Chinese Facet: A Culturally Sensitive Account of Human Rights

Abstract

This paper aims to accentuate Chinese attributes of human rights that are fairly unexplored both within and outside China. The paper uses qualitative methodology and endeavors to distinguish Chinese version of human rights from universal “one size fit all model” by tracing the basis of human rights in distinct Chinese history, and theoretical and ideological underpinnings of Marxism and Maoism. Moreover, as an exclusive contribution to the existing literature, this paper used 3 dimensions of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory to understand culture bound conception of human rights in China that is based primarily based on Confucianism. After having related Hofstede’s dimensions of Power Distance Index, Uncertainty Avoidance Index and Individualism vs Collectivism to human rights tradition of Confucianism in China, the relevance of these dimensions is traced in Modern Chinese constitution. The findings reveal that China has distinct genesis of human rights based on its cultural traditions and historical emergence which is distinct from western predominantly U.S dictated version of human rights based on notions of universalism, individuality, inalienability and indivisibility.