China's adherence to international human rights treaties: An empirical assessment

Despite China's growing participation and accession to international human rights treaties, there exists a wide perception that China violates international human rights norms. When empirically assessing whether China adheres to international human rights norms outlined in international human rights law, we find that there is variation across treaties and across time—China shows relatively higher adherence to norms pertaining to gender equality, economic rights, social and cultural rights, compared to rights to freedom from torture. Improvements in adherence to gender equality, economic rights, social and cultural rights have shown relative improvement over time compared to rights to freedom from torture due to previous efforts to improve welfare under Hu-Wen administration (2002–2012). We additionally find that the variation in adherence across treaties stems from China's distinct human rights norms, which prioritize economic development and national sovereignty over indivisibility of human rights. Our findings contribute to furthering existing understanding of China's relationship with the international human rights regime.


Introduction
Despite being a non-democratic country and widely perceived as violating human rights, China has expanded its role in human rights at the international level. In addition to submitting reports, drafting instruments, and engaging in human rights dialogue, it is currently party to six international human rights agreements, the earliest ratified being the Convention on the Elimination of All all forms of discrimination against women and ensure the protection of women's rights. In 1979, the UN adopted this comprehensive instrument to address women's rights within civil, economic, and social life. As of 2009, 185 countries had ratified the CEDAW. The ICESCR, now signed by 164 countries, has been adopted in December 1966 and entered into force in January 1976. The ICESCR describes economic rights including everyone's right to work, fair wages, labor unions, and reasonable working conditions; women are to be treated equally in the workplace as men and given the same opportunities. The treaty also posits the rights of families to have an adequate standard of living, quality health care, education, and a cultural life.
The primary historical reason for China's increased activity in the international human rights regime can be found in its market-oriented strategy of economic development. This strategy was spearheaded by Deng Xiaoping, who aimed to modernize China after the economic deterioration following the 10-year Cultural Revolution (Wan, 2007: 738). Integrating China into the global market and making it attractive to rule-conscious foreign investors entailed interacting with a rulebased international economic system, which paved the way for a gradual acceptance of international law. Deng believed that China needed to maintain a peaceful international environment, enhance its image in the external world, and improve its relationship with the US.
Hence, since the 1970s, China has redefined its state identity from "revolutionary socialist state" to "modern socialist state." This significantly influenced its relationship with the West, since, in the past, China's priorities had been to initiate a socialist revolution against capitalism and to prepare for imminent world war. When the People's Republic of China emerged victorious in a civil war against the Nationalist government of China, it replaced the previous Republic of China in the UN as the sole legal representative of China in 1971. Over the last two decades, China has acknowledged the legitimacy of the UN and of internationally accepted standards, as well as its obligations to meet them, even though it has been selective in its embracing of those norms (Chen, 2009). As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a key player in the UN, it was challenging for China to sidestep the issue of human rights, which was so intricately intertwined with foreign relations. China could not ignore the criticism and pressure from the West in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and the need to meet the West halfway prompted Chinese courts to establish greater legal protection for human rights (Wan, 2007: 741). In response to criticism from dissidents, the government also enabled serious research on human rights, which has led to a more tolerant and legitimate human rights discourse and the accession of international human rights instruments (Wan, 2007: 745).
Since 2012, under Xi Jinping's administration, mere toleration of international norms and passive defense of China's own human rights governance has been transformed into a more proactive agenda. Though China under Xi largely continues the patterns of engagement with human rights institutions familiar from Hu Jintao's administration, even being less aggressive toward liberal human rights norms, the Xi administration internationally promotes his own human rights model of national development. For instance, in 2017 the UN Human Rights Council voted to adopt UN Human Rights Council Resolution 35/23 because of lobbying by Beijing, which claimed that "development contributes significantly to the enjoyment of all human rights by all." China was the only country that proposed and sponsored this resolution, which projects worldwide sustainable development goals as conducive to human rights (Chen and Hsu, 2021).
China's increasingly active participation in the formulation of treaties and rules provides a means for it to safeguard its security interests by voicing its positions during negotiations (Wang and Hu, 2010: 195). China stands by its principles of sovereignty and respect for domestic law, opposing interference in a country's internal affairs on humanitarian grounds, arguing that the historical and cultural circumstances of the country must be respected. International law has a form of moral strength, and countries attempt to gain a foothold in the international system by influencing it to their advantage (Wang and Hu, 2010). It has become a tool for expanding a country's soft power and for the achievement of foreign policy objectives.

