共同发展，共享人权
Peter Herrmann
2026年7月15日，中心研究员Peter Herrmann在China Focus发表文章 Joint Development, Shared Human Rights ，现将全文及翻译分享如下。
“Rather than addressing isolated policy areas, the four initiatives reinforce one another and advocate an integrated approach to development, governance, and international cooperation.”
In today’s era, joint global development is an undisputed fact, since no region or country can exist in isolation. Despite this reality, this process is not built on an understanding of “commonality” or “togetherness.” On the contrary, we are witnessing a growing divergence in development trajectories, where competition and segmentation are re-emerging in increasingly prominent forms. The United States, in particular, is pursuing policies that are economically and politically self-harmful.
Two models of development: “West” and “East”
In today’s world, we see two models: the “West” model and the “East” model.
The “West,” dominated economically, politically, and militarily, by the U.S. and supported by institutionalized Europe, champions “Western values,” such as representative democracy, the separation of powers, and individual responsibility. However, this model faces severe real-world challenges. With the rise of multinational corporations, their influence is growing; corporations now act as “policymakers” directly, while representative institutions are losing ground. Legal rights are being transformed into interests determined by private organizations. Although constitutional courts are increasingly important, decision-making is driven more by power than by substantive content. Besides, short-termism and a lack of strategic direction in political decision-making have fueled public discontent, leading to populism and violent tendencies.
The “East” model, exemplified by China, focuses on economic growth, channeling it into technology-led growth, modern public infrastructure and poverty alleviation to enhance benefits of all the people, and cultivate a middle class. This model runs on two tracks at once: exporting goods to global markets while steadily building up domestic consumption as a second engine of growth. As the boundaries of the global order blur, the “developing countries” are becoming increasingly vital participants. It has now become evident that the “global polity” was not much more than a scaffold for maintaining the “Western model.”
Shared human rights
The concept of shared human rights is inherently ambiguous. On the one hand, “shared” emphasizes commonality, underscoring a shared understanding of human rights and the pursuit of common goals. On the other hand, it denotes distribution, highlighting the allocation of responsibilities and resources, including accountability for resource extraction, utilization, and compensation. Understanding this dual meaning is essential for framing discussions on global justice.
Globalization today means more than trade and cultural exchange. It has produced a genuinely interconnected global system, one where countries are bound by deep interdependence. That system is shaped by a few forces at once. Nations compete over costs and benefits. Transnational problems, climate change, pandemics, and financial crises require cooperation and trust that no single country can build alone. Local or short-term solutions no longer match the scale of the challenges. And the networks connecting these problems have grown too complex for any one actor to manage unilaterally. Taken together, these conditions make shared responsibility and collective action essential to realizing human rights.
The Global Governance Initiative
China has proposed the Global Governance Initiative (GGI), which should be understood as the culmination of a broader framework, comprising the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI), and Global Civilization Initiative (GCI). Rather than representing separate agendas, these four initiatives are mutually reinforcing, reflecting the view that development, security, civilization, and governance are inseparable foundations of sustainable global progress.
This integrated framework also provides a new perspective on human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines human rights as universal, inalienable, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated. However, it was written in a specific historical moment shaped by the dominant powers of that era. Subsequently, the international human rights instruments that followed largely preserved that same order rather than challenging it. They let existing powers avoid real scrutiny, entrenched their dominance, and never built an effective system to enforce the rights they proclaimed. Developed countries reached higher standards of human rights protection partly because they themselves wrote those standards. However, it also came at a cost few acknowledge: their development was built on colonialism, cheap labor, and unequal trade terms that extracted wealth from the countries now being held to those same standards.
The GGI serves as the culmination of the previous three initiatives and the foundation for future global cooperation. By uniting development, security, and civilization into a coherent governance framework, it establishes a broader institutional platform for addressing global challenges. This approach shifts away from the traditional state-centered model that has often defined the existing international system.
More fundamentally, this framework marks a shift from viewing development primarily as economic growth to recognizing it as a multidimensional process. China’s experience illustrates this change. Although the country has sustained economic growth, this is seen as a means to broader ends, not an end in itself. Development is pursued through strategies that seek to counter existing power structures, recognize the growing role of the Global South, promote a broader understanding of democracy and the rule of law beyond periodic elections. Crucially national development is closely linked with practical improvements in people’s daily economic, social, and cultural lives. Economic growth remains essential, but its true value is in advancing collective and individual well-being; even when these goals may sometimes be in tension.
Moving from multilateralism toward transcendentalism
Against the backdrop of the preceding discussion, the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) should be understood as requiring a conceptual shift beyond traditional multilateralism. Although a more appropriate term may eventually be found, the concept is useful for capturing the need to transcend existing political, geographical, and conceptual boundaries to address global challenges. This does not imply abandoning local realities. On the contrary, any meaningful discussion of human rights must begin with the concrete conditions of life at the national, local, and individual levels, where rights are both experienced and realized. At the same time, globalization demands that governance move beyond the “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) mentality. Global problems require globally shared goals and, equally importantly, globally shared responsibilities, ensuring that costs and burdens are not externalized onto others.
This integrated understanding of global governance is deeply rooted in traditional Chinese philosophy. In particular, the Confucian ideal of the Great Unity and the principle of the unity of heaven and humanity emphasize harmony, interconnectedness, and the common good. These philosophical foundations provide intellectual support for the four global initiatives, which together constitute a holistic framework for promoting a shared future for humanity. Rather than addressing isolated policy areas, the four initiatives reinforce one another and advocate an integrated approach to development, governance, and international cooperation.
