Nicols Velsquez

US Foreign Policy

The Bilateral Scrutiny on Human Rights

between the USA and the PRC, 2000 -2010
1. Objectives
This paper will compare certain official discourses on Human Rights made by the governments of the
United States of America (USA) and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) published between 2001 and
2010. More concretely, we will compare documents on the bilateral scrutiny, also known as Human Rights
records, between the USA and the PRC. The general goal is to identify the co-constitutive dynamics of the
debate on Human Rights, a debate where we expect to find insightful elements on recent transformations
in the international sphere and the evolution of United States Foreign Policy. For instance, the rise of
China, the swifts between unilateralism and multilateralism of the last two US administrations, the
imperatives posed by the latest economic crisis, and the continuous violations of diverse categories of
Human Rights are punctuations that we expect to find reflect on their debates.

Background
We start with the principle that Human Rights are values that characterized the discourses for regime
legitimacy. In their traditional and still prevalent interpretation, they are a legacy from the liberal
revolutions in Europe and the Americas during the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries. Since their adoption as a
core guiding principle of the United Nations in 1945, Human rights have played an important role in
shaping the political discourse of a World led by western powers, with the USA at the lead. During the last
few decades, and especially after the end of the Cold War, a Universalist discourse that stresses a
preeminence of Human Rights over States sovereignty has developed. (Forsythe 2011) In the realm of
1

politics, Human Rights have been polemic and debated concepts that, in Jean Cohens words, are
ultimately unintelligible if one does not understand the political stakes in historical context. (Cohen
2008, 579)
While we recognize that liberal readings of Human Rights are essentially a discourse on the limits of the
state power over their citizens (thus are negative rights), we also acknowledge that this is not the only
valid interpretation. (Foot 2000) For instances, the official discourse on Human Rights from the Chinese
State draws on Marxist and Chinese concepts to define them as social and economic guarantees that
require the state to exercise its power. This illustrates how, in their role as legitimizing discourses,
different notions of Human Rights are advanced by competing actors as tools of foreign policy and
international relations. In a co-constitutive fashion, one government discourse on another states Human
Rights records is at a same time a statement about itself, and thus stands as a legitimacy claim toward
international and domestic audiences. This is very important to have in mind, because at the core of the
bilateral human rights debates are the questions over authority, hegemony, sovereignty, trade and regime
types, all concepts related to both the ideas and material forces that join international and domestic
politics together. (Gourevitch 1978, 883)
Indeed, while the United States has unilaterally reviewed other states Human Rights Records for decades,
China challenged what it sees as an illegitimate attitude as a self-proclaimed world judge of human
rights. (Information Office of the State Council 2002, 1) Since the turn of the century, a growing number
of countries have voiced their dissatisfaction with the way in which the USA employs Human Rights in its
Foreign Policy. The 2001 ousting of the USA from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
(UNCHR) by an unprecedented majority vote was reflective of how this growing criticism materialized in
diplomatic actions. Nonetheless, while this action might be praised by those critics of the United States
power and or unilateral practices, it cannot uncritically be applauded by those committed with

humanitarian principles. The UNCHR that followed included a number of states with the darkest human
rights records by most standard. Among members and chairs we founds regimes like Sudan (stained by
the Darfur Ethnic Cleansings), Nepal (at a time when the constitution had been suspended by the
authoritarian monarch), and Saudi Arabia (an absolutist kingdom lacking in, among others, women rights).
The role that China, spearheading an African voting bloc, and that Venezuela as a senior-partner of a proCuban block, played in the ousting of the USA were open secrets. (For a news media analysis, see Kahn
(2006); for a policy analysis see Wenping (2007))
These maneuvers exemplify the role of Human Rights discourse within foreign policies that wed like to
stress: they are constantly employed as a political tool of legitimation. They are a tool for power struggle.

