With the the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre fast approaching, the onus is on Beijing to show the world that it has changed for the better. Even before June 4, 1989, the day democracy advocates were gunned down, human rights in China remained an issue adamantly in question.

China’s State Council recently released the 16,000-word document through state media with the goal of “promoting and protecting human rights.” The state-controlled Xinhua news agency put out more than 50 stories in English on this “action plan” — a message clearly aimed at a foreign audience.

As excerpted from the Wall Street Journal:

However, in China’s one-party state, human rights do not include basic civil liberties that might undermine the ruling clique. While the recent report affirms citizens’ rights to a fair trial, freedom of religion, and the “right to be heard,” its language is vague and promises little beyond what’s already written into Chinese law.

The report states, regarding religious freedom, that “normal” religious activities will be protected. As for the rights of detainees? The state “is improving” the system of accountability.” Freedom of the press? According to the WSJ, regulations “will be improved.”

For a country with a strict censorship regime, little religious freedom, and a court system effectively controlled by the Communist Party, that’s scant assurance.

Long has been the case where China’s leaders perhaps have  hoped that foreigners will believe Chinese citizens value economic prosperity and stability more than civil liberties. Human rights, however isn’t an either-or trade between wealth and freedom. Economic prosperity rests on civil discourse, discourse that must allocate for the protection of basic liberties such as the right to free speech, free association and equal protection under law. 

In contemporary society, a society where information is harder and harder to censor as technology innovates, the protection of human rights is even more pressing. And although the Chinese government will apparently organize experts to compile special textbooks for human rights training, I’d agree with the Wall Street Journal’s opinion piece:

Redefining “human rights” to mean something else in Chinese won’t fool anyone.