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A unique outlook on human rights has taken shape in China, the largest developing country in the world. It is founded on the basis of the country's own experience in human rights development over the last two decades since embarking on the road of reform and opening up in the late 1970s. China has also absorbed rational human rights ideas from other cultures.
Human rights are acquired by people instead of being given by God. Human rights are a product of social and historical situations. They are the rights society gives to its members.
Western human rights ideas uphold the idea that people are born equal. We think that people should be born equal. But no such equality is found in class society. As a matter of fact, inequality exists even before birth. The embryo in the womb of a rich mother enjoys better nutrition than that in a poor mother. Equality among people can only be acquired in the course of social progress.
Human rights not only involve political rights but also economic and social rights, being the combination of all of these.
Human rights first find expression in the rights to survival and development, which constitute the basis for all other rights. This is especially true of developing countries. For a starving man, which should he choose bread or ballot, if he is supposed to choose only one? The ballot is of course important. But he must feed himself with the bread before he can cast a ballot.
In addition, there are human rights enjoyed by the collective in addition to individuals' human rights. The individuals' interests are upheld via the realization of collective interests. So, China attaches importance to collective human rights as well as to individuals' human rights. This is in contrast to Western countries where much emphasis is put on individuals' human rights while collective human rights are neglected.
On the one hand, human rights are universal in nature and their basic principles ought to be abided by in all countries. But on the other hand, human rights have specified connotations in different countries taking into account different levels of economic development, different social systems, varying cultural traditions and values and different religious faiths.
In view of this, human rights are the unity of the universal and the particular. The specifics of human rights vary from one country to another. The ways of realizing human rights also differ from each other in different countries. For example, in overpopulated countries, family planning programmes are in the interests of the vast majority of the people and, therefore, are in accord with human rights principles. In sparsely populated nations, however, encouragement of fertility can also be seen as a human right.
Some countries one-sidedly emphasize the universality of human rights whilst ignoring the particular nature of human rights, advocating the introduction of a unified human rights model in the world. This means imposing Western human rights ideas on the rest of the world.
Human rights contain two integral parts rights and obligations. Or in other words, human rights are the unity of people's rights and their obligations. Each person should safeguard his or her own rights and respect others'. At the same time, each person ought to fulfil his or her obligations to society and other people. There are no rights that carry no obligations in this world, and vice versa.
Many people in Western countries emphasize exclusively the rights one should enjoy but neglect obligations, separating people's rights from obligations or setting these concepts against each other.
Also, human rights are something covered by the sovereignty of a country. A country's sovereignty is the foremost collective human right. Human rights are the ultimate goal sovereignty tries to achieve. And sovereignty is the guarantor of human rights.
In the humiliating old days, China was bullied by foreign powers. Its sovereignty was trampled on, and also the Chinese people's human rights. So the Chinese people know very well that sovereignty is a pre-condition to their enjoying human rights. In sum, there would be no human rights to speak of in the absence of sovereignty.
It is quite normal that disputes exist over the understanding of human rights, which mirror the different conditions the countries find themselves in and also the pluralistic nature of the world. All nations ought to promote human rights progress by expanding mutual understanding, finding as much common ground as possible and bridging differences.
This can be achieved via dialogue and co-operation, based on the principles of equality and mutual respect.
The human rights outlook of China has been formed in the practice of promoting human rights over a long time. This human rights outlook, in return, will help promote human rights practice in the country. With the development of the human rights cause, China's human rights outlook will continue to develop and take on richer content.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the first international document ever to put forward the principle of respecting and guaranteeing the most fundamental of human rights, reflecting the importance attached by the international community to the promotion of human rights and basic freedom.
China's human rights outlook is in keeping with the basic principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Chinese people's upholding of human rights and their practice in this respect are their contributions to the world human rights cause.
(China Daily December 12, 2005)
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