Li Yunlong. Image: source

On April 13th China's first two-year human rights action plan (国家人权行动计划) was released. It was then reported by much of the Western media.

In the April 20 issue of China Newsweek (中国新闻周刊), there is an interesting retrospective of what they term "the tracks of human rights in China".

Also, last week's Southern Weekend (南方周末) had a full page feature in the legal section which talks about how the action plan could promote reform of the constitution as well as legal reform.

The feature also includes an interview with Li Yunlong (李云龙), one of the drafters of the plan. Translations of sections from both articles below.

After successfully writing “protect human rights” into the constitution, central government has started to draw up specific measures and targets. On April 13th, the State Council Information Office revealed the “Human Rights Action Plan (2009 － 2010)", which is a country’s promise, and points to a diagram for two years of human rights reform.

This diagram reflects the change in mainstream society and the way we view human rights, which is from “rebuttal” to “action”.

Human rights diplomacy changes from guard to attack
Since the 1990s, the annual U.S. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices has pinpointed China in its attacks; this diplomatic war revolving around human rights has never ceased.

The Chinese government began publishing their annual Human Rights White Paper in 1991, but this paper was more about rebuttal against criticism from certain countries.

China decided to use the Americans' methods on themselves. In 1996 and 1997 Dong Yunhu (董云虎) used the pseudonym “Truth-Speaker" ("任言实") to publish A Comparison of Human Rights in the U.S. and China and Please Look At The U.S.’s Human Rights Record, which criticized their human rights record.

This act unleashed support from other countries: China was the first country to reveal the human rights record of the Americans. Since then, the State Council would, every year, publish America’s Human Rights Record targeting the U.S State Department’s Human Rights Report.

On April 14th, Dong Yunhu was interviewed by China Newsweek. He said that at the beginning, in the face of the West’s criticism, the Chinese government kept persevering; "taking its own road”. Even when they published the Human Rights White Paper, the focus was still on protecting China's human rights image. But the drawing up of the Human Rights Action Plan is a move forwards from a passive response to an active display. In terms of human rights diplomacy this is a big step forwards.

In the name of the State
The specific targets of the action plan makes law professional Liu Nanlai (刘楠来), of CASS, very excited. In the plan it states that every year there must be skills training for one hundred million laborers; “health records” must be established for residents: regular health checks for the over 65, and supplemental Hep B shots for under 15s; the victims of the Wenchuan earthquake will move into new housing by the end of 2009, the employment of approximately one million people in the earthquake areas will be ensured, the income for peasants and city-dwellers will surpass pre-earthquake levels.

In Liu Nanlai’s view, announcing the plan with the name of the State [in the title] is setting a clear goal, and every specific target is a "promise". “A lot of courage was needed to do this: it shows that central government wants to deeply promote the work of human rights; it shows their determination and conviction”.

In 1998 the Chinese government signed the International Contract for Civil and Political Rights. It is one of the most important international human rights contracts, but due to many reasons even now [some measures] have not been approved by the National People’s Congress.

Liu Nanlai thinks that, although the contract has already been signed, China is still not ready to follow it: “Some laws we just don’t have; there's still some distance, and some even goes against [China's laws]: for example the death penalty and re-education through labor”.

“No matter though, it is now in the name of the State, and eventually it will become real”, says Liu Nanlai.

The Human Rights Action Plan “Allows the World to Understand What China Is Doing”.

Southern Weekend: Why did the government choose this time to publish “China's Human Rights Action Plan” (henceforth referred to as the action plan)?
Li Yunlong (李云龙): This plan from the State Council Information Office is for the world to understand what China is doing. In the past, the conflicts we’ve had in this area with the West is because, to an extent, we have two different linguistic systems. China talks about the things that it does, but the West doesn't understand what they're talking about. Now with this we hope to link China’s work with international standards for human rights.

But from another point of view, we’re not just saying the same thing in a different way. But through this action plan internal propaganda is also being spread. And through the process of drawing up this plan there has already been a little impact on the different departments involved in terms of their human rights work. In the past we mainly looked back at what China has done in terms of human rights work, now we're bringing out a plan before doing the work: this is pressure for the relevant departments. Because everyone is waiting to see the work that you are doing.

SW: The outside world is puzzled by the two year period of this plan. As a national plan, isn't two years a little short?
LYL: We want to correspond with each ministries' and commissions' "Eleventh Five Year Plan" ("十一五"), which ends in 2010, so the action plan should end then too. If the human rights action plan had its own five year plan, and then each department would have to form separate measures, and this would be too much trouble to do.

But now the action plan is in step with the other plans' targets. Also, as a national plan, it's more convenient that it's short, because then a review can be made at the end of the year.

Our human rights [development] is the same as other countries: it is a gradual process. This plan is the first "batch", and there will likely be more to come.

SW: When you were making the draft for the plan, did you place importance on its feasibility in terms of operation?
LYL: The draft really placed emphasis on the feasibility of operation; the plan can be realized. The draft could not be something that can’t be realized within China.

In the process of drafting, if there was something that was not already in the ministries and commissions’ own measures, then it didn't go into the plan. Or if it's an existing measure in the ministries and commissions, and we wanted to make it more advanced: then that also was not very good. It had to be something that could be accomplished, and could be "inspected" by the relevant department.

SW: In terms of protecting civil and political rights, many targets are not very specific, why is this?
LYL: For economic, social and cultural aspects, the many aims are quantified using targets: this is quite easy to do. It’s harder to do for civil and political rights, which is hard to quantify. Political development is a gradual process: it is hard to see obvious progress in two years, and hard to have a plan that can judge the progress.

Take the example of extorting confessions by torture. For example, if this year in the procuratorate system (检查院) there were over 1,000 cases, and we said next year we must lower to 500 cases, this would not have a big impact. Therefore this section of the plan is abstract because what we really want to do is strictly forbid confessions by torture, foster openness about it and also guidance.

SW: Some views are that Chinese economic, social, and cultural rights are developing at different paces, what do you think about this?
LYL: This is only one side. In terms of the progress of Chinese civilian political rights, Westerners can’t feel the impact of this. What was it like in the past, and what is it like now? We’d never be arrested now for saying disrespectful things about government leaders. So, in the last tens of years, has there been any progress in terms of human rights, and societal freedoms?

In 1979, central government was still publishing articles in ideological journals saying that human rights was a capitalist idea. At that time you had to add quotation marks when talking about human rights. For example: “Democracy”, “Human Rights”, “Freedom”, but that was thirty years ago. From when the Human Rights White Paper was published in 1991, “human rights” is no longer a sensitive term.

After twenty years there is now the common acknowledgment that human rights must be protected, that human rights needs to be developed, and that every person needs to be aware of human rights; the speed of this is relatively quick.

SW: We saw there is an aim to provide education to publicly employed figures about human rights.
LYL: Education about human rights is now only at a the beginning phase. In the future there might be more to be done, especially relating to public figures. This time we have specified it to jails, procuratorates, courts and public security offices, and other powerful department likes these, and administrative and law enforcing departments like the chengguan. In the future new laws can be established, and it will be more refined, and the human rights content will be strengthened. The human rights education sis so that every department in the government knows what the central government wants, what the position is.

The goal of education about human rights is so that everyone knows what rights they have. Administrators, officials, law enforcers, especially need to know the rights of ordinary people, and respect and protect them.