Chapter 21 3. Also talk about human rights

There is a United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva (it used to be called the United Nations Human Rights Committee). It meets every year and attracts a large number of media and non-governmental organizations. Some call for the ban on landmines, some care about Japan’s “death from overwork”, and some support homosexuality. , all kinds, all kinds, so lively.The diplomats are also very hard. They are busy in and out of the venue. They often have trouble sleeping for several days and nights. They conduct endless consultations on some controversial draft resolutions, and then drag their tired bodies to the venue. Few people are simply drowsy.At this time, if a "spoiler" suddenly comes to the venue, everyone's spirits will be lifted. There was such a scene on the afternoon of March 28, 2008.The UN Human Rights Council is discussing a draft resolution proposed by the European Union on what kind of "mandate" should be given to the UN Rapporteur on the protection of freedom of expression.

The representative of the European Union felt good about himself, and introduced his draft resolution in detail from a condescending moral height. He believed that the draft resolution should not be controversial, so he proposed to pass it without a vote.That's when the veteran Egyptian ambassador spoke, representing the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which has 57 members (one-fifth of the world's population).He said that, as we all know, the Danish painters vilified Allah Muhammad recently. Some Western countries defended it with freedom of speech, which caused deep harm to Muslims all over the world. We believe that this is an abuse of freedom of speech and should be condemned. So we are now proposing an amendment requiring the United Nations Rapporteur on the Protection of Freedom of Expression to investigate and report to the Human Rights Council on "abuses of the right to freedom of expression that constitute acts of racial or religious discrimination" in the world.

The Sri Lankan ambassador continued to speak. He is a professor of political science at the University of Colombo. His speech is always so humble, as if he is teaching his own students in a lecture hall.He said that this amendment is good, because there must be a certain balance between rights and obligations, otherwise there will be big problems.Now is a globalized world, information spreads all over the world in an instant, some people in developed countries can make irresponsible remarks in the name of freedom of speech, while strikes, school strikes, and market strikes will immediately occur in developing countries. Even fight.The Egyptian amendment can make the EU resolution more comprehensive.The representative of the European Union spoke against it, thinking that this is a completely different type of issue and should not be discussed here.

Then the representative of Cuba made a statement.Cuban diplomats are always criticized and attacked by the West on international occasions, so there are quite a few eloquent ones.The representative of Cuba said that there was such a sentence in the resolution: "Recognizing that all forms of media, including publishing, radio, television and the Internet, play an important role in exercising, promoting and protecting the right to freedom of opinion and expression." He said it should Adding "fairly and equitably" before the word "exercise" changes the entire sentence to "recognize that all forms of media, including publishing, radio, television and the Internet, important role in the right to freedom of opinion and expression".There was a burst of laughter from below, knowing that this sentence had "castrated" the meaning of the original text.Representatives of the European Union firmly opposed it.Finally the Chairman ruled that a vote should be taken.The representative of the European Union asked to adjourn the meeting, presumably wanting to delay it, in order to change this out-of-control situation.But the Egyptian ambassador didn't buy it. He said loudly that the chairman had just announced the start of voting. According to the rules of procedure, this behavior must continue.EU representatives are helpless.The result of the vote was: 32 votes in favour, 0 votes against, 15 abstentions (EU members among others abstained).In this way, the document originally proposed by the European Union on the authorization of the rapporteur on freedom of speech has become one of the few documents in the history of the United Nations that includes the content of preventing the abuse of freedom of speech, which is of great significance.It seems that the monopoly of Western discourse can still exist in media such as CNN and BBC, but it has become increasingly unfeasible in international organizations such as the United Nations.

Freedom of speech is a good thing, but freedom of speech and responsibility for speech should indeed be in direct proportion. If there is freedom, one must assume responsibilities commensurate with freedom. Absolute freedom, just like absolute rights, will lead to absolute corruption.Take freedom of speech as an example. In most Western countries, praising Hitler is also illegal, and inciting ethnic hatred is also prohibited.However, the degree of freedom of speech varies greatly from country to country.Freedom of speech in China is generally moving in a more open direction, as long as you compare the situation 10, 20, and 30 years ago, you can draw this conclusion.This is a general trend, and with the development of the Internet world, as China's overall national strength improves and its national self-confidence increases, this trend will continue.

