The 2015 Beijing Forum on Human Rights jointly organized by the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS) and the China Foundation for Human Rights Development (CFHRD) opens today. On behalf of the CFHRD, I’d like to convey my cordial congratulations to the opening of the forum and extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the friends long caring for and supporting China’s human rights.

 

At the grand celebration on September 3, 2015 at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing for the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the Global War against Fascism, President Xi Jinping delivered a speech, expressing the firm determination of Chinese people to “bear in mind the history, cherish the memory of revolutionary martyrs, love peace and open up the future.” During such an important celebration, we started the 2015 Beijing Forum on Human Rights. Experts, scholars and leaders of human rights organizations from more than 30 countries will focus on the themes of the victory of the Global War against Fascism and human rights progress and jointly discuss ways to maintain and promote human rights to peace, subsistence and development, which embodies tremendous and far-reaching significance. 

 

Seven decades ago, the victory of the Global War against Fascism energetically advanced the progress of international human rights endeavors and initiated the new journey of the resurrection of China. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, especially in the process of the reform and opening up, Chinese people led by the Communist Party of China strenuously struggled for, developed and strengthened national power, achieved rapid economic growth, constantly improved people’s livelihood and made major contributions to the cause of human rights and world peace.

 

China persistently gives priorities to people’s rights to subsistence and development and has made major contributions to economic development, people’s livelihood improvement and poverty alleviation. The Chinese government has always highly valued the the rights to subsistence and development of more than 1.3 billion people. Since the reform and opening up, we have vigorously carried out the task of helping the poor under the circumstance of the Chinese reality featuring a vast land, a huge population and unbalanced prosperity levels, which showed outstanding achievements. Statistics show that with the international poverty benchmark China has cut the total number of impoverished population by 660 million since 1978, which equaled to 93.3 percent of the impoverished people worldwide. China sustains one fifth of the world population with seven percent of the cultivated land in the world, marking a far-reaching significance in protecting human rights. 

 

China advocates that development is of overriding importance and has blazed a trail with distinctive characteristics for a peaceful rise suitable to China’s national conditions. After long, arduous and tortuous exploration, China has set up the objective to “build a prosperous, democratic, civilized and harmonious socialist modernized country” through peaceful development. The Chinese government has adhered to the principle of governing the country for the people, through the reform and opening up, significantly motivated the unprecedented enthusiasm of the Chinese people for innovation, ushered in the historic journey to development, created the China model, China miracle and China speed, and made theoretical and practical endeavors to safeguard Chinese people’s rights to subsistence and development before getting related experience.

 

China upholds the independent and peaceful foreign policy, firmly safeguards the shared rights to peace of the mankind, advocates peace and opposes wars in international affairs. China has always adhered to the independent and peaceful foreign policy, opposed the logic that “a powerful country will surely seek hegemony” and solemnly declared to the world that “China will never seek hegemony or go in for expansion.” General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed to establish “the awareness of a common human destiny” and “positively construct the new-type international relationship focusing on cooperation and win-win.” The Chinese government has devoted itself to stepping up the process of international peace in a positive stance. Since 1990, China has actively participated in UN peacekeeping operations and dispatched 30,178 officers and soldiers. As the one, among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, dispatching the most peacekeepers, China won respect of global people who love peace for its taking UN peacekeeping missions and playing like a responsible great power. 

 

Peace and development compose the mainstream of a modern world. The right to development has been gradually identified by the international society as a basic human right. However, the modern world still lacks impartial and powerful protection for the international order while the developing countries are still confronted with an arduous task for development. The recent Syrian refugee flows troubling Europe and a series of accidents produced by extremist terrorists are posing challenges to human peace and security and warning us of unexpected fate of the mankind. For this reason, I hereby make the following propositions:

 

--To complete the global economic governance system and strive to construct the new international order for fair development of all countries. We should make joint efforts with other countries and enhance representation and right of speech of the emerging and developing countries in international economic development. We should promote the realization of the objectives of the Declaration on the Right to Development and urge on the developed countries to take more concrete actions and honor their commitments to financial aid, technology transfer, debt relief and market access. China will also apply a series of moves such as implementing the Belt and Road Initiative and constructing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to create new opportunities of cooperation and development and the mutually-beneficial and win-win platform for the myriad of the developing countries. 

 

--To adhere to the path of peaceful development and endeavor to establish a new-type international relationship focusing on cooperation and win-win. The mankind in the modern society is supplied with more conditions to achieve peace and development. “Harmony brings strength while isolation leads to weakness.” All-win cooperation must be the basic policy orientation of all countries to deal with international affairs. We should strengthen cooperation with other countries in economy, trade, productivity, energy and science and technology, make efforts to expand interest convergence of all parties, share the rights and responsibilities and yield mutual benefits and win-win results. We should join more countries in addressing such global problems as climate change, energy security, network security and major natural disasters, as well as protecting the planet that the mankind depends on. 

 

--To firmly defend human peace, take history as a mirror, safeguard human rights and justice and withstand extremist terrorism. Defending peace and withstanding conflicts and chaos caused by war constitute the shared responsibilities and interests of all countries in the world. We should firmly oppose the so-called “human rights defenders” in the international community that indiscreetly criticize other countries, intervene in internal affairs of other countries and even spare no efforts to resort to the use of force or sanctions to permeate and subvert other countries on the pretext of protecting human rights. We should, together with other countries, advocate cooperation and sustainable security outlook, take coordinated actions, support each other and jointly prevent and combat terrorism in all forms. Besides, we should join all peace-loving people in the world to fight against plots or misdeeds to repudiate, distort or tamper the history of WWII, safeguard the victory of the Global War against Fascism and maintain the fair and just international order based on peace, equality and human rights. 

 

--To fully respect the rights to subsistence and development of all the countries, especially the developing countries, and prioritize the rights to subsistence and development. The rights to subsistence and development are the basic human rights of top priorities and also the prerequisites to realize other human rights. Nonetheless, the rights to subsistence and development are still hard to be realized in some countries due to the unjust international order. To overcome those difficulties, the countries should find a way suitable to their own development and their national conditions, which should be respected and supported by other countries, especially developed countries. In this regard, developed countries should take more important international obligations.

 

Respecting the history and taking history as a mirror compose the cornerstone of human development and progress. At the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Global War against Fascism, we get together in Beijing, communicate with each other sincerely and discuss the path to peaceful development of the future world at a proper time and with great significance. I hope that all of you can air your views freely and contribute your wisdom and advice to the cause of world human rights progress. 

 

I wish the forum a great success.