Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-314) and index.

"Nelson Mandela once said, "human rights have become the focal point of international relations." This has certainly become true in American relations with the People's Republic of China. Since the early 1980s, and particularly since 1989, by means of vigorous monitoring and the strict maintenance of standards, United Nations human rights organizations have encouraged China to move away from its insistence on the principle of noninterference, to take part in resolutions critical of human rights conditions in other nations, and to accept the applicability to itself of human rights norms and UN procedures. Even though China has continued to suppress political dissidents at home, and appears at times resolutely defiant of outside pressure to reform, Ann Kent argues that it has gradually begun to implement some international human rights standards." "The book explores China's evolving human rights policies and the PRC's interaction over time with UN human rights bodies. Kent documents China's compliance with the norms and rules of international treaties, and offers a case study of the effectiveness of the international human rights regime, that network of international consensual agreements concerning acceptable treatment of individuals at the hands of nation-states. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.

SACFinal081324