From the CS Monitor:
China will face unprecedented scrutiny of its human rights record Monday in a key test of Beijing's readiness to answer international criticism over its treatment of political opponents.
Beijing has sent a large, high-level delegation to Geneva to defend China's human rights performance in the face of questioning from members of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
"This is an important test both for China and for the United Nations," says Nicholas Bequelin, a China expert with Human Rights Watch.
Some observers doubt that the formal and generally nonconfrontational UN body will actually put China on the spot for the wide-ranging human rights violations of which its authoritarian government stands accused [...] Monday's meeting "will be a kabuki dance, a farce," argues Brett Schaefer, an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, unless China takes foreign criticism more seriously than it has done until now.
Human rights activists here and abroad, however, express hopes that Monday's meeting will indeed help speed China's efforts to improve its rights record.
Hmmm... well I certainly have a few questions I would love to ask the Chinese (see here and here and here, and oh, well heck... here too). Though if their answers will be in any way analogous to the ones I received during my own fieldwork, I'm not quite sure how worthwhile this meeting will actually be.