WANG Xigen*

 

Abstract: Chinese people fought for national independence during the revolutionary time whereas now, in the process of peaceful construction, they dedicate to the achievement of free and comprehensive development. The complete revolution is a fundamental characteristic of human rights construction in contemporary China. Standing at the crossroad between history and reality, to promote Chinese people’ development and to realize great rejuvenation of the nation, China Dream, put forward against the background of globalization, actually can be interpreted as a human rights dream which belongs to each and every individual in China.

 

Keywords: Chinese Dream   Human Rights    Politics of Law

 

In the time dimension of the history-reality connection and the space dimension of planning China’s development against the background of globalization, the Chinese Dream of the great renewal of the Chinese nation profoundly presents such a philosophy: the Chinese Dream is essentially the human rights dream of the entire people and all its individuals. Against the background of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way and realizing the Chinese Dream of the great renewal of the Chinese nation, deepening studies of the internal connection between the Chinese Dream and human rights is of great realistic and profound historical significance for improving the legal system for protecting human rights and enabling all people to enjoy development achievements equally.[page]

 

 

The Chinese Dream is essentially the human rights dream. “Realizing the great renewal of the Chinese nation is the greatest dream of the Chinese nation in modern times. The dream reflects the hope of the Chinese people for several generations, embodies the overall interests of the Chinese nation and the Chinese people and is the common hope of every Chinese people.”¹ The Chinese Dream and human rights are in the relationship of form and content, as well as appearance and internal essence. The Chinese Dream, the renewal dream and the human rights dream are combined together and cannot be separated. In order to realize the Chinese Dream, we have established two 100-year goals, which not only directly confirm and declare human rights, but also reflect China’s determination and confidence in human rights. The first goal is to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way by 2020, which means a human rights system consisting of economic rights with sustainable and healthy economic development, political rights with increasingly expanding people’s democracy, cultural rights with remarkably improved cultural soft power, social rights with greatly increased people’s livelihood, and environmental rights with great progress made in resource-saving and the construction of an environmentally friendly society. The implementation of the rule of law strategy in an all-round way, the construction of law-based government, constant improvement of judicial credibility and the goal of pragmatically respecting and protecting human rights are not only in line with reality, but also signify the organically unified relations between the rule of law and human rights. The second goal is to construct a prosperous, democratic, civilized and harmonious socialist country by 2050 so as to realize the great renewal of the Chinese nation. The economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights appeals in the renewal dream show the human rights ideals of a harmonious world, common prosperity, equality for all and just sharing of development achievements.

 

Human rights is the ultimate value of the Chinese Dream. The main body of the Chinese Dream is the people; its core is the fundamental interests of the people, and the externalization of these interests is human rights. In terms of legal philosophy, human rights are, first of all, a kind of qualification. The Chinese Dream interprets China’s development path from the angles of national independence and liberation. Starting from the political language of “liberation of the people,” identification recognition and intensification of the Chinese nation in history and the world mean to affirm, authorize and highlight the qualifications of the Chinese “people.” The Chinese Dream stresses people respecting each other and the international community respecting the personal dignity of the Chinese nation. The Chinese Dream based on the people’s qualification is undoubtedly guided by human rights in value. Freedom is the key element of human rights. The realization of the Chinese Dream depends on the deepening of reforms in an all-round way, and the need to “further emancipate minds, further liberate and develop social productive forces and further liberate and enhance social vitality.”² As the starting point of a moderately prosperous society, liberating and developing productive forces essentially mean liberation of the people, namely, increasing people’s capacity to shake off the control of nature and people-to-people slavery and return people’s natural attribute back to the people. This is the best indication of freedom. Interest is the core of human rights. The impetus of the Chinese Dream is all-round reform, namely, on one hand, “we must make sure that the vigor of labor, knowledge, technology, managerial expertise and capital keeps bursting forth, all the wealth-creating sources fully flow, and that the fruits of development benefit all people even more and equally.”³ On the other hand, efforts should be made to make breakthroughs in contradictory focuses so as to constantly optimize the allocation of interests and resources. Justice is the prerequisite for human rights. The Chinese Dream has the clear human rights characteristic of social equality. In the macro world, China illustrates its strategic thought through the harmonious ideal of letting some of the people get rich for the ultimate goal of common prosperity; in the micro world, all efforts are to give equal opportunity to every Chinese person to realize their dreams. [page]

