Gu Chunde
China

With reform and opening up well in place for over 30 years, the retrospect of the tough process China's human rights theory research and innovation have come through, comprehensive display of its theoretical achievements in this respect and the vision of China's human rights theory development carry significant theoretical and practical implications for the promotion of China's human rights theory and its scientific development of human rights cause.

I. The Hard Course of China's Human Rights Theory Research and Innovation
Generally, China's human rights theory research and innovation have undergone four stages for the past over 30 years of reform and opening up.

1. The first stage, from the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee to 1988
The early days since reform and opening up were haunted by the lingering fear of "cultural revolution"; its abuses of democracy, rule of law and human rights naturally gave rise to the call for genuine democracy, rule of law and human rights. As explicitly stated in the Report of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee (Dec. 1978), "civil rights stipulated by the Constitution shall be firmly defended and shall not be violated by anyone." Items on people's basic human rights in 1982 Constitution added up to 28, unprecedentedly high for the time being. Meanwhile, initial discussion on human rights was launched in the theory circle and articles on human rights theory began to make successive appearance on newspaper and magazines. It does not take much effort to pinpoint the keynote of these articles as far as the content was concerned: human rights were regarded as no more than political slogan and ideology for hypocritical bourgeois; the insistence on the respect for human rights amounted to the blatant demonstration to the party and the government. This notion didn't come without skeptics who otherwise viewed socialism and human rights as essentially integrated and believed that the fight for and protection of human rights continued in the socialist period.