Chinese ambassador to the United States Xie Feng said that respecting human rights means respecting other countries' human rights philosophy, according to the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America on Friday.

Xie added that China advocates safeguarding human rights through security, promoting them through development and advancing them through cooperation. He made these remarks when attending the 53rd Regular Session of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) from June 21 to 23, 2023 in Washington D.C.

The ambassador elaborated on the country's human rights development path. He said that China is committed to a human rights development path that meets the trend of the times and suits its national conditions.

"As we advance Chinese modernization, we have been strengthening human rights protection to promote free and well-rounded development of the people, " he said.                 

Now, the 56 ethnic groups of China are living in harmony and the people are leading a happy life, and the country has built the world's largest education, social security and healthcare systems, according to Xie.

Over the past four decades of reform and opening-up, China's per capita income has grown over 25 times. With 850 million people lifted out of poverty, the country has ended absolute poverty once and for all, contributing over 70 percent to global poverty reduction.

On democracy

The ambassador said that democracy should be used to resolve real problems, rather than be a slogan. "Only the wearer knows if the shoes fit or not," he said.

"According to a decade-long Harvard poll and surveys conducted by an American consultancy firm Edelman, the Chinese people's satisfaction with its government has stayed above 90 percent for years in a row," Xie said.

"China never exports its model, nor does it ask others to copy its practice. Instead, we welcome exchange and mutual learning, and stand ready to jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind," he added.

China has been constantly developing whole-process people's democracy. "Such democracy exists both in process and outcome, procedure and substance. A combination of direct and indirect democracy, it is people's democracy in nature, and also represents the will of the state," said the ambassador.

"It is therefore the most extensive, genuine and effective socialist democracy."

When elaborated on China's whole-process people's democracy, he used a Chinese proverb: dialects change every ten miles, and folk customs differ every 100 miles.

Just as the Americas have Latin dance, China has its folk dance, he said, adding that there is just no one-size-fits-all development model likewise.

"True democracy is about respecting other countries' choice of democracy models in line with their national realities," he said.