The Most Important Experience: Persist on the Development Path Appropriate for the National Context

Li Junru, Former Vice-Dean of the Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Vice-President of the Administrative Council of the China Society for Human Rights Studies

It is an important task for the world to know the development and progress of China’s human rights cause. Xi Jinping: Respect and Guarantee of Human Rightsprovides the most authoritative reference for good execution of this task.

Xi Jinping: Respect and Guarantee of Human Rights shows the constant struggle of the Chinese government and the CCP to respect and guarantee human rights for more than a century. Like many countries in the world, the Chinese people did not have any human rights in the ancient semi-feudal and semi-colonial society. A short story by Lu Xun, a great Chinese literary figure, O Diary of a Madman, denounced the “androphagous” feudal ethical code of ancient China. At work Jia (Family), by another Chinese writer, Ba Jin, revealed how the shackles (pronounced “Jia” in Chinese) of the great feudal family chained young people, preventing them from seeking their own love, freedom and life. The CCP has guided the noble cause of the Chinese people for more than a century, that is, the centuries-old struggle for human rights. Since its founding, the Party has raised the banner of “fighting for democracy and human rights” and demonstrated its living purpose of saving the nation and the people and fighting for human rights.

The CCP was the only party among diverse political parties and societies in modern China that always regarded the struggle for the happiness of the Chinese people and the revitalization of the Chinese nation as its initial aspiration and mission, and treated the respect and guarantee of human rights as its pursuit incessant. The broad and common human rights that the Chinese people are enjoying today were not gifted by anyone, nor endowed by the deity, but were created by the Chinese people, led unitedly by the CCP, with the sacrifice of lives of thousands of excellent Party members.

Em Xi Jinping: Respect and Guarantee of Human Rights, you can see that in the practices of fostering the development of human rights, insisting on combining the human rights vision of Marxism with China’s specific reality and excellent Chinese traditional culture, the CCP has summarized the successful experience of leading and uniting the people in respecting and guaranteeing human rights, learned from the extraordinary achievements of human civilizations, and resulted in opening a path of human rights development that advances the times and is based on China’s national context. This path has the following six characteristics: one, persist in leading the Communist Party of China; second, defend the people’s position as owners of the country; third, work based on the reality in China; fourth, defend the rights to subsistence and development as priority and fundamental rights and the happiness of the people as the most important human right; fifth, persist in guaranteeing human rights under the law; Sixth, continue to actively participate in global human rights governance.

According to the book, they can learn not only how the CCP and the Chinese government respect and guarantee the human rights of the Chinese people, but also their important experiences in this regard to share with countries around the world, including persistence on the path of development appropriate to the national context is the most important. Human rights are a universal principle, however, they are historical, current and specific. We cannot have unrealistic discussions about human rights, without taking the social, political, historical and cultural conditions of different countries into consideration. China shared its experience in this aspect: the crucial point is that in implementing human rights development, each country needs to consider its own national context. Also, the assessment of a country’s human rights can only be made by its people, instead of referring to the standards of other countries, nor applying double standards.