The Chinese Marxist Approach to Human Rights

The Western liberal view of human rights has been imposed by the West on the rest of the world as universal values applicable to all cultures and traditions. This paper argues that the Chinese Marxist approach provides an alternative conceptualization of human rights, which entails anti-hegemonic sovereignty, and prioritization of social and economic rights over others. It begins with distinction between false universal and genuine universal to illustrate that the West-promoted universal is false rather than genuine. Western liberal view of human rights is critiqued, followed by different perspectives on sovereignty and human rights. Anti-hegemonic sovereignty, this paper maintains, is a prerequisite for human rights improvements. The right to socio-economic well-being is a top priority for the Chinese government, as Chinese cultural traditions, Confucianism for example, value social and economic rights. The West-touted human rights discourse is intended to retain Western hegemony and seek global dominance. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has strived for human rights on behalf of the Chinese people through such projects as reform and opening-up, poverty alleviation, common prosperity, and Belt and Road Initiative, among other programs. This paper concludes that the Chinese Marxist approach goes beyond the debates over cultural relativism and Western-style “universalism”, and provides an alternative that features genuine universality and privileges the right to socio-economic well-being.