-- Emphasizing employment as the basis of people's livelihood, the central government appropriated an additional special subsidy of 4.7 billion yuan to support employment and re-employment in 2003, and a result, the nationwide registered urban unemployment rate was kept at a 4.3 percent rate.

    The social security network, comprising of insurance relating to employment, work related injuries, medicare and pension, coversan ever more number of people.

    The government launched a special campaign to protect rural migrant workers' rights and interests around the country. The fact that the Premier of the State Council personally ordered the payment of rural migrant workers' arrears of wage vividly reflects the government's great concern about the problem of failure to pay rural migrant workers' wages and the protection of their rights and interests. According to statistics, from November 2003 to February 2004, a total of over 24 billion yuan of overdue wages was paid to rural migrant workers. At present, China is drafting a "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Farmers' Rights and Interests," which will go a step further toward providing all-round legal protection to farmers' rights andinterests.

    -- The state protects the legitimate rights and interests of women and children in accordance with the law. Currently, among the 29 ministries and ministerial-level commissions and agencies of the State Council there are 22 female officials of the ministerial rank. Job opportunities for women keep growing, and women have become increasingly independent economically, and the proportion of women employed in the primary and secondary industries has been on the decline, while in the new industries and technology- and knowledge-intensive industries, the proportion of women has increased remarkably. The educational gap between menand women is narrowing, and the ratio of women in education at alllevels has been on the rise.

    -- In China, ethnic minorities enjoy equal rights to participate in the administration of state affairs and the rights to independently manage the affairs of their own regions and their own ethnic communities.

    In 2003, the gross output value in those areas exceeded 1,100 billion yuan, an increase of 11.1 percent over the previous year, which was higher than the nation's average. As part of the effort to promote education in ethic minority regions, beginning in the autumn of 2003, the central and local governments jointly earmarked funds to provide textbooks free of charge to poverty-stricken students at the stage of compulsory education in 56 counties of Xinjiang, and exempted them from all school fees.

    -- The Chinese government puts great stress on the protection of the rights of the disabled. There are 60 million disabled people in the country, accounting for about 5 percent of the total population. And in 2003, a large number of disabled people overcame their handicaps to varying degrees, and the disabled persons' right to receive education, to work and social security has been better protected. And he state endeavors to create a social environment of care and help for the disabled. More than 40,000 liaison offices of help-the-disabled volunteers have been established throughout the country, and the number of registered young volunteers is upwards of 1.86 million.

    -- China has all along been supportive to and actively participated in activities in the field of human rights sponsored by the United Nations, actively carried out dialogues and cooperation with countries throughout the world with regard to human rights on the basis of equality and mutual respect. It has, to date, acceded to 21 international human rights conventions, andhas taken every measure to honor its obligations under those conventions.

    Deng Pufang, chairman of the China Federation of the Disabled was award in December 2003 "the United Nations Human Rights Award." It was an expression of high appreciation for Deng personally aswell as an appreciation of the international community for years of efforts made by China in promoting and protecting human rights.

    The white paper concluded that full realization of human rights is the common goal of countries throughout the world as well as animportant target for China in her efforts to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, as well as her "peaceful rise" in the world.

    China will, as always, devote herself to promoting the human rights cause, actively carry out exchanges and cooperation with the international community according to the provisions of the Constitution of China and the need for modernization of the country, and make her contributions to promoting the healthy development of the international human rights cause.

    This was the seventh white paper on China's human rights situation published by the State Council Information Office since 1991.

    In the 12 years between 1990 and 2001, the United States had for 10 times instigated or tabled draft resolutions in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in an attempt to censure China on its human rights records, but had ended in failure every time.

    China strongly opposes the US move, which it views as an attempt to politicize the human rights issue and a typical exhibition of Washington's double standard. China insists that differences between the two countries in the human rights areas should be resolved through dialogue, not confrontation. Enditem