White paper details China’s ‘progress’ on human rights
Corruption fight guarantees people’s interests
China’s State Council Information Office issued a white paper on the development of human right, saying that China has made “remarkable progress” in human rights protection, including fighting corruption to guarantee people’s interests and promoting a law-based administration.
The white paper, titled “New Progress in the Legal Protection of Human Rights in China,’’ expounds on the progress in human rights protection in six parts – improving the legal framework to ensure human rights, promoting law-based administration, enhancing judicial protection of human rights, consolidating social mechanisms, strengthening the Party leadership over legal protection of human rights and promoting the development of global human rights, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday.
“China has achieved remarkable progress in human rights protection. It has promoted law-based governance in every field, especially on judicial fairness and independence,” Liu Huawen, a research fellow with the Institute of International Law under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told the Global Times on Friday.
China has worked to guarantee independent and impartial enforcement of judicial and procuratorial authorities according to law; it has pressed forward with reform of the criminal litigation system centering on trials and abided by rules governing the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence, the paper said.
Liu also noted that China has set up online platforms to release information on trials, which has enhanced judicial transparency and guaranteed the judicial justice.
“China’s ongoing anti-corruption drive and promotion of law-based administration also strengthens the protection on human rights. Corruption severely damages social fairness and people’s interests,” Li Yunlong, a professor of international strategic studies at the Party School of the Central Communist of the Communist Party of China (CPC), told the Global Times on Friday.
China has accelerated the process of defining in law the administrative structure and its powers, procedures and responsibilities, prohibited administrative organs from expanding power beyond the law, and confined the exercise of power in an institutional “cage,” according to the paper.
“China’s efforts in enhancing protection of human rights are in accordance with the country’s social development and people’s needs. As the report to the 19th Party National Congress noted the principle contradiction facing Chinese society is between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s evergrowing needs for a better life,” Li said.
Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC held in 2012, depart- ments of the State Council have canceled the requirement for administrative approval on 618 items, according to the white paper.
To build a responsible government, China has also set up a mechanism of internal review of major decisions, and explored the means to establish and implement a lifelong liability accounting system for major decisions and a mechanism to hold people accountable for wrong decisions, said the paper.
However, despite the achievements on human rights protection in China, some Western countries still criticized China for some individual cases or for stereotyped images made by media reports, Liu said, adding that these criticisms are wrong and unfair.
“People from the West, especially some scholars, should come to China and observe the happy life of Chinese people, instead of making unscientific evaluations on China’s human rights situation based on individual cases in their newspapers,” Liu said.
The white paper also mentioned China’s efforts on promoting the development of global human rights under the rule of law and China’s participation in building a legal system of international human rights.
“China has always safeguarded world peace and contributed to global development, and upholds the international order,” read the paper.