The effectiveness of international human rights law
Whether international human rights law influences state behavior has been one of most well-known puzzles in human rights research. Recent works have found evidence for positive effects: Simmons (2009) demonstrates with statistical analyses and case studies that the ratification of treaties leads to better rights practices on average. Treaties can prompt governments to prioritize human rights issues in legislative and domestic agenda in most likely democratic nations. In countries with more independent judiciaries, treaties establish the stage for litigation and introduce new rights to be claimed in domestic courts. In partially democratic or transitional countries, treaties mobilize activism amongst citizens because they prompt citizens to redefine their identities as holders of these legitimate rights. Hence, treaties can make a positive difference through domestic political processes in particularly nations that are transitioning into democracy.
Although countries that ratify human rights treaties generally have higher human rights ratings on a whole, not much evidence supports the fact that this is a result of the treaties themselves. Additional studies show that this positive effect of international human rights treaties is contingent on the extent of democracy and strength of civil society groups (participation of nongovernmental organizations). When these two variables are absent, ratification of treaties has virtually no effect and is associated with even more violations (Neumayer, 2005). These violations are common, as many countries that ratify these treaties regularly violate their obligations (Hathaway, 2002).
When comparing ratifying states with non-ratifying states that possess nearly identical institutional characteristics, ratification of the CEDAW has had a statistically positive effect on women's political rights, but the ratification of the CAT and, to a lesser extent, the ICCPR has been counterproductive for physical integrity rights; that is, states which ratified these treaties were more likely to engage in torture (Hill, 2010(Hill, : 1172. The reason for this is unclear, but scholars note the use of ratification to conceal worsening practices. International treaties provide opportunities for a government to gain international legitimacy by supporting human rights principles without implementing the corresponding human rights practices (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui, 2005). States express commitment to human rights law through treaty ratification and in doing so, relieve pressure to pursue actual changes in policies (Hathaway, 2002).
Despite varied findings in the literature, the general lack of positive influence wielded by international human rights treaties may be attributed to their relatively weak enforcement mechanisms. For example, in contrast to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has the instrument of conditionality, and to environmental organizations, which can offer financial assistance, human rights treaties have neither the authority to enforce compliance nor the resources to supply states with the capacity to comply. This situation is exacerbated by a lack of systematic will on the part of states to expend resources on human rights issues (Dai, 2014: 573).
Human rights treaties are thus dependent on the capacity of individual states to self-report their adherence to guidelines. Although this method has been criticized, as nations may not have an incentive to report accurately on human rights violations, implementation reviews may still have an empowering effect for domestic citizens, who have the greatest personal stake in a state's political behavior. A codification of rights secures publicity that serves a primarily educational function, since it is a legitimate criterion or point of reference for perceiving and evaluating human rights practices (Dai, 2014: 578). Advocacy groups can now hold review meetings to disseminate additional information to a larger public, legitimize citizens' monitoring of human rights practices, and produce shadow reports as a check and balance (Dai, 2014: 587). The reviewing of laws and collection of data within a country activates a "domestic bureaucracy" in which external experts have more opportunities to make recommendations or raise awareness about obligations, in conjunction with attention from media and national courts (Creamer and Simmons, 2020: 21). In addition, the self-reporting mechanism has been reinforced by elite socialization, in which the normative expectations set by treaty bodies with constructive dialogue and disapproval enable elites to seek the community's respect through prosocial behaviors and implementation of obligations (Creamer and Simmons, 2020).
As discussed in the previous sections, a considerable amount of scholarly research has been conducted on the motivations behind China's submission to treaties, as well as its observed efficacy in altering the behavior of other states. Nevertheless, no study has focused exclusively on whether China complies to human rights treaties, and whether it promotes a distinct human rights norm. This is an important gap in the literature, not least because, as of now, the practical benefits derived from China's participation in human rights treaties are questionable.

