China's Human Rights

This year marks the 30th anniversary of China's reform and opening up. Tremendous changes have taken place in Chinese society over the past three decades. With the economic and social development, China has made great progress in the human rights cause, which is closely linked to the nation's fate as human rights will progress as long as a country prospers. In the past 30 years, the achievements in the economic and social fields that China has accomplished in this period are obvious to all. The economic, social and cultural rights of Chinese citizens have been better protected and realized. However, people should see there are still many weak points in China's practice to protect human rights. There are still many difficulties and obstacles on the road of future human rights development. At such a critical period linking past and future, it is important to review history, summarize experience and lessons. This article reviews the development of China's human rights in the past 30 years from the four aspects: the thought, theory, system and practice of human rights.

The founding and development of human rights protection thought began with rights protection thought. Only when the concept of rights first was established, the thought of safeguarding human rights could be developed.

In the past nearly 30 years, the most prominent achievement of China's legal circle in legal theoretical thinking mode is the change from a duty first outlook to the right first one. Rights and duties are the core content of all laws, regulations, law enforcement departments and the whole legal system. By stipulating a behavior mode with rights and duties, law directs the behavior of people (including natural persons, legal persons and other organizations), puts people's behavior into a unified order to adjust social relations. All legal affairs boil down to rights and duties. Right and duty are a pair of dialectic and contradictory concepts. They are closely interrelated and inseparable. "No rights without duties, no duties without rights." [①]Traditional Chinese culture stressed duty first, that is, the concept of people's obedience and fulfillment of duties. There were more provisions of bans than those of rights. People only had the idea of abiding by law, but did not know law still had the function of endowing people with rights and protecting them. Due to historical reasons, the traditional concept lasted until the early period of reform and opening up. With the deepening of reform and opening up, economic and social development, people's minds began to be emancipated. Elite groups such as intellectuals first realized each individual must have a strong subject and rights consciousness if the minds of the masses were to be fully emancipated and a market economic order to be established. Therefore, they strongly advocated the concept and thought of rights first. A hot discussion on which should be first, rights or duties, emerged among the circles of law, philosophy, sociology, politics and economics. Finally, the concept of rights first was established. The concept of duties first was discarded. The modernization of China's rule of law requires the rights first value. Only the people's awareness of subject and of the obligations of a citizen is aroused, the rights first concept is established, the process of China's social progress is the process of citizens?rights to be fully realized.

The establishment of right first outlook is also marked by the change from the power first outlook to right first outlook. Consistent with the emphasis on duties first in traditional Chinese culture, the design of traditional Chinese state system and social mode was also power-oriented. The emperor has the supreme power. Thus a traditional Chinese political theory holds that "All lands under Heaven belong to the Emperor, all people under Heaven are subjects of the Emperor." The power of an emperor and state constitutes the root for the constrcution of a country and society. Each member of a society was nothing but the emperor's property, which the emperor could kill and cut as he liked. People's basic life right could not be guaranteed. The influnce of this traditioal thinking mode lasted until prior to the reform and opening up. Although the Communist Party of China (CPC) has the good tradition of "serving the people" such thought as official rank first or power first still existed for long among offficials at all levels of government. The design and establishment of modern poltical, legal and social systems or modes are also based on rights protection. In the relationship between rights and power in modern society, rights are dominative and the fountainhead of power. Power orginates in rights. Without rights, there will be no power. Rights are superior to power. Power has a state coersive nature itself, but rights do not. Power is easily to be abused and rights are difficult to be protected. Power is often infringes on rights. Power must be restricted to protect rights. Right first is a conpsicuous feature of a modern country under the rule of law as it presents the idea of "putting rights first" and opposes that of power first marked by the absolute domination of high over low. Thus, all social strata, espciallly government officials, must have the thinking mode of put rights first. Currently, the change from power first thinking to rights first is still under way among all social strata. It should become an important roll booster for the building of a socialist country under the rule of law.

The establishment of the concept of rights first lays the foundation and clears obstacles for the establishment of human rights protection idea. The combination of rights protection thought and individual's subject status concept leads to the concept of human rights protection. When human rights were put forward as a concentration concept, it can link all types of rights in legal systems together and form a unified and coordinated human rights system.

