ABSTRACT
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), like other communist countries, rarely addresses the issue of human rights in earnest. This chapter analyses the PRC’s political system from the perspective of individual freedoms and the exercise of these freedoms. It focuses on the individual’s rights and political freedoms, which the PRC ignores but nevertheless has guaranteed in various constitutions and has pledged to preserve by signing the UN Charter upon becoming a member of that organization in 1971. The chapter also focuses on the political aspects of human rights, including ther institutions, decisionmaking systems, and processes that relate to the practice of human rights. It is first necessary to point out that the Chinese Communist political system is one that Western scholars would describe as a totalitarian dictatorship. Constancy and regularization in the use of political power would place limits on the use of coercion and control over the individual and the population.
