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 varied
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 the China Society for Human
Rights Studies has attracted over 70 experts, scholars and
officials from 19 countries and regions.
Cai said that since New China was founded, especially since
major economic reform began in the 1970s, the government had
striven to protect its people's rights.
Socio-economic development has risen continuously, with an
annual economic growth rate of more than nine percent, and the per
capita annual gross domestic product up from US$226 to more than
US$1,700, 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. "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.
"Historic progress has been achieved in China's human rights."
Chinese officials and rights experts have repeatedly stated
China's concept of human rights focuses 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 promoting their progress, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2006)