Human Rights and Their Discontents: Hannah Arendt’s Question and Human Rights Debates in Mao’s China Wenjun Yu Human Rights and Their Discontents: Hannah Arendt’s Question and Human Rights Debates in Mao’s China Het onbehagen over mensenrechten: het probleem van Hannah Arendt en het debat over mensenrechten in het China van Mao (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 4 juli 2017 des middags te 12.45 uur door Wenjun Yu geboren op 3 april 1986 te Hubei, China Promotor: Prof.dr. I. de Haan Acknowledgements Writing a PhD dissertation is not a lonely work, I cannot finish this job without the generous help and supports from my supervisor, fellow PhD students, colleagues, friends and family. Although I take the complete responsibility for the content of this dissertation, I would like to thank all accompanies for their inspiration, encouragement, and generosity in the course of my PhD research. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Ido de Haan for his continuous support of my PhD work at Utrecht University, for his great concern over my life in the Netherlands, for his generous encouragements and motivations when I was frustrated by many research problems, and particularly when I was stuck in the way of writing the dissertation during my pregnancy and afterwards. I could not finish this dissertation without his help and guidance. Thinking of my working experience over the last few years, I feel truly lucky to have him as my supervisor. In addition, I am deeply grateful to my fellow PhD students and colleagues. I have received so many valuable feedbacks from, among others, René Koekkoek, DevinVartija, Sander Karst, Ugur Ungor, Iva Vukusic, Sarah Carmichael, Zipeng Zhang, Pepijn Corduwener. I thank René for his comments on my chapters during the conference in Bielefeld. Thanks to Devin for his proofreading of the early version of my chapters. My appreciation also goes to Ugur and Iva for their active participation in my mock defense and valuable feedback. I thank Zipeng, my Chinese fellow, for teaching me how to use various kinds of Chinese search engines. Furthermore, many thanks to my local Dutch friend and colleague Sander for letting me know that exploring interesting places in the Netherlands and enjoying the life here are as important as doing the PhD research. I had so much fun with all of you during my PhD adventure. Thank all of you for leaving me so beautiful memory in this country. I also greatly benefited from a series of PhD training programs of Utrecht University that not only provided me opportunities to strengthen my professional knowledge but also enabled me to expand my social network. The Graduate Seminars organized by the National Research School of Political History in the Netherlands also offered me chance to present my own research, to which I am greatly indebted. My sincere appreciation also goes to the Faculty of Humanities and the Department of History and Art History for providing me short-period financial support for my research trip to Hong Kong and for my extension of PhD research. Particular thanks to José van Aelst for her continuous warm support in the past few years. Furthermore, I am deeply grateful to the Chinese Scholarship Council for providing me four-year scholarship for my PhD research. This dissertation is edited by Word’s Worth, Zutphen, to which I also owe great thanks for their professional and effective service. I also want to thank Roland Burke for sharing his research archives with me. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family members for providing me spiritual supports. Particular thanks go to my mother in law for helping me look after my baby daughter so that I had time to focus on my dissertation, and to my husband for his selfless dedication to the family. Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 3 1. The case of China ................................................................................................ 5 2. Three case studies .............................................................................................. 10 3. Methodology ...................................................................................................... 11 4. Primary sources ................................................................................................. 13 5. The framework of the dissertation ..................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 1. HUMAN RIGHTS AND THEIR DISCONTENTS: HANNAH ARENDT’S CRITIQUE ................................................................................................................................... 17 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 17 2. The right to have rights ...................................................................................... 18 3. Human rights and citizenship ............................................................................ 23 4. Human rights and state sovereignty ................................................................... 29 5. Human rights and political action ...................................................................... 34 6. An analytical framework .................................................................................... 41 CHAPTER 2. THE HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA ............................................. 47 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 47 2. The historiography of human rights in China .................................................... 47 3. Human rights in Chinese history: a short overview ........................................... 50 4. Human rights in the Mao era ............................................................................. 57 CHAPTER 3. HUMAN RIGHTS AND CITIZENSHIP: THE CASE OF THE LAND REFORM MOVEMENT (1950-1953) ............................................................................................ 67 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 67 2. Rural society and its inhabitants before the land reform movement .................. 71 3. Class division in the land reform movement: an attempt to create new citizens 76 4. The interaction between human rights and citizenship in the practice of land reform .................................................................................................................... 88 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 120 CHAPTER 4. HUMAN RIGHTS AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY IN CHINESE FOREIGN POLICY: 1950S- 1970S ............................................................................................................ 122 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 122 2. China’s human rights position as an element of foreign policy ....................... 127 3. International criticism and other responses to China’s human rights stance .... 153 4. The strategic use of human rights discourse in Chinese foreign policy ........... 166 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 182 CHAPTER 5. POLITICAL ACTION IN THE HUNDRED FLOWERS PERIOD: 1955-1957 ..... 184 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 184 2. The new context for political action: 1955-1957 ............................................. 187 3. Political action in the Hundred Flowers Campaign ......................................... 207 4. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 246 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 250 SUMMARY IN DUTCH ................................................................................................ 260 SOURCES AND LITERATURE ...................................................................................... 265 1 2 Introduction The Rights of Man, which had never been philosophically established but merely formulated, which had never been politically secured but merely proclaimed, have, in their traditional form, lost all validity. -------Hannah Arendt1 One of the greatest controversies in the long debate on human rights is the discrepancy between the rhetoric of such rights and their implementation. Hannah Arendt argues that claims to human rights fail to provide any institutional protection to human beings. The human rights of individuals who are excluded from the nation state and have lost their citizenship are hardly protected.2 Sovereign states protect only the rights of their citizens. Claims to human rights generally do not compel nation states to protect the human rights of non-citizens, such as stateless people and displaced persons. The inalienability and universality of human rights have proven unenforceable; human rights have been only conditionally