Spotlight: Foreign expert lauds China's human rights philosophy, participation in aiding African nations

A foreign human rights expert has lauded China's human rights philosophy and participation in aiding African nations and urged China to share its Chinese dream and wisdom with the international community.

Tom Zwart, a human rights professor with Utrecht University in the Netherlands, has recently expounded in an article on China's human rights philosophy that guides its assistance to African nations, noting that only approaches anchored by deeply rooted values and social institutions are applicable and effective in local human rights protection.

EQUALITY BASED COOPERATION WITH NO POLITICAL STRINGS ATTACHED

Almost two years ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a visit to the African continent as part of his maiden foreign tour as China's head of state.

During his visit to Tanzania, Xi urged all countries to respect Africa's dignity and independence in developing relations with the "continent of hope and promise."

Noting that unlike the Sino-Africa relations that aims at "fairness and extending justice," Zwart said, Western aid to Africa comes in some ways tied with strict conditions as Western nations have been trying to push their world view that is "so alien to Africans."

"There are no such political strings attached to Chinese assistance," the professor said. "Because the Sino-African cooperation is based on equality."

SHARED HUMAN RIGHTS PHILOSOPHY

"China and Africa perceive their cooperation in their own common philosophical terms," and therefore "do not necessarily resort to the Western vocabulary of human rights," said Zwart.

Different from the Western perception of human rights through the lenses of legalism and liberalism, Zwart said, the "values and social institutions that have emerged over centuries and sometimes millennia" in China and Africa are justifiable to be described as human rights.

Those principles like "friendship, virtue, reciprocity, harmony, benevolence and loyalty," which "characterize Sino-African relations and serve as very important building blocks for human rights protection," meet the requirements of human rights treaties under the core assumption of the so-called receptor approach.

The concept that has been developed by a group of top Chinese scholars assumes that the "state's duty to implement a particular human rights obligation can be matched by values and social institutions other than law," Zwart explained.

It also allows complementarity between international obligations and local cultural, social and political context when it comes to human right issues, he added, basing on that "human rights will only be effective if they spring from local values."

CHINESE DREAM DESERVES TO BE SHARED OUTSIDE CHINA

Mentioning that Sino-Africa cooperation dates back to the 1950s, Zwart praised China's long-term support for "African countries to solve their own problems using their own home-grown remedies, while respecting their autonomy and their dignity," thus allowing "Africa to remain in charge of its own fate."

Decades ago, China assisted Africa in liberation movements to fight colonialism and to implement the right to self-determination. Nowadays, China has helped improve its educational environment and sanitary conditions and boost its economy and infrastructure, the professor said.

"China's more active engagement in the human rights discourse, by showcasing its human rights philosophy as well as its record, needs to be welcomed," he added.

"Therefore, China should not keep its ideas and concepts to itself, but make them known to others by bringing them to the international marketplaces of ideas," Zwart continued. "The China Dream deserves to be shared with people outside China as well. Endi