Awarding Nobel peace prize to Liu ignores China's true human rights progress: scholar
A Chinese scholar on human rights said that awarding this year's Nobel peace prize to convicted Chinese criminal Liu Xiaobo is an act that displays ignorance of China's true human rights progress.
Chang Jian, acting vice director of the center for human rights research of Nankai University, made the remark in an interview with Xinhua before the official awarding of the Nobel prize in a ceremony in Oslo, Norway on Friday.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said the majority of the international community does not support the Nobel Committee's decision to award Liu the prize, and over 100 countries and international organizations have expressed support for China's stance on the issue.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese government has fully considered both the universal principles of human rights and the country's actual conditions, and has made unremitting efforts to promote and safeguard human rights.
Since China implemented its reform and opening-up policies more than 30 years ago, millions of people in China have been delivered from struggles with daily subsistence and now enjoy overall improved living standards.
Between 1978 and 2009, China's GDP grew at an annual rate of 9.9 percent, while per capita GDP increased by over 12 times, government statistics show.
Also, China's Engel's Coefficient, which measures the amount of money spent on food compared with total income, fell from 57.5 percent in 1978 to 36.5 percent in 2009 in cities, and from 67.7 percent to 41 percent in rural areas.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government attached great importance to guaranteeing and improving people's livelihoods by setting up social welfare systems.
In China' s rural areas, 800 million people are now covered by a new rural medical insurance, and some are now in a pilot pension program, as well. Further, nine-year compulsory education is now available for 99.7 percent of the entire population.
