In those days, landlords and rich peasants who accounted for 10 percent of the rural population held 70 percent of the land, while the poor peasants and farm laborers who accounted for 70 percent of the rural population owned only 10 percent of the land. The bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie who accounted for only a small fraction of the population monopolized 80 percent of the industrial capital and controlled the economic lifelines of the country.
The Chinese people were repeatedly exploited by land rent, taxes, usury and industrial and commercial capital. The exploitation and poverty they suffered were of a degree rarely seen in other parts of the world. According to statistics, the Chinese peasants were subjected to 1, kinds of exorbitant taxes and levies, which took away percent of their harvests.
The people's miseries were exacerbated and their lives made all the harsher by the reactionary governments who, politically corrupt and impotent, surrendered China's sovereign rights under humiliating terms and served as tools of foreign imperialist rule, and by the separatist regime of warlords who were embroiled in endless wars.
It was estimated that 80 percent of the populace in old China suffered to varying degrees of starvation and tens of thousands -- hundreds of thousands in some cases -- died of it every year.
A major natural disaster invariably left the land strewn with corpses of hunger victims. More than 3. In , a crop failure in Henan Province took the lives of 3 million people and left 15 million subsisting on grass and bark and struggling on the verge of death. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the reactionary Kuomintang government launched a civil war, fed on the flesh and blood of the people and caused total economic collapse.
In , 10 million people died of hunger countrywide. In , million, or 22 percent of the national population then, were under the constant threat of hunger. Ever since the founding of the People's Republic of China in , the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government have always placed the task of helping the people get enough to wear and eat on the top of the agenda.
For the first three years of the People's Republic, the Chinese people, led by their government, concentrated their efforts on healing the wounds of war and quickly restored the national economy to the record level in history. On this basis, China lost no time to complete the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicraft industry and capitalist industry and commerce, thus uprooting the system of exploitation, instituting the system of socialism and, for the first time in history, turning the people into masters of the means of production and beneficiaries of social wealth.
This fired the people with soaring enthusiasm for building a new China and a new life, emancipated the social productive forces and set the economy on the track of unprecedented growth. Since , China has switched the focus of its work to economic construction, begun reform and opening to the outside world, and set the goal of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. This has further expanded the social productive forces and enabled the nation to basically solve the problem of feeding and clothing its 1.
Tilling 7 percent of the world's total cultivated land -- averaging only 1. Contrary to some Western politicians' prediction that no Chinese government could solve the problem of feeding its people, socialist China has done it by its own efforts. The past odd years have witnessed a marked increase in the average annual per-capita consumption of major consumer goods despite a yearly average population increase of 14 million. A survey shows that the daily caloric intake of food per resident in China was 2, in , 2, in and 2, in , approaching the world's average.
The life-span of the Chinese people has lengthened and their health improved considerably. According to statistics, the population's average life expectancy increased from 35 years before liberation to 70 years in , higher than the average level in the world's medium-income countries, while the death rate dropped from 33 per thousand before liberation to 6.
China's infant mortality of 31 per thousand approached the level of high-income countries. The health of the Chinese people, especially the physical development of youngsters, has greatly improved as compared with the situation in old China. An average year-old boy in was 1. Since , the health of the Chinese people has improved further. The label on old China, "sick man of East Asia," has long been consigned to the dustbin of history. The problem of food and clothing having been basically solved, the people have been guaranteed with the basic right to subsistence.
This is a historical achievement made by the Chinese people and government in seeking and protecting human rights. However, to protect the people's right to subsistence and improve their living conditions remains an issue of paramount importance in China today. China has gained independence, but it is still a developing country with limited national strength.
The preservation of national independence and state sovereignty and the freedom from imperialist subjugation are, therefore, the very fundamental conditions for the survival and development of the Chinese people. Although China has basically solved the problem of food and clothing, its economy is still at a fairly low level, its standard of living falls considerably short of that in developed countries, and the pressure of a huge population and relative per-capita paucity of resources will continue to restrict the socio-economic development and the improvement of the people's lives.
