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Article: Of human rights and wrongs: China and the United States.
- Article from:
- Monthly Review
- Article date:
- July 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Monthly Review Foundation, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The March visit of Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Beijing, calling on the Chinese government to improve its human rights record under the threat of denying it renewal of Most Favored Nation trade status, ended in fiasco. It should hardly have come as a surprise. After a semester teaching at a university and a month travelling in China, the attitudes and conditions I observed make clear why the U.S. human rights policy toward that nation was virtually certain to be rejected. Conversations with Chinese, most of whom were students, showed that the effort of the U.S. government to act as the enforcer of universal standards in their country is meeting not only with ...