By He Yin, People’s Daily
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently sent a congratulatory letter to the Forum on Global Human Rights Governance.
Noting that China advocates safeguarding human rights through security, Xi stressed the need to respect all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, jointly follow the path of peaceful development, act on the Global Security Initiative (GSI), and create a secure and peaceful environment for realizing human rights.
Xi’s remarks profoundly expounded on the relations between security and human rights. They emphasized the significance of acting on the GSI to realize human rights, offering a Chinese plan for maintaining a secure environment for safeguarding human rights.
According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security. Peace and security is the fundamental prerequisite for promoting and protecting human rights. Without peace and security, all human rights cannot be realized.
Global human rights governance faces severe challenges characterized by emerging threats against world peace and security. Regional security hotspots keep flaring up, local conflicts and turbulence occur frequently, and traditional and non-traditional security threats are entwined.
At a time when humanitarian crises created by wars and conflicts are still troubling Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and other countries, a few countries are arbitrarily instigating a confrontation, creating contradictions and intensifying conflicts, bringing new security threats to the world.
“Security is the precondition for development. We, humans, are living in an indivisible security community,” Xi said in a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022 in April last year.
In the speech, he solemnly proposed the GSI, stressing that the world should stay committed to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security and work to create a new path to security featuring dialogue over confrontation, partnership over alliance, and win-win over zero-sum. What he said has been broadly recognized and supported by the international community.
In February this year, China officially released the Global Security Initiative Concept Paper, which systematically explains the core ideas and principles of the GSI and identifies the priorities, platforms, and mechanisms of cooperation.
The GSI provides ideas for solving global security issues and demonstrates China’s wisdom in improving international human rights governance through maintaining world peace and stability.
Ong Tee Keat, chairman of Malaysia-based think tank the Center for New Inclusive Asia, noted that human rights universal and inviolable value is being endlessly and severely tested in global governance today. He believes the GSI addresses traditional and non-traditional security issues and lays a foundation for building a new security framework.
China’s distinctive aspiration is to achieve lasting world peace so that all countries can enjoy a peaceful and stable external environment and their people can live happy life with their rights fully guaranteed.
China’s efforts to implement the GSI and build a balanced, effective, and sustainable security architecture are expected to create a more peaceful and secure environment for the world and ensure a realistic basis for protecting and realizing human rights.
In the Ukraine crisis, China always stands on the side of peace. Its core stance is to facilitate talks for peace. It advocates for jointly improving the region’s humanitarian situation and has offered batches of humanitarian assistance.
The country has worked to help Saudi Arabia and Iran resume bilateral diplomatic ties, which has promoted reconciliation in the Middle East and offered a rare opportunity for alleviating humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen, and other countries.
China supports the peaceful reconstruction of Afghanistan, continues to assist within its capacity in rebuilding and developing the country, and helps solve Afghanistan’s humanitarian and refugee issues.
These concrete actions to maintain world peace and stability demonstrate that China is responsible for improving global human rights governance.
The common interest of all humankind is in a world united and peaceful rather than divided and volatile, which helps protect and promote human rights.
Maintaining international peace and security, promoting economic and social advancement, and encouraging respect for human rights are the three missions of the United Nations stipulated in the UN Charter.
China always adheres to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, respects all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, and does not interfere in other countries internal affairs. It supports all countries to choose the path for human rights development independently under their national conditions and opposes arbitrary blockades, sanctions, and other hegemonic practices against other countries.
China always believes that human rights should not be used as an excuse for meddling in other countries’ internal affairs or holding back their development, and human rights issues should not be politicized, weaponized, or instrumentalized. It opposes any practice of undermining world peace and stability under the disguise of human rights.
The issue of security bears on the well-being of people of all countries, the lofty cause of world peace and development, and the future of humanity. China will stay committed to the path of peaceful development. It is ready to work with the international community to follow the GSI and build a fear-free world. It enjoys universal security, constantly contributing to protecting and promoting human rights.