Data and methods
To examine how China has adhered to international human rights norms, we use multiple datasets: the CIRI database, the UPR dataset, Amnesty International reports, and UN reports published from CAT (2008) CEDAW (1992, 2006, 2014 and CESCR (2005CESCR ( , 2014. CIRI makes it possible to trace individual countries' adherence to internationally acknowledged human rights norms over the period 1982 to 2011. For instance, one of the indicators in CIRI, the torture index (TORT), is a direct measure of violation or compliance with the norms of CAT, which prohibits states from using torture for interrogation or punishment. The Torture is defined as a "purposeful inflicting of extreme pain, whether mental or physical, by government officials" including "rape and beatings, deaths in custody, and electrocution." 1 UPR data, which provides a periodic and peer-based assessment of human rights performances of states, Amnesty International reports, annual reports on the state of the world's human rights, and CAT review of China's periodic state reports will be synthesized with the CIRI data to analyze China's compliance with the norms stipulated in CAT. We draw from multiple sources due to recognized pitfalls that CIRI data, which is based on U.S. State Department reports, could be biased in favor of countries that are of strategic importance to the U.S. (Nieman and Ring, 2015). To examine compliance with CEDAW, UPR data and UN reports from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) will be used to supplement the CIRI data for adherence to CEDAW. 2 We will further examine UPR data and concluding observation reports made by the CESCR in 2005 and 2014 to analyze adherence to ICESCR. The sources we used to assess compliance to each convention is summarized in Table 1. In what follows, we provide further detail on these datasets. The CIRI database  codes the level of a government's respect for internationally acknowledged human rights. CIRI makes use of the US State Department (USSD) Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and Amnesty International's annual reports to assign scores for compliance with CAT and CEDAW. For the purposes of this study, we matched the core human rights treaties with the relevant CIRI indicators. The CAT directly coincides with the ordinal variable in the CIRI database that measures a state's respect for right to freedom from torture (TORT) on a scale of 0 to 2, with 0 indicating frequent practice, 1 occasional, and 2 none (Cingranelli and Richards, 2014: 17).
The CEDAW matches with three indicators in the CIRI database: women's economic rights (WECON), women's political rights (WOPOL), and women's social rights (WOSOC). Women's economic rights include the rights to gainful employment, equal pay for equal work, equality in hiring processes, freedom from harassment in the workplace, and free choice of profession. Women's political rights include the rights to vote, run for office, hold elected or appointed government positions, and join political parties. Women's social rights include internationally recognized rights such as freedom from forced sterilization or genital mutilation, and the rights to initiate divorce, enter marriages as an equal, and be educated. These indicators are measured on a scale of 0 to 3, with 0 indicating that women's respective rights are not guaranteed by the law and 3 that all rights are guaranteed by law with the government vigorously enforcing them in practice. As the scales for the CIRI variables in the two treaties are different, yielding scores in different ranges, we normalized the values in the dataset to between 0 and 1. Using the normalized values, we created a visualization of the data for the period 1982-2011 with marked time points for when each of the core instruments was ratified.
The second source used was the most recent review cycle of the UPR, in November of 2018. The UPR is a periodic and peer-based assessment of the human rights performances of states. Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, voluntary commitments, and international human rights instruments that they are a party to, states share policy recommendations and improve their practices. If a state accepts a recommendation, it is subject to monitoring, which establishes a binding unilateral/autonomous obligation. UPR recommendations can be classified according to whether they entail lower or higher levels of action. A lower level of action includes assistance to other states and cooperative exchange of information, whereas a higher level of action is associated with specific or unconditional changes in the state's actions or policies that increase the burden on it (Ahl, 2015: 654). Given the open and dynamic structure of the UPR, states are empowered to promote their own interpretations of human rights. Their responses to certain recommendations therefore indicate whether they are following a norm-oriented approach that applies a consistent interpretation of human rights, a power-oriented approach to avoid criticism of the situation, or both (Ahl, 2015: 646). We used the UPR data to categorize the recommendations that different states made to China based on their relevance to CAT and CEDAW, identifying key words related to either treaty. For the CAT, we recorded recommendations that contained the terms "CAT," "torture," and "Optional Protocol to CAT," "death penalty," and "execution." For the CEDAW, we recorded recommendations that used the words "women," "girl(s)," "gender," "equality," and "discrimination." For ICESCR, recommendations including terms pertaining to economic, social, cultural rights such as "gender," "social rights," "economic rights," "cultural rights," "workplace," "labor," "poverty," and "freedom," were recorded. Recommendations in a specific area of human rights were taken as evidence of China's violation of rights in that area. After taking note of whether China supported or did not support each recommendation, we investigated the implications for its official human rights position and discourse.
Lastly, when drawing from UN Reports from Committees CAT, CEDAW, and CESCR, we focused on comparing how assessments from the committees changed over time. The reports, although not structured in the same way for each review time point, all include the positive aspects and concerns, which reflect each committee's evaluation of adherence to the treaties' norms.
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)

CIRI and Amnesty International Reports
The CIRI data indicates that the only years in which China had a value of 0.5 on the torture scale, indicating relatively more compliance with the CAT treaty (occasional use of torture), were 1982 and 1985 which is prior to its ratification and nominal implementation of the treaty in 1988 ( Figure  1). The score of 0 remained unchanged throughout the years following the ratification. Examination of Amnesty International Reports (1989) also shows that there has been increased use of torture on political dissenters, religious and labor activists.