The establishment of human rights thought of China in the past 30 years has been along with the clarification process of the human rights concept. Generally speaking, human rights are the social acceptance of man's value, and the conceptual, moral, political and legal standards that distinguish human beings from animals. It includes such layers of meaning as "rights of humans" ,"rights of humans as humans", "rights for humans to become humans" and "rights for humans to become dignified humans". The human in "human rights" can be explained as natural persons, the people, citizens, nationalities, races, and the collectives and legal persons. It concerns the subject. Rights can refer to rights of natural persons, citizens, nationals, and the civilian rights, basic rights and rights in the Constitution. It concerns the status of human rights in all rights.2[②] China's human rights legal circle has reached a consensus in the classification of human rights, namely, the deserved, legitimate and practical rights. The real condition of human rights of a country is just the proportion among the three types. If the deserved becomes the legitimate and the latter becomes the practical, the proportion of the three is one, meaning the ideal reality of human rights. In contrast, there is a big gap in the proportion, the country's human rights situation are not good. The human rights situation of a country should not be judged by only one type. If we regard the legitimate human rights as the practical ones, the protection of human rights will only stay at the legal level. Such judgment is not conducive to human rights practice.

As the academic field's research on basic human rights issues such as its concept and classification deepened, the political circle's attitude toward human rights changed dramatically. The year 2007 marked the 10th anniversary of China's implementation of the strategy of governance according to law and also the 10th anniversary of the official enshrining of "the respect for and protection of human rights" in the CPC's congress report. In 1997, the 15th CPC National Congress report enshrined "the respect for and protection of human rights" into the Party's action guidelines as the basic aim for the rule of the Party. In 2002, the 16th CPC National Congress had the same phrasing. On March 14, 2004, the 2nd session of the 10th National People's Congress, China's top legislature, adopted the amendments to the Constitution, which included for the first time "the state respects and safeguards human rights". In March 2006, the fourth session of the 10th NPC approved the 11th five-year plan for national economy and social development, in which "to respect and safeguard human rights and promote the overall development of human rights cause" was clearly stated, the first time for human rights cause to be included into the country's development plan as a key part of the modernization drive. In 2007, the 17th CPC National Congress report had the phrasing of "to respect and safeguard human rights, to ensure the right to equal participation and development for all members of society according to law" when elaborating on implementing the basic strategy of ruling the country by law and speeding up the construction of a socialist country under the rule of law. Also at this Congress, "to respect and safeguard human rights" was written into the Party Constitution, making it officially become an important thought and value for Party rule and nation's prosperity. From the phrasings, the 15th and 16th CPC National Congresses both mentioned "to respect and safeguard human rights" in the part of improving democratic system. The emphasis was on the relationship between human rights and democracy. Thus, human rights were still a political concept. Different from the two, after "to respect and safeguard human rights" was included into the Constitution, the 17th CPC Congress mentioned "to respect and safeguard human rights" in the part of "speeding up the building of a socialist country under the rule of law". The relationship between human rights and rule by law was stressed. The human rights mentioned in the 17th CPC Congress were a legal concept. Human rights became a kind of legal right, thus the country's respect for and protection of human rights became a legal duty. It should be pointed out that in the past, the Party did a lot of work in human rights, but said little. Or what had not been done was never said , or what had been done was mentioned in other ways. Currently, we have the concept in the Constitution and CPC Congress reports. This indicates what must be done. It also showed the establishment of the concept of human rights in the core political leadership.

The concept of human rights protection has been gradually established, with deepened research and knowledge about human rights among academic and political circles, and social, economic and cultural development and people's knowledge of the importance of human rights issue. The protection of human rights has become a basic principle and core value for the construction of a complete, systematic legal system and of a socialist country under the rule of law.

Over the past 30 years, China has had its own theory of human rights. And the human rights studies have become a hot area from the previous cold area in the academic field. Currently, China has set up its human rights theoretical system with Chinese characteristics. The formulation of the system mainly includes the following two respects:

Since the existence of the concept of human rights, the human rights subject theory has been continuously enriched and developed. The extension of the subject scope of human rights is the most obvious. The 30 years of the development of China's human rights subject theory is represented by two marked changes, namely, "from limited subject to general subject" and "from general subject to special subject".

