A Solution for Global Human Rights Governance

The Chinese Government is increasingly championing social and economic rights, an area demoted by the West and in which China has achieved authority through its economic success over recent decades. Accordingly, China’s position enjoys significant support from the Global South.

China’s practices and achievements in ending extreme poverty, securing the right to an adequate standard of living, promoting social equality and protecting the rights of disadvantaged groups, offer a distinctive “Chinese approach” on human rights development for all countries, in particular developing countries.

From theory to practice

Going beyond the discourse, the congruence between words and deeds can be seen from the concrete actions of Chinese diplomacy. For example, in the domain of international security, since 1990 China has deployed more than 50,000 blue helmets in around 30 United Nations peacekeeping missions. China is the second largest contributor of funds to UN peacekeeping operations and an important troop supplier, as it provides more peacekeepers than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council. Furthermore, 2,200 Chinese peacekeepers are currently in service, spread across eight missions. China has created an 8,000-strong standby force and a 300-member permanent police squad for UN peacekeeping missions.

In addition, over the past 10 years, China has been an active participant in resolving the main international flashpoints, including the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the Iranian nuclear issue, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the civil wars in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, Libya and South Sudan.

To these diplomatic contributions must be added the achievements in the normalization of official relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the agreement between the Palestinian factions, including the rival Hamas and Fatah, to end the division and reinforce Palestinian unity.

With regard to disarmament and weapons proliferation control, China has adhered to more than 20 international treaties and arms control mechanisms, including the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Convention on the Prohibition of Development, Production and Storage of Bacteriological and Toxic Weapons (BWC), and the Convention for the Prohibition of Development, Production, Storage and Use of Chemical Weapons (CWC).

Furthermore, China has participated in global efforts to address problems resulting from non-conventional security threats. It supports the UN leadership role in the global fight against terrorism and anti-terrorist resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council. Likewise, it has promoted the full implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Program.

Consequently, China, during the last more than 50 years, has supported the UN’s central role in international affairs, articulating measures in favor of the UN becoming a beacon of multilateralism and the positioning of the UN Charter as the cornerstone of the international order. Likewise, China maintains that there is only one international system, which is the one centered on the UN; that there is only one international order, which is the one based on international law; and that the basic norms of international relations are those supported by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

China has contributed more than 30 percent of global economic growth for many years in a row, all of which can be attributed to China’s standing as an important trading partner of more than 140 countries and regions, and as an infrastructure builder, having launched more than 130 projects in almost 60 countries, from which 30 million people have benefited.

Moreover, cooperation under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative galvanized up to $1 trillion of investment globally, and created more than 3,000 projects and 420,000 jobs for the participating countries, in the 10 years from its first proposal in 2013 to 2023.

Finally, regarding China’s commitment to the international system for the protection of human rights, it has endorsed and become a party to many of the most important global human rights treaties over the years, demonstrating a greater commitment to the international human rights order.

China ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1980, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) in 1981, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) in 1988, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1992, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 2001, the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD) in 2008, and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICRMW) in 2011.

The international system for the protection of human rights is also known as the universal human rights regime. Its origins can be found in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly in 1948. The treaties on human rights drafted under the auspices of the UN that entered into force during the decades that followed the adoption of the declaration are the pillars of this regime.

The UN has labeled nine of these treaties as the core international human rights tools, but several more treaties and legal instruments also contribute to the safeguarding of human rights. The primary foundation for these instruments is that international law has a legitimate role to play in protecting human rights.

The road ahead

China perceives the existing international system as the result of power asymmetries that favor Western countries. For this reason, it rejects what the West calls “rules-based order,” and promotes multipolarity, democratization of international relations and the transformation of global governance.

To conclude, China’s intention is to reform the international system, not replace it with another. The Chinese leadership focuses their energies on finding a way for the world to survive the global instability and uncertainty and promote the development of a new era in international relations. Beijing has launched the idea of “democratizing the international system” as an asymmetric response to what it perceives as the unfair order forged by Washington. This would mean that China is not interested in either preserving the status quo, or willing to substitute the U.S. as global police.

These new developments in the international system may impact the international human rights regime. China’s role as a constructive contributor to the UN’s Charter system and endorsement of most of the rules of the international human rights regime suggest it has a central role to play in terms of the development of social and economic rights worldwide, an area sidelined by liberal democracies.

But it should be noted that human rights development is relevant not only to politics, it also includes developments in terms of the economy, culture and ecology. It ultimately means the development of the people. China’s attainment of moderate prosperity provides a firm foundation for human rights, and it takes a broader perspective on this issue. It embodies comprehensive progress in ensuring human rights in China and a new contribution to the world’s human rights cause.

In the current historical stage of international power transition, China’s actions taken to protect human rights domestically and internationally offer a light of hope for the community of states.

The author is Asia Working Group Chair of the Argentine Council for International Relations.