The abuse of freedom of speech just mentioned was fully demonstrated in the false reports of the Tibetan incident by the Western media in 2008, which aroused the indignation of Chinese people around the world.Western media should take their own responsibility for this.The abuse of freedom of the press and speech has incited ethnic hatred, the most typical example being the former Yugoslavia.When Tito was alive, he educated the Yugoslav people, regardless of their ethnicity, they are all Yugoslavs, respect each other as equals, and live in harmony. In their own right, populist politicians were elected one after the other, resulting in communal fighting and the disintegration of the country.Looking at the situation in China, although ethnic minorities only account for 8% of China's total population, they live in more than half of China's territory.In the definition of freedom of speech, we must prohibit inciting ethnic hatred, and we must not turn a united China into a divided China, as some people in the West expect.

In August 2008, when the world-renowned Olympic Games was held in Beijing, a symposium on global governance innovation was also held in Rome. A scholar from the United States asked me that the slogan of the Chinese Olympic Games was "One World, One World". One dream", can you add another sentence: "same human rights"?I said: "Very good, but this is not enough. Can you add another sentence: the same votes, let the Chinese people and the American people vote together for the president of the United States?" He hesitated.In fact, an important reason why the governance of various global issues is so difficult is that some major Western countries always want to be the judges of the world, but refuse to accept the supervision of the people of the world.Many people in the West always think that they know Africa better than Africans, Russia better than Russians, and China better than Chinese. No responsibility, this practice has already violated the human rights of many people in the world, and how many families have been ruined by the Iraq war alone?How many disasters has the "economic structural adjustment program" brought to Africa?How many tragedies did just one "shock therapy" bring to Russia?

China has gone its own way, combining the strengths of China and the West, and the country has risen rapidly. Although it still faces many problems, the overall effect is far better than that of developing countries that copy the Western model. It is like striving for an Olympic gold medal. If you only If you accept a Western model, then a developing country can probably only fall to the level of India, but when you combine the strengths of the East and the West, the relative success of the Chinese model will appear, which is beneficial to China's human rights cause and other aspects All progress is inspired.

I remember that at an academic conference held in London in 2005, a British female scholar asked me: The West generally believes that the human rights situation in China is deteriorating. What do you think?I said: "First, when discussing human rights in China, you must first ask the Chinese, not the Americans and Europeans, otherwise you will make common sense mistakes. You might as well ask any Chinese you encounter in Europe People, you can also go to China and find out with all the Chinese people you meet: Is human rights in China good or bad? From what I know, most Chinese people think that their current human rights situation is better than in the past better.

"Second, China has lifted more than 400 million people out of poverty, and is now striving to achieve universal social security for 1.3 billion Chinese people. 30 years ago, it was a luxury for Chinese people to own a watch, but today the home ownership rate of Chinese people has exceeded The average level of developed countries. I hope that when you study China's human rights, you can see both China's problems and China's achievements. Don't just see the trees but not the forest, especially don't ignore the feelings of most Chinese people themselves. "Thirdly, China does have its own human rights problems, which need to be constantly corrected and improved. China can also learn from Britain and the West. China has been learning from the strengths of others for 30 years, and will continue to do so in the future But the West also has to work hard to solve its own many human rights problems. I have lived in your country and know that Britain has not yet achieved equal pay for men and women for equal work. Women who do the same work earn 20% to 25% less than men, which is It violates Article 23, paragraph 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As a British female scholar, you might as well spend some time caring about this issue and defending your own rights and the rights of your fellow British women.”

