of the United States in world politics and economics. On the contrary, a number of measures have been taken in the framework of protecting the interests of US national security to significantly tighten bilateral relations, destructively link trade and economic cooperation between the two countries with the political issue of observing human rights in China and direct interference in the internal affairs of the PRC in official Washington's approach to the issue of Taiwan. The policy of active opposition to the development of China's economic potential by the Biden administration is carried out mainly due to the desire to restrain the development of advanced technologies and breakthrough innovations in China by introducing all kinds of prohibitions and restrictions in the field of technology transfer. Unlike the Republican administration of D. Trump, which focused on “trade wars” with China, President D. Biden is consistently implementing the task of counteracting Kiai through the joint efforts of the coalition of US-friendly countries, NATO and EU states being formed by the democratic administration. At the same time, the goal is also to hinder or limit as much as possible the possibilities of economic cooperation between these countries and China in the interests of maintaining the leading position of the United States in world politics and the global economy, especially in the world markets for advanced technologies. In a number of cases, the US policy of providing unilateral advantages in geopolitical competition in the modern world to a large extent contradicts the strategic national interests of the economies of the countries involved by Washington in countering China.

Chinese Human Rights and the Liberal World Order

Most scholars and researchers interested in China have researched about economic development, foreign policy, competition and cooperation between China and the United States and other major powers, and various scenarios for the transfer of power from the United States to China. An area that has received little attention is the issues related to democracy and human rights in China. The purpose of writing this article is to examine issues related to the place of human rights in domestic law and the country's approach to international legal order based on liberalism. The question of this article is: what components is China's approach to the liberal human rights order in the world based? The hypothesis of this article, which tries to prove it using analytical and explanatory methodology, is that China emphasizes the conditions and characteristics of each country by criticizing the liberal human rights order and the dual policy of the West. China's human rights order stems from the Beijing Consensus on multinational relations, economic relations between actors, and political differences and national and regional cultural diversity. From the perspective of China's executive elite, the common framework of this order is not based on homogenization and globalization that lead to hegemony, but on the simultaneous recognition of commonalities and differences between global actors.

The European Union's policy on human rights and Chinese sovereignism: The case of Xinjiang

The article explores the European Union's approach to human rights issues in China through the processes of bilateral and multilateral dialogue on human rights between the EU and the People's Republic of China, on the one hand. On the other hand, the paper deals with the analysis of the EU's human rights policy in the specific case of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which is examined through normative and political activities of the EU, its institutions and individual member states. Besides, the paper examines China's response to the European Union's human rights approaches, in general, but also when it comes to the specific case of UAR Xinjiang. ?his is done through a review of China's discourse and behaviour within the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue framework, but also at the UN level and within the framework of bilateral relations with individual member states. The paper aims to show whether and how the characteristics of the EU's general approach to human rights in China are reflected in the individual case of Xinjiang. Particular attention shall be given to the differentiation of member states in terms of their approach to human rights issues in China, which is conditioned by the discrepancy between their political values, normative interests and ideational factors, on the one hand, and material factors and economic interests, on the other. Also, the paper aims to show the important features of the different views of the European Union and the Chinese state on the very role of Human Rights Dialogue, as well as their different understandings of the concept of human rights itself. The study concluded that the characteristics of the Union's general approach to human rights in China, as well as the different perceptions of human rights issues between China and the EU, were manifested in the same way in the case of UAR Xinjiang.

Handbook on Human Rights in China, edited by Sarah Biddulph and Joshua Rosenzweig. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2019. xvi+742 pp. £250.00 (cloth), £48.00 (e-book).

<i>Handbook on Human Rights in China</i>, edited by Sarah Biddulph and Joshua Rosenzweig. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2019. xvi+742 pp. £250.00 (cloth), £48.00 (e-book).

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: China's Drilling Strategy for Its Soft Power Pipes in Israel

We proposed a theoretical conceptualization and identified China’s operating strategy (“drilling targets”) for its soft power “pipes” in Israel. These “pipes” are consciously directed towards a certain elite that tends to uphold the human rights discourse on behalf of the general public but even more so vis-à-vis decision-makers. China, in turn, can obtain legitimization for its involvement in the Israeli economy by investing in initiatives promoting the interests and values upheld by this elite rather than in peripheral social initiatives. Meanwhile, the same Israeli elite persists in its heightened sensitivity to human rights violations vis-à-vis the Palestinian population but does not go out of its way, to say the least, to protest alleged violations of human rights in China. Thus it invites or legitimizes Chinese involvement in the Israeli economy. It has been “co-opted” by China. These elite communities, which are highly sensitive to violations of human rights in their close vicinity, are able to overlook such violations when they are carried out far away by those who invest billions in areas of interest to the elites.

