(East and West Questions) Luo Siyi: Why should we distinguish between true issues and false concepts of "human rights"?
China News Agency, Beijing, May 23rd: Why should we distinguish between real issues and fake concepts of "human rights"?
Author Luo Siyi (John Ross), former director of the Economic and Commercial Policy Department of the City of London, UK, and senior researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China
The use of the "human rights" framework to discuss human development is indeed the right thing to do, but only if it is premised on a veritable concept of human rights.
In the discussion of human rights, setting the right framework for the human rights discussion is crucial - because it can explain why the Chinese socialist framework is correct, while the American framework and "liberal democracy" as a whole are empty and false .
Therefore, I would like to share my views on the following two questions: First, in the real life of human beings, why is China's position on human rights and democracy superior to that of the United States?
Second, what are the actual differences in human rights between China and the United States?
The Chinese government adopts a very pragmatic concept of human rights when formulating various policies, insists on starting from the actual life of human beings, and pays attention to various needs of people, covering not only the most basic needs such as food, housing, and health, but also human education, science, etc. and cultural complex needs.
That is, it involves real rights in all aspects of human real life.
On the contrary, the concept of "human rights" in the United States is purely artificial and does not actually exist.
This can be easily demonstrated by giving some examples.
Take, for example, the status of Chinese women and Indian women, which involve about one-fifth of the world's population.
The life expectancy of Indian women is 71 years, and that of Chinese women is 79.2 years, which means that Chinese women live 8 years longer than Indian women.
The literacy rate for Chinese women is 95%, compared to 65% for Indian women.
Indian women are eight times more likely to die in childbirth than Chinese women.
It can be said that in the real world, the human rights of Chinese women far surpass those of Indian women.
The 2022 "AFC Women's Football Day" Girls Football Festival (Urumqi Station) will be held here.
China News Agency reporter Liu Xinshe
But the United States absurdly claims, based on its own "democratic" concept, that the human rights of Indian women are far superior to those of Chinese women because they live in a "parliamentary republic" country.
Obviously, this wrong concept led to such a ridiculous conclusion.
Take the new crown pneumonia as an example.
More than 5,000 people have died from the new coronary pneumonia in China, and more than 1 million people have died from the new coronary pneumonia in the United States, and the total population of China is four times that of the United States.
Clearly, China has a far better human rights record than the United States when it comes to dealing with Covid-19.
After all, the right to life is the most basic of all human rights.
On May 12, 2022, the new crown testing station and surrounding people in Times Square in New York, the United States.
On the same day, US President Biden issued a statement on the death toll of the new crown pneumonia in the United States reaching 1 million.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liao Pan
If we go back to the origins of socialism, we can see the fundamental problems of human rights in particular.
It is to criticize the wrong capitalist concept of human rights that socialism came into being.
Clarification of these fundamental issues is critical to discussions in the international community.
Marx's most thorough analysis of these fundamental issues provides a reference standard for dealing with all key issues related to human rights.
In his famous book On the Jewish Question, Marx outlined the true and false position on the issue of human rights.
Marx himself took the position of the Jews in Germany as a particular object of study because it was a very pressing political issue at the time.
Marx analyzed the gap between purely "official" or "formal" human rights claims and the real human rights situation in liberal democracies and parliamentary democracies.
Rather, he pointed out that Germany only removed formal and legal restrictions on Jews, which did not bring true equality to Jews, nor did it allow them to realize human rights in the true sense of the word.
It is this analysis that is closely linked to the aforementioned differences in real human rights between Chinese and Indian women.
Marx demonstrated the difference between so-called "political emancipation" and true "human emancipation," that is, between formal equality and rights in politics, and fundamental inequality and lack of rights in reality.
Marx's classic exposition clarifies the hypocrisy of the Western concept of human rights and the correctness of the Chinese concept of human rights.
As Marx pointed out in regard to the human rights theory of liberal democracies such as the United States, “The state abolishes in its own way differences in birth, social class, education, and occupation, and when it declares that birth, social class, education, and occupation are apolitical differences, When it declares in spite of these differences, the members of each state are equal participants in the sovereignty of the state".
But in fact, the real differences between people have not been eliminated, and their real rights as human beings, their "human rights" in the true sense, have not been defended.
