On December 8, 2021, the 2021 South-South Human Rights Forum, co-hosted by The State Council Information Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was held in Beijing as scheduled, with the theme of People First and Global Human Rights Governance. Professor Yao Yang, Executive Dean of Peking University's Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development, gave an interview to CGTN on the significance of South-South cooperation, human rights and other important issues.
● Viewpoints ●
Why is South-South Cooperation so important for developing countries?
南南合作为何对发展中国家至关重要？
The South-South cooperation is quite important for southern countries. China’s experience is much closer to other developing countries than western experience to those countries. If we increase the collaboration and cooperation among ourselves, we are going to be able to exchange similar ideas and similar experience between us.
南南合作与南南国家非常重要。相较于西方经验，中国发展经验与发展中国家情况更接近。如果发展中国家之间加强协作，可以相互交流相似的看法和经验。
China’s economic growth just happened over the last 40 years, in a really short period of time. So, China’s experience is fresh. It’s much easier for other countries to learn from. Of course, we don’t want them to copy China’s experience. They are going to treat China as a mirror, and in the mirror, they are going to see their own countries. So, they’re going to borrow, not copy, China’s growth experience.
中国经济在过去的四十年间大幅增长，历史很短，所以是新鲜的发展经验，对于他们来讲非常容易借鉴。当然，我们不希望他们完全照搬，而是将中国经验当作一面镜子，在镜中看到自己国家的发展道路。所以他们需要借鉴，而不是照搬中国经验。
Why is it important for the international community to respect the will and interests of people in developing countries?
国际社会需尊重发展中国家人民的意愿为何至关重要？
We need voices from developing countries, because the whole world’s system is just dominated by the West. Different countries have different cultural rules, different historical heritages. We have to respect them and we should not impose just one model of growth or one model of political system, one model of human rights to all countries. We should allow these countries to determine what are important rights people should have for their own purposes.
我们需要发展中国家的声音，因为全球话语体系被西方国家掌控。不同国家有不同的文化背景、传统背景，他们需要得到尊重，而不是被冠以统一的发展模式或者统一的政治体系以及统一的人权模式。我们应该容许这些国家自己决定本国人民的人权。
