China Calls for Balanced Approach on Human Rights Issues

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 08, 2002

China Calls for Balanced Approach on Human Rights Issues

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A senior Chinese diplomat on Thursday called on the international community to pursue a balanced approach in dealing with various human rights issues by attaching great importance to the right to development.

Zhang Yishan, China's acting permanent representative to the United Nations, made the appeal as he was speaking to a meeting of the Third Committee of the 57th General Assembly session. The committee is in charge of social, humanitarian and cultural affairs.

Zhang said a balanced approach is of great necessity when the world is still faced with the reality that the rich gets richer and the poor, poorer.

There are still 1.3 billion people subsisting on less than one US dollar per day, and more than 130 million children in developing countries still cannot go to school, he said.

"Economic globalization has not only failed to bring prosperity to all countries, but also threatened many developing countries with marginalization," he said.

"At the same time, an increase in development assistance and the elimination of obstacles to development remain pious wishes onthe part of many developing countries," he said. "The UN Commission on Human Rights still has a tendency of giving short shrift to the economic, social and cultural rights and the right to development."

It is the hope of China that the international community will attach as great importance to the right to development as it does to other human rights so as to realize in a true sense the universality and indivisibility of human rights, he said.

He also called for efforts to strengthen international cooperation in the field of human rights.

"The international community has a shared responsibility for promoting and protecting human rights," he said. "With enhanced cooperation, the cause of human rights protection will thrive, whereas obsession with confrontation will only seriously thwarted the efforts to promote human rights."

"The Chinese government has always advocated enhanced cooperation in the human rights field with a view to protecting and promoting human rights throughout the world," he said.

China has not only cooperated in the human rights field with developing countries by sharing in complementary philosophies and drawing on each other's experiences, but also engaged in dialogueswith the United States, the European Union, Canada, Norway and Australia, with a view to enhancing mutual understanding, he added.

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