China's human rights progress hailed

China has made remarkable achievements in improving human rights protection over the past 70 years, notably in people's livelihoods and development rights, especially after respecting and protecting human rights were added to the Constitution, human rights experts said.

"In China, protecting human rights is not a concept or slogan, it's protected by law and therefore must be enforced," Xu Xianming, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and deputy head of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, said on Thursday at a human rights forum.

In 1949, Chinese people's human rights were gravely threatened by poverty, poor health conditions and lack of education. In the early 1990s, the central government decided to prioritize improving basic livelihoods and development rights by promoting poverty alleviation as well as providing better healthcare and education, Xu said at the forum at Jilin University in Changchun, Jilin province.