 

Finally, human rights are more than the freedom and qualification of just interests. More importantly, the freedom and qualification are definitely not simply something on paper and should be insisted on and claimed. Reality is the sufficient prerequisite for the establishment of human rights. No matter whether all-round reform is centered on governance or the planning of development goals and maps, or whether the improvement of hard power or the construction of soft power include cultural, institutional and legal reforms, human rights featuring expanding the people’s base and fully realizing human rights are the essentials and tenets. The human rights dream is a necessary part and core value of the Chinese Dream, as well as the necessary path and fundamental attribute for realizing the Chinese Dream.

 

 

 

Rights are forever subject to the economic conditions of the society and its cultural development. Analyzing the human rights dream from the social and historical angles is of great significance to proving the realistic legality and historical legality of the human rights dream. “The Chinese Dream of realizing the great national renewal has been the long cherished dream of the Chinese people since modern times. After the Opium War in 1840, our nation was subjected to a century of foreign invasion and internal conflict and our people endured untold suffering and pain. The modern history of China is filled with trials and tribulations. The Chinese people support the Chinese Dream from the bottom of their hearts, because this dream is, first and foremost, a dream shared by the 1.3 billion people of China.”⁴ According to analysis by human rights experts, although China did not have the concept of human rights in ancient times, it did have the initial sprout of human rights thought.⁵ But the human rights concept in a real sense was introduced to China from the West, influenced by the Enlightenment in modern times. Undeniably, ancient Chinese civilization already had the beautiful image of a world of great harmony. In modern times, human rights movements emerged in China. The Chinese people are not strangers to human rights. From slogan-based human rights to realistic human rights, and from avoiding human rights on purpose to including human rights in the Constitution, the changes indicate the long path of human rights. “The Chinese Dream is history, reality, as well as the future. The Chinese Dream is the embodiment of the unremitting efforts of uncountable personages and carries the common wishes of all the Chinese people. It signifies the beautiful prospects of state prosperity, national renewal and people’s happiness.”⁶ So, we can see that the Chinese human rights dream is of great historical significance in realizing renewal and development of the Chinese nation since modern times.[page]

 

 

    Xi Jinping once said:

 

    To realize the goal of constructing a moderately prosperous society, building a prosperous, democratic, civilized and harmonious socialist modern nation and realizing the Chinese Dream of great renewal of the Chinese nation, we need to realize the Chinese Dream of great renewal of the Chinese nation, realize state prosperity, national renewal and people’s happiness. This not only embodies the Chinese people’s ideals today, but also reflects the glorious tradition of our forefathers of constantly seeking progress.⁷

 

And he added that “the Chinese Dream belongs to the state, the nation as well as every Chinese person. Only after the state and the nation achieve benefits can everyone achieve benefits. Only after everyone struggles for beautiful dreams can we pool the strong force of realizing the Chinese Dream.”⁸ Realizing the Chinese human rights dream is of great realistic significance in constructing a moderately prosperous society and building a socialist modern country with Chinese characteristics.

 

 

The Chinese Dream is the “dream of peace.” Peace and development are the greatest themes of today’s world, as well as the basic theme of China. From Deng Xiaoping’s “Development is of overriding importance,” to Jiang Zemin’s “Development should be given top priority in governance,” Hu Jintao's “comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable Scientific Outlook on Development” and Xi Jinping’s “the Chinese Dream of great renewal of the Chinese nation,” we can see the main thread from “development” to “renewal,” and the strategy of promoting “renewal” with “development” and bringing about more high-quality “development” with “renewal.” There will be no development without a peaceful domestic and international environment. Xi said, [page]

 

