Rights body must not ignore China's ongoing progress

The Human Rights Watch annual report has continued its practice of criticizing the Chinese mainland and turning a blind eye to the progress it has made on the human rights front.

The judicial reform over the past year has improved human rights protection across the country. It has helped correct several cases in regions - from Guangdong, Fujian and Hebei provinces to the Inner Mongolia autonomous region - which had been wrongly dealt with. The officials responsible for the botched-up cases have been sacked and put under investigation, and the victims compensated. All this shows the central authority's resolve to defend judicial and social justice.

In October, the Fourth Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China drew the road map of deepening judicial reform, which is necessary to keep on track the economic reform to facilitate the replacement of the rule of power with the rule of law. The judicial reform has also tightened regulation and supervision of judges' discretionary powers and strengthened people's right to know, speak, defend and move court.