2018 marks the 40^th anniversary of China's reform and opening up. Reform and opening up have not only driven China's economic, political, cultural, social and ecological civilization developments but also greatly promoted the development of China's human rights. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, “respecting and safeguarding human rights” has been included in the report of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the National Constitution, the Constitution of the Communist Party of China, and the strategic plan for national development, which makes it an important principle for the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government to govern the country and helps China to figure out a road of human rights development in line with its national conditions2706333.

Chinese academic researches on the relationship between reform and opening up and the development of China's human rights appeared in the 1990s and have been carried out step by step. In the second half of 1992, Chen Guangzhong, president of China University of Political Science and Law, published an article entitled “Strengthening the Protection of Human Rights Is the Requirement of Reform and Opening Up”, pointing out that “respecting and protecting human rights is not only an important symbol of socialist democracy but also an urgent need for reform and opening up”2706334. Since then, researchers have been studying the relationship between reform and opening up and various human rights as well as the relationship between reform and opening up and human rights awareness, policy, human rights rule of law protection, human rights education, human rights international exchanges, etc, from different aspects.

On July 18, 2018, combined with the commemoration of the 40^th anniversary of reform and opening up, the China Society for Human Rights Research and the Publicity Department of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China jointly hosted a seminar on “China's Human Rights Progress in the Course of Reform and Opening Up” in Wuhan. More than 100 experts and scholars from national human rights education and training bases, human rights research institutions, and representatives of relevant practical departments had an in-depth and heated discussion on “reform and opening up and the road of human rights development in China”, “reform and opening up and the theoretical innovation of human rights in China”, “reform and opening up and the achievements of human rights practice in China” and “reform and opening up and the development of human rights in the world”2706335. Human rights scholars have also written articles to analyze and explain the relationship between reform and opening up and the development of China's human rights, bringing about the wave of academic discussion on this topic. Based on the conference papers and speeches of the seminar on “China's Human Rights Progress in the Course of Reform and Opening Up”, and combined with the academic papers on this topic published in 2018, this paper summarizes the study on the relationship between reform and opening up and the development of China's Human Rights in 2018 from three aspects: first, the research on the development of the thought of China's human rights in the past 40 years of reform and opening up; second, the research on the situation of human rights protection in various fields in China since reform and opening up; third, research on the road and the law of human rights development in China since reform and opening up.