In 1966 the United Nations passed the two International Human Rights Covenants, which were among of the great achievements of mankind. They were adopted in five equally binding languages, one of which was Chinese. The People's Republic of China is generally assumed to have ratified one, and signed (but not yet ratified) the other. However, in 1973 (soon after the PRC began representing China in the UN), new Chinese-language versions of each ＂Covenant＂ mysteriously came into existence. These are what one has been apt to find if one went to the UN's Web site, and they are what the Chinese government treats as the ＂Covenants.＂ They contain substantial revisions from what the UN passed in 1966 and have been ratified by at least 161 other countries. The (real) Covenants are actually domesticized law in places like Hong Kong and Taiwan, but the revised versions that Beijing follows are so different that some might question whether China actually embraced either Covenant. The Covenants grant rights that the revisions would withdraw, and in a few cases the revisions recognize rights that are absent in the Covenants. This all gives rise to the question of whether China is a responsible actor within the international legal order, and whether she is a reliable partner when it comes to entering into agreements with other countries or acceding to international conventions. Given that China comprises over one-fifth of humanity, it also brings into question whether the principles in the Covenants can claim universal validity and anything like universal acceptance.