If we take a fair look at the differences between China and the West on human rights issues, there are roughly five characteristics.First, the human rights defined by the United Nations mainly refer to political, civil rights and economic, social and cultural rights.Traditionally, in foreign exchanges, the West only emphasized political and civil rights, while ignoring economic, social and cultural rights.The United States does not regard these latter three rights as human rights.In this regard, the United States is seriously behind, and even many Europeans can't stand it.If we adopted the human rights standards determined by the United Nations instead of the narrow human rights standards formulated by the United States, the human rights problems in the United States should be the most among developed countries. For example, nearly 50 million people in the United States, with a population of 300 million, have Health insurance, not to mention the massive human rights abuses caused by the Iraq War. Second, the West likes to discuss human rights from a legal perspective, and believes that only human rights issues that can be accepted by the courts can be regarded as human rights issues, but in foreign policies, legal issues are always politicized.It is easier to adopt legal methods in countries with a sound legal system and a sufficient number of lawyers.In developing countries where the legal system is relatively weak, according to my observation, attention should be paid to promoting human rights through political means while promoting the construction of the legal system, which is more likely to achieve results.The most typical example is the eradication of poverty.The United States does not believe this is a human right, and European human rights circles are still arguing whether it is a human right or not. However, China believes that this is not only a human right, but also a core human right, and has done so in actual actions. Therefore, China is eradicating poverty. On the one hand, it is at the forefront of the world, and it is possible to continue to lead the world trend on this issue.I have consulted the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the former President of Ireland, Ms. Mary Robinson (Mary Robinson), personally, she also believes that the eradication of poverty should ultimately become a human right. Third, the West always says that human rights are individual rights, and even denies the existence of collective rights.The Chinese think this is ridiculous.Chinese people's philosophy determines that if there is an individual, there must be a collective. This is a dialectical relationship between the unity of opposites in philosophy, and one cannot be dispensed with.In fact, the West also attaches great importance to collective rights: the West has signed so many unequal treaties with China in the past, which represent the collective rights of Western countries and citizens in China.Extraterritorial rights are collective rights.The racial segregation system established by the United States in the past was also to protect the collective and individual privileges of white people in all aspects.The right of national self-determination in human rights is a collective right.The west emphasizes that human rights are the rights of individuals, which is also reasonable, because they worry that collective rights will be abused and eventually become an excuse to damage individual rights. The abuse can also lead to the damage of collective rights.Take the Danish cartoonist's "spoofing" the works of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad as an example. Most Islamic believers believe that his right to freedom of speech has damaged the religious freedom of 1 billion Muslims.An ideal human rights protection system should take into account freedom and responsibility, individual and collective rights.In this regard, Chinese philosophy may have a greater impact on the future evolution of human rights concepts. Fourth, China believes that the realization of human rights should have the correct priority in practice, and no country can realize all human rights at the same time.Practice has proved that it is a great success for China to prioritize people-oriented, poverty eradication, and modernization as core human rights.The wrong priorities, the results are often not good.So many developing countries, under the guidance of the West, have tried political power supremacy, with disappointing results.In a poor country, go for Western-style democracy, and the result is a bad democracy like Haiti - hunger leads to riots, riots lead to anarchy, anarchy makes the so-called democratically elected government useless, and finally can only rely on the United Nations Peacekeepers to maintain order in the country.Even in relatively developed countries, such as the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia, the result of the dominance of political rights is disastrous, and its lessons are worth pondering. The same is true on specific human rights issues. For a developing country, limited resources determine that it must weigh the pros and cons and determine the priority of resource use.For example, a government now has 10 million US dollars, which can be used to improve the dormitories of college students, improve the living conditions of prisoners in prisons, and build low-rent housing. These uses are all for improving human rights. Countries should make the most appropriate arrangements according to their own national conditions, without others making irresponsible remarks. Fifth, when it comes to the priority of human rights, it should also be pointed out that some human rights are core human rights, universal values, and the common bottom line that all human civilizations must accept.These rights cannot be violated at any time and under any circumstances, such as the prohibition of torture, the prohibition of slavery, the freedom