CHAPTER 3 China and International Rule of Law in Development

Liao Li

As one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the world's largest developing country, China has always been placing development as the top priority. China's participation in the international rule of law in development came with the developing countries fighting for national independence, national economy development and other common concerns after the end of the Second World War. In 1955, Premier Zhou Enlai led the Chinese delegation to participate in the Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia. At the Conference, Final Communiqué of the 1955 Bandung Conference was adopted, which had confirmed the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and put forward some guiding propositions on seeking their own economic development. In 1960, the 15th General Assembly adopted the Resolution on Joint Action Taken for the Development of Underdeveloped Countries, which indicated that one of the top priorities of the United Nations was to accelerate the economic and social progress in underdeveloped countries. In December 1961, the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution and determined the 1960s as the "United Nations Development Decade”, in which UN called on all Member States to take active measures to narrow the huge economic gap and inequalities between countries. From 1990 onwards, thanks to the efforts of those developing countries represented by China, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has placed the right to development as a separate issue for preferred consideration. Generally speaking, China's participation in the international rule of law in development has experienced the establishment period (1955 - 1990), the development period (1990 - 2000) and the maturity period (2000 -2015). The year 2015 is extraordinary in the history of international development as the end year of the Millennium Development Goals and the start year of the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

I Fully Implementing the Millennium Development Goals

In September 2000, China and other 188 UN member states jointly signed the United Nations Millennium Declaration intended to promote development at the UN Millennium Summit. United Nations Millennium Declaration thus became a milestone in the process of international rule of law in development, in which all countries pledged to establish a new global partnership to reduce the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty and set up a series of the goals to be achieved before the deadline of 2015, namely “Millennium Development Goals”(MDGs), including the following eight aspects: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empower women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability;and establishing a global partnership for development. China has been present at previous high-level conferences organized by UN on the Millennium Development Goals. At the 2010 Millennium Development Goals Summit, the representative of China noted that it was entirely necessary to make everyone realize the right to development, and the Millennium Development Goals would be definitely achieved in China as scheduled. In addition, China and the UN Association of China coauthored the Report on China's Implementation of the Millennium Development Goals in 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2013 and 2015. According to the newest Report on China's Implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015), over the past 15 years, China, fully committed to the Millennium Development Goals, has made remarkable achievements and achieved or basically achieved 13 MDG targets. Between 1990 and 2011, China lifted 439 million people out of poverty, and China has made great contributions to the global poverty reduction efforts. With its grain production growing for 11 years since 2004, China has supported nearly 20 percent of the world's population with less than 10 percent of world's farmland. China has made significant efforts in advancing health, education and other projects to improve people's livelihood. Since 2000, China has provided safe drinking water to 467 million rural residents and kept the net enrollment rate of both boys and girls at primary-school-age above 99 percent. While achieving self-development, China has been actively engaged in South-South cooperation and provided help with its capability to over 120 developing countries in their efforts to attain the MDGs. Over the past 15 years, China has fully implemened the Millennium Development Goals and made remarkable achievements.

II Adopting the Post-2015 Development Agenda

On September 25, 2015, the UN Development Summit was held in New York, and adopted the historic Post-2015 Development Agenda which is transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At the opening ceremony of the Summit, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said:“The new agenda is a promise by leaders to all people everywhere. It is a universal, integrated and transformative vision for a better world.”“It is an agenda for people, to end poverty in all its forms,” he added, “it is an agenda for shared prosperity, peace and partnership (that) conveys the urgency of climate action (and) is rooted in gender equality and respect for the rights of all. Above all, it pledges to leave no one behind.” The Post-2015 Development Agenda includes the blueprint

These sustainable development goals include: 1) ending poverty in all its forms everywhere; 2) ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture; 3) ensuring healthy lives and promoting willbeing for all at all ages; 4) ensuring inclusive and equitable education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all; 5) achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls; 6) ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all; 7) ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all; 8) promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all; 9) building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and fostering innovation; 10) reducing inequality within and among countries; 11) making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable; 12) ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns; 13) taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; 14) conserving and sustainably using oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development; 15) protecting, restoring and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably managing forests, combating desertification, halting and reversing land degradation and halting biodiversity loss; 16) promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, providing access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels; 17) strengthening the means of implementation and revitalizing the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.

