Two weeks after enshrining the principle of "respect for and protection of human rights" in its Constitution, China published a 16,000-strong-word white paper on March 30; to detail the progress in its human rights cause last year.

The white paper released by the State Council Information Office, titled "Progress in China's Human Rights Cause in 2003", came on the heels of a United States decision to table an anti-China motion in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

"To help the international community toward a better understanding of the human rights situation in China, we hereby give an overview of the developments in the field of human rights in China in 2003," said the white paper.

Calling 2003 "a year of great, landmark significance for progress in human rights in the country", the white paper said thenew leadership that took office last year has adopted the "people first" principle of government, and in practice has taken a seriesof distinctively epochal measures for respecting and safeguarding human rights.

"The leadership has made great efforts to acquaint itself with the feelings of the people, to reflect such feelings, to reduce the people's burdens and practice democracy, which have markedly improved China's human rights conditions and won universal acknowledgment from the international community," it said.

The white paper went on to elaborate on China's human rights conditions in 2003 in eight chapters:

-- The rights to subsistence and development are key for the protection of all other basic human rights. With the country's per-capital GDP (gross domestic production) surpassing 1,000 US dollars for the first time, the general living standard of the people continued to rise, the consumption pattern of the society showed that it was gradually changing from one of basic living to one of modern living, and the size of the impoverished population without adequate food and clothing in rural China decreased from 250 million at the beginning of China's reform and opening-up program in 1978 to 29 million in 2003.

China attaches great importance to protecting the health and safety of its citizens. Faced with the sudden outbreak of the SARS epidemic, the central and local governments earmarked more than 10 billion yuan to purchase medical equipment, medication and protective gear, to reconstruct hospitals and to provide free treatment to patients in financial difficulties. The death rate ofconfirmed SARS patients on the Chinese mainland has been 6.5 percent, lower than the world's average of 9 percent.

-- China has endeavored to widen the scope of citizens' orderlypolitical participation, and to safeguard their civil and political rights in accordance with the law. The national legislature adopted 10 laws last year including the "Law on Residents' ID Cards," which all display the basic spirit of serving the people and benefiting the people, as well as respecting and safeguarding their human rights.

Along with the full-scale democratic construction at the rural grass-roots level, the democratic rights of the masses there have been respected. Making village affairs known to the villagers, referred to as the "Sunlight Project" by the people, has been practiced across the country. So far, over 90 percent of villages have set up bulletin boards for such purposes, giving timely reports to villagers of village, financial and administrative affairs concerning their interests.

The year 2003 also witnessed the setup of the press spokesperson system by people's governments at all levels, which enabled citizens to enjoy more rights to information, supervision and participation in public affairs.

Chinese citizens enjoy the freedom of religious belief in accordance with the law and normal religious activities are protected. Chinese religious organizations have established relations with religious organizations and personnel in more than 70 countries and regions.

-- In 2003, China further beefed up its judicial reform, claiming significant progress in judicial guarantee for human rights. The Chinese government has carried out a major reform in its social assistance program, replacing the "Measures for the Sheltering and Send-off of Urban Vagrants and Beggars" with the more humane and law-based "Measures for Assisting and Managing Urban Vagrants and Beggars with No Means of Livelihood."

Cases of extended detention involving 25,736 people were corrected last year, basically rectifying such deviations. This was a clear-up of extended detention, the most extensive in scope,the biggest in scale and the largest in number of people involved in the nation's judicial experience. Thereby, the judicial guarantee for human rights was greatly strengthened.

Legal aid has been implemented effectively, ensuring citizens' right to receive legal aid with the "Regulations on Legal Aid" formulated and promulgated in 2003. The statute has been the firstever national legislation in China that established a basic framework for China's legal aid system, and defined the scope of citizens' right to legal aid.

-- Emphasizing employment as the basis of people's livelihood, the central government appropriated an additional special subsidy of 4.7 billion yuan to support employment and re-employment in 2003, and a result, the nationwide registered urban unemployment rate was kept at a 4.3 percent rate.

The social security network, comprising of insurance relating to employment, work related injuries, medicare and pension, coversan ever more number of people.

The government launched a special campaign to protect rural migrant workers' rights and interests around the country. The fact that the Premier of the State Council personally ordered the payment of rural migrant workers' arrears of wage vividly reflects the government's great concern about the problem of failure to pay rural migrant workers' wages and the protection of their rights and interests. According to statistics, from November 2003 to February 2004, a total of over 24 billion yuan of overdue wages was paid to rural migrant workers. At present, China is drafting a "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Farmers' Rights and Interests," which will go a step further toward providing all-round legal protection to farmers' rights andinterests.

-- The state protects the legitimate rights and interests of women and children in accordance with the law. Currently, among the 29 ministries and ministerial-level commissions and agencies of the State Council there are 22 female officials of the ministerial rank. Job opportunities for women keep growing, and women have become increasingly independent economically, and the proportion of women employed in the primary and secondary industries has been on the decline, while in the new industries and technology- and knowledge-intensive industries, the proportion of women has increased remarkably. The educational gap between menand women is narrowing, and the ratio of women in education at alllevels has been on the rise.

-- In China, ethnic minorities enjoy equal rights to participate in the administration of state affairs and the rights to independently manage the affairs of their own regions and their own ethnic communities.

In 2003, the gross output value in those areas exceeded 1,100 billion yuan, an increase of 11.1 percent over the previous year, which was higher than the nation's average. As part of the effort to promote education in ethic minority regions, beginning in the autumn of 2003, the central and local governments jointly earmarked funds to provide textbooks free of charge to poverty-stricken students at the stage of compulsory education in 56 counties of Xinjiang, and exempted them from all school fees.

-- The Chinese government puts great stress on the protection of the rights of the disabled. There are 60 million disabled people in the country, accounting for about 5 percent of the total population. And in 2003, a large number of disabled people overcame their handicaps to varying degrees, and the disabled persons' right to receive education, to work and social security has been better protected. And he state endeavors to create a social environment of care and help for the disabled. More than 40,000 liaison offices of help-the-disabled volunteers have been established throughout the country, and the number of registered young volunteers is upwards of 1.86 million.

-- China has all along been supportive to and actively participated in activities in the field of human rights sponsored by the United Nations, actively carried out dialogues and cooperation with countries throughout the world with regard to human rights on the basis of equality and mutual respect. It has, to date, acceded to 21 international human rights conventions, andhas taken every measure to honor its obligations under those conventions.

Deng Pufang, chairman of the China Federation of the Disabled was award in December 2003 "the United Nations Human Rights Award." It was an expression of high appreciation for Deng personally aswell as an appreciation of the international community for years of efforts made by China in promoting and protecting human rights.

The white paper concluded that full realization of human rights is the common goal of countries throughout the world as well as animportant target for China in her efforts to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, as well as her "peaceful rise" in the world.

China will, as always, devote herself to promoting the human rights cause, actively carry out exchanges and cooperation with the international community according to the provisions of the Constitution of China and the need for modernization of the country, and make her contributions to promoting the healthy development of the international human rights cause.

This was the seventh white paper on China's human rights situation published by the State Council Information Office since 1991.

In the 12 years between 1990 and 2001, the United States had for 10 times instigated or tabled draft resolutions in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in an attempt to censure China on its human rights records, but had ended in failure every time.

China strongly opposes the US move, which it views as an attempt to politicize the human rights issue and a typical exhibition of Washington's double standard. China insists that differences between the two countries in the human rights areas should be resolved through dialogue, not confrontation.