The Right to Development: China's Philosophy, Practice and Contribution

III. Effectively Realizing Economic Development

China always considers economic development as the central task, laying a solid foundation for safeguarding the right to development. At the same time economic development is strengthened by safeguarding the people's right to development. Since the reform and opening-up policy was launched in 1978, China has witnessed rapid economic growth, and has become the world's second largest economy. There have been two historic leaps in living standards, from living in poverty to having access to basic material needs, and then to moderate prosperity.

The right to subsistence of the poor is effectively guaranteed. The poverty reduction campaign in China is the most significant sign of China's progress in human rights. Since the end of 1978, China has realized "the most rapid large-scale poverty reduction in human history over the last 25 years."[Note: "Reducing Poverty on a Global Scale: Learning and Innovating for Development Findings from the Shanghai Global Learning Initiative," a World Bank document on Nov. 14, 2016.] According to the existing rural poverty standards, it has reduced the number of those living in poverty by more than 700 million, which is more than the total population of the United States, Russia, Japan and Germany, and cut the rate of poverty to 5.7 percent, becoming the first country to complete the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. By the end of 2015, the number of rural people living in poverty had fallen to 55.75 million. In the five autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia and Xinjiang, and in the provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, and Qinghai, where ethnic minorities are concentrated, the number of rural people living in poverty had fallen to 18.13 million. China's poverty reduction campaign has effectively contributed to granting its disadvantaged people the right to development, laying a solid foundation for the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. In November 2015, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Decision on Winning the Tough Battle Against Poverty," making comprehensive arrangements for poverty eradication work in the following five years. In March 2016, the "Outline of the 13th Five-Year Program for the National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China" was published, in which the Chinese government made strategic plans for the full implementation of the overall goal of poverty eradication. In order to realize the ambitious goal of relieving the rural poor population of poverty by 2020, China is carrying out a basic strategy of targeted poverty alleviation and targeted poverty eradication.

The right to work is fully realized. Economic development creates more jobs. Urban and rural employment continued to increase from 761 million in 2010 to 775 million in 2015. Within these figures, urban employment increased from 347 million to 404 million, representing an average annual increase of more than 11 million. In 2015 urban employment increased by 13.12 million, and the registered urban unemployment rate by the end of the year was 4.05 percent, showing steady progress in this work. From 2008 to 2015, the central government assigned a total of RMB305.51 billion as subsidies to be used in employment. Since 2009, the Chinese government has implemented a policy of financial discount for small-sum guaranteed loans to women. By June 2016, a total of RMB279.4 billion in loans had been provided to 5.38 million women, supporting more than 10 million, including women classified as poor, to start their own businesses or find work. The number of women in employment has increased continuously and their positions have improved. In 2014, employed women accounted for 45 percent of the total workforce in China, and female professional and technical personnel accounted for 46.5 percent of the national total. The government strengthens skill training to promote more equitable sharing of job opportunities through capacity-building. By the end of 2015, the total number of skilled workers in the country had reached 167 million, of whom 45.01 million were highly skilled. The government actively promotes transfer of the rural labor force to employment in local or nearby places, ensuring that 65 percent can find employment within the local county economy. The government vigorously develops the service industry, creating jobs for rural migrant workers, and setting up farmers' markets and food stalls with reduced or zero fees. As a result, more than 80 percent of rural migrant workers have found jobs in small and micro businesses. The government also encourages rural migrant workers to return home and start businesses. By the end of 2015, 4.5 million rural migrant workers had returned home to start businesses, and rural small and micro businesses amounted to 6.99 million. By the end of 2014, China had 15.46 million private enterprises, and nearly 50 million self-employed businesses, representing increases of 83 percent and 44 percent over 2010; these businesses employed 250 million people. Internet entrepreneurship has helped nearly 10 million people find employment, and "Internet+" is an important channel for creating jobs. The government takes measures to guide graduates to find employment through multiple channels, encourage entrepreneurship, and offer better employment services to graduates and give more assistance to those experiencing difficulties in finding jobs. In recent years, the employment rate of new college graduates has been above 70 percent every year, and the overall employment rate at the end of the year has exceeded 90 percent. By aiding enterprises, and offering employment support and assistance, the government helps unemployed persons and people having difficulty in securing jobs to find employment, and devotes particular attention to zero-employment families. From 2011 to 2015, more than 5.5 million unemployed urban people found jobs every year, while an annual average of almost 1.8 million people having difficulty in securing jobs found employment. Steady progress has been made in the employment of people with disabilities. During the 12th Five-Year Program period (2011-2015), the government helped 1.52 million urban residents with disabilities to find jobs. In 2015, 21,596,300 disabled people of working age across the country found jobs.

