Platform for exchanges to reduce human rights governance deficit

Jointly hosted by the Information Office of the State Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the China International Development Cooperation Agency, the Forum on Global Human Rights Governance held in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday aims to address the deficits in that realm, and to improve human rights conditions worldwide, particularly in the less-developed countries and regions.

Themed "Equality, Cooperation and Development: The 30th Anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and Global Human Rights Governance", the event has attracted more than 300 experts, researchers and officials from home and abroad.

The congratulatory letter President Xi Jinping sent to the opening of the forum conveys the significance the Chinese side attaches to the human rights causes as well as the forum as a platform for promoting exchanges on the issues and mutual cooperation in the human rights cause.

As Xi said in his letter, China stands for safeguarding human rights.

To this end, China calls on all countries to follow the path of peaceful development, putting into practice the Global Security Initiative; to deepen exchanges and mutual learning, putting into practice the Global Civilization Initiative, and to respect countries' choice of modernization paths, putting into practice the Global Development Initiative.

China stands for advancing human rights in the spirit of mutual respect and equality.

The judgment and evaluation of a country's human rights conditions must be based on the country's development stage and its actual situations. Although people's rights and interests are the same, there is no single path applicable everywhere to improve human rights conditions worldwide.

China has pursued a human rights development path that follows the trend of the times and suits its national conditions, strengthening human rights protection in the course of advancing Chinese modernization.

Human rights should always be a field epitomizing mutual assistance, mutual respect, mutual learning and win-win cooperation. And the improvement of human rights conditions should be an endless pursuit for any country.

In that sense, no country, no matter how developed it is, is eligible to lecture any other country on human rights, not to mention taking it as an excuse to exercise interventionism, which, as history shows, is often a major source of chaos and the cause of humanitarian crises in less-developed countries.

China is ready to work with the rest of the world to act on the principles enshrined in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, push for greater fairness, justice, reason and inclusiveness in global human rights governance, and promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.