After Chinese legislators pass a symbolic amendment at a parliament session starting this week, the constitution will the first time protect human rights, but the step is unlikely to open the floodgates to free speech.
Enshrining human rights will invite some internal debate and could fling sider the door to more reforms, but the step is unlikely to have an impact on China's record of abuses. The constitution already guarantees freedom of religion, speech and assembly but these rights are exercised within limits.
"China's human rights concept is still very vague," said Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic and dissident jailed after the 1989 pro-democracy protests centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square:
"The most basic problem is that the state's respect and protection for human rights clashes with the system of rule with one party at the core in the constitution," he said.
Still, analysts say the amendment reflects a recognition by the government of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao that China must somehow address human rights concerns.
"It's an important signal that China has embraced, or has been lured into embracing, the human rights concept and language," Nicolas Becquelin, of the New York-based watchdog Human Rights in China, said in Hong Kong Wednesday.
"It's a big legitimacy boost for all the people who have been working on ensuring better rights protection for Chinese citizens," he said, adding that it may also foreshadow change.
But the amendment is toothless on its own, in part because the wording is so vague. It states simply: "The state respects and guarantees human rights."
Rarely have lawyers attempted to invoke the constitution in court to back cases based on precedent, unlike the use of its U.S. counterpart. The document is meant to set a broad standard. Some Chinese laws even go against the constitution.
"It's a positive statement," said a Western diplomat.
PUBLIC RELATION, FOREIGN RELATIONS
The motivation, however, was not clear. "Is it true reform? Or is it an acknowledgement that they need to do a better job of public relations?" the diplomat asked.
China has insisted fundamental human rights mean feeding, clothing and housing its 1.3 billion people and that individual rights should take a back seat.
But human rights complaints are a perennial thorn in the side of China's foreign relations.
The United States, the European Union and others have pressed China for years to stop what they see as abuses, such as religious persecution, torture, forced confessions and political imprisonments. Last month, the State Department upbraided China once again in its annual world human rights report.
Two days before the start of the annual National People's Congress, or parliament, a U.S.-based rights group said the sentence on a jailed Muslim Uighur activist and businesswoman had reduced for "genuine repentance and willingness to reform."
But Yang Jianli, a U.S. citizen in jail for spying and illegally entering China, went on a hunger strike to protest against "deplorable" treatment in custody, another group said.
Calls from within China to improve certain aspects of its human rights record have also been growing, and some high profile cases have led to changes in the law.
Last year, China overturned legislation that gave police sweeping powers to detain vagrants and ship them to their home provinces without due process after the death of a designer in custody for not having proper papers sparked widespread outrage.
The constitutional amendment "is a government reaction to international and domestic demand," said Teng Biao of the China Politics and Law University.
"But it won't have a big influence on common people if it is just simply written down on paper," Teng said. "The most urgent thing is the reform of judicial system."