The people's basic living standards have greatly improved. In 1978, the Engel coefficient of urban households was 57.5 percent and that of rural households was 67.7 percent; in 2015, the figures dropped to 29.7 percent and 33.0 percent respectively. From 1978 to 2015, urban residents saw an increase in their residential area from 6.7 square meters per capita to more than 33 square meters; the corresponding figures for rural residents were 8.1 square meters to more than 37 square meters. A housing security system with government-supported low-rent housing and economically affordable housing as the main forms is in place. In 2015, the national investment in residential buildings reached RMB8,024.77 billion. Within this program, 7.72 million units of government-subsidized urban housing were completed, and construction on another 7.83 million units already started. The central government provided RMB36.5 billion to subsidize the renovation of sub-standard houses for 4.32 million poor rural households around China. From 2011 to 2015, under the government-subsidized urban housing project, China built a total of 40.13 million new units, renovated 21.91 million households in shantytowns, and moved a large number of people with housing difficulties into apartments, realizing "livable" residences. From 2011 to 2015, public finance at all levels subsidized barrier-free reconstruction for 675,000 families with disabled members, improving their quality of life.

Travel conditions have greatly improved. From 1978 to 2015, highways in service rose from 890,000 km to 4.58 million km, and the civil aviation passenger throughput grew from 2.32 million to 915 million. In 2015, the total mileage of expressways open to traffic in China reached 123,500 km, the operating mileage of high-speed railways reached 19,000 km. 94.5 percent of villages had paved road access, and 94.3 percent of villages had access to bus services.

The people's living standards have significantly improved. From 1978 to 2015, the annual GDP increased from RMB367.9 billion to RMB68,550.6 billion, and per capita GDP grew from more than US$200 to above US$8,000. In 1978, per capita disposable income of urban households was only RMB343.4, and per capita net income of rural households was only RMB133.6. In 2015, per capita disposable income of all residents reached RMB21,966; the figures were RMB31,195 for urban residents and RMB11,422 for rural residents. By the end of 2015, the total number of phone users nationwide reached 1,536.73 million, and 1,305.74 million of them were mobile phone users, with a penetration rate of 95.5 per 100 people. There were 213.37 million households with fixed broadband Internet access, and 785.33 million mobile broadband users. The number of Internet users was 688 million, and the household penetration rate of fixed broadband reached 50.3 percent. In 2015, Chinese residents made 127.86 million outbound trips, including 121.72 million private trips. Civilian car ownership was 95.08 million, of which 87.93 million were private cars.

IV. Enhancing Political Development

China continues to enrich and improve a political system suited to its own development by advancing Chinese socialist democracy and rule of law in an all-round way, ensuring effective protection of civil and political rights, and raising the levels of participation in and promotion of the political development process and allowing people to partake in the benefits of political development.

The people's congress system is the fundamental institutional guarantee of political development for the people. According to the Constitution, all power in the PRC belongs to the people, and the National People's Congress (NPC) and the local people's congresses at various levels are the organs through which the people exercise state power. The people's congress system guarantees citizens' rights to participate in development and share the resulting benefits in five ways:

(1) Generating and supervising state organs involved in the implementation of the right to development. Paragraph 3 of Article 3 of the Constitution states that all administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs of the state are created by the people's congresses to which they are responsible and under whose supervision they operate.

