Participants at a symposium on China's human rights progress in the course of reform and opening up have concluded that much progress has been made over the past four decades.

They agreed that China has built a relatively complete human rights protection system, made remarkable achievements, and embarked on a path of human rights development that suits Chinese characteristics over the past four decades of reform and opening up.

The seminar, held in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province on Wednesday, was attended by over 100 representatives from the national human rights education and training base, human rights research institutes, and related government departments.

They discussed topics including the human rights development path, theoretical innovation, practice, and achievements.

The seminar was jointly held by the China Society for Human Rights Studies and the publicity department of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.

In an exclusive CGTN interview, Chang Jian, director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Nankai University, said progress on human rights was mainly reflected in three areas. Firstly, awareness of respecting and safeguarding human rights has been greatly improved; secondly, human rights have been guaranteed by perfect policy, law and institutions; thirdly, China’s practical actions and measures to protect human rights in all aspects have achieved good results. 

However, Chang indicated although human rights have made great progress over the 40 years of opening up, the demand for more rights is still on the rise, as China is a populous nation with unbalanced development and is facing several challenges. 

(Chen Shi, Zhong Jianli, Geng Zhibin and Xinhua contributed to this story.)