The Core of the Chinese Democracy Is to Respect and Protect Human Rights

— A Summary of the Academic Seminar on Chinese Democracy and Human Rights Protection

MAO Junxiang* & MAO Chengyi**

Abstract: On March 26, 2023, a Seminar on Chinese Democracy and Human Rights Protection was held, jointly organized by the National Human Rights Education and Training Base and the Human Rights Research Center of Central South University under the guidance of the Chinese Society for Human Rights Studies. The event adopted a combination of online and offline channels. Over 30 experts and scholars from universities, research institutions, and practical departments across the country participated in extensive discussions on “Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Chinese Democracy and Protection of Human Rights.” The seminar aimed to focused on the essence, characteristics, advantages, and human rights implications of Chinese democracy and interpreted the concept of Chinese democracy and the protection of human rights through academic and theoretical methods.

Keywords: Chinese democracy · protection of human rights · the whole-process people’s democracy

In order to study and implement the guiding principles of the 20th CPC National Congress, thoroughly understand General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourse on respecting and protecting human rights, and delve into the essence and logic of Chinese democracy and protection of human rights, the seminar on Chinese Democracy and Human Rights Protection, jointly organized by the Human Rights Research Center of Central South University, the National Human Rights Education and Training Base, was held via both online and offline channels on March 26, 2023. Over 30 experts and scholars from the China Society for Human Rights Studies, the China Law Society, the Publicity Department of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee, Jilin University, Nankai University, Central South University, the Beijing Institute of Technology, the East China University of Political Science and Law, the Northwest University of Political Science and Law, Guangzhou University, the Guangdong University of Technology, and other domestic universities, research institutions and practical departments participated in the seminar and held in-depth exchanges and discussions on “Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Chinese Democracy and Human Rights Protection.”

The experts and scholars unanimously agreed that Chinese democracy originates from the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, serves the political system where the people are the masters of the country, is an important achievement of China’s political civilization construction, and is fully embodied by the whole-process people’s democracy. The essence of Chinese democracy is to respect and protect human rights. It is a new democratic model that effectively combines the Party’s leadership, the people’s position as masters of the country, and law-based governance. In the century-long course of China’s revolution, construction, reform and development, the Communist Party of China has adhered to the combination of Marxist fundamental principles with China’s actual conditions and excellent traditional culture with references to the outstanding achievements of human civilization. With an aim to build a modern, powerful socialist country, the Party has embarked on a new path of democracy development that conforms to the trend of the times and China’s national conditions, contributing to diversity and opening up a new realm of human political civilization.

I. The Advantages and Core of Chinese Democracy

There is no universal model of democracy. Different countries can choose different forms of democracy. The understanding of democracy should not be generalized, and it is necessary to consider a country’s national conditions such as its value orientation, historical conditions and the needs of the times, as well as the suitability of these factors. Chinese democracy has developed based on China’s national conditions and is a new democratic model with unique advantages.

A. The essence of democracy is not immutable

The United States boasts itself as a “beacon of global freedom and democracy” by criticizing other forms of democracy as “authoritarian regimes.” This unilateral definition of democracy, in essence, is the exercise of hegemony in the name of democracy, which fully demonstrates the hypocrisy and double standards of American democracy. The essence of democracy, as a universal value in human society, is not immutable, but historic, concrete and developing. Professor He Zhipeng, dean of the School of Law, Jilin University, pointed out that democracy was discussed in ancient Greece and even earlier, but there were different views on how to understand democracy and whether democracy represented the only value of social governance: First, democracy is one model of governance. This means there are other models of governance. From the Platonic period to the present, democracy is not a leading or the only model of governance. Second, democracy is a system of human rights. Everyone has their own will to participate in decision-making, oversight and expression of opinions. Thus, a system of human rights may be formed by human desires and needs under the arrangement of social systems. And third, the exercise of democratic rights may affect other rights. Democracy doesn’t represent the supreme value. As a legal or political value, it should be considered together with other values. This is the premise for understanding democracy.

