Efforts to respect and protect

Human rights theory and practice with Chinese characteristics allow all citizens to participate and share in development

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). As Party General Secretary Hu Jintao said, for the past 90 years, under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people have accomplished the three missions of New Democratic Revolution, the Socialist Revolution and reform and opening-up. During the process, the Party and the people have opened a new path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, formed the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics, as well as established a system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Also deeply intertwined in the process is the Party and the people's struggle for national independence, people's liberation and common prosperity. At the same time, they have also been fighting for the maintenance and promotion of people's human rights in China.

Especially since the introduction of the reform and opening-up policy, China has gradually found its own path toward defending human rights, and set up a human rights theory with Chinese characteristics, as well as a system with Chinese characteristics for maintaining human rights.

On the basis of China's own specific conditions, China's view of human rights is different from that in the West:

First, China believes there are both individual and collective human rights; second, China believes that human rights include not only political rights, but also economical, social and cultural rights; third, China believes the right to subsistence and the right to development should be given priority as it is still a developing country; fourth, the core value of human rights is that all social members be ensured of their rights to equal participation and to equal development.

Guided by these four principles, we have coordinated the relations of sovereignty and human rights, universal principles and domestic conditions, human rights and society, theory and practice, thus greatly promoting human rights in China.

Besides great achievements in practice, China has also developed the theory of human rights with Chinese characteristics, which is now already an indispensable part of the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Since the 1990s we have seen increasingly more people join in human rights studies, with the China Society for Human Rights Studies as its center. Chinese scholars have translated huge quantities of human rights works, as well as published hundreds of books and thousands of essays. In all the studies of human rights and sovereignty, universal principles and different conditions, development and human rights, stability and rule of law, we have done deep research and formed a comprehensive theory, greatly strengthening China's right to speak in the international society. Today, China's voice of harmony and tolerance is increasingly heard in world dialogues.

It is noteworthy that during the process of development and the creation of a Chinese human rights theory and practice, China's human rights protection system is also taking shape. "Respect and protect human rights" has been enshrined in the country's Constitution and the Constitution of the Communist Party of China (CPC). China's human rights protection cause has been legalized and institutionalized.

Today, China has formulated a string of laws and signed a series of international conventions to formally protect basic human rights. With the establishment of the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics, China has established a legal system of human rights that, led by the Constitution, comprises 236 laws, 690 administrative laws and regulations and more than 8,600 local rules and regulations.