China endeavors to achieve comprehensive progress in human rights

Editorial By People’s Daily

The State Council Information Office of China released the country’s fourth national human rights action plan on Sept. 9. Titled “Human Rights Action Plan of China (2021-2025)”, the document is considered a milestone in China’s human rights development history and marks a new stage of the country’s human rights cause.

Enabling people to fully enjoy human rights is a shared goal of human societies. The 100-year history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is a glorious process of striving for people’s liberation, safeguarding people’s rights, and promoting the well-rounded development of the individual.

The CPC always puts people first and applies the principle of universality of human rights in the context of China’s national conditions. It regards the rights to subsistence and development as the primary and fundamental human rights and believes that living a life of contentment is the ultimate human right. It promotes the well-rounded development of the individual and strives to give every person a stronger sense of gain, happiness, and security.

The party has pioneered a socialist path with Chinese characteristics for human rights protection, created a miracle of respecting and protecting human rights and contributed significantly to global human rights progress.

Actively responding to the initiatives of the international community on human rights protection, China has already made and implemented three national human rights action plans since 2009, under which the country has continuously improved people’s living standards, better safeguarded people’s rights, perfected policies, laws, and measures for protecting rights and interests of special groups, further strengthened legal protection for human rights, and fully participated in global human rights governance, making important contributions to the world’s human rights cause.

China is one of the few countries in the world that have made several consecutive action plans for human rights protection. The country has integrated its national human rights action plans with its national development plans.

There is no end to improving human rights. As China embarked on its new journey toward a modern socialist country, it has also witnessed a new chapter of human rights protection.

China has entered a stage of high-quality economic development and enjoys more favorable conditions for advancing the cause of human rights. At the same time, the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has experienced a historic shift that affects the whole landscape, while the Chinese people’s expectations for a better life as well as human rights protection have been elevated constantly.

The “Human Rights Action Plan of China (2021-2025)” sets the objectives and tasks of respecting, protecting, and promoting human rights between 2021 and 2025 based on an accurate grasp of the characteristics and requirements of the country’s new development stage of building a modern socialist country, the principle of respecting and protecting human rights, which has been included in China’s constitution as a guiding principle, and the spirit embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights conventions, in a bid to achieve comprehensive progress in human rights.

According to the document, the basic principles in formulating and implementing the plan include incorporating the development of human rights into the legal framework, promoting all-round and balanced development of all human rights, integrating the general principles of human rights with the actual conditions in China, fully guaranteeing all social members’ rights to equal participation and development, pooling the efforts of governments, enterprises, public institutions, and social organizations, and tapping the potential of digital technology in expanding the free and well-rounded development of every person.