Human Rights, Revolutionary Legacy, and Politics in China Wang Ban Observers of China’s human rights situation tend to view the rise of rights conversation as a result of China’s economic liberalization and mar- ket reform. The issue of rights is on the agenda because China is getting on track with global standards in trade and markets and is undergoing politi- cal and legal reform. The invocation of human rights, however, often pro- ceeds on a biased divide that pits liberal democracy premised on human rights against authoritarianism that represses individual liberty. This divide is more pronounced when viewed cross-culturally. Human rights, incarnate in the notion of the abstract individual as world citizen, are set up in con- trast to Oriental collectivism, familism, and Asian values. The use of human rights as a dividing line between us and them, between cultures with no sense of rights and those embedded in rights, is further associated with an evaluative hierarchy of civilizations. Those people deprived of human rights are subhuman and hence uncivilized, and those endowed with rights are an advanced human species. Thus a discourse that sets out to show the boundary 2 38:1 (2011) DOI 10.1215/01903659-1262572 © 2011 by Duke University Press Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.