Human rights and sino-US relations: policies and changing realities

This paper examines disputes over human rights between the United States and China since 1972, with its focus on the period since 1989. The issue of human rights has been intertwined with strategic and economic issues in the Sine-US relationship. This explains why human rights was not treated as an important issue in the 1970s, why it became contentious after the cold war ended, why the Clinton administration decided to delink the human rights issue and most favoured nation (MFN) trade status for China in May 1994 and why the US government has become more muted over human rights in China since mid-1996. But whether human rights tops the diplomatic agenda or falls somewhere down the list, it is and will remain an important issue in the Sine-US relationship. It has a logic of its own, entrenched in domestic politics and cultural values in both nations.