Page 45 - Issue 58

Vol. 1 Issue 58 August 2023 ELITE

The claim that these values were
unilaterally imposed by the west is also
not true. The vice chairman of the
commission that drafted the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights was
Chinese. He used the words of Chinese
philosophers like Confucius and
Mencius in the debates about human

rights. The first article of this
declaration is: ‘All human beings are
born free and equal in dignity and
rights. They are endowed with reason

and conscience and should act towards
one another in a spirit of brotherhood’.
And it was he himself that added the
clause that all people have reason and

conscience, which means they are
capable of making their own decisions.
It is important to note that Xi Jinping
and the communist party do not

represent the Chinese people, and most
importantly do not represent the south
as he tries to picture, though they might
represent some of its regimes, which are

happy to stand for each other in human
rights sessions in the UN. No one would
believe that it is right to take away his
right of speech or freedom. From the

protests in Tiananmen Square till the
latest protests in Honk Kong, many
have sacrificed years of their lives in jail
or even lost their lives in their quest of

freedom and independence from the
cruelty and misery of the communist
party. But they are not alone in their
struggle, for they are these goals-
44 liberty, equality, and human rights- that

all people share.