A/HRC/43/31 covered ensuring the right of people to participate in politics through the strengthening of the capacity of staff on the board of elections. The police sector covered the contribution to appropriate criminal proceedings through capacity-building on criminal prevention, control and investigation. Lastly, the media sector covered the contribution to the public’s right to know by ensuring the circulation of accurate, neutral and fair public information by strengthening the capacity of journalists. 52. China had always upheld the spirit of equality, mutual trust, tolerance, mutual learning and win-win cooperation in different fields, including in human rights. It had also organized the South-South Human Rights Forum, the Beijing Forum on Human Rights, a seminar to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development and the sixteenth Informal ASEM Seminar on Human Rights. 53. China had also announced during the presentation of its national report in the context of the third cycle of the universal periodic review process that it would contribute $800,000 annually to OHCHR in the next five years. In the past 60 years, it had provided nearly 600 billion Yuan in assistance to 166 countries and organizations, and had trained more than 12 million personnel of various types and dispatched more than 600,000 aid workers to developing countries. In addition, since 2012, China had continued to provide assistance to other developing countries in reducing poverty, improving people’s livelihood and promoting the development of human rights. 54. The movement itself should be considered a protest against the unilateral imposition of so-called “universal” values by developed countries in the past. In this context, the promotion of “mutual interests” or benefits should be interpreted as securing the interests of countries (particularly developing countries) and the recipients of assistance. The spirit of mutually beneficial cooperation might be identified as respect for ownership of recipient countries in the process of cooperation and assistance in bridging the gap between the rich and the poor in a world of accelerating co-dependence. 55. To put it differently, if the “benefits” of mutually beneficial cooperation are understood in a naïve way, it could be mobilized for a policy to seek disproportionate gains of material benefits for more developed countries. It should be borne in mind that there is an enormous gap of the economic and political power wielded by cooperation “partners”; it frequently forces “consent” on the weaker side (namely, recipient States) to “generous” offers of assistance trading with a “small” sacrifice of its dignity, and interests for the stronger (donor States). Such a risk is to be avoided, as it undermines the “technical” or non-political nature of cooperation, and even the promotion of human rights. 56. As the Human Rights Council itself stressed in its resolution 37/23, technical cooperation and capacity-building should be provided “upon the request of and in accordance with the priorities set by the States concerned”. This is the real meaning of mutually beneficial cooperation, rationally interpreted in its historical context where it emerged as a protest. It is therefore undeniable that mutually beneficial cooperation “can 1 play” an important role in promoting and protecting all human rights in an increasingly interrelated world.2 The Advisory Committee believes that the above clarification would, at least partially, ease the concerns raised by many countries in their submissions. VII. International and regional organizations, specialized agencies, States, national human rights institutions, nongovernmental organizations and technical assistance 1 2 The word “can” was inserted by sponsor States at the final stages of discussion before the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 37/23, indicating that the argument for the somehow conditional contribution of mutually beneficial cooperation to human rights reflected a broader spectrum of views held by Council members. Human Rights Council resolution 37/23, eighth preambular paragraph. 9