In western human rights history, human rights subject had long been limited to white and propertied men in Europe. The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on December 10,1948 in Paris. It clearly declared to the whole world that "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status". The UN General Assembly announced the UDHR was the aim that all people and all nations strive for. The declaration specifically replaced "all men" with "all people" in diction. The declaration marked the general subject of human rights was finally set in theory. [③]In China, the understanding of the extension of human rights subject scope experienced the same flexural development as the world hisotry of human rights. The CPC's outlook on human rights subject has long been closely related to its outlook on the people. In history, only the people enjoy rights. Since the founding of New China, the Party has been continuously updating the scope of the people to keep pace with time. The 1982 Constitution referred the people to "all socialist laborers, patriotists supporting socialism and the unification of the motherland" The Fourth Constitution Amendment added socialist builders to the people's scope. However, the scope of human rights subject still did not include everyone. The 17th CPC Congress made a breakthough by pointing out that "to respect and safeguard human rights, ensure the right to equal participation and development for all members of society". The human rights subject was stated as "all social members". The concept of "everyone" was directly used four times in the report. This showed the human rights scope in China realized the extension "from limited subject to general subject".

The other remarkable development of human rights subject theory is reflected in the change of "general subject into special subject". The subject should enjoy all human rights. As a general right, all natural persons enjoy human rights. But for some human rights, the only enjoying cannot meet the demand of their subject, who needs to exercise the right if he wants to gain the interests contained in the right. In recent years, with the economic and social development, the policy of letting some people become rich first has also brought worsening problems in social fairness, widening gap between rich and poor and livelihoods represented by housing, health, education and employment. The tough problems are becoming big obstacles to social progress. To handle those problems, the human rights subject theory develops concepts of special and underprivileged groups. The human rights of the underprivileged is actually a special individual's human rights, but they are not privileges in general sense. "Privilege is the right superior to others as enjoyed by people who have an advantaged social status. The rights of special groups of people are the ones that the most vulnerable people in society should enjoy to keep their basic dignity as human beings. The special protection of the rights of these people does not mean the inequality in rights among people. Rather, it marks the completeness of human rights protection and the respect for personal dignity of all people."[④] "The increased part looks like to be privilege of the weak. In fact, it is after the supplementing of the ‘increased part' that the weak can enjoy ‘equal rights'.5[⑤] The principle of considering more for the weak is an important content in human rights subject theory."The quasi-human rights can be regarded as human rights to guarantee general human rights. Women, children(minors), the old and handicapped (physically and mentally), become the biggest number of weak groups in human rights. Refugees, non-nationalities, overseas foreigners, POW, the wartime injured and civilians, and so on, are the weak human rights subject in international human rights laws. The arrested, defendants and people serving sentences become weak subjects of human rights because they are restricted from enjoying human rights due to special legal relations. Due to the cause of religion, language, race and color, the minority in a country becomes weak human rights subject in modern society.

According to the contents of the rights in human rights, modern human rights theories generally classify human rights into three generations. The first is the freedom-centered civil and political rights. The second is subsistence-centered economic, social and cultural rights. The third is the collective or group human rights focusing on development. The concept of the rights to subsistence and development is an important theoretical contribution that China makes to the world's human rights cause. The three generations have no tier relations. That is, none of the rights is more important than the other. None of the former can replace the latter. All human rights are equally important. Each item of human rights is irreplaceable. But this does not hinder the government or individuals from making priority choices and strategic arrangements in human rights development.

Since the reform and opening up, China has consistently made the right to subsistence as the top human right in its construction of human rights system. To a country and a person, man's subsistence right comes first. Without subsistence right, there will be no other human rights at all. The UDHR says "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". In China today, to maintain its own independance and sovereignty, the subsistence right of all member of society and to improve their living conditions, are still top priorities.

When stressing subsistence right, China also attaches more and more importance to development right. The 17th CPC Congress report described the object of rights as "the equal right to participation and develpment for all members of society" when it said "we must respect and safeguard human rights". The phrasing, together with the foreign policy the report said that "we respect the right of the people of all countries to independently choose their own development road" when deliberating that China will unswervingly follow the path of peace development, both clearly show human rights are first defined as the deveopment right -focused third generation concept. People are the core subject of development. The right to development mainly means the right of all members of society to share all kinds of fruits brought by the overall social progress and development. This is reflected in the report's emphasis of "all the people building and sharing" and of that "development is for the people, by the people and with people sharing its fruits".

