Katrin Kinzelbach’s excellent new book, The EU’s Human Rights Dialogue with China: Quiet Diplomacy and its Limits, provides ample evidence that an approach of primarily “quiet diplomacy” has done little to positively influence the human rights environment in China, and her analysis could well be extended to a number of other governments. In Kinzelbach’s view, not only has the EU approach failed to produce the intended results, it has also managed to produce precisely the wrong effect: “Over the years, Chinese official had become human rights dialogue professionals. . . . The regular confidential talks behind closed doors had served as intensive training for a small number of Chinese officials on how to engage with—and effectively counter—human rights related inquiries, criticism and recommendations.” Read more
