"Foot shows that the enmeshment of China in global human rights politics marks a major change in the international system. What is often seen as a culturally peculiar clash of Chinese and American values has broader significance, both because China is a major power and because the human rights issue informs the policies of other Western states besides the U.S. Foot asks how it is that norms not backed by real enforcement mechanisms nonetheless have the power to change at least the external behavior of a state like China, and even to some extent its internal behavior. Her answers are informed, insightful, and balanced. The book makes a major contribution both to the literature on Chinese foreign policy and to the new theoretical literature on the role of norms in international relations."--Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University "Rosemary Foot has made the most penetrating analysis of the efforts of the international community and China's own human rights advocates to push China, kicking and screaming, into the global human rights regime.

She vividly describes the public and private pressures and the symbolic and material sanctions that have led China to a gradual acceptance of universal human rights norms, though not yet to their implementation. For those interested in the international as well as in the Chinese struggle for human rights, this book must be read."--Merle Goldman, Boston University and author of Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China.