(2) Formulating laws and regulations to foster development. By September 2016, the NPC and its Standing Committee had formulated the Constitution and 252 laws in effect. By July 2016, local people's congresses and their standing committees with legislative power had formulated 9,915 local regulations in effect.

(3) Examining and approving development policy initiatives. Article 62 of the Constitution stipulates that the NPC exercises the functions and powers to examine and approve the plan for national economic and social development and the report on its implementation, and to examine and approve the state budget and the report on its implementation, among others.

(4) Providing an open mechanism for the expression of public opinion. People express and claim their reasonable development interests by means such as the exercise of their rights to raise opinions, suggestions and criticism, to file appeals and complaints, and to supervise.

(5) Properly defining the relationship between public power and development interests.

In recent years China has introduced three major systems that are of relevance - the power list, negative list, and responsibility list. Since 2013 the State Council has published lists enumerating all matters subject to administrative approval by its departments, and prohibited the addition of any unlisted matters, with 618 matters canceled or delegated to lower authorities. In this way, the State Council endeavors to eliminate opportunities for exploiting public posts for profit, and to enhance the procedures for the exercise of power.

Democratic election is an important element of citizens' political rights. Since the policy of reform and opening up was introduced in 1978, great progress has been made toward establishing people's democracy and an equal right to vote. In 2010, the NPC adopted an amendment to the Electoral Law providing wider equality of voting rights. Among other measures it requires that deputies be elected to the people's congresses based on the same population ratio in urban and rural areas.

Between 2011 and 2012, the election of deputies to county-level people's congresses saw more than 981 million registered voters and a turnout rate of 90.24 percent; the election of deputies to township-level people's congresses recorded more than 723 million registered voters and a turnout rate of 90.55 percent. In these elections, measures were taken based on the conditions in each constituency to ensure the right to vote of the 200 million floating population, and to facilitate their voting. The basic principle was that voters cast their votes in the constituencies where their registered permanent residences are, while they may vote by proxy with a letter of entrustment, and voters who have their voter qualification certificates in the constituencies where their registered permanent residences are may vote in the constituencies where they currently live.

The 2,987 deputies elected in 2013 to the Third Session of the 12th NPC included 401 workers and farmers accounting for 13.42 percent, 699 women accounting for 23.4 percent, and 409 deputies from all the 55 ethnic minority groups of China accounting for 13.69 percent.

Consultative democracy is an important channel for orderly participation in the political process. An extensive, multi-layered, institutionalized system of consultative democracy inclusive of multiple parties, people's congresses, governments, people's organizations, the grassroots, and non-governmental organizations has been created to expand orderly participation in the political process and ensure the citizen's right to development.

The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is an essential organ for implementing consultative democracy, involving the participation of nine political parties including the CPC, eight people's organizations, 56 ethnic groups, five major religions and 34 sectors of society. The CPPCC has more than 3,000 committees and over 600,000 members at all levels. In 2015, the CPPCC organized 41 major consultation events, and 107 inspection and survey tours, forming a political consultation framework employing a range of options such as plenary sessions, standing committees' thematic discussions on administrative affairs and thematic consultative seminars, and biweekly consultative seminars.

In the Third Session of the 12th CPPCC convened in 2015, 87.5 percent or 1,948 of the CPPCC members submitted 5,857 proposals, of which 85.1 percent or 4,984 were taken up for consideration. Since the First Session of the 12th CPPCC held in 2013, the rates of proposal handling and response have reached 99.5 percent or above.

Regional ethnic autonomy is an important channel for ethnic minorities to exercise their political rights. China has created the system of regional ethnic autonomy under the unitary system of government to effectively protect the democratic rights of ethnic minorities. Of the 55 ethnic minority groups in China, 44 have established ethnic autonomous areas. 71 percent of the ethnic minorities exercise regional autonomy, and the land area under ethnic autonomous areas accounts for 64 percent of the national territory. By the end of July 2016 ethnic autonomous areas had formulated and amended 967 autonomous regulations and separate regulations in effect, solidifying the legal foundation for ethnic minorities' exercise of their right to development.

