Challenges and strategy choices for China's human rights development in the new period
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2. Strategy choices for China's human rights development
Four problems need to be solved to meet the new challenges and promote the China's human rights development, namely, the problem of the relationship between equal and special protection of human rights, the problem of relationship between fundamental human rights protection and the enhancement of protection, the problem of relationship between domestic and international protection of human rights, and the problem of relationship between government promotion and social participation. To solve these problems, we must insist, on the one hand, that China's human rights protection has been proved to be successful and effective, adhering to the principle of People First, putting people's rights to subsistence and development prior to all and comprehensively promoting human rights in a healthy interaction among reform, development and stability. Specifically, while we focusing on the principle of People First, we must proceed with stability as the precondition, reform the motivation, development the key, and rule of law the guarantee, so as to accelerate an all-round and harmonized development of civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights. On the other hand, we must insist the principle of proceeding from and exploring in the actual conditions, learning in open exchanges and tempering ourselves in orderly debates, readjust and improve the contents and methods of the development strategies for China's human rights in accordance with China's reality.
(1) Equal protection of human rights, especially handling the relationship between equal and special protection Human rights are equal rights, and one of the most fundamental principles of human rights protection is the equal protection of rights. With 60 years of human rights development in the new China, one of the basic experiences is to vigorously promote the equal protection of human rights, aiming at eliminating all the discriminations in enjoyment of rights, including discriminations of sexes, races, geological places, identifications, physical conditions, linguistic cultures and social status. However, during the process of promoting equal protection of human rights, we must deal with the relationship between equal protection of human rights and special protection of vulnerable groups. On the one hand, special protection is necessary for the vulnerable groups in the society, so that they can equally enjoy human rights with other members of society, not only literally, but in reality as well. On the other hand, special protection of vulnerable groups should be limited to their equal enjoyment of fundamental human rights with other groups in society. Equal protection of human rights must serve as the maximum standard of special protection of vulnerable groups, so as not to turn special protection into privilege protection.
(2) The rights to subsistence and development as the priority, promoting balanced protection of all kinds of human rights Human rights are the most fundamental rights to ensure people's survival and dignity, and one of the most basic principles for human rights protection is to protect the most fundamental rights that everyone is entitled to. China is still a developing country. After 30 years of reform and opening up, although sweeping changes have taken place in Chinese people's basic living conditions and a moderately prosperous society has been built, the gap among living conditions of members of society is obvious. More than 20 million people live in poverty in rural areas, the urban-rural, poor-rich and interregional gaps are still growing and have never been contained completely. Population and employment are faced with heavy pressure, resources and environment are seriously hindering the economic development, and problems are relatively prudent in social security, income distribution, education, health care, housing and safe production. Therefore, in terms of human rights development strategies, the rights to subsistence and development still top the priority of China's human rights protection.
However, the rights to subsistence and development need to be interpreted from the perspective of development. The right to subsistence is to ensure that everybody lives a dignified life, enjoys a quality life and cannot be deprived of life willfully. When economy grows, people will demand for higher level of protection of rights to subsistence and development. At the same time, in different areas and among different social groups, the actual conditions of and demands for rights to subsistence and development are different. Therefore, in the protection of rights to subsistence and development, we must ensure that the relationship is good between the increased demands for protection and the balance among conditions of protection, give priority to meeting the basic demands and improve the level of protection.
Prioritizing the rights to subsistence and development in the strategies for human rights development does not mean to neglect other kinds of human rights. It is interdependent and mutually promotional between the realization of rights to subsistence and development and the protection of all other kinds of human rights. On the one hand, the protection of the rights to subsistence and development depends on the protection of other economic, political, social and cultural rights. In order to enhance the protection of the rights to subsistence and development, we need to vigorously develop productive forces and restructure economic, political, social and cultural systems, thus creating necessary economic, political, social and cultural conditions for highly efficient development of economy and improvements of people's quality of life and enabling people to enjoy more economic, political, social and cultural rights. On the other hand, the realization of the rights to subsistence and development lays a solid foundation for other economic, political, social and cultural rights. Therefore, under the precondition of giving priority to promoting the rights to subsistence and development, we should take more proactive measures to accelerate the balanced development of all other human rights. This constitutes the strategic target that must be realized for China's human rights development in the new historical stage.
(3) Assuming the responsibility as a power and participating actively in the international cooperation of human rights Human rights are the fundamental rights that all members of society are entitled to, and one of the most basic principles of human rights protection is the universal protection of fundamental rights. Chinese citizens, both home and abroad, and foreigners staying in China are entitled to be protected. Meanwhile, human rights are an international cause. It is an international duty for China as a developing power to conduct cooperation with other governments and people and promote the common development of international human rights. China should act as an active participant and builder of the international human rights, not just a stander-by or recipient. China should extensively participate in the UN human rights protection mechanisms and the work of making rules, carry out constructive dialogues, exchanges and cooperation with all other countries in the world, more effectively introduce the actual conditions and policies of China's human rights development, step up efforts to find common points in human rights with other countries, and promote mutual understanding. Through learning from each other, the international community will increase consensus, eliminate differences, overcome one's weaknesses by acquiring others' strong points and seek common development.
(4) Government-society cooperation on promoting orderly development of human rights by rule of law Usually, human rights protection is promoted through political means, but finally, it will be included into rule of law. Only when human rights are legitimized, a variety of rights demands, claims, complaints and remedies will be carried out in an orderly manner.
The progress in China's human rights protection depends not only on strong acceleration by government, but also on active participation by all social forces. Various education and research organizations, people organizations and non-governmental public organizations play an important and proactive role in promoting China's human rights. During this process, the government should build a platform to cooperate and coordinate with all social forces and provide cooperation opportunities and necessary financial assistance. All social forces committed to promoting China's human rights development should also actively carry out cooperation with the government and vigorously play a role that cannot be played by the government in some important aspects of human rights construction.
In the cooperation between government and social forces to promote human rights development, different views and opinions will occur on strategies, measures, ways and methods to accelerate China's human rights development. In order to integrate various views and make them work together to promote human rights development, we need further to establish a sound and legitimate procedure including public opinions collection, debates, integration, choices and policy-making, facilitating all different views to be fully and equally expressed and integrated through commonly accepted procedures to promote China's human rights development in an orderly manner.
The realization of human rights depends on the existence of effective remedies, i.e. "no remedies, no rights". The supervision, confirmation and rectification of right violations are important to earnest protection of citizens' human rights. We will further build sound administrative and legal mechanisms on remedies for human rights, establish proper human rights protection organizations to accept complaints, improve the remedial ways and measures for human rights, and timely find out, confirm and rectify human rights violations, thus protecting the human rights of all members of society in real sense.
With the rapid development of new kinds of mass media, the e-media represented by the Internet have been playing an increasingly important role in sharing information of human rights. While new mass media are fast and convenient, they still have such defects as randomness and group thinking. Therefore, relevant legislations have to be improved to give full play to the role of mass media in maintaining human rights and balancing the rights and responsibilities to prevent mass media from becoming a method to violate human rights.
After an arduous course of human rights development, China has explored a correct way of development and scored remarkable achievements in human rights protection. Faced with new challenges in a new historical period, China will hold high the banner of respecting and protecting human rights, abide by the spiritual principle of seeking truth from facts, and join with all social parties to usher in a new phase of China’s human rights development, making its due contribution as a responsible power to the development of international human rights.
(The author is Professor and Vice Dean of Zhou Enlai School of Government, First Vice Director of the Center for Human Rights Research, Nankai University, Councillor of China Society for Human Rights Studies.)
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