-- An Address at the Opening Ceremony of the 7th Beijing Forum on Human Rights, Sept. 17, 2014
Cai Mingzhao, Minister of the State Council Information Office of China

In November 2012, immediately after the close of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), CPC Central Committee General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed to “realize the Chinese dream of the great revival of the Chinese nation.” He emphasized that the fulfillment of the Chinese dream regarding the great revival of the Chinese nation is simply the realization of the country’s prosperity, the nation’s revival and the people’s happiness. All in all, the Chinese dream is the people’s dream. General Secretary Xi Jinping has specifically pointed out that the Chinese dream we want to achieve involves offering people better education, more stable employment, more satisfactory incomes, more reliable social security, better medical services, more comfortable housing conditions, and a more beautiful environment. It also involves helping children grow better, work better and live better; enabling everyone to develop and make a contribution to society; sharing the opportunity for a bright life; sharing the opportunity to achieve one’s dream; and sharing the opportunity of equal participation and equal development.

In order to fulfill the Chinese dream, we have established two “hundred-year goals.” To be specific, we are going to completely build a well-off society by 2020, with both the GDP and the per capita incomes of urban and rural residents doubled in comparison with 2010; and a modernized socialist country with prosperity, democracy, advanced civilization and harmony, realizing the great revival of the Chinese nation. Around these goals, many new measures involving human rights protection have been proclaimed in succession since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, and the cause of human rights in China has experienced further development.

-- Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Have Been Further Guaranteed. In recent years, people’s living standards have steadily improved, social security has rapidly developed, and equalization of basic public services has taken a new step forward. Accordingly, people’s right to existence and development has been better guaranteed. In 2013, the size of the deprived population in rural areas of China dropped by 16.50 million, and registered unemployment in cities and towns remained at 4.1 percent, a relatively lower level than the 6 percent average global unemployment rate announced by the International Labor Organization. The nation’s new social security program in rural areas and social security program for urban residents now covers the entire population, forming the largest social security system in the world. As of June 2014, more than 1.32 billion people were participating in the medical insurance system for urban employees, the medical insurance system for urban residents and the new rural cooperative medical care system. Educational resources and public cultural services have been further equalized and extended to more people. The State has emphatically supported the rural areas in middle and western China, regions occupied by ethnic minorities and areas in poverty, in order to improve their poor schooling conditions. In addition, much more attention has been paid to the transfer of public cultural resources to the lower strata of society.

-- Citizens’ Rights and Political Rights Have Been Effectively Guaranteed. During the 12th National People’s Congress held in 2013, the distribution of NPC representatives from rural and urban areas for the first time reflected the distribution of urban and rural population in society. In addition, the number of representatives from the lower strata of society increased, and the number of peasant-worker representatives doubled. The channels for rights relief have been continually smoothed and broadened; special efforts have been made to solve notable problems concerning petitions through letters and visits; and the masses’ claims for benefits have been actively responded to. Corruption has been strictly punished, and supervision and restriction over public power have been strengthened, leaving public power functioning in the sunlight. Accordingly, remarkable achievements have been attained in the establishment of clean politics. The means for citizens to exercise freedom of the press have multiplied, and the Internet has become one of the most important channels through which citizens can express their opinions. As of June 2014, the number of netizens in China reached 632 million, and the popularization rate of the Internet was as high as 46.9 percent. Within the scope of the Constitution and the law, the public can discuss various social problems at will.

-- Legal Guarantees of Human Rights Have Taken Important Steps. The construction of the rule of law has sped up in China. China has insisted on ruling the country by law and carrying out the Constitutional principle of “respecting and protecting human rights” through all stages of legislation, administration and judicature. In all, the level of human rights protection has been constantly improved. The reform of the judicial system has been further deepened and the construction of a just, efficient and authoritative socialist judicial system has been sped up to guarantee the people’s rights and interests and maintain justice in society. The system of judicial guarantees for human rights has been improved; the system of re-education through labor has been abolished; crimes seriously infringing citizens’ personal rights have been punished according to the law; a mechanism prohibiting and rectifying cases in which people are unjustly, falsely or wrongly charged or sentenced has been enhanced; and many measures have been simultaneously taken to guarantee the personal rights of criminal suspects, defendants and detainees.

-- Consciousness of Human Rights Has Been Intensified Throughout Society. After the concept of “human rights” was written into the Constitution, the concept of “respecting and protecting human rights” was included in important documents such as the Constitution of the Communist Party of China, becoming an important principle and basic guideline for the CPC and the Chinese government in ruling the country. China has developed two National Human Rights Action Plans, and the second of these, for the period 2012-2015, is being carried out in good order. Various tasks and particular indexes are being effectively implemented. The popularization and specialization of human rights education has made new progress, and five more famous universities have been named national human rights education and training bases. Now, centers for human rights education have been set up in tens of universities and colleges in China, and have been active in doing work on human rights training.

-- China Has Actively Taken Part in International Exchanges and Cooperation on Human Rights. China has actively taken part in the UN’s multilateral human rights meetings, participating in reviews and discussions concerning the subject of human rights. In 2013, China smoothly passed the second universal periodic review by the UN Human Rights Council, and most countries attending the conference sufficiently confirmed the progress that China has made in the field of human rights, supporting China in promoting and protecting human rights in accordance with its own national situation. In 2013, China was selected as a member of the UN Human Rights Council for the period from 2014-2016 by a huge vote. Now, China holds dialogues and discussions about human rights with nearly 20 countries each year, improving understanding between itself and other countries.

