Photo: Xinhua

The second China-Latin American and Caribbean States Roundtable on Human Rights was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Friday, drawing participation from over 130 representatives across 20 countries.

Foreign experts attending the event told the Global Times that while many countries have made various statements about defending human rights, few have, like China, created concrete conditions across multiple sectors to enable people to realize their own development. They noted that the "China experience" could contribute to advancing human rights in LAC countries, particularly by improving living standards through infrastructure development.

Themed China-Latin American and Caribbean States Community with a Shared Future and the Development of Human Rights, the roundtable featured in-depth discussions on key issues, including human rights in the digital age, the environment, climate with human rights, and China-LAC's joint contributions to global human rights governance. A wide consensus was reached among participants.

In her opening speech, Wang Yanwen, deputy secretary-general of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, said that conflicts continue to erupt in various regions, with civilian casualties rising almost daily. Global development remains deeply imbalanced, leaving hundreds of millions still suffering from poverty and hunger. Amid a deficit in global digital governance, human rights violations are facing new forms of crisis.
 
"The international human rights cause is encountering both new opportunities and serious challenges. Only through solidarity and cooperation can countries safeguard global peace and stability and promote shared development and prosperity," Wang said.

"How can we accept countries that create growing inequality claiming to be defenders of human rights? Or tolerate those that create poverty judging where human rights are being violated?" said Victoria Analia Donda Perez, President of Citizenship and Human Rights Commission of the Mercosur Parliament. She emphasized in her keynote address that LAC countries must move toward the reconstruction of the concept of human rights. 

Human rights should be related to "the basic material conditions that allow people to live with dignity and achieve self-development." Only by starting from basic needs can the degree of a country's respect for and protection of human rights be truly measured, she said.

"From this perspective, China's development path has not only successfully lifted hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty, a remarkable achievement that itself stands as a powerful defense of human rights and human dignity, but also contributed a new perspective centered on human rights to global governance through its proposal of a 'community with a shared future for mankind,'" she said.

Evandro Menezes de Carvalho, widely known by his Chinese name Gao Wenyong, a law professor at Brazil's Fluminense Federal University, told the Global Times that China's eradication of extreme poverty demonstrates its commitment to human rights. "Providing people with the conditions for a decent life shows that the government respects and promotes the fundamental human rights people yearn for," he said. "In contrast, many countries that claim to defend human rights do not actually provide the specific conditions for people to develop themselves in many fields."

He further stated that China's successful experience in the construction of human rights can greatly assist the development of human rights in LAC, especially by creating conditions for improving human rights through infrastructure development. 

Three parallel forums were also held on the topics of "human rights in the digital age," "environment, climate and human rights," and "China-LAC contributions to global human rights governance." Bai Long, deputy editor-in-chief of the Global Times, was invited to speak, sharing media perspectives on how China promotes human rights through green development and ecological protection.

"Human rights are diverse, but some are universal - green development is one of them," Bai said. He pointed out that while countries in the Global South have made notable progress in sustainable development in recent years, such achievements are often downplayed in Western-led human rights narratives. 

Actively stepping out of the political narrative logic of human rights issues and telling good human rights stories from the perspective of green development is an important part of China and the LAC working together to promote the development of human rights, he said.

The roundtable published the Sao Paulo Consensus on China-Latin American and the Caribbean States Human Rights Communication and Cooperation and launched the China-Latin American and Caribbean States Human Rights Research and Cooperation Network.

It is understood that the network aims to establish a regular cooperation platform in the field of human rights research between China and LAC through academic exchanges. It will promote the common development of human rights through information sharing, joint research, talent cultivation and mutual learning of experiences, and provide new insights and paths for the further improvement and development of the global human rights governance system.