China is expected to publish Tuesday a white paper on its human rights progress over the past year, an official with the Information Office of the State Council said Monday.

The white paper, entitled Progress in China's Human Rights Cause in 2003, would "help the international community toward a better understanding of the human rights situation in China," said the official.

A large quantity of figures and facts will be listed to elaborate on China's painstaking efforts and tremendous achievements in safeguarding the basic human rights of the Chinese people and providing judicial guarantee for human rights, he said.

It will also cover China's exchanges and cooperation with the international community in the field of human rights.

"The year 2003 is a year of great, landmark significance for progress in human rights in China," the official quoted the white paper as saying.

At an annual full session of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, earlier this month, lawmakers endorsed a landmark amendment which for the first time incorporated human rights protection into the Chinese Constitution.

Observers say the planned publication of China's human rights white paper follows a United States decision to table an anti-China motion in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

In the 12 years between 1990 and 2001, the United States had for 10 times instigated or tabled draft resolutions in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in an attempt to censure China on its human rights records, but had ended in failure every time.

China strongly opposes the US move, which it views as an attempt to politicize the human rights issue and a typical exhibition of Washington's double standard. China insists that differences between the two countries in the human rights areas should be resolved through dialogue, not confrontation.

(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2004)