The Chinese government on Tuesday released a report reviewing the human rights progress from 2012 to 2015 and promising harder 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, China's economic development mode is still crude and it is still fraught with problems from 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.
IMPROVEMENT OF PEOPLE'S WELFARE
From 2012 to 2015, faced with a complex international situation and the challenging tasks of pushing reform and maintaining stability, the government has pushed for more efficient, fairer and more sustainable growth and worked to ensure that all people benefit from reform and development.
Compared with the average 7.4-percent annual growth of gross domestic product (GDP) from 2012 to 2015, the per capita disposable income of urban residents increased by 7.5 percent and the per capita net income for rural residents increased by 9.2 percent annually.
A total of 66.63 million people in rural areas were lifted out of poverty.
Ordinary citizens have enjoyed more comprehensive social security programs and better public services, while more efforts were made to realize equal access to education and address pollution.
The rights and interests of ethnic minorities, women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities have also been further guaranteed.
PROMOTING RULE OF LAW
Efforts have been made to improve government transparency, through computer and Internet technologies, to realize people's rights to be informed, express their opinion, participate in state affairs and oversee the government.
Read more:
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