The people's right to subsistence will still be threatened in the event of a social turmoil or other disasters. Therefore it is the fundamental wish and demand of the Chinese people and a long-term, urgent task of the Chinese government to maintain national stability, concentrate their effort on developing the productive forces along the line which has proven to be successful, persist in reform and opening to the outside world, strive to rejuvenate the national economy and boost the national strength, and, on the basis of having solved the problem of food and clothing, secure a well-off livelihood for the people throughout the country so that their right to subsistence will no longer be threatened.
The Chinese People Have Gained Extensive Political Rights While struggling for the right to subsistence, the Chinese people have waged a heroic struggle for democratic rights. The people did not have any democratic rights to speak of in semi-feudal, semi-colonial China. The Revolution of led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the great forerunner of bourgeois-democratic revolution, overthrew the feudal Qing Dynasty and gave rise to the Republic of China.
He hoped to establish a Western-style democratic system in China, but the fruits of the revolution were snatched by Yuan Shikai, a feudal warlord. Then parliament became a mere instrument for warlords in power struggle, and there occurred the scandal of the "parliament of pigs" and bribery in electing a president. His dream unfulfilled, Dr. Sun died in sorrow and indignation, which found expression in his famous admonition: "The revolution has not yet succeeded.
However, Chiang turned out to be just another warlord under whose fascist rule millions of democracy-seeking people perished in bloody massacres. He adopted a non-resistance policy towards the Japanese invasion while stepping up the civil war, ignoring opposition from the Chinese Communists, patriots and democrats from all walks of life and the broad masses of the people. He launched the all-out civil war after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, again violating the ardent wish for peace, democracy and reconstruction of the Communist Party, the democratic parties and the people throughout China.
Driven beyond the limits of forbearance, the people rose up in arms and in the end toppled Chiang's reactionary rule. Since the very day of its founding, the Communist Party of China has been holding high the banner of democracy and human rights. It encouraged and assisted Dr. Sun in reorganizing the Kuomintang, effected the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and launched the Northern Expedition against the reactionary rule of the warlords.
After Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the democratic revolution, the Party united all patriots and democrats and led the people in a struggle against civil war, hunger, autocracy and persecution.
In the liberated areas it established democratic governments, drew up laws which guaranteed the people's democratic rights and resolutely implemented its own democratic program. The democratic system in the liberated areas attracted numerous patriotic and democratic fighters and became the hope of the entire people. Under the Party's leadership, the Chinese people overthrew the Kuomintang reactionaries' dictatorial rule and founded the democratic and free People's Republic of China.
The Chinese people gained real democratic rights after the founding of New China. In explicit terms the Constitution stipulates that all power in the People's Republic of China belongs to the people. That the people are masters of their own country is the essence of China's democratic politics. By stating that the People's Republic of China is a socialist state of the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants, the Constitution has established the status of the workers, peasants and other working people as masters of the country and thus invested the laboring people who were at the bottom rung of the social ladder in old China with lawful democratic rights.
Equality of men and women, as provided by the Constitution, has enabled women, who account for half of the Chinese population, to gain the same rights as men in politics, economy, culture, society and family life.
The stipulation that all nationalities in China are equal has ensured that all the nation's minority nationalities enjoy equal democratic rights with the Han people. To guarantee that the people are the real masters of the country with the right to run the country's economic and social affairs, China has adopted, in light of its actual conditions, the people's congresses as the state's basic political system.
Deputies to the people's congresses at all levels are chosen through democratic elections. The Constitution stipulates that all citizens of the People's Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of nationality, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education, property status, or length of residence, with the exception of persons deprived of their political rights by law.
Taking into consideration its vast territory, large population, inconvenient transportation and relatively low economic and cultural development, China has adopted an election system appropriate to its actual conditions.
That is, deputies to people's congresses at the county level or below are elected directly, while those to people's congresses above the county level are elected indirectly. This election system makes it possible for the people to choose deputies whom they know and trust.
The election system has been improved in recent years on the basis of past experience. For instance, more candidates are posted than the number of deputies to be elected, instead of an equal number as before. The right to vote has been widely exercised by the Chinese people. According to statistics from the county- and township-level direct elections, Generally speaking, upwards of 90 percent of the voters participate in the elections held in the various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.
The most striking characteristic of China's electoral system is that elections are not manipulated by money and that deputies are not elected on the basis of boasting and empty promises but according to their actual contributions to the country and society, their attitude in serving the people and their close relations with the people.
