China's human rights governance approach provides new insight into global human rights challenges: experts

BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China's approach and outlook on the governance and promotion of human rights are effective and can provide new insight into the solution to global human rights challenges, said experts attending an international forum being held in Beijing.

The Forum on Global Human Rights Governance attracted more than 300 participants from home and abroad. At the forum, participants held in-depth discussions on how China's outlook on human rights is manifested by its domestic human rights governance practice and its diplomacy.

Regarding China's efforts to protect and promote human rights domestically, Everly Paul Chet Greene, Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Trade and Barbuda Affairs of Antigua and Barbuda, spoke of China's "people-centered" approach to human rights governance.

"It speaks to the fact that the people are what human rights are all about," he said, adding that this approach is evidently reflected in the way China managed the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the view of Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, China's outlook on human rights is best manifested in the manner Chinese people participate in national governance, particularly the whole-process people's democracy.

"Democracy in the Party-led system involves absorbing public opinion via feedback mechanisms, such as polling to discern what people think, for example, about proposed new policies, a process that the Party calls 'pooling people's wisdom,'" said Kuhn.

China's efforts in poverty alleviation were also regarded as a prime example of the country's human rights governance. "An important experience from China's reform and opening up in the past few decades is that people's livelihoods are paramount," said Zhang Weiwei, director of the China Institute of Fudan University in Shanghai.

The 20-year war waged by the United States in Afghanistan cost some 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars and resulted in grave human rights violations. At about one-tenth of that cost, China has successfully lifted the last 100 million poor people out of poverty within ten years, said Zhang.

"We can even make a theoretical hypothesis from this: If we followed the Chinese pattern, with 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars, we could almost eliminate extreme poverty in the whole world, including the United States," Zhang added.

During discussions at the forum, several experts also mentioned the role of China's diplomacy in facilitating the development of global human rights governance.

The Belt and Road Initiative, and the concept of "a human community with a shared future" put forward by the Chinese leadership, contains a profound philosophy of global human rights governance, said Li Erping, a professor at Kunming University of Science and Technology.

In his speech, Li illustrated his point by citing the cooperation between China and Southeast Asian countries as an example. "It is particularly noteworthy that Chinese investment in Southeast Asia has focused on large infrastructure projects, as infrastructure development and improvement is the foundation of a country's economic and social development, and only with development can human rights be maximized and improved," said Li.

Regarding China's diplomacy, Swiss sinologist Peter Hediger pointed out that China's efforts in safeguarding world peace are constructive to global human rights governance.

Noting that China has become a most reliable pillar in the United Nations framework, Hediger said the country has pursued a successful foreign policy to the benefit not only for itself but also for many other countries.

"China recently successfully initiated dialogues and contacts between long-standing adversaries like Iran and Saudi Arabia. These are true assets in line with international conferences on global human rights governance," he said.