Forum provides the South with a platform to promote common values of humankind: China Daily editorial

For too long, the developed countries have condescendingly lectured the less-developed countries on human rights, while only paying lip service to human rights themselves. Castigating the less-developed countries for their human rights situations, they seldom reflect on the root causes, and certainly never pause to consider their own human rights situations — which are far from being paragons of virtue — or heed the voices of the developing countries.

The South-South Human Rights Forum aims to ensure the less-developed countries are equal participants in the world human rights cause and give them a platform to be heard in the international human rights discourse. The third such forum the Information Office of the State Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly hosted in Beijing on Wednesday set such a stage for developing countries to deepen exchanges and cooperation in human rights.

With the theme of people-centered and global governance of human rights, the forum sought to promote development through cooperation and promote human rights through development. For developing countries, the rights to subsistence and development are their primary focus, and human rights are not a badge of allegiance to certain countries or an excuse to judge others, but a practical question of how to improve their people's livelihoods.

Over the years, the human rights situations in the developing countries have continuously improved, which has been a major contribution to the promotion and development of human rights in the world. The combined population of developing countries accounts for more than 80 percent of the global population, so progress in human rights is inseparable from the joint efforts of the vast number of developing countries to improve the lives of their people.

Today, the less-developed countries are bearing the brunt of the raging COVID-19 pandemic and its effects, as well as the impacts of climate change. If the developed countries were sincere about upholding human rights they would deliver on their promise to provide funds and technology. Instead, they deliver lectures.

With practical issues such as public health, poverty alleviation, food security and education among the topics discussed, along with cultural diversity, multilateralism and developing countries' role in global human rights governance, Wednesday's forum was by no means a talk shop but a chance for the countries to share experiences and best practices.

China regards it as part of its contribution to the international human rights cause to do all it can to help developing countries improve their people's livelihoods and help them respond to the challenges of the pandemic and climate change.

When the developed countries try to pour dirty water on the helping hand China offers, slandering its efforts as exploitation of the less-developed countries, they turn a blind eye to the tremendous benefits these countries have reaped through their win-win cooperation with China, and the huge progress they have made in human rights protection through providing better education, health care and living conditions to their people.

As President Xi Jinping said in the congratulatory message he sent to the forum, human rights are a sign of human progress and it should be the common pursuit of all countries to protect and value human life and dignity. Advancing human rights should be a common cause for all countries, not wielded by some as a means to rip the world asunder.