ABSTRACT

The Asian values debate, which implies an open challenge of the universality of human rights, has several dimensions and touches upon a wide range of philosophical and political issues. It is, for example, obviously part of the old debate on cultural relativism versus universalism.1 According to the advocates of cultural relativism, to judge a society by values exogenous to the society in question amounts to cultural imperialism.2 Many adherents of cultural relativism mistakenly seem to believe that the idea of human rights is deeply embedded in the Western political tradition and therefore does not fit other cultures and societies-a view that also has been exploited by the advocates of socalled Asian values. Undermining the idea of cultural relativism is the fact that most societies tend to regard their own values as universal and thus applicable in other societies; this goes for China, too, as we shall see. Another problem with the cultural relativist approach is that it tends to preclude the existence of cross-cultural and universal values. There is much to warrant the conclusion that human rights, as defined in various UN conventions, are universal in character inasmuch as the majority of these rights has been universally accepted, although not yet implemented, in the contemporary world. Since human rights are rights which we have simply as human beings, they should apply to all people regardless of cultural and national identity, or, as the UN Charter proclaims: ‘…for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion’.3