Perfidious Marianne

EVERY year about now China's official press trumpets the country's progress on human rights, and readers write in, accusing western countries of “turning a blind eye to China's marvellous accomplishments”. The trumpeting is timed to coincide with the annual six-week sitting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Every year since the Beijing massacre of 1989, resolutions have been put forward condemning China's human-rights record. Each time, China calls in favours from those many little countries it has assiduously courted over the years, and the motion fails.