Exporting Virtue? China's International Human Rights Activism in the Age of Xi Jinping

Now in paperback, Exporting Virtue? investigates the challenges posed by China’s human rights doctrine and lays the groundwork for an effective international response.

Human rights tensions shadow China’s global rise. Without clear international standards, China has pursued socioeconomic rights across Asia at the expense of political liberty for its own people. Couched in terms of virtue but manifested as authoritarianism, the PRC’s global activism undermines international human rights law toward its own policy interests. Pitman B. Potter argues in Exporting Virtue? that decision-makers around the world should engage more effectively in this struggle over human rights standards. Drawing on both Chinese and English language sources, Potter investigates the challenges posed by China’s human rights orthodoxy and lays the groundwork for an effective international response.