The Basic Human Rights Concepts in Chinese Classics and Their Differences from the West

ZHAO Jianwen

Abstract: The basic human rights concepts in Chinese classics mainly encompass three categories: the concept of order and freedom influenced by the worldview of the harmony between humanity and nature, the concept of human subjectivity and the source of human rights influenced by the people-oriented or benevolence-oriented values, as well as the concept of the relationship between human rights and state power guided by the outlook on life of the great unity of all under heaven (tianxia). Among them, the concept of order and freedom of the harmony between humanity and nature and modeling itself on nature is more beneficial to the stability and development of human society than the Western concept of order and freedom under “rational choice.” The norm prototype of “Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you” formed the Article 4 of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789, and the concepts of “benevolence” and “human superiority” were written into Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the preamble of the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, respectively, which have become the common spiritual wealth of all humankind. The ancient Chinese imperial examination system for selecting virtuous and capable people was basically consistent with the provisions on the political rights of citizens to hold public office stipulated in contemporary human rights documents, and was advanced in the world at that time. The contemporary Chinese system of “the state respects and protects human rights” is a system rooted in the Chinese historical and cultural traditions and is with the superiority of socialism.