Li Baodong, vice-minister of the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Post-2015 Development Agenda is a programmatic document firmly rooted in the present and oriented to the future. Its core is the sustainable development goal. Sustainable development goal is a fully upgraded version of the Millennium Development Goals, which is based on the new situation and needs of the global development to place the sustainable development as a main guideline for national development and international development cooperation. To sum up, there are four outstanding features of the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Firstly, it covers more comprehensive development areas. The Post-2015 Development Agenda is no longer confined to traditional development areas such as poverty reduction, but includes a substantial increase in economic, environmental and other goals. It proposes to promote sustainable economic growth, combat climate changes and eliminate inequalities, thus greatly expanding the development intension and extension. Secondly, it reflects the far higher level of ambitions. The Post-2015 Development Agenda sets the targets much higher than those in the Millennium Development Goals in terms of poverty reduction, education, health, sanitation and other areas, but also includes more stringent requirements for the follow-up work to be implemented by all countries. Thirdly, it covers a wider range of countries. Millennium Development Goals are aimed to guarantee the basic survival and development needs of the masses, and mainly targeted at developing countries. However, the Post-2015 Development Agenda is both “fundamental” and “forward-looking”, where there are much higher goal-setting standards in some areas, targeting for both developing countries and developed countries. Fourthly, it develops a more effective follow-up implementation framework. The Post-2015 Development Agenda calls for the establishment of the implementation framework at the national, regional and global levels and regular monitoring of the implementation process, and also endows the United Nations with greater supervision function to comprehensively strengthen the follow-up work by establishing a new system.

III Promoting International Food, Education and Public Health Development Activities

In terms of food development, China was formally involved in the activities of World Food Program (WFP) in 1979. Basic Treaty on the Provision of Assistance by WFP Jointly Established by China's Government with the United Nations and the UN FAO was signed and entered into force on October 4, 1980. In 1987, China was elected as a member of the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programs. For 26 years from 1979 to 2005, WFP had worked closely with the Chinese government in successful implemention of 70 aid projects in China. On February 9 and 10, 2015, the first regular session of 2015 WFP was held at its headquarters in Rome, where the 2015 budget level of $ 7.45 billion was approved, thus providing a guarantee for WFP in continuing its humanitarian emergency relief and promoting the realization of the Zero Hunger world. The representative of China stressed that the Chinese government always attached importance to cooperation with WFP, and in 2015 Chinese government would still maintain its emphasis on WFP, its support for WFP and its cooperation with WFP. China hope to continue strengthening cooperation with WFP, particularly deepening the "South-South cooperation”, the public-private partnership (PPP) and human resources cooperation. On May 25 to 28, the 2015 annual session of WFP Executive Board was held at its headquarters in Rome, which discussed the annual report, policy issues, financial and budgetary matters, assessment of reports and national projects. In addition, at the annual session such documents as the annual performance report, gender policy, the annual financial audit report, the annual assessment report, the resistance strategy, policies of South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation were reviewed and approved. The representative of China noted that in earthquake relief in Nepal, WFP made rapid responses and played a unique role. China was one of the first countries to offer its assistance to Nepal after the earthquake, and through public-private collaboration, China had so far offered a sum total of RMB 60 million (about 9.6 million US dollars) and 546 tons of relief supplies for Nepal. China would like to fully carry out technical cooperation with WFP in the reconstruction and development of the affected areas in Nepal and other vulnerable areas, and was also willing to assist WFP in playing a more important role in a variety of development projects. In November, WFP received $5 million donated by the Government of China, which was used to carry out emergency aid operations in response to the deteriorating food security situations in South Sudan. WFP expressed that it would buy grains, beans, oil and salt with the aid fund offered by the Chinese government to help the people in the conflict-stricken areas in Unity State, Upper Nile, Jonglei and other states in South Sudan. In addition, WFP and the Chinese government signed a memorandum of understanding on South-South cooperation in early 2015 to jointly promote the tripartite cooperation with other developing countries, and particularly to establish and improve the capacity of partner countries and the beneficiary countries in agricultural production, post-production impairments and disaster preparedness.