Therefore, over the past 30 years, China has basically set up the human rights theoretical system with Chinese characteristics, which regards everyone (all membes of society) as its subject and the rights to subsistence and development as core contents.

Human rights, democracy and rule by law is the three major elements of the political civilization of mankind and three pillars for the building of a modern civilized sociey. For mankind, the purpose of discarding rule by man and carrying out rule by law is to get closer to democracy and further away from monopoly, and to gain human rights. Thus, among the three elements, human rights are the soul, democracy and rule by law are means.[⑥] The improvement of human rights safeguarding system must be closely linked to the realization of rule by law. The thought and theory of human rights must be implemented via human rights safeguarding system which depends on the establishment of society under the rule of law. So to build a legal system with rights protection as its core value has become the major road to improve human rights safeguarding system.

Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, China has made remarkable achievements in the legislation area. To realize the grand goal of having a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics by 2010, the National People's Congress and its standing committee have been strengthening law promulgation and improving quality of legislation. As of now, China has a total of 229 laws in operation, covering seven law divisions including the Constitution and its related laws, civil and commercial laws, administrative, economic, social, criminal and civil precedure laws. Currently, there are nearly 600 administrative decrees and more than 7,000 local laws and regulations in operation. The socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics has basically been established. The sytem, consisting of seven law divisions and three tiers of laws and regulations, has the Constitution as its core, the laws its main body and includes regulatory documents such as administrative and local regulations. The laws have covered the country's economic, political, cultural and social life, providing a strong legal backing for rule by law and the building of a socialist country under the rule of law and safeguard of all human rights.

In China's legislation progress, several marked events most closely related to human rights deserve special attention. First, what deserves most attention and pride is the "inclusion of human rights concept into the Constitution" in 2004. Among the fourteen articles of amendments, except for two concering the state president's post and national anthem who have no direct connection with human rights, all the other 12 are in connection with human rights. Among the 14 articles, "the state respects and protects human rights" is a general article. It indicates the human rights spirit and principle was written into the Constitution. The amendment involves modifications in five aspects. The first is the modification on the outlook on subject of human rights, which changes the formerly used citizen subject into the adjusted subject of "everyone" or "all people". The change challenges the differentiation outlook of subject and legislation and the dual structure of rights. The second is the change from closedness to openness of the established human rights system. The third is about the human rights standard and value. China has joined 22 UN human rights conventions. The international human rights standards, are also the country's domestic ones except for declared reservations. The human rights modifications unite domestic and international standards. The fourth is the adjustment of governance idea. "Governance for the people" should be transformed into legal judgment to safeguard human rights. The "for the people" in governance should become "for the people's rights" in law. The fifth, is the modification on law enforcement idea. The state respects and safeguards human rights, indicating law enforcement departments should regard this as their own duties.

Secondly, the promulgation and enforcement of the Law on Property Rights. Private property right was written into the 2004 Constitution amendment, which greatly prompted the birth of the law. The law took 13 years of widespread discussion and created a record high of the number of deliberation times for a single draft law in the legislative history of China. The core value of the law is to protect the private property rights of individuals, laying a systematic property rights foundation for market economy. The law is a basic law that defines, confirms and protects property rights in the socialist market economy. It links property and economic relations and safeguards the basic economic rights of citizens and coordinates interests relations of different subjects. It is also an extension of the articles concerning the protection of citizens and state's property in the Constitution. The law solves the problems yet to be handled in the Constitution and reflects new property relations in the social transformation and economic development. The value of the law lies in providing a foundation for equal protection of rights of all subjects of society. With such an equal and clear property rights awareness and protection foundation, the masses can have micro-stimulations for production investment and business development.

In addition, on the basis of the promulgation of the Law on Property Rights, some other laws mainly for protection of rights of disadvantaged groups were also adopted. For example, the NPC Standing Committee has amended the law on individual income tax three times to reduce the tax burden for middle and low-income people and raise tax for high-income groups. To safeguard farmers?rights, the agricultural tax decree was abolished, ending more than 2000 years of farmers paying tax for planting. This is also a big step for a unified tax system for urban and rural areas. The promulgation of farmers?professional cooperatives law is significant for improving the organization of farmers and promotion of industrialized management of agriculture.