2. Human Rights in International Relations and Foreign Policy

Western academic accounts of Human Rights policies usually fall into three categories (or their
combination): idealists, realists and constructivists. The first take the Human Rights ideals and the actors
that support them as determinant, the second subordinate any other issue to the conceptual prevalence
to national power and security and thus place HR in a marginal category. Constructivists deal with how
notions of identity and legitimacy constitute the basis for the idealist and realists categories.
According to David P. Forsythe, it makes little sense to expect thorough consistency in the overall Human
Right policy of one state towards all the other states. (Forsythe 2011, 770) Not even a single administration
is likely to be able to set up a consistent humanitarian policy, simply because the Human Right ideals imply
universal constraints framed too far away from the pragmatism required in administering a state in its
foreign and domestic politics. In Forsythes accounts, for instance, every single US administration has
found necessary to relativize whatever concept of Human Rights it had. They invariably end up with a

murky balance of political compromises, and submitting their utopian ideals to the needs of a
conceptual national interest, usually determined by the national security. (Forsythe 2011, 772)
This paper is informed by the notion that the discourses constituting the debates on Human Rights merit
attention not just because of the normative value of their ideals, nor despite the expected pragmatic
subordination to other dimensions of Foreign Policy, but essentially because they mirror the evolution of
international relations and political regimes. We refer to the relations of power and authority between
the USA as the greatest world power and hemispheric hegemon on the one hand, and the PRC as a rising
regional power.
In ideological terms, this constitutes a brief peak over what could be the near future of the role and that
liberal ideals will play in a multipolar world where emerging powers, not all of them characterized by
liberal regimes by western standards, will have a greater say in world politics. In fact, politicians and
academics are both wondering and debating what implications will the emergence of China in the
international sphere have over various current international regimes, including those of Human Rights.
Liberals (and US Realists) fear that the Chinese rise will curb down Western influence on human rights
standards over third (and less developed) countries. (Nathan and Scobell 2012, 325) Of course, others
doubt the legitimacy of western or Asian or, for that matter, any foreign imposition of human rights
standards as hegemonic wrongs rather than cosmopolitan goods. (Benhabib 2009, 695) Finally, there are
those who back the notion of universal human rights that agree with the role that in their support the
international community (or at least the most powerful nations) can play, but are undecided on how
would the increasing Chinese engagement into Human rights debates and regimes will in the constitutions
of those regimes. (Hearn and Len-Manrquez 2011, 3) It is nonetheless key to take into account that
these engagements into human rights debates are not just a matter of government and states, but also
an issue were the population is involved and plays a role. (Brzezinski 2007, 201-202)

Human Rights, Sovereignties and States play different roles in the contending American and Chinese
narratives. In western liberal thought, sovereign individuals, freely derive from their innate rights the
provisions that build social and political orders. In this view, State are drawn their legitimacy from
providing their constituents with security, justice and the guarantee of not stepping into their innate
rights. Human Rights and peoples sovereignty are thus, at the origin of the political equation. In the
Chinese view, influenced by Marxism and illustrated by the countrys own history, the State creates the
conditions for people to have rights. The State, as in the New China, draws its legitimacy from removing
imperialist imposition from its people and territory, but this ideal capacity is only attained through full
sovereignty. State sovereignty is placed as a precondition and human rights, as all other rights, are seen
as a subsequent construction.1
Historically, but specially as a soft power narrative born during the XXth century, the USA has built a
narrative of itself as the Leader of the Free World, a champion of Democracy and Human Rights, and a
nation supportive of those oppressed people struggling for liberal democratic emancipation. This claim,
and a critical and ahistorical metanarrative, has nonetheless been employed as a domestic and foreign
legitimizing discourse for decades, (Nye 2008, 96-99) and the two administrations under review in this
article were not the exception. (Hancock 2007) On the other hand, the Chinese state also boasts a
legitimizing narrative, drawn from its recent ideology, and interests. In their view, the Communist Party
of China led a revolution to build the New China in the interest of the whole Chinese people, which for
centuries had been humiliated and subordinated by foreign powers that gained too much influence over
Chinese people and territories. In this view, the New China was built as an anti-colonialist endeavor,
that thorough reaching true sovereignty is able to enforce the rights of its citizens. In the international