In terms of education development, China is one of the founding members of UNESCO. China restored its legal status in the United Nations in 1971 and in UNESCO in 1972. In October 1998, UNESCO convened the World Conference on Higher Education on an unprecedented scale in Paris for the first time, which was attended by the Chinese government delegation. The Conference made a special discussion on quality, objectives, financing and management, international cooperation and other issues of higher education, where World Declaration on Higher Education in the 21st Century: Vision and Action and Framework for Priority Action for Change and Development of Higher Education were adopted. From June 28 to July 8, 2015, the 39th World Heritage Conference was held in Bonn, Germany, where more than one thousand delegates from 191 countries were present. 41 applications submitted to the Conference for consideration includes those of the Chinese Tusi Sites (Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou Provinces). On September 19, 2015, Dunhuang Geopark in Gansu and Zhijindong Geopark in Guizhou of China were both included into the UNESCO World Geopark Network List. On October 26, 2015, the Ninth UNESCO Youth Forum was officially opened at its UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The theme of the Forum is “to promote sustainable development and shape the global citizen”, where nearly a thousand youth delegates from 195 Member States of UNESCO gathered together to make a lively discussion on the two core topics on “the sustainable development achievements already made as of 2015”and “climate change”. China sent a total of 31 youth delegates to attend the forum, whose active participation in the global topics had become a major highlight of this United Nations Youth Forum. On November 10, 2015, the “World Science Day for Peace and Development”, UNESCO released 2015 Science Report: Towards 2030 at its headquarters in Paris. The overarching conclusion of was that despite the global economy under the impact of the economic crisis in 2008, there was still a substantial growth in the total domestic expenditures used for research and development on a global scale. Between 2007 and 2013, this expenditure rose from $ 1.132 trillion to$ 1.478 trillion, at a growth rate of 31%，higher than the global GDP growth rate of 20% over the same period. Currently, the US's research and development investment accounts for 28% of the global total. In this regard, USA is still in the lead, followed by China (20%), but China surpasses the European Union (19%) and Japan (10%). In terms of public health development, China is one of the founding members of World Health Organization. From January 26 to February 3, 2015, the 136th Session of the Executive Committee of World Health Organization was held in Geneva, Switzerland, where 700 representatives were presented from 34 Executive Committee member States, 73 Non-Executive Committee member states, UNICEF, UNAIDS and other relevant institutions, regional economic organizations and NGOs. The Session was chaired by Maldives President Office Director Mohamed Hussain Shareef. As a member state of the Executive Committee, China urged the Session to adopt the EB136-R8 Resolution of Global Epilepsy Burden and the Need for Coordinated Action Taken at the National Level in Response to its Impact on Health, Society and Public Knowledge and requested all other countries to pay attention to epilepsy, which was significant to the global anti-epileptic cause, highlighting China's international influence in the field of epilepsy prevention and treatment. On September 26, 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping at the United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation Roundtable announced that China would provide cash assistance of $2 million to the World Health Organization. To actively implement the assistance commitments announced by Chinese President Xi, on October 13, 2015, the Ministry of Commerce of PRC and the representative of World Health Organization in China, signe d an agreement on the Chinese government's donation of $2 million contingency fund to World Health Organization in response to the proposal of WHO on the establishment of contingency fund. On December 9, 2015, World Health Organization said that the Chinese Food and Drug Administration approved the application for production registration of the world's first vaccine of the EV71 which may lead to hand-foot-and-mouth disease. WHO expressed that the hand-foot-and-mouth disease caused by EV71 could lead to serious illness and death of young children, for which there was still no effective treatment method, so the vaccine production was a major breakthrough in this regard. WHO noted that Chinese scientists were highly praised for their successful R&D of the world's first vaccine against hand-foot-and-mouth disease. This also indicated that through its innovation in vaccine R&D and production China was playing an increasingly important role in the global health.

IV China's Commitments and Recommendations for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

1. China's Commitments for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

From 2000 to 2015, the theme of peace and development remains unchanged, and there is further development of the world multi-polarization, economic globalization, cultural diversity and information technology-based society, but there is a tortuous path for the adjustment of world economy, the new round of technological revolution and industrial revolution. Profound changes take place in the global governance system, and the group power of developing countries continues to grow. There is a balanced trend in the international power structure. China's position and role in the international political and economic arena and the international rule of law in development is further enhanced. At present, China is the world's largest developing country, and also the world's second largest economy, the world's biggest trading country and the major foreign investor. In addition, the gross domestic product per capita for more than 1.3 billion population in China has risen to about 7,800 US dollars. In terms of international rule of law in development, China is also fully involved in the formulation of the Post-2015 Development Agenda and its subsequent implementation.

On September 22, 2013, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued China's Position Paper on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which declared the basic guiding principles, priority areas and implementing system of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. It was revised on May 21, 2015. According to the position paper, China is the first developing country to achieve the poverty eradication goal ahead of the MDGs deadline. China has contributed significantly to the global endeavor for poverty eradication, accounting for two-thirds of the world's reduction in extreme poverty. The nine-year compulsory education is available throughout the country. Employment is increasing steadily nationwide. Gender equality has been by and large accomplished in education and employment. Medical and health care system has improved continuously, with the mortality rates of children and women dropping by 80% and 73.9% respectively, and significant progress made in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. China has also reversed the trend of environmental and resource degradation, ensuring the access of another 500 million people to safe drinking water. The affordable housing projects have been launched across the country to provide decent residences to the public.

