Kenyan Vice-President William Ruto (right) and Tian Lin (center), charge d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Kenya, at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Sino-Africa Joint Research Center at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Nairobi, Dec 4, 2014. [Photo/Xinhua]

Recently, China held an interim review meeting on the National Human Rights Action Plan (2012-15) which drew a lot of attention.

In August 2012, then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, delivered a speech in Dakar, Senegal, saying Washington was promoting democracy and human rights as part of its cooperation with African states. And she advised African people not to work with states which are only interested in economic gains and therefore ignore human rights. It was clear to her audience which country she was referring to. Therefore, delivering a speech in Tanzania, President Xi Jinping said relations between Africa and China are about fairness and extending justice.

This commonality is self-evident to Chinese and Africans, and therefore does not require explaining. But it is different when it comes to relations between the West and Africa. The West attaches strict conditions for giving aid to African countries. But China attaches no such strings to the aid it provides because Sino-African cooperation is based on equality.

China and Africa perceive their cooperation in their own common philosophical terms and, therefore, do not necessarily resort to the Western vocabulary of human rights. In the West, human rights are usually perceived through the lens of legalism and liberalism. According to this view, only legally enforceable individual rights, which may be invoked against the government in lawsuits, may be called human rights. Plus, such human rights have to reflect liberal values such as individualism, personal autonomy and rationality.

But in China and Africa, values and social institutions that meet the requirements of human rights treaties have developed over centuries. They include principles like friendship, virtue, reciprocity, harmony, benevolence and loyalty, which characterize Sino-African relations and protect human rights.