8 Nov 91
FE/1224 C1/4
youngsters, has greatly improved as compared with the situation in old China. An average 15-year-old boy in 1979 was 1 8cm taller and 2.1kg heavier than his counterparts living during the 1937-41 period; and an average girl of the same age in 1979 was 13 cm taller and 1 kg heavier. Since 1979, the health of the Chinese people has improved further. The label on old China, "sick man of East Asia", has long been consigned to the dustbin of history.
The problem of food and clothing having been basically solved, the people have been guaranteed with the basic right to subsistence. This is a historical achievement made by the Chinese people and government in seeking and protecting human rights.
However, to protect the people's right to subsistence and improve their living conditions remains an issue of paramount importance in China today. China has gained independence, but it is still a developing country with limited national strength. The preservation of national independence and state sovereignty and the freedom from imperialist subjugation are, therefore, the very fundamental conditions for the survival and development of the Chinese people. Although China has basically solved the problem of food and clothing, its economy is still at a fairly low level, its standard of living falls considerably short of that in developed countries, and the pressure of a huge population and relative per-capita paucity of resources will continue to restrict the socio-economic development and the improvement of the people's lives. The people's right to subsistence will still be threatened in the event of a social turmoil or other disasters.
Therefore it is the fundamental wish and demand of the Chinese people and a long-term, urgent task of the Chinese government to maintain national stability, concentrate their effort on developing the productive forces along the line which has proven to be successful, persist in reform and opening to the outside world, strive to rejuvenate the national economy and boost the national strength, and, on the basis of having solved the problem of food and clothing, secure a well-off livelihood for the people throughout the country so that their right to subsistence will no longer be threatened.
II. THE CHINESE PEOPLE HAVE GAINED
EXTENSIVE POLITICAL RIGHTS
While struggling for the right to subsistence, the Chinese people have waged a heroic struggle for democratic rights.
The people did not have any democratic rights to speak of in semi-feudal, semi-colonial China. The Revolution of 1911 led by Dr Sun Yat-sen, the great forerunner of bourgeois- democratic revolution, overthrew the feudal Qing dynasty and gave rise to the Republic of China. He hoped to establish a Western-style democratic system in China, but the fruits of the revolution was snatched by Yuan Shikai, a feudal warlord. The parliament became a mere instrument for warlords in power struggle, and there occurred the sendal of the "parliament of pigs" and the bribery in electing a president. His dream unfulfilled, Dr Sun died in sorrow and indignation, which found expression in his famous admonition: "The revolution has not yet succeeded". Many Chinese had chorshed Plusions about the US-supported Chiang Kai-shek government. However, Chiang turned out to be just another warlord under
SWB
whose fascist rule millions of democracy-seeking people perished in bloody massacres. He adopted a non-resistance policy towards the Japanese invasion while stepping up the civil war, ignoring opposition from the Chinese communists, patriots and democrats from all walks of life and the broad masses of the people. He launched the all-out civil war after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, again violating the ardent wish for peace, democracy and reconstruction of the Communist Party, the democratic parties and the people throughout China. Driven beyond the limits of forbearance, the people rose up in arms and in the end toppled Chiang's reactionary rule.
Since the very day of its founding, the Communist Party of China has been holding high the banner of democracy and human rights. It encouraged and assisted Dr Sun in reorganizing the Kuomintang, effected the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and launched the Northern Expedition against the reactionary rule of the warlords. After Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the democratic revolution, the party united all patriots and democrats and led the people in a struggle against civil war, hunger, autocracy and persecution. In the liberated areas it established democratic governments, drew up laws which guaranteed the people's democratic rights and resolutely implemented its own democratic programme. The democratic system in the liberated areas attracted numerous patriotic and democratic fighters and became the hope of the entire people. Under the party's leadership, the Chinese people overthrew the Kuomintang reactionaries' dictatorial rule and founded the democratic and free People's Republic of China.
The Chinese people gained real democratic rights after the founding of new China. In explicit terms the Constitution stipulates that all power in the People's Republic of China belongs to the people. That the people are masters of their own country is the essence of China's democratic politics. By stating that the People's Republic of China is a socialist state of the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants, the Constitution has established the status of the workers, peasants and other working people as masters of the country and thus invested the labouring people who were at the bottom rung of the social ladder in old China with lawful democratic rights. Equality of men and women, as provided by the Constitution, has enabled women, who account for half of the Chinese population, to gain the same rights as men in politics, economy, culture, society and family life. The stipulation that all nationalities in China are equal has ensured that all the nation's minority nationalities enjoy equal democratic rights with the Han people.
To guarantee that the people are the real masters of the country with the right to run the country's economic and social affairs, China has adopted, in light of its actual conditions, the people's congresses as the t husic political astoru. Deputies to the people's congresses at all levels are chosen through democratic elections. The Constitution stipulates that all citizens of the People's Republic of China who have reiched the age of 19 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of nationality, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education, property status or
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