In fact, most western law theories, as opposite to the liberal contractual political theory, are adamant on the
necessity of the State as constructor of the rights and laws. (Benhabib 2009, 693)

scene, China represents both a leading developing nation and a key supporter of national sovereignty as
a path for world peace and internal harmony. (Information Office of the State Council 2000, 3)
This paper will draw from two main primary sources published between 2000 and 2010. The United States
Department of State (DOS) annual Country Reports on Human rights Practices (CRHRP) for China, and its
Chinese direct answer, the Council of States (CoS) Human Rights Record of the United State (HRRUS).
Both sources edit massive amounts of anecdotical evidence taken from open sources, like media outlets
and NGOs. (See Table 1 for a comparison of dimensions) For instance the 2001 DOS Country Report on
China has almost 700 hundred individual cases, excluding its chapters on Tibet, Hong Kong and Macau.
What each country is identifying in the other, with such detail, is very telling. Nonetheless, this paper will
just try to follow the main patterns of their discourse, identifying with the help of secondary sources, the
main diplomatic and legitimacy goals that our three regimes want to achieve with their employ oh Human
Rights discourse. Further, finer, reseach could be done to deliver greater results. Saddly, this paper wont
be able to go that far.
T ABLE 1. REPORT S LENGTHS

Year
CRHRP China
HRRUS

2001

2002

2003

Length in Words (English Editions)

2004
2005
2006
2007

2008

2009

2010

63.742

33.35

56.639

36.924

33.384

31.621

31.956

49.12

30.045

29.073

5.861

6.733

7.445

8.392

8.840

8.826

8.804

9.251

8.672

8.754

Source: The author.

3. Case studies
The United States
Our main US source is the Department of States Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (CRHRP),
delivered annually to the US Congress during the first quarter since 1977. We reviewed the reports

published by the Bush and the first three years of the Obama administrations, those covering the events
from 2001 to 20102.
The introductions format varies from year to year, and especially among different Secretaries of State. Yet
they tend to introduce the report within the overall Foreign Policy of the current administration, to invoke
the commitment of the USA to their founding liberal and democratic principles (more prevalent during
the Bush years) and/or to United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (stressed during
the Obama years). The Introduction presents, in one way or another, the leading role of the United States.
Then, the function allocated to Human Rights and Democracy as purveyor of security, and stability at
home or in the international sphere is lauded. The moral imperative that gives meaning to those policies
is clearly stated. The connection, or securitization discourse, that links the existence of cases where liberal
Human Rights do not prevail with the presence of perceived threats to World Harmony and National
Security is evident. (See Table 2. Select introductory discourses)
T ABLE 2. SELECT INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSES
Secretary Powell quoting President Bush, 2001
Report
As President Bush declared in his State of the
Union Address, "In a single instant, we realized
that this will be a decisive decade in the history of
liberty, that we've been called to a unique role in
human events. Rarely has the world faced a
choice more clear or consequential. ...We choose
freedom and the dignity of every life." This choice
reflects both U.S. values and the universality of
human rights that steadily have gained
international acceptance over the past 50 years
[]

Secretary Clinton, 2008 Report

Guaranteeing the right of every man, woman, and
child to participate fully in society and live up to his
or her God-given potential is an ideal that has
animated our nation since its founding. It is
enshrined in the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights[]

We will make this a global effort that reaches

beyond government alone. We will work together
with nongovernmental organizations, businesses,
religious leaders, schools and universities, and
individual citizens.

The Reports on the events from a given year are delivered in the first quarter of the following year. Thus the
Report on the year 2000 was published in 2001.

America will lead by defending liberty and justice

because they are right and true and unchanging
for all people everywhere. No nation owns these
aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them.
We have no intention of imposing our culture. But
America will always stand firm for the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity: The rule of
law, limits on the power of the state, respect for
women, private property, free speech, equal
justice and religious tolerance.

Our commitment to human rights is driven by faith

in our moral values, and also by the knowledge that
we enhance our own security, prosperity, and
progress when people in other lands emerge from
shadows and shackles to gain the opportunities and
rights we enjoy and treasure.

Chapter I, Human Rights and National Security.

Preface

http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/8147.htm

http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/frontmatte
r/118982.htm

Then comes a highlights section, were a selection of cases are presented to praise their advance or warn
over their setbacks. This section works like an Executive Summary of over 15-20 pages in average.
Considering the length of the country reports and the more than 190 countries reviewed each year, it is
very likely that the general reader would refer to the introduction for meaningful information. The PRC
was very important to the US discourse all along. China was referred in all of the reviewed introductions
(See Table 3. The PRC in the USHRR)
T ABLE 3. THE PRC IN THE USHRR

