Three-dimensional Chinese development

Qi Yanping, Director of the Center for Sci&Tech and Human Rights Studies at Beijing Institute of Technology

It has been more than 30 years since I first heard the term human rights in college. I felt that human rights were very rich, beautiful and desirable thirty years ago, but now I feel that human rights have been polluted, trampled on and weaponized. Human rights, which were originally anti-war weapons, have become weapons used by some warlike countries to wage war, grossly interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and violate the human rights of other countries. Human rights, which were originally a bridge between countries and peoples with different histories and cultures, have become a high wall that hinders people's exchanges and dialogues and mutual learning among civilizations.

To borrow the famous words of the famous British writer Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, it can be said that this is the best era of human rights and the worst era of human rights; It is the age of human rights wisdom and the age of human rights stupidity. The reason of worst and stupid era is that the global human rights deficit caused by the energy crisis, food crisis, and decoupling and disconnection of chains continues to expand, the global human rights governance system is becoming increasingly unequal, the politicization of human rights instrumentalization is more prominent, the stigmatization of human rights in developing countries has become the national policy of developed countries, and the former pioneer countries of human rights are destroying the human rights edifice they have built through self-harm and double standards; It is the best and wise because developing countries are moving out of Western human rights centrism, drawing strength from their own history and culture, exploring experience from their own practice, and contributing multicultural richness to the world's human rights civilization.

In order to realize, safeguard and develop human rights well, we need to move from "thin human rights" to "thick human rights". The so-called thin values refer to the minimum human rights values expressed in abstract concepts that all countries may endorse, such as "equality of personality" "freedom of speech" "fair trial", and so on. Thick human rights, on the other hand, refer to specific and historical human rights rooted in the specific environment of each society, and thick human rights require more concrete, realistic and feasible conditions for the realization of thin human rights such as "personal equality", "freedom of speech" and "fair trial". It is relatively easy for countries to reach a consensus on thin human rights, but when it comes to solid human rights, what is needed is not to impose uniformity, but to adapt measures to local conditions, to solve the problem, and to have their own characteristics. Hiding in the thin concept of human rights, we will not find the pluralistic richness of human rights and will not find the way forward for the world's human rights civilization.

In the 60s of last century, the American philosopher Marcuse put forward a concept of " One-Dimensional Man " that swept the world, criticizing the unidirectional nature of science, art, philosophy, economy, society, political systems, thinking and ideas in developed capitalist countries, and the resulting one-dimensional alienation of man, that is, people have become formatted one-dimensional man, with only a single value and a single need. Human values and needs are not one-sided but three-dimensional, and human rights are necessarily not political and one-sided, but cover political, economic, social and cultural aspects, and are three-dimensional.

The three-dimensional development of Chinese rights is the proper meaning and inherent requirement of China's modernization. Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out that the modernization of the huge population scale is the modernization of the common prosperity of all the people, the modernization of the harmony between material civilization and spiritual civilization, the modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and the modernization of taking the path of peaceful development. The complexity, systematization and comprehensiveness of Chinese-style modernization determine the three-dimensional nature of the development of Chinese rights.

The development path of Chinese rights is three-dimensional. Instead of narrowly understanding human rights protection as judicial protection, China has successfully embarked on a three-dimensional national human rights development path. Its concrete embodiment is to bring together the top-down leadership of China's ruling party, the Chinese government's overall action power and the people's bottom-up driving force, and use political, economic, social and cultural means instead of legal means to promote the comprehensive development of all human rights through legislation, law enforcement and judicial channels instead of judicial means.

This path is led by the Communist Party of China to oversee the overall development of human rights, with the national legislature affirming human rights, the state administrative organs protecting human rights, the national judicial organs remedying human rights, and the state supervision organs supervising public officials to fully respect human rights. As a legal expert, I always pay attention to the effectiveness of the Chinese governance system and the level of rule of law.

As we all know, Xinjiang is located in northwest of China and is a beautiful place where many ethnic groups live, multi-cultural convergence and multi-religious coexistence. For some time, religious extremist forces have incited and coerced women to wear veiled robes and men to grow beards in the name of religion, and forbidden people to sing and dance. Terrorist forces have planned and carried out thousands of violent terrorist cases (incidents), resulting in the killing of a large number of innocent people and the death of hundreds of people's police, wantonly trampling on human rights, harming innocent lives, endangering public safety, and creating social panic. Under the leadership of the Party, all responsible organs have strictly abided by the Constitution and laws, worked together to crack down on terrorist forces in accordance with the law, and restored tranquility and beauty in Xinjiang. In recent years, I have conducted fieldwork with you many times and have been deeply touched by the atmosphere of unity and harmony among my brothers and sisters of all ethnic groups. This is a picture of our team's in-depth research in pastoral areas in southern Xinjiang.

The connotation of Chinese right is three-dimensional. In China, political democratic rights and economic livelihood rights are inseparable. China's continuous development of people's democracy throughout the process has ensured the extensive, full, truthful, concrete and effective application of the rights of the Chinese people. Chinese-style democracy is not a one-sided electoral democracy, and elections are not supported by money, but pursue the unity of process democracy and result democracy, procedural democracy and substantive democracy, direct democracy and indirect democracy, people's democracy and national will. China insists on protecting and promoting human rights in the course of development; without development laying the material foundation and social conditions in all aspects, and without the priority realization of the right to subsistence and the right to development, there can be no comprehensive development of all human rights.

The development of Chinese rights adheres to the integration and consideration of civil and political rights with economic, social and cultural rights, rather than one aspect in one aspect. In Tibet, for example, the system of regional ethnic autonomy has been continuously enriched and developed; the chairman of the regional government and the principal leaders of the autonomous prefecture and autonomous county are all ethnic minority compatriots; the study and use of the Tibetan language are protected by law; and the State respects and guarantees the rights of all ethnic groups in Tibet to live and carry out social activities in accordance with traditional customs and customs. The traditional ways and styles of dress, food and housing of the people of all ethnic groups are well maintained. In accordance with laws and regulations, religious rituals, and historical customizations, orderly carry out the identification of the reincarnation of living Buddhas. Freedom of religious belief in Tibet is not on paper but alive.

The methodology of Chinese development is three-dimensional. The development of Chinese rights adheres to the people-centered, not only focusing on individual people, but also paying attention to people as similar whole, and adhering to the unity of the people's overall view and individual interests in terms of methods. Western human rights are based on the binary opposition between the individual and the state, and between the individual and society, emphasizing the individual. However, in Chinese culture, there has never been such a strong dichotomy between the individual and the state, and between the individual and society. People in Western human rights are abstract and unique since they often only talk about their own human rights and ignore their responsibilities, but people in Chinese culture have always been concrete and co-existing, they will never only talk about their human rights without talking about responsibility as a result. The ideas of the world belongs to all, the people-oriented, and the prioritization of others before oneself in the Chinese cultural tradition, as well as the thinking of not going to extremes and systematic balance, have provided cultural support for the development of Chinese rights.