Heads of governments of the five autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures and 120 autonomous counties are citizens from ethnic groups exercising regional autonomy. Leaderships and functional departments of CPC committees, people's congresses, governments, CPPCC committees at all levels in ethnic autonomous areas contain ethnic minorities, whose proportions are generally close to or higher than the percentages of ethnic minorities in the local population. By the end of 2015 ethnic minority civil servants numbered 765,000 - nearly four times the figure in 1978 - and 10.7 percent of the total number of civil servants across the country. 8.3 percent of civil servants at or above county level were ethnic minorities.

Grassroots democracy is an effective way for people to safeguard and realize equal right to development. China has established a system of grassroots self-governance implemented by rural villagers' committees and urban neighborhood committees. Approximately 98 percent of the 581,000 villagers' committees across the country practice direct election and have formulated village regulations and rules for villagers' self-governance. The turnout rates of direct elections average 95 percent among 600 million eligible voters. The 100,000 urban neighborhood committees in China utilize the services of 512,000 staff and 5.4 million volunteers. Urban residents' participation in democracy has been remarkably broadened and their self-governance capabilities and levels have been improved, through multiple channels, including direct elections, gridded management platforms, volunteer services, hearings, coordination meetings, appraisal meetings, community liaison, communities' online forums, and community public concern stations, all contributing to China's system of grassroots self-governance. The workers' congress system has been widely applied in enterprises and public institutions. 4.64 million or 88.6 percent of enterprises and public institutions with trade unions have established separate systems for publicizing enterprise affairs. There are 2.75 million grassroots trade unions across the country, with 280 million members, including 109 million migrant workers from rural areas.

By June 2016, non-governmental organizations that had registered at offices of civil affairs numbered 670,000, including 329,000 mass organizations, 5,028 foundations, and 336,000 private non-profit units. These non-governmental organizations' services and influence extend to education, science and technology, culture, health, sports, communities, environmental protection, public welfare, charity, rural economy and other fields of public life.

Public participation provides citizens with ready access to decision-making processes. China has furthered democratic legislation and improved the channels and forms of public participation in legislation. Efforts have also been made to establish a system of commissioning third parties to draft legislation and evaluate the drafts, and improve the mechanisms for soliciting public opinion on drafts of laws and regulations and giving feedback on responses. Some local authorities have adopted regulations on administrative decision-making procedures for major issues, which list public participation as an important legal procedure and define the forms and methods of public participation in administrative decision-making. Open solicitation of public opinion, hearings, seminars and questionnaires are widely applied for this purpose.

In 2007 the State Council enacted Regulations on Open Government Information, emphasizing open information concerning administrative approval, financial budgets and final accounts, government-subsidized housing for the poor, food and drug safety, land appropriation, and household demolition and resettlement. The Regulations provide for prompt and accurate disclosure of government information to the public and protection of their right to know, and ensure effective scrutiny over government work while enhancing transparency in government information and efficiency in law-enforcement.

Channels of public participation in judicial processes have been steadily broadened. The number of people's assessors has now surpassed 220,000. From 2003 when China piloted the people's supervisor mechanism to April 2016, there were more than 48,000 people's supervisors, who had exercised supervision over 49,000 cases of job-related crimes. By the end of 2015, there had been nearly 800,000 people's mediation committees with more than 3.9 million people's mediators, who had, in recent eight years, investigated and resolved more than 67 million cases of disputes.

Public complaint filing has taken on more diversified forms, further broadening the channels for public political participation. The national complaint filing system has opened to the public for online complaint filing, resolution, and result appraisal through computers, mobile phones and the social-media app WeChat's public accounts platform. A total of 1.41 million cases were filed online in 2015, of which 140,000 were aimed at offering suggestions.