“The Chinese people have valued the concept of harmony without sameness since ancient times. We hope that countries and civilizations will carry out exchanges on an equal footing, learn from each other and achieve common progress. We hope that people of all countries in the world can share the fruits of global advances in economy, science and technology and have their wishes respected, and all countries can make united efforts to build a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity.”⁹

 

“To realize the Chinese Dream, we must stick to peaceful development. We will unswervingly take the path of peaceful development and always stick to the opening-up strategy of mutual benefit and win-win progress. China not only focuses on its own development, but also stresses its responsibilities and contributions to the world; China benefits not only the Chinese people, but also people from all over the world. Realizing the Chinese Dream will bring peace to the world, not riots, and will bring opportunities, not threats.”¹⁰ 

 

In the context of globalization, the internal connection between the Chinese Dream and human rights is reflected in the new generation of human rights, namely, the right to peace and right to development, in a centralized manner.[page]

 

In conclusion, the Chinese human rights dream is the upgraded version of human rights in the context of the Chinese Dream. The Chinese human rights dream is the progress and breakthroughs made on the basis of conducting exchange and dialogue with traditional human rights ideals. The Chinese human rights dream is the result of creative transformation of China’s human rights. On the one hand, the Chinese Dream is connected with the dreams of all the human beings. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, regional human rights conventions and constitutions and constitutional documents of various countries solemnly declare that men are equal regardless of their congenital or postnatal conditions such as their race, social position, religion or property. The exclusive qualification affirmation reflects not only the universality of human rights, but also people’s progress in their recognition of themselves. The Chinese nation is launching a new round of comprehensive reform so as to stand high among the world’s advanced nations with inclusive and open attitudes. In other words, China is treating the value of dignity and interest appeal of human beings with peaceful, harmonious, reasonable and civilized human rights concepts and is inputting more world dream elements into the Chinese Dream. On the other hand, the Chinese Dream also has an internal essence with clear characteristics and unique social attributes. There should be a shift from ideal human rights to practical human rights to call for concrete and realistic human rights, instead of abstract ones. Based on such an analysis, we can see that human rights are the result of universal human rights integrated into local knowledge.

 

 

 

Human rights belong to every single person and individuals are the end enjoyers of human rights. But human rights also belong to the human family. Viewed from human rights forms recognized internationally, we can see that all rights, no matter whether they are the rights of different ethnic groups and races or the rights of special groups such as women, children and people living with disabilities, are expressed and protected in a collective way. However, individualism and collectivism have formed two totally different outlooks on human rights that seem incompatible. China’s human rights dream is based on the Chinese values of “seeking harmony, not uniformity” and “seeking common ground while reserving differences,” and, starting from the principle of the interrelationship between individuals and the society, clearly sets forward that “the Chinese Dream is the dream of the nation, as well as every Chinese person.” “The Chinese Dream is the dream of the country, the nation, as well as every Chinese person, including the vast group of young people.”¹¹ The Chinese human rights dream embodies the great unification of national collective human rights and individual human rights and will ultimately accrue to real and individual subjects through “all sharing the opportunities of adding brilliance to their lives, realizing their dreams and growing and making progress with the motherland and the era.”¹¹[page]

 

 

The Chinese Dream highlights simultaneous construction of political, economic, social, cultural and ecological progress. During this process, people can fully realize their political, economic, social, cultural and ecological rights. This thus changes the traditional viewpoint of focusing only on citizens’ political rights. It is not limited to the pure economic, social and cultural sectors. So, human rights in the context of the Chinese Dream is diversified and adjustable and interacts and balances first-generation human rights with the right to freedom at the core and second-generation human rights with social rights at the core, finding a new breakthrough to break the “cold war” pattern of human rights and realize transformation from the human rights outlook of binary opposition to a diversified human rights outlook. Its significance is more than breaking the old concept, but establishing new ones, namely, developing a socialist human rights form with Chinese characteristics on the basis of coordinating different outlooks on human rights and comprehensively deriving new forms of human rights from isolated individual rights. This is the right to comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development, mainly including social rights based on social equality, especially the rights of disadvantaged people to maintain social security, social assistance and social remedies, the rights of all people to equal participation and equal development based on the whole region or subject comparison, rights to sustainable development with the harmonious coexistence of human beings and Nature at the core, and the worldwide right to peaceful development.