It is clear from the election results that the elected are broadly representative, that is, representative of people of all social strata and all trades and professions.
Of the 2, deputies to the Seventh National People's Congress, , or 23 percent, are workers and farmers; , or The National People's Congress is the supreme organ of state power. It has legislative power. It elects or removes president and vice-president of the People's Republic of China, chairman of the Central Military Commission, president of the Supreme People's Court and procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate; and appoints or removes premier, vice-premiers, state councilors, ministers, ministers in charge of commissions, auditor-general and secretary-general.
All administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs of the state are created by the National People's Congress, responsible to it and supervised by it. Following the principle of democratic centralism, the National People's Congress adopts major policy decisions after full airing of opinions; and once adopted, these policies are carried out in a concerted effort.
In this way, the People's Congress can not only represent the people's common will but also become instrumental for the people in running state, economic and social affairs. Coming from among the people, the people's deputies are responsible to the people and supervised by the people; their close contact with the masses and wide knowledge of the actual situation enable them to fully reflect the people's wishes, formulate laws suited to reality and supervise the work of government organs.
The Chinese Communist Party is the ruling party of socialist China and the representative of the interests of the people throughout the country. Its leadership position has been the result of the historical choice made by the Chinese people during their protracted and arduous struggle for independence and emancipation. The leadership of the Party is mainly an ideological and political leadership. The Party derives its ideas and policies from the people's concentrated will and then turns them into state laws and decisions which are passed by the National People's Congress through the state's legal procedures.
The Party does not take the place of the government in the state's leadership system. The Party conducts its activities within the framework of the Constitution and the law and has no right to transcend the Constitution and the law.
All Party members, like all citizens in the country, are equal before the law. The system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party is the basic political system that gives expression to people's democracy. It guarantees that all social strata, people's organizations and patriots from various quarters can express their opinions and play a role in the country's political and social life.
Cooperation between the Communist Party and these democratic parties took shape during the democratic revolution before , the year New China was founded. The leading role of the Communist Party in the cooperation is recognized by the democratic parties as it has been evolved in long years of common struggle.
These democratic parties shared with the Communist Party the same basic political ideas whether in the struggle for overthrowing the "three big mountains" or during the period of building New China.
Enjoying political freedom and organizational independence, all these democratic parties have developed greatly. They are neither parties out of office nor opposition parties, but parties participating in state affairs. As China's ruling party, the Communist Party repeatedly asks these democratic parties for their opinions on every major state affair and consult with them for solutions.
Relations between the Communist Party and the democratic parties follow the guideline of "long-term coexistence and mutual supervision, treating each other with full sincerity and sharing weal or woe. Many members of the democratic parties have assumed leading posts in organs of state power, government departments and judicial organs. Of the 19 vice-chairmen elected by the Seventh National People's Congress at its First Session, seven are members of democratic parties.
Nearly 1, members of the democratic parties and personages with no party affiliations are holding leading posts in governments above the county level. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference CPPCC consists of representatives of all the political parties and people's organizations and from among patriots and democrats who support socialism and the reunification of the motherland.
After the establishment of the National People's Congress as the supreme organ of state power, the CPPCC became an organization of the patriotic united front. It provides a forum for discussions on major state policies and principles and big issues in social life and plays a supervisory role through suggestions and criticisms. The system of political consultation has played an important role in promoting democracy. China attaches great importance to the promotion of democracy at the grass-roots level so as to guarantee that citizens can directly exercise their political rights.
Neighborhood Committees are the grass-roots democratic organizations in urban areas, and their counterparts in rural areas are Village Committees. As self-governing organizations established by the people, these committees deal with matters concerning public welfare and residents' well-being while assisting local governments in mediating family and neighborhood disputes, conducting ideological education and maintaining public order.
Most Chinese enterprises have adopted the system of workers' congress, which is the basic form of democratic management through which workers participate in the decision-making and management of the enterprises and supervise the enterprise leaders. Over the last few years, virtually all directors and managers of large and medium-sized state enterprises have been examined and their work appraised with the participation and supervision of the workers' congresses.
The Constitution provides for a wide range of political rights to citizens. In addition to the right to vote and to be elected mentioned above, citizens also enjoy freedoms of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration. There is no news censorship in China. Statistics show that of all the newspapers and magazines in China, only one-fifth are run by Party and state organizations, and the others belong to various democratic parties, social organizations, academic associations and people's organizations.
