ABSTRACT
In a communist country, the very nature of its political system makes human rights in the Western tradition of less concern to its leaders. Accordingly, the human rights record of communist nations is dismal as a rule. In practice though, actual policies often turn out to have quite contrary results. It is readily apparent that the nature of the Chinese polity is the ultimate cause of various human rights abuses. Since the People's Republic of China is and professes to be a communist state, what is said of communist systems in general also applies to China. Mao Zedong defined a portion of the population of the Chinese nations as "class enemies." In his own words, five percent of the people were "reactionaries" and had to be deprived of their rights. Officially, the People's Republic of China has no unemployment. In fact, this is one of the advantages claimed for the communist system.