 

 

Human rights in the context of the Chinese Dream is devoted to modifying the human rights object of physical and spiritual forms so as to realize the Chinese human rights dream with the spirit of comprehensive reforms. In China today, comprehensive reforms in the economic sector will upgrade the basic role of the market in resource allocation to a decisive role. China will further introduce private capital to areas such as finance, investment, commerce and resource development and utilization, reform the land system in rural areas and equally protect farmers’ land use rights. All these efforts are devoted to expanding the channels for realizing human rights. Democratic and legal reforms in the political area aim at strengthening the protection of citizens’ rights to participate in political affairs so as to lead reform with human rights and strengthen human rights with reform. In terms of sociocultural and ecological progress, there is a strong appeal for human rights. Specifically, the Chinese Dream is devoted to more proper and profound human rights practices through reforming and optimizing human rights objects. They are: (1) The Chinese Dream is the dream of development – realizing the right to development with the goal of sharing development achievements; (2) The Chinese Dream is the dream of peace – realizing the right to peace with social harmonious coexistence at the core; (3) The Chinese Dream is the dream of equality – realizing social rights with a focus on pragmatically improving people’s livelihood; (4) The Chinese Dream is the dream of powering the nation – realizing economic rights through deepening reforms in an all-round way; (5) The Chinese Dream is the dream of democracy – realizing political rights with developing democratic politics as the content; (6) The Chinese Dream is the dream of civilization – realizing cultural rights with strengthening spiritual progress as the pivot; (7) The Chinese Dream is the green dream – realizing environmental rights with constructing ecological progress as the strategy.[page]

 

 

The comprehensive development of human beings is the basic principle of Marxism, which also embodies the value of the Chinese Dream. Human rights in the context of the Chinese Dream are extremely rich and advanced no matter whether in form or in rank. All the forms of human rights or subhuman rights can be summarized as two basic human rights: the right to existence and the right to development. Some Western scholars simply equate the right to existence with the social right. In fact, the social right is only an important part of the right to existence, and it is hard for the social right to solve all the problems related to the right requirement of existence. We should effectively expand the border and area of rights and interpret human rights’ functions and direction in China on the national level as coping with the most urgent problems and the severest challenges facing Chinese people’s lives. The prominent contradictions influencing people’s living conditions and human rights realization in the current stage, such as food safety, public order and security, elementary education, basic medicine, air pollution and the environmental resource crisis should be given priority. The United Nations adopted a resolution on the right to development in 1979, officially including the right to development in human rights; In 1986, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development, solemnly announcing that the right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.¹² The United Nations is seeking to mainstream the right to development.¹³ There are three clear features in China’s practice concerning the right to development: The first is the authority of the supreme law. The Constitution clarifies that “the State respects and protect human rights” is a basic principle and clearly stipulates citizens’ right to educational and cultural development, the right to economic and social development and the right to democratic politics. The second is the authority of supreme politics. The Communist Party of China officially committed to ensure all people’s rights to equal participation and equal development by issuing supreme documents twice at its 10th and 18th national Party congresses. The third is the supreme legal philosophical basis. China established the ontological development principle, the “Scientific Outlook on Development,” which features comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development and putting people first. “In legislative language, putting people first means focusing on people’s rights and fully respecting and protecting human rights.”¹⁴ People-centered development is the ontological basis for the laws related to the right to development and has provided a scientific and theoretical basis for realizing all people’s right to development that cannot be surpassed, and sublated the understandings of Western theories such as social justice, global justice, social solidarity, postmodernism and postcolonialism on this issue.[page]

 

 

