China Releases National Human Rights Action Plan (2026-2030)
On June 11, 2026, China released its fifth national human rights action plan for the 2026-2030 period at the opening ceremony of the 2026 Forum on Global Human Rights Governance in Beijing . The document was jointly unveiled by representatives of the members of the joint meeting mechanism for the national human rights action plan .
Background and Previous Progress
The Chinese government implemented its fourth national human rights action plan between 2021 and 2025, achieving effective implementation of relevant targets and tasks, significantly improving China's human rights protection levels, and injecting much-needed stability and certainty into global human rights development .
Structure of the Action Plan
The action plan is divided into an introduction and eight chapters :
- Comprehensive Advancement of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
- Improvement of Mechanisms for Civil and Political Rights Protection
- Strengthening Environmental Rights Protection
- Protection of Rights of Ethnic Minorities, Women, Children, the Elderly, and People with Disabilities
- Guiding Healthy Development of Emerging Human Rights Fields
- Continuously Raising Awareness of Human Rights
- Actively Promoting Global Human Rights Governance
- Plan Implementation and Responsibility Fulfillment
Guiding Principles
Based on the constitutional principle of respecting and protecting human rights, following the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and relevant international human rights conventions, while taking into account China's national realities and the 15th Five-Year Plan, the action plan sets phased goals, targeted tasks, and specific measures for respecting, protecting, and promoting human rights from 2026 to 2030 .
The basic principles include: cherishing human life, value, and dignity; planning human rights development with systematic thinking; advancing the cause of human rights through law, equality, pragmatism, coordination, and joint efforts; comprehensively improving the level of human rights protection through coordinated development of material, political, spiritual, social, and ecological civilizations; and promoting comprehensive human development and social progress .
Main Objectives
The action plan aims to respect the principal position of the people, safeguard the people's fundamental interests, promote social fairness and justice, and ensure that the fruits of modernization benefit all people more and more fairly .
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The plan emphasizes accelerating agricultural and rural modernization, solidly promoting rural revitalization, promoting high-quality full employment and income growth, optimizing the education system, social security system, and medical and health system, improving the equalization of basic public services, stimulating the cultural innovation and creativity of the entire nation, enriching rights protection content, and improving people's quality of life .
Specific measures include: gradually increasing basic pensions for rural and non-working urban residents, expanding the coverage of enterprise annuities, steadily implementing the personal pension system, and increasing the participation rate of flexible employees, migrant workers, and those in new forms of employment in the insurance system .
Civil and Political Rights
The plan specifies further improving the institutionalization, standardization, and proceduralization of people's democracy throughout the process, expanding people's orderly political participation, ensuring that the people exercise democratic elections, consultations, decision-making, management, and supervision in accordance with the law, and guaranteeing that the people enjoy extensive rights and freedoms under the law .
It also emphasizes strengthening the rule of law construction for human rights, ensuring that respect for and protection of human rights cover the entire chain, the whole process, and all aspects of legislation, law enforcement, justice, and law-abiding behavior .
Environmental Rights
The plan points out the need to firmly establish and practice the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, implement the ecological environment code, improve the ecological civilization system, maintain ecological security, promote green and low-carbon development, achieve carbon peak goals as scheduled, build a beautiful China, and promote harmonious coexistence between man and nature .
Rights of Specific Groups
The plan emphasizes safeguarding the rights of ethnic minorities, women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities to equal participation and equal development, preventing and opposing various forms of social discrimination, improving the care service system, and promoting the inclusive sharing of development results .
Emerging Human Rights Fields
The plan proposes adhering to principles of development orientation, goodness for the people, fairness and justice, and inclusiveness, fully leveraging the role of digital technology and data elements in enriching people's lives and improving people's welfare, using digital technology to create a better life and promote people's free and comprehensive development. It also calls for improving corporate social responsibility guidelines, following the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and enhancing corporate awareness and capacity for human rights due diligence .
Human Rights Awareness
The plan requires promoting and practicing contemporary Chinese views on human rights, integrating human rights education into the national education system, conducting human rights training, popularizing human rights knowledge, and raising the awareness of respecting and protecting human rights throughout society. It also calls for strengthening the construction of human rights think tanks and human rights research bases, advancing human rights research, and developing China's human rights disciplinary system, academic system, and discourse system .
Global Human Rights Governance
The plan advocates safeguarding human rights through security, promoting human rights through development, and advancing human rights through cooperation, promoting the development of global human rights governance in a fairer, more just, reasonable, and inclusive direction. It calls for active participation in UN human rights affairs, engaging in human rights dialogue and exchanges with all parties on the basis of equality and mutual respect, strengthening international solidarity and cooperation, and making China's contribution to the development of the global human rights cause .