SCIO briefing on the CPC's philosophy and practice of respecting and safeguarding human rights
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 30, 2021
The Poster News APP:
Some experts believe that when constructing a national human rights discourse system, we should be wary of taking Western experience as a universal human rights standard and avoid "self-Easternization" in human rights discourse. How should we build a Chinese human rights discourse system that is both national and universal? Thank you.
Lu Guangjin:
This topic is indeed a topic that everyone is thinking about. Let me try to introduce it first. When talking about human rights, what we emphasize is the upholding of the principle of universality of human rights. At the same time, what we are opposed to is a universal view of human rights. The principle of universality and the universal view of human rights are two different concepts in our understanding. The universality view of human rights is to realize human rights by following the basic principles of human rights recognized by the United Nations documents or by everyone. The universal view of human rights was put forward by some people in the West during the Bourgeois Revolution, which means that human rights are determined according to their ideological logic, and that actually the standard definition of human rights is of uniqueness. Because we know that "the universal view" itself is a concept of Christianity. After expanding the view of natural human rights to include social and political life, it has become the only human rights standard in social and political life. We think this is inappropriate and unrealistic because different countries have different national conditions, different cultural backgrounds, different historical traditions, different social systems, and different national systems. Under such circumstances, using a single human rights standard to measure more than 200 countries and regions in the world is obviously not in line with actual situations. We have always held a negative attitude towards this; that is, we believe that there is no universal human rights standard in the world.
We mainly adhere to three principles in the development of human rights . First, we adhere to the principle of universality of human rights. We have signed and ratified several human rights conventions and comply with the universality requirements of international human rights. Second, we have to proceed from China's actual conditions and national conditions. This cannot simply be copied. Otherwise, copying will not solve the problem, and it will cause major problems instead. China is the biggest developing country with the largest population and fastest growth -- these are the realities that will affect the fundamental basis of China's development of human rights. Third, we oppose "human rights preachers" who use human rights to start a confrontation, or those who play the human rights card, use human rights as a big stick, and beat others if they don't meet their standards. We think this is unacceptable.
Regarding the connection of human rights discourse, how can China's human rights discourse be connected with the world's human rights discourse, maintaining both nationality and globality? This is indeed a question that scholars and experts should think carefully. We are also exploring this aspect. I think several points are important.
First, it must be characterized by the times. It is impossible to go back to the past when human rights discourse is raised in this era. Mr. He just said that every era has its own human rights. I said that every era has its own human rights discourse. Taking today's discourse back to the 17th and 18th centuries, during Europe's revolutionary years, I'm afraid it obviously would not work and it won't work to use human rights discourse from that era. This is called the evolution of history, the progress of history, and it also reflects the specificity of human rights.
Second, the principle of universality of human rights. Talking about human rights discourse must conform to the principle of the universality of human rights, and it must not be mentioned indiscriminately, otherwise it will not be easy to accept and does not conform to the universality of human rights. We must also pay attention to this aspect.
Third, we need to make some development and improvement on the basis of Chinese culture. Our culture has its own advantages and characteristics, which is also the root of our nation. We need to provide China's values and human rights views to the world and we must have a national characteristic because ethnic nationalities constitute the world. Of course this is a process. I mean that China has to build its own human rights discourse and that the process will take a long time. It will involve the use of both soft and hard power. It will mainly depend on the development and strength of the country. To build a powerful modern socialist country, it must have a strong material basis, and it must also include the development and progress of political civilization, spiritual civilization, and legal civilization, among other aspects. Only when these are integrated together can we truly improve cultural soft power, including human rights culture. Thank you.
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