The human rights dream must be realized on the Chinese human rights path. Efforts should be made to profoundly reveal the necessity, basic structure and significance of the socialist human rights path with Chinese characteristics. By comparing the essential differences between Chinese and Western human rights and sublating the traditional outlook of human rights, we can find the value and significance of the Chinese Dream in the context of human rights, that is, the self-confidence about the path, the theory and the system of socialist human rights with Chinese characteristics is the basic precondition for realizing the Chinese human rights dream. Self-confidence is not blind, but relies on realistic strength and future directions. So, the Chinese human rights dream should have three characteristics: The first is pragmatism. We should gradually develop the human rights cause in order based on the pragmatic outlook on human rights. We can neither complete the work hastily nor make no progress by following old traditions. Focus should be put on the unity of opposites, the foreign human rights culture and domestic one, as well as the universalism and particularity of human rights. The second is making response. We should make responses to the reality of national conditions and overall development strategies, such as unbalanced development and low per-capita wealth possession, with a focus on breaking through the two difficulties of providing equal human rights protection in different regions and special protection to disadvantaged people. The third is making innovations. We should promote institutional innovation with ideological innovation and, based on this, push simultaneous improvement of the human rights protection level and protection technologies so as to establish a sound cycle of institution and practice. The focus should be on realizing the creative transformation of human rights viewpoints so as to establish an independent human right discourse system. Otherwise, it will be very hard to establish self-confidence about human rights.[page]

 

Regarding human rights jurisprudence, we have and will continue to make innovation in five aspects: The first is origin theory. We should stick to, enrich and develop the Marxist outlook on human rights in contemporary China so as to consolidate the legal and philosophic basis of human rights. The second is subject theory. We should pay special attention to proving the connection and transformation of the collective concept of human rights or collective human rights concept with individual human rights. The third is methodology. We should change from opposition and confrontation to sticking to principles as well as cooperation and communication with each other so as to abstract an excellent human rights cultural heritage. The communication and dialogue should be conducted on the basis of reasonably commenting on the Western legal philosophy of human rights so that Western opinions, Chinese opinions and opinions of other developing countries can be connected for analysis and discrimination. In this way, we can enhance our negotiation and appeal capacity and carry forward our human rights suggestions boldly. The fourth is focus theory. Human rights are an indivisble body with internal connections. But in different historical periods, they have different focuses. Western countries experienced the change from focusing on the right to freedom in modern times to focusing on social rights today to catering to the need for transforming from a traditional free market economy to a modern market economy. China is now accelerating market-oriented reforms. Soon, social problems, social contradictions and even social crises will emerge. So, we must launch human rights construction strictly according to the new characteristics of the transformation period and solve the problems of human rights protection in key areas such as development, improvement of people’s livelihood and social equality by controlling the focus of human rights. Of course, this definitely does not mean to exclude respect for other human rights.The fifth is practice theory. The shift from ideal human rights to practical human rights originated from the fact that the current institutional structure can provide forces and measures for colorful social practices. Legalization is the most effective way for practice. Only by developing human rights legislation into human rights jurisdiction and upgrading entity-based human rights to procedure-based human rights can we change human rights from a beautiful sign to the object that every person can possess and enjoy.[page]

 