of thought, and the inability to be arrested arbitrarily.On these issues, we agree with the mainstream views in the West.The United States has tortured some prisoners in Guantanamo Prison, which aroused the disgust of the whole world, because its practice violated the common bottom line of human civilization. But there are also differences between us and the West. One of them is that the West defines universal values ​​too broadly, and defines them based on the wishes of the West. Follow him, it doesn't make sense.For example, European countries believe that the death penalty is a violation of the universal value of the right to life, but many countries in the world do not accept this interpretation.Europe should first persuade Americans to accept this view. In March 2008, Dutch Foreign Minister Verhagen came to the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva to introduce the foreign policy of the Netherlands. He mentioned that European human rights values ​​include the protection of the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals. He named five countries, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen, and accused these countries of imposing the death penalty on homosexuals, and said that there are still 85 countries in the world that criminalize homosexuality.It is one thing to evaluate the stance of the laws of various countries on homosexuality, but it is another matter whether the so-called European values ​​recognized by the Netherlands are universal values.For most people in the world, the views of the Netherlands may be a little ahead of others, but others can't keep up.These rights represent the main concern of human rights in the Netherlands and many European countries, but for other countries, especially developing countries, they have many more pressing human rights issues to be resolved, why should they follow the post-modern Europe What about countries to set their own human rights agenda? In dealing with human rights issues, it will be commendable if all countries can sincerely exchange experience, learn from each other's strengths and make progress hand in hand, especially the many challenges brought about by globalization require the full cooperation of all countries to solve them.The per capita resource consumption of developed countries is more than 30 times that of developing countries, and the per capita resource consumption of the United States is 11 times that of China. It is the so-called "natural human rights", that is, the "right to pursue happiness" endowed by the Creator; and if you want to enjoy the same rights and use the corresponding resources, he will compete with you and even surround you.Western democratic systems are only responsible to some voters in their own countries, and not to the people of other countries. How can such a self-centered Western concept of human rights and democracy solve today's global problems such as global warming, trade protectionism, and the eradication of extreme poverty? Woolen cloth? The West consumes dozens of times more resources than developing countries, but it still has a lot of human rights problems. The West always wants to monopolize the interpretation of human rights concepts and the dominance of world human rights issues to serve its own strategic interests. It's really hard to justify.There are so many migrant workers in Europe and the United States, but why no European and American countries have joined the UN's Migrant Workers Convention?Why do Muslim female students in many European countries not even have the right to wear a veil in school?Why can't the West take the lead in changing its resource-wasting lifestyle so that the people of the world can enjoy more environmental rights?Why hasn't the United States joined the United Nations' International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child?Why can't Europe and the United States give a higher priority to the big issue of equal pay for men and women for equal work, which affects the quality of life of half of the population?Women's wages in the Netherlands and the UK are on average 20% to 25% lower than men's wages, and France is about 10% lower. This is the statistics of the International Labor Organization in 2004, and these figures are almost zero compared with 1994 10 years ago. any changes.The difference in this aspect in Germany has also widened: from 20% to 25%, and the difference in the United States is also more than 20%. (By the way, the difference between Japan and South Korea is even greater, Japan is 40%, South Korea is about 45%, indicating that there is still room for improvement in women's rights in these countries. Prime Minister Fukuda said to Chinese female college students when he visited Beijing in 2007, you can It’s not exactly polite to come to Japan to introduce gender equality.) There is no end to the development of the cause of human rights in the world, and no one can monopolize this process.China should learn from all countries in the world all beneficial concepts and practices in protecting and promoting human rights, and at the same time make its own contribution to the cause of human rights in the world.There is a rich "human-oriented spirit" in Chinese cultural traditions, which can enrich the Western concept of "human rights" based on individual freedom: human rights should be based on human nature, and human rights can be combined with the sense of responsibility to put others before oneself. Countless Chinese people in disaster relief and countless volunteers for the Beijing Olympic Games have demonstrated this precious spirit, and the whole world is moved by it.Just like the rise of the Chinese Olympic team, China will continue to learn, explore and innovate in the field of human rights, so as to bring China's human rights cause to a higher level, and at the same time inject more Chinese elements into the development of human rights in the world.