Linking national and global population agendas: Case studies from eight developing countries

Human rights advocates have sought to shame the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) into compliance with 'universal' norms. For more than a decade, foreign critics have tried to give the PRC the diplomatic equivalent of a black eye. Proponents of human rights have exposed abuses in the PRC, condemned Beijing in international settings, and protested when PRC leaders travelled abroad, as a way of denying the PRC international prestige. In response, the PRC has issued a sequence of indignant white papers on human rights and has demonstrated a robust capacity to offer gestures of compliance while otherwise resisting pressure to reform. This paper questions whether the effort to shame the PRC leads to enduring improvement in the protection of human rights. It suggests that efforts to shame Beijing arouse indignation born of national pride, coupled with a cultural relativist defence, but that there is little evidence of enduring change. Thomas Risse and Kathryn Sikkink's model of socialisation to international human rights norms informs an examination of how progress toward improved human rights in the PRC has 'stalled'. Indeed, absent a viable opposition within China, shaming may not only be ineffective in altering Beijing's behaviour, but also counterproductive.