On September 26, 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech entitled “Seek Common and Sustainable Development and Forge A Partnership of Win-win Cooperation” at the UN Sustainable Development Summit at the UN headquarters in New York, stressing that the international community should, by taking the Post-2015 Development Agenda as a new starting point, together seek an equitable, open, comprehensive and innovation-driven development path in an effort to achieve common development of all countries. China would shoulder the responsibility of implementing the Post-2015 Development Agenda, and seek solidarity and cooperation to constantly push the cause of global development. XI Jinping emphasized that the Post-2015 Development Agenda adopted at the Summit chart a new course for global development and offered new opportunities for international development cooperation. We need to ensure equitable development to make sure development opportunities can be accessed to more equally, and towards this goal, all countries should take common but differentiated responsibilities. We need to improve global economic governance, enhance representativeness and voice of developing countries and give all countries equal rights to participating in international rule-making, as well as stick to open development and deliver its benefits to all. And all countries should jointly uphold the multilateral trade system, building an open economy and coming to share its benefits through mutual consultation and joint collaboration;seek comprehensive development to make the groundwork of development more solid; uphold equity and social justice, and achieve harmonious coexistence between human and society and between human and nature; pursue innovation-driven development to fully tap the development potential. All countries should bring out their development potential through reform and innovation, build stronger engines for growth, and cultivate new core competitive edge.

China will set up the South-South cooperation assistance fund, with initial contribution of 2 billion USD, to support other developing countries to implement their Post-2015 Development Agenda. China will continue to increase investment in the least developed countries (LDCs) and do its best to raise its investment in them to 12 billion USD by 2030; exempt the debt of the outstanding intergovernmental interest-free loans due by the end of 2015 owed by the relevant LDCs, landlocked developing countries and small island developing countries; establish a knowledge center for international development to research and communicate with other countries on development theories and practices suitable to their respective national conditions. China proposes discussion on establishing a global energy network to facilitate efforts to meet the global power demand with clean and green alternatives. China is ready to work with other relevant parties to push forward the implementation of the Belt and Road initiatives, achieve an early operation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the BRICS New Development Bank, and contribute to the economic growth and people's well-being of the developing countries. China makes a solemn commitment that it will shoulder the responsibility of implementing the Post-2015 Development Agenda, seek solidarity and cooperation, and constantly push the cause of global development.

2. China's Recommendations for the Post-2015 Development Agenda

Over the past 60 years, China has actively participated in international development cooperation, and has also basically achieved the Millennium Development Goals by reducing poverty-stricken population by 439 million and making remarkable achievements in education, health, women's rights, and other fields. In addition, China has provided assistance equivalent to nearly 400 billion RMB for a total of 166 countries and international organizations, and dispatched more than 600,000 aid workers. Despite great achievements already made in economic and social development, China is still a developing country. At present, Chinese economy has entered a new normal, with more downward pressure on the economy, which is marked with problems of significant unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development, weak agricultural infrastructure, growing resources and environmental restriction, and inadequate innovative capacity, thus making the transformation of economic development mode and adjustment of economic structure a more difficult task. In face of the Post-2015 Development Agenda covering 17 major goals and 169 sub-targets, China should carry it out in the following aspects:

2.1 Changing the Development Concept

On October 29, 2015, Recommendations for the 13th Five-Year Plan by CPC Central Committee on National Economic and Social Development adopted at the 5th plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee makes it clear that development is the absolute principle, and development must be scientific. China is still and will for a long time be at the primary stage of socialism, and the basic national conditions and principal social contradiction have not changed at all, which is the fundamental basis for planning the development. We must persist in taking economic construction as the center, proceed from reality, grasp new development features, increase the structural reform effort, accelerate the transformation of economic development mode, and achieve higher-quality, more efficient, more fair and more sustainable development. Innovation is the prime power driving the development, coordination is an inherent requirement of sustained and sound development, being green is a necessary condition for sustainable development and the important manifestation of people pursuing a better life, opening-up is the only way for the national prosperity and development, and sharing is the essential requirement of the socialism with Chinese characteristics. The philosophy of innovative, coordinative, green, open and shared development should be upheld in implementing the Post-2015 Development Agenda. On August 21, 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping at a non-Party forum pointed out that the development concept was the forerunner of development action, which was a concentrated reflection of development ideas, development direction and development focus. We should give priority to the current problems, find out problem orientations, and use the transformed concept of development to lead the transformation of development mode, to promote the improvement of the quality and efficiency of development, and then to provide better guidance for China's economic and social development during the 13th Five-Plan period. President Xi Jinping explicitly objected to the old development philosophy merely focusing on GDP. When he attended the APEC CEO Summit in Bali, Indonesia, President Xi pointed out that “we don't simply attach importance to GDP growth, but lay stress on improvement of the quality and efficiency of economic growth as footing.” In the sixth collective study of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, President Xi pointed out that “we should properly handle the relationship between economic development and ecologic environmental protection, firmly accept the philosophy that protecting ecological environment is protecting productivity and improving ecological environment is improving productivity, raise awareneess of green development, cyclic development and low-carbon development, and refuse shortterm economic growth at the expense of sacrificing environment.