Overall, from 1998 to 2010, more than 40,000 people, including human rights activists, petitioners, and religious minorities (underground religious believers and the Falun Gong), were committed to 22 psychiatric hospitals called "ankangs (安康)." For their nonconformist beliefs, they were subject to involuntary mental treatment (US Department of State, 2009: 5). In the ankangs, patients are strapped to beds and beaten, given medicine and electric shock treatment against their will, and denied food and other necessities. Falun Gong adherents faced harsh prison conditions, police beatings, and torture, resulting in more than 100 casualties (US Department of State, 2009). Falun Gong practitioners were not alone; in June, after 2300 prisoners at the Shangrao labor camp protested forced overtime in the ore mills, 500 armed police wounded 70 of them and killed three. The re-education labor camps use forced labor, with prisoners exposed to deleterious conditions for up to 16 hours a day, breaking rocks or making bricks. In 2007, when 30 farmers from the Sichuan Province went to Beijing in an endeavor to settle a land dispute, they were seized and tortured at a military base where they faced starvation and threats (US Department of State, 2007).
This trend of lack of compliance to CAT is demonstrated by the annual Amnesty International Reports. In 1988, there were 177 death sentences and 126 executions, though true numbers are to be much higher. Amnesty reports a dramatic use of the death penalty that continued from 1990 (Amnesty, 1989). Particularly with a new campaign against crime launched in May and following the 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, there was a drastic increase in executions used to ensure social order and stability: over 960 death sentences were carried out, and torture was reported to be widely common (Amnesty, 1989).
Prominent dissidents, including those who played a part in the 1989 pro-democracy movement, as well as increasing detainees of Tibetan political prisoners faced inhumane conditions in prison. "Re-education through labour," a form of administrative detention, was continuously used to arbitrarily detain human rights activists and members of unauthorized religious groups. By 1995, at least 3110 death sentences and 2190 executions were reported. For example, political prisoners, including Wei Jingsheng, Chen Ziming, and Gao Yu, were incarcerated with common criminals, where they were beaten with electric prods and exposed to other degrading treatment. Two monks from the Jokhang temple in Lhasa were severely beaten when in custody. A young Tibetan nun, Gyaltsen Kelsang, died shortly after release from detention after she was allegedly beaten and provided no adequate medical care (Amnesty, 1996).
Chinese police are reported to use methods including electric shocks, beatings, prolonged solitary confinement, food deprivation, and exposure to extreme heat and cold. Torture is used to coerce confessions from prisoners or as a form of abusive retaliation (Amnesty, 1996). Tibetan Buddhists and nationalists deemed to be unpatriotic have been tortured and maltreated in squalid conditions, left prone to kidney and liver ailments from regular beatings (Amnesty International, 2000).
In 2005, thousands of people were still sentenced to death sentences or executed, and tens of thousands at risk of torture (Amnesty International, 2006). For example, Falun Gong practitioner Gao Rongrong died in custody after being detained in a labor facility in Liaoning province. Officers had reportedly beaten her with electro-shock batons during her detention in 2004. In addition, the Uighur community faced continued repression with the "war on terror." The reported use of torture in prisons to deal with detainees arrested for "attempted subversion," "underground" religious beliefs, and labor activism is a consistent historical trend that indicates China's failure to comply with the CAT.

CAT reports and UPR
From 2008 to 2015, CAT reinstates its previous recommendations that China establish a fully independent mechanism to establish investigate complaints against all officials in regard to allegations of torture or ill treatment and guarantee alleged perpetrator to be immediately suspended from duty, and punished if found to be guilty (9, "Concluding observations," 2015;20, "Concluding observations," 2008). Other areas of concern and corresponding recommendations that the Committee reiterates, meaning China has not improved in its compliance from 2008, include recommendations to amend legislation on the definition of torture that covers all elements in the Convention (11), measures to provide detainees fundamental legal safeguards from the outset of their deprivation of liberty including immediate access to doctors and right to assistance (13, "Concluding observations," 2015;11, "Concluding observations," 2008), effective and comprehensive standards to monitor the compliance of public officials with legal safeguards, and providing redress and compensation for victims of sexual violence and trafficking (30, "Concluding observations," 2008;21, "Concluding observations," 2015).
There has been an improvement from 2008 to 2015 regarding re-education through labor centers, a form of administrative detention. The CAT committee has not mentioned this point in the 2015 report, as China abolished the system officially in 2013, although other forms of arbitrary detention, lack of due process, and torture were still noted as a subject of concern. 2015 introduced new concerns from the committee as well, including the police's use of excessive violence against protestors in the "umbrella" or "occupy" movement in 2014, the use of solitary confinement treatment of prisoners (19, "Concluding observations," 2015), and the physical and psychological abuse of transgenders and intersex people such as forced sterilizations (29, "Concluding observations," 2015). The Committee recommends China to take prompt measures to address these subjects of concern.
