With the upcoming dialogue meeting on Human Rights between China and the United States an article appearing recently in the China Daily is interesting to consider on a couple of points.
The Peoples Republic of China conducts diplomacy on several levels; official and back door. The article linked to below falls into the latter category.
The China Daily is very much a mouth piece for the PRC. In this so called "opinion" piece the PRC, through the reporter, sets out it's view of it's recent human rights record.
The interesting things from my point of view are, firstly, how the Chinese government uses such media to gets it's point across or to set the stage, so to speak, pre the scheduled dialogue. Much can be understood about China's mindset by reading the "unofficial" organ of state diplomacy ie, The China Daily and official one The Peoples Daily http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/
The second point of interest regarding this "opinion" piece is that China's argument as to the great leaps forward in human rights change that it has achieved is well presented with a nice touch of mea culpa to boot . There is an attempt to reasonably point out that China has unique problems and can not, therefore, be judged against western first world values. And I have to concur to a degree with their argument.
The other very surprising point of interest and one that really flawed me was the cartoon which has been included with the piece.
Totally uncalled for and takes away much from the merit of what had been said.
Human rights progress enjoyed by all China DailyApril 21 2011
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