2.2 Establishing the Evaluation Index System of Sustainable Development

The main content of the Post-2015 Development Agenda is the sustainable development of economy, society and environment, and it has become an important strategy for China's economic and social development. In 1999, China's first sustainable development research report was released, which stated that “the balance between human and nature” and “the harmonious relations between people” are the two themes of the whole sustainable development strategy. In the 21stcentury, the sustainable development is facing many challenges, such as global warming, terrorism, inequality, environmental pollution, regional conflicts and so on. Faced with such challenges, it is in line with the fundamental and long-term interests of China to participate in the formulation and implementation of the sustainable development agenda. The establishment of the evaluation index system can help to obtain intuitive and stable evaluation on the overall trend, specific operation and statistical data of the sustainable development. Such evaluation index system must be based on the basic principles and objectives of the Post-2015 Development Agenda and should be consistent with China's national conditions and development stage. The evaluation index system of sustainable development must also keep balance of economic development, social equity and environmental protection.

2.3 Abiding by the Principle of “Common but Differentiated Responsibilities”

As China's national strength and international influence are rising, the international community has a growing demand for China to assume more international responsibility. China's commitment for the Post-2015 Development Agenda at the UN summit has clearly manifested that China is actively undertaking the international “common responsibilities and obligations.” But it is undeniable that China is still a developing country, and compared with developed countries, China and other developing countries should continue adhering to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”. On the one hand, China and other emerging countries need to work together to contribute to the global development, and countries at different levels of development should have different international obligations to promote the establishment of a new global development partnership;on the other hand, we must respect national conditions and development stages of all countries and allow all countries to seek a development path in line with their own needs. In terms of environment and development issues, China will follow the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, unswervingly and vigorously promote the construction of ecological civilization, accelerate the transformation of development mode, adjust the economic structure and strive to take the development path with Chinese characteristics.

2.4 Including the Post-2015 Development Agenda into National Development Strategy

Over the past fifteen years, China has successfully integrated the MDGs into its national development strategy, and has achieved unprecedented transformation and development. According to the Report on China's Implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015), China has made remarkable progress in achieving the MDGs. In the process, China has made a significant contribution to the realization of the first Millennium Development Goal, that is the eradication of poverty and hunger on a global scale. Furthermore, China also continues supporting other developing countries through South-South cooperation in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. In view of this, the Recommendations for the 13th Five-Year Plan by CPC Central Committee on National Economic and Social Development explicitly proposes that China will actively undertake its international responsibilities and obligations. Furthermore, China will still adhere to the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, fairness principle and respective capability principle, actively participating in the global climate change negotiations, implementing the emission reduction commitments, expanding the scale of foreign aid, improving the forms of foreign aid, providing other developing countries with more free consulting and training services on human resources, development planning, economic policy and other aspects, expanding international cooperation and assistance in science and technology education, medicine and health, disaster prevention and mitigation, environmental governance, wildlife protection, poverty reduction and so on, increasing humanitarian aid efforts, and positively participating in the sustainable development agenda in 2030. Nowadays, peace and development remain the two major themes of the contemporary era. The fundamental way to solve global challenges is to seek peace and achieve development. In terms of the implementation of the Post-2015 Development Agenda as pointed out in China's position paper, we need to strengthen the supervision for the means of implementation at the international level, and focus on the review of the implementation of official development assistance, technology transfer, capacity-building and other commitments. UN should play as a higher-level political forum for sustainable development. In addition, the development agenda should be included into national development strategies, offer policy space and flexibility to all countries that will implement them, and then assess such implementation according to their national conditions. The statistical capacity should also be strengthened. It is important to help developing countries strengthen their statistical capacity building, and improve their data quality. In this aspect, United Nations Statistical Commission can help the Member States with technical support. As a responsible and large developing country, China always adheres to the development as the top priority, and will fully and actively implement the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Furthermore, China will also continue adhering to the opening policy, increasing its investment in South-South cooperation, sharing China's development experience and development opportunities with other countries, and providing support and assistance for the majority of developing countries in implementing the Post-2015 Development Agenda, so as to achieve joint development of all countries around the world.