B. Advantages of Chinese democracy

Under profound changes unseen in a century, Western democracy faces a crisis. The Chinese democracy with its theory and practice has created a new form of human democratic civilization by sublating the Western bourgeois democracy. It has its own unique advantages compared with Western democracy.

First, comparative advantage. Professor He Zhipeng believes that Chinese democracy has a comparative advantage over Western democracy. Western democracy is first of all a voting democracy, that is, the people vote for officials, who can participate in public affairs only when they are recognized and entrusted by the people. Second, it is a capital-led democracy. We can find from the policies of the Trump and Biden administrations that Western democracy shows a strong capital-led tendency. It particularly emphasizes on capital market and discourse market, and it is its advantage in the discourse market that further highlights its capital-led feature. And third, it is a democracy of multi-party competition, that is, a rotating democracy characterized by instability. In comparison, China expects to form a democracy through whole-process participation, that is, a whole-process democratic system that has strong vitality. Chinese democracy is a revival-led democracy, that is, all democratic systems, arrangements and ideals serve the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Therefore, Chinese democracy emphasizes more on the class nature and national character of democracy. Chinese democracy is a democracy that focuses on cooperation between political parties. Both China and the West have their own political parties, but Chinese democracy places more emphasis on multi-party cooperation and political consultation, rather than taking turns in power.

Second, value advantage. Professor Mao Junxiang, executive director of the Human Rights Research Center of Central South University, said that Chinese consultative democracy is an important part of Chinese democracy and has multiple value advantages. a) Promoting political harmony. Consultative democracy can make up for the Western “street democracy.” Participants engaging in consultative democracy are also those taking part in decision-making and problem-solving; Electoral democracy addresses one-time authorization, while consultative democracy focuses on ongoing engagement. b) Improving governance efficiency. Scientific and democratic governance can be achieved through decision-making consultation to meet the requirements of rational consultation in national governance. c) Consolidating social consensus. Chinese consultative democracy aims to explore a good public decision-making model in national and social governance with an emphasis on the dialogue, debate and contest on public affairs and the collective policy consultation on national or local political, economic, social and cultural affairs between national and social public entities from different interest groups. d) Enhancing human rights protection. Collective consultation signifies the need to improve the substantive content and procedural mechanism of human rights protection; collective consultation, in essence, is the basic practice of the public exercise of political rights. e) Contributing to the diversity of human political culture. The consultative democracy of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference is deeply rooted in Chinese traditional political culture. In the process of promoting the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the Communist Party of China has led Chinese people to fully draw on the benefits of Chinese traditional culture, western democratic culture and its practice, created a development situation where electoral democracy and consultative democracy coexist and complement each other, enriched the essence, form and practice of democracy, and contributed to the diversity of human political civilization.

Third, governance advantage. Professor Yang Qingwang, executive deputy director of the Human Rights Research Center of Central South University, believes that the exploration of the whole-process people’s democracy should be made in the context of the modernization of national governance systems and governance capacity. One of the important issues is how to achieve the transformation from governance by documents to governance by law in the process of local legislation. Strengthening local legislation has become a must in the transformation to governance by law. In practice, strengthening local legislation is conducive to the development of the whole-process people’s democracy. This logic mainly guides in three dimensions. a) The whole-process people’s democracy provides a logical basis for local legislation. The focus of whole-process people’s democracy lies in people. Centering on the people and ensuring their rights to livelihood constitute the basis of local legislation. In order to effectively safeguard people’s rights to livelihood, it is necessary to fully empower and safeguard people’s democratic rights. b) The whole-process people’s democracy logically guides local legislation in terms of people as a whole. Democracy for people as a whole emphasizes people rather than process. An important requirement for safeguarding the interests of people as a whole is to implement local legislation in the focus areas of basic and non-basic public services. c) The whole-process people’s democracy logically guides local legislation in terms of the whole process. The current study on whole-process people’s democracy emphasizes more on the form and procedure than the process itself. Implementation of democratic principles is required in the process of drafting, reviewing and publishing local legislation. However, democratic principles shall not be implemented for the generation of new bills only, but more importantly, as a democratic practice. While this should be reflected in legislative hearings and legislative demonstrations, there is still room to improve in practice. Therefore, in the whole-process people’s democracy, we should strengthen the practice and protection of democratic rights. In summary, the whole-process people’s democracy guides local legislation in an all-round and three-dimensional way.

