Sense of safety: Great human rights achievements for Chinese, extravagant hope for Americans?

Global Times

China’s development has amazed the world in many ways. One of the world’s most recognized achievements in China is the great sense of safety its people enjoy.

China is widely acknowledged as one of the safest countries in the world, Xu Ganlu, an official from China’s Ministry of Public Security, said at a press conference on Wednesday held at the Press Center for the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Enhancing people’s sense of safety has always been a critical part of China’s governance. In the past decade, China has made significant achievements in maintaining public safety, with five major indexes, including criminal cases and safety accidents, falling sharply. A survey by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics has demonstrated that Chinese citizens’ sense of safety reached 98.6 percent in 2021, an increase of 11 percentage points from 2012.

As more Chinese people feel safer and safer living in this country, credit should be given to the Chinese government for firmly upholding and thoroughly implementing a people-centered philosophy of development under the CPC’s leadership. Adhering to the principle of putting people and their lives first, China has adopted effective and comprehensive governing policies to tackle factors threatening people’s safety.

A sense of safety is one of the vital indicators of a country’s human rights situation. Xiao Wu, a research fellow at the Institute of Human Rights at China’s Southwest University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times that Chinese people’s increasing sense of safety fully proves that the country has made great achievements in protecting the lives and properties of the people, ensuring that they enjoy human rights that are extensive and concrete. This is a vivid example of China’s historic achievements in protecting human rights.

Xiao also noted that the growth of Chinese people’s sense of safety has laid a strong foundation for making more incredible progress in the country’s human rights cause and strengthened their confidence in unswervingly following the path of advancing human rights in China.

In stark contrast to this is that the safety of people in the US is under growing threat. According to a recent survey, more than half of Americans feel like they’re in imminent danger at least once a day. Such a feeling, to a large extent, is generated from the worries about crime. The issue is also the second most concerning topic for US voters in the upcoming midterm elections, right behind inflation.

Experts point to various factors: the raging COVID-19 epidemic, gun violence, the flagging economy, high inflation and so on. But the US government’s ineffective leadership is also to blame. It is clear that the US government did not prioritize protecting people’s lives, leading to all types of tragic events.

While China celebrates its achievement in safeguarding its people’s safety, the US is facing severe chaos in its human rights situation. The significant differences in understanding human rights are pretty obvious between the two countries. The US government frequently shows its passivity in taking actions to advance human rights, sometimes even inaction.

However, that’s not the case in China. The Chinese government interprets human rights in a more proactive and concrete way. On the one hand, the Chinese government takes on the roles of organizer and constructor in defense of human rights and fulfills its duties as a leader. On the other, China believes that human life is one of the key components of human rights. It would be pointless to discuss other rights if a citizen’s life is in danger or even lost. This is translated into China’s priority of ensuring the lives and safety of its people in its human rights cause.

Just like Chinese citizens, everyone in the world deserves the right to live in a safe environment. Unfortunately, this seems to be an extravagant hope for people in some countries, including the US. A government that genuinely cares about the people should figure out how to effectively protect people’s lives and safety rather than simply chanting slogans. A government that genuinely cares about the people should understand that without the support of a true sense of safety, people’s dreams, no matter how wonderful they may be, will ultimately just become nightmares.