번역문] 중국에서의 기업과 인권 : 중국의 해외투자 정책에 대한 소고

번역문] 중국에서의 기업과 인권 : 중국의 해외투자 정책에 대한 소고

중국에서의 기업과 인권: 중국의 해외투자 정책에 대한 소고

중국에서의 기업과 인권: 중국의 해외투자 정책에 대한 소고

Human Rights in China: A Social-Constructive Theological Approach

ABSTRACTFocusing on the “human aspect” of human rights, this article adopts a “social construction” model of human rights to expound the problem of human rights in China in its cultural and social settings. It invokes distinctive Chinese thought (Confucianism and socialist discourse in particular) on the human being and human rights and explores the contribution of Christian practice and theology to human rights discourse in China. It proposes a conception of human rights as a form of “social-theological” construction in China. This approach shows respect to its cultural and social conditions on the one hand, while on the other hand taking into account the basic human aspect of human rights with reference to the Christian tradition.

China’s human rights concept and its international promotion

In the contemporary inter-state relations, human rights are not only a subject of disputes but also a lever of influence or pressure, a set of material and non-material structures, institutions and processes that determine the course of international life. Thus, human rights have become a full-fledged factor of international relations. In recent decades, the problem of human rights in China has been one of the most controversial issues in the relations of China and the Western countries. It is the specific nature of China’s human rights concept that determines contradictions between China and the West. The authors argue that the concept of human rights in China is based on the national tradition of the primacy of the state over the interests of an individual. China’s human rights concept rethinks Confucianism and Marxism emphasizing the need to respect the collective rights of the people to the socio-economic development as well as to ensure stability and security of the state and preserve its sovereignty. At the same time, as the authors point out, in recent years China, which traditionally takes a defensive position on the human rights issue in its international agenda, has promoted its own concept of human rights at the international level. In this regard, in the authors opinion, it is necessary to analyse the factors, which have affected the formation of China’s human rights concept, as well as the position of China’s authorities on this issue, and the purposes and tools of China's so-called ‘human rights diplomacy’. At the conclusion the authors summarize the basic features of China’s human rights concept, which form the theoretical basis of ‘human rights diplomacy’ of the PRC.

The Chinese Approach to the Liberal Concept of Human Rights

The contemporary discourse regarding Human Rights in China is highly polarized and controversial. Whilst the Chinese constitution declares that “the State respects and preserves human rights [1]”, the Western governments do not agree on its theoretical interpretation nor implementation. Simultaneously, the project of liberal democracy and multiculturalism in the West is being questioned. The working theory of this research focuses on the main legal framework of the PRC and its practical and theoretical approach to the liberal concept of human rights.

China's Human Rights Statements in the United Nations: What are the Future Implications?

This article examines a particular data set on China's statements in the United Nations (UN) on human rights issues that has heretofore not received attention. As this data set is from the Chinese government's own selection, and not from the UN's repository, it reflects the Chinese government's position on human rights that it aims to advance. The author's review reveals that while the Chinese government strives to shield governments of developing countries with respect to human rights abuses, it has consistently criticised the governments of developed countries about human rights issues. To better understand China's strong support for developing countries, this article examines China's support for Myanmar, North Korea and Sri Lanka as case studies. The Chinese government has selectively—not consistently—opposed country-specific human rights criticism. Based on the prevailing pattern, the author addresses the implications for the future of global governance and of China's actions in international politics pertaining to human rights.

Human Rights in China: A Social Practice in the Shadows of Authoritarianism, written by Eva Pils

Human Rights in China: A Social Practice in the Shadows of Authoritarianism, written by Eva Pils

Human Rights in China: A Social Practice in the Shadows of Authoritarianism

Human Rights in China: A Social Practice in the Shadows of Authoritarianism

Human Rights in China: A Conversation with Eva Pils

Human Rights in China: A Conversation with Eva Pils

Ljudska prava i azijske vrijednosti

This paper presents the importance of issue of universality of human rights and relations towards Asian values i.e. Confucianism. Abstract ideas on inherent existence of rights for all human beings are the key reason why human rights are possessed by all people hence universality. On the other hand, universality does not equal uniformity. Application of human rights and freedom is the product of historical experiences of certain people hence it is different in different cultural and political communities. The paper first tackles the issue of universality of human rights. In central part it presents Confucianism and human rights and issue of human rights in China. In the conclusion it emphasizes necessity to incorporate Asian values in the western concept of human rights as well as the need for more flexible communities and accepting ideas from different contexts.