Chinese officials on Wednesday called for international support
for the country's efforts to ensure human rights for its citizens,
stressing that different modes of rights development should be
respected.
"With varied social systems, levels of development and
historical and cultural backgrounds, different nations have
different modes of human rights development, and we should respect
such diversity," said Cai Wu, director of Information Office of
State Council, at an ongoing international human rights protection
forum in Beijing.
The three-day symposium held by China Society for Human Rights
Studies attracted more than 70 experts, scholars and officials from
19 countries and regions.
Cai said that since the founding of New China, particularly
after the economic reform in 1970s, the government had striven to
protecting its people's rights, gradually instilling international
human rights principles into the harsh reality of Chinese
society.
The standard of socioeconomic development had risen
continuously, with an annual economic growth rate of more than nine
percent, and the per capita gross domestic product up from 226 U.S.
dollars to more than 1,700 U.S. dollars, Cai said.
He said the population under poverty line had shrunk from 250
million to 23 million, and rising living standards ensured people
had enough food and clothing and would generally become
affluent.
"These have given unprecedented guarantees for the Chinese
people's rights to subsistence and development, and laid a solid
foundation for safeguarding political, economic, cultural and
social rights," Cai said.
"An historic progress has been achieved in China's human
rights."
Chinese officials and rights experts have repeatedly said
China's concept of human rights places more weight on the
collective, specifically, state sovereignty, rights of subsistence
and development of the people as a whole, while Western concepts
give priority to the rights of the individual.
Dong Yunhu, vice chairman of the China Society for Human Rights
Studies said the differences largely stemmed from different
historical backgrounds.
Western human rights concepts developed in the wake of calls to
confront monarchies, religious authorities and feudal hierarchies
after the Renaissance. "Therefore individual and political rights
came at the top of the human rights agenda," he added.
"China's recent history, however, involves cruel imperial
invasion," Dong said. "Imperialism caused a humanitarian crisis in
China so human rights calls came with the liberation of Chinese
people and the founding of a people's republic.
In dialogue on human rights issues with other countries, Cai
said, China stood for the principle of agreeing to differ and
drawing experience from one another, and respecting different
choices of rights development.
The common development of the global economy was essential to
realize human rights, and exchanges and cooperation between nations
were vital to promote their progress, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2006)