Pinpointing the complaint that it is the stand of blocs taken by Asian-African nations that gave rise to political confrontation at human rights conferences, Mr. Zhang Yishan said this phenomenon does exist, but it is by no means a new face, and Asian-African nations are not to blame. The root cause lies in some particular countries and blocs sticking to Cold War thinking, attempting to politicize the human rights issue, and craving to use country resolutions as a tool to impose pressure on the developing countries. We hope that these countries and blocs will proceed from the considerations of maintaining and improving human rights and rethink profoundly in a bid to change severe situations of political confrontation in human rights conferences proceeding from their own practices.

With respect to two types of human rights, Mr. Zhang noted, according to Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, "All types of human rights are universal, inseparable, interdependent and interrelated," and "the international community should work to promote effective international co-operation, accomplish development rights and break down development barriers."

As yet, we are still faced with widening gaps between the rich and the poor. Economic globalization has not brought about prosperity to all countries, and many developing countries are now on the verge of being marginalized. Economic, social, cultural as well as development rights are ignored in conferences on human rights. Although the working group for development rights under the human rights conference has long been established, it is beset with difficulties to fulfill its duty. China hopes eagerly that the international community will regard development rights as equally important as other human rights, so that the people around the world will come to see the universality and inseparability of human rights.

Zhang Yishan also reiterated the importance of international co-operation on the issue of human rights. He said that the whole world shares the responsibility to promote and protect human rights. If co-operation strengthened, the cause of human rights will flourish, while suffering a setback if confrontation lasted. The Chinese government has always advocated co-operation in human rights, and also been making unremitting efforts, in order to maintain and promote human rights of all countries.

He also expressed the view that the Chinese government has contributed enormous efforts and achieved remarkable success in this regard. However, we believe no country has situations of human rights in their countries perfected. The Chinese government is willing to learn from and co-operate sincerely with other countries, with an eye to continuously enhancing levels of human rights in all countries including China.

(People’s Daily November 7, 2002)