China to have a bigger say in global human rights governance

The seminar titled “Building Chinese Human Rights Discourse System in a New Era” was held last Thursday in Changsha, capital of Hunan province. Nearly 70 scholars and experts from universities, research institutes and government departments exchanged views on the construction of the Chinese human rights discourse system and the global human rights governance in the new era.

Zhang Yonghe, executive director of the Human Rights Research Center of Southwest University of Political Science and Law, pointed out that the need to build China’s own human rights discourse system is urgent.

“China’s human rights practices have laid the foundation for studying Chinese human rights with Chinese characteristics in a new era,” said Professor Xian Kailin, executive director of the Human Rights Research and Education Center of Dongbei University of Finance and Economics.

We should factor in the essentials of the international human rights discourse in building the Chinese human rights discourse system in the new era, said Liu Zhiqiang, professor with the Human Rights Research Center of Guangzhou University.

Lu Zhi'an, vice director of the Human Rights Research Center of Fudan University, said China should have a greater role in setting effective human rights agendas to have a bigger say in the area of human rights.

Liu Rongrong, vice director of the International Communication Research Center of Xinhua News Agency, said new communication methods such as big data should be adopted to present China’s human rights stories.

On March 23, the resolution of “Promoting Mutually Beneficial Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights” proposed by China was adopted at the 37th meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“China has provided its wisdom to human rights protection and will play a greater role in promoting the global human rights governance,” said Liu Huawen, executive director of the Human Rights Research Center of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.