China is a developing country with a population of 1.25 billion. The protection and promotion of people's rights to subsistence and development has been China's top task in the field of human rights.

Since China's start of reform and opening - up, the Chinese Government has been listing the solving of people's rights to subsistence and development as its top priority.

Great efforts have been made to promote economic growth, consequently, the national economy has maintained continuous and sound development with an average annual growth of 9.6 per cent and the people's living standard has witnessed marked improvement.

In the past 20 years, the gross domestic product (GDP) increased by nearly five times, the per capita GDP went up by 3.4 times and the income of urban and rural residents also rose considerably.

Between 1978 and 1997, the annual per capita income of rural residents increased from 133.6 yuan (US$16) to 2,090.1 yuan (US$252). A rise of 3.4 times in real terms after deducting price fluctuations with an average annual increase of 8.1 per cent.

The average per capita disposable income of urban residents rose from 343.4 yuan (US$41) to 5,160.3 yuan (US$622) during the same period, up 2.1 times in real terms after deducting price fluctuations with an average annual increase of 6.2 per cent.

The total saving deposits of both urban and rural residents increased from 21.06 billion yuan (US $ 2.54 billion) in 1978 to 4,627.98 billion yuan (US $ 557.59 billion) in 1997 and the per capita saving deposits rose from 22 yuan (US $ 2.65) to 3, 744 yuan (US $ 451), up 218.8 times and 169.2 times, respectively.

People's housing conditions were also remarkably improved. The per capita living space for urban residents expanded from 3.6 square metres in 1978 to 8.8 square metres in 1997, a rise of 1.4 times and that for rural residents augmented from 8.1 square metres to 22.46 square metres, up 1.8 times.

The domestic market has an abundant supply exceeded demand while others achieved a balance between supply and demand.

The number of TV sets among every 100 households in 1998 is higher than that of the world average. With the gradual improvement of communications and telecommunications and other facilities for living, people's life quality witnessed a marked improvement.

The per capita food consumption expenses of residents saw a continuous drop. The "Engel's Coefficient," which indicates the ratio between the expenses of food and other consumer goods, dropped from 59.5 per cent in 1978 to 46.4 per cent in 1997 for urban residents, while that of rural residents decreased to 55 per cent.

According to statistics, a comprehensive calculation in terms of economic development, living standards, quality of the population and quality of people's cultural life and living environment showed that by 1997, 86.52 per cent of Chinese had reached the preliminary standards of a comfortable living.

This indicated that the living standards of Chinese people have exceeded the level of having adequate food and clothing, and is approaching the standards of a comfortable living.

In 1998, China is continuing its efforts on the protection and promotion of people's rights to subsistence and development.

In 1998, China was hit by rare catastrophic floods. Suffering from these were over 200 million people, and the direct economic losses topped 200 billion yuan (US $ 24.1 billion).

During the fight against the floods, the Chinese Government always gave top priority to ensuring the safety of people's lives in the flood-hit areas.

The government mobilized people all over the country to take every possible effort to ensure that people in the flood-hit areas had food to eat, clothes to wear, clean water to drink, proper accommodation and access to medical care.

All this provided proper arrangements for people in the flood-hit areas and the measures minimized losses of life and property.

The Chinese government also took effective measures to organize rebuilding projects in the flood-hit areas and ensured that no major epidemic diseases prevailed.

It also guaranteed that people in the flood-hit areas spent the winter under safe conditions and ensured a smooth rebuilding of their homes and the resumption of their normal life and production.

The year 1998 witnessed the further spreading of the Asian financial crisis which seriously harmed the economies of many Asian and Latin American countries, resulting in the deterioration of the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people worldwide and had an impact on China's economic development.

The Chinese government positively responded to the Asian financial crisis, Asian financial crisis, successfully protected the country from the effects of the crisis, achieved a relatively rapid growth in the economy and people's living standards have improved further.

In 1998, the GDP rose by 7.8 per cent over the previous year, the per capita income of the rural residents was up 4.3 per cent over the previous year in real terms and per capita disposable income of urban residents increased by 5.8 per cent in real terms.

At the same time, China encountered pressure and endured great economic losses because many neighbouring countries devalued their currencies by a large margin. But China has been maintaining that it would not devalue the renminbi and has been making every possible effort to help other countries.

China made contributions to maintaining the stability of the world economy and reducing the harmful impact of the financial crisis on people's subsistence and development conditions, winning universal praise worldwide.

While seeking universal improvement of the people's overall living standards, China has been paying great attention to meeting the poverty-stricken people's basic needs for food and clothing.

With the common efforts made by the government and people from all walks of life, another 8 million rural poverty - stricken people met their basic needs for food and clothing in 1998.

The country's total poverty - stricken population dropped from 250 million in 1978 to 42 million at present.

China has witnessed a quick decrease in its poverty-stricken population, more than any other country. This is in sharp contrast to other nations. There are still some 1.3 billion poverty-stricken people in the world and the figure is increasing at an annual rate of 25 million.

With the improvement of people's living standards and living environment, people's health conditions also marked a great improvement.

Statistics indicated that the death rate in China has dropped from 33 per thousand before the founding of the People's Republic of China 50 years ago to the present 6.5 per thousand.

At the same time, the life expectancy of Chinese has gone from 35 years 5 decades ago to 70.83 years at present.

The latest figure is 10 years higher than the average of developing countries and reaches the level of intermediate developed countries.