As he writes: "Nevertheless, the state allows private property, education, occupation to function in the way they are inherently, namely as private property, as education, as occupation, and to express their particular essence. The state does not have any Abolish these actual differences, and instead, the state can exist only on the premise of these differences.”
To these real human rights enumerated by Marx, we can of course add the right to health, real equality between men and women, the elimination of racism, and many others.
All of these constitute human rights in the true sense.
Thus, Marx proved that there is a complete difference between the myth of liberal democracy and the real life of human beings, that is, the difference between real human rights and only formal, that is, false concepts of human rights.
He made a penetrating analysis of this in a classic exposition: "Where the political state is really formed, people live a double life not only in thought and consciousness, but also in reality and in life— —Life in heaven and life on earth. The former is life in a political community in which man sees himself as a collective existence; the latter is life in civil society.” He continued, “In the In the state .
Thus, Marx points out, the purely formal legal equality of German Jews masks real inequalities and lack of real human rights.
Liberal democracies and parliamentary democracies define "human rights" in a narrow subjective and formal way, ignoring real inequality and discrimination, and covering up the truth.
The real situation of German Jews ended in one of the most inexhaustible crimes in human history—German antisemitism developed into the Holocaust.
"Auschwitz Holocaust Crime Exhibition".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Bo
This analysis of the status of Jews in Germany provides an analytical model for the real human rights situation in various fields.
The difference in the status of women between China and India or the difference in the number of deaths from the new crown pneumonia between China and the United States just confirms this analysis model.
This is the difference between what China calls real human rights and purely formal human rights.
The US claims that Indian women enjoy better human rights than Chinese women because of parliamentary democracy.
This just proves the difference between what Marx calls "heavenly" rights (that is, rights that do not exist) and "earthly life" (that is, real life).
Obviously, the real human rights enjoyed by Chinese women are far superior to Indian women, because that is her real "earth life".
But Western "human rights" theories absurdly claim that Indian women enjoy better human rights than Chinese women because they enjoy purely formal equality in parliamentary democracies and live "heavenly lives".
But in reality, such equality does not exist.
In the United States, whether liberal democracy or human rights theory, everything is upside down.
They regard secondary, formal and non-existent equality as a treasure, but think that "earth life" (i.e. real life) is less important, just as they ignore the differences between Chinese and Indian women in real life.
The development of socialism and human rights in China has put everything on the right track.
The Chinese government believes that the life expectancy of Chinese women should continue to increase, women should be literate, and the risk of women dying in childbirth should be greatly reduced. These are the most important things.
This is strictly a practical and practical concept of "human rights".
China has extended this principle to all aspects of society.
According to the poverty line defined by international standards, China has lifted 850 million people out of poverty, accounting for more than 70% of the global poverty reduction.
In 2019, Bai Jingying (left), winner of the National "Contribution Award" for poverty alleviation in Keyouzhong Banner, Inner Mongolia, conducted embroidery training for local women to help targeted poverty alleviation.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Cui Nan
In 1949, China was almost the poorest country in the world.
But according to the World Bank's standards, China has become a "high-income" economy in the past two or three years.
In the "earth life" of human beings, China has improved the living conditions to the greatest extent for the largest population in human history.
That is to say, China's human rights system is determined by actual results, that is, the improvement of people's actual lives, rather than by formal, artificial, and therefore misleading and wrong standards.
Since 1949, China's achievements in improving people's real life are the greatest achievements in a comparable period in human history.
These achievements are completely in line with the needs of mankind to improve real life, and those diametrically opposed and non-existent "life in heaven" are just false ideological claims made by liberal capitalist democracy under the American system.
The more people around the world know about China's extraordinary achievements, the more they hope that the human rights situation in their own countries will be improved to the same degree.
In this way, the attitude of the people of all countries towards China will be more positive.
Marx dispels the myth of liberal democracy, his thought guides us to understand the difference between real human rights and the false concept of "human rights", and can provide the best basis for the development of real human rights, and prove that the current interests of the Chinese people and human beings are aimed at The fallacy of the ideological attack.
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About the Author:
John Ross, senior researcher at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, British scholar, journalist, consultant to multinational corporations, economic commentator, socialist political activist, former economic adviser to the Mayor of London, Economic and Commercial Policy Office of the City of London Director and member of the Board of Directors of the Development Authority, member of the British Parliament and economic adviser to the National Executive Member of the British Labour Party, author of "Thatcher and Friends - Anatomy of the Tory Party" (1983).