Kofi Annan's recent statement is seminal. The UN Secretary-General asserted that in cases of massive government-sponsored abuse, such as genocide and ethnic cleansing, the world community must put the victims' rights to life and safety ahead of the victimisers' claims of national sovereignty.
This assertion has annoyed a number of countries, including China. (In fairness, it also would have annoyed Britain during the days of the East India Company and the US during the era of black slavery.) Poor China. After a long struggle for sovereignty, it discovers such sovereignty isn't what it used to be. The discovery comes as a shock because China wasn't paying attention; it was looking inwards, preoccupied with the revolution, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
If it had been looking outwards, it would have noted a sea change in international attitudes towards sovereignty, brought about by the struggle to assimilate the lessons of Hitler's Holocaust. The lessons are: (1) in a modern, totalitarian state, any sort of horror is possible; (2) other states are morally obligated to oppose the horror by force of arms; and (3) to sit in judgment of its perpetrators.
On the issue of rights versus sovereignty, China cannot afford to stand shoulder to shoulder with a handful of thug nations, such as North Korea and Iraq, and defy the rest of the world.
There are powerful interests in the West and elsewhere which would like to see China ostracised, isolated and weak.
Stiff-necked Chinese posturing about the sacredness of national sovereignty, above and beyond any other consideration, plays right into their hands.
