China’s Human Rights Gap: Wider Than You Think. By Godfree Roberts.

On June 1, 2021, [China] will set a human rights benchmark by becoming a xiaokang society, in which everyone without exception has a home, a job, plenty of food, education, safe streets, health and old age care.

On that day there will be more poor, hungry and imprisoned people in America than in China – simply because they have different human rights priorities.

We prioritize the Roman ideal of the individual self, abstracted from community, seeking salvation through personal freedom from worldly bondage — the antithesis of China’s human rights values — and the basis for our criticisms of them. …

The West defines human rights as ‘freedom from’ oppressive tendencies of the family and state, and grounds human rights in the fundamental equality of all persons. Thus, human rights are equated with human liberation–liberation of the autonomous individual from the restrictive community”. Nadeau observes that the Chinese language even lacks equivalents for freedom, liberty, individual, autonomy, rights, choice, equality and dignity.