Q: When talking about human rights, China always holds
that subsistence and development rights are the principal human
rights. What are the reasons for this viewpoint? What has China
done in solving the subsistence and development rights of the
Chinese?
A: Subsistence and development rights are the principal human
rights. Without these rights, other human rights have nowhere to
start. This is China's basic viewpoint on the issue of human
rights, and a basic conclusion that China draws from history and
the present situation.
Before 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded,
China had long suffered from invasion and colonial domination. The
country lost its sovereignty and the society was in a perpetual
state of unrest. Under the oppression of imperialism, feudalism and
bureaucratic capitalism, common people suffered from invasion and
exploitation and 80 percent of them were left in poverty, without
dignity let alone basic human rights. After more than a century's
struggle, the Chinese people founded their own country and realized
their right to subsistence. After 1949, and especially after reform
and opening up in 1978, China set economic development as the
central task and began pursuing development with undivided
attention. Within the past two decades, the number of poor people
in China declined from 250 million to 2.61 million in 2004, with
more than 1 billion people living a comfortable life. The human
rights situation has comprehensively improved and developed.
China's achievements in protecting, improving and promoting human
rights are praised by all unbiased countries and people.
Of course, because China is a developing country, the Chinese
human rights situation still needs to be improved for historic and
economic reasons, in particular the unbalanced development between
western and eastern areas and the differences between the rich and
the poor. However, the Chinese Government and Chinese people are
awake to these problems and are trying to solve them. This is a
long-term process and these problems can be ultimately solved only
with economic development. Development is the foundation for
solving the rights of equal development.
The year 2004 is significant in China's human rights
development. "The state respects and protects human rights" was
written into the Constitution for the first time, so that
respecting and protecting human rights became part of the country's
values, for the CPC as ruling party as well as one of the country's
basic legal principles, developing a more extensive foreground for
the comprehensive development of China's human rights
undertakings.