China’s development and prosperity have not only improved the development of its own human rights work, but have made contributions to the cause of human rights around the world.

According to statistics from authoritative institutions, in 2013, China’s contribution to world economic growth was nearly 30 percent, and China has become one of the major engines for pushing forward global economic growth. In recent years, China has used various forms of assistance to support and assist other developing countries, especially the most underdeveloped countries, in the fields of poverty reduction, grain security, trade development, crisis prevention and reconstruction, population development, women and children’s healthcare, the prevention and control of diseases, education, environmental protection, and so on. This year, in the face of the spread of Ebola in West Africa, China has sent several groups of experts in public health to the countries suffering the most, including Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and has provided a large amount of emergency relief materials to help the local people prevent and control the epidemic. Since its first participation in UN peacekeeping operations in 1990, China has taken part in 24 such UN activities, and has dispatched peacekeeping personnel a total of more than 25,000 person-times to participate in these activities. In other words, China has sent more engineering, transportation and medical units than any other country that has sent troops to participate in UN peacekeeping operations. It is also the developing country that pays the most apportioned peacekeeping funds.

After years of exploration and effort, China has successfully found a path of human rights development suitable to its own national situation. Summarizing the practice of human rights in China, we come to the following few ideas:

First, the principle of the universality of human rights should be combined with the particular situation of a given country. The world develops multi-dimensionally, and there is no universal mode of human rights. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, which was passed by the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, points out, “The significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind.” Likewise, ancient Chinese people said, “While oranges are grown south of the Huai River, they produce oranges, but when they are planted north of the river, they yield Chinese bitter oranges instead.” Different people and countries have different understandings and requirements for human rights, and the problems that they face and need to solve first are not all the same either. China is a large developing country with a population over 1.3 billion. The human rights development of China has been synchronous with its economic and social development all the time, and economic development and the improvement of people’s livelihood have always been the crux of all problems. That is the fundamental reason why China has taken the rights to subsistence and development as the primary human rights.

Second, the emphatic improvement and all-round development of human rights should be coordinated. It should be noted that no country can put into practice all human rights at the same time. Human rights protection can be better accomplished only when people start with the national situation and reality of their own country to determine the human rights that should be emphasized. China underwent heavy calamities and became weak due to poverty in modern times. It has been the greatest aspiration and pursuit of the Chinese people to shake off the backwards state and live a happy life. Therefore, China has always taken economic and social rights as a primary starting point for human rights protection, emphatically solving the problems of people’s livelihood and interests that are most direct and most practical, with which the masses are most concerned. It endeavors to enable each member of society to live more happily and with more dignity. At the same time, China pays attention to viewing various human rights as an interdependent and indivisible organic whole; pushes forward the cause of human rights in a coordinated way together with economic construction, political construction, cultural construction, social construction and ecological construction; boosts the harmonious development of the economy, society, cultural rights, citizen’s rights and political rights; and improves the coordinated development of individual human rights and collective human rights.
 

Third, the Unity of Rights with Peace and Development Should Be Adhered to. Peace implies security, stability and harmony, while development means being free from poverty and disease. Development lays a foothold for peace, while peace is the very condition of development. One cannot expect a huge tree of peace in an infertile land, or the abundant fruits of development from war. China has always held that the right to peace and the right to development are just like the two wings of a bird, and that it will not do without either of them. For China, the exercise of the people’s right to development requires two basic conditions: 1) a harmonious and stable domestic environment; and 2) a peaceful international situation. If generalized into one point, these two conditions just mean guaranteeing the people’s right to peace. For years, China has adhered to the path of peaceful development, which has effectively guaranteed the Chinese people’s rights to peace and development, and meanwhile has made its required contributions to the improvement of such rights of people throughout the world.

Fourth, the Relations of Human Rights Development Between the Present and the Future Should Be Handled Well. The cause of human rights is boundless, and so it is with human rights development. The history of mankind repeatedly shows that the work of human rights protection cannot be achieved in one breath. It is certainly a long historical process to develop from human rights that “ought to be” to legalized human rights and finally to actual human rights. The progress that China has made in the development of its cause of human rights is visible to everyone, but China is a large developing country, and the problems of imbalance, disharmony and lack of sustainability in development are still serious. In China, the realization of human rights protection at a higher level still requires more effort, and has still a long way to go. China insists on starting with its own national situation and reality. While trying to do well its various work regarding respecting and protecting human rights and laying a sound foundation for the sustainable development of human rights, China maintains a long-term perspective in order to constantly improve its level of human rights protection, and work hard so that all people enjoy more sufficient rights.

Fifth, International Dialogue and Cooperation on Human Rights Should Be Adhered to. China has always held that only through equal dialogue and practical cooperation can countries, which have different social systems and are at different development levels, together push forward the healthy development of the international cause of human rights. For years, with respect to the question of human rights, China has always advocated dialogue and opposed confrontation, and even more strongly rejected intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries in the name of human rights. Hegemony does not accord with the principle of democracy, and pressure cannot bring about any human rights culture. China has proposed that various civilizations should respect, understand, learn from and support each other, and that all countries in the world should, through dialogue, exchange and cooperation, endeavor to boost the development and progress of various causes, including human rights, and work together to create a favorable future for mankind.

In the cause of human rights, there is no “best,” there is only “better.” Furthermore, human rights improvement and protection have no perfect tense but only a progressive tense. To realize sufficient human rights protection, we still have much to do. We sincerely hope, using the Beijing Forum on Human Rights as a platform, that people both from China and other countries will be able to deeply communicate and learn from each other, coming up with new ways to better develop human rights in China.