China stays committed to path of human rights development

China, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), adheres to a people-centered approach and puts people’s interests in the first place when pursuing human rights. Advancing human rights through development and promoting whole-process people’s democracy, the country has facilitated the full and free development of every individual.

Photo taken on April 12, 2022 shows children of a kindergarten in Shuikou township, Changxing county, east China’s Zhejiang province in a tire rolling game. (People’s Daily Online/Tan Yunfeng)

China’s path of human rights development conforms to the trend of the times and suits China’s national conditions. It has been proven to be successful.

To respect and protect human rights is a persistent pursuit of the CPC. Launching a decisive battle against poverty that is unprecedented in scale and intensity, China has historically eradicated absolute poverty, an issue that had bothered the Chinese nation for thousands of years, which has made a more solid material foundation of the country’s human rights development.

China is constantly developing whole-process people’s democracy, improving legal framework to ensure human rights and firmly safeguarding social equity and justice, making people’s democracy more extensive, fuller in scope and sounder in practice.

The country has built the world’s largest education, social security, and medical and health care systems. There are 1.03 billion Chinese people included in the basic national pension scheme and 1.36 billion in the national basic medical insurance. The average life expectancy of Chinese citizens rose from 75.4 years to 77.9 years, and the ratio of middle-income earners increased from a quarter to around 1/3. The constant improvement in the living standard and quality of the Chinese people is exactly a reflection of the country’s progress in human rights.

The progress couldn’t have been achieved without the guidance of a science-based philosophy of human rights development. The core of the CPC’s philosophy of human rights development upholds a people-centered approach, puts people’s interests in the first place and ensures the principal status of the people.

What highlights China’s human rights development path is the focus of the country on the people. Protecting the democratic rights of the people and unleashing their enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity, China has made its people the major participators, promoters and beneficiaries of the cause of human rights development. It is practically promoting the overall development of the people, and concrete progress has been achieved in realizing common prosperity.

Tourists take photos in a wheat field in Xinchang county, Shaoxing city, east China’s Zhejiang province, May 18, 2022. (People’s Daily Online/Pan Weifeng)

China’s people-centered human rights philosophy has won recognition from many international observers. They said other countries should learn from China’s people-centered approach to achieve common development, and China’s practice, which has offered more sense of fulfillment, happiness and security for the 1.4 billion Chinese people, has provided valuable experiences for other countries to promote human rights development.

China is the world’s largest developing country. It believes that development holds the master key to solving all problems and advances its human rights progress.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the right to subsistence is a primary basic human right and the ultimate human right is that people can lead a happy life.

What drives the country’s constant human rights progress is its human rights philosophy based on its national conditions that the rights to existence and development are the primary basic human rights.

According to the Human Development Report released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Human Development Index (HDI) of China rose to 0.761 in 2019 from 0.499 in 1990, making China the only country that has leaped from the low human development category to the high human development category since HDI was measured globally by the UNDP for the first time in 1990.

Cycling enthusiasts ride bikes along a rural road in Wanzai county, Yichun city, east China’s Jiangxi province, May 18, 2022. (People’s Daily Online/Deng Longhua)

The UN Human Rights Council has adopted China’s resolution entitled “The Contribution of Development to the Enjoyment of All Human Rights” for three times, and China has also won broad recognition and support from the international society for its philosophy of advancing human rights through development.

The historic achievements of China’s human rights fully indicate that to respect and protect human rights, countries must recognize the universality of human rights and develop an approach that suits its national conditions.

Human rights have historical, specific and practical contexts. It’s unrealistic to talk about human rights without taking into consideration of a country’s social and political conditions, as well as its history and culture.

In judging whether human rights are upheld in a country, one cannot use other countries’ standards, still less apply double standards or use human rights as a political tool to interfere in the affairs of other countries.

No one can claim to be perfect in human rights protection; there is always room for improvement. China has embarked on a new journey to fully build a modern socialist country, which is also a new start in the country's human rights development.

China will keep its people-centered approach, unswervingly follow its path of human rights development, and attach more importance on respecting and protecting human rights, so as to make constant progress in human rights development and make greater contributions to the global cause of human rights.