Address at the Opening Ceremony of 2023 China-Europe Seminar on Human Rights

<正>It is a great pleasure for me to meet friends, old and new, from the realm of China-EuropehumanrightscooperationinRome,anancientEuropeancitythat blends history and modernity. Today, we gather on this land that nurtured Europe’s human rights civilization to explore the origins of human rights. Discussions on social justice began in ancient Greece, and the concept of “rights” took shape in ancient Rome. In the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance emerged in the Apennine Peninsula,upholding the idea of humanism to safeguard human dignity, which not only allowed the light of humanity to shine on the land of Europe, but also significantly accelerated the development and progress of human civilization.Chinese civilization abounds in the ideas of respecting and caring for individual persons. From the Confucian doctrine that “the benevolent man loves others” to