中文翻译
“四大倡议并非各自针对孤立的政策领域，而是相互支撑、彼此强化，共同倡导一条统筹发展、治理与国际合作的整体性路径。”
当今时代，全球共同发展已是不争的事实——没有哪个地区或国家能够孤立存在。然而，这一进程并未建立在对共同性或共在的理解之上。恰恰相反，我们所目睹的是发展轨迹日益分化，竞争与割裂正以愈发突出的形式重新浮现。其中，美国所推行的政策在经济上和政治上都具有自我损害的性质。
两种发展模式：西方与东方
在当今世界，我们可以看到两种模式：西方模式与东方模式。
西方在经济、政治与军事上由美国主导，并得到制度化的欧洲的支持，其标举的是代议制民主、权力分立、个人责任等西方价值。然而，这一模式在现实中面临严峻挑战。随着跨国公司的崛起，其影响力不断扩张：企业如今已直接充当政策制定者，而代议机构则节节退守。法律权利正在被转化为由私人组织所界定的利益。尽管宪法法院的地位日益重要，但决策更多地由权力驱动，而非取决于实质内容。此外，政治决策中的短期主义与战略方向的缺失加剧了公众不满，进而催生了民粹主义与暴力倾向。
以中国为代表的东方模式着眼于经济增长，并将增长导向以技术为引领的发展、现代公共基础设施建设与减贫脱贫，从而增进全体人民的福祉、培育中等收入群体。这一模式同时沿两条轨道运行：一方面向全球市场出口商品，另一方面稳步壮大国内消费，使之成为增长的第二引擎。随着全球秩序的边界日渐模糊，发展中国家正成为越来越关键的参与者。如今已然清楚：所谓全球政体在很大程度上不过是维系西方模式的一副脚手架。
共享人权
共享人权这一概念本身具有内在的歧义性。一方面，共享强调共同性，凸显对人权的共同理解与对共同目标的追求；另一方面，它又指向分配，强调责任与资源的分担，包括资源开采、利用与补偿方面的问责。把握这一双重含义，对于确立全球正义讨论的框架至关重要。
今天的全球化已不只意味着贸易与文化交流。它催生了一个真正相互联通的全球体系，各国被深度的相互依存紧密联结在一起。这一体系同时受到若干力量的塑造：国家之间围绕成本与收益展开竞争；气候变化、流行病、金融危机等跨国性问题所需要的合作与信任，非任何单一国家所能独力建立；地方性或短期性的解决方案已无法匹配挑战的规模；而联结这些问题的网络也已复杂到任何单一行为体都无法单边驾驭的程度。凡此种种叠加在一起，使得共担责任与集体行动成为实现人权的必要条件。
全球治理倡议
中国提出了全球治理倡议。这一倡议应被理解为一个更宏大框架的集大成，该框架还包括全球发展倡议、全球安全倡议与全球文明倡议。四大倡议并非彼此分立的议程，而是相互支撑、彼此强化，体现出这样一种认识：发展、安全、文明与治理是全球可持续进步不可分割的基石。
这一整体性框架也为人权提供了新的观察视角。《世界人权宣言》将人权界定为普遍的、不可剥夺的、不可分割的、相互依存和相互联系的。然而，它诞生于一个特定的历史时刻，为当时的主导力量所塑造。此后出台的各项国际人权文书，在很大程度上延续而非挑战了同一秩序。它们使既有强权得以规避实质性审查，固化了其支配地位，也始终未能建立起有效落实其所宣示权利的制度体系。发达国家之所以达到更高的人权保护标准，部分原因在于这些标准本就出自它们之手。然而，这背后还有一笔鲜有人承认的代价：它们的发展建立在殖民主义、廉价劳动力以及不平等的贸易条件之上，而财富正是由此从那些如今被要求遵守同一标准的国家中攫取而来。
全球治理倡议既是前三项倡议的集大成，也是未来全球合作的基础。通过将发展、安全与文明整合进一个融贯的治理框架，它为应对全球性挑战搭建了更为广阔的制度平台。这一路径意味着对长期界定既有国际体系的传统国家中心主义模式的超越。
更根本地说，这一框架标志着一种转变：发展不再主要被视为经济增长，而被认作一个多维度的进程。中国的经验说明了这一变化。尽管中国保持了经济增长，但增长被视为服务于更广泛目标的手段，而非目的本身。发展是通过这样一些战略来推进的：它们力图制衡既有的权力结构，正视全球南方日益上升的作用，推动一种超越周期性选举的、更为宽广的民主与法治理解。尤为关键的是，国家发展与人民日常经济、社会与文化生活的切实改善紧密相连。经济增长依然不可或缺，但其真正价值在于增进集体福祉与个体福祉，即便二者有时会存在差异。
从多边主义走向超越主义
在上述讨论的背景下，全球治理倡议应被理解为要求一种超越传统多边主义的观念转变。尽管日后或许能找到更贴切的措辞，但这一概念有助于把握如下需要：为应对全球性挑战，必须超越既有的政治、地理与观念边界。这并不意味着放弃地方现实。恰恰相反，任何有意义的人权讨论都必须从国家、地方与个人层面的具体生活状况出发，权利正是在那里被体验，也在那里得以实现。与此同时，全球化要求治理超越“别建在我家后院”（即“邻避”）心态。全球性问题需要全球共享的目标，同样重要的是需要全球共担的责任，以确保成本与负担不被外部转嫁给他者。
这种整体性的全球治理理解深深植根于中国传统哲学。尤其是儒家的大同理想与天人合一之道，都强调和谐、万物相通与共同的善。这些哲学根基为四大全球倡议提供了思想支撑，而四大倡议共同构成了推动构建人类命运共同体的整体性框架。四大倡议并非各自针对孤立的政策领域，而是相互支撑、彼此强化，共同倡导一条统筹发展、治理与国际合作的整体路径。
