Jointly Promoting Human Rights Development and Firmly Rejecting Hegemonic Acts
— Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
JIANG Jianguo*
China is an advocate and practitioner of the spirit of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and actively participates in and contributes to global human rights governance. Over the past 30 years, China has continuously promoted the implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action in China and globally, leading to historic achievements in China’s human rights endeavors. China has pursued a human rights development path that follows the trend of the times and suits its national conditions, making significant contributions to the progress of international human rights. Here, we will discuss three observations and reflections on China’s implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.
The first point is to consistently adhere to the concept that the well-being of the people is the greatest human right, and to comprehensively advance China’s human rights cause. China emphasizes that the well-being of the people is the greatest human right, and development is the key to realizing the well-being of the people. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has always taken the people’s aspiration for a better life as its goal, and has reflected the development of human rights in all aspects throughout the entire process, which reflects the people’s wishes, represents their interests, safeguards their rights, and enhances their well-being. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, the CPC has adhered to the people-centered development philosophy, fully, accurately and comprehensively implemented the new development concept, and coordinated the promotion of economic development, democracy and the rule of law, cultural development, social equity and justice, social governance, and environmental protection. Efforts have been made to achieve higher-quality, more efficient, fairer, more sustainable, and safer development, resulting in the Chinese people broadly experiencing a more fulfilling, secure, and sustainable sense of gain, happiness, and safety.
The second point is to consistently uphold the solemn commitment to making new and greater contributions to humanity and vigorously promoting the common development of the global human rights cause. The CPC has always regarded the mission of making new and greater contributions to humanity as its own mission, firmly believing that only when people in all countries live a good life can prosperity be enduring, security be guaranteed, and the foundation for human rights be established. China took the lead in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, actively implemented the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and contributed to over 70 percent of the world’s poverty reduction. China provides development assistance to developing countries through aid projects, material support, technical cooperation, humanitarian assistance, and debt relief. This assistance includes significant infrastructure development as well as many “small but beautiful” livelihood projects, playing an important role in enhancing the development capacity, improving people’s lives, and promoting human rights development in developing countries. China consistently advocates for the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, providing more public goods in the field of international human rights, promoting human rights development through diversity, autonomy, and openness, and continuously enriching the forms of human rights civilization.
The third point is to consistently respect the human rights development paths of other countries and resolutely oppose hegemonic and bullying acts. Countries vary in history, culture, civilization, social development, and economic levels, and they must and can only explore their own paths of human rights development based on their actual conditions and the needs of their people. Unfortunately, some countries, with numerous human rights issues of their own, pile up double standards and shamelessly interfere in the internal affairs of other countries under the pretext of human rights. They frequently impose unilateral sanctions, and even launch wars, artificially creating divisions, confrontations, turmoil, and wars. In essence, they practice fake human rights and real hegemony, fake humanitarianism and real bullying, fake democracy and real coercion, seriously affecting the healthy development of the world’s human rights cause. China firmly opposes empty talk about human rights that is divorced from social and political conditions and historical and cultural traditions, the politicization, instrumentalization, and ideologicalization of human rights issues, as well as hegemonic and bullying practices in the name of human rights. China’s proposition is precisely what General Secretary Xi Jinping outlined in his congratulatory message: to safeguard human rights through security, promote human rights through development, and advance human rights through cooperation. It advocates mutual respect, inclusiveness, mutual learning, and consensus-building among different civilizations and countries, to push for greater fairness, justice, reason, and inclusiveness in global human rights governance, and to jointly create a better future for humanity.
The 20th National Congress of the CPC laid out the central task of realizing the Second Centenary Goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese modernization. In the process of comprehensively advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese modernization, all aspects of human rights will undoubtedly achieve coordinated and comprehensive development. We firmly believe that the Chinese modernization will also inject strong momentum into jointly addressing human rights challenges and achieving common development for countries around the world. China will continue to make new and greater contributions to the better development of the world’s human rights cause!
* JIANG Jianguo ( 蒋建国 ), a member of Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the Vice Chairman of the Committee for Ethnic and Religious Affairs, and the Executive Vice President of the China Society for Human Rights Studies.
(Translated by Li Donglin)
