Human rights

Human Rights: Chinese and Western Perspectives

Introduction

“The subject of ‘human rights’ is certainly one of the most controversial of the topics addressed in Chinese/Western dialogues. At present, the liberal democratic, rights-based, ideology of Western democracies confronts the communitarian discourse of the Chinese, and the result has been, until recently, an almost complete breakdown of communication” (Hall and Ames 1999, p.225). Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to provide a clear insight about human rights from both Chinese and Western perspectives by focusing on the different views held by them.

The first section of this paper will deal with the various definitions given to the term human rights and also its origins. The second section will then address the different perspective held by the Chinese and Western world in terms of the subject matter by discussing the causes and types of variations as well as the criticisms from both sides. The third and final section of this essay will talk about the future prospects of human rights in China by analyzing the government produced White Papers, Human Rights Watch World Reports along with other selected publications.

As there is no clear cut definition to the term human rights, the various definitions of human rights will be discussed extensively in the following section of this essay.

Definitions and Origin

What are human rights? The Chinese and Westerners have different definitions of this term and what it encompasses. According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, human rights are “The basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life, liberty, freedom of thought and expression and equality before the law (, 2000). On the other hand, Liu Hainan defined human rights as the “rights that man enjoys and is entitled to enjoy on the basis of his natural and social properties. He also added that human rights are restricted by social, economic and cultural development” (Baehr, Hoof, Liu, Tao and Smith 1996, p.17). His views are echoed by numerous other Chinese scholars of his time. Another rather broad definition given by Chinese human rights advocate Wei Jingsheng states that, the concept of human rights is the rights that humans have which encompasses the rights to live and the right to fight for a better life (Angle and Svensson 2001). Besides these definitions, there are perhaps hundreds of other interpretations of human rights due to the changing nature of human rights. However, it can be said that the extensive contents generally cover economic, political, social and civil rights in the west (Starr, 2001). While in China, human rights encompass living, economic, political, social, development and national rights (Feng Zhuoran n.d.).

On the other hand, there are just as many opinions in regards to the origins of human rights as the different definitions. Some scholars view that 17th century English liberal scholar- John Locke’s theory of natural rights laid the foundation for the contemporary liberal doctrine of human rights while others believed that the 12th century Magna Carta is the prelude to the human rights era. The first written documents issued in England were the Petition of Right 1628 and Bill of Rights 1689. Anyhow, the 1776 American Declaration of Independence and France’s 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man are the most important documents in the human rights movement. The former made the declaration that “all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights” (Angle and Svensson 2001, p.300). Due to the fact that Asian and Western cultures have lived in relative isolation from one another until the last century, it is believed that human rights that originated from the West was imported into China’s political discourse in the 19th century during the late Qing dynasty.

Differences between Chinese and Western Perspectives

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Differences between Chinese and Western Perspectives

Even though the idea of human rights was imported to China from the West, China has not simply duplicated the Western model of rights which is based on pragmatism. Instead, the understanding of human rights in communitarian China is derived from its own philosophical tradition and adopted to suit the national circumstances. According to Liu Hainan, the autocratic monarchy and the influence of Confucianism in ancient Chinese society as well as the modern anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles along with the spread of democracy, freedom and human rights ideas from the West, victory of Chinese Marxism and the establishment of socialism in China have jointly constituted the cultural background of current Chinese human rights perspectives (Baehr et al. 1996). The major differences between the Chinese and Western perspectives of human rights are in regards to individual rights versus collective rights; political and civil rights versus economic and social rights; universalism versus particularism.

Western liberal democratic theory suggests that individual freedom and autonomy lays the basis for individual rights. This emphasis on individual rights can be traced back to the first written document in regards to human rights - Petition of Right 1628 (England) which declared the importance of individual rights to freedom and rights to property. On the other hand, ever since the time when the idea of human rights first arrived in China back in the 19th century, the main purpose of rights was to serve the higher interest of the nation state instead of serving the ends of the individual (Weatherley, 1999). Therefore, it is clear that there is a promotion of collective rights stressing on cooperation and responsibility over individual rights in China. While in the West, individuals are first and foremost seen as possessors of rights and any duties they may bear follow on from these rights; the Chinese theorist tend to prioritize the duties of the individual to society and nation ahead of the rights of the individual. This is inline with the Confucian thinking of selflessness which implies that any notion of individual rights was incompatible with as well as unacceptable to traditional Confucian morality. Apart from that, the Chinese Marxist idea of the model communist also place collective interest above those of an individual. In more recent times, China has re-emphasized the importance of collective rights by dedicating various Articles of the Constitutions for collective rights. Article 52 of the 1982 constitution states that “it is the duty of citizens of the People’s Republic of China to safeguard unity of the country and the unity of all its nationalities”, Article 55 states that “the duty to defend the Chinese motherland against aggression as the ‘sacred obligation’ of all citizens” (Weatherley 1999, p.124).

