West's smears of China based on fear and ignorance

The ongoing efforts to demonize China coming from G7 nations including the United States and the United Kingdom are based on fear and total ignorance of modern China and its great history with a 5,000-year civilization, said Stephen Brawer, chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden.

He made the remarks at a forum on global human rights governance held in Beijing from Wednesday to Thursday, marking the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.

"Western politicians believe in the law of the jungle and brute force as the solution to problems, eventually leading to geopolitical conflict," he added.

Brawer told China Daily that instead of stoking conflicts, China is on the right path in protecting and improving human rights and "it should be something that the world would embrace as a great achievement".

"We should recognize its greatness not only in the present period ... I think Chinese civilization has important contributions for the world to have a deeper understanding of humanity in human nature."

Muhammad Usman Iqbal Jadoon, director-general of the United Nations Division of Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told China Daily that Beijing has become a role model in human rights protection for developing countries.

"The remarkable social economic turnaround and development that China has achieved is nothing short of a miracle. Lifting 800 million people out of extreme poverty in such a short span of time directly contributes to the promotion of the human rights of Chinese citizens. It's a remarkable achievement."

According to Zhang Weiwei, dean of the China Research Institute at Fudan University in Shanghai, China spent about one-10th of the cost of the US war in Afghanistan, or about $250 billion, to lift the last 100 million people out of extreme poverty within 10 years.

As the world at present finds itself in a totally unprecedented situation, a time of fundamental transition and a time of great turmoil, experts highlighted challenges faced today in protecting human rights.

"This was a period in which numerous wars were conducted in southwest Asia — in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. The conditions of life of the developing world grew worse over the last few decades of that 'world order'," said William Jones, Washington bureau chief of the US publication Executive Intelligence Review. Even in the developed world, the world of the West, the conditions of life for its citizenry deteriorated significantly from what they had been 40 years previously, he told the forum.

China's success in poverty alleviation puts into question the whole viability of the "Western way of life" he said, adding that more importantly, China's call for making development a human right has been well-received by the world community.

Global experts and officials called for mutual understanding and cooperation among the international community to protect and improve human rights.

Jadoon said that all countries are committed to promoting human rights protection and the international community should do this through cooperation and collaboration, not through confrontation.