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ABSTRACT
The articles gathered here provide a range of approaches, but there are some topics that should be added to the discussion to provide a fuller picture. These topics include: a Chinese Marxist approach to human rights; socialist rule of law, which frames the revised (2018) regulation on religion; the largest Protestant church organization in the world, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement; and the 2018 Chinese-Vatican agreement. The following is predicated on the need for engagement with the full picture, upon which assessment should be based.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Roland Boer is a professor of philosophy at Renmin University of China, Beijing. His current research concerns comparative Marxist philosophy, with a focus on the realities of socialism in power.
Notes
1 Tierney, Idea of Natural Rights.
2 A full explication of this history is provided elsewhere: Boer, “Sovereignty and Human Rights.”
3 By using the terminology of “false universal,” which may be contrasted with a “rooted universal,” I do not deploy the European relative-absolute distinction. See further, Sun, Human Rights Protection System, 132–35.
4 Chinese scholarship on human rights is immense, with human rights centres, nationally funded research projects, policy directives, and journals devoted to the topic. The best English language study is by Sun, Human Rights Protection System; even better is the Chinese language study by Wan “Zhongguo tese renquan guan.”
5 Li and Wang, “Renquan guoji baohu,” Wan, “Zhongguo tese renquan guan,” 42; and Jiang, “Makesizhuyi renquan guan,” 36.
6 Li et al., “Zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi renquan,” 65.
7 Sun, Human Rights Protection System, 121.
8 Lin, “Pubian renquan de jeigou,” 76–8; Wan, “Zhongguo tese renquan guan,” 42–3; Jiang, “Makesizhuyi renquan guan,” 37–8; Li, “Goujian renlei mingyun gongtongti,” 3–5; and Wu, “Lun xin shidai,” 13–4. Further, economic and social rights are not seen as “second generation” human rights, with civil and political rights as the “first generation,” for the idea of these generations indicates the European tradition: Vasak, “Human Rights.”
9 This dimension is often ignored or downplayed by foreign scholars: Angle, Chinese Thought, 200–4, 240–49; Bell, East Meets West, 49–105; Biddulph, Stability Imperative; and Freeman and Geeraerts, “Europe, China and Expectations,” 100.
10 Weatherley, Discourse of Human Rights, 97–98; Lin, “Pubian renquan de jeigou,” 75–76.
11 Wang and Cui, “Gaige kaifang 40 nian.”
12 For a careful assessment of the tradition’s full impact –negative and positive – see Wan, “Zhongguo tese renquan guan,” 46–48.
13 Deng Xiaoping, in 1979, was the first communist leader to pick up the idea of xiaokang, drawing on a tradition dating back to the Book of Rites and Book of Songs. Deng, “Zhongguo ben shiji.” See further: Boer, “Seeking a Xiaokang Society”; Wu, “Lun xin shidai”; and Xi, Secure a Decisive Victory.
14 This emphasis should not be misunderstand as a collective focus (as Xie Zhibin suggests), in response to the European liberal tradition’s emphasis on the individual. Instead, it entails a recalibration of the collective-individual relation. See Li et al., “Zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi renquan,” 57, 60, 66–68.
15 Huang, “Shehuizhuyi shichang jingji lilun.”
16 Boer, “State and Minority Nationalities.”
17 Kun, Poverty Alleviation in China; World Bank, China Systematic Country Diagnostic, 1. The World Bank report observes that this “unprecedented” result means that 7 in 10 of those throughout the world who have been lifted out of poverty are in China.
18 Guo and Zhao, “Xin shidai zhongguo tese.”
19 Li, “Goujian renlei mingyun gongtongti,” 1–3; Wu, “Lun xin shidai,” 18.
20 Wu, “Lun xin shidai,” 14–15.
21 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2018; Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2017/18; and State Council, United States in 2017.
22 Initially conceived as one document, the covenants were divided into two. Although published separately, both came into effect in 1976. See further, Sun, Human Rights Protection System; Li et al., “Zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi renquan,” 68–9.
23 It is not due to a “paranoid” and “secretive” CPC, “afraid” of its own people, especially in light of global survey results which indicate between 84 and 92 percent trust by Chinese people in government and public institutions, and confidence in the direction China is taking. See Ipsos, What Worries the World; Edelman, Edelman Trust Barometer.
24 An interested reader should consult at least two recent and comprehensive treatments: Chen and Li, “Zhongguo fazhi lilun”; and He and Qi, “Fazhi chengwei fazhi.”
25 Xi, Secure a Decisive Victory, 35.
26 State Council, Zongjiao shiwu tiaoli; see also, State Council, Zhongguo baozhang zongjiao.
27 Article 36 states:
Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief … The state protects legitimate religious activities. No one may use religion to carry out counter-revolutionary activities or activities that disrupt public order, harm the health of citizens or obstruct the educational systems of the state. No religious affairs may be dominated by any foreign country.
28 Anecdotal evidence indicates that the project has – in its first year – already achieved substantial success. At my local church in Haidian, Beijing, there has been a significant influx of members making the move from “house churches.” See more below.
29 Chen and Li, “Zhongguo fazhi lilun,” 73.
30 The best works on TPSM are the careful studies by Wickeri, Seeking the Common Ground; and Reconstructing Christianity in China.
31 The white paper estimates a total of 200 million adherents to all the religions in China: State Council, Zhongguo baozhang zongjiao.
32 Accurate numbers of Christian are notoriously difficult to obtain, especially since international mission bodies inflate the number (often to over 100 million) and Chinese government figures are suspected of being too low. However, the most rigorous scientific analysis takes place through the “China Family Panel Studies” project, which is sensitive to distinct approaches to religion in China. Based on 2016 data, it has found that were 39.69 million Christians in China, of which 28.29 were “open Christians” and 11.67 million “hidden Christians.” Most of the latter group can be assumed to be involved in “house churches.” To be added here are non-practicing “nominal Christians,” who number 21.15 million. See Lu et al., “Zhongguo you duoshao jidutu?”
33 Boer, Red Theology.
34 Wu, Shehui fuyin; “Jidujiao yu zhengzhi”; Meiyouren kanjianguo shangdi; and Hei’an yu guangming.
35 Wu, Hei’an yu guangming, 17.
36 Quoted in Cao, “Recalling the Later Years,” 139.
37 Strangely, Barth’s Christian socialism is underplayed, while the assertion by Li Quan that China is a neo-liberal capitalist state is empirically incorrect and leads to impossible philosophical problems (entailing betrayal narratives, conspiracy theories and coded language). On Barth’s resolute socialism and qualified support of the Soviet Union, see Marquardt, Theologie und Sozialismus.
38 Faggioli, “China-Vatican Talks.” The background to this observation is – in part – a 2016 interview with Pope Francis: “It has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom.” Francis, “I do not judge.”
39 Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, quoted in Álvarez, “Chinos, quienes mejor realizan.”