By law citizens have the right to intellectual property, such as copy-right, and the right to publication, patent, trademark, discovery, invention and scientific and technological achievement. It is a matter of personal freedom for a citizen to decide what book he will write, what point of view he will use in writing it and which publishing house he will choose to have his book published.
Statistics show that an overwhelming majority of the 80, titles of books printed in with a total impression of 5. As to the freedom of association, the statistics showed that there were 2, associations, including societies, research institutes, foundations, federations and clubs.
All these associations operate freely within the framework of the Constitution and the law. The Constitution also rules that citizens have the right to criticize and make suggestions regarding any state organ or functionary and the right to make to relevant state organs complaints or charges against, or exposures of, any state organ or functionary for violation of the law or dereliction of duty.
The Constitution provides that freedom of the person of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. Unlawful detention or deprivation of citizens' freedom of the person by other means and unlawful search of the person of citizens are prohibited; the personal dignity of citizens is inviolable, and insult, libel, false accusation or false incrimination directed against citizens by any means is prohibited; the residences of citizens are inviolable and unlawful search of, or intrusion into, a citizen's residence is prohibited; freedom and privacy of correspondence are protected by law, and those who hide, discard, damage or illegally open other people's letters, once discovered, shall be seriously dealt with, and grave cases shall be prosecuted.
The Constitution provides that China implements the system of people's democratic dictatorship, which combines democracy among the people and dictatorship against the people's enemies. To guarantee the people's democratic rights and other lawful rights and interests, China pays great attention to improving its legal system. During the period, the National People's Congress and its Standing Committees made 99 laws and 21 decisions on legislative amendments and passed 52 resolutions and decisions on legal matters; the State Council formulated more than administrative laws and regulations; and the people's congresses and their standing committees of various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities and provincial capital cities formulated numerous local laws and administrative rules and regulations, of which more than 1, were about human rights.
The unity between rights and duties is a basic principle of China's legal system. The Constitution stipulates that every citizen is entitled to the rights prescribed by the Constitution and the law and at the same time must perform the duties prescribed by the Constitution and the law, and that in exercising their freedoms and rights, citizens may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society or of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens.
Legally citizens are the subjects of both rights and duties. Everyone is equal before the rights and duties prescribed by the Constitution and the law. No organization or individual may enjoy the privilege of being above the Constitution and the law. Practice of the past odd years since liberation proves that the socialist democracy and legal system adopted by China are suited to the country's actual conditions and that the people is satisfied with it.
It goes without saying that the building of this democratic politics and this legal system is no smooth sailing. There were times when democracy and law were seriously violated, such as happened during the "cultural revolution" Nevertheless, the Communist Party, backed by the people, corrected these mistakes and set the nation's socialist democracy and legal system back to the course of steady development.
Upholding the general policy of reform and opening to the outside world and giving great attention to building socialist democratic politics, China is striving to improve and strictly enforce the socialist legal system and continuing the work to reform and improve the political system -- all for the purpose of ensuring that the people can fully enjoy their civic rights and better exercise their political right of running the country.
Citizens Enjoy Economic, Cultural and Social Rights The human rights advocated by China encompass not only the right to subsistence and the civic and political rights, but also economic, cultural and social rights. The Chinese government pays due attention to the protection and realization of the rights of the country, the various nationalities and private citizens to economic, cultural, social and political development. Socialist China eliminated the system of exploitation of man by man, thus making it possible for the first time in history for all working people to secure the right to equal economic development.
China upholds the socialist system of public ownership of the means of production as the mainstay while at the same time permitting and encouraging the appropriate development of other economic sectors as supplements to the socialist economy.
It will neither adopt a unitary public ownership system, which is divorced from the nation's current level of development of productive forces, nor practice privatization, which tends to shake the dominant position of public ownership in the national economy. Public ownership of the means of production constitutes the basis of China's socialist economic system.
It guarantees that the major means of production in society are possessed by all the working people through the ownership by the whole people and the collective ownership by the laboring masses.
The working people enjoy the right to manage, control and use the means of production. According to statistics, the total social investment in fixed assets in China came to That is to say, the bigger share The distribution system adopted in China is mainly based on the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work. Those who get rich first can then help others, so that common prosperity can be achieved.
