Some thoughts on China’s New Human Rights Plan
So China has just recently unveiled its human rights plan, marking the first time there has been a specific plan for human rights. The document outlines the Chinese govt’s overall strategy, and for the most part, observers have been positive about this development. Southern Weekend newspaper enthusiastically noted the documents mention of the right of the media to “comment” (评论权) ostensibly giving the media more leeway to tell it like it is to power–though i think we all know what would happen if push came to shove.
I find the whole human rights discourse in china fascinating. Consider this essay from the Global Times not known for being among the more progressive of Chinese newspapers. The title of the essay reads “China’s human rights progress is not done to impress foreigners”. Meaning that their policy changes aren’t necessarily the result of pressure applied from foreign governments, especially the US and Europe–but are the natural result of the enlightened leaders and goodly people arriving at some kind of consensus about what needs to be changed and improved.
There are some interesting points made in this essay: (1) The writer remarks that only hundreds of years after the founding of the US and its constitution was Martin Luther King Jr. able to spearhead the civil rights movements that finally gave some substance to the freedoms and rights that blacks in the US were supposed to enjoy as citizens. And he/she also mentions that it was only after a century and a half after the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” and the French Revolution were French women granted suffrage. The thrust of the argument is that societies develop and change in time, and sometimes it takes a damn long time before realities catch up with the letter of the law. A society can be founded on ideals, but ideals are called ideals for a reason–they give the society something to aim for.
Therefore, the writer argues, China ought to be allowed to develop at its own pace. The conundrum modern China faces is that it has to be beholden to the Western concepts of human rights, which is a fundamentally universalist conception of human rights, while still facing the realities of life and culture and governance in China–and is that fair?
It’s quite a philosophical quandary, isn’t it–I suppose I would put it this way: the western countries have a moral obligation to comment and criticize the Chinese human rights record, because that whole obligation, and the universalist values that undergird that whole enterprise, are products of Western culture. What is great about it is the universalist aspect of it–though obviously, relativists and other people more sensitive to the marginal, non-mainstream, peripheral, sub-altern what have you will no doubt protest. I don’t mean it’s perfect, or right, but there is a certain cultural genius to it. I mean, that’s what made Jesus such a phenomenon in his time–Christianity was the first and foremost among universalist creeds. No chosen people, no goyim, no infidels. And the human rights framework stems from this.
Yet to look at it from the other side, the article says that the only human rights that really matter are the ones that the people of the country demand. Here’s the last paragraph of that article, where the author talks about this very point.
只有让中国老百姓满意的人权才是最值得中国追求的人权。中国人民在追求自己的人权目标的过程中，也为世界人权的进步做出了重大贡献。中国以自己的方式提升人权，造福本国民众福祉的决心不应受外界的影响而改变。
So obviously, this redounds to the longstanding Chinese argument that economic rights, ie the right to subsistence, is more important to China and its people than the civil and political rights that the westerners hold so dear. It’s a tricky issue–but perhaps its like Amnesty says–you really can’t have one without the other. And that is much the same as the argument made by Amartya Sen in “Development as Freedom”–which is that grassroots democracy is good for the economy, and good for economic development.
Of course, insisting on a dichotomy, or rather on the either-or of human rights, is like rooking the king from the CCP perspective, because they want to keep their rein on power and be known as the party that lead China out of poverty, and fed the people. Look at these starving, poor people–they don’t give a shit about dissent and media freedoms! They just want us to do our jobs and get them jobs so they can eat and buy homes and afford to get married and raise kids. And we do that, so you foreigners, please shut the fuck up.
So, be chary about measures like this. No standing ovation for the CCP–but I’m ready to give some lukewarm applause, no problem there. *clap….clap*