In the UPR 2018 reports, four countries made recommendations directly addressing China's use of torture. Three recommendations that called for China to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 3 were not supported by China, but the recommendation to "strengthen" measures to prevent torture and ill treatment was supported. Regarding China's use of the death penalty, eighteen countries have made recommendations, none of which were supported by China. Recommendations included China to accede to the Second Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, specifically aiming to abolish the death penalty, 4 work towards and completely abolish the death penalty as soon as possible with execution data and statistics concerning the numbers of executions, 5 and to establish a moratorium on the use of the death with a "step to" total and complete abolition including all existing death sentences and executions. 6 Six countries 7 did not directly recommend to abolish the death penalty, but to reduce and limit the number of capital punishment cases and review legislations.

CIRI and CEDAW reports
Women's Social Rights (WOSOC). The normalized value for China's adherence to CEDAW in respect to women's social rights remained unchanged at 0.33 from 1982 until 2004 ( Figure 1). 8 This means that there are some social rights for women under the law, but in practice the government's enforcement of these laws are ineffective or weak. However, this is not to say there have been improvements over time. For example, there is an increasing trend of women enrolling in higher education (US Department of State, 2000). From only 28% of all university students in 1988 to 36% in 1997, by 2008 women made up 50% of university students. The CEDAW review noted progress evidenced by the reduction of illiteracy from 80% to 25%, though women comprised 70% of the total illiterate population (173, "Concluding comments," 1984). By 1992 CEDAW review, the Chinese Government had provided its regions with laws to reform the educational system with measures including making education compulsory and free (179,1992). The 1999 report, however, brings up a concern of segregation in educational specialization, with a low percentage of women in higher levels of academia (329, "Concluding comments," 1999). Although the 2006 and 2014 committee review also recognized China's progress in the improved enrollment of girls in education and reduced illiteracy, they continue to highlight problems of disproportionate illiteracy among women of rural and remote areas (27, "Concluding comments," 2006) and girls with intellectual disabilities, and ethnic or religious minorities (34, "Concluding comments," 2014). In particular, the 2014 review brings up the concern of sex-segregation of majors at university programs and a lower minimum entrance-exam score for specific subjects for male students at colleges that may have induced this phenomenon ("Concluding comments," 2014).
Secondly, there have been few improvements regarding laws to protect women from violence and discrimination, but several issues persist over time. In 1999, the Committee review notes that the women's law does not contain a definition of discrimination and effective remedies in response to violations of the law (283, "Concluding comments," 1999). By 2006, there was a noted improvement in the amended Marriage law of 2001 and official measures to explicitly prohibit domestic violence against women (5, "Concluding comments," 2006). However, even with legal reforms, the Committee continues to raise the concern that there is a lack of "comprehensive national legislation on violence against women that also provides access to justice and means of support for victims and punishment of perpetrators" (21, "Concluding comments," 2006). The committee expresses its concern that the Chinese legislation does not protect women from direct and indirect discrimination.
Lastly, limitations of women's social rights include areas of reproductive choice and maternity protection. Although the Chinese government prohibits physical compulsion for purposes of abortion or sterilization, birth limitations set by regulations have occasionally led to local officials using such methods to achieve birth control through intense pressure (US Department of State, 2007). IUDs and female sterilization accounted for over 80% of birth control (US Department of State, 2002). Amnesty International reported receiving notices of continued coerced abortion and sterilizations in China. For example, in 2010, 1.377 relatives of couples who were targeted for sterilization in southern China were detained to pressure the couples into consenting to the sterilization (Amnesty Press, 2015).

Women's Economic Rights (WECON).
In the area of WECON, although CIRI data shows no changes over time, the CEDAW reports show that there have been improvements with persisting limits. The 1982 Constitution affirms that "women enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of life," including property rights, and the 1992 legislation "Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests" enacted by the National People's Congress (NPC), the national legislative body of China, was designed to minimize sex-based discrimination. Nevertheless, the level of institutional discrimination in the workplace is moderate; there was no statute that directly prohibited sexual harassment in the workplace until the 2000s, making it unrealistic for women to take assault cases to court. The situation somewhat improved with the 2005 Law on the Protection of Women's Rights, which made sexual harassment illegal. Nevertheless, only 30% of claims were successfully litigated, and approximately 80% of working women experienced a form of sexual assault at least once during their career (US Department of State, 2011).
