Review by Choice Review
In 14 chapters, this book treats the human rights record of the People's Republic of China. In the introductory section, the authors define human rights and discuss the history of political control. They then survey the events from 1949 to 1984 that establish the legal, political, economic, and ideological impediments to protection of individual freedoms. Information is presented on the target groups of government campaigns: dissidents, businessmen, intellectuals, youth, factions, women, ethnic and religious minorities. The six authors--Yuan-li Wu, Franz Michael, John Copper, Ta-ling Lee, Maria Chang, and James Gregor--are specialists on Chinese politics with critical orientations toward the PRC (and sympathetic views toward Taiwan). They present little that is new or original concerning China's human rights condition. The book has more than its share of untenable assumptions and careless uses of sources; it should be read in conjunction with Stephen Shalom's Death in China Due to Communism: Propaganda versus Reality (1984). The observation that we pay less attention to human rights violations in China than to those in states like South Africa is well taken. However, the authors missed a chance to present a carefully reasoned and objectively defined assessment of the changing Chinese context for human rights. Recommended for general college libraries. Good appendix by Wu on judicial practices. -G. A. McBeath, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
