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China publishes white paper on human rights progress
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-03-30 10:40
Two weeks after enshrining the principle of "respect for and protection of
human rights" in its Constitution, China published a white paper Tuesday to
detail the progress in its human rights cause last year.
The white paper, released by the Information Office of the State Council and
titled "Progress in China's Human Rights Cause in 2003," came on the heels of a
United States decision to table an anti-China motion in the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights.
"To help the international community toward a better understanding of the
human rights situation in China, we hereby give an overview of the developments
in the field of human rights in China in 2003," said the white paper.
Calling 2003 "a year of great, landmark significance for progress in human
rights in the country," the white paper says the new leadership of the country
that took office last year has adopted the "people first" principle of
government, and in practice has taken a series of distinctively epochal measures
for respecting and safeguarding human rights.
"The leadership has made great efforts to acquaint itself with the feelings
of the people, to reflect such feelings, to reduce the people's burdens and
practice democracy, which have markedly improved China's human rights conditions
and won universal acknowledgment from the international community," it said.
The white paper elaborated on China's human rights conditions in 2003 in
eight chapters, namely the people's rights to subsistence and development, civil
and political rights, judicial guarantee for human rights, economic, social and
cultural rights, the rights and interests of women and children, equal rights
and special protection for ethnic minorities, the rights and interests of the
disabled, and international exchanges and cooperation in human rights.
The white paper said that full realization of human rights is the common goal
of countries throughout the world and an important target for China in her
efforts to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, as well as
her "peaceful rise" in the world.
China will, as always, devote herself to promoting the human rights cause,
actively carry out exchanges and cooperation with the international community
according to the provisions of the Constitution of China and the need for
modernization of the country, and make her contributions to promoting the
healthy development of the international human rights cause, according to the
white paper.
This is the seventh white paper on China's human rights situation published
by the State Council Information Office since 1991.
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