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Chinese culture has made an enormous contribution to human civilization. China’s arts and literature, religion and philosophy embody profound beauty and great meaning, developed through a creative cultural tradition of over 5,000 years. The brilliance of China’s culture is an enduring legacy for all mankind. The idea that there must be a single universal legal code ensuring that all human beings are entitled to certain inalienable rights simply by virtue of being human is not an idea with a long and ancient tradition. Indeed, the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” that is the foundation of contemporary rights discourse was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly just 60 years ago, on December 10, 1948. The harsh truth is that there is no civilization that does not have in its history a shameful legacy of brutality, arbitrary justice, mistreatment of certain groups, and persecution of those with different spiritual beliefs or political opinions. |
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However, similarly, there is no civilization that does not traditionally place great value on the dignity of the individual. In Chinese Confucianism, Ren, the virtue of benevolence, is based in recognition of the value of others. Confucius held strongly that everyone he met, regardless of rank or walk of life, should equally enjoy his respect and consideration through Ren.
Those who claim that Chinese culture traditionally values collective rights over individual rights believe that the Chinese Government should not be judged by human rights standards they consider a “Western” concept. But human rights are universal, and are in fact enshrined in the Chinese constitution. The current Chinese Government’s violation of the collective rights of workers to organize free trade unions, and suppression of the collective political and cultural rights of ethnic minorities such as Tibetans and Uyghurs, make this argument ring hollow. What they really seem to be proposing instead is that the powerful concept of human rights not be used to make the Chinese State and its leaders accountable for unacceptable arbitrary action against certain of its citizens.
In the final analysis, human rights protect and preserve human dignity. They are therefore as much Confucian as they are Christian or Islamic. Human rights are the modern expression of all the great cultural traditions that celebrate human values, including China’s own great cultural tradition.
Charles Burton is a graduate of the History of Ancient Chinese Thought Program of the Philosophy Department at Fudan University and former diplomat at Canada’s Embassy to China who now teaches at Brock University
3 responses so far ↓
1 Steve Rose // Aug 25, 2008 at 2:06 am
Beijing, please move on. The next guy in line is London. I hope London can respect the minority rights and grant full autonomy to Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Gibraltar, Wales and Scotland. Welcome to the land of football hooligans and street-peeing, drunken Brits!
And this is from USA, the country who committed mass murder of native indians and completely wiped out many tribes in their entirety.
Free Hawaii !
Free Texas !!
Free Guantanamo Bay prisoners!!!
2 Caylan Ford // Aug 25, 2008 at 2:34 am
Well done, Mr. Burton. It’s refreshing to see someone honestly debating the cultural relativism that pervades so much Canadian thinking on China’s human rights record.
It is embarrassing — if not patronizing — that we expect so little of the Chinese government in the realm of human rights. All the more so since Chinese Confucian culture does, indeed, stress respect for human dignity, humaneness and benevolence — ideals that are remarkably compatible with “western” notions of human rights, in spite of what China’s current rulers would have us believe.
3 Nathan Andrews // Sep 8, 2008 at 1:50 am
It’s good the issue of human rights is an ongoing debate.Otherwise it would have seem that scholars and practitioners of human rights have come to a deadlock.As it stands now the concept is receiving a lot more revelations.
But the truth is that I was thinking the Chinese human right issue would have been strengthened by the time the Olympics end.However it appears the issue was well preserved in a store or something to get back to later on.Now, minorities in China are back to square one.
China is emerging as a world power(if not already emerged) and this makes it more necessary to ensure that there are only few or no human rights violations.Let’e think of it this way.It could be culture specific or as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but my personal understanding is Human rights are the natural inviolable rights of an individual by virtue of his being a person – and thus no other explanation will fit when this basic understanding is sacrificed.