This brings into play the enthusiasm of the laboring masses and at the same time prevents polarization. China is one of the nations that register the lowest income gap in the world. According to statistics, the 20 percent of urban dwellers with the highest spendable incomes earn only 2. This very fact has made it possible for China, an economically underdeveloped country, to guarantee the livelihood of its 1. Economic equality has motivated the laboring people to a great extent and brought about speedy growth of the Chinese economy.
Over the past odd post-liberation years and particularly in the past decade and more since the adoption of the policy of reform and opening to the outside world, China has all along been in the front rank of the world in terms of the rate of economic growth.
The annual increase of GNP was 6. China now leads the world in the output of many important products, including grain, cotton, pork, beef, mutton, cloth, coal, cement and television sets; and it has also emerged as one of the world's biggest producers of steel, crude oil, electricity and synthetic fibers. With the growth of the national economy, the overall living standards of the Chinese people have greatly improved.
Statistics show that in China's national income came to 1, Fewer members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — who in the past have tended to support China — supported Xinjiang policies, and multiple statements of condemnation were produced at the UN.
This article is more than 9 months old. Photograph: War on Fear. Although China is not party to the Rome Statute and holds veto power in the U. Security Council, there may be a path to legal action through the ICC. Further, even if the formidable obstacles to ICC action were overcome, international criminal law is difficult to enforce. Because the ICC does not have its own enforcement body, it relies on global cooperation for support in arresting and transferring individuals, obtaining evidence, and enforcing orders.
Some countries may be unwilling to arrest and extradite Chinese officials for fear of repercussions, prioritizing economic security and Chinese foreign direct investment over human rights concerns. The world must now decide how far it will allow China to go in its human rights atrocities without facing global repercussions. She works in global anti-corruption.
Bromund and Jonathan Reich. Signups for A. Emails Key Topics Scroll within to view all topics. About the Author s. Follow her on Twitter gigioconnell. Read these related stories next:. Bromund and Jonathan Reich Nov 10th, Crane Oct 29th, The US imposed some targeted sanctions on Chinese officials, agencies, and companies involved in abuses in those two regions, and the US Congress passed several new laws on a range of human rights concerns.
However, despite sustained pressure from the European Parliament and civil society, divisions among EU member states have prevented the bloc from adopting robust measures such as targeted sanctions against the Chinese officials responsible for the crackdown. Few governments in Muslim majority countries expressed concerns about abuses in Xinjiang.
The number of countries willing to publicly condemn the Chinese government for its abuses in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet, and elsewhere continued to grow, while the number of countries willing to praise Beijing declined. Similarly, over civil society organizations called for an international mechanism to monitor human rights in China. Another global coalition of civil society groups launched a campaign to persuade companies at risk of complicity in Uyghur forced labor to leave Xinjiang.
Universities outside China continued to struggle to protect academic freedom in the face of threats from pro-Chinese voices. The University of New South Wales in Australia took down an article pro-Beijing voices found objectionable and then reposted it, but failed to use the opportunity to robustly explain and defend academic freedom. In October, China was elected to the UN Human Rights Council for a three-year term beginning in January —with the fewest votes of any elected member.
Many BRI projects have been criticized for lack of transparency, disregard of community concerns, and potential environmental degradation. Civil society groups in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand have alleged BRI-backed hydroelectric dams have negatively impacted the Mekong River and caused water shortages.
It has done little to reduce its emissions that contribute significantly to global warming and climate change. It has continued to promote the development of heavily polluting coal both domestically and through BRI. Beijing in February expelled three Wall Street Journal journalists.
In March, authorities expelled at least 13 US nationals and dismissed seven Chinese nationals who worked for US news organizations. In September, authorities delayed visa renewals for a number of journalists with US outlets. That same month, authorities barred two Australian reporters from two Australian news organizations from leaving the country, citing the need to question them about the case of Cheng Lei, an Australian news anchor for the Chinese state broadcaster CGTN who was detained in August for unspecified reasons.
The two Australian journalists fled China after the ban was lifted following negotiations between the two countries. Chinese tech company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, censored content it considered as critical of the Chinese government on its news aggregator app in Indonesia from to mid, according to a Reuters report. Human Rights Watch.
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