Report

Qualification

HR Dimensions
Highlighted

Positive

Negative

PI; RF; WR

Positive

IC

Negative

PR

Positive

BD; TM

Negative

PR; RF; TM; WR

Positive

BD; IC

Negative

BD; FP; RF

Positive

2001

2002

2003

2004
2005

Negative

FP; IC; PR; RF; TM

Positive

Negative

FP; IC; PR; RF

Positive

FP

Negative

FP; FS; PR; RF

Positive

Negative

FP; FS; PR; RF; TM

Positive

BD

Negative

FP; FS; PR; RF; TM

Positive

BD

Negative

FP; FS; PR; RF; TM

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Code: BD = Bilateral Dialogue; FP = Freedom of the Press and Information; FS = Freedom of Speech; HT =
Human Trafficking; IC = Institutional Changes; PI = Personal Integrity; PR = Political Rights; RF = Religious
Freedoms; TM = Treatment of Minorities; WR = Workers Rights.

Source: The author, from the 2001-2010 DOS Human Rights Reports.
We can easily identify how China is much more denounced than congratulated on its human rights
records. In fact, most positive mentions are related to holding bilateral dialogues on Human Rights, not
the actual improvement in Chinese policies and records. In this section China is much more denounced
than congratulated. In fact, most positive mentions are related to holding bilateral dialogues on Human
Rights, not the actual improvement in Chinese policies and records. Interestingly, the greater emphasis is
placed on the evolution of freedom of the access to information (especially through internet) of foreign
media outlets. Furthermore, from mid-decade onwards, a second theme concerning freedom of the press
through the judicial and police harassment of journalists becomes a constant. A second strong concern is
related to political rights, expressed mainly as freedom of association and the right to assemble or to
protest. The DOS shows its concern on how detractors are constrained to mobilize or publicly express
their views.

Moving from the common highlights section, and into the specific report towards China, three additional
themes were commonly stated in the following order: First, a description of China as a totalitarian one
party state, then denounce on the violation of religious freedoms of cultural minorities, and finally, an
exposition on how the party and central authorities interfered with both the judiciary and the lawyers, in
fact hampering the rule of law. With minor year to year modifications, the following lines appeared during
the whole decades within the first two pages:
T ABLE 4. O N THE RULE OF L AW
2000-2006

2007-2010

The judiciary was not independent, and the lack of due

process in the judicial system remained a serious
problem. Few Chinese lawyers were willing to represent
criminal defendants. [] The authorities routinely
violated legal protections.

A lack of due process and restrictions on lawyers

further limited progress toward rule of law, with
serious consequences for defendants who were
imprisoned or executed following proceedings that
fell far short of international standards. The party and
state exercised strict political control of courts and
judges, conducted closed trials, and carried out
administrative detention

Source of example: CRHR China, 2003. 10

CRHR China, 2009. 3

Interestingly, all reports during the Bush administration had both a paragraph that addressed the (albeit
slow) liberalization and privatization of the economy as a key tool to improve citizens liberties, and a line
placing the legitimacy of the Communist Party as derived, among other restrictions, in the material
improvement of living standards. The 2003 report read:
The Party's authority rested primarily on the Government's ability to maintain social stability;
appeals to nationalism and patriotism; Party control of personnel, media, and the security
apparatus; and continued improvement in the living standards of most of the country's 1.3 billion
citizen[]
Rising urban living standards; greater independence for entrepreneurs; the reform of the public
sector, including government efforts to improve and accelerate sales of state assets and to
improve management of remaining government monopolies; and expansion of the non-state
sector increased workers' employment options and significantly reduced state control over
citizens' daily lives. CRHR China, 2003. 1-2
10

Such analysis linking the economic model and sustained growth to rights and welfare were absent from
the Reports of the Obama era.

The Peoples Republic of China

The Peoples Republic of China relations with the international Human Rights regime of both the post
WWII and post Cold War have been tense. Under these regimes, Human rights are distinctly a western
and liberal concept, promoted by the powers that proved hostile to New China during the early Cold
War. Furthermore, after the Cold War, the Universalist discourse that characterized Human Rights
discourse at the UNs Security Council was clearly in contradiction with the PRCs cherished enshrinement
of State sovereignty as a safeguard against imperialism. For a number of reasons, the traditional western
Human Rights conceptualization had to have a hard time internalizing into Chinese structures. According
to value surveys and policy analysis, this seems holds true for both leadership and society.
There is a growing academic understanding on how China engaged, at its own pace, the international
Human Rights regime since the late 1970s. (See Foot 2000; Dingding 2009) According to Dingding, along
the process staterd by Deng Xiaoping to reimagine Chinas identity away from dogmatic class struggle
and more into a modern socialsit state, the Chinese leadership began a process of self reflection around
the changes needed to integrate into the world economy. Human Rights were then seen as a concept
required to deal with the west, but that could be debated and framed in terms favorable to chinese views
and interests.
Much prior to the bilateral debate that interests us, the PRC ahd already engaged into the international
Human Rights Regime, and therefore, its debate. Concurrent with its opening and going out strategies,
a definition of Human Rights with Chinese Characteristics where developped as much for domestic as for
international consumption. As we will develop further in the next pages, the main characterization of
these Chinese HR are a positive understanding of the role of the state in assuring the provision of material
11

