CHINA AND THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS
(Jiangyu Wang)

Introduction

The People's Republic of China (hereinafter "PRC" or "China") is distinctive among the many nations of the world, not only for its huge population and growing consumer market, but also for its notorious reputation in human rights performance. According to the United States 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, [FN1] in the "authoritarian state" of China, "citizens lack both the freedom peacefully to express opposition to the Party-led political system and the right to change their national leaders or form of government." [FN2] The Report also accuses the Chinese government of committing widespread and well-documented human rights abuses, including suppressing dissent, persecuting unapproved religious groups, making extra judicial killings, torturing and mistreating prisoners, forcing confessions, arresting and detaining persons arbitrarily, having lengthy incommunicado detention, and denying due process. [FN3] Moreover, the United States alleges that all this has been done "in violation of internationally accepted norms." [FN4]

What is contained within the U.S. Human Rights Report largely reflects the Western World's attitude towards China's "poor human rights record." [FN5] The West became increasingly critical of China after 1989, when the Chinese government brutally ended a democratic protest with military force in Tiananmen Square. China's response to the report does not come as a surprise to anyone; it declared that "the human rights and basic freedom enjoyed by the Chinese people have been upgraded to an unprecedented historical level," [FN6] and charged the United States with *136 using "double standards on the human rights issue" and running "counter to the historical trend" by attacking China. [FN7]

In its attack of Chinese behaviors, the United States has used the notion of "internationally accepted norms" of human rights, which is synonymous with the terms "universal human rights standards" or "international human rights standards" in U.S. law and policy. [FN8] The Chinese perspective, which will be discussed later in this article, views the "right to subsistence," "state sovereignty" and "Chinese values" [FN9] as the most convenient and effective defenses to the United States'attacks.

While both sides claim to be on the right side of history, neither has given enough attention to the other side's position. The following question remains: Whether the universal human rights standards and Chinese values are mutually exclusive or whether China could accept such universal standards in some fashion? If China can accept international standards, in what way should the standards be incorporated in Chinese culture and policy? If China cannot acceptinternational standards, how will the rest of the world cope with China in terms of its respect for human rights?