Human rights are built on equal development

Editor's note: Keith Lamb, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a University of Oxford graduate with a Master of Science in Contemporary Chinese Studies. His primary research interests are China's international relations and "socialism with Chinese characteristics." The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

China leads the way in human rights development, rooted in material reality. Prioritizing people, China eradicated extreme poverty and its socialist development path continues to enhance human rights for all. At the recent 2024 China-Central Asia Human Rights Development Forum held in Astana, the very city in Kazakhstan where Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt, the overland component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the human rights discourse was democratized to reflect the developmental needs of the Global South.

Recognizing that peaceful development is not easy to come by and human rights need to be protected, some of the suggestions put forward at the two-day forum included building human rights on global security, using the joint construction of the BRI as the material foundation for human rights, and implementing the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) to promote human rights governance.

Internationally, while some use the human rights discourse to instigate war and chaos, China, in conjunction with the majority of the Global South, walks the talk. The BRI, based on win-win cooperation and respect for sovereignty, has brought development to the Global South, which is the foundation for human rights, lacking under the Western hegemonic world order.

The BRI is an attempt to fix the human rights calamities of poverty and instability. Due to inequality and war, people lacking opportunities are forced to move to developed countries, whose elite benefit both from exploiting weaker countries and extracting high-skilled workers fleeing poverty. Recognizing this systemic failure, China has mobilized nearly $1 trillion of investment worldwide for Belt and Road cooperation, seeking to end global inequality – the foundation of human rights atrocities and hegemonism.

Central Asian countries' participation in high-quality construction through the BRI breaks out of the pattern of uneven development and one-sided force-fed human rights discourse. Where poverty exists, hegemonic ideology, including culturally specific human rights discourse, can overwhelm a poor state's information space, which is particularly ironic as the hegemon's economic system is the primary reason for global inequality.

It's even more pernicious when the club of wealthy states provides conditional economic aid to poor countries only after making the latter adopt their specific human rights standards that are completely unsuited to other civilizations' history and culture.

No single culture or civilization is perfect when it comes to human rights; they must be constantly discussed through open and equal multipolar dialogue. They require deep inter-civilizational understanding to reach a democratic consensus and advance collective human rights together. For this reason, the GCI, which respects the diversity of various civilizations, should be a cornerstone for building a shared vision of human rights through dialogue rather than having human rights dictated by one civilization.

The monopolization of the human rights discourse by a club of wealthy nations based on their civilizational experience is not only undemocratic but also dangerous as it perpetuates the abuse of human rights by destroying global security.

At its worst, this human rights discourse is deception on behalf of the geopolitical and economic aims of the hegemonic global capital based in the West that has convinced (or often terrified) their workers to support their worst human rights atrocities. These include sanctions or the outright invasion of states deemed to either be oppressing their people or a threat to the human rights of the people in the West.

This state of affairs, which destroys nations, only perpetuates global inequality, which is the foundation of human rights atrocities. Hence, the majority of the world – the Global South, including Central Asia – has joined the BRI. They see development as the key to human rights. Development is also the foundation for all other human rights as where poverty exists and millions die prematurely due to war and poverty, human rights are merely wishful thinking.

The BRI aids development, bringing security and wealth. While development is a primary human right in itself, security and wealth feed into the aforementioned problems of human rights perverted by hegemonism.

The development of the Global South has prevented the culturally specific narratives of human rights from appearing all-powerful. When others rise, they are also able to project their civilizations' human rights vision.

Development brings multipolarity, preventing the subversion of non-hegemonic states by a group of powerful states who can force their human rights vision onto others in exchange for economic aid. Unlike them, the BRI and China's foreign policy do not interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign countries.

Development acts as a deterrent to the vilest human rights abuse, which is waging war, upon the undeveloped by a hegemon, attempting to maintain its status quo or advance its geopolitical goals. Economic equality not only enhances living conditions and cultural soft power but state security too, which wards off the rapaciousness of global capital and powerful states trying to invade less developed states, using human rights as a smokescreen.

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