needs, a prevalescence of social and economical rights understood as collectively attained over the liberal
notion of political and civil rights where the individual protection prevails over the collective structures,
and the defense of state sovereignity over imperialistic or hegemonic employ of Human Rights to impose
foreign wills over lesser powers. Thus, during the 1980s and 1990s, China complimented the images of
Peoples Liberation Army tanks rolling over public spaces filled with people demanding certain liberties
and rights, with a diplomatic effort to ratify a number of Humanr Right treaties and sitting in numerous
multilateral and bilateral Human Rights committees.
In 1999, for the first time, the Information Office of the Council of State of the PRC published in the
domestic media a response to the unilateral anuanl Country Report on Hurman Rights Practices by the US
Department of State. The name of this response was the Human Rights Records of the United States
(HRRUS), 1998. It was, as its first paragraph stated, a response to United States unilaterality and self
proclaimed authority.
[The United States] posing as a "human rights judge" once again, it attacked the human rights
records of more than 190 countries and regions.
Ignoring the actual situation, the report blamed China for committing "widespread and well
documented human rights abuses," but did not say a single word about the human rights problems
in the United States. In fact, the U.S., which often grades human rights records of other countries,
won low marks from its own people and the international community. (HRRUS, 1999 1)
While the first two HRRUS were unstructured collections of anecdotic references and logic flaws on the
domestic violations of Human Rights by the United States, they amounted to little more than a discourse
denouncing that the US was not so much different, that during the previous year it had suffered
humanitarian problems of its own. Nonetheless, since the 2001, and following the structure provided by
a review on domestic Chinese progress on Human Rights, the HRRUS starts to clearly engage the debate
in a way consistent with the legitimacy quests from the Chinese government toward its citizens and
toward the world. From then on, the State Council publication was promoting the comparative

12

advantages of the Chinese social model by denouncing growing racial, social, and economic inequalities
along with rampant violence and crime rates in the US. (See Table 5. Report's General Outlines).
To whom were this official narratives directed to? To Chinese elites, but also to a larger public opinion
with access to the debates of international issues, especially the global order. Furthermore, the reports
are reproduced in important newspapers that target both regular citizens and the Anglophones, and are
introduced by narratives on how China hits back or retorted the US criticism and distortion of its
human rights situation. (Xinhua News Agency 2013, 1) Were they targeted also for American audiences?
Perhaps they are. But they do not seem to have reached any significant American audience outside the
circles of Sinologist and Human Rights specialists. Judging only by their presence in the website discourse
of the Chinese Embassy in Washington and the Chinese Permanent Mission to UN-Geneva (the epicenter
of UN Human Rights activities), it seems likely that their role in diplomatic circles is also greater.
It is very interesting to note that the Human Rights Records of the United States (HRRUS) follow two
narratively intertwined structures. On the one hand, their layout resembles in basic order and categories
the layout form the DOS Country Reports. On the other hand, they broadly follow the outline presented
by the Council of States 2000 (Fifty Years) and 2005 (Chinas Progress) Human Rights papers. These two
offered a framework were Human Rights were defined mostly in positive terms (or rights of the people to
access certain things), instead of the traditional liberal negative definitions (or the limits of the state
towards the citizens), in consistence with the left wing materialist interpretation of HR. Furthermore, they
defined the advancing of Human Rights as derived from economic and social progress first, and as
developments of subsidiary political improvements later. While to fulfill the first required substantial
improvements in living conditions, to comply with the second it is enough to assert this or that right in the
law and the constitution.

