Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the UN human rights regime and Chinese human rights views.The main substance of this chapter is an overview of China’s experiences with and participation in the human rights regime, including the treaty bodies and special procedures.Chapter 2 begins with China’s foray into the regime in the early 1980s beginning with the UN Commission on and Human Rights and traces the PRC’s growing engagement with the regime, including Chinese ratification of a range of human rights treaties and acceptance of visits by select UN special procedures.Crucially, it examines the post-Tiananmen period, when after 1989 the PRC faced international opprobrium and human rights scrutiny not only in the UNCHR where other states tried to pass resolutions on China’s record, but also from other parts of the regime.It details Beijing’s strategies to mitigate negative human rights attention.

Chapter four examines China’s role during the establishment of a new body to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights.It investigates China’s behavior in the UNCHR, which it joined in 1982, and the impact of Tiananmen as a watershed event that altered the PRC’s relationship with the regime.It then examines Beijing’s positions in reforming the UN human rights body and replacing the Commission with the Council beginning with the first reform proposals in 2004 to the final stage when Human Rights Council members engaged in an Institution-Building process from 2006 through 2007.Because the Institution-Building Process encompassed reviewing a wide range of human rights procedures, including the individual petition system and the special procedures, this chapter provides an unparalleled glimpse into the PRC’s posture toward a broad array of the regime’s mechanisms.It also chronicles the emergence of the Like-Minded Group in the UN Commission on Human Rights in advancing reform proposals in the mid- to late-1990s.