Jan. 22, 2024 -- Chinese and foreign scholars exchanged their ideas on their observations of human rights in China recently at a seminar hosted by the Center for the Americas under China International Communications Group (CICG Americas) ahead of the fourth cycle of the universal periodic review of China which will be launched by the UN Human Rights Council on January 23. Many of them agreed that human rights are couched in abstract terms in recent popular Western discourse and that China should offer a comprehensive and culturally grounded perspective on human rights, taking into account its unique historical, cultural, and developmental context.

 

Experts and geopolitical analysts from China, the U.S., Southeast Asia and Brazil focused on human rights development in China and the United States with special attention paid to Xinjiang and Xizang autonomous regions as well as gender equality issues. 

 

John Pang, a former Malaysian government official who has also studied governance from the perspective of philosophy for decades, said that the West has “shaped the concept of human rights as a system of power and rule, separated from everything important to human beings—such as food, clothing and shelter.” 

 

China, on its part, regards the right to subsistence and development as the primary and fundamental human rights. It strives to improve the rights of its entire population in a coordinated way and works for their all-round development. 

 

Benjamin Norton, an independent American journalist and geopolitical analyst, began his address by tracing the origins of the discourse on human rights. He said that whereas the concept of human rights is centuries old, the discourse on human rights is relatively modern, having been popularized in the neo-liberal era of the 1970s. 

 

For the U.S., for instance, “the government’s protection of human rights is only about individual freedom, while erasing social services, healthcare and education, housing and the right to work from it,” he said, elaborating, “The role of human rights is only to justify neoliberal economic policy and American foreign policy.” 

 

He compared the security of China and the U.S., and pointed out that whereas the latter sees gun proliferation, the former is one of the safest countries on Earth. 

 

“Women can walk around at night and they’re not going to be afraid of being attacked, people are not afraid of being shot by a gun, whereas in the United States there are more guns than human beings. In the United States, there are as many as 300-400 shootings every year,” he said. “Isn’t this a violation of human rights?” Norton asked. 

 

He continued by highlighting China's significant contributions to human rights, emphasizing the elevation of 800 million people from poverty and extensive infrastructure development. Additionally, China plays a role in fostering global economic opportunities. 

 

“The comparison with the United States is stark: While China focuses on poverty alleviation and infrastructure, the United States, under the guise of safeguarding human rights, bombed Serbia and violated international law by invading Iraq. The U.S. military actions in Iraq resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, showcasing a striking contrast in their approaches to human rights,” Norton noted. 

 

Xinjiang became a focal point of discussion at the seminar. Li Fangfang, a Beijing Review journalist and a Xinjiang native, elaborated on the region’s development of human rights by sharing the improvements in the development of women's rights as well as the continuous evolution of rural revitalization in the region.  

 

In recent years, Western media have taken a special interest in Xinjiang, but the Xinjiang they portray is vastly different from the one experienced by local people, Li added. Determined to tell real stories from the region, Li shared snippets from her interviews with local people with other seminar participants. (To get a full picture of recent developments in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, please follow @FriedaLi3 on X, formerly known as Twitter) 

 

 

 

Xiao Junyong, Executive Director of the Center for Science, Technology and Human Rights at the Beijing Institute of Technology, emphasized that promoting high-quality development is crucial for ensuring the advancement of human rights. He said Xinjiang’s agriculture, new energy and tourism sectors have developed rapidly, and the region has become an important supply place for high-quality agricultural and animal husbandry products in China. 

 

Shen Guoqin, an associate professor at the Law School under the People’s Public Security University of China, discussed the development of human rights in China from the perspective of women’s rights protection, and especially noted the improvements and achievements in the legal framework for women's rights. 

 

Shen noted that the Constitution, the core of China's legal system, emphasizes women's equality with men in all aspects, including economic, social and cultural. In recent years, seven areas such as health education, economic decision-making and social security have been included in the statistical monitoring of the development of women's rights and interests. 

 

The poverty alleviation campaign in China triggered the interest in this country for Filipe Porto, an international relations researcher at Brazil’s Federal University of ABC and an editorial consultant at the Portuguese edition of China Today magazine. 

 

Porto shared some of his personal experiences at the seminar. He admitted that for a long time, he always had an impression from the West media that China was not a country that respected human rights. However, when he first came to China in 2008, he found that he had been misled. The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics served as a demonstration of China's capabilities for him. In late 2020, the news that China had eradicated extreme poverty in the country reaffirmed that belief. 

 

During the human rights seminar, all speakers emphasized the importance of carefully considering each country’s unique national conditions and historical backgrounds when discussing human rights, recognizing that approaches to human rights can vary across different nations.