Finally, to realize the equal right to development and improve people's livelihood and build a harmonious society, the legislation in social rights protection has become a new focus in China. To perfect legal system in labor and social security concerns the interests of laborers and social harmony and stability and becomes a key part in the legislation. In 2007 alone, the NPC Standing Committee passed the Labor Contract Law, Employment Promotion Law, Law on Mediation and Arbitration of Labor Disputes and deliberated on draft Social Insurance Law. All these help protect the labor rights of individual citizens. To ensure the education rights, the Law on Compulsory Education was amended. The fund mechanism for compulsory education was established. To carry out quality education was written into the law. The goal of balanced development of compulsory education was also set. To safeguard women's rights, the Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women was amended. The realization of equality of men and women was set to a basic state policy in law. To protect children's rights, the Law on Protection of Minors was revised to stress the protection responsibilities of families, schools, society and government and the education reception rights of minors.

The final realization of human rights depends on the enforcement of human rights safeguarding system. Legislation is only the first step for human rights protection. Only through the two fulfillment procedures of administrative protection and judicial aid can human rights protection be finally realized. In the past 30 years, China has made significant progress in its human rights protection undertakings with the human rights situation becoming much better.

Over the past 30 years, the Chinese government has made it a priority to solve the problems of the people's subsistence and development rights, by sticking to the central task of economic construction and striving to develop social productivity. The country has seen rapid economic and social development, the conspicuous strengthening of overall national strength, improvements of people's living standard and realization of two historical strides--from poverty to enough food and clothing to well-off life. The gross domestic product saw an average annual growth of 9.67 percent between 1978 and 2006, far higher the world average of 3.3 percent in the same period. After years of development, China's overall national strength has been greatly enhanced. It has a higher international status. The country'seconomic volume has become the fourth largest in the world. From 2004, china has been the world's third largest traders. The state finance has also been much improved. The per-capita disposable income of urban residents increased from 343 yuan in 1978 to 11759 yuan in 2006. The per-capita net income of farmers was raised from 134 yuan to 3587 yuan. The whole country financial revenue was only 113.2 billion yuan in 1978. In 2006, it reached 3.93 trillion yuan. From 1978 to 2006, the rural population in absolute poverty fell to 21.48 million from 250 million. The occurrence rate of absolute poverty fell from 30% to 2.3%. The sanitation conditions also improved a lot and so did the people's health. Currently, the average life expectancy of Chinese has risen to 71.4 years from 35 years prior to the founding of New China. The death rate of pregnant women fell to 43.2 per 100,000 in 2002 from 1500 per 100,000 in the mid-1950s. The death rate of babies fell to 2.84% from 20%. The death and infection rate of infectious diseases, parasite-caused diseases and local diseases fell dramatically. The Chinese rights to subsistence and development have been greatly improved with its economic and social development.

Over the past 30 years, great progress has been made in China's democratic and legal system construction. The citizens' rights and political rights of the people of all ethnic groups of the country have been protected. The following serves as examples.

Right to vote and stand for election. The Constitution and the Electoral Law stipulate "All citizens of the People's Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of nationality, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education, property status, or length of residence, except persons deprived of political rights according to law? In China, the right to vote and stand for election includes the right to elect deputies to the state power organs according to one's own will, the right to be nominated as candidates for deputies and elected to be deputies and to dismiss unqualified deputies that citizens elected themselves according to law. The election funds are disbursed by the State Treasury, providing material insurance for citizens to fulfill their right to vote.

Citizens of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration, as stipulated in the Constitution. China promulgates relevant laws and regulations to provide all kinds of measures to ensure citizens exercise the rights according to law. The state ensures social groups carry out activities in line with laws, regulations and their charters. No organization or individual is allowed to interfere illegally with such activities. By the end of September 2004, the number of non-government organizations registered in the Ministry of Civil Affairs reached 289,000. Employees enjoy the right to join and organize trade unions. By September 2004, the grass-roots trade unions in the whole country totaled 1.02 million, with 137 million members. As to the freedom of demonstration and procession, the Law on Assemblies, Processions and Demonstrations stipulates: "The citizens' exercise of their right to assembly, procession and demonstration shall be safeguarded by the people's governments at all levels in accordance with the provisions of the Law."

Freedom of religious belief. In November 2004, the State Council promulgated the first comprehensive religious administrative decree--the Regulations on Religious Affairs. It stipulates the rights of religious groups and citizen believers to carry out religious activities and open religious schools. Incomplete statistics show China had more than 100 million religious believers and 100,000 sites for religious activities, 76 religious schools and around 300,000 religious staff.