To realize the Chinese Dream, we should adhere to self-confidence in the path, theory and institution of socialist human rights with Chinese characteristics. This is the most reliable guarantee for effectively realizing human rights. There are requirements in three aspects: First, reforming human rights protection through the rule by law. While strengthening legislation in key human rights areas, improving human rights judicial protection has become key to the construction of law-based China. One of the greatest characteristics in human rights protection in contemporary China is that human rights is shifting from legislation to the fast lane of jurisdiction. On the occasion when the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics has been completed, respecting and protecting human rights have been set as a constitutional principle and domestic and international human rights legislation keeps increasing, it has become the consensus that reform should lose no opportunity to shift from human rights legislation to human rights jurisdiction. Efforts should be made to research and implement human rights jurisdiction practices and countermeasures in the following seven areas: Standardizing the sealing up, detainment, freezing, allocation and handling procedures for case-related assets, eliminating the system of reeducation through labor, reducing death penalty-related crimes, launching the exclusionary rule for illegally obtained evidence, prohibiting extorting confessions by torture, physical punishment or ill treatment, standardizing procedures for serving sentences outside prison, and improving the community correction system, judicial relief system, legal aid system, legal aid system and protection system.¹⁵ In practice, we should focus on researching the accuracy, maneuverability and effectiveness of the human rights judicial protection system. Second, improving the human rights education and training system. Efforts should be made to shape people’s human rights virtue, improve the sense of human rights, affection for human rights and the capacity to realize rights according to the law for the social subjects. Notably, in terms of the relationship between human rights and the rule by law, we should establish the legal faith and confidence to solve human rights problems with legal philosophy so as to correctly handle the relations between safeguarding stability and safeguarding rights, and between petition and jurisdiction. The basis of safeguarding stability is safeguarding rights and the basic way to safeguard rights is the law. Human rights law has laid the ideological basis for human rights legalization and we can solve contradictions and safeguard human rights with legal philosophy and measures. In the context of law-based China, we should integrate the human rights dream with the dream of rule by law. Finally, improving the international discourse ability of human rights. The Chinese Dream is connected with the world. By analyzing China in the context of the whole world, we should improve China’s human rights image in the world by actively participating in human rights dialogues, taking part in international human rights activities, joining in related human rights laws and documents and guiding human rights development trends. We should realize that the power to make rules is the greatest discourse power and that guiding the formulation and improvement of international rules is the most fundamental way and the most important link in improving national core competitiveness. For this reason, we should further improve our effectiveness and efficiency in participating in international rule formulation and modification. By abiding by the principles of combining political diplomacy and technological diplomacy, and combining government diplomacy and people-to-people diplomacy, we can give play to and utilize the functions of individual experts’ effective participation and improve the human rights of a responsible power.[page]

 

In general, the value goal of the Chinese Dream is to realize all people’s right to free development. We should fully realize that the Chinese human rights dream is the scientific positioning and value function of the Chinese Dream, and should integrate the Chinese human rights dream into China’s legal construction so as to construct the three-in-one mode of realizing the human rights dream, namely, the organic unification of the construction of the human rights system in law-based China, the international discourse power of human rights and improvement of the awareness and attainment of subject human rights.

 

* WANG Xigen(汪习根), professor at law school, and executive director of the Institute for Human Rights, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.

 

1. Xi Jinping, “Breaking New Ground for the Future and Moving Forward Boldly to the Goal of the Great Renewal of the Chinese Nation,” People’s Daily, Nov. 30, 2012.

 

2. Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform, People’s Daily, Nov. 16, 2013.

 

3. Ibid.

 

4. “Xi Jinping Meets the Press from BRICS Countries,” People’s Daily, March 20, 2013.

 

5. Xia Yong, Origin of the Concept of Human Rights, Beijing: Publishing House of the China University of Political Science and Law, 1992.[page]

 

6. “Xi Jinping Talking to Representatives of Outstanding Young People from All Walks of Life,” People’s Daily, May 5, 2013.

 

7. “Xi Jinping: Speech at the First Session of the 12th National People’s Congress,” People’s Daily, March 18, 2013.

 

8. Supra note 6.

 

9. Supra note 4.

 

10. “Xi Jinping’s Written Interview with Media from Three Latin American Countries”, People’s Daily, June 1, 2013.

 

11. Xi Jinping, “Be the Strugglers, Explorers and Dedicators Walking Ahead of the Era – A Reply to Students of Peking University (Excerpt),” People’s Daily, May 5, 2013.

 

11. Xi Jinping, “Speech at the First Session of the 12th National People’s Congress,” People’s Daily, March 18, 2013.

 

12. Article 1 of the Declaration on the Right to Development, resolution 41/128 of the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted on Dec. 4, 1986.

 

13. See UN. A/CHR/35 45/add.

 

14. Zhang Wenxian, General Theory of Legal Philosophy, Shenyang: Liaoning People’s Publishing House, 2009, at 411.

 

15. See supra note 2; Wang Xigen, “Improvement of the Human Rights Judicial Protection System,” Law and Social Development, No 1, 2014.