1st LD: China reviews human rights progress, pledging greater efforts

The Chinese government on Tuesday released a report reviewing the human rights progress from 2012 to 2015 while pledging greater effort in the future.

China launched the National Human Rights Action Plan (2012-2015) in June 2012, the second of its kind, following one from 2009 to 2010.

Major targets and tasks set by the plan had been fulfilled as scheduled by the end of 2015, says the report issued by the State Council Information Office.

About 48 percent of the binding targets and over 50 percent of the targets concerning the people's livelihood had been met ahead of time or exceeded, thus realizing the comprehensive implementation of the plan, the report says.

"The Communist Party of China and the Chinese government incorporated the principle of universality of human rights into China's national conditions...successfully charting a path of human rights development suiting China's national conditions," the report says.

Fulfilling the plan as scheduled fully demonstrates the commitment and confidence of the Party and government to promote the human rights cause in a coordinated and orderly way and the huge advantage of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, it says.

However, the report admits that the government is keenly aware of many challenges in this aspect, for instance, extensive economic development pattern and problems of unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development.

The country is still struggling to deal with a big gap between urban and rural areas as well as problems of immediate concern to the people's welfare including medical care, education, old age care, food and drug safety, income distribution and environment.

"There is still a long way to go to realize higher-level protection of human rights in China and hard efforts must be made," it says. Endi