13

T ABLE 5. REPORT 'S GENERAL O UTLINES

Pre 2004

Post 2004 Human Rights Records

of the USA

Country Reports on Human Rights

Practices

I. Lack of Safeguard for Life, Freedom

and Personal Safety

I. On Life, Property and Security of

Person

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of

the Person, Including Freedom From:

II. Serious Rights Violations by Law

Enforcement Departments

II. On Human Rights Violations by Law

Enforcement and Judicial
Departments

Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties,

Including:

Human Rights Records of the USA

III. Plight of the Poor, Hungry and

Homeless

III. On Civil and Political Rights

IV. Worrying Conditions for Women

and Children

IV. On Economic, Social and Cultural

Rights

V. Deep-Rooted Racial Discrimination

V. On Racial Discrimination

VI. Wantonly Infringing upon Human

Rights of Other Countries

VI. On the Rights of Women,

Children, the Elderly and the Disabled
VII. On the United States' Violation of
Human Rights in Other Countries

Section 3 Respect for Political Rights:

The Right of Citizens to Change Their
Government
Section 4 Governmental Attitude
Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of
Alleged Violations of Human Rights
Section 5 Discrimination Based on
Race, Sex, Religion, Disability,
Language, or Social Status
Section 6 Workers Rights

In a general sense, these documents allow us to identify the terms of the debate. Both the 2000 and 2004
papers on Human Rights constitute an answer to Western critiques from Chinese determined
perspectives. The Fifty Years papers begin with an historical perspective that allows us to interpret how
the PRC tries to frame the conditions and definitions of the debate in its favor.
Its initial chapter defines the existence of a New China as a prerequisite to develop and guarantee Human
Rights. This is a move to historically justify two historically supported narratives. First, In Old China the
people had few rights and where oppressed by the elites. New China brought the conditions to advance
Human Rights, by defeating and cleaning the scourges left by the feudal, colonial, capitalist past. And the
foremost conditions where national sovereignty, state leadership, and the peoples commitment, in that
particular order. In the words of the State Council:

14

In the old semi-colonial, semi-feudal China, the broad masses were oppressed by imperialism,
feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism, and had no human rights at all. After New China was
founded in 1949, the Chinese government and people waged a series of large-scale campaigns,
rapidly sweeping away the dregs left over from the old society, and established a basic political
system which could promote and protect human rights, so that the nation and society took on an
entirely new look and a new epoch was started for the progress of human rights in China.
(Information Office of the State Council 2000, 1)

Second, once New China emerged from the ashes of the Civil War, the (imperial, capitalist and United
States led) West did everything it could to isolate it, trough war, total containment and non-recognition.
The confident and stubborn resistance of New China, epitomized by the wise steering of their leaders,
the coordination of the CPC and the commitment of its people, allowed the PRC to successfully defeat
their adversaries and to gain a genuine and complete independence. This also marked a defeat of the
aggressive West, at the hands of the Chinese Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. A West that received
with aggression the peaceful project of a more egalitarian and independent Chinese society has its
credentials as a Human Rights champion questioned. But, also of great importance, the need for a strong
Chinese state that is able to uphold independence is set as a prerequisite for the advancement of Human
Rights. In their words:
The genuine and complete independence of China has created the fundamental premise for the
Chinese people's selection of their own social and political systems and a path for development
with the initiative in their own hands, for China's opening to the outside world, for steady and
healthy development, and for the uninterrupted improvement of human rights in China.
(Information Office of the State Council 2000, 3))

Following chapters would develop the basic notions that national independence, socialist equalitarianism,
and economic development are the central prerequisites for positive Human Rights. The access to food,
shelter, education, health and other public services are underscored. And, of course, such are the basis of
the Communist Party legitimacy.
15