Women's salaries are substantially lower than those of their male counterparts; a 1990 survey found that women's salaries averaged 77% of men's, although by 2019 this had increased slightly, to 77.5%. This has also been signified by the CEDAW review of China. From 1999 to 2014, the committee consistently brought up problems surrounding gender-based discrimination in employment. The mentioned areas of recommendation include the widening gender pay gap (331, 296, "Concluding comments," 1999), occupational segregation between women and men with women occupying the low-wage sector (29, "Concluding comments," 2006), and a lack of provisions to protect women from sexual harassment in the workplace (36, 37, "Concluding comments," 2014).
The CEDAW review brings into light the continued gap between the economic situation of women in urban areas and those in rural and remote areas from 1999 to 2006. There is a lack of opportunities for rural women to benefit from the economic progress of China, and they also face loss of property rights because of change in marital status (302, "Concluding comments," 1999). The difference between 1999 and 2006 is that the committee noted an issue with rising unemployment of women and the difficulties in finding new employment for laid off workers in 1999 (296, "Concluding comments," 1999), but the issues pertaining to unemployment and challenges in finding jobs were not mentioned in 2006. Instead, the 2006 report acknowledges efforts to promote laid-off and unemployed workers to get jobs but presents the problem of occupational segregation within these jobs (30, "Concluding comments," 2006).
The CEDAW review also notes that by 2014, China had made some improvements in reducing poverty for rural women (42, "Concluding comments," 2014). In 2006, the Committee recommended that China should increase social spending so that "women can fully and equally benefit from growth and poverty reduction." It mentions urgent attention to improving particularly rural women's access to services and health care. By 2014, these recommendations were not mentioned in the Committee report and instead 2014 notes the efforts and progress made by the party in poverty reduction in those areas (42, "Concluding comments," 2014). They identified a new issue though: a woman's access to land (43, "Concluding comments," 2014). A high proportion of women in rural areas are still restricted to access to contracted land.
Women's Political Rights (WOPOL). CIRI values for women's political rights were higher than the values for their social and economic rights, remaining stable at 0.667 before showing drops in 2007 and 2009 to 0; thus, it is only recently and intermittently that there were decreased in adherence to WOPOL (Figure 1). The normalized score of 0.667 indicates that women's political rights were guaranteed under the law but that in practice they faced moderate obstacles in exercising those rights.
The Chinese government has no restrictions on the participation of women in political institutions. Institutionally, there are no barriers to women's political rights. Yet, in practice, few women have held positions of significant influence in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the single ruling party since 1949. By 1992, CEDAW noted the efforts of the government and the All-China Women's Federation were demonstrated by the fact that the average percentage of elected women reached 21% in 1990 (148, "Concluding comments," 1992). By the time of the report in 2009, of the country's 27 ministries, women headed three of them, and there was only one female member of the CCP's Politburo (US Department of State, 2009). Nevertheless, there is an increasing trend of political participation. Among the 2987 delegates of the NPC in the period 2008-2013, 21.3% of them were women, increasing to 24.9% by 2018.
An ongoing trend noted from the CEDAW review from 1999 into 2014 signifies that representation of women in public life, particularly at higher decision-making levels, need more improvements. Women from ethnic minorities are also inadequately represented in public and political life (292, "Concluding comments," 1999;25, "Concluding comments," 2006). Since 2006 into 2014, China has made improvements in law for political representation of women in villages (4, "Concluding comments," 2014). The amendment of the Organic Law of the Villagers' Committee in 2010 describes how women shall be in the Villagers' Committee and account for more than ⅓ of all participants in the representatives' conference ("Concluding comments," 2014). However, the Committee still notes in 2014 their continued concern at the underrepresentation of women during the reporting period at various legislative, ministerial, and provincial levels (30, "Concluding comments," 2014).

UPR
Women's Social Rights (WOSOC). Overall, eight recommendations on women's social rights were made and supported by China. These included calls for China to combat domestic violence against women and implement anti-domestic violence legislation with clear definitions to ensure better accountability for victims 9 and a "legal definition of discrimination" to achieve gender equality. 10 Cameroon recommended the implementation of national programs for the development of women, and Slovenia recommended the promotion of education for girls by means of awarenessraising campaigns. Although Liechtenstein made a recommendation to ratify the Optional Protocol to the CEDAW, this was not supported by China. Six other countries 11 made recommendations to China concerning the general need for national legislation to combat discrimination on sexual orientation and gender identity grounds.
