editor

United States cannot act as the International Judge to assess the status quo of Human Rights of any other sovereign state. Likewise, even if it has the passion for doing so year by year, the result will be far from convincing, for the simple reason that US tends to wield double standards when viewing others and itself, outsiders and its allies. No country, whether it be super power or not, has the right to slam or finger point whoever it has little knowledge of and whereever it has no sense of what is actually going on.  



------Improving human rights is for self advancement

The issue of human rights always touches on the most sensitive nerve of communications between China and the Western countries. On April 13, 2009, China published its first "National Human Rights Action Plan," which has caused much debate in the West. Some have thumbed it up, while others remain skeptical.

The West has always been ready to throw its weight around and faulted China's human rights, which is one of the most important ways it exerts influence on the world stage. However, Westerners will gradually find out that Chinese people are no longer angered by their biased statements about China's human rights. This is because Chinese people have become more self- confident, and are increasingly clear that improving human rights is not a political show pushed by the Western world. Instead, the improvement of human rights is for the sake of the well-being of the Chinese people. Continuously improving human rights in keeping to the specific requirements of the people as well as the country's societal development trends has been accepted among the 1.3 billion Chinese people.

No doubt that the Western view of human rights, which was so far considered as an authoritative textbook, has influenced the development of Chinese society. Criticism from the West was once a motivating force to drive Chinese society forward, which led some Chinese people to envy and pursue the western way of human rights. In the process of development, however, more and more Chinese people have realized that China has its own specific conditions and that the Chinese people have issues involving their own interests that are of most concern to them, issues such as income, medical care, housing and employment. Only when these problems are solved can China's human rights issues make substantial progress.

After 30 years of reform and opening-up, most Chinese are aware that China's human rights have been remarkably improved during the process of development and that with further development, human rights will continue to improve. Lionel Vairon, a senior French diplomat, said in his newly-published book "Threat of China?" that among the Western criticisms toward China, regarding its human rights are full of word choice and game. Regardless of those lengthy speeches and articles, Western human rights organizations and their allies claim that the Chinese political system violates human rights, but their claims are results of their biased theoretical thinking, because they have been refusing to face up to the substantial progress that China has made.

Human rights in China have advanced by great strides in the past years. The conditions and situations for the development of human rights in China are completely different from that when Western countries made their progress in human rights. French women did not have their rights to vote until one and a half centuries after the announcement of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" in France. And, 187 years after the announcement of the "Declaration of Independence" in the US, Martin Luther King still had to make his voice heard that "all men are created equal."

History has given Western countries plentiful time and a tolerant environment to develop their human rights step by step. Nevertheless, China has to not only develop its human rights according to its reality, but should also keep the pace with its social development conditions and background. So, in a sense, China needs more understanding and tolerance from the world regarding its HR development. The world should especially try to understand China's human rights progress from the perspective of its historical and social development.

Human rights with which the Chinese people are satisfied are the most worthy of the country's pursuit. While pursuing their own objectives of human rights, Chinese people are also making significant contributions to the progress of the world's human rights in general. China's determination to promote its human rights and the well-being through its own means should not be bent due to influence and pressure from outside of the country.


Related:

Human Rights in China--Facts & Reports

China Hits Back at US Human Rights Report

netawhile

I believe that the pursuit of human rights is a constant and it is something that is always seeing refinement.  Though the west has long established ground-work that suggests the ideal of these rights, there are always shortcomings and work remains to be done.  The basic premise in the U.S. Declaration of Independence is that all men and women are created equal.  But we all know that what happens after 'creation' differs in equality by a broad range.  Many people are born into privilege and poverty - severe inequities immediately follow 'creation'.

Some human rights issues in the U.S. still exist and are masked by terms like 'health care', 'immigration' and 'welfare', to name a few.  There are gaping holes in the fabric of human rights that provide for the privileged (top 2%) and reward the indolent and idle.  As long as there are significant social class variations, there will continue to be the subtle, unspoken human rights issues in the U.S. that mainly afflict the middle class.  They are just neatly labeled and filed away.

The U.S. had disparaged China's human rights but China is not be manipulated by the criticism.  Some of the criticism merely states the obvious and China has programs of development underway as part of their model of a socialist society.  Often times, the comments and criticisms from the U.S. serve as tinder to incite unrest among Chinese, but the effect of this tactic is diminished by the growing awareness of the Chinese citizens.  There is a visible pride in the citizenry that stems from massive efforts of the leadership to improve and seek balanced growth.  It appears that China is well on it's way to becoming the model by which other societies can be measured as they diligently strive to raise the bar.