The sustained increase in living standards plays a very interesting co-constitutive script. It does
not escape the DOS attention, which invariably includes the following sentence somewhere in the opening
paragraphs of every Country report on China: The Party's authority rested primarily on the Government's
ability to maintain social stability [] and continued improvement in the living standards of most of the
country's 1.3 billion citizens. (CRHRP China 2001-2009, Introduction) Nor does the PRC State Council
miss the opportunity to trump such trumpets. For instance, it is very keen to remind domestic and
international audiences how two quality of life indicators have grown constantly under the Communist
Party leadership. The first, of great importance for the basic right to live, is the Engel coefficient, a measure
of food spending over total spending. The second, which we could label as the Ford coefficient, is a
measure of the increase on private car sales over population. The positive trends in both are lauded by
the state council as dimensions of the same prosperity that enhances positive Human Rights. (Fifty Years,
2000, 2 5; Chinas Progress, 2005, 1 2)
Chinas Progress in Human Rights in 2004 was published in 2005 along the lines of Fifty Years. The
historical justificating narrative was replaced by the celebration of constitutional reforms, a new
commitment toward the scientific rule of law, and international engagement in Human Rights cooperative
endeavours. All of them, but specially the first and the last, can be read as influenced by the international
debate on Human rights practices. Furthermore, Chinas Progress narrative, witch emphasises how
Chinas Institutional changes are armonious with its Peaceful Rise policies, are in line with the mid
decade Soft Power offensive set to appease neighbouring countries and the international community.
(Foot 2006, 85)
The very first sentence of the foreword remind the reader that Human Rights go hand to hand with social
and material well being. The second sentence defined how both goals were socialist in nature, and
irrecably intertwined Even if just enshrined in the PRC constitutions half a century after its foundation.

16

The third line introduced the renewed commitment of the Government to behave according to the law
(and not otherwise), and to restrain from breaking citizens rights. A commitment of the Comunsit Party
to uphold a scientific, democratic, and law abbiding governance finishes the paragraph. It is indeed a
masterpiece of public relations narrative that answers directly to the most common complaints of the
DOS on Chinese Human Rights practices. (See Table 6)
T ABLE 6. DIFFERENT VIEWS, COMPETING LEGITIMACIES.
Beijings View

Washingtons View

China's Progress In Human Rights In 2004

County Reports on Human Rights Practices

2004

The year 2004 is an important year for China in

building a well-off society in an all-round way. It is
also a year that saw all-round progress in China's
human rights undertakings.

The country faced many economic challenges,

including [...] growing unemployment and [...] the
need to construct an effective social safety net, and
rapidly widening income gaps[...]

In that year, China expressly stated in its

Constitution that "The state respects and
safeguards human rights," further manifesting the
essential requirements of the socialist system.

The Government's human rights record remained

poor, and the Government continued to commit
numerous and serious abuses. [...] However, the
Constitution was amended to mention human
rights for the first time.

The Chinese government pressed forward on

promoting administration according to law in an allround way. It promulgated the document "Outline
of Full Implementation for Promoting
Administration According to Law," which clearly
states that China must basically realize the goal of
establishing a government under the rule of law
after making sustained efforts for about 10 years.

The lack of due process was particularly egregious

in death penalty cases, and the accused was often
denied a meaningful appeal. Executions often took
place on the day of conviction or on the denial of an
appeal. [] They generally attached higher priority
to suppressing political opposition and maintaining
public order than to enforcing legal norms or
protecting individual rights.

A series of effective measures were adopted to

standardize and restrain administrative power, and
to safeguard and protect citizens' rights and
interests.

The Party's authority rested primarily on the

Government's ability to maintain social stability;
appeals to nationalism and patriotism; Party
control of personnel, media, and the security
apparatus []

The Communist Party of China (CPC) adopted the

"Decision on Strengthening the Party's Governing
Capability," which stresses that state power should
be exercised in a scientific and democratic manner
within the framework of the law, and that human
rights should be respected and protected.
Foreword, 1-2

The Constitution provides for an independent

judiciary; however, in practice, the Government
and the CCP, at both the central and local levels,
frequently interfered in the judicial process and
directed verdicts in many cases.
Introduction, 1-5