Women's Economic Rights (WECON). Nine recommendations related to women's economic rights were made, all of which were supported by China. These included incorporating the needs of women into national development and economic planning, particularly with financial support 12 and the need for legislation to achieve gender equality in terms of equal pay for the same work, 13 and the equal participation of women in leadership 14 and operational positions in the workplace.
Women's Political Rights (WOPOL). In comparison to the WECON and WOSOC categories, only four recommendations pertaining to the improvement of women's political rights were made and supported by China. India and Iceland suggested that China should adopt measures to promote women's full participation in political and public affairs. On similar lines, Armenia and Serbia suggested that more steps be taken to ensure that women are involved in decision-making in terms of law and policy.
International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)

CESCR reports and UPR reports
The concluding observation reports made by the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR) of the United Nations in 2005 and 2014 reports highlight areas that manifest adherence and areas that falls short and adds comments for improvement. 2005 reports show that overall, there has been an improvement in the adherence to ICESCR notably in the areas of welfare: it highlights China's Rural Communities Poverty Relief Programme, as well as the new social security system. These two developments are closely linked to then Hu-Wen administration 's (2002-2012) efforts in expanding welfare under the slogan 'harmonious society' (Howell and Ducket, 2019). The negative sides pointed out included concerns over rights and welfare of the marginalized (14, 16, "Concluding comments," 2005), gender inequalities (36, 49, 57, "Concluding comments," 2005, weak labor rights including forced labor (53, 54, 22, "Concluding comments," 2005), lack of social protection of migrant workers (15, 66, "Concluding comments," 2005), and restrictions on freedom of expression (68).
The 2014 report shows a similar pattern, where the report highlights improvements in welfare, yet limits in aforementioned areas. The report highlights the positive aspect of continued efforts to minimize poverty via meeting targets of the Millennium Development Goals (5, "Concluding comments," 2014) and allowing universal access to social security, medical care, and minimum living standard scheme (24, "Concluding comments," 2014). Yet the same issues -lack of protection of migrant workers (15, 33, "Concluding comments," 2014); gender inequalities (16, 26, 27, "Concluding comments," 2014), weak labor rights and forced labor (19, 20, 22, "Concluding comments," 2014), and restrictions on freedom of expression and civil liberties (37, 38, "Concluding comments," 2014). A notable difference is that civil liberties is raised in the 2014 report compared to the 2005 report: these reflect increase in crackdown on rights-based activism since the advent of Xi administration since 2012, when crackdowns have become centrally organized and systematic in nature since 2013 (Fu and Distelhorst, 2018;Zhu and Jun, 2021). In short, adherence to ICESCR in China since 2005 has improved in the areas of welfare, particularly extending welfare benefits in rural areas and poverty relief, yet remains stagnant in areas of gender equality, protection of the marginalized, labor rights, and migrant workers protection. In addition, after Xi administration, civil liberties have worsened, which is reflected in the 2014 report.
The 2018 UPR reports show areas that need increased adherence, which is in line with the ICESCR reports. Several recommendations were made to improve areas of gender equality pertaining to eliminating gender pay gap, workplace discrimination, and gender violence. 15 The area that received the most recommendations pertained to improving the rural-urban divide by focusing on rural development, social rights of rural population, and increasing economic support in rural areas. 16 Relatedly, rural poverty was also discussed as areas that need improvement. Such a point implies that despite improvements in overall poverty rates as observed in the 2005 and 2015 CESCR reports, poverty rate in rural areas remains as an area that needs increased compliance with ICESCR. Protection of social rights of the marginalized, including migrant workers, 17 the disabled, 18 and ethnic minorities 19 were also raised as areas that needs further development. Lastly, the issue of civil liberties-pertaining to protecting freedom of expression of human rights defenders and journalists 20 , religious freedom, 21 and freedom of expression 22 received many recommendations.

China's human rights norms
Considering low levels of adherence to norms stipulated in CAT, in comparison to CEDAW and ICESCR, the question that rises is whether China holds itself to alternative human rights norms. From the first white paper on human rights issues, in 1991, China placed the right to subsistence at the top of the hierarchy of human rights, characterizing the evolution of rights as "circumscribed by the historical, social, economic and cultural conditions of various nations" (Zhang and Buzan, 2020: 8). The 2004 white paper highlighted the country's socialist legal system, its constitutional organization for the protection of human rights, and the provision of health care, education, and housing (Potter, 2007: 711). In collaboration with other Asian nations, China drafted and endorsed the Bangkok Declaration, which acknowledged the universality of human rights but also underscored principles of national sovereignty and cultural particularism (Zhao, 2015: 45).