C. The protection of human rights is both start point and end point of Chinese democracy

Chinese democracy means that the people are the masters of the country. The people’s position as masters of the country, the Party’s leadership, and law-based governance together lay the foundation of Chinese democracy. Professor Chen Youwu, dean of the School of Law, the Guangdong University of Technology, believes that the essence of Chinese democracy is to respect and protect human rights, and it is a new form of democracy that has realized human freedom and equality. First, the core of Chinese democracy is popular sovereignty, that is, the people are the masters of the country. All the powers of the country belong to the people, who are the subject of human rights and the unity of individuals and the collective. Human well-being is the greatest human right, and all government activities are for the well-being of all people rather than the personal interests of any organization, group, political party or a single individual. This is a significant difference between Chinese democracy and Western democracy. In other words, the protection of human rights is both the start point and the end point of Chinese democracy. Second, Chinese democracy is an inherent unity of democratic rights, democratic principles, democratic procedures and democratic methods. Its core is to protect the people’s rights to know, express, vote, participate in, make decisions and supervise, thus ensuring that the powers of the country are truly in the hands of the people. Chinese democracy demonstrates respect for and protection of human rights throughout the whole democratic process and chain. And finally, to understand the relationship between Chinese democracy and human rights protection, we must effectively combine the overall law-based governance, that is, the combination of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. From this perspective, Chinese democracy is the premise and foundation of the overall law-based governance, which in turn is the recognition and guarantee of Chinese democracy. The effective combination of the two is aimed at respecting and protecting human rights. Chinese democracy and overall law-based governance serve each other as purposes and means to jointly promote the development and progress of China’s human rights cause.

II. A Full Expression of Chinese Democracy — The Whole-process People’s Democracy

Looking back at the historical development of human civilization, diversity is its most distinctive feature. Born and developing in China, Chinese democracy is an important achievement in China’s political civilization. Chinese democracy, which shares the common characteristics of democracy in various countries and has distinct characteristics based on its own national conditions, is outstanding among all democracies. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with General Secretary Xi Jinping as the core has adhered to the political development path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, followed the effective unity of the Party’s leadership, the people’s position as masters of the country, and law-based governance, and embarked on the Chinese democratic path of developing whole-process people’s democracy. The whole-process people’s democracy is a great creation of the CPC uniting and leading the Chinese people to pursue democracy, develop democracy and realize democracy. It is a natural outcome with historical, theoretical and practical logics of the Party uniting and leading the Chinese people in the long-term struggle in modern times.

The whole-process people’s democracy has built diverse, smooth and orderly democratic channels, effectively ensured the unity of the Party’s propositions, the state’s will and the people’s will, and effectively ensured the people’s position as masters of the country. The whole-process people’s democracy is a complete system chain, involving all elements of democratic politics such as electoral democracy, consultative democracy, social democracy, grassroots democracy and civic democracy, and covering all fields of the democratic process such as democratic election, democratic oversight, democratic decision-making, democratic management and democratic supervision. It features not only complete institutional procedures, but also complete practice of participation. It integrates process-oriented democracy with results-oriented democracy, procedural democracy with substantive democracy, direct democracy with indirect democracy, and people’s democracy with the will of the state. It has effectively ensured that people as a whole manage national affairs, economic and cultural undertakings and social affairs through various channels and forms in accordance with the law. It can be seen that the whole-process people’s democracy is the unfolding process and full expression of Chinese democracy, and Chinese democracy is the whole-process people’s democracy.