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The notion that we are pressencing a struggle over legitimacies is reinforced by how the Fifty Years and
Chinas Progress documentsset the framework for the Human Rights Records of the USA of their following
years. In general terms, those subjects and areas were the PRC proudly announces its domestic advances
are mirrored in the sections where it criticizes the United States. (See Table 7. Domestic and International
Prestige Framework. The PRC Prides are Linked to the USA Shames.)
How China exemplarily vanquished western interventionism and colonialism as a prerequisite for human
rights (Fifty Years, 1) is linked to the present day violations of Human Rights in foreign countries by the
USA (HRRU, VI). The praises for the rise in Chinese living conditions (Fifty Years, 2) are mirrored by the
criticism on the plight for the American poor, hungry and homeless (HRRU, III); Naturally, the above
come immediately first to the Chinese than the Civil and Political Rights question, which in turn ranks first
in the US vision. But nonetheless, the PRC takes pride in how its constitution and legal system guarantee
a set of rights without economic distinction or foreign interference (Fifty Years, 3), while it bashed the
USA for the biased behavior of its police and judicial forces, whom constantly abuse or are comparatively
harsher when dealing with vulnerable and needy minorities. (HRRU, II) In that debate it is very clear how
China tries to demonstrate that out of electoral turnout, it performs much better than the USA, where
abstention rates and losses of voting rights are very high.
Along similar lines, the formal vision of a racially harmonious New China society, with equalitarian
access to once vulnerable gender, age and racial minorities (Fifty Years, 4-5) are compared to the sad
depiction of a fragmented US society, ridden with prostitution, pervasive substance abuse in vulnerable
populations, and the centennial and transversal racial cleavage that has not been settled yet (HRRUS,
2001-2009, IV-V).

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T ABLE 7. DOMESTIC AND I NTERNATIONAL P RESTIGE F RAMEWORK. T HE PRC P RIDES ARE LINKED TO THE USA
SHAMES.
Fifty Years of Progress in China's Human
Rights, 2000
1.

A Historic Turning Point in the Progress

of Human Rights in China [Victory over
feudalism, capitalism, fascism, western
interventionism]

Human Rights Records of the USA, 2000-2004[2009]*

I.

Lack of Safeguard for Life, Freedom

and Personal Safety

II.

Serious Rights Violations by Law

Enforcement Departments

2.

Great Improvement in the Rights to

Subsistence and Development, and
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

3.

Civil Rights and Political Rights of

Citizens Effectively Safeguarded

III.

Plight of the Poor, Hungry and

Homeless

4.

Protection of the Rights of Women and

Children

IV.

Worrying Conditions for Women and

Children

5.

Equal Rights and Special Protection for

Ethnic Minorities

V.

Deep-Rooted Racial Discrimination

VI.

Wantonly Infringing upon Human

Rights of Other Countries

6.

VI. The Cross-Century Development

Prospects for Human Rights in China

*Minor semantic and chapter orders changes occur in the

2005-2009 reports, but the structure is substantively
untouched.

Table 7 allows us to picture how the HRRU is at a same time a critique of the USA and a praise of the PRC.
As Steve Chan puts it, there is no getting around the fact that when one proposes reform for this or that
country, one is engaging in comparative evaluation and policy prescription. (Chan 2002, 1040) The
comparison of the HRRU with the Fifty Years and Chinas Progress documents only allow us to make sense
of what are the particular dimension where the PRC does believe it is a better model, and how it responds
to the questions that a democratic liberal USA poses to its authoritarian popular democracy model.

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4. Conclusions
There is a debate around the concepts of Human Rights between China and the US at the international
scene, but there is also a race for legitimacy between both states and a larger public opinion, domestic
and international. The bilateral scrutiny on Human Rights records that we have reviewed is one of the
constituted fields of battle between the two states. Taken by themselves, and in isolation, these two
sources offer what looks like a negligible political tool in the competition between the two major powers.
But the meanings a perceptions that are printed in them are a very rich source to understand the overall
disputes over legitimacy and over crucial concepts of international politics like state and popular
sovereignty, and the struggle between the US as a superpower and world authority in the one hand,
and a rising China that wants to revise the balance of soft power.
The United States indeed acts as an authority, which makes very little changes to its structural approach
to the issue of Human Rights. Nonetheless, it is very consistent, at least from the Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices point of view. It writes the Country Reports as if it was standing in higher ground.
And Chinas answer acknowledges this position or attitude of superiority as a fact, but questions its
legitimacy and offers an alternative.
China is clearly engaging into the debate. That is, it is clear that China is not only trying to define Human
Right concepts in its own terms, a move that clearly makes part of debate mechanics, but also tries to
appropriate justifications and gain higher ground on moral terrain to defend its political process. China,
when talking to the US, is talking to both its domestic audience and, to a certain point, helping frame its
approach toward other countries.
The bilateral debate will most probably spice up. As long as both countries employ Human Rights
discourses as means towards legitimacy and tools of soft power, as long as both States keep their
(meta)narratives of the Leader of the Free World and The Anti-imperialist New China to gain domestic
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and foreign support from popular and state actors, the competing views on Human rights will keep
clashing.

21

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