Efforts to endorse cultural particularism and national sovereignty were further reflected in the national report submitted in the recent UPR cycle: "There is no universal road for the development of human rights in the world. As an important element in the economic and social development of each country, the cause of human rights must be promoted based on the national conditions and the needs of the people of that country and cannot be defined based on a single authority" (China National Report, 2018: 2). The report further notes that the appropriate road is one "that takes development as the priority" and seeks national conditions to implement innovation, openness, and economic strength (China National Report, 2018: 3). These norms were also included in China's first solo-sponsored resolution on "the contribution of development to the enjoyment of human rights" 23 at the Human Rights Council (HRC). The insistence on "people-centered development," as opposed to an upholding of human dignity and inherent rights regardless of a state's economic condition, accords higher priority to economic development and collective prosperity than to civil rights.
Thus, China's vision does not completely align with the principle of indivisibility of human rights established by the international human rights regime. Given these norms, China has tended to accept recommendations from other states when they align with China's human rights norms. This is demonstrated by the UPR data, where the most common types of recommendations supported by China concerned the protection of economic and cultural rights and development: continuing to promote the Belt and Road Initiative to assist developing countries, enabling knowledge-sharing and technical assistance on public health projects, enhancing educational reforms, reducing the income gap in urban and rural areas, developing technology for food security, and eliminating poverty. At the inaugural session of the UN HRC in Geneva 2006, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yang Jiechi, emphasized that the "two primary challenges facing the world" are peace and development. Yang stated that the enjoyment of human rights can only be possible in a world not afflicted by war, poverty, disease, or a curtailment of economic, social, and cultural rights (Yang, 2006). China also supported all the recommendations made for improving women's economic rights.

Conclusion
International media as largely reported on human rights violations in China, where many allegations have been made to human rights violations towards ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang. The issue has been also contested in the UNHRC, where recently the proposal to debate China's Xinjiang region was voted down by a tight margin. Yet despite these accusations, China is currently party to six international human rights agreements and has been a member of the UNHRC five times. Recently, China has become more proactive, spearheading resolutions, and partaking in the UNHRC panel which affects several activities of the UNHRC, such as choosing experts to assess human rights violations in respective countries. Stemming from this observation, this paper has examined then whether China has adhere to human rights treaties it partakes in, and whether China holds distinct human rights norms.
We find that there is variation across conventions-while China showed low levels of adherence to the norms stipulated in CAT, we find relatively stronger adherence to norms in CEDAW and ICESCR. While compliance to CAT remained weak since China's ratification in 1988, we find that there has been some improvement over time in areas of women's rights and social and economic rights albeit remaining issues. Women's social, economic, and political rights have improved in areas of education, domestic violence, workplace harassment, women's poverty reduction, and inclusion in politics with series of legislative efforts, yet problems persist in areas of women's rights in rural areas, as well as limits in use of courts to address issues pertaining to gender inequality, and underrepresentation of women in politics, particularly ethnic minorities. As for social and economic rights, there have been improvements in welfare, particularly in poverty relief and but protection of the marginalized-the migrant population, laborers, women, and the disabled, remains limited.
Lastly, we find that China's low compliance with CAT relative to CEDAW and ICESCR stems from its distinctive views on human rights norms-China prioritizes economic development, national sovereignty, and culture particularism over indivisibility of human rights. Whether or not China is proactive in promoting its distinct human rights norms remains to be seen. Recent attempts show that China has been focused on drafting and amending resolutions so that the international treaties align with its domestic law. For example, although a failed attempt, China proposed an amendment to a resolution on civil society ad NGOs mentioning that they should utilize resources "in a legal and transparent manner." 24 This clause is an effort to align the resolution with is changed domestic law that aims to delegitimize rights-based civil society groups based on funding sources. In 2016, China passed the Overseas NGO Law (2016) which included series of regulations that restrict the activities of overseas NGOs, such as obligation to register with the public security bureau and file reports on funding sources and prohibited these organizations to fund grassroots non-profits that were unregistered. By aligning international human rights treaties with domestic law, the party-state can legitimize its repressive practices while bypassing international criticisms of non-compliance.
The limitations of this study should be pointed out. A more extended coverage of the years would be needed to have a full assessment of China's adherence over time-future works can include more recent assessments which are scheduled or currently on-going. In addition, future works should also consider including assessment of China's compliance with other human rights treaties that China has ratified besides the CAT, CEDAW, and ICESCR, such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). We did not cover these treaties due to limited space but assessing China's compliance with the rest of the treaties would be needed for a fuller comprehensive assessment of China's adherence to international human rights treaties.