1 - Introduction

Summary

Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the UN human rights regime and Chinese human rights views.The main substance of this chapter is an overview of China’s experiences with and participation in the human rights regime, including the treaty bodies and special procedures.Chapter 2 begins with China’s foray into the regime in the early 1980s beginning with the UN Commission on and Human Rights and traces the PRC’s growing engagement with the regime, including Chinese ratification of a range of human rights treaties and acceptance of visits by select UN special procedures.Crucially, it examines the post-Tiananmen period, when after 1989 the PRC faced international opprobrium and human rights scrutiny not only in the UNCHR where other states tried to pass resolutions on China’s record, but also from other parts of the regime.It details Beijing’s strategies to mitigate negative human rights attention.