Rights Beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China. By Rosemary Foot. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 308p. $65.00 cloth, $19.95 paper. Human Rights in Chinese Foreign Relations: Defining and Defending National Interests. By Ming Wan. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. 192p. $39.95.

Extract

Human rights as a focus of both theoretical and practical concern came alive in the last decade of the twentieth century. The end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the “third wave” of democratization, and the globalization-cum-transparency revolution have all played a part in the widening and deepening of global human rights norms. The revitalization of human rights norms has profound implications for the complex interdependence between China and the global community. Indeed, human rights diplomacy is one of the most novel but generally overlooked aspects of international relations in post-Mao China, where it has finally come of age, whatever the motivation.