Volume 3, Number 1 - International Development - Special Edition 1999

Title: AmericaÕs China Policy and Human Rights

Author: Peter R. Moody, Jr.

Abstract: Although President Clinton had indicated that a concern for human rights would be a major element in American China policy under his administration, by the late 1990s, this concern, and, virtually any politically thought-through strategy, seemed to have been displaced by a concern for economic relations. The Chinese leadership has historically interpreted American concerns with human rights as deliberate expressions of hostility. There are, however, indications that the Chinese government is itself moving, at least on the surface, toward greater acceptance of international standards for human rights. It may be open for the United States to encourage these trends, as part of a better thought-through, more systematic political orientation toward China.

About the Author: Peter R. Moody, Jr. is a professor at the University of Notre Dame in the Department of Government and International Studies. Since receiving his Ph.D. from Yale in 1971, Professor Moody has written on Chinese politics, Asian international affairs, Chinese political thought, international relations theory, and theory of political parties. His more recent books include Tradition and Modernization in China and Japan (1994), Political Change in Taiwan (1991), and Political Opposition in Post Confucian Society (1988). He is editor of China Documents Annual and book review editor for the Review of Politics.

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