Chinese dream safeguards human rights in China
CHINA has formulated and implemented comprehensive and effective action plans on human rights since 2009. During this period, the Chinese people have prospered, their rights have been better protected, the policies and legal measures protecting the rights of particular groups have improved and the legal safeguards for human rights have been strengthened. China has fully participated in global human rights governance, making a major contribution to the international cause of human rights. The First Centenary Goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects has been realized under the visionary leadership of Communist Party of China and President Xi Jinping.
The five-year period from 2021 to 2025 will see China set out on a new journey towards the Second Centenary Goal of building a modern socialist country. This period will also witness a new beginning for human rights in China. In October 2022, the Communist Party of China (CPC) held its 20th National Congress. A blueprint was drawn for advancing national rejuvenation through a Chinese path to modernization. The Chinese path of modernization provides another option to developing countries in their pursuit of modernization and is China’s contribution to the exploration by humanity for a better social system.
This period will also witness a new beginning for human rights in China. China’s economy has moved to a stage of high-quality development, so the country now has more favourable conditions to advance the cause of human rights. In the international arena, the world today is undergoing a scale of change unseen in a century, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The international situation is becoming ever more complex, with mounting instability and uncertainty. The cause of human rights is encountering new challenges for the international community that needs to be more focused in tackling the situation and protecting the human rights of their citizens.
According to China National Human Development Report 2016 (hereafter referred to as the Report), which took the UNDP China and the Development Research Centre of the State Council of China two years to complete and was released in Beijing on August 22, 2016, China’s Human Development Index (HDI) indicated that China had entered into a phase of “high human development” and was one of the countries with the speedy progress in the field of human development in the past 30 years. The report points out that human development in China captures several key indicators such as income, poverty reduction, health and education as well as the rapid economic development has played a vital role in promoting the human development in the country.
China, the biggest developing country in the world with a huge population and vast territory, has also become the fastest developing country in the world. This development, which is “human development” as well as the progress in the safeguarding of human rights, can be described as “huge.” China’s ideal and pursuit of human rights are closely related to the “Chinese Dream” put forward by the Chinese President Xi Jinping. An ancient civilization with a long and splendid history and culture, China, had endured impoverishment and long-standing debility and suffered from the aggression of Western colonial powers and Japanese imperialists in the modern history.
With the establishment of the People’s Republic, China, starting from “poverty and blankness,” re-embarked on the road of development, prosperity and rejuvenation. The Chinese people have stood up and become increasingly strong. The Chinese Dream embodies the development idea, including the vision of better enjoyment of human rights of the Chinese people. The economic development and social progress in China in the past years have been realized under the leadership of CPC and the Chinese Government and the correct and strong leadership of the CPC and the Chinese Government over the state and society is an effective safeguard for the realization of socialist modernization in China.
The CPC is the vanguard of the Chinese working class, the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. It is the leadership core of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics and represents the developmental demands of China’s advanced productive forces; the orientation of China’s advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the greatest possible majority of the Chinese people.
With respect to human rights, the Constitution of the CPC clearly states in the general program that the CPC will “respect and safeguard human rights,” “gradually eliminate poverty and achieve common prosperity,” “keep meeting the people’s ever growing needs for a better life and promote people’s well-rounded development on the basis of developing production and social wealth,” “commit itself to a people centred philosophy of development” and “ensure that development is for the people and relies on the people and that its fruits are shared among the people.”
To China, the largest developing country in the world, the Chinese Dream is, in the final analysis, also a development dream and a human rights dream. The Chinese philosophy of development is advancing with the times and exerting a profound influence on the realization and safeguarding of human rights in China. The theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, as the latest achievement of Marxism and its Sinicisation, indicates the correct direction and interprets the spiritual core of the Chinese Dream. It is the ideological guideline that guides China to unswervingly follow the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and a powerful spiritual weapon that unites the thought of and builds consensus among all party member and all the people in China.
— The author is an award winning journalist and media fellow of China Public Diplomacy Association.
Email: [email protected]