Furthermore, different places across China actively explore the grassroots democracy system in recent years. Grassroots democracy is an important channel to ensure citizens directly exercise their democratic rights. People in rural areas directly elect villager committee members and decide the key affairs through democratic deliberations. They fully exercise the democratic rights in election, decision-making, administration and supervision. Since 1988, rural areas across the country have carried out three to four elections of villager committees and most villager committees have established mechanisms of villager meeting, villager representative meeting and publicity of village affairs. After the promulgation of the new Organization Law of Villager Committee in 1998, nearly half of the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have enacted local regulations on villager committee election. The election of villager committee is more standardized via such procedures as respect for villagers?nominee right, pre-election, equal competition among official candidates, margin election, delivery of speeches, secret balloting and public counting of votes and announcement of results. Statistics show the election participation rate of farmers in provinces who completed villager committee elections in 1999 was more than 90% with the lowest of above 85%.

China is now implementing a scientific outlook on development which puts people first. The country is striving for a coordinated urban-rural, regional, social and economic development, in order for all the people to equally participate in development and share the fruits of development. The people's rights to enjoy economic, social and cultural rights have been improved.

The promulgation of the Labor Contract Law shows the importance of safeguarding laborers' rights and the degree of importance that the Chinese government attaches to the protection of labor rights. Statistics show by the end of 2005, the number of the employed population in rural and urban areas reached 760 million, including 270 million in towns and cities, an increase of 100 million compared with the end of 1990. The urban registered unemployment rate has been controlled below 4.3%. In the 10th five-year period, towns and cities saw the employed population increase by 42 million. Some 40 million surplus rural laborers went to cities. By 2010, the total number of laborers will reach 830 million with a supply shortage gap of about 10 million. In reality, labor is in an absolutely weak position compared with capital and lacks necessary say. The organizations to safeguard legal rights and interests such as trade unions are nominal, which worsens the inequality between labor and capital. In the face of the minimum salary standard made by the government department, some illegal enterprises just follow it superficially but reduce the salary level of employees in a different way. Thus, in many places, the minimum salary standard could not be implemented and became an oral and documentary safeguard. To safeguard laborers' rights still needs the channel of rights. For example, the collective consultation system of salary are now carried out in many cities. It is necessary to take this opportunity and build a fair distribution system and push forward the implementation of all regulations to safeguard the rights of laborers.

The Chinese government established unemployment insurance system in the 1980s. With the establishment of the socialist market economic system in the 1990s, the social security system was much improved. The minimum living allowance system was set up for laid-off workers and so was the on-time payment of pensions system for retired people. The policies for old age, unemployment and medical care insurance system were further promoted. This marked the final establishment of China's socialist security system. With the establishment of the combination of "social raising and personal accounts" in the mid-1990s, the social security system went on a good development road. This is reflected in the following four aspects. First, "the combination" system guarantees the basic old age pensions are paid in full and on time for retired workers of enterprises. In 2007, the expenditure of the national financial revenue on employment and social security, was 539.6 billion yuan, 2.05 times that of 2002. Seventeen provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have paid off historical arrears. Second, the social security coverage is continuously extended. More and more urban and rural residents are included into the social security coverage. For example, new rural cooperative medical care system has been going on smoothly since its launch in 2003. By September 2007, 726 million farmers have joined the system, making it a social security system with the widest coverage. Third, social security levels are enhanced gradually. From 2003 to 2007, the basic pensions for retired workers of enterprises were raised five times. The national average old age pension level had increased from 7,728 yuan in 2003 to 11,500 yuan in 2007. Fourth, the fund raising channels for social security services have been widened.

The country has exerted great efforts to develop education, science, culture, health and sports undertakings with an overall promotion of safeguarding citizens' education and cultural life rights. In 1977, the national college entrance applicants were 5.7 million. 270,000 of them were admitted--an admission proportion of 29:1. In 2007, the recruitment of colleges and universities was 5.67 million. The admission proportion was 2:1. The recruitment expansion of colleges and universities, which began in 1999, has made the college education realize historically remarkable development and enter the period of the generalization of high education. In 2006, the country's colleges and universities recruited 5.4 million students. The total number of students in colleges and universities exceeded 23 million. The gross entry rate hit 21%. Meanwhile, the profession education also develops rapidly and the all-life education system is built. A 襝ross bridge?to train talents has been set up.