A. Contemporary characteristics of the whole-process people’s democracy

First, political positioning. The whole-process people’s democracy is not only a Chinese characteristic of the CPC leading the Chinese people to create a democratic political life for humanity, but also the Chinese-style expression in human rights discourse formed by the Party in the long-term exploration of socialist democratic political construction. Therefore, it is inherent in the whole-process people’s democracy to adhere to the correct direction and political positioning. Lu Guangjin, vice-president of the China Society for Human Rights Studies and a Kuang Yaming Distinguished Professor of Jilin University, believes that Chinese democracy is a socialist democracy and an effective unity of the leadership of the CPC, the socialist system, and the people’s position as masters of the country. In China, the leadership of the CPC is the choice of history, the choice of the people, and the most essential feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The socialist system is China’s fundamental political system, which determines the nature and development direction of the Chinese democratic system. The people being the masters of the country is the original mission of the CPC and the essential requirement of socialism.

Second, people orientation. People orientation is the essence of whole-process people’s democracy. Chinese democracy, always adhering to the development idea of centering on the people, always expressing people’s interests, conveying people’s voices, reflecting people’s demands, and enhancing people’s well-being, is the need of the times and the hope of the people. Professor Lu Guangjin believes that the truth of democracy lies in being able to embody the people’s will, reflect the people’s demands, and protect the people’s rights. That the people are the masters of the country is the essence of Chinese democracy. All state power belongs to the people. Democracy is not a privilege enjoyed by particular people or a restricted group of people, but a common right enjoyed by the vast majority of the people. That the people are the masters of the country means respecting the people as the subjects of authority, adhering to the principle of centering on the people and people first, and taking the will and interests of the people as the basis.

Third, process orientation. The process-oriented whole-process people’s democracy is different from the short-sighted democracy that only pursues votes and ignores long-term interests under the multi-party competition model. It emphasizes the co-construction, co-governance and benefit sharing across all links and along all chains in the political operation process, thus forming strong political synergy and development momentum. Professor Chang Jian, director of the Human Rights Research Center of Nankai University, believes that the whole-process people’s democracy is not only one process, but covers five major processes. a) The political process, that is, the election process; b) The policy process, which involves soliciting opinions from the people through surveys; c) The process of social governance, which involves grassroots democratic governance; d) The process of democratic management of enterprises and institutions; and e) The process of achieving democracy in international relations. The whole-process people’s democracy is a system that is mutually supported and confirmed by the above five processes. From an academic perspective, the above five processes have different requirements for safeguarding democratic rights. For example, the political process, which involves voting right, refers to the fundamental democratic rights enjoyed by the people; the policy process mainly refers to ensuring the people’s rights of information and participation in the process of policy formulation and implementation. In the process of social governance, a common form of democracy is direct democracy, that is, to allow the people to directly participate in decision-making to enjoy more democratic rights.

Fourth, completeness. Chinese democracy features not only complete institutional procedures, but also complete practice of participation. The completeness of whole-process people’s democracy mainly refers to the complete and wide range of democratic subjects, contents and procedures. Professor Lu Guangjin pointed out that the whole-process people’s democracy has achieved the unity of process democracy and result democracy, unity of procedural democracy and substantive democracy, unity of direct democracy and indirect democracy, and unity of the people’s democracy and the will of the state, so that the people’s position as masters of the country has been strengthened in the country’s political and social life, and the people’s exercise of democratic rights has been fully guaranteed. Professor Mao Junxiang pointed out that Chinese consultative democracy has achieved multiple unities, namely, the unity of the Party’s leadership and the people’s position as masters of the country, unity of subject universality and content universality, and unity of substantive equality and procedural equality. Professor Qi Yanping, director of the Center for Science and Technology and Human Rights Studies of the Beijing Institute of Technology, believes that the human rights development path China has adopted is characterized by “one axis plus multiple lines” and “universal coverage.” The “one axis” refers to the comprehensive leadership of the governing party over human rights work, and the “multiple lines” refer to the CPC Central Committee’s coordination in various fields and working lines of human rights, as well as in fields of legislation, judicature and law enforcement. It is a coordinated development path involving not only politics, but also economy, society, culture, and ecology. It does not focus on political power, but on systematic advancement. In terms of measures, human rights are promoted through the combination of legislation, law enforcement, judicature, oversight, compliance and monitoring.