In another instance, most Western scholars believe that only civil and political rights should be considered as human rights while Chinese scholars think that economic and social rights are the foremost important content of human rights. Civil and political rights which encompass the personal autonomy of the individual as well as the participation in the political system of their respective countries was the main focus of early Western theorists namely John Locke in his natural rights theory (Baehr 1996; Weatherley 1999). Meanwhile, the main causes that led to the Chinese emphasis of economic and social rights are also link to the past – the Mencian concept of benovelant government as well as the Chinese Marxist thinking which main concerns were concerns for human material welfare. Apart from that, the condition of mass poverty and economic depravity during the past decades was also a precondition for the significance of economic and social rights. In the 1991 White Paper on Human Rights, The Right to Subsistence is declared as the Foremost Human Rights in the Chinese Peoples Long Fight for (Information Office of the State Council of Peoples Republic of China, 1991). This right to subsistence comprise of the basic rights of food, clothing and accommodation. Chinese scholars view that the provision of subsistence rights actually takes priority over the provision of civil-political rights because if people are unable to enjoy the former then what more the latter. It is also often argued that Western nations place strong emphasis on civil - political rights due to the fact that they already possess the basic socio economic conditions for their people to make full use of these rights. Western emphasis on political and civil rights was so strong that they insisted that human rights should only cover political and civil rights during the 1948 drafting Convention on Human Rights. This issue was resolved by the United Nations issuing two separate conventions, one on civil and political rights – International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the other on socio economic rights – International Convenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Since the United Nations proclamation that economic and social rights are part of human rights, the Western world is slowly accepting the fact. However, the contents of Human Rights Record of the United States 2001 indicate that little emphasis is given to these rights till this day.

Many Western scholars views that the norms of human rights and the system to exercise it shall be universal by strengthening international supervision. This is because the types of universal rights proposed in International Declarations are often Western liberal in origin and these countries frequently try to impose their model of human rights to others as though they are the champions in the world. Their acts have been met with a great deal of hostility by China who houses almost one quarter of the world’s population. According to Mr. Liu Haiqiu China’s representative in the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, “If the sovereignty of a State is not safeguarded, the human rights of its citizens are out of the question…” (Baehr et al.1996, p.5). His plea for non-interference in each other’s affair shows that China places a great deal of emphasis on particularism to achieve their goal of national sovereignty. China’s goal of national sovereignty results from the bitter lessons it has learnt in history where it was semi-colonized during the mid 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century (Li Yunlong, n.d.). Chinese scholars take into account the specific characteristics of individuals as well as differences that exist among countries, nationalities and regions. Thus, human rights that are perceived and practiced in China have strict national boundaries. On the contrary, Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states:

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.” (United Nations, 1999)

This is based on the Western notion of universality that human rights is to be enjoyed by everyone on the basis that we acquire human rights from our innate and equal moral worth as human beings.

Various criticisms arise as a result of the different view on human rights by Chinese and the West. The most common criticism is that Westerners view the words ‘China’, ‘human rights’ and ‘abuses’ as synonymous (Weatherley 1999). In 1994 and 1996, the United States released a Human Rights Report on China accusing the Chinese government of violating human rights. The excerpt of the 1996 report is as follows:

“The Government continued to commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses, in violation of internationally accepted norms, stemming from the authorities' intolerance of dissent, fear of unrest, and the absence or inadequacy of laws protecting basic freedoms. The Constitution and laws provide for fundamental human rights, but they are often ignored in practice.” (U.S Department of State- Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 1997)

However, China is also not short of its criticism on the West. The Chinese has often view the Western ways of exercising human rights as conflicting with traditional duty based values and practices and to some extent appears to be destructively individualistic (Hall and Ames 1999). They also think that the topic of human rights was raised by the imperialistic West to criticize, blame and humiliate China. Apart from that, China reacted to United States criticism by producing two White Papers entitled “Human Rights in America” in 1996 as well as 2001. These documents identified a number of areas in which America had failed to safeguard the human rights of its citizens.

Future Prospects of Human Rights in China

While the West and China may have criticized each other human rights stance, it is no doubt that the emergence of a more ‘liberal’ group of Chinese rights theorists has lead to the growing acceptance of Western human rights concept of universality in China. In the year 2001, China witness numerous major events including the successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics without any human rights preconditions as well as the official accession to the World Trade Organization in November. This is seen as a welcoming move as previously Beijing loss its bid by a mere 2 votes for the 2000 Olympics because of the so-called lousy human rights record. Besides that, the ratification of the ICESCR signed in 1997 as well as the signing of the agreement with the International Labor Organization (ILO) to provide assistance with social security, job retraining and worker health and safety concerns are concrete evidence of China’s increasingly prominent international profile (Human Rights Watch 2002).

However, there are a number of other major human rights concerns in recent years. These concerns are in regards to the limiting of free expression, repression of religious freedoms, political suppression and denial of both freedom of association and the right to strike. The restriction of Internet in accordance to the Ministry of Information and Technology Regulations in early 2002 by requiring Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to use only domestic media news postings, record information useful for tracking users and their viewing habits, copy user’s e-mails and end transmission of subversive material indicates a serious violation of free expression. Moreover, many foreign search engines were selectively blocked and numerous Internet Cafes were shutdown. Apart from that, the massive crackdown to dissolve Falungong, which the government labeled as a cult, results in numerous negative responses from the West especially the United States. Leaders and followers were arrested and imprisoned, some of them were sent to re-education through labour camps without judicial review. Apart from that, China has yet to ratify ICCPR signed in 1998 and gave no response to ILO’s request in June 2000 to send a direct contact mission to discuss freedom of association.

Conclusion

Although the term human rights originated from the West, the Chinese did not simply follow the Western interpretation. Instead, human rights in China was heavily influenced by its own cultural and historical background which happens to be the major cause of the different perspectives by both sides. The Chinese stressed on collective rights, social and economic rights as well as particularism while the Westerners emphasize on individual rights, civil and political rights and universality. Due to the major differences, both sides succumb to criticism by each other.

On a brighter note, the future looks bright for the nation who has the largest population in the world as it gradually increases its participation in international human right activities. Westerners on the other hand are also beginning to accept China’s views on human rights as in 2001; no country sponsored a resolution condemning China’s human rights record at the United Nations Commission on human rights meeting (Human Rights Watch, 2002).

In conclusion, there is no single model of rights which is superior. Thus, it is believed that if both Chinese and Westerners can accord full humanity to each other, the different perspectives of human rights can be combined to find a productive common ground.