The judicial safeguard (aid) is the final line of defense for the human rights safeguarding system and thus is critical to the safeguard of human rights.

In recent years, to strengthen human rights protection in judicial procedures, people's courts have carried out deep reforms on the forms of trials by promoting open trials according to law, strengthening the supervision of society and public opinion on trials to ensure judicial fairness. The first trials of cases are all open except for those required to be closed according to law. The opening rate of courts for second trials also rises. The cases of open or closed trials all have public sentencing. To raise the rate of announcing of judgment at the court, the showing of evidence, questioning of witnesses, corroboration of evidence and debating, are also carried out at the courts of trials. From 2003 to 2007, the Supreme People's Court heard 20,451 cases of all kinds, an increase of 0.78% from the previous five years, To punish criminals according to law and maintain the state security and social stability, the Supreme People's Court heard 4,802 criminal cases in the five years. It also supervised and directed local people courts at all levels to finish 3.38 million first trial criminal cases, an increase of 19.61% from the previous five years. Furthermore, reform and improvement for death sentence approval system was carried out in an active way. On Jan. 1, 2007, the Supreme People's Court retrieved the right to review all death penalty decisions made by lower courts, ending its 24-year absence in approving China's execution verdicts, according to the NPC Standing Committee's decision to amend the country's organic law on the people's courts. In the past one year, the transition work went on steadily and trials of cases were normal. The retrieval of the right to review death penalties is undoubtedly of great importance to implement the Constitution regulations on safeguarding human rights. China guarantees the prudence and fairness in death sentencing by using institutional system.

The other area highlighting human rights protection is the reform of reeducation-through-labor system. In China, reeducation-through-labor is a kind of administrative punishment. It applies to minor illegal acts which are not serious enough to be get criminal punishment. But in practice, reeducation-through-labor is sometimes more strict than criminal punishment. Meanwhile, some regulations in the reeducation-through-labor system are blurry, which leaves room for abuse of power and violation of human rights for public security departments. Seen from the general social background of governance by law, the system must be modified. The objects of reeducation should include two kinds--those who seriously violate the law but they have not committed crimes, and those who have committed minor crimes but their personal freedom is not restricted. It is said the rectification law for illegal acts had been included into the promulgation plan of the 10th NPC Standing Committee. The law will give specific regulations targeting the above problems.

Furthermore, the pilot community rectification program has become a shining point in judicial safeguard of human rights. If the reform of the death penalty review system and reeducation-through-labor system safeguards human rights by restricting rights, the community rectification reform is to enlarge the living space of prisoners with minor crimes and try to ensure punishment will not have a disseverance effect on them, thus realizing a smooth return of criminals to normal social life and showing the humanitarian spirit in law. The community rectification is applied to criminals who are put under surveillance, on parole, on probation or serving a sentence outside jail and released but still deprived of political rights. In 2003, the Ministry of Justice selected six provinces or municipalities as pilot places for the program. In 2005, the program was extended to 12 other provinces. Since 2006, these pilot provinces have been standardizing community rectification and establishing relevant regulations to lay foundation for the legislation on community rectification. To punish according to law and deter offenders are the integral parts of law, but the deep humanitarian care to offenders is a more rational representation of rule-by-law civilization.

The 30 years of reform and opening up is also a period of China's all-round economic, social and cultural development and of the flourish of its human rights undertakings, which have experienced a fundamental change from being a cold field to being a hot issue. In the 30 years, China's human rights thought was established, its human rights theoretical system formed, human rights safeguarding system improved and human rights safeguarding practice promoted. The report of the 17th CPC National Congress said "we must respect and safeguard human rights" in the part of speeding up the building of a socialist country governed by law. It puts more emphasis on the relationship between human rights and rule of law. Human rights are changed from a political concept to a legal one. Human rights become legal rights, which make it a legal duty for the state to respect and safeguard human rights. This not only points out the direction for the development of China's human rights undertakings, is also the action principle and guidance for us to push forward human rights work and strengthen the construction of human rights thought and theory. It is believed China's human rights undertakings will achieve greater progress with the deepening of political system reform and sustained economic and social development.

The author is Dean of Law School of Shangdong University, Professor of China University of Political Science and Law.

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