B. The whole-process people’s democracy is a new model of democracy

Professor Qian Jinyu, executive deputy director of the Human Rights Research Center of the Northwest University of Political Science and Law, pointed out that democracy and human rights have always been topics of great concern in political science and law. Today, many Chinese and foreign scholars tend to consider the relationship between democracy and human rights from the perspective of “what democracy can do for human rights” rather than “what human rights can do for democracy.” As an innovation and institutional structure of Chinese democracy, the whole-process people’s democracy with participation as the core element provides room for thinking about the question mainly from the following three aspects: a) The recognition and realization of the right to participate can make up for the inherent defects of traditional representative democracy. Traditional representative democracy emphasizes more on citizens’ ruling rights embodied by elections, which is a main theory in John Stuart Mill’s works. The problem with this theory is that democracy in which citizens participate in political practice through elections is, in essence, to defend elitism or ruling by the elite. Joseph Alois Schumpeter defined democracy directly as democracy for the elite, which is no longer governance by the people but by the elite elected or approved by the people. The whole-process people’s democracy in China has realized people’s effective participation in democracy by ensuring the successful exercise of the right to participate, thus preventing ruling by the majority from turning to the ruling by the minority. Therefore, the key to preventing democratic alienation lies in effectively ensuring the right to participate and successfully setting it in the political structure. b) The recognition and realization of the right to participate is the necessary condition and important guarantee for the construction of the whole-process people’s democracy. Enriching and expanding citizens’ orderly political participation in democratic election, democratic consultation, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic oversight is the key to ensuring the right to participate. c) The recognition and realization of the right to participate will generate a participatory democracy with Chinese characteristics and as a form of expression of the whole-process people’s democracy. On the one hand, the right to participate is the active participation of citizens in the system of people’s congresses. On the other hand, the right to participate is the participation of citizens in the governance structure of national and social affairs through other legitimate channels. To a certain extent, the whole-process people’s democracy is a new type of democratic politics with public participation as the core element. Its essence and denotation are different in expression and practice from those of representative democracy in the West. In this sense, the whole-process people’s democracy is a new form of human political civilization.

C. The human rights implications of the whole-process people’s democracy

the whole-process people’s democracy covers various fields such as politics, economy, society, culture and ecological civilization. It safeguards the people’s rights in an all-round way through institutional procedures and practice of participation. It is also an essential requirement for realizing the Chinese path to modernization. Professor Hu Yuhong, head of the Institute of Human Rights Research at the East China University of Political Science and Law, believes that the human rights implications of the whole-process people’s democracy include three aspects.

First, the whole-process people’s democracy has shaped the subjects of rights with the ability to exercise political rights and conduct political behaviors. When applying the legal ability to exercise rights and conduct behaviors to the whole-process people’s democracy, subjects of rights with the ability to exercise political rights and conduct political behaviors have emerged. The subjects can be analyzed from four aspects: a) The subjects are based on all members of society rather than the general people; b) The subjects are universal subjects regardless of extrinsic attributes such as gender and nationality; c) The subjects are concerned with both personal interests and social interests; d) The subjects are the general public who accept and respect social consensus.

Second, the whole-process people’s democracy has enriched democratic rights beyond the Constitution. At the national level, the whole-process people’s democracy involves various processes including democratic election, democratic consultation, democratic decision-making, democratic management and democratic oversight. At the grassroots level, the whole-process people’s democracy includes various rights such as the rights of information, participation, expression, and scrutiny. However, many of these rights are not explicitly expressed in the Constitution, such as the right to consult, the right to make decisions, the right to know, the right to participate, the right to express and the right to supervise affairs at the grassroots level. In this regard, the whole-process people’s democracy provides theoretical guidance for the expansion of people’s democratic rights or the increase of democratic rights.

Last, the whole-process people’s democracy has highlighted the universality, continuity and ceaselessness of democratic rights. In terms of universality, the whole-process people’s democracy involves not only personal affairs, but also social affairs and even national affairs. Continuity is reflected in two aspects: a) The continuity of consultation, decision-making and oversight. The process of consultation, decision-making and oversight reflects the practical process of implementing the will of the people. b) The mutual support between democratic election and democratic management, which are essential to each other. Whole-process democracy with democratic election while without democratic management following the election fails. Ceaselessness means that the whole-process people’s democracy covers a person’s whole life, reflecting the value orientation of the subjects, especially the value orientation of life. For ordinary people, not everyone has the will to participate in politics. However, the whole-process people’s democracy provides a multi-level, extensive and effective political platform for individuals who want to participate in politics, supporting them to realize their personal aspirations and life ideals.

III. Expectations for Chinese Democracy and Human Rights Protection

To build a Chinese democracy and human rights protection system in the new era and promote the political practice of whole-process people’s democracy, we should adhere to the idea of systematic promotion and the commitment to building complete democratic institutional procedures. We must also adhere to the idea of public participation in democratic practice and the commitment to effectively implementing democratic ideas and systems, thereby providing support for the protection of human rights. Scholars at the seminar also placed their expectations on Chinese democracy and human rights protection.

A. Practical challenges of Chinese democracy and human rights protection

Professor Qi Yanping believes that the differences in human rights development mechanisms between China and Western countries can be mainly found in the following five development mechanisms: First, the mechanism of leadership under a mission-oriented party, which serves as the political premise and institutional foundation of human rights in China. Second, the mechanism of national coordination and promotion, which features national responsibility and government leadership. Third, the mechanism of constitutional protection and remedies, which reflects the bottom-line thinking and rule-of-law thinking in human rights endeavors. Fourth, the mechanism of positive promotion by social organizations and social forces, which reflects national and social coordination. And fifth, the mechanism of taking reference to global human rights civilization. Human rights in the West are traditionally rigid, while human rights in China adopt an open and reference model that communicates with the external world and supports the openness and inclusiveness of the human rights system. These five mechanisms reflect the rigid constraint of the Constitution, the unity of unlimited responsibilities of a mission-oriented party and a mission-oriented government, and the unity of legal means and flexible measures, effectively responding to the unique external issues faced by China in contemporary human rights development.

Professor Qi Yanping also pointed out that in China, democracy, people’s livelihood, and civil rights are integrated. Democracy represents people’s livelihood, and people’s livelihood represents human rights. Human rights in China have two attributes, namely, livelihood and civil rights. In China, people’s livelihood refers to livelihood in the broad sense where people live and develop well in various fields such as politics, economy, society, culture and ecology. The livelihood attribute of human rights refers to the well-being of people, which is different from the human rights in the West, which focus on politics only. Civil rights in China’s political structure and constitutional path refer first to overall institutional human rights and then to the rights of individuals for subjective demands. And human rights in China are in transformation.

Back to Chinese culture and reality, Chinese democracy and human rights protection face the following challenges: First, the transformation of the human rights system lags far behind the expansion and acceleration of human rights needs nurtured by China’s economic and social development, that is, the human rights system lags behind the needs of the people. Second, there is a realistic gap between the ideal and reality of human rights. Third, the human rights concept, awareness and capabilities of grassroots-level personnel are not keeping up with the CPC Central Committee’s integrated development strategy for human rights protection in China. Fourth, there are conflicts in policies across various fields, levels and dimensions involved in human rights protection in China. And fifth, there are domestic and international issues, for example, increasing conflict exists between human rights in China with greater achievements and traditional human rights represented by the West.

Professor Chang Jian pointed out that as to the democratic form of the workers’ congress, although the workers have the right to know and supervise, their exercise of their rights is limited by various practical factors, raising a series of questions in democratic rights such as “whether the workers’ rights can be well represented” and “whether the representation is balanced”. Therefore, it is hard to generalize what kind of people’s rights are guaranteed by the whole-process people’s democracy. Different processes need to be distinguished and studied. Some scholars believed that, from the perspective of Chinese democracy and human rights protection, issues still need to be studied, such as whether the democratic rights corresponding to various democratic processes are guaranteed and what rights need to be further refined.

B. Promoting Chinese democracy requires a three-dimensional democratic system

Professor He Zhipeng pointed out that promoting Chinese democracy should start from three dimensions: a) The transformation of the mode of thinking, such as improving theoretical thinking and making good use of dialectics; b) The improvement of practical actions in the principle of actions being consistent with or even speaking louder than words; and c) The improvement of governance systems, i.e. promoting the practice of people being the masters of the country involves governance capability and governance systems on top of ideals, concepts and theories. Under the guidance of the above three dimensions, we need to make further development in three areas, namely, i) How to interpret and practice people being the masters of the country, ii) How to implement the overall law-based governance to reflect democracy and demonstrate the dialectical unity between human rights and democracy, and iii) How to more clearly express the leadership position of the Party and better establish and improve the Party’s leadership in practice. These are not only matters of great concern in the academic community, but also a question regarding how to better spread the Chinese democratic discourse throughout the world in a truly effective, powerful and trustworthy way.

C. Promoting the transformation of human rights study paradigms

Professor Liu Zhiqiang of the Institute for Human Rights at Guangzhou University believes that the current human rights study in China is scattered and fragmented, and lacks theoretical support in most cases. In this context, it can be improved from the following five dimensions: First, we should study human rights from the perspective of system theory. In the current wave of digital human rights study, it remains a question whether digital human rights constitute the fourth generation of human rights. Scholars who support this view emphasize that digital human nature lays a strong foundation for digital human rights. However, human nature originates from humans rather than digital systems. The human rights system, consisting of both the political system and legal system, can hardly support digital human rights. Therefore, it is necessary to study human rights from the perspective of system theory. Second,we should study human rights using Bourdieu’s field theory. How to achieve the connection and cooperation between Chinese fields and international space remains a theoretical supporting point to be developed. Third, integration theory. The human rights concept and human rights path in contemporary China as well as General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important statement on the respect for and protection of human rights can be systematically studied through external integration, internal integration, subject integration, value integration, function integration and discourse integration. Fourth, spatiotemporal theory. In the context of “human rights in China,” “in China” is about particularity, while “human rights” is about universality. Linking particularity with the universal issue requires the use of spatiotemporal theory to seek universality in the special field of China. From the global perspective, China is particular, but from the field perspective, individuals in China are universal. Based on this premise, there are two concepts worth attention, namely, specific particularity and universal particularity. And fifth, recognition theory. According to Hegel’s theory of recognition, rights are subjective, but for subjective rights to be recognized by the subjects and obtain social consensus, the mutual recognition theory under Habermas’s intersubjectivity theory must be employed so as to bridge recognition theory with intersubjectivity theory. The mutual recognition theory can effectively connect the whole-process people’s democracy with focus on the people. Centering on the people is a political discourse, while human rights belong to individuals ultimately. The mutual recognition theory provides a solution for applying the collective attributes of politics to individuals.

(Translated by JIANG Yu)
 

* MAO Junxiang ( 毛俊响 ), Professor and Executive Director of the Human Rights Research Center of Central South University.

** MAO Chengyi